It's quiet.

They've all gone back to school. Libby and I are still in PJs and there is no fighting or excessive whining going on. We did have a good break, but I am glad to get some quiet again.

Spring Break

is almost over. The kids go back to school on Monday. We've had a good week, but I'm ready for my regular routine to be back. We've gone to the library several times this week because they have had activities nearly every day. Crafts and games and today is karaoke. We've had a bonfire supper at the grandparent's house.

And the big one is we've made lots and lots of stuff from the Toymaker. It's a website put up by a childrens book illustrator. She has paper dolls and little boxes to fold and pin wheels and cootie catchers and racing turtles and a little car and bunny bowling. It's kept the three youngest quite entertained.

My printer has been broken for six months and I finally went out and bought one last week because I wanted to be sure we could make Toymaker toys this week. Staples even had a rebate offer in place to make printer buying easier. Wasn't that nice of them? I'm very glad I did. Just watching them quietly cutting and pasting their little paper toys in near perfect harmony has been totally worth the price of the printer.

I don't play the games

We don't have green eggs or green pancakes on St. Patrick's Day. I don't wear green, although I encourage my children to do so only to avoid the pinching thing. I'm not Irish or Catholic and I don't drink beer. What's to celebrate?

I do make corned beef every year. that's a tradition I can stand behind.

As long as there's no cabbage, because that's just going too far.

My mother better not gloat

My oldest two children are not allowed to talk to one another today. I'm working on keeping them in separate rooms as well.

Oh and why is it that you can raise children from infancy properly pronouncing a word and they still say freaky things like seee-rup ten years later? They're all doing it now. It makes me want to ban Saturday morning pancakes just to avoid the word. sir-up. sir-up, sir-up. Thank you.









And which side of the bed do you think is the right one? huh? I personally would have preferred getting up on the side of the bed that didn't have arguing children. I might go back to bed and see if I can wake up right this time.

Some Days You Just Shouldn't Leave the House

Today is Wednesday. That means it's library day at our house. The local library does a preschool reading hour on Wednesday mornings and Libby loves to go. I decided to brave it even though I'm watching my 1 year old nephew. (He tried running off last week and got halfway to the circulation desk before I caught him.)

Libby did not seem to be enjoying herself. Lately, she won't sit on the rug with the other kids during story time. She wants to just hang out by my knee the whole time. She won't participate in singing time either. I started feeling like it wasn't worth it to be there. Then she decided she didn't want to sit on the chair and do the craft.

I said it was time to go. All that was left was the craft and if she wasn't going to participate we didn't need to be there. The room was crowded and the children's reading area is pretty much reserved for story time during this hour. I told her she could choose three books and then we were leaving.

She said she didn't want to pick any books. I said fine let's go. I got her out of the children's reading area by carrying her. She started screaming that she did want three books, but there was no way in heck I was going back to a room full of sympathy smiles from the other mommies and a grimace from the children's librarian who already doesn't like me (no clue why really, she just doesn't like me or my kids.)

I had to carry Libby all the way out to the van. She fought me getting her back into her seat and buckled. This was all tons of fun to do while I also carried my one year old nephew who's completely confunded by her behavior.

As I finally got the buckle around my lovely little girl she let it drop: "I want a new mommy!" she sobbed.

As we drove down the street over and over I could hear from the back seat: "I want Jesus to make me a new Mommy!"

Lovely. She's going to be so fun at 16.

Faking It

Our stake holds a sweetheart ball every year close to Valentine's Day. Steve and I always go. We have a great time and really enjoy getting out and dancing. We love going with friends because it gives us some camouflage for our goofiness.

Because we are goofy. Neither one of us has ever had any real dancing lessons (Beehive/Scout Cotillions don't count.) We really don't know what we are doing, but I learned a long time ago that if I just followed Steve I'd have a good time. He knows he can't look good trying to be serious, so he just acts goofy with as much confidence as possible.

We hit the dance floor and move all over pretending we know what we are doing when we don't. Sometimes we watch the other couples to see what they are doing. that's how we figured out this Waltz spin that's really fun to do. Of course, he can't just lead me into it, we have to discuss it first, "want to do the spin thing?" "which direction are we going?" "ok, we go . . . now!" Which cracks me up because the couples we're trying to copy just start spinning, no need to talk about it. Of course, neither of us is actually waltzing before we do the spin thing.

Fred and Ginger we are not.

So needless to say I was surprised to learn yesterday that there is a woman in our ward who thinks we are good dancers. It made me smile to hear her compliment. It also made me realize the power of confidence. If you have to fake it, fake it with feeling. You might actually fool someone.

The problem with lever handled door knobs

is that your cat will figure out how to use them. Unfortunately, he won't open the bathroom door to get to his litter box if that's been closed accidentally. He only opens the laundry room door. His food is in the laundry room and he'll try and get in there even if he's been fed recently. Apparently, unlimited access to food behind a closed and latched door trumps the carefully measured food easily accessible in the food dish.

How times change

I've been watching my children do valentines this week. We went to the store and chose the design they found most innocuous but still with the best cool factor. Then we brought them home so they could write their class names on them. This part is still the same as I remember. The class lists so no one gets forgotten or has their name misspelled. The careful selection of which design sends the least worst message to the person indicated. The neatly writing of the names at the beginning quickly degenerating into an illegible scrawl by the time you get to "to: Wally From: Amy." Poor Wally probably could never read any of the names on his Vallentines.

The difference is that my children never have to deal with stupid cards that say horrible things like "Be my Valentine!" or "Be mine!" I never wanted anyone to "Be mine!" yet every year I had to carefully separate out the "be mine"s from the "be my Valentine"s because the "be mine"s sent a slightly more ambiguous message and were the least worst choice for the boys in the class. There would be one or two designs that were message neutral (the beloved "Happy Valentine's Day!") and those went to the scuzzy boys that you didn't want to even get a whiff of the wrong idea much less look at it. Those neutral cards were highly prized and I never even had enough to cover the scuzzy boys much less the whole class.

Apparently though, other 70's-80's children remember the years of careful Valentine sorting in classes where everyone had to give to everyone. Those kids are now working for cheap Valentine corporations and designing those little cards that my kids give away every year. Not one of of these boxes of Valentines has a "Be mine!" anywhere near it. Matthew was sorting his animal designs by which animal he thought the kid might like. Rilla sorted them by which gender was pictured on the front of the card. Neither one of them had the horror of desperately trying not to make anyone think they were in love with them.

I love this so much that I might send a Valentine to the Valentine companies myself just as a thank you.

It won't say "Be mine!"

He Lived

Last night Steve helped me make home made chicken nuggets. It's quite a process and since he requested them, I let him bread them while I baked oven fries and fried the chicken. The oven fries were a bit slower getting done than the chicken nuggets and Steve was feeling antsy for dinner. He kept opening the oven to peek in.

I said, "they'll be done a lot faster if you stop opening the oven door."

"oh yeah. Right." He says in his lovely regressed back 20 years voice. "I never took you for an old wife."

I had to inform him that it wasn't a superstition; it was scientific fact that the inside of an oven can drop by as much as 25 degrees every time you open the oven door, so every time he peeked he made dinner take just a little bit longer. He didn't believe me.

At this point he realized that I was starting to get a bit annoyed with him over this, so he, of course, had to wind me up. We had a lovely discussion where I was getting more annoyed and he was having more fun for the next couple of minutes before I declared dinner done just so I could get him to shut up.

My parting remark right before I took out the oven fries was something along the lines of "believe whatever you want, but an oven looses 25 degrees when you open the door."

"Oh sure" he said, "maybe in AAAAAAmy-land," drawn out and fully accented in the way only someone who made good use of his time as a 5th grade boy can do.

I was speechless. And annoyed. And holding a very hot pan of oven fries.

"That's a hot pan, isn't it?" he asked cringing.

"Yes, dear. It's 450 degrees hot."

"Well technically, it's 425 degrees hot."






And then the kids spent the rest of the night saying "Amy-land" to me and then giggling.

Just try and beat this cuteness

This is Libby doing yoga.

You might recognize the white rectangle under her feet as a Wii balance board.
You might even recognize her yoga move.
It's a sun salutation. It's also her favorite. She's been caught trying to do it without the Wii Fit just because she felt like doing it again.
She works really hard at doing it right. This of course is not the sun salutation. It's a sit up maneuver that I don't even try to do. She doesn't care if it's hard. She just wants to play with the Wii like everyone else.

His Head is Banging

Joshua recently discovered his dad's old Queensryche album. He steals my boom box and carries around the house with Queensryche turned up as loud as he dares listen to it. (seriously outdated term here. Is there another one or am I just a loser because I can't say he steals my iPod dock? and are we even bigger losers because he's listening to the original tape and not a CD even? Is the oringal tape vintage cool now? Should I not even mention that I still have the boom box Steve bought me for Christmas when we were engaged that doesn't even have a CD player, just a double tape deck? It does have a mic jack though so if you have the right cord it can be used as an MP3 player speaker thingy. We have the right cord. See? We're not totally stuck in 1985.)

The other day Joshua had a friend over. He told his friend to listen to the album because it was cool. (And you're missing out because you can't hear Joshua say cool. He says it in this intense, breathy way like being cool is the very best thing anything could be.) The friend listens for a minute and says, "hey, that sounds like the songs on Guitar Hero."

These boys make me feel old.

Sometimes it takes me awhile

just as a reminder, we don't get very good TV reception. PBS only. Which means there's not a lot for me to watch during the day. Unless I want to spend the time between 1 and 3 watching a bad art show, a mediocre cooking show, and last night's Charlie Rose, there's nothing for grown ups until 7pm.

We also have an elliptical machine. It sort of faced the side of the entertainment center so you could kind of see a small bit of the tv if you craned your neck just right, which meant falling off the elliptical.

This meant that I had two things available to me to distract me from the fact that I was trying to kill myself through pain and torture: the clock and a book. The clock is a bad idea. the second hand moves too slowly and I feel every tick of the minute hand as a slow, rising burn in my thighs. The book is slightly better, but only slightly because I bounce on an elliptical. lots. The words get a bit shaky and hard to follow. I tried reading scriptures and exercising at the same time. Those tiny little lines are tough to read when they are bouncing up and down. I burned through my reading quickly but it's hard to get anything from it when I spent the last half of my reading time breathing fake curses under my breath and re-reading the last verse because the meaning of it escaped me the first three times through it.

Until yesterday. When I remembered that the eleptical is actually right next to my computer. The computer that has Hulu.com and instant viewing from Netflix. I've managed to up my exercise time by ten minutes just by forcing myself to keep going through two episodes of a sitcom. Of course, that means that Libby has to come and click the "next" and "full screen" buttons for me on the Netflix viewer, but hey, having a four year old who can read has to be good for something, right?

I did some sewing this afternoon. I had this jumper cut out for Libby and i whipped it together in under an hour, standard stupid mistake included. (because I can't sew anything without making at least one stupid mistake and it's always different.)

Isn't she cute? She loves the jumper. Unfortunately, I forgot to measure for length and it's a bit shorter than than I like her dresses to be. Luckily the whole leggings with dresses thing is still popular. ;) The photo above is my favorite from this afternoon, however, Libby herself is more partial to the one below:Of course, she's four and sometimes her taste is a bit suspect.

She writes too.

There's something about learning to read that makes children want to write as well. At least my children. Libby's reached that stage, now. Right now, she's sitting next to me with a drawing she did writing "once a upon a time" across the top.

Learning to read stories makes them all want to write stories, too.

At least my kids.

BTW, I forgot to take pictures of most of my Christmas gifts. I will try to get pics of the ones I gave the kids soon. I'm going to have to beg for pictures of the bunnies from my sister. They were really adorable.

Only Steve

could make de-boning turkey soup into an anatomy lesson.

Steve cooks on Sunday. We had a turkey carcass in the fridge that absolutely had to be used by Sunday. I helped him make soup. This meant that he got to do the yucky job of separating out the meat from the bones after the broth had boiled for several hours. H started pulling out bones and naming the parts to the kids. He pointed out all the different parts of a back bone and talked about how it related to a human back bone. He even told the kids what part of the body the wishbone is, something I didn't even know. (It's the bird's collar bone.)

Sarah and Joshua were fascinated.

I just had to laugh. Only Steve would find a way to make bird bones interesting.

Everything is Cuter When It's Small

Especially houses.

It opens up to show a little front yard and a wild wallpaper. This is a doll house I made for one family of nieces and nephews. There are four kids all under eight in the family. I think they will enjoy this. I followed the pattern on the blog UK Lass in the US.
I made mine a little bit bigger, 5x5x7 rather than 4x4x6. If I were to make one that size again it would be a 5x5x8 because of the construction method the bigger side would be easier to work with. I will be making another one for Libby because I think she would fall apart if she doesn't get one complete with a bunny family to go inside. (She's sitting on my lap reading as I type and just giggled and danced at the very mention of it.) I will also be doing either button tabs or velcro tabs in the future because the elastic was so hard to work with and I'm having a hard time with one loop in particular. I am also making a little barn (shown in the same link) for my nephew for Christmas.

If you do want to make one of these, keep in mind they take a long time to make. I invested over six hours in that house yesterday. I think a second one won't take quite so much time, but I don't think I'll save much more than an hour if I'm lucky.

They are worth it though. :) This house is the epitome of cuteness.

All Done

With the Christmas dresses anyway. I still have several more projects to do.

Sarah looks cute doesn't she?

She says thank you.

She likes to curtsy too. I think she's the one that taught it to Libby actually. Notice the cummerbund just like her sisters? I'm feeling particularly clever these days. You should see the doll dress that looks exactly like one of Libby's summer dresses right down to the orange ribbon. (You probably will after Christmas. It's a present.)

oh and spin. Every girl loves to spin. She has a bow in back too.


We started a little later than I wanted to when we headed out, but the positive side was I got sunset pictures.

Another mouth to feed

This is Leo.

Leo is just your average orange tabby. He's also a bit camera shy so this is the best I've got. It's not even Caterday worthy. We'll have to work on that.

He's technically Joshua's cat. We had a friend who had managed to acquire too many pets and asked us to take one of their cats for them. They offered the cat that Josh had bonded with this summer. He's cuddly and playful, not mean in anyway. He also doesn't really like Peaches, but he'll just have to deal with that.

If it weren't for the fact that his litter box stinks to high heaven all the time, I'd be 100% for the little guy. I can't handle litter box stench. Joshua is required to clean it out every morning and we're using expensive "multiple cat" litter. Not helping. What's also not helping is the fact that the cat keeps missing. How can he not know his butt's in the wrong place?

As soon as he's fixed (Thursday) he'll be more of an indoor/outdoor cat and hopefully that will translate to less litter box stench. I need less stench.

Marilla's Christmas Dress

I finished Marilla's dress! I'm losing a bit of steam lately on these projects I need to get moving faster if I'm going to be done with all my Christmas projects in time.

anyway, same pattern as Libby's, and to be frank the same size around, but a size 6 in length. Rilla's a skinny one. ;)
Gotta have the big bow. Rilla's sash is cut from the border design, so I left them rectangular to show off the print better.

With Rilla's I also cut the bodice from the border and left her cummerbund removable. I doubt we'll ever wear it without the cummerbund, but it does give us another option if we want it.

Detail shot of the edge of the skirt. I do love this fabric. I love the green and black and gold on this. So pretty.

And of course, the doll, Gracie, got a matching dress!

Whew! Now onto Sarah's. Hers is turquoise and her border design has elephants in it. She wants a cummerbund and full skirt as well. We chose the pattern for the bodice style we like and I'll cut a skirt in a basic rectangle to fit like we want it to fit. The rectangle shape isn't the most flattering skirt shape but it has to be that way so we don't cut off the poor elephants.

Nothing To Say

Really. I feel like I need to update my blog but nothing much has happened this week worth reporting.

I have a few more wrestling pictures from Sarah's last match. She lost both matches but she fought hard. Both wrestlers were more experienced than she is and were able to control the match.

Joshua is obsessed with paper airplanes. He makes several a day, throws them around the house, and then leaves them there on the floor. He keeps trying to find the perfect paper airplane, whatever that means.

Rilla is excited to get to try on her Christmas dress today. I'll be sewing in the zipper today and finishing the cumberbund. It looks like Libby's except hers is green.

Matt is still a spelling freak. Libby brought home magnetic letters from a library reading class this week and it's Matt who plays with them. He loves to spell words. Word World on PBS is his favorite TV show.

Libby decided to make a shopping list this week. We needed TOES (toys) and a princess car. She is writing more words now that she's more comfortable with reading. She's progressing well and is now about a mid 1st grade reading level.

Tomorrow we're going to do family pictures and we're going to the zoo. We tried to go last week but the Africa exhibit was closed and that's the reason we were going. I'm excited to get to use one of the parks in Boise for the pictures. I'll have lots to say next week, I'm sure.