Solar System Making

Praise be! Unlike Abe’s assigned solar-system model last year, Daisy’s only required planets done to scale. Nobody cared a lick about scaling distance. Nobody worried at all about the sun being GIGANTIC.

Easy peasy.

Well . . . mostly easy. Those inner planets are still awfully puny. She lost Mars and Mercury both during her model making.

But in the end, they were found and/or remade and we were all perfectly happy.

(That’s not totally true. I still haven’t come to terms completely – or at all really – with Pluto and his lost planet status.)

My Kids’ Book Idea and Christmas Preparations

I have decided, after seeing all the pictures that Penny drew over the last few days (and then cut out and stuffed in plastic baggies, grocery bags, and her hand-me-down Spider Man lunch box from Abe – as she does with most of her art work), that I have all the inspiration I need among these drawings to write a very successful children’s book!

I haven’t decided on the exact story line or order in which I will use the pictures, but it will probably start with this very friendly oversized tiger-colored dog

stopping by this house to take this taped together boy on an adventure!

Probably, as they set off, they will come across a family who will invite them in to celebrate Christmas

(or, it might be that the snowman will be the one inviting them to celebrate Christmas).

BUT! That might not happen before or until they have travelled across an ocean, accompanied by a friendly whale (or possibly escaping a terrifying whale).

At some point, the boy will think, sadly, about how it is his birthday and, even though he is off on a grand adventure, he will be a little sad that there has been no mention made of the day being his. At that point, there will be, naturally, a stop for . . . A SURPRISE BIRTHDAY PARTY!

And then, and I haven’t actually worked how I’ll fit this bit in exactly yet, but it will definitely end with this VERY happy ending of a purple and pink dog being taken for a walk by . . . should I give it away? . . . a . . . JACK-O-LANTERN!

It will be good, won’t it!

So, moving on to Christmas preparations: They are pretty much complete!

And that, you will find . . . if indeed you ever do find yourself with six small children needing a good Christmas, is quite a feet! (Or is it a feat? I can’t remember). But, it is a feet/feat particularly when one of those children is a nursing newborn. Can you imagine trying to do all your Christmas shopping in the mad crowds with two toddlers and one baby in a big car seat? I know. I can’t imagine it either because I did pretty nearly none of our Christmas shopping!

Truly, Mike took it upon himself to do every single bit of it, and with no real direction at all from me! That is one extra bonus thing I like about him. He can be in charge of something as big as “our entire Christmas” and pull it off perfectly. He really is much better than I am at thinking of the very best things for any certain individual, and I am unbelievably grateful that I didn’t have to feel any of the stress of shopping in December crowds this year. I have put myself to faithfully wrapping the gifts, and I did put up our decorations (and made Mike spend a crazy wee bit of time with all the kids while I snuck out to get him something), but that is it, and it has been lovely. Lovely. Lovely.

But, speaking of decorations, the tree only got up very very recently (which seems a small shame as it will be coming down fairly soon), but with Mike working his usual late hours and spending other free hours getting gifts, we just didn’t get around to it until last week when Mike took the older five kids to pick one out. Then it sat in the back of our truck for several days getting snowed on, and looking lonely, and causing my friend to tell me that, as she drove by day after day, she would think, “Poor Nancy.” (As in, that poor woman, she has a new baby and Christmas is any day now, and there her Christmas tree sits each and every day I drive past her house).

It is up now though. The kids spent many minutes pounding in to Jesse the idea that the ginger bread ornaments and popcorn strands were “yucky” and not to be eaten (so, he avoided eating them, and , instead, took a hammer and began smashing them), and they also decorated each other and themselves about as much as they decorated the tree (breaking the prized “pickle” ornament in the process):

But, we are all set! Hip hip hooray! And a MERRY CHRISTMAS to you all!

Armadillos and an Irritable Uterus

My friend Jami recently commented that her doctor had explained that all the extra pre-term labor she was experiencing with her fourth had to do with the fact that the more pregnancies you have the more “irritable” your uterus gets. Well. That makes sense. If I was a uterus and someone kept forcing me to house a kicking, growing baby, and to stretch like 8 million times my normal size, I’d get pretty irritable too. . . .

Unfortunately, as Jami also pointed out, all those contractions with no baby made for more than just an irritable uterus! Funny. Earlier today I was feeling quite calm and thinking, “You know, usually I am so anxious and tense waiting for labor these last few weeks of pregnancy, but this time I feel totally fine and patient. Nine or so days is nothing. Either way baby will likely be here in two short weeks, and I have plenty of happy and busy things to be doing in the mean time. What was my problem before? I can wait just fine. Piece of cake. Baby will come when he will come.”

Then, two clean bathrooms later, I was a totally different person. My thoughts were more like, “I am so sick of doing stuff. I don’t want to clean anymore . . . or relax . . . or ANYTHING. Am I just going to be pregnant and wondering for NINE MORE DAYS!!? Clearly that is ridiculously impossible. I am going to go mad.” And then I didn’t even clean bathroom number three. Shouldn’t TWO clean bathrooms be good enough for this baby?

On a positive note: it turns out that it is totally fine that I am a bad mother who rarely does crafts, etc. with my kids. If I did, well, I might tell them to make a butterfly or a rainbow or some such. Then there would be no . . . armadillos.

As I was getting the older kids ready for school this morning, Penny was, as is often the case, snipping and cutting and taping with blue painter’s tape. When I saw what she had done later, I said, “Penny! That looks like an armadillo!”

“That’s because it is,” she replied.

We’ve never ever lived in any armadillo country. I don’t know that I have ever actually seen a real armadillo. “How did you know what an armadillo looked like?” I asked.

“I just knowed” was her reply.

So, clearly it has worked out just fine that I have left them to their own tiny little devices.

Thank goodness.

A Few Cool Things

Have any of you ever bought your kids any of those weird rubbery things that grow several times their size when placed in water? No. Of course you haven’t. And neither have I because they are kind of disturbing and they don’t just grow big naturally. They grow in uneven bulging lumps and spurts here and there until finally, after days of sitting in a glass bowl of water that you try not to look at even though it is right on your kitchen counter, they have reached something that is several times their original size.

I said I have never bought such things. Unfortunately they have still wriggled their way into my home – they sneak in as part of small birthday party fun sacks, they make themselves available in prize boxes at school, etc. And it isn’t as if they go through one disturbing growth cycle and all is done. Oh no. Once you take them out of the water, all blubbery and wet, they slowly shrink down to their pre-enlarged size . . . and then you can grow them big all over again. It’s probably kind of like how the Incredible Hulk works . . . only slower.

Anyway, the above picture is Goldie’s growing skeleton. He’s already gone through several growing and shrinking cycles this summer. But, during his most recent period of smallness, Goldie decided he ought to be a little more modest. Or, perhaps he was cold. Maybe he just had a special event to attend and wanted to look his best. I’m not sure. All I know is that a small shirt and matching trousers were fashioned for the fellow by Goldie’s skillful hands. I only hope she doesn’t forget to remove them when he goes back in the water – we all know how the Incredible Hulk’s clothing faired during his enlargement spells.

And what about this:

I was trying to hurry Penny up to bed tonight. She was protesting as she madly tried to finish her drawing before I dragged her away. Afraid that I might not let her finish, she made her way up the stairs – drawing as she went. She threw herself onto the ground to make use of a children’s book as a hard surface to get the last of her picture done before I made bedtime official. Then she held her picture up angrily and said, “This doesn’t look like a chicken!”

I disagreed. I thought it was the coolest chicken I’d ever seen – especially for one drawn so quickly and under such duress. And, when one considers it was her first ever chicken drawing, one must feel, as I do, that if she were to pursue a career of sorts in chicken art, it couldn’t fail to be a success.

Plus, look at this cute bunny:

Oops. I mean dog. I think it is spectacular. Only I keep forgetting and telling her what a great job she did on that bunny and she gets mad because it is a dog. She always wants to color pictures that she prints off, but I love when she colors free-draw style. So she will say, “Can I print a picture?”

And I will reply, “How about you just draw me a picture? I love the pictures you draw. Like, remember those trees you drew?”

“A forest, Mom.”

“I loved that forest. And remember how great you drew that rabbit the other day?”

“It’s a dog, Mom.”

“A cute dog.”

Anyway, I just really liked the skeleton clothes and the chicken and the cute little . . . dog.

Robot Boy and Fortune Telling

AAAAAH!!

Oh. It’s just you. You startled me . . . AHHH! Sorry. You are still startling me. Who are you again? Have we met? And why are you sitting at my kitchen table smiling calmly up at me? I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude. It’s just . . . you’re a paper . . . boy . . . and suddenly here you are . . . and it’s all a bit unnerving.

Turns out paper boy is actually a “robot” creation of Goldie’s. Where do these cool ideas come from?

Also, today as I did Daisy’s hair for school, she was looking through some little round thing and saying something about “seeing the future.” She said she couldn’t see very far . . . only until she was 11. As she is currently nine, I laughed that that wasn’t much as far as fortune telling goes. “I’ve just been practicing.” She explained, “I used to only be able to see a month ahead.” Funny clever little girl.

18 . . .19 . . .

18. SOmetHinG SoMEoNe MaDE fOr YOu:

One of the fun things about having kids is that, just as soon as they get old enough, they start trying to pay you back all your years of sleepless nights and diaper changes by making you little crafty items and pictures and cards all of the time -- and it does go an awfully long way towards paying you back because you are so happy that you created a little being who could, in turn, creat such great little gifts. Here is a pencil jar that Goldie made for me in Kindergarten. It sits on our computer desk (oh alright . . . our computer fold-out table that really should be returned to Mike's parents . . .). I am quite fond of it (the pencil holder I mean. Of course, the table is lovely too).

19. SOmeTHinG INTereStINg OuTDsidE YoUr HomE:

The blizzard. What with it being a blizzard, I couldn't very well go scouting about for the other interesting things that might be out in my yard. This is interesting because while I live on a fairly busy street, it is not usually this busy; but cars were all slipping and stuck and being passed by other bolder cars.

Before long police lights were flashing. (And look, there is my own Mike coming home in our truck. I did talk him into leaving work early after all . . . and here he was coming back with warm stuff to throw in with the chickens just as the blizzard began).

I must be honest though. It really wasn't much of a blizzard. Blizzard shmizzard more like. Yes, it was very cold and windy, and I am quite relieved Mike wasn't driving on the freeway during it (and very happy he was home with me), but it had been talked about on the news all day as if it would be the storm to beat all storms -- the worst we'd had in at least seven years. Stores were crazy packed all day with everyone buying, not only Thanksgiving stuff, but food to hunker down for a day or two; events and classes and businesses were cancelling and closing. But it was really no worse than any cold snow storm. Respectable, sure; but it seems like if you want to be called a "blizzard" you've simply got to muster a little more fury. This morning I didn't even have to do more than turn the windshield wipers on to rid my windshield of snow. Blizzard. Pshaw.

#8 -- Something That Makes Me Happy

Mike being home on Thursday for Veteran's Day; he and Abe building a chicken coop together.I love to see Mike build things. Everything is so perfect and right and knowing how to do it all seems so clear to him. I'll show the finished product when it is . . . well, just that -- finished.

Daisy's Post

I made a butterfly, first mom made a butterfly then I put on papers.It had pinkish eyes, a purple face, a indigo mouth, pink antennaes, and a bunch of designs.I got pink eye so I had to stay home with Penny, Jesse, and mom.

ByDaisy.

P.S Mom did NOT write this.

Stories by Goldie

Last week I decided to start having Goldie read 15 minutes a day to me. In WA, where Abe and Daisy went to kindergarten, their only homework was a weekly reading chart. They were supposed to read 15 mins. a day, then practice writing by filling out who they read to, what they read, and for how long.

Anyway, it seemed like being forced to follow through on having them read that young got them to be proficient readers quite quickly.
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The homework packets Goldie gets here focus more on letter writing, etc., but I really liked having Abe and Daisy do the reading, so I decided to have Goldie do it too (though it was much easier to do when it had to be turned in to their teacher).

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Yesterday I was just being silly and made these two THRILLING (and nail biting and edge of your seat) stories to add to her reading.

In turn, she composed her own stories about Bob and Ben.As you can see, she could use a little work on spacing between words, and I was very nervous when she excitedly told me to read her stories (for fear I would read them all wrong), but we made our way through them. To spare you the same difficulty, I will translate.

Bob's Bottle

Bob lost his bottle.

Bob looks for his (here she was sure she had written bottle)

Bob finds his bottle.

Oh how she thought she was funny for writing about a bottle, but just wait til you get to the punch line on her next story -- a clear parody of my previous bus story.

Ben's Bus (with a missing "s" and an unexplained "G" in the middle)

Ben goes on the bus.

The bus goes too fast.

Ben says, "Stop."

The bus says, "No."

Oh how her eyes lit up and how she clapped and laughed at her sillyness when I read her final line.

And, may I just say, that each time I have taught another of my children to read I have been freshly annoyed and frustrated with the English language. Seriously, are there no rules? Well, there are rules. We teach them all the rules and then don't follow a one of them. I took some German long ago, and I quickly discovered that even if you didn't understand the language, once you knew a few sounds, you could read it passably because things were spelled how they were said. But we have so so many words that just don't fit our own rules.

Learn the short "a" and then you get the word "tall."

Learn that an "e" at the end makes the previous vowel long and then you get, "come."

Learn that the first vowel is said when two are together and then you get all the names that end in "ie" like Goldie.

I know they learn quickly, but the first while of really having my kids read it seems I am constantly saying, "I know this looks like you should say it that way, but it is just spelled kind of funny, you actually say . . ." And the sad thing is, the way they first write things often does make more sense (like Goldie writing "says" -- SEZ).

Well, enough of that nonsense. Weren't those cute Goldie stories though!

Goldie's Artwork

For being only just recently turned five, my young Goldie is quite the artist.

Check out this dinosaur:

And this cool boy:And this somewhat questionably dressed mermaid (although anyone can see that she clealry has the physique to get away with it): And look at these two cute girls. Why, one has a headband! And the other is obviously having the time of her life skipping along -- with a purse and lollypop in tow. A doll and stuffed animal elephant tossed at her feet, a hat on her head, and all her cute matchyness.

I must admit though, that there is one extra detail I love about these girls. Their teeth. Wowzers.

A Little This and That

I was not joking around about these things bringing the birds. This is a common sight. Sadly they are all starting to die.(No, not the birds, sillys. The flowers!) I wish more perennials would bloom all Summer.

Next, here are the plates my kids made. Now, whoever said I wasn't a fun mom? Oh wait, it was my own self that said it. Well, never mind that. Clearly I was mistaken. Anyway, by the time you buy the papers, pay for the plates to be made, and pay for the plates to be shipped; each plate only ends up costing about 8 billion dollars! (Side note: Once, in one of my religion classes, the professor said something about the number "40" in the scriptures. You know, it rained 40 days and 40 nights, Jesus fasted for 40 days, etc. He said something about the Hebrew or Greek word actually meaning "many." I don't know if that is right, but I notice when I exaggerate I tend to use an "8" followed by millions and billions, and maybe that is why; maybe that is just my own "40" -- my own number signifying "many.")

Also, here is something you won't want to miss.

Yes, that is the doll and the frog that Daisy and Goldie made. Really, could anything be cooler than those stuffed animals? I can't think what could. Maybe you need a closer look at frog to be convinced (and yes, Goldie did draw the pattern herself):

The cool thing is, they like them as much or more than any of their other stuffed animals or dolls.

Turkeys Turkeys Everywhere

I've been sad that all my Christmas decorations are packed away, but judging from how my kids have plastered the downstairs cupboards, doors and fridge for Thanksgiving, I imagine Christmas will be taken care of. (P.S. If you look closely you'll notice two especially interesting ones done by Abe. One with a city living in a turkey and one with turkeys guarding a castle).

Bedazzle This!!

That's right, you heard me -- BE-DAZZLE . . . as in bedazzled, as in a bedazzler!! Any time I have heard of anyone bedazzling it has made me laugh like, "what a good joke," because it brings up images of a decade long ago when my older sisters might have been adding little gems happily to shirts and jeans and what not. BUT, I am now singing a new tune, the tune of the bedazzler, and I firmly believe that any of you who have young girls will want to get them one for Christmas.

Here is how we became bedazzlers. My husband was taking Abe on a little 4-wheeling adventure this Saturday and he didn't want the girls to be sad; so, the night before, he took them to Wal-Mart and returned, much to my surprise, with a bedazzler and some plain aprons. The box tried to trick people who might be turned away by the thought of a bedazzler by calling it a GeMagic, but I wasn't fooled, it was a bedazzler.

Anyway, it basically works like a stapler -- stapling little gems into whatever you like. My girls had so much fun with it on Saturday that I plan on letting them bedazzle to their little hearts content from here on out. I love my husband. I love that he can pick out way better and cooler gifts for our kids than I could ever think of. Look at my little bedazzled girls.

P.S. I already know what I will be seeing from here on out on all of your blogs -- bedazzled curtains and towels, bedazzled onesies and hats, etc. etc. I hope you all won't get too carried away.