Happy Halloween

C had the show stopper this year, a garden gnome or The Traveling Gnome, or just a gnome.  Whatever, it was a great costume and he got tons of compliments...so bonus!  Ms. A is a strawberry and  kudos to Old Navy, that little beauty cost $10 and it was well-made, warm, and (ahem) super cute!  K was a super tough ninja.  His second choice.  He had ordered a Robin Hood costume but Amazon cancelled the order a couple days after it was placed so he settled for this one and it suits him.  He was an excellent ninja.  In the back you see King Tut.  He will be shaving that stash tomorrow and I will be celebrating one of my favorite annual holidays.  November 1, a.k.a., the end of Stash-tober.  I was the Queen Bee.  Love that costume.  I wore it for work and it was great.

Not pictured in costume is Little K.  She went to bed early with a fever.  She woke up as the trick-or-treaters returned.  She had fun playing with A for a little while and then she got a bit fussy.  Fussy was followed by cuddly which I love.  I probably shouldn't enjoy it but there is something wonderful about the sick snuggles.  Not that I want her to be sick, but it is like the silver lining of having a sick baby.

And because I never get pumpkin carving pictures...

Ms. A spent most of her time moving the pumpkin guts and the pumpkin seeds from one container to another.  The hoarder in her tried to stash some slimy pumpkin seeds in a pencil box and hide it in her toy basket.  I had to draw the line...

Off to bed...

Ms. A has a penchant for mess making.  She can completely alter the landscape of a room in mere seconds.  I (usually with help from the boys) generally attempt to repair the damage after she has been tucked in.  This evening however, with the boys still away at a soccer game with Johan, I decided to enlist Ms. A in "clean-up."  She initially dug in when I asked her to help put the train tracks away, but ultimately she did a fair job of helping.

When we got to the living room, she became distracted with wanting to eat and color.  So I managed a good clean-up.  Ms. A turned around and looking at our now tidy living room, calmly announced, "I need make a mess."  And she was serious!  She then set about re-scattering the odd assortment of items that she manages to find each day.  Lego men, crayons, golf balls, blocks, papers, she isn't picky...

I had to insist that the mess making was done, we were off to bed.  So I advised her, as I do almost every night, to get her bedtime things.  Every night she takes something different to bed.  Books, stuffed animals...you never know what she will bring

Tonight she gathered a classic assortment.  When she arrived bedside for story time she had the following:

It was all contained nicely in a Rubbermaid shoebox; K's favorite stuffed puppy that he slept with every night for many years, a random Beanie Baby iguana, an old Blackberry, a Lego tiger, and K's mason jar full of quarters.

She cracks us up.  She scatters so much stuff around the house, but she is always packing random collections of things into random containers; paper bags, boxes, Tupperware, baskets, etc.  I believe that last night she slept with K's puppy again along with a dead bug of unknown origin sealed in a  Tupperware container.

Top Shelf

I really wish I had written down all the funny things the kids have said to me over the years.  There have been some really good ones, sadly, they all buried in the recesses of my mind now...

Here is the latest from Ms. A:

I was giving her one Skittle as a reward for going potty on the toilet.  She of course negotiated, "I think I need couple."  She wanted more than one.  So I gave her two.  And she was happy enough to jump up and down, cheering, "One, two! One, two!"  When I moved to put the Skittles back onto the top shelf of the pantry Ms. A noted, "Ohhhhhh you put that up there?!?"  "Ohhhhhh, so KiKi can't get them." [she calls little K KiKi pronounced K-eye K-eye]

I couldn't hide my laughter.  Little K can't even stand up.

Yep, little Ms. movies in the middle of the night I am putting the Skittles up high so your infant sister can't get them.

Movies after Midnight???

Ms. A is in an awful phase, she is not sleeping through the night.  Around midnight, nightly she awakes and storms into our bedroom.  Without intending to stomp, her little foot steps can shake the house.  Ms. A brings with her whatever books we read at bedtime, as many stuffed animals as she can carry, her sippy cup of water, and her almost empty sippy cup of yogi (she gets kefir every night before bed).  Along the way from her bedroom she typically drops all of said items in the hallway.  With a loud "gasp" and a flourish she scoops everything up and continues on her way, until she again drops everything and scoops it up.  At this time either Johan or myself, now wide awake, run to her aid.  When we get her and her possessions resettled into our bed she thrashes around for a bit before falling into a less than restful sleep.  Ms. A talks in her sleep.  Actually she waves her arms and legs around calling out "No!"

Last night the routine was unvaried, until sometime after 1:00 AM.  A had already presented herself in our bedroom.  Her books, animals, and sippy cups were in place.  Johan and I were both squished over to the very edge of our king size bed while Ms. A moved about on the other two-thirds of the mattress.  At some point Johan was awakened by...stillness.  Ms. A was no longer in our bed.  He sat up and was able to peer out into the darkness of the living room.  Johan spotted a blonde little girl perched on the sofa in the middle of the night.  As Johan approached he realized Ms. A was staring at one of the boys' Kindle Fires.  A looked up at him, "I watching movie!" she announced before turning back to the tablet.

Ms. A had gotten out of bed all by herself in the middle of the night.  She went out into the living room, located a Kindle Fire, turned it on, found the Netflix application, selected it, and choose a movie.  Aside from the obvious entertainment factor of the story, we are fairly concerned.  I don't know if this behavior would fall into the "sneaky" category, but it certainly falls into the "gutsy" and "defiance" categories.  C and big K would never, never, not ever have done something like this...  Oh, Ms. A, what do you have in store for us???

Love...Hate...

Miss. A and Big K love to hate each other.  They are constantly messing with each other, teasing to the point of anger.  Well the anger is only from Miss. A.  K just shrugs her off, he understands that she is 2 years old.  But he loves to chase her, steal toys from her, poke at her, etc.  He knows exactly how to get her riled up, and when she is riled up, she is ON FIRE!

At the end of this video clip A screams out, "No K!"  All because he dared to walk up behind me as I was filming/chatting with her.  With her eyes you can almost see her daring him to try...  She thought he was going to "sleep" in the bed that she made for her and little K.

At the same time that she can't stand him and won't allow him to touch her toys or be around her, or, gasp talk to her baby (little K), she always wants to know where he is.  If Big K is out of sight, Miss. A will ask, "Where K go?"  I answer, and she asserts, "Oh, I go with K."

Last night on our way home from C's cross-country meet in Ashland we saw this:

That was taken only moments after Miss. A had been yelling, "No, K, NO TOUCH ME!" We were winding our way home on highway 66 (super curvy road) and K was being pushed toward her on some of the turns, causing him to brush against her.  When she fell asleep, his shoulder was jut perfect for her...

And then this evening after we dropped the boys off at J and J's house Miss. A was absolutely devastated.  She wanted her boys to come home with her and found it utterly inconceivable that we would leave them anywhere else.

After I stopped filming her outburst she exclaimed, "I look at pictures!"  She wanted to use my phone to flip through pictures.  I explained that she would have to speak with me nicely before she could have anything.  She pulled herself together and asked for my phone with nice words.  The first thing she flipped to was, of course the video I had just made (see above).  She instantly burst into tears again, this time it was an unrelenting chorus of, "My boys!  I want C, I want K.  My boys!  I want C, I want K...."  And on she went, all the way home...

Theatrical Miss. A loves her boys!

Dry Ice...and guns!

We get dry ice to keep our groceries cool on our Medford Costco runs.  The leftover dry ice goes to the mad scientists in house...

Those are socks on K's hands.  Very professional grade safety equipment.

They typically experiment with various things from our pantry to try to make a bigger "BOOM!" when they trap the dry ice in plastic water bottles.

Today there was not as much dry ice, so they had a few skimpy bottles that just would not explode.  The bottles did expand significantly and they were laying out in the yard.  We didn't want the boys to approach the unexploded bottles, not sure if maybe they were just expanding slowly.  So the boys tried to throw shoes at the bottles (that is what is littered around in our yard in the picture below).

It turns out it is not easy to hit a plastic bottle with a shoe from fifty feet away.  So C decided he should use a BB gun.  Johan who had been mildly interested in the whole project and only peripherally supervising heard the gun idea and was instantly on the deck ready to play.  C retrieved the gun.  And all three boys dawned giant grins and with giddy anticipation they took aim.  The BOOM was quite fulfilling.  It was the kind you can feel almost as much as you hear.  And they called out to me nearly simultaneously, "Did you hear that?"  Mmmmhmmmmm....I held my breath hoping that my two sleeping girls did not.

Bling!

If you know me for more than a few minutes you know that I am NOT a girly girl.  Never have been...

I don't paint my nails, I don't know how to apply eye make-up, I don't own pink clothes, and just generally don't do glitter.

And then, God gave me Miss. A.  I am a little bit scared.  She loves pink, she loves glitter, she loves pretty things.  We don't own any princess movies (I am opposed for many reasons, perhaps a topic for another post).  When I played a Jay Jay the Jet Plane movie for her the other day there was a princess movie preview.  A stopped in her tracks, "Mama, what that?  Mama, I need that!"

Today at Fred Meyer I let A walk through the store rather than ride in the shopping cart.  It was actually a really fun shopping trip.  Before we went in she scoured the shopping cart area looking for a car cart. I was relieved when there were none, those huge carts do not steer well.  But without the car cart A looked at me and announced, "I walk!"  So we made a deal, she would stay with us (me, little K, and big K) and I would let her walk.  She was so proud.  She helped me push the cart through the produce section, where I had to pull her away from the broccoli.  She grabbed a floret before I could stop her and quickly shoved it in her mouth.  She wanted to know the names of all the produce that I don't usually buy, and nearly pulled a tower of eggplant down onto herself.  But she was really doing a good job of listening and staying with me.

We left the produce and entered the dairy and A was still walking.  We were having a lot of fun, kind of chatting, and moving through the store.  K needed new running shoes so we crossed the entire store en route to the shoe department.  On the way, A ran up to just about anything that shined, or was fluffy, or pink.  "What dat?"  "Look! Mom!"  "Ooooo!"  A moved along with me, touching but not grabbing. When we got to the shoes, she asked, "Where A shoes mom?"  K was getting shoes, she wanted some too.  She actually really needed shoes.  She has been wearing one pair all summer and they are getting kind of stinky.

A and I moved further down the aisle to the toddler shoes.  She quickly spotted these:

Those are her legs by the way.  Actually she spotted the pink version of these, but I steered her to silver thinking it would go with more???

Then A nearly lost control when she spotted some extremely well packaged rainbow colored shoes with pictures of pretty little dolls on them.  It was a sensory overload of pink girlyness and she really wanted them.  "Oh, oh, dis one!  I like dis!"  I did my best at explaining that the shoes were of very poor quality and that the maker had merely done a good job (fantastic actually) packaging the product.

I tried to interest her in some aqua color converse all-stars.  But alas it was not to be.  She was already proudly parading around in her new sparkly shoes.  Big K didn't help.  When he finished choosing and trying on his new running shoes he came over and spotted A's new shoes.  He gushed about how pretty her sparkle shoes were.  Not to be outdone a nearby employee came over to tell A how pretty her new shoes were.

I was dreading informing A that the shoes would need to be taken off and put back into the box before we could take them home.  As I broke the news to her she started to jump up and resist.  But she stopped herself, listened to me explain that we have to pay for the shoes, blah blah blah.  Then she took off her new shoes and carefully returned them to the box before asking me to help her put her old Merrels on.

We had to race out of there, big K needed to get to soccer practice.  On our way out we passed scarves, and fun hats, sunglasses, and earrings.  All of which A dashed up to excitedly, admired, and then hustled to catch me.  It was so much fun!

Ponderosa Mud Run

Ponderosa hosted a mud run on Tuesday afternoon.  C was thrilled to participate.

Before I share all the pics, I have to take a moment for a big, big, big, giant hat's off to Mr. Dykstra who coaches the team and organized the event.  Tons of extra work went into this event.  His genuine enthusiasm and sincere desire to see the kids have fun are tremendous.  This community is so incredibly blessed to have a man like Mr. Dykstra willing to give his time and talent to these kids.  Mr. Dykstra is also the work horse behind most of our area chess tournaments.  THANK YOU Mr. Dykstra.

Mr. Dykstra dug one giant mud pit.  Many of the kids were up to their chest in muddy irrigation water.

That is C wading out of the mud (above).  And a shot of the boys' personal cheerleader (below).

Here is C struggling out of the mud.

And he is off...

C at the finish line looking quite muscly. 

Go C Go!!!!!

Almost 8 Months

I put the "big girl" chair on the counter the other day for little K.  She is almost 8 months, but still looks so tiny.

I could totally eat her up though!  So sweet and so cute!

My Moth

Yesterday afternoon A caught a moth in the yard.  She was absolutely thrilled.  When A is excited, her whole body shows it.  After catching the moth she successfully held onto it long enough that it lost its ability to fly.  Eventually she remembered our butterfly habitat, retrieved it, and placed the moth in his new home.  She pronounced him, "Safe and sound!"  But then had a slight change of heart, with a pouty face she whined, "Him want him mommy."

Below are two videos of A with her moth shortly after capture.  The moth later ended up in a pencil box and was "safe and sound," tucked into bed next to her.  When she came to our bed in the middle of the night she did not forget her moth.  She handed the box to Johan as he pulled her up into our bed.  The first thing I heard this morning as I slowly woke up, "Where my moth go?  Where my moth go?  Mama, where my moth go?"  She answered her own question.  Although given the desperation in her voice I don't believe it was intentionally rhetorical.  With relief she crawled deep under the blankets and announced, "Here him is!"

Yes, little K tipped herself over at the end of that one.  She was totally fine.

Side note:  I used to really hate bugs, spiders, insects, anything that could creep or crawl.  When C was just learning to walk and explore I made a conscious effort to play nice with bugs.  I didn't want to stifle his curiosity or impose my phobia on him.  It has turned out to be fairly successful therapy.  I am so much more comfortable around bugs today than 10 years ago.