Games

The kids love playing with their daddy.


This second video is of an oft-requested game the kids call, "Grab Legs".

Fifty Things

Have you heard of that book? It advocates that the way to cleanliness and order is begun by first, eliminating 50 things from your home and life. I realize that I am not a terribly organized individual. I aspire to order and organization, though. Also, anticipating the arrival of our youngest family member creates the need to carve her a space of her own.

We started the day with the intention of starting to make the girls' room a real bedroom instead of the catch-all storage room. To do that we needed to get rid of the craft/junk/storage/pile table in there. But to do that we needed to find a space to put the "craft"/etc items. It's a slippery slope when you start messing with established chaos and disorganization.

The chain effect of emptying the girls' room found us tackling cupboards, desks, drawers, closets, shelves, and storage bins throughout the house. Things I once thought untouchable and sacred fell from their lofty pedestals without nary a hint of sentimentality (well, maybe a touch). I'm sure we surpassed 50 things. Ironically, the house is now messier than when we started. But the insides are cleaner. Lean and clean. My own insides feel cleaner, too.

Preschool Co-op

Today ends my first week of teaching preschool. We are using the Mother Goose Time curriculum. I was nervous about doing a co-op rather than a certified preschool program because I don't have any real experience teaching little kids. But MGT turned out costing only $50 for the curriculum for the entire school year compared to upwards of $4,000 for the Children's Museum program. I'm uncertain that a three-year-old gets much more out of a spendy program than a home-school one. For example, the important socializing and quality thereof that occurs during preschool is likely independent of geography or tuition levels.

Each parent has all seven kids for six weeks at a time, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9-11:30 a.m. My turn has come and after scripting out the structure of the morning, I found the time goes pretty quickly (and sometimes, effectively). The kids have free play time, of course ... but then it's hard core academics. They do stuff like:Devouring turkey dinner

and decorating turkey sugar cookies.

Today, Talmage and Joseph said they were thankful for the "Rocketship Place". Hailey said she was thankful for butterflies. And I am thankful for Augusta, my parent helper.

Popcorn Pals

Syd, Lila, Sonya, Talmage, Jed

Rising to the Occassion

Syd ran a fever the past couple of days. She swiped away the thermometer any time I tried to stick it in her armpit. Once I was able to keep it in there long enough to get a reading of 102.9 before she twisted away, crying, "Don't want it!" She was pretty miserable.

One of the days she was sick, I had to make bread. Talmage asked for a portion of dough of his own to knead. It must have been quite sticky, since it apparently required just a little more flour. This pic is a nod to a child's resilience: even when feeling utterly lousy, they are still up for fun.

A Smashing Party

We saw the KA and M&M cousins last weekend at the annual Apple Smashing Party. Even though driving to Quincy, WA is not the most cost-effective way to obtain "free" apples and the best-tasting apple cider in the country, sometimes distance doesn't matter when it comes to cool experiences. This year was the same format as last year. Thanks, too, to the Yakima cuz's, for putting us up for the night.

Apple gleaning

Turning the press

Washing the apples.

For Every Thing There is a Season

Things change in our lives: jobs, hair color, underwear, weight (unless you are Honey Jo or Briton) ... and callings. I was released last Sunday from my RS calling. Bearing in mind that the characters I served with are still pulling the plow, I have to admit (as they will, I'm sure, when they are released) that life is pretty good right now. Some highlights from the past week:

* I had my first patient with H1N1. Nope. I have not had the vaccination myself. (this is interesting, rather than "good", I suppose).
* Fall afternoon walks with the kids. Once we ran into the Jacobson's:* Made some of these turkeys for the Apple Fest tomorrow:
* Transformed the house into a preschool classroom. It's my turn to teach our seven 3-year-olds in a home-school co-op Talmage attends.
* Watched these monkeys. For snack today they had a strawberry/mango/nonfat yogurt smoothie and cheese/apples. For lunch the kids had cupcakes.
* Folded mounds of laundry.
* Started morning scripture study with my companion
* Went to get the H1N1 vaccination 10 minutes before doors closed at a public clinic and were shooed away. They said 3,000 people came and had started lining up an hour before the clinic started.
* I didn't go to my last prenatal checkup. My doctor wasn't too thrilled.
* Organized the wasteland of the art cupboard for $10 (thanks, Ikea).

Looking over this list, it doesn't seem like that productive of a week. Some of you do more than this in a morning. But that's the beauty of it all. Just kickin' it here in Hillsboro.

Kid updates:
***They both have runny noses.
***Talmage spelled "mom" on his own using wooden alphabet letters. He couldn't find an "o", so he used an upside down "e" as a substitute. He likes to play the game, "What does '____' start with?"
***Syd sings her ABC's and can name many of the letters by sight. She counts to 10. We give credit to Talmage and Starfall (and by extension, Erin, who told us about starfall.com) for jump-starting Sydney's introduction to academia.
***The baby is kicking a lot. I like it when she moves around. It's like she's swapping "howdy's" with me and reminding me she's on her way.

What's Grosser than Gross?

The bathroom sink hasn't been draining lately. This is not the first time. By experience, I know what unplugging the drain will entail and it takes a few days to work up the courage to attack the task.

Today was the day. I unscrewed the u-pipe and poked a toothbrush up the straight pipe. Slabs of black sludge dislodged and ker-plopped into the bowl. The u-pipe also harbored similar sludge. The black was contrasted with a fair amount of off-white pussy-looking globules that looked like a cross between aged phlegm and larvae sacks. And then there are the knotted strands of long hair ...

What's the grossest housecleaning chore you've ever done?

Ice cream, anyone?

A Tight Squeeze

It's time to play "hide and go seek" when Syd hopefully suggests, "Counting!" as she folds herself up into tight spaces. This is her favorite hiding spot.

Creepy Crawlers

Hallow to All-Hallowed's Eve! This year's proved enjoyable as ever with a full day of evilness. We spent the morning summoning the spirits through song and chants....

[that's our man in between the orange hats...]

This was his 3rd or 4th trip through S's music class. He's been singing the songs at home throughout the month in his gleeful anticipation of the thing called Halloween.

The church ward hosted a "Trunk'or'Treat" party that afternoon equating to a carnival of the costumed consuming copious amounts of cornbread and chili con et sans carne, with catwalk competition, kooky crafts, cakewalk, kook alley, etc. Our kids were wide-eyed looking at all the costumes --T kept repeating, "What's that chicken doing in the church?" The festivities culminated in the parking lot. Talk about distillation of the holiday. Candy commerce streamlined for both sides of the exchange. You fill your bucket going car to car in a manner of minutes. T did his part.

Back home, we made preparations for the real sortie:

We hit the neighborhood and the group split up quickly into the fast 3-yr boys and the slower 2-yr old girls. I had a REALLY fun night with Syd. She picked up the game quickly and would march right up to the door, clutching her basket (she never let go of it the whole night), and knock. She was great at saying "trick'or'treat" on my cue, and with her adorable looks and those of her two friends (a chicken and Dorothy from Oz) they managed to rake in plenty of sugary treasure. I had to fill my fleece pockets to keep her basket manageable!

[Syd, the intrepid lady bug]

We finished with a gathering at our place for scones, more chili, and more candy. The kids stayed up playing with friends past 10pm. Such an fun day.

[Except for this guy. I'd complain too if I had a slug sliming up my forehead]

(Credits: Syd's ladybug costume homespun by R's mom, T's spider costume from D&J, frontdoor claw inspired by "my-angle.blogspot.com")