Heavenly Shudders

our healthiest family member

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 01:43:00 +0000

We have had better weekends. All 5 of us are sick right now. Just a miserable head cold with tons of congestion, but we are all a bit cranky and miserable. Brian keeps running out to the store to buy another "it's not working!" product. My friend did give us some children's musinex that seems to be helping the kids. Ivan is doing the best of us. He has some congestion too, but is not laid out miserable. He still has a bundle of energy so I let him clean two rooms today, help with supper, make Emora laugh with games, pick pecans and water the garden. Yes, he did all of that today and didn't take a nap either. Do you see why I am exhausted at the end of the day? And that's just one child. Add the other two in and it's a real circus, but usually a fabulously fun circus, except right now.

The good thing is that we did manage to get pictures archived and in albums. Brian dusted half of our room and I finished with the rest of the house cleaning. Tonight I made turkey soup, in the hopes that it is going to make us all sleep well tonight. At first I thought to make fresh bread (with the bread maker). Then I thought I'd toast and garlic some store bought bread. By the time I'd finished with the soup, I threw a package of saltines on the table and was done with it. Not that the two big kids ate any of it. They rarely eat supper these days. The stinkers! Emora eats 10 times more at supper than they do and I don't let them snack in the afternoon or evening either!

The absolute worst thing this weekend was when Emora fell out of the cart at the store! Yep, about 4 feet up onto the hard floor. A friend had taken us and she put one of those cart covers on it, which is ironic since Emora was snotty. I usually strap her in, but didn't know how to with the cover and didn't really think about it, until I heard a thud and saw her on her back, on the floor! She cried a bunch is acted fine after. That's the second time she's had a serious falling incident like that! I'm so thankful that she's ok.

How was your weekend?

the garage

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:46:00 +0000

Here are the pics of Dominique, my feverish child last week, with her wood project from Lowes. She had so much fun making it, then decorating it with pink and purple marker. Poor girl has such an impossible name. She was trying to write her name on it, but ran out of room, so she scribbled over it in another color. She has a journal we made in "pretend school" and when she tried to write her name in it, she ran out of space after DOMINI, so she started on the next line with her Q then got lost in what letter was next.... so she started writing it over again on the next line and got out DOMINI before running out of space again and giving up. She would have had room if she had started at the edge, but I thought we'd let her rest with all that for a while.

Emora has been congested some, but on other days she is like this, or wildly clinging to my leg. She is quite attached to me.

Tomorrow, the kids are going to make another wood project. Brian is going to take them this time, so that Emora and I can go to a store to buy some things the older kids shouldn't see. I really hate shopping, but I'll try to survive it. It's not so bad when I know what I'm getting and where to find it, which is the case here, so it will actually be a nice outing with just one darling child as opposed to the circus trio. Tighe and I keep laughing at ourselves, because when we had one baby we thought it was so encompassing and hard, but now that we have more than one, we realize we had no clue what a cinch ONLY one was compared to 2, or now 3!

some things I'm loving

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:33:00 +0000

I'm sort of kinda homeschooling Ivan in kindergarten this year. We are hating it and loving it. Today, neither of us felt like doing it, so we read some of our new library books instead. In short order the girls woke up from naps anyways and so we all went outside to paint pictures on the fence. Our fence sucks. It's many different mismatched pieces, toppling over and patches multiple times. The plan is to replace it in the new year and since one of my questions for Ivan in "pretend school" as he calls it, was "what is your favorite activity?" and his answer was "painting". I thought we could paint the fence outside. It has been so pretty in the afternoons and we have lots of cheap paint. Ivan had a blast.
Dominique enjoyed it for a while, but easily bores with painting the same thing over and over. Since I had given her strict instructions to only paint the fence and not herself, her siblings, toys, furniture, the porch, tree, swing set, her clothes or the pets, she ran out of options and interest after a while. Our worst moment was when I was trying to get more water for Ivan, he left his paint out and when we turned around Emora's mouth was completely black. A picture would have been awesome, because she looked so hilarious, but I was a bit anxious about scooping/ washing/scrubbing as much out as quickly as possible, it thought it would be a wee bit irresponsible to take time out to get the camera. Moments later, Saba decided that she needed a drink from our rinse cup, filled with paint infused water. All of that to say that I hope tempora paint isn't overly toxic.

Ivan was bragging to his dad that our activity was inspired by his response to my question. I love how I can discover more about him from the school activities and questions. It's wonderful to be surprised by his answers and to know how his mind and emotions work.

So what's your favorite activity?

another writer on our hands?

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:11:00 +0000

Emora loves to play with the big kid's pens, markers, pencils, chalk, paintbrushes... I think she's a natural at it too. This day I watched her make scribbles on the page and clap for herself.

Ivan has other opinions of writing as seen here. Mostly because he is a perfectionist and his letters are "bumpy", which he doesn't like. But they are coming along well and I think we may sway his idea of it.

Dominique is our real clown. She hates to pose for picks now. The other day, she had a screwdriver and was helping daddy work on the old computer. I wanted to take her pick. First she ran away and screamed "no, no, no". Then she agreed to the photo shoot. First she stuck the screwdriver in her nose, then under her nose like a mustache, then sticking out her ear. What a goof.

How do you feel about writing? Is there a kind of writing you like to do, if so, what is it?

I obviously enjoy writing about my kids. It's fun to reflect on the moments I've had with them throughout the day and to also think about who they are, or what they've done that would bring a smile to the face of friends or family. As for real writing with a pen, I've always hated my handwriting. It's horribly messy. So maybe that is where Ivan get's it from ;)

figuring out family

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 05:07:00 +0000

Ivan asked me the other day:

"do grandpa Ian and grandma Ruth have kids?" I said yes. Then he specified, "Not GRANDkids, but do they have kids?" "Yes", I replied again. "They have 3 and I'm one of them" Ivan's eyes got big. "Who are the other two?" "Guess" I said. "Auntie Jenn?" "Yes, and uncle...?" He thought... "uncle John?" "no uncle Andrew". "oh!" I could tell that he was disappointed that grandpa and grandma don't have any "real" kids.
I took out an album to show him pictures of us as a family when I was younger. He was very excited to figure out which one I was. Of course he recognized grandma and grandpa, but the three kids were not as easily discernible.
These amazing portraits of the kids were off the kid's camera, which is why I had to sift through the nearly 1000 shots. Either Ivan or Dominique took these.

We made marionettes for fun. The kids are not very creative when naming their figurines or toys. Ivan named his "Ivan". Dominique named hers "baby", to add to her collection which include "naked baby" and "pink baby". The world revolves around them at this point. Every book they read or movie they see, they pick the main characters to represent them. Then they say "Ivan did this" or "Dominique did that" as was seen in the video or book. If there are adults, they are mom and dad and any baby is Emora.

A few of our friends

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 04:07:00 +0000

Dominique's fever finally broke! She's been running about 100 all day, which is good compared to what it has been steadily since Tues. Then this evening before bed, she finally had a fever free reading. I'm going to take it again before I hit the sack, just to be sure it's not creeping back up while she's snuggled down in her comforter. Could this mean a return to real life? To leaving the house? To seeing friends? shudder of excitement!! Brian offered to get the groceries for me Fri. night and I about snapped his head off. We've been house bound a week! And it's been so pretty out. Today it started off cool, so I put on jeans, but was sweating by lunch time and had to put shorts on! In Canada, I used to put up summer clothes once winter set in, but not here.

Ivan and I went to a kid's building workshop at Lowes today. He built a garage. I was sad that Dominique couldn't come with us, as originally planned. But they let me bring the materials home to her and she was glad to hammer and create. They made garages and got aprons, goggles and a badge. I think we may become Lowes nerds. Some kids had about 20 badges of all the projects they did. They had so much fun, got to use their brains following instructions, bring home a great craft they made and it was free! Gotta like that.

These last two picks were harvested off the kid's camera. Which means they were taken by Ivan and Dominique. I think they are very creative shots. Speaking of harvesting, we are gathering up pecans- yum, yum and just in time, we used up our last shelled pecans a few weeks ago. Our garden is still going a bit. The okra and green peppers are still holding out a bit. We ate a volunteer cantaloupe. It was small, but surprisingly delicious. We are also getting squash from a plant we didn't plant. That is one of the great things about composting, we never know what plants will start growing all on their own and then we are surprised to get to benefit from something we didn't purpose to create.

I can't wait for Emora to walk. She screams like all let out when I set her down. I don't remember the other two being like this.

Have you gone to any crafty/creating/building workshops? What kind?

incriminating evidence

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:59:00 +0000

Ivan is taking the pictures here. Dominique knows she is not supposed to be on the couch.

But she jumps nonetheless.

Teaching her little sister her tricks.

Oh no, she knocks over Emora!

Lots of kisses, please don't cry and have mom come find out what we are doing.

Wipe off that kiss and get back to leaps. All is well, and mommy needn't ever know! Ivan, hey, what are you doing with that camera?

About 900 pictures later....ld

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:32:00 +0000

When our old camera started goofing up, we thought it would be great to make it the kid's camera. It has been great. They love to take pictures and make videos, lots of them. It is mostly pretty horrid, but there are some gems, some visual evidence of wrongful actions, some interesting pieces and much hilarity.

Brian thought I should keep some of the pics because it is funny to see what the kids find camera worthy. I only kept one of the 20 shots of a ceiling fan. We have a picture of a lunch, several of the computer, shots of empty rooms, a foot here, lots of half faces, a series of photos showing Dominique jumping off the couch, apparently maiming Emora and kissing her better. I'll have to post those another day.

To make up for our lack of Dominique pics. I made this awesome one of her extra big. I don't even know who took this shot. Can you believe how beautiful itt is? How gorgeous she is? Yeah, it's on our desktop as I type. In my defense, Dominique has gotten to the stage where she doesn't want her picture taken as much and she takes significant naps during the day, so that is why we've had less pics of her lately. But we will do our best to keep her from photo neglect- thanks for the reminder, Jenn ;) Actually, the beauty has been sick all week and I'm hoping she will get over it soon.

So how do you go through about 900 pictures taken by preschoolers? delete, delete, delete, delete- wow- keep, giggle giggle keep, delete, delete, delete. for an hour or so.

Do you like to take pictures? What of?

pretend school

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:13:00 +0000

I see once again that I need to take some pictures of Dominique. She was taking a nap when most of these were taken. Right now she is not doing so good. Running fever. I hope it's nothing. I hate it when any of them are sick.

Ivan is doing well with learning to read. I think the reading is a lot easier for him than writing. He's not quite as natural at that part. I try to make our "school time" fun, but sometimes I don't feel like I have the energy to make it exciting and just tell him to write this or do that. So instead, he rolls around and makes goofy noises. My heart already goes out to his future teachers! ha, ha. I'm sure he'll be good in class, but I can tell that he wants to be funny and life should have some fun in it, even if mommy is tired and worried about getting something accomplished before one of the girls interrupt. I have no clue how actual home schoolers do it. I'm lucky to get an hour with him to work on things. Emora usually naps first, then by the time Dominique is down for a nap, Emora is up. If Emora is up, she wants me to hold her or interact with her. Babies can be so demanding (I'm joking, babies are the center of our world, but with older siblings she just has to find times to entertain herself, like in the small window of time I may get with Ivan). If Dominique is up, she wants to do everything with Ivan and she is just not at the same level. If I give her something of her own, then Ivan wants to do her stuff, instead of his. Who wouldn't, it's easier! Ah, well. I'm trying not to sweat over it, but I wish it was like in my day (when the dinosaurs lived) so that he could just color and play through kindergarden, learn the alphabet and call it good. Now they have them reading and writing in K. I wouldn't mind if someone else was doing it! I've discovered that early childhood is not my forte with structured educational goals.

Experiment disaster

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 05:18:00 +0000

We like crunchy, thin crust pizza. So the other day I thought I had a bright idea by placing our homemade pizza straight on the rack instead of on a pan. Bad idea! I should have clued in when they started sinking through before any toppings were added. I thought using metal skewers for added supported would suffice. The bottom pizzas were on a pan with holes, thank goodness, or I'm quite sure we would not have had a supper to salvage. As it was, one of the top pizzas proceeded to melt down onto a bottom pizza. I was able to pull the rack out and slither the oozing mess onto the back of a cookie sheet. Amazingly, the gaping holes oozed back into a more or less whole pizza, but you know how cheese can be hard to get off of stuff, especially when gooing, baked and burned? Yeah, the cookie sheet had seen better days and don't even look in my oven. It's not one of those self cleaning deals either and I detest that oven cleaner stuff. I am very positive that it is poisonous to our health and refuse to use it with kids living here. Yeah, well go with that excuse. It sounds important. Elbow grease you say? Never heard of it. My idea is that some day the cheese will just burn off on it's own right? In the meantime that poor reset button on the fire alarm is taking an unjust beating.

In other news, I was duped by Dora. Ivan was telling me about a robber detector, a device that you can wear that sends an alarm when a robber is near so that you can call police. When I asked where he'd heard about it, he told me he made it up! At this point, I'm thinking I have a genius child on my hands. I'm in awe of his creativity and thought process. I'm itching to blog and tell the world what a stupendous mind he has to think this up on his own. About 20 minutes later, he tells me that he's heard of a Swiper detector on Dora. So, in his defense, I'll give him points for taking

an idea and recreating it to have practical applications in the real world where there is no swiper who simply leaves when told "Swiper no swiping" 3 times consecutively. But my mommy haze of awe did fade significantly at his revelation.

Here are Ivan and Dominique doing the "funky fish" move from a kid's workout video that we like to get from the library. They are super fun and help the kids learn coordination, instruction... really they love everything if it's on video.

We like to go visit daddy at his current house flip. It is coming along so beautifully. It will be fun to see it when it is all done. I really like the part where we can look at tile online and dream up creative ideas without thinking about the cost to our own personal budget. Remodeling is always fun until you see the price tag. If the bill is hidden in the project's profits, it's way more fun. Ivan especially loves hearing about the guys' antics, what tool they used and how they accomplished various tasks.

Daddy and Emora were being goofy at Ivan's last soccer game. I'll tell you what, it was sooooooooo nice not to rush off today for a game.

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:49:00 +0000

I noticed that Dominique is not in any of these pictures and that Emora is in all of them. What can I say, babies are just so terribly cute! Plus, they smile for pictures, are easy to catch up to and don't have a choice... all reasons why the pictures of Ivan and Dominique are not quite as numerous. However, I feel like while the baby gets the most pics, the older ones definitely get my attention disproportionately. Part of me feels bad about it, but I don't see any way around it. When Ivan was a baby, he had my 100% attention, but you can't do that once you add a second, much less a third. The older kids seem to need more attention as they get older instead of less in some ways. I am loving how they are getting more independent, like the fact that Ivan can pour his own drink now! He'll even pour Dominique's. But I spend the most time with him teaching him letters, reading, writing, etc. At the same time, the girls are just so much faster at catching on to things. Emora picked up a pencil today and was scribbling on a paper. I remember having to teach Ivan which end wrote. These 2nd and 3rd kids just look at the other one and pick it all up so fast and easily.

Today we spent our day making marionettes. They look so cool. No picks yet. We still have to make some clothes for them. I did realize part way into the project that this was way advanced for them. Of course I knew I'd have to assemble, but I thought they would be able to cut the paper towel tubes and string everything. Come to find out, they don't have the hand strength to cut through anything thicker than paper and the stringing was harder than I imagined. They had fun anyways, playing with my knife, needle, tape, hot glue gun and everything else I would have rather they stayed out of, which of course made the execution of our project longer than I imagined also.

Emora playing music

Our superest new..... box!

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:41:00 +0000

Boxes make such wonderful toys.

I'm now dinosaur age!

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 06:51:00 +0000

Do you remember how you used to think your parents were old?

Ivan was asking me when dinosaurs died. I said a "long, long time ago". Then:

I- "mom, when were you married?"

me- "in 1998"

I- "did the dinosaurs die in nineteen, ninety- what year did you say?"

me- "1998?"

I- "yeah, did they die the year you got married?"

me- "no son, a few years before that!"

Trick-or-treating with a super hero

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:01:00 +0000

Dominique was a fairy, Emora a butterfly and Ivan was a super hero. He had a super hero outfit, a police badge, light saber and super hero face paint. I was so proud of him because there is scary stuff out there, but since he was our hero, he wanted to go in front and protect our fairy. At one point, a much older boy in a hideous mask was coming up to Ivan, Dominique and the even smaller boy with us and yelling at them, putting his face in theirs. The younger ones backed away, but Ivan stood his ground. He held out his light saber and wouldn't budge. The kid kept doing it, until I came in the line of fire. He may step in front of them, but when the 6 foot momma came into the picture, he took off his mask and kept saying how he was good looking now! I was proud of mr. Take-No-Risks for putting his life on the line for us. I'm also glad I can be there to make sure the little bullies out there know that my son's valiant attempts to stand his ground is not without power, much bigger and experienced than them!

Once home, the big kids wanted to try on the butterfly costume. Ivan thought a super hero should be able to fly, so he's a butterfly super hero? This costume has special meaning to us. Dominique was wearing it about the time that we lost my nephew Gordon. After that, the Lord spoke to me about butterflies and passing on, so we have it up as something we can see and hold to remember our precious Gordon, who went on before us. Jenn, John and Imogen, our love goes out to you as you remember, grieve and celebrate Gordon.

Happy Halloween!

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 05:29:00 +0000

It is 12:30 am, so technically it is no longer halloween, but I am still up boiling pumpkin and baking pumpkin seeds. After I read to the kids getting them ready for bed, as I was checking the pumpkin, Ivan came up to me and asked me "mom, why do you have to do all the work?" I'm sure mommies the world over would like to know the answer to that question! ha, ha. No, Brian works hard too, the kids just don't see it most of the time.

We had a super busy day. Ivan had his last soccer game. It was vicious! Their most intense game ever. It was like they all stepped it up 10 notches, except Ivan, who continued to make us smile as he waved to us from the field and avoided the ball. We kept telling him not to be afraid of the ball. He informed me that the ball might make him fall, which in fact it did once when he made the effort to kick it, so I guess that was that. Mr. cautious, think-it-through, planner has determined that the ball is a danger to his pride and many body parts. He's a smart guy I tell you. Not very spontaneous, but that is not always the best plan of action either.

I had been so determined to not dress up and to make Brian go out for the trick-or-treating while Emora and I gave out candy, but I was duped by the Halloween dupster. We were invited to a dress-up birthday party at the last minute, so I drug the kids and became a butterfly. I since discovered that each of my kid's have had costumes connected to me. Ivan was my birthday gift his 1st halloween (he wore a gift bag, tissue and card), Dominique was "mommy's little helper" last year (with a little baker's outfit and wooden spoon) and I was a mommy butterfly with Emora as my baby butterfly this year. I still need to get all the pictures uploaded. But here are some teasers.

Ivan loved bowling. Dominique had one really good shot when she rolled it from between her legs.

Here are two of the three pumpkins currently in pots, right before they were carved. Ivan and Dominique each drew the face they wanted and so wanted to help me cut them.

soccer video

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:35:00 +0000

Ivan has his last soccer game on Sat. It has been exciting to see him trying something new, but I am looking forward to having our Sat. mornings free again and Brian not having to skip out of work early to take all 3 kids to practice (which coincides with the water aerobics class I teach).

The library called me today to see if I'd talk to the newspaper about using the library since I am a frequent user. Who me? Just because we're up there at least once a week and have two bags, or three of materials at a time? OK, yeah, we're very frequent users. We use about everything they have up there- kid's library time, special programs, children's dvd, sound recordings, computers, puzzles fiction and non, adult fiction and non, adult dvds and documentaries... Can you tell we love the library? Hey, it's free and I'm part scottish and they brought me a book I wanted to read from New York the other month. How cool is that? Yep, for FREE! Plus it's just down the street from us. They brought me 4 books this week from all around the city. When do I have time to read? Well, I'm still nursing Emora, so that restricts my movement. Then once the kids are in bed usually. I can read pretty fast though when it's interesting.

Do you use the library? What do you use there the most?

Emora's 1st halloween party

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:34:00 +0000

A couple of weekends ago, the girls and I went to a halloween party for my water aerobics' class. I got to see all the babies that were with us in class all that time, only now they were decked out in costumes. These older siblings were also in class a few years earlier. The girls are all born within a month or so of each other, but the babies are a little further spread apart. It's always so great to see the babies after all our "hard" work in the water.

Emora is wearing the same costume Dominique used for her 1st year. We have it as a room decoration. I'm glad I'm not making any costumes this year. Dominique is going to be a fairy. We have an outfit and I'm going to paint her face. Ivan wants to be a mega super hero. This includes an outfit we have, a police badge, his light saber and super hero face paint. Yeah, watch out!

Do you have any halloween traditions? If you have young kids, what will their costumes be this year? Are you dressing up?

the hay ride

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:16:00 +0000

Here are some pictures from the hay ride. The kids love tractors and riding things, so this was pretty high on the scale of fun. Emora is still wanting us to help her walk everywhere. Each morning we find her in her crib standing up and she pulls herself up on stuff all the time. She now does the full crawl on knees and hands, but will make it known that she wants up on her feet if anyone is in reach.

When and where was your favorite hay ride?

pumpkins and parks

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:58:00 +0000

Sat. we went to the pumpkin patch. We already had 3 good sized pumpkins at home, so we just got 5 little decorative ones out at the patch. Pictures to follow I'm sure once we have them decorated. We got one for each of us and are going to color us on them. Should be fun. The kids enjoyed seeing all the different pumpkins and loved the hay ride. Had to go on that twice.

These pics were from a park visit with our friend Logan and his mom, Valerie who live on our street. The boys liked to pretend they were flying the airplane, then they all played in the pretend fire truck. This was a while back, since it was the day I found out that Emora had 3 teeth coming in, which quickly became 4 teeth coming in.

How many pumpkins do you have at home? What all do you use them for?

We will draw on the small ones. Carve the big ones and cook them all for pumpkin recipes all year! We like to roast the seeds and throw the skin in the compost. It's fun to us to use them all up!

hope these make you smile!

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 15:40:00 +0000

Ivan made himself a pretend lunch from playdough.

Dominique made herself a pretend lunch too.

From nanna's visit.

that's one cool girl.

Our best shot of her top teeth coming in. Bottoms are coming up too, hiding under that big tongue.

our yesterday

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 03:25:00 +0000

We had a big day. Ivan had his last session of speech therapy. It was so sweet. Last week, Miss Robyn said that she was sad that he was doing so well because that meant she wouldn't see him anymore. After, he said to me that he was sad because "I love Miss Robyn SO much". So he picked out a wooden box with a heart handle and painted it for miss Robyn with her name on it. This week, he was not wanting to say the words. He hesitated each time, wondering if he should say it right, because he hated it being his last time. She showed him the same evaluation tool she used the first day, when he said "tup" for cup and this time he said "cup". We are glad to have our schedule more open again, but we did really love Miss Robyn. She gave us so much, not just with the help he got to speak right, but with the positive "classroom like" experience.

We went to Ivan's favorite lunch McDonald's and he had soccer practice that night. Also, Nanna spent her last day here. She took all three kids out to pizza and ice cream so that Brian and I could go out for a grown up meal. Did you know they have tables at restaurants for just two people? They are so cute! ha, ha. We went to our favorite place, about the only place we eat out and the manager came up to us and said he was a bit surprised to see us without our entourage (ie. 3 noisy, cup spilling, mess making kids- but he said it a lot nicer).

Nanna did great with the kids which is an amazing feat. She was also shocked that Emora could pack away so much food and gave our girl her first taste of ice cream. I'm pretty sure that is not on the recommended food chart for her age, and Nanna informed me that she ate the whole cup worth of it, but she didn't puke the night away and slept like a pro, so maybe she is ready for dairy foods! ha, ha. Give it to Nanna to figure it out. Yeah Nanna! I am looking forward to weaning her. Her new teeth are not the most comfortable fit, but we'll make it a few more months of nursing I'm sure.

happy 5th Ivan!

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:14:00 +0000

Ivan decided that since he doesn't want to share birthdays anymore that he is going to always have his on the 18th from now on. He will still turn ages on the 20th, but the 18th is his day. Fine with me, I didn't know if I liked sharing all that much either! ha, ha. The party was fun. We were trying to do it smaller, so we just invited 6 of his friends, with their siblings and parents which made it huge. Usually only half of the people we invite make it, but this time everyone did. So we were very pleased when the day turned out so pretty and the kids could terrorize the backyard. We would have never fit in the house. Ivan got way too many gifts, but was a perfect birthday boy during his party, very thankful and agreeable, so that was nice.

He had a bat theme and we made a volcano cake with bats flying around it and a batman coming out of it. It was half chocolate, half strawberry with choc. and strawberry icing (box cakes!). No pinata this year!!! Too much work and money. We got cheap pizza and it was so much better on our stress level than trying to grill for everyone. I'm trying to convince Ivan to wear his I'm 5 hand shirt that we made with all his little guests at the party. 3 friends didn't want to do their hand print, which was probably good since we ran out of room. We have all been having a blast playing with Ivan's toys. Two of them we haven't gotten to try yet because they involve rocket like blasting outside and it has been very windy today.

Nana is also here and took us out to a wonderful birthday dinner. I think she is also going to keep the kids so that Brian and I can go out tomorrow for MY birthday ;) Ivan won't be totally left out. He has his last speech therapy lesson tomorrow, after which we will bequest his special requested for lunch at McDonalds.

Should I ask?

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 03:22:00 +0000

I had told the kids to get into bed, while I went to get water. When I came to their door, it was closed. I opened it and Dominique was standing on their book nook/toy box. She looked at me, her eyes grew wide and face alarmed. She grabed her butt and jumped down, walking backwards to the bed face toward me shielding her butt. Should I ask what she was doing?

NO! Because I've been disciplining them all day and it's time to get in bed and we are all too tired to deal with another thing!! ha, ha. That's called the lazy parent, or picking your battles, whichever slant you feel like giving it that day.

We did have a good day. I took the kids to Teepee Village at a local university. The sororities each research a tribe, create a camp and display and discuss it to the hundreds of school kids that invade the campus for the occasion. What was hard was that Ivan and Dominique acted like scared kids I keep locked in their rooms! Emora wanted to be carried, so I held her and pushed the stroller while the other two hid behind my legs. After talking to a friend and hearing Ivan retell all that he had heard (so he really was listening!), I realized that it is his fear of all things new that spurred the behaviors in him and Dominique (who was following suit) and that one of the ways to help him gain confidence is to keep doing new things with him. He kept saying how he only wanted to be with our friends or do our regular things and not be around people he didn't know. But then you could tell he was excited about all the things he had learned.

Our Saturday mornings

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 03:22:00 +0000

This is what our Saturday mornings look like these days. It is a good thing Brian is mister organized and on time, because otherwise we would never get our crew there in time for kick-off. As it is, we are usually one of the first and Ivan can warm up some with the coach and other players. He is getting more confident each time. There are only a few games left though and I don't think we will cry too much over getting to sleep in again. I especially love these mornings when it is dark and cold. The kids don't realize that it is time to get up and I can sometimes get an extra 30 min. or hour under the covers- ahhhh. Gotta love it while it lasts.

I found this last video in my file that I had uploaded months ago. I can't post any of our recent videos or pics since they are still trapped in the old computer. But Brian ordered a cable today where we may be able to recover them. This was when his mom visited and we were trying to get a group picture. We couldn't figure out why the camera was not responding as normal, until we uploaded them and realized that it was on video setting!!! Do we look like idiots or what?

video group portrait

Loving face paint!

noreply@blogger.com (Angela) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 03:58:00 +0000

We recently got a book with pictures of different facepaint creations and real face paint. First of all, the paint ROCKS! It is so way better than the halloween makeup out there. So far, Dominique has been a fairy and gotten fake flip flops twice. Ivan was a super hero, then rocket from the Little Eintein's videos and this flame guy. Dominique is really into the painted flip flops right now. She was in a fancy dress the second time I painted them, so that time I made up my own design to match her denim dress accented with flowers and pink ribbon. Ivan takes the longest time to pick. He likes the full face creations.