Reflections

Last year, Allie did pretty well in the reflections contest, so she was really looking forward to doing it again this year.  The theme was "What's Your Story?"  So, she set to work trying to figure out what she wanted to do.

On one of her attempts, she went around the house finding all the things that are her favorite things and that tell her "story".  This pile of things include Lumpy, her Bitty Twins, soft blankie, a picture of our family, and HP and the Goblet of Fire (her favorite of the series).  

She wasn't happy with how the picture turned out, so she kept going back to the drawing board.  She got pictures of a rainbow...

Her brothers in Moab...

...another rainbow...

...some poop...

...and finally, this picture that she named Misty Mountains.

When she wrote about her picture, she said that her story is one of going to new places with her family and capturing the beauty that she sees with a camera.
 

 She won second place with the picture.  She got a five dollar gift card to Michaels and some treats and a fun pencil in the bag.  She was pretty excited about it all.  Way to go Allie!

Friends

Nate made friends with the two other boys in his preschool class, but they live in different school boundaries now.  I've mentioned meeting up with them before.  One of the boys, Cache, has a little brother that is Jason's age and we've gotten them together a few times now.  It is a happy day when we get new friends at the house.  I was just surprised at how loud it can be with 4 boys crashing things together instead of just two.  They are cute friends and I hope they can come again.

Conversation With Nathan...

My kids and I have all had one cold after another since October.  None of them have been too miserable, but they have produced a lot of snot in our house.
The other day, I was helping Jason blow his nose.  Unfortunately, I usually notice that their noses need attention when we sit down to eat, so we were at the lunch table.

Jason: (blow!!!)  Woah...I've got a lot of booger juice.

Me: (ugh!)  Yep.  Let's blow it all out.

Nate:  (ugh!)  I bet sometimes it's hard to be a mom and have to do gross things like help your kids blow their noses.

Me;  (surprised at his insight)  That is totally true Nate!  Unfortunately, boogers are the least of the gross things.

Nate:  You mean wiping our bums?

Me: Tip of the ice burg.

Nate:  Huh???


As a side note, it cracks me up that Jason calls a runny nose "booger juice".   On the other hand, it makes my stomach turn when he sniffs up a big sniff, swallows, and says "I got a lot of booger juice mom!" (shudder).

Peeling Things

Jason likes to peel things.  His fingers are his favorite.  He finds a little piece of skin to peel and he picks at it all day.  It's actually really gross.  I am always after him to quit because his fingers sting after, and then he is sad.  Anyway, he saw me peeling some hard boiled eggs a while ago and asked if he could help.  I reluctantly agreed.  I have seen what the other kids do to eggs.  They mangle things pretty badly and then no one wants to eat the eggs.  I know it's totally unappetizing to read about some kid peeling skin off their fingers and then using those same fingers to peel eggs...sorry.  I did wash his hands really well though :).  He loves peeling eggs.

He was meticulous.

It was hilarious to watch.

He is now the official egg peeler.  

Girls

We have had crazy good weather.  I know winter is coming, and I don't mind it.  But, I have also loved letting the boys play outside each day and I myself have loved having the sun shine warm on my face in November.  I took these pictures a while ago, but Allie has been doing tumbling outside because the weather has been so good.  I got chatting with her teacher and the girls were supposed to be warming up.  We looked over to see them making up weird dance moves.  They realized that they were all in coordinating colors, so they started making up a dance.  They crack me up.  

 I had my camera out because I was taking pictures of the boys, so they get a little proof of their silliness.

The somersault was a little out of sync...I'll give them a 7.

Conversation with Jake

Jake devours books.  Maybe even more than I did when I was his age.  I love it.

Me: Do you need me to get you a book from the library?

Jake:  No.

Me:  What are you reading?

Jake: Guiness (World Record Book).  I still have 62 pages left.

Me: What?  You've had that book forever.  You still have 62 pages that you haven't read yet?

Jake:  Memorized.

Me:  You are memorizing the book?

Jake:  Yeah (with a look on his face like I am dumb for questioning it).

Conversation With Jason

Jason:  Mom? (flapping arms)

Me: Yeah?

Jason: Am I too heavy to fly? (flap, flap)

Me: (laughing) Yes, I'm sorry.

Jason:  But birds aren't too heavy. (flap, flap)

Me:  Nope, birds aren't too heavy.

Jason:  And dinosaurs aren't too heavy. (flap, flap)

Me:  They're heavy, but they have bigger wings to carry them.

Jason:  Some dinosaurs are way too heavy! (flap, flap, flap into another room)

More Applesauce

I did the majority of the apples on my birthday with my mom, but I still had some left over and Allie helped with it.  She thought it was all sorts of fun to turn the crank and smoosh the apples down.  We ended up with 35 quarts this year.  

Thanks for the help Allie!

Mike was pleased to know that this was the end of canning for the year.  It was a long year this time because it started so early with the cherries.  I'm cleaning up the last of the jars and getting it all tucked away so our basement doesn't look like we are moving somewhere with all the boxes piled up.

Red Ribbon Week

I love that the kids pledge to be drug free and everything, but sometimes (all the time) red ribbon week is just busy stacked on top of busy.  It's always the week of Halloween so the kids can dress up in their costumes as part of the celebration.  Usually the hardest day is crazy hair day because we are rushing to get a silly hair style done before the bus comes.  We always have costumes ready for Halloween, so that's no big deal.  Then, all the other days are just for wearing red, a hat, or having a pj day.  For some reason, this year they decided to have a super hero/dress like your favorite book character day.  That's like basically planning another Halloween costume!  It was busy for sure.  It didn't help that we forgot about it until 8:03 and the bus comes at 8:12.  

Nate wanted to be Gerald from the Piggie and Gerald books by Mo Willems, but there was no way we could come up with an elephant costume in 9 minutes, so he willingly became Spiderman again.  What a good boy.

Luckily Allie's favorite book character is Harry Potter, and even more luckily, we had a costume for that downstairs.  We rushed around looking for black face paint for her lightning bolt scar and finished things up just in time for the bus.

In fact, there was no time for pictures, so these are after school shots.

Yay for red ribbon week being over.  (And for kids who pledge to be drug free).

Pumpkins

Our pumpkin carving adventures spanned a few days.  I didn't have time to help, so Allie and Jake got the littles going on it and Mike helped with the carving part.  Allie and Jake did the entire pumpkins all on their own this year.  

 I even made Allie take pictures...

Nate tried his hardest to get all the guts out, but he thought it was really gross and didn't have the strength to scrape it off the sides.  He did a pretty good job though!

 Jason used the electric knife to stab all sorts of holes in his.

 Jake tried to avoid the gross textures with gloves this year.

 Allie just suffered through it.

They ended up with some cute pumpkins!

I can't bring myself to take them off the porch, and they aren't moldy yet, so we've still got Jack o' lanterns decorating our place!

Happy Birthday To Me!

I wanted to sleep in on my birthday.  That's my favorite thing to do.  I don't even need the sleep part.  I just think it's so nice to lay in a warm and cozy bed when it's cold outside.  Jake goes to school so dang early, that it wasn't going to happen.  He told me he'd eat school lunch and get himself out the door so that I wouldn't have to wake up with him to make his lunch and see him off.  I agreed to the school lunch part, but I couldn't let my boy go off to school without saying goodbye, so I got up for that and then went back to bed. :)
It was crazy hair day at school, so I had to get up and get Allie and Nate going with some crazy hair.  We weren't as creative as some of the kids these days, but it was good enough for them.

My mom came up to spend the day with me.  I didn't know what to do with her because she is always so productive when she comes up.  I couldn't just have a lazy day and watch her zoom around cleaning things at my house.  I didn't want to go off shopping and have her watch Jason because I wanted to hang out with her.  So, we canned applesauce.  I've had some apples sitting around smelling really good, but also taunting me and making it feel like I couldn't do fun things until it was done.  So we dealt with the apples.  It was fun to visit with her.  It was also fun to have her witness how much Jason can talk.  He seriously wears me out.  At first, she'd try and listen attentively, but then she realized that he just doesn't stop, so she learned that it's best just to say "oh really?" every now and then.
I wish I had pictures of him "helping" with the apples.  Mom was worried that he'd chop his fingers off.  She gave him a butter knife instead of the sharp one he was using (with his fingers curled around the blade).  He was able to chop through apples with that butter knife!  He was determined.

Anyway,  we did 14 quarts of applesauce and she made me a cake.  We got to use my new birthday gift cake stand.  I love it.

Mom had eye surgery a few weeks ago and can't see well in the dark yet, so we went out for an early dinner and she left for home.  We came back and had cake.  Jason was in his room having some "lonely time", so he missed the pictures, but he did come out to eat cake after he cheered up.

 It was a great birthday.  One year older and wiser.  Happy birthday to me!