Christmas Slideshow

Every year for Christmas I do slideshows for the parents. Usually it's got one show with all the pictures of their child, and then a sort of "best-of" with a couple pictures of each child so they can see playmates and more of what goes on during the day. There was just a new update to iLife, so I can finally turn them into movies and put them on the blog!

Here's the favorites collection- maybe not all necessarily the BEST pictures, but lots of the ones that make me smile.

Thanksgiving Prep Work

Tomorrow is our big feast and we've been working on things for almost a week now. My fridge is crammed and we still have to do the dressing and the corn and the turkey.... yum. I can't wait for some good eats tomorrow.

Today we finished making the caramel apple cheesecake, but we began it a few days ago- everybody got a hammer (or a cell phone or a saw, as the case may be) and helped to pound the graham crackers and shortbread cookies to make the crust.


We've also been working on coloring Thanksgiving placemats for everyone. Bianca mostly wants to try to eat the crayons, but she had a good time being included with the big kids.


There are 2 huge pans of mashed potatoes all ready to bake tomorrow- Ariel and Sebastian were fabulous mashers.


I didn't get very many pictures of the potato-fest, but everybody had a job. Counters, washers, driers, peelers, mashers... and then everyone got to be a taster, of course. They have all pronounced it yummy.

Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear?

Our Five In A Row book this week is Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear?. Today we're looking at all the different shapes in the book- Mama Bear's kitchen floor is quite festively decorated with a bunch of squiggles and shapes. Our art project is to make a floor of our own using foam shapes and patterns. Today is the first day I've done "official" art with Aurora, which is really fun. She came crawling over and told me "ART ART ART!!!" and stuck some stickers on her own paper.

Pajama Camping

It is hot. Really darn hot. And I don't know what kind of fierce insect has taken up residence around here, but even when I coat the kids with bug spray, they all get bitten to pieces and break into sweat the *instant* we set foot into the backyard. I heard it was supposed to be 108 today. We are staying IN.

So we decided it would be pajama day!

As the planning last night and this morning went on, it sort of morphed into a camping day which just happened to take place in our pajamas. That totally works for me. We put blankets and pillows all over the floor and they built a pretend campfire and we sat around and told stories for awhile. They wanted me to tell a scary one. Do I look crazy? Why would I frighten them? So I told them this one. They thought it was really dumb. Good. :) You act it out all dramatic and use scary voices and then when it's a pink jellybean... Duchess was all, really? Really Mom? that's IT?!

Then they decided we should make s'mores. I had none of the key ingredients, but I have been wanting to try a recipe I got for gluten free graham crackers, so we spent another big chunk of the morning baking a pan of homemade graham crackers. I am in equal parts amazed at my Betty Crocker-ness and disgusted at its necessity. They turned out pretty decently for a first attempt, although next time I think I need to roll them out thinner.


Cute New Boy (who I'm thinking of calling either Flik or Remy~ any thoughts on that?) was running a little late this morning because he got to spend the night with Grandma, and so he showed up in the midst of all this and she offered to go buy us marshmallows and hershey bars. WOO HOO! Thanks! :) Kanga and I have sampled the finished product and it is mighty tasty. We're waiting on everybody to wake up from their naps so we can serve the kiddos.

I was trying to think of what a good camping lunch would be, and I remembered those foil packet dinners we used to put in the fire when I was a girl scout. We always called them "girl scout specials" although I think they were actually boy scout specials first. I googled and hit the jackpot on a list of tons of them. I think we'll definitely have to try some of the others, especially the chocolate marshmallow banana one. We made the hobo pouches for lunch today and they were a pretty good success. I like that they can be tailored to each person- we made them one by one and they got to tell me which veggies they wanted in it. I had hamburger in each one, and then choices of peas, corn, carrots, mix veggies, mushroom, and onion. Ariel loved the meat and would have eaten double what I made her, and O'Malley picked out all his veggies and left the meat. Silly children.

Here's Sebastian's, ready to go into the oven:

And just for future reference, they took 45 minutes to bake, which I was not really expecting for some reason. By the time Simba's was done, he was totally gone. I don't think he got even one bite before he fell asleep in his chair!


After all that, it was after 2:00 before the last kid went to sleep, so I don't know if we'll have time for any camping art. I'm guessing we'll get through s'mores right before pickup, so you can take your kids home all full of sugar.

You're welcome. :)

But seriously, this has been a REALLY fun day so far. I just wish it was Friday, because a lot of times we do special things on Friday, and so it feels like it is. I think tomorrow we're going to call it Silly Hat Day and make sticker crowns and foam visors and dance around in our hats. We can't have Friday be a letdown!

Eating a camping lunch in our jammies is fun!!

Mud Puddles *with video!*

It's been raining for so long here. On the days that it's not actually raining, it's still been really soggy and muddy in the yard. We haven't been outside in weeks. I decided today we were going out no matter what. So we got swimsuits on and I took the big kids out to turn themselves into mud balls. We had a great time! I took video also- it's at the bottom of the post.


I was so proud of Sebastian- he came out with us and actually stomped in the mud a bit and put his hands in it. He was still the cleanest one, but he did much better than I expected. Usually he really hates to be dirty and won't even try when we do messy stuff.

Duchess, on the other hand, has no such problem. She decided a mud beard would be good.

Simba and Scamp stayed inside with Kanga and Roo, and they were not happy about that. They had their faces mashed up to the glass most of the time. I just didn't feel like they were old enough to not get upset or else eat the mud.

Jumping in puddles brings great joy to everyone involved.

I got brave enough to squish my feet around a bit. It was really quite muddy. I felt like I was wearing thick mud socks afterwards and I had to get out the hose to spray us all off.

Ariel proudly showing off her muddy face.

O'Malley inspecting a puddle for worms.

I love stuff like this. Yes, it's messy and kind of a pain, but that's the beauty of having two adults here. I hosed them off one by one and sent them in to Kanga, who was ready with towels. We had a wonderful time.

Quick Sebastian-isms

"Oh! A new car! That makes me a lot of happy!"

"Peaches for snack? Peaches are NOT for boys."

"Can I have some more peaches?"

"Can I have some MORE peaches?"

"Peaches are for boys....."

Sleep

It does a body good.

Roly Poly Bugs

Yesterday I spun them around on our little octopus merry go round until I couldn't do it anymore. With four or five kids sitting on it, that doesn't really take long. They're used to me giving up quickly, and one of them will generally refer to my "tired little noodle arms". They know me well. Anyway, they asked if I would move it out a few feet so they had room to run around it and take turns spinning each other instead. Bonus.

I don't move it very often because it kills the grass underneath and it's kind of muddy and gross. I scooted it over a bit and they got to see a huge den? (nest? what do you call it?) of roly poly bugs.

And ooh, now I am totally going to print that out as a coloring sheet and teach them all about it.

But anyway. There were about fifty of them all milling around and the girls were immediately fascinated. Duchess, Ariel, and Tinkerbell (who was back visiting for the day) were fighting over who could catch more of them, gathering them by the handful, letting them crawl up their arms...

And Sebastian was standing on top of the merry go round screaming. "BUGS! YUCK!"

I love that we're all about breaking down the gender stereotypes here. :)

Ariel got to sixteen, I think, before her handful got so big she was going to squish them if she tried to put more in.


Sebastian, in the blue plaid, never would get down or touch them, but he did get brave enough to lean over and look a bit more closely.

Space Work!

We have been having such a great time with the space theme this month. The kids are learning the names of all the planets, which ones are hot and which ones are cold, rotation and revolution around the sun, lunar cycles and phases of the moon... it's amazing. This is stuff I had mostly forgotten about from school and I'm relearning as much as they are, I think.

Did you know spiders went up in space? Yesterday was spider day- apparently back in the dawn of space travel they took different things up with them to see how gravity affected them. We wanted to see if spiders could still spin webs in zero gravity. They can. Arabella, the first spider in space, spun a web in two days. :)

Today we talked about how the astronauts had to develop special food to eat in space because gravity is what keeps your food on your fork! We pretended to catch food in the air as it floated around, and then we made space pudding.

Two tablespoons of vanilla pudding mix, four tablespoons of milk, zip it up in a bag, and smoosh it around until you've got pudding. You can't open the bag, because all the pudding will float out and get in your hair.... so we snipped a little hole in the corner and they sucked it out. So much fun.

Duchess and O'Malley LOVED it, Sebastian made the pudding and ate a few bites and then said it was yucky and needed to wash his hands, and Ariel refused to do it and ended up opening her bag and pouring the pudding all over her chair. Would not taste it either. But oh well. Most people had fun.

Duchess asked, "How come Ariel never wants to even try anything GOOD and only eats yucky stuff like green beans?" :) She does like her veggies, which I think is funny. Pudding? Cake? Cookies? No way. She wants peas and corn and green beans.

You can't make me eat the pudding. Not gonna happen.

25 Random Things About Us

This list is going around on Facebook, and I thought it would be a good opportunity to show off snippets and pictures and stuff that's happened so that I'll be caught up once and for all...

1. Snow White graduated and went to her new school at the beginning of January. We all miss her and the kids ask when she's coming back to visit. I hear she's doing fabulously well in her new place, which was never a doubt in my mind. She'd outgrown me. :)
2. Simba thinks he is one of the big kids now and I keep finding him in weird places quicker than I think he ought to be able to get there. He was trying to scale the shelves but got down when I went for the camera.
   
3. 
4. I've also found him on top of the table this week, but I was too busy running to get him before he leaped off the edge to get a picture of it.
5. I have a new part-time baby girl who comes on Fridays sometimes. I can't think of a good Disney name for her.
6. It is taking Aurora quite awhile to get used to the fact that she has been dethroned from the title of The Only Infant In The House Who Should Be Held All The Time And Not Have To Watch Anyone Else Be Held Or Heaven Sakes Fed!
7. The big kids divide on gender lines most days now. Duchess and Ariel want to have tea parties or play Sorry! in another room, and O'Malley and Sebastian like to hang out and smash trucks into each other.
8. Most of them have a Webkinz account and so when they go outside they want to dig for gems or else make "gak" or "gunk" and stir a bunch of mud and rocks around and paint it on stuff.
9. Ariel has become even more dramatic lately and will throw herself into sad-looking positions and whimper and peek out through her fingers to see if I've stopped the universe for her. Usually I laugh at her and take her picture. It bugs her, but most of the time snaps her out of the funk because she wants to see what she looks like.
10. 
11. Muffin Tin Monday has become a pretty regular occurrence around here and they like trying to figure out the theme. Today we had olives, cucumber slices, hot dog slices, carrot slices, cheerios, and string cheese slices. Circles. They were pleased.
12. 
13. Our curriculum theme for February is Blast Off! and we're all really excited about it. I've been finishing up random bits of leftover months that we never got around to, and haven't ordered a new theme box in a few months.
14. I don't think I have found one thing that Simba will not eat. The kid can put away some groceries.
15. On the flip side, most meals he eats more than both Ariel and Sebastian do all day long.
16. O'Malley and Sebastian are trying to potty train. It's in that stage where I despair of it ever happening, but I know that all of a sudden one day it just WILL and I should stop worrying about it.
    
17. Ariel is beginning to drop her nap and I let her stay up two days a week and work on school while I do kindergarten with Duchess. They are learning to skip count by tens, fives, and twos. Duchess is annoyed that Ariel is picking it up as fast as she is- she wants to be the smartest one. :)
18. Duchess loves to hold Aurora and pretend that she's her baby sister. I think she wants to keep her.
19. 
20. I wish I had a wardrobe as cool as Aurora's.
21. I'm really excited about the supply fee this month- it's been awhile since I bought a lot of new things for the playroom.
22. I'm looking at getting this for the babies. It looks like something they will enjoy. You put them on their belly and they can spin around and play with all the different parts of it.
23. I'm not sure what direction I want to go for the big kids- Lakeshore is such an awesome place! There are a million cool things there that would make our days more fun. I think this may be at the top of my list though.
24. I'd also really like a sand and water table that I can use for moon sand, but I'm not sure how practical it would be and if we could keep the area clean enough to not drive me batty.
25. I finally feel like I might be caught up on all our goings-on!
    

Thanksgiving Prep

Tomorrow we're hosting a feast. Belle will be here, since kindergarten is off for the week, and I think Tinkerbell may pop in also. All the parents are invited for lunch and we're working hard to get things ready. The mashed potatoes are done and tucked safely into the fridge, and everybody has pronounced them tasty. I stuck a bite in Ariel's mouth when she wasn't paying attention and she went, "EEEWW I don't like... hey this is yummy!" See, you gotta try things.

Everyone old enough to help did some measuring and mashing. They all had great fun.





Aurora acting as Quality Control Manager in Supervisory Capacity:

Next we're baking cornbread for dressing and chocolate cake for cakeballs. YUM.

Nature Walk

It's pretty windy out today, but warm in the sunshine, so we all went for a walk this morning. They all have their favorite things to look for. Simba loves the wind and makes faces at it and opens his mouth to feel it on his tongue. O'Malley is obsessed with rabbits and squirrels and most especially dogs barking. Sebastian likes to look for airplanes. Duchess wants to walk up a certain street and see if Rex the cat is outside. Snow White picks every dandelion she sees along the way. Ariel does all those things, and then usually throws in a little something every time that adds depth to the conversation.

She had gotten tired of running in front of the stroller and was walking with me and "helping" me push it, chattering nonstop. She noticed that the moon is visible today and so we talked about that for a little while. I'm really going to need to brush up on all my scientific facts to talk to these kids. They're asking some good questions these days! She wanted to know why it was there during the day. Then she noticed that it's a half moon right now and that freaked her right out.

"The moon! What happened? The moon! It break'd!"

Um, I was an English and history major. Skimmed through science. I told her the whole moon is always really there, but sometimes we can't see parts of it because it's in the shadow of the earth. I hope that's right, or at least close enough for a four year old. So then we talked about how the moon spins around the earth and the earth spins around the sun, but we can't feel it, and when you see the clouds moving, they're not- we are. But there aren't any clouds today and she wanted to know where they went. Beats me.

I need to rent a Magic School Bus video or something. Not for them- for ME. Duchess is always telling me things I didn't remember from science class that Ms. Frizzle teaches her.

The duct tape leaf belt is way more my speed. I think we'll do that on our next walk and avoid all this heavy discussion. :)

Counting

Just for the heck of it, I asked everybody to count to 100. I don't really expect them to be able to, except for Duchess, since it's in her kindergarten curriculum and she's been working a lot on it lately. It's a good thing for them all to know though, for sure. :) Maybe I'll post every now and then with updates to see how we're all coming along.

Duchess: She skipped #20, but then got everything else, and actually counted up to 109 for good measure.

Ariel: She skipped #17 and #20, counted up to 39, and then said 100.

Snow White: She counted up to 15, got to 20 with a little prompting, and then started giggling and saying 51! 32! what? I don't know what comes next!

Sebastian: He can count to 20, skipping #16 this time. He usually skips a different teen number every time.

O'Malley: Wow. He can't count. :) He's mine, so I can say that. I started trying to count his fingers and said ONE.... and he looked at me blankly and giggled and screamed NO and ran away. Some work could definitely be done in that area.

We have lots of fun sorting and counting activities, and they've been focusing tons on art and dressup lately. I think I'll direct them toward some math-type stuff in the next few weeks.

Picture Day

Earlier this week a photographer came to the house to take pictures of the kids. It was quite the interesting experience. He set up a huge backdrop in the living room and we took some group shots and then individual and sibling shots of most of the kids. The girls did much better than the boys- Sebastian refused to smile but they did manage to get a few cute "tough serious guy" poses. O'Malley pretty much got nothing good. He screamed a lot and then demanded that I take his sweater off, so he was running around with no shirt on and the best looking picture they got of his face has a nekkid chest attached. :) Oh well. Authenticity.

Personally I was hoping for more candid shots and interesting poses and making silly faces. I think they did a good job and we got some nice pictures- I just had something more informal in mind.

Here's a teaser:

The girls wanted to dress up- Snow White brought her new pink dress, and we raided the dressup box for Ariel and Duchess. There were plenty other princess dresses- I have no idea what made Duchess decide to wear the flight suit. I think that's the first time she's ever put it on.

We got lots of really cute shots of Ariel.

I love this one of Simba- the look on his face is so cute.


I think a group shot with seven children looking pleasant is a miraculous thing. I was pretty impressed. And this was the best we got of O'Malley all day.


Snow White- she's the one I wish most had gotten to jump around and be candid- her personality is so vivid that I feel like you don't get a good vision of her when you make her sit still. :) That's not to say it isn't a good picture- she pretty much doesn't take bad ones. It just doesn't capture her spirit the way I would have personally liked to see.


Sebastian. He smiled for about thirty seconds, so they got a couple good shots off.

He didn't want to take any pictures with his sister either.


Then he was done. Very done. I tend to like the serious ones better than the cheesy smiles though, and they got a series of these that I think are adorable. He looks kind of beat down and annoyed, but also like a tough guy who's just too cool for these dumb pictures.


O'Malley, after fleeing the scene and shedding his good clothes. He's watching Dora the Explorer and that's my old blue couch he's sitting on. The photographer used the zoom lens from across the room because the poor boy would scream every time the camera got close.


His sister, who posed much more nicely.


The one lone shot of both of them. At least he isn't crying, although I don't think you could say he looks happy.


Hail to the Princess Aurora!