Swings

This week the AC is out in the playroom.  I'm really REALLY hoping that tomorrow when the service tech comes, he will say it is an easy fix and that it won't take six weeks like last year.  That unit had to be replaced, and this is now just a year old, so fingers crossed on that.  Luckily this summer has been a bit cooler than last, and it's actually more comfortable to take the kids out in the mornings instead of trying to herd them in the living room all day.

My kids have friends here this week, so even though we're officially full numbers-wise, it's two eleven year olds, a seven year old, and a six year old along with the regular roster of infants and toddlers.  That makes life infinitely easier for walks!  The big kids are super helpful.  Anna stayed home with the three youngest while they napped, and the rest of us headed out.

I'm sure we look like quite the spectacle marching down the street.  At least today nobody stopped to ask me if all nine of them are mine.

We have to cross a wooden bridge over a little creek to get there, and we saw a mama duck with four ducklings.  I think listening to all the kids quack at the ducks was my favorite moment of the day.

The swings were largely a success.  There's just one baby swing at our park, but it's pretty wide and has leg holes in both sides, so I set two of them in there back to back and it worked nicely.

Vanellope cackled like a hyena the whole time.  I love when the wind gets in her hair.

Mr. Flynn enjoyed himself immensely too.

 Miss Olivia, somehow managing to still look shy even while laughing.

Mufasa! King of all he surveys.

And then.  Then there was Maid Marian.  I know that child loves her some swings.  I've seen facebook posts that her mama puts up with all kinds of smiles and swing loving.  That was not the case today.  She freaked out and acted like it was the worst and scariest thing that ever happened.  I even tried to sit on the big swing and hold her and go very slowly and she still was having none of it.

So we decided at that point it was time to head out.  On the way home it was hot and my kids ran Olivia and Vanellope through our neighbor's sprinkler.  They laughed so hard!  It was really fun to see.

Then we came home and Anna said we smelled like sunshine, which is her way of saying we've been outside and smell like stinky puppy dogs, but still, it's the nicest way I've heard to describe that particular smell.  Lots of fun!

Friday Focus: Mufasa

Ah, Mr. Mufasa... such a character.  This kid is going places in a hurry.  He's amazingly strong and has a crazy tight grip.  He loves to try to help me do dishes and when I attempt to scoot him back, he can lift the entire bottom rack and pull it onto the floor with him.  I don't think I've ever had anyone pull the whole thing off before.  Legendary persistence, this one.  It's terrible when it comes to pinching though- he leaves marks that stay on the back of my arm for days.  Must channel strength into productive avenues!

But seriously, when he's this cheerful, how can you be annoyed about a little pinch?  Usually it's only me or Anna who gets it- not the other kids.  He just motors around being happy.

He, Bernard, and Flynn are pretty much like the three musketeers these days.  It's fun to watch them discover new skills and be alternately annoyed and delighted with each other.  They take turns leading the mischief and like to travel in a pack.

As hard as he plays, that follows into his sleep.  He's happy to crash out anywhere, and doesn't mind if you transfer him from a car seat into your arms and into bed.  I'm super jealous of that ability, as neither of my kids would do it. 

He couldn't make it home from school- we went and had lunch with O'Malley the other day, where the attendance secretary fell completely in love with him.  She's always sad when I don't bring him with me.  Oh, where's my smily boy?  she says.  :)

All that charm is hard work.  He almost always sleeps all the way home. 

Merida is learning to say his name and I love the way she does it.  He has a three syllable name and she takes the middle.  Using Mufasa, it would be like she calls him fa-fa.  So cute.  I call him that half the time now too.

This just happened now: yesterday I sent him home with no pants on, just a onesie.  By the end of the day neither his dad, Anna, or I could remember what pants he'd been wearing or where they had gone.  About thirty minutes ago O'Malley came home from school and I noticed he was wearing them.  As shorts.  He's so skinny they fit and he just thought I must have bought him new shorts and stuck them in his room.  You know, because I always throw his new clothes on the floor... crazy man.  He's SO mortified.  18 month pants.  All day at school.  He rocked them.  Guess I'll be washing those and returning them!  Mystery solved.  :)

Caterpillar on the Wall

We've started The Very Hungry Caterpillar again. This is one of my very favorite units to do, and I don't think we've ever done it with a group who's overall as young as this one. (Here's an old post with some of the things we do with older kids.) There's definitely a lot of modification and repetition, but they're enjoying it.

Sometimes I read them the actual book, but most of them are still at the super grabby stage.  Since the book has so many holes cut in it, I'm afraid it will get ripped during a group reading session.  More often, we use the pointer and the class set of pictures that I have on the wall.  (or off the wall, since my sticky stuff is dying and the stapler won't work on that kind of wall.)  Merida and Merryweather go running over there as soon as I pick up my pointer, and they can show me the moon and the egg.  Every time I say "he was STILL!  HUNGRY!" we make silly faces and they laugh.  It's fun.

So far the only things I've sent home are the little paintings, but we have done a couple other crafty items.  Here's the class caterpillar, who currently resides on our wall:





Each kiddo colored a body section and then we attached legs. They had a good time coloring!

Merryweather, taking the job very seriously.

Mufasa and Flynn were both a little shocked that I actually let them touch the crayons, I think.  Look how proud Flynn looks.  I had to sit right there and make sure they didn't taste them, of course, and their finished product doesn't have a lot of real coloring on it, but they really enjoyed the process!

Be My Valentine

Happy Valentine's Day!  We spent yesterday and today getting little cards made for the parents.  I'm a sucker for footprints and I figure I can't be the only one.  Most of our people are too little to color, but it's fun to paint their feet so they can make a card.  Families love it.

 Merryweather went first and thought it was the funniest thing.  She laughed the whole time and then I had to do everybody else on the sly so she didn't help WAY more than I needed.

Mufasa was pretty chilled out the whole time- he let me do it without any protest but thought it was a little weird.  He stayed still though so his footprints came out really clear.

 Miss Merida's foot, making a cameo appearance.

 I had to practically hogtie Maid Marian to keep her hands off her feet.  She wanted to eat the paint SO BADLY.  I needed about six more hands for this job, especially since Merryweather snuck up behind me and grabbed the paintbrush off the table.  She dropped it in my lap and I still have red paint all over me.

Then she got all kinds of offended that I wouldn't let her grab the rest of the supplies so I had to console her before we could carry on.  I love the way Maid Marian has her foot stuck straight out and is still staring at it even after I washed it.  She can't quite figure out what I did to her.

While the littles were napping today I took Merryweather and Merida to eat lunch with O'Malley at school.  The weather hasn't been nice enough for a walk in forever and they talked and laughed the whole way there. 

 I got wise in the afternoon and put Bernard in the jumper to do his painting.  He decorated the floor while I went to get the wipes.

He had a good time too.

Last but not least was Vanellope.  (I watched Wreck-it Ralph with my kids again tonight and she's so great.  Big smile, sassy little attitude, makes you happy.  It works.)

She put up with the first foot, although she let me know she thought the whole thing was weird and possibly a little scary.  We didn't take pictures of the second foot.  Girl got angry.  :)  But they all turned out really cute.  Happy Valentine's Day and I'm sorry if there is a little paint left between your kid's toes tonight!

Aw Shucks Guys

Y'all should have told me you were actually waiting for me to blog!  Because I pretty much thought nobody ever read it- not like you comment frequently.  :)  I really do like the feedback- it makes it easier to write regularly when I think somebody cares about reading.  Mufasa's dad texted me today and referred to him as Mufasa, which made me laugh.  I couldn't come up with a good quote back to him on the fly.  But clearly he read!  YAY!  And Maid Marian's mom (HI THERE!) mentioned that she stalks the blog.  Maybe it's hugely narcissistic of me, but I'm super flattered.  Just for that, extra pics of your babies.

She holds her own!  At least for a few seconds anyway.

When it is really cold outside they bring Mufasa in this bear suit.  I squeal every time- I just can't help it.  He's so darn cute and extra snuggly when he wears it.

Okay.  *clapping hands briskly* moving on, I need blog names for several of the munchkins, and also for The Assistant.  It is getting difficult to write about the day with unnamed people.  OH!  I could call the twins Phineas and Ferb.  I've used so many names up that I'm going to have to branch out into TV soon anyway and I like that for them.  Done. 

Then we have this sweet new little guy.  I think I'm going to call him Bernard, like in the Rescuers.  I like the way Eva Gabor says it.  (I did have a Bianca a couple years ago, but since I'm fairly certain nobody but me is paying attention to the horror of having two different families using names from the same movie, we'll just brush that aside.....)

Meet Bernard!

Here we have the serious look...

And also the smile.  Cutie pie.

Two more girls to name, but I'm still mulling over options... good night.  :)

New Post! Dance and Sing!

I'm pretty sure I've already used every single post title I can think of.  Clearly I've not been in a blogging mood much lately either!  We are still here!

There are five full-time kiddos here these days, with two more either three or four days of the week.  Also, once a week my neighbor's twins visit.  So we have five, six, seven, or nine just depending on the day.  I'm really enjoying it.  It's definitely busier than it has been for the past few months with just three or four, but the kids seem to be getting a kick out of the interaction and it's fun to stay moving.  Merryweather and Merida are running all over the place and everyone else is scurrying to catch up.

Maid Marian and Mufasa, just hanging out and shooting the breeze.  Notice he has her sock in his hand- he took it off her foot and then was trying to figure out how to get it back on.

On an unrelated Mufasa note, the girls are all obsessed with his hair.  They love it because it feels so different from theirs and they come by to pet his head while he's playing.  He lets them.  It's super cute.

Look!  Food with a bowl and a spoon!  This makes breakfast look more successful than it was- the bowl frisbeed off a few minutes later and then she stuck the spoon too far down her throat.  But hey.  We make the little progress, one day at a time.

Maid Marian is really exploding on her gross motor skills these days- she's getting pretty good at sitting up by herself for a few minutes at a time and loves to play the piano.  I really hope this piano never breaks.  Duchess got it for her first Christmas, so it's 10 and I'm sure they don't make it anymore.  Every kid I've ever taken care of has LOVED it.

 My Tuesday twins.  I can't think of a good set of Disney names.  Tweedledum and Tweedledee is the only thing that comes to mind but I don't think that's very complimentary and they're really sweet boys.  :)
What's a good name set I could use?

Pictures are kind of biased toward the Maid this post, but I couldn't leave this one out.  So flippin' cute.

We also have a new three month old little girl who is amazing and delicious.  No pictures allowed of her, but I'll come up with a name for her soon so at least there will be stories!