About 900 pictures later....ld

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

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

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.

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!

Boxes make such wonderful toys.

I'm now dinosaur age!

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

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!

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

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

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?