Merry Christmas!

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas!!


(We went to the Henry Ford Museum to see the holiday train display and the kids wanted to see Santa. So I reluctantly agreed, but Bella pooped in her pants while we waited in line and Christian started clawing at me and screaming as I attempted to place him on Santa's lap, so only Benjamin ended up in the picture.) (Oh...and the marked up face is Benjamin's artistic rendition of a Lamanite Cat. During scripture study that morning we'd talked about how the Lamanites marked their faces before going to war. Just prior to the museum, he and Bella wanted to pretend to be cats. He began to draw whiskers on his face and remembered the Lamanites - thus the Lamanite Cat was born. Don't you love how a 5 year old mind works? He was very proud to show is art work to Santa and refused to wash it off before the picture. I was okay with that. It's just so truly Benjamin.)

She'd Make A Lousy Spy

I went shopping for Benjamin's Christmas presents this week. I had Bella along, assuming she'd be too busy looking at things for herself to notice what I was stuffing under the groceries. She noticed, though. Immediately. So I said, "These are for Benjamin. You can't tell him about them because they're for Christmas and they are secret so you don't want to ruin his surprise. Do you understand? Do you promise?" She dutifully nodded her head with a sneaky smile on her face showing her delight at being a part of this precious secret.

When we picked Benjamin up from school that day she managed to contain herself just long enough to get him home at which point she burst out with, "We bought you new footy pajamas for Christmas, Benjamin! And we got..." That's as far as she got before I tackled her to the floor, forcibly whispering through clenched teeth, "It's a secret! Remember!?!? Don't tell him!!" Again the smile and the head nod. She stood up and proudly called out, "It's a secret, so I'm not going to tell you that we bought you a ..." I couldn't believe my ears as she revealed yet more gifts!!! I threw my hand over her mouth, dragged her into her room and shut the door. Benjamin excitedly called after us, "Is it true? Is Bella right? Did you buy those things?!" "Bella has no idea what she's talking about! Just ignore her!" I yelled. Luckily he's young enough and naive enough that he believed me and after yet another discussion about not not not NOT telling ANYTHING about what we bought, she finally stopped spilling the beans.

Tomorrow I get to go Christmas shopping without her so I can have at least one item under the tree for him that he doesn't already know about!

A Picture Says a Thousand Words

By pure chance, I caught a classic photo today. One of those that sums up the whole story in one image. I was outside with the kids reveling in the first real snow fall of the year. I decided to take a picture of them playing, but just as the camera went off, Benjamin nailed Bella right in the face with a monstrous snowball and my camera caught this:


Seeing this picture tonight made me laugh outloud. That look on Benjamin's face is priceless. It was really fun playing outside today...except for Bella's incessant crying after that.

He had plenty more where that came from, though. Not even the woman behind the camera was safe.



Although I really think Bella spends more time crying or whining than anything else lately. What is it with three year old girls and their whiny crying all day long?? She cries over every piddly little thing. Benjamin took my toy, I can't get my shoes on, I don't want to eat that, I want to watch a movie, I don't want to brush my hair....all while crying hysterically. Mostly, though, lately it's the cold. She is a total wimp about the cold but she refuses to dress appropriately because her snow clothes aren't as cute. (She complained non-stop about them as she put them on today.) We all wanted to go to the park yesterday and here she is after 5 minutes outside:


I told her to wear pants and better shoes because she was going to be cold, but she responded with, "I don't care," and left the house. I ended up taking off my jacket and letting her sit on it with it wrapped around her. Even wrapped up, she cried hysterically the entire time we were there until Benjamin said, "I don't like this park with all the crying," and we went home. Oh Bella, we love you, but you drive us crazy.

Other Christmas season happenings: Benjamin was a shepherd/inn keeper in our ward's nativity play. So cute. I was stage mom, so I couldn't take any other pictures of the play, but I got this one beforehand with his fellow inn keepers/shepherds.


It was my job to move the sheep and the inn, whisper lines to panicked actors, and keep a certain wiseman from taking a bathroom break 30 seconds before his cue. Benjamin was so excited to be in it. That morning the first thing he told me was, "I can't believe it's going to be ME on stage!" They all did great.

I also took Benjamin to see The Nutcracker ballet. I love the ballet and I really wanted to share that experience with Benjamin. I would have taken Bella too if I'd thought she'd last through it, but she's really not ready. In a few years. But the kids and I have watched lots of ballet performances online and he's always been very interested, so I took a chance on him. It went great. He loved it and had lots of great questions and comments and was perfectly behaved the whole time. Even got this cute little pic of him on stage with the nutcracker display. The ushers got mad at us for getting on stage, but I snapped the shot before they could shoo us off. :)


Another Christmas cuteness - this is the note Benjamin wrote for Santa and told me I needed to lay with the milk and cookies.


So cute! I've actually tried very hard to not perpetuate the Santa myth. It's been one of those things that makes me very uncomfortable - lying to my kids while they get punished for lying. Yet, despite the fact that I've never talked to them about Santa and even slipped in a few "Santa is really just pretend" comments, they get so bombarded with it everywhere that they still believe. I'm not going to ruin their fun. I will definitely put out a plate of cookies and this note.

We're getting very excited for Christmas. I had them video record their Christmas wishes. That was fun to see. Benjamin wants a remote control motorcycle, a lego submarine, a violin (no idea where that came from), a metal detector ("to find treasure!"), a real camera (because breaking mine each year apparently isn't enough), and that Bella will always be his sister (melted my heart). Bella wants headbands, dress up clothes, and a real cell phone ("Christian can have my play one.") We'll see how generous Santa is this year.

Long Silence

I just looked at the date on my last post and realized it's been a while! I guess with all the days off school lately I've been busier than usual with kids these last few weeks. We've had a great month, though. Thanksgiving was great and time off from school was great too, although, I am glad to get back into a routine. Not that I didn't love not having to race to the bus stop in the mornings!

The Henry Ford museum has a temporary exhibit all about the Wizard of Oz so we had to go check that out. That was a lot of fun. It's all interactive and hands-on, so you rode the cow on the farm in Kansas, went into the house during the tornado, came into munchkin land on the yellow brick road (and could build an arch, but Benjamin would rather jump around on the blocks), got to dress the scarecrow, ride the witch's bicycle, climb around the wicked castle, man the controls to the Wizard's special effects, etc. Not the least of which time was spent on the couches watching the movie itself!




We also managed to find some other fun stuff this month during our time off:

Science/color experiments with shaving cream:


Got the idea from here.


Visits to the playgrounds:


Creating a mini city with painter's tape to practice reading and number recognition:


It was a lot of fun and sparked a lot of creative play in ways I hadn't expected - like when they pretended that a tornado tore through town and everyone had to be rushed to the emergency room. (Got the idea from here)

Painted with colored ice cubes:


First attempt used paper, but the kids just wanted to watch it all mix together, not so much create final works of art, so we ditched the paper and rubbed the colored ice around on the cookie sheets. Very messy (amazing how far colored water clapped vigorously between hands can spray) but very fun! See idea here. Oh, and that color on the glass - that's not from the ice - that's from our window crayons. We LOVE our window crayons.

Went on a long bike ride in Kensington Park:


That mostly means we played at playgrounds around the park with our bike gear on because we never rode for more than 5 minutes before we'd pass another area where the kids wanted to stop and play. However, I have to say that my favorite part of the day was the game of freeze tag at the end. Kelly played along too and he's just out of shape enough that he and I were well matched despite his long legs. It was super fun making him struggle to catch me.

And we of course, we ate our weight in turkey and yams on Thanksgiving, but we hosted so I was too busy with all of that to remember to take a picture! :( Should have given my camera to Benjamin. Then I'd at least have plenty of pictures of people's feet and rear ends to document the holiday. Alas, there's always next year. We did have some really fun families over and had a great time eating, racing RC cars, and making human tacos with the futon cushion. Ah the things that will entertain a group of kids. It's so fun.

Now school begins again and swim lessons and gymnastics and I just got made primary president today (in addition to Kelly being in the bishopric), so I'm in charge of all the kids at church 18 months to 11 years old, so we have plenty to keep us busy! Life is good.

First Solo Craft Attempt

I've been excited for Bella to have preschool so I could have some time with Christian and do things on his level. Today we attempted painting for the first time. He's finger painted with us while the older kids have worked on harder things, but today I wanted to see what he'd do with a brush. It was a lot of fun. He didn't last long at the activity - 5 or 10 minutes - but that's what I expected. He did seem to enjoy it, though.


He tried out a couple different brushes and then used his hands too. Then he grabbed some other supplies from my craft bag - markers, googly eyes - and wanted to try them out too, so we did. We rolled some big googly eyes in the paint and we stirred them around in a box with our brush. I tried tracing his hand with the marker, but he didn't like me holding his hand still, so I just drew his hand instead. I just loved spending the time just letting him investigate and seeing what he'd do. Such a fun little boy!

Things I Like To Do

Benjamin came upstairs yesterday with a stapled pack of papers in his hand and proudly showed me his latest masterpiece. He's been in love with writing lately and wants to write signs, letters, and books all the time. I thought his latest creation was so cute. It's "Things I Like To Do." Here it is in all it's crazy phonetic glory. For those of you who aren't as adept at deciphering his phonics, the translation follows the pictures.





Translation: "Things I like to do: swimming, gymnastics, school, and playing pretend, and eating, AND looking at the stars." (That's him looking at the stars in the illustration). I never tire of these little creations because I think it's so fun to see how he will write the various words. Like eding = eating. Makes sense, doesn't it? We don't really say it like a T, we are lazy and say it like a D. I struggle a bit in balancing praise with spelling correction, but usually I lean more to the praise because the spelling will come with time, but for now I love to see that he enjoys writing. And let's not forget Mark Twain's words, "He must have little genius who can’t spell a word in more than one way."

Beautiful Fall Weather

It was so beautiful a few days ago that we couldn't resist spending nearly the whole day at the park. We played at the playground


found various muddy water puddles (when don't they find muddy water puddles?)


went on a walk in the woods and around the pond


and collected some late-blooming wild flowers and interesting nuts.



It was a wonderful day exploring and reveling in nature. No one wanted to go home! So now the little bouquet of wild flowers sits (in a sippy cup) on my kitchen table to remind me of our day. Fall goes by way too quickly.

Happy Halloween! and Happy Birthday to Me!

What a fun day Halloween is! Parties, birthdays, trick-or-treating...so much fun.
I woke up to the smell of pumpkin bread and quiche for breakfast. That was lovely. No cracked wheat today. :)

Then Benjamin had a Halloween party at school which he said went great. While he was there, a wonderful friend offered to watch my other kids so I could have some time to myself on my birthday to spend my birthday money! Such a thoughtful gesture! Friends who understand what life with small kids is like are great.

Then I picked everyone up and we had "dinner" because I knew with all the craziness this evening, it wouldn't happen. We spent the rest of the afternoon playing around until it was time for Benjamin's swim lesson and then trick-or-treating!!

Everyone looked sooo adorable! Bella wasn't in the picture taking mood, so we made many attempts to get a decent shot. Here are the closest ones we got of Iron Man, Rapunzel (and her chameleon Pascal), and G.I. Joe...oh and me, the Hippie - a term which had my kids asking, "a WHAT?" I think even after trying to explain, they still didn't really get it, but Bella told me, "I like your headband." Good enough.




And Christian had so much fun on his first time trick-or-treating! He carried his jack-o-lantern with a huge grin on his face (wish I'd taken my camera along!!) and muscled his way past the big kids to the door. He'd carefully select a candy and proudly hold it up for me to see before putting it in his stash. Then he'd try to go in to the peoples' homes. :) Guess he figured if they're giving this stuff at the door, what must be inside?! He also loved all the dogs that came to the door! I think we can say his first word is "dog." He perks up immediately if he hears barking and every time he'll say a word that sounds just like dog, so I'm guessing it is.



Of course, the best part of trick-or-treating is afterwards when you pour out your buckets and examine (and eat) the loot. Christian made sure to sit on everything to test it. :) I don't think he realized it was food. He was having too much fun squashing it and throwing it around. Works for me.

Just a couple cute pictures from this past week that I wanted to share.


Bella had a preschool Halloween party. She was so giddy excited the whole time. She had the biggest grin on her face of anyone in the class. (She's on the far right side middle row). So cute. She thinks she's such a big girl now. She tells everyone she meets, "I'm three! I'm already in preschool!!"


We went to Greenfield Village one last time for this year before they close. We had the whole place to ourselves almost! We saw 3 other small families/couples the entire time we were there. Guess that's what going on a cold October day will get you. So we rode the carousel three times in a row by ourselves, the horse carriage driver allowed Benjamin and Bella to hold the reigns and drive the horses, and the model T ride had no line whatsoever, which has never happened to me there. So nice not having to wait while huffing that exhaust! It was a wonderful day.


We also went to a friend's 5th birthday party on Saturday which was a lot of fun but ridiculously far away (she lives close but her party location was 45 minutes away), so we broke up the drive home with a stop at a favorite playground which we don't get to very often (because it's so far away!) So much fun! and I think it's so funny when the kids pose and say, "Take a picture of us!" Makes it so easy! Just wish I were a better photographer.

I hope you've all had as fun a Halloween season as we have!

A Video for the Grandparents

I know not everyone will love this as much as I do, but I had to post it to share with the grandparents. Christian's newest love is the piano. All day long he climbs onto the seat and bangs around to his heart's content. Recently he also started singing while he plays. So incredibly adorable, I had to get a video of it. Enjoy.

Almost Halloween!

I love Halloween. It's my birthday for one thing, that always makes me happy. But also I love the excitement it brings. Kids get so excited about their costumes, and the candy, and the running around at night. It's really such a happy holiday.



As soon as we got back from Utah, I wanted to get into the Halloween mood. We bought our costumes and carved our pumpkins. Benjamin wanted a scary one and Bella wanted a happy one. Shade was cool with either, so was had no tie-breaker. So we made both! It was a lot of fun and what a stroke of genius to do it outside! :) Wonderful sunny weather, whoever got bored just went and ran around the yard a bit, and all the mess was washed away by the rain the next day.



The results weren't award winning, but the kids were proud and that's all that matters. So excited for Halloween! :)

New and Improved

We've been to the Detroit Children's Museum 4 times. The first time I went with Benjamin when he was only about 18 months old. It was a complete and total dump. Dark and dingy building, broken toys, and no staff other than the woman at the entrance. I vowed never to return. They apparently got the vibe, because they shut down for quite a while for repairs and improvements. When they reopened, I was pleasantly surprised and the next time I went, it was even better! So then, when they closed down again, citing financial troubles, I was really sad. We have two museums for children in Detroit. They work in conjunction with one another and they both shut down. However, then last week the smaller of the two reopened temporarily - the one I'm describing - so we hurried on over to show our support. It was so much fun! It was even better than the last time and the kids had a blast. They have lots of pretend play type toys and Bella spent nearly all afternoon at the grocery store. Benjamin spent his time setting up an entire city, train track, and countryside (before becoming the Evil Ogre and knocking it all down in a vicious tirade.) Christian crawled through the tunnel a hundred times and had a blast with the colorful foam toys. I wish it were a little closer, because that place really is fun.

It's Certainly Fall!

I always know Summer is officially over when the pine trees in our backyard (the ones which I thought would spare us from endless leaf raking) dump all their pine needles. Dump and dump and dump. Every year. And although we have no deciduous trees in our yard, our neighbors all do, so we get their leaves too. It's fair, though, cause they also get our pine needles. :) When I got back from Utah it had dumped so much you could barely see the grass. We've got a pretty good system going, though. We take our blue swimming pool, scoop up as many needles as will fit in it, and drag it under the pine trees (into what the kids call "the forest") and pour it out. No bagging, less time, and the needles decompose naturally back there, just as they should. The upside for the kids is that they get to ride in the pool as I, poor soul, get to do the dragging. It makes for fun afternoons, outside, though, and it's become something they look forward to all Summer. The simple pleasures, right? Christian got in on the action this year too. That was a lot of fun to see. He can spread those leaf piles with the best of them, the little stinker.







Oh, and in case you're wondering why Bella's not in the pictures. She was having a girly moment in which the leaves were just too dirty for the dainty miss, so she asked that I take a picture of her standing away from everything. She makes me laugh.