Gingerbread House

So we thought it would be fun to make a gingerbread house as a family.  We bought a kit, but didn't look at it until we went to decorate it.  Oops.  I guess you are supposed to make the house 24 hours in advance before decorating it.  After the walls all fell down, we just decided to give every one a piece and let them decorate it.  That seemed to work a lot better anyway.  I think next year I will just give everyone a gingerbread man cookie to decorate.  

The meanest Mom in the world

Cinderella informed me yesterday that I am the meanest mom in the world.  So I decided that she can see how much I do for her.  For the next week she has to help me do things like make meals, fold laundry ect.  that are things I do for her that she can help with, and things that she can do for herself, she is going to have to do them all, such as picking up her toys, and dirty clothes, cleaning up her place from the table, making sure she gets her home work done.

She discovered this morning when she was woken at 5:30 to help make breakfast, that it isn't the easiest thing in the world.  I'm sure she will make many more discoveries before the week is over.

Decorating our tree with service

So as I mentioned in an earlier post, I wanted to put more focus on the Savior this Christmas season.  So after pondering it, I came up with a plan.

I made a bunch of paper ornaments, and let the kids decorate some.  Now every time someone does an act of service for someone else, they get to take one of their ornaments and put it on the tree.

The first day they were pretty excited, put lately they forget.  I need to remind them more that they can do this.

Symmetry

So Cinderella has been learning about the line of symmetry in math, and the other day she said to me, "Did you know that Spike's teeth are like symmetry"

I said, "Oh ya, thy kind of are."  amazed at how my child was grasping this new concept.  

Then she said to me, "you know what I mean?"  So wanting to hear her explain, I asked, "what?"

She then said, "You know like tombstones?"

Clothing Sizes

I think all clothing should be marketed by it's measurements the way men's pants are. Can I tell you how frustrating it is to not know what size to buy for my kids. My kids are not the "average" build, and if I get pants that fit around they are too short. Or I find myself "pretending" that clothes fit my kids, when they don't really, because I don't know what size is really the right one. And a lot of clothes for babies and young toddlers come in sets. Yes they are really cute, but that doesn't help when with most clothes your baby wears 12M size shirts, but some 3-6 month pants, some 6-9M, and some 12M. But most 12M ones drown the poor kid and always fall off.

what if.....

I had a thought yesterday. What would it be like this holiday season if instead of focusing on getting ready for Santa to come, we instead focused on getting ready for Christ to come?

One Painful Camping Trip

So my husband really likes backpacking, and minimalist camping.  Last year he took Cinderella, on an overnight backpacking trip, with his sister.  This year he wanted to take Cinderella and Guy on one, but needed another adult to go to.  He was having a hard time finding one who was available, so I suggested that I could go with him, and we could take the babies too.

We decided to do that, and make a slight adjustment to the plan.  We would drive up on Friday afternoon after he was done with work for the day, find a spot to camp, and then clean up camp in the morning, and go on a day hike.

We got all ready, and left about 4 in the afternoon.  What we didn't know was that the area we were planning on going had established campgrounds, and by the time we got there all of the camp grounds were full, and all the areas off the paved road near them, had signs saying "No Camping except in designated areas."  After a bit of driving around we found a dirt road, and found a place where we could make camp (where it wasn't prohibited).  We got out of the car, and found that the mosquitoes were thick, you would have 10-20 land on you anytime you stopped moving, and they didn't respond to our repellent.  There was a little stream where we could get water with our filter.  (And I mean little.  It was maybe a foot across,  and more standing than moving.  I guess the mosquitoes make sense.)  We built a small camp fire, to help ward off the mosquitoes, then my husband pitched the tent.  After the tent was pitched we made dinner.  We had bought some freeze dried meals, where you just add boiling water to the bag, close the bag, wait a few minutes, and then you have food to eat.  Our pan was only big enough to do enough water for one bag at a time, and we had 2 bags.  We got the first bag going and the water heating for the second bag.  Our water was boiling surprisingly fast for our elevation, and we didn't have to wait too long.  My husband started dishing up the kids food while ours was still hydrating.  But the kids were having a hard time eating because of the mosquitoes.  So I suggested that we could go and eat in the tent, where the bugs wouldn't be so thick.  So we picked up and moved to the tent.  I grabbed the bag of food that was still hydrating, and Spike, and we walked to the tent.

I set Spike down on one side of me, and the bag over by the door.  Everyone came inside, and I started to close the door.  Aurora sat down to eat her food, and the bag that was still hydrating tipped over and spilled the boiling hot water all over Aurora's legs.  I froze, my brain said what was going on, but couldn't push to what to do, even though I know what to do.  It was really scary.  I just kept yelling, "She's burning, she's burning."  Thankfully my husband is more responsive than I am, and grabbed her and ran out of the tent to take her to the stream.  When he brought her back she was still screaming, we gave her a pacifier, and I started to take her shoe and sock off.  I could see the burn, it looked like something was all over it, so I tried to clean it, and realized that what I saw was not remnants of the food.  It was her peeling skin.  It was a 2nd degree burn.  I got her shoes and socks off, put some burn ointment on it, gave her some Tylenol and tried to bandage it loosely.  Then she, Spike and I got back in the van.   She screamed until I took the bandage off.    I entertained her and Spike, while the older 2 roasted marshmallows, and my husband broke camp.  Then we headed home.  We later discovered she had a burn on the other leg too, but not as bad.

Here is what the burns looked like this morning.

Any suggestions

OK so my first child is about to start 1st grade, which for us means it is her first year that she will have lunch at school.  I have been trying to brainstorm ideas of what to pack in her lunch.  The school is a peanut free school, which means no PB&J.  I was wondering if any of you have suggestions of what you pack for your kids, or what you think might work well in a six-year-olds lunch.  Preferably on the healthy side, but not really big on visible veggies.  

Licorice

One day, while driving on our trip, I passed some black licorice to my older 3 in the back.  We drove along for quite a while, and the next time we stopped, this is what we found.

  

Making Sandcastles and Runny Noses Don' t Mix

One of the differences between boys and girls

On our recent trip we experienced one of the differences between boys and girls.  As Guy was just recently potty trained (YES he is!), there were many times along the road when we heard, "I need to go potty!"  And most of those times we were surrounded by fields, bushes, dessert, etc.  So he watered the bushes.  Well, Aurora has been potty training herself as I have been working with Guy, and one day we were down at the beach, and Guy needed to go, so he walked back up to the bushes, and went.  Well Aurora followed.  Let's just say, it didn't work so nicely for her.

Guy's first time in a motel

So we drove to California last week.  We live far enough away that it took more than one day to get there.    On our first day on the road we drove until 11:00 PM, all the kids were asleep, and we needed some sleep too.  So we found a motel, and pulled in.  All of the kids except Guy woke up in the transition, from car to bed.  But before long we had them all back asleep.

The next morning, Guy got up and started walking around.  He was amazed that there was only the bedroom and the bathroom.  He asked me why they didn't have a playroom.

I am disgusted!

This morning I walked the kids to the elementary school to sign up Cinderella up for her pre-first grade reading test, and then I let the kids play on the playground.

Around the playground beer bottles and cigarette butts were scattered.  I cleaned them up, but it frustrates me that, not only are people drinking and smoking on school grounds, but they are also leaving their mess there, where children play.

People, if you want to put those kinds of things in your body, that is your choice, but please don't leave your mess around for other people to clean up, and please don't leave your mess where our kids play.

Read aloud books to kids

A few years ago my husband and I started reading more advanced chapter books to our kids.  Cinderella in particular.  Some of the series we have read are "The Mandie Books", by Lois Gladys Leppard, "The Chronicles of Narnia" by C. S. Lewis, the "Alcatraz" series, by Brandon Sanderson, and I think for the most part these books have been enjoyed.  


We are going to be taking a trip this summer as a family, and we are going to be in the car for a long time.  I'm thinking of getting a book on CD to listen to in the car.  Based on the books we have allready read to our children, do any of you have suggestions of what might be a good one?

Potty Training Blitz

So I think I may be crazy, and if I'm not now, I will be in two weeks.
 Starting next Monday, I am going to do a potty-training blitz for 2 weeks with Guy and Aurora.  Hopefully by the end of the 2 weeks, one if not both will be potty trained.
I don't know if I will have opportunities to give updates, but if I do, I'll post them.

I wanted to see if it was glass

So I was in Spike's room feeding him, Aurora was down for a nap, and Cinderella and Guy were in the kitchen working on craft projects.  I heard a crash, so I called out, "What was that?"

Cinderella responded, "Part of the light.  I just wanted to see if it was glass, so I unscrewed it, and dropped it.  And it was glass, and it broke."

Oh the way a child's mind works.  I recall when I was little, breaking a lamp that had a Chinese lady in it, because she was holding a piece of paper, and I wanted to know what it said. 
Like mother like daughter I guess.

Things that make me smile

This morning Aurora was lying on the floor next to Spike, holding his hand, singing her own rendition of The Beatles, "I want to hold your hand."

The bowl

So a few weeks ago we went through a terrible case of the stomach flu.  Cinderella got hit first and the worst.  She started throwing up Monday evening, continued all night, and the next day.  She was then lethargic for the next 2 and a half days.  By the end of the day on Thursday she didn't have a whole lot of energy, but was acting well enough to complain about all the things that Guy was doing, so I sent her to school on Friday.  She didn't want to go, but I just figured that she had gotten used to staying home, and didn't really want to go back to school.  I told her she could choose.  She could stay home and be in bed all day, or she could go to school.  She chose to go to school.  She should have stayed home.  When I went to get her from school, her teacher escorted her out, and told me that she had just lay down on some beanbags in the classroom all day, and wasn't acting like her normal energetic self.  After the teacher left, she told me she needed to throw up, and got in the car, I handed her a cup, and she proceeded to be sick to her stomach. Poor girl.

Any way, this post isn't really about her.  It is about Aurora.  So Cinderella got sick on Monday night, as I mentioned before, and on Wednesday night, Aurora started crying in her room.  When Daddy went to check on her, he had found that she had thrown up.  "Oh dear," I thought, "here we go again."  I was expecting it to effect her the way it had Cinderella.  We took her to the bathroom to get her cleaned up, and I went and got a bowl.  In our family, when someone is sick to their stomach, we have found it is helpful to have a bowl on hand, just in case they can't make it to the toilet on time.  Well, shortly after I got the bowl for Aurora, she had the throw up again, but thankfully it landed in the bowl.  However, she wasn't hit as hard as Cinderella, and that was the only time the bowl was used.  We didn't know how it would be however, so for the next 24 hours we carried the bowl with us, where ever we went around the house.  Which was a lot of places, because Aurora was feeling like her normal self.  In fact, I kept referring to it to Aurora as her bowl.  Well she kind of developed an attachment to that bowl.  It was a metal bowl, and she wanted it by her bed, or in her bed, for a few days afterwards, anytime she went to sleep.   It finally got removed, and washed.  However, anytime now that she sees any metal bowls around our house, she insists that it is "Aurora's bowl" and has to lay claim on it.

Aurora and "her" bowl.

My little mover

So Spike has always been a bit of a mover.  Even before he was born, when he was active he was really active.
When he was only a week or two old, I went into his room to get him from his crib one morning, and found that his swaddle was still laying where I had put him in the bed, the last time I had laid him down, but he had scooted out of the blankets and turned directions so his legs were sticking through the bars on the crib.    At this point I stopped swaddling him, and started putting him in a sleep sack, that zips around him.  However it is a common thing now to go to retrieve him from his crib, and find him laying in a completely different part of the crib, facing a completely different way.

It will be interesting to see how he moves once he realizes he can do it.

Guy's Birthday Lunch

So we were celebrating Guy's 4th birthday the other day.  And we decided it would be fun to go out to lunch.  So we told Guy that he could choose between a local kids themed pizza place, or The Old Spaghetti factory.  Any guesses where he chose?

The Popcorn Factory.  What is The Popcorn Factory you might ask?  That is what we asked him.  His response was, "That place where they fix cars, and give you popcorn."  Then I realized he was talking about Les Schwab Tires.  That is where I always go to take care of my tire business, and Guy always goes with me.  They have a complimentary popcorn machine so you can munch on popcorn while you are waiting.  Of all the places he could go for his birthday lunch, he wanted to go to a tire store.  That's my guy.

In the end, we ended up going to the pizza place.  Just in case you wondered.

To be known by name

This might not be that uncommon, but to me it touched me so I thought I'd write about it.

Every morning when I drop Cinderella off at school, she has a cross walk where she needs to cross, in the lane where the buses go.  There is usually one of the office aids there to guide kids across.  Every morning this aid says good morning to Cinderella.  A few times it looked to me as if she even said Cinderella's name, but I wasn't sure.  Well this morning when I dropped Cinderella off, there was a garbage truck coming down that lane, so the aid was standing on the side, and when Cinderella got out of the car I heard the aid say, "Cinderella, stand here by me until the truck passes."

It really touched me to hear an office aid say my daughters name.  She doesn't have to know my daughter.  She isn't her teacher.  There are a lot of kids who go to that school.  My child isn't a trouble student who spends all of her time in the office.  So chances are, that aid knows most of those students names.  I think it is awesome that she would take the effort to get to know my child, and know her by name.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Which baby is it?

Baby A

Baby B

Baby C

Time for another round of which baby is it.  I just happen to have pictures of 3 of my kids as babies wrapped in the same towel.  Take a look and tell me which one you think is which.

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Haircut

Before

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What do you think?

Which baby is it?

So someone told me today that my two boys looked a lot alike as babies.  So tell me what you think.  Which baby is which?

Baby A

Baby B

Saag Paneer

My husband is very interested in learning how to make lots of different kinds of foods.  One of his current favorites is Indian food.  One dish that he has made, and that we have had at some Indian restuants that we have tried is saag paneer

It is a spinach curry, with paneer, an Indian cheese.  He has tried making this a few times but hasn't been satisfied with the results.

Last week for dinner I made a lentil spinach soup.  It called for 6 1/2 cups fresh spinach.  However fresh spinach isn't in season right now, and what I could find at the grocery store was expensive and very sad looking.  I couldn't bring myself to buy it.  So I bought frozen spinach.  Well when spinach is frozen it becomes more compact, so I knew I needed to put in less frozen spinach than I would fresh.  So I put in about 3 cups.  Well that was still too much.  The soup has you remove half of it and put it in a blender, after doing this what I ended up with looked a lot like saag paneer, without the paneer (so I guess that would just be saag).

Well that was Guy's opinion too.  As soon as I set it on the table he looked at it, and said, "That's like Saag Paneer."

To serve it, the recipe recommend garnishing with plain Greek yogurt, which did make it taste a lot like Saag Paneer.  In fact my husband said it was very close to the flavor he has been trying to achieve.

The Immodest Donkey

My husband took our three oldest children out to a local Indian restaurant for lunch one day.  While they were sitting there eating, Cinderella pointed to a picture of a belly dancer on the wall, and said, "there is an immodest girl in that picture."
Guy then pointed to a different picture on the wall and said, "There is an immodest donkey in that picture."
My husband looked at the picture, and replied, "that's not a donkey, Guy, it's a camel."
"Well, I'm calling it an immodest donkey."

More funny things Guy has said

So Guy often says things that make us laugh.  And when he does so, we will often write it down on our white board, so that I can blog about it.  However I haven't been as on top of blogging, as I would like to be, and so we have quite the list.  I thought I'd share it with you.

• Hot cereal hurts my feelings.
• This doesn't burn me, so it's not hot cereal.
• Vegetables are bad for your body.
• When I'm big, I'm going to make Macaroni and Cheese for lunch, every day!
• I wish I had chains, so when my parents tell me to go to bed, I would wrap them in chains.

Spike's Milk

One day while we were eating muffins for breakfast, Aurora asked for some milk.  But she didn't want her milk (her milk is whole milk, because the Dr recommends it for children who are one-year-old).  So then someone asked if she wanted Mama's milk.  She said no, then Guy asked if she wanted Spike's milk.  So then my husband asked him where Spike's milk is.  His response was, "In Mom's tummy.  Spike's milk is the muffins."

The car in my dreams

This morning, Guy came upstairs and told me, "One day I want to get a car like the one in my dream."  So I asked him what the car in his dream was like. "Like a train, but without an engine."  

"If it doesn't have an engine, how does it go?"

"It goes on the street, really really fast!  And then I fell off it, and there was fire on the street."

So where am I supposed to get a car like that?

Some Pants and a Shirt

This morning when I was nursing Spike, Aurora came into the room, and tried to take off her nightgown.  I asked her if she wanted to get dressed, to which she replied, "Yeah!"

So I told her to go and get some pants and a shirt.  Well that is just what she did.

The red and white striped item is a shirt.  The other 3 are pants.

Little Miss Muffet

Last month, Cinderella was learning a lot about Nursery Rhymes in school.  So we heard a lot of them here at home.
One of these was "Little Miss Muffet".  For those of you not familiar with this rhyme, here is how it goes.

Little Miss Muffet, sat on a tuffet, eating her curds and whey.  When along came a spider, who sat down beside her, and frightened Miss Muffet away.

Then Guy asked us "Why would a spider come down and freak out someone who is eating?"

What is a tissue?

When my husband was a little boy, he hurt his mouth enough times that he damaged one of his front teeth, and ever since then he wears a fake one, on a flipper.  (A retainer type thing that he can remove when he is eating.)  However the flipper breaks every few years, and then he is without a tooth until we can get it fixed, or a new one made.  He finally got tired of this and decided to get an implant.

The first step to getting this implant was to get a bone graft.  Which meant he needed to have an oral surgery.  After this surgery, one of the words that he would use often, when talking about it was gum tissue.  

Well one day, Guy asked me, "What is a tissue?"  Not thinking about my husband's recent surgery I responded with "Something you use to blow your nose."  

He then replied, "why do you have tissue in your mouth?"
"You don't have tissue in your mouth."
"yes you do.  Gum tissue."

Do they freak you out?

So, Cinderella picked up on the saying, "freak out" lately, due to some of the kids at school.  We hear that phrase a lot.  One day Guy told my husband,  "Skeletons don't freak me out, cause they are just bones."

Aprons

Mornings are kind of hard for me lately.  Because I have to nurse Spike, and he eats at various different times, I sometimes am needing to feed him at the same time, I am trying to get my other kids ready so we can take Cinderella to school.  I have tried to talk the kids into getting dressed before breakfast, but other than Aurora, I get a lot of slack from them.  Cinderella's biggest complaint was that she might spill some of her breakfast onto her clothes.  So I decided to make them aprons.  I got them done for them by Valentine's Day, and gave them to the kids for Valentines.  Well, Aurora's was a day late, but close.

Counting

One night, my husband and I were going to go out on a date, so we were having a baby-sitter.  Cinderella was very excited, and couldn't wait until the baby-sitter got there.  She asked me when the baby-sitter was coming.  I told her in an hour.  She asked how many seconds that was.  My husband replied that it is 3,600 seconds.  

Cinderella then started counting.  1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8, three-thousand-six-hundred, OK, she's here! 

 

Ready for Spring

So the last few days have been quite warm for this time of year in our climate.  It has been in the 50's.  Ever since Spike was born in December, we haven't gone much of anywhere, and it is driving Aurora crazy.  With the warmer weather, she has wanted to go out side and play, and I have let her.  Yesterday morning when we were getting ready to take Cinderella to school, I was getting the kids coats and shoes on.  Aurora insisted that she wear her jacket, not her coat, and then she went to the sliding glass door, and started pulling on it, saying "side, side"  She wanted to go play.  She is definitely ready for the warmer weather to be here all the time.  Unfortunately, I don't think it will stay around for long, but it will come back, in a while.

Guy's first talk

In our church we have a children's class called Primary.  In this children's class the children all meet together for an hour, where there is a lesson taught, gospel songs are taught, and children are given turns to give talks.

Guy was asked to give his first talk this last Sunday.  We were given a few choices of what he could talk about, and when I asked him which one he wanted to talk about  he choice, "Why am I here?"  Or why are we here on Earth.

So I asked him, "Why are you here on earth?"
"Because Jesus made the Earth."
"Did we come here to get a body."
"yeah"
"Did we come here to learn how to make good choices?"
"Some people make bad choices. They didn't get a body."
"Your right the people who made the bad choice to follow Satan didn't get a body, but we made a good choice huh?  So we have a body."
"yeah"
"Are you glad you have a body?"
"yeah"
"Are you glad you are here on Earth?"
"yeah"


So I combined the information from that conversation into a talk for him.  When I wrote it he wanted to make sure I put "Why am I here?" on it. So I wrote it at the top.
 Then on Sunday, he couldn't wait to give his talk.  Before the meeting was even started he was out of his seat, and climbing the steps behind the podium.

When it came time to give his talk, I went up to help him.  He climbed the steps, and stood behind the microphone.  He is so short his head was barely visible above the top.  And he was a good 5 inches away from the microphone.

He started his talk by yelling, "Why am I here?"  Which gave my husband the impression that he was wondering why he was up there giving the talk.  The rest of the talk, he had a hard time being loud enough for, but he said it, and did a good job.

Agency

One of the things I have heard people have the biggest problem with, when trying to accept that there is a God, is the question "If there is a God, why does he let people do bad things?"

The church I belong to, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, teaches that we are all given agency.  The ability to choose.  If we want to choose to drive 90 miles an hour down the freeway, that is our choice, we can do that.  If we want to take someones life, that is our choice, we can do that.  However that doesn't make these things right choices, nor does it take away the consequences of our actions.  If you speed, you are more likely to get in an accident, and some one is more likely to get hurt.  You are also more likely to get pulled over and get a ticket.  If you take someones life, you make it so they don't have the choice to live any more.  And you are also increasing the likelihood of you spending the rest of your life in prison, or on death row, and if you "get away with it" you still have to live knowing you did that.

If you run out in front of a car, you are going to get hit.  Do you get the idea?

Anyway, this agency, is something that I struggle with, as being a parent.  Because, I can't take away my children's agency, although I can try.
No matter how hard I try, I can not force Guy to use the potty.  I can't force him to not soil his clothes.  He is going to do it if he wants to.  I can encourage, I can scream, I can yell, I can take away his toys, I can hurt him (that one I try really hard to not do), but through it all, I can't MAKE him use the potty.  And that is so frustrating to me, because his choice doesn't just affect him, it affects me too.  I'm the one who has to clean him up, or help him clean him up, or live with a house that stinks if he doesn't do it, or at least do a good job.

Now in reality I don't want to take away his agency, but I would like it if he would do what I ask him to, and if he would care if he was clean or not.  But he doesn't.  So I just keep encouraging, and if nothing else, maybe Aurora will get potty trained.  

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Cooking with Aurora

So I just heard a crash from upstairs.  I knew it had to be Aurora so I went to make sure she was OK.  Here is what I found.  Her trying to put the pitcher from the blender on the counter next to a can of soup that she got from the pantry.    I asked her if she wanted to go downstairs with me and she said, "poop"(meaning soup).  I asked her if she was trying to make soup, and she said, "yeah!"

Teenager?

So this evening we were sitting around the dinner table, and it was mentioned that my sister-in-law is having a baby shower.  Cinderella asked what a baby shower is, so we tried to explain that it is when someone has a new baby, sometimes there is a party for them, where people come and "shower" you them with presents for the baby.
At this Aurora piped up, "ba?" (her word for bath) "Baby... shower?  Daddy shower, mama shower.  Baby shower?"  I could tell she was trying to make sense out of this conversation, and that she thought we were talking about giving Spike a shower, so then she asked for a bath.

Cinderella then replied, "but your not a baby anymore, your a little girl."  And then a light seemed to come on in her head, and she said, "I'm the teenager in this family now!  'Cause I'm six now, and that's older."

Spike

So this evening, before his bath, I gave Guy a haircut.  After the bath, when his daddy was helping him get in his pajamas, his dad called him spike.  Guy commented that his name isn't spike, and then a little later, the kids noticed that Buddy's hair also stood up, and someone suggested that we could call him spike.
After this Aurora, turned to the baby and said, "Hi pike! Hi pike"  So we decided that from here on out Buddy shall now be called Spike, at least on the blog.