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.

Utah

This post is long overdue. In an attempt to get more sleep, I've put off blogging and now my trip is a week and a half in the past and still no pictures! So, here's a bit of a photo barrage.

I took the kids to Utah for a week long trip to visit friends and family. It was so much fun! We stayed at my mom's house, which meant lots of time with "Mimi" which they loved,




picking lots of apples from the apple trees,



and playing my old school original Nintendo.


We also got out my old toys and dolls and Christian fell in love with the doll which was my favorite as a little child. He carried her around everywhere, no matter how cumbersome it was. So cute!



We also got to spend some great time with Kelly's family playing in the swimming pool, playing in the backyard, and going out to dinner. We were so busy I hardly remembered to take any pictures! It is so much fun having grandparents and cousins around! Benjamin's prayer on the last day was, "Please help me not miss my cousins too much."





I also couldn't pass up the opportunity to take the kids to temple square. In fact, Benjamin asked to go there before I'd even suggested it. Sadly, Bella didn't want to go, so she stayed home and played tea party with Mimi and I took the boys to the temple. The thing Benjamin most wanted to do was see the Christus. It's been two years since he's seen it, but he remembered it vividly and asked the we please, please, please go there! So went there, and downstairs to the displays on the prophets, which he loved looking at, and then we had a picnic on the lawn overlooking the temple. We also got to see a family taking pictures after their sealing and Benjamin was so interested in them - all the family members in white, even the little kids in white shoes, and what they were doing. It was a great time all throughout that afternoon together to talk about Jesus and how wonderful it is to have temples so that we can be together forever as a family thanks to Him. We finished off the trip with a visit to Deseret Book to buy a couple quiet books for sacrament meeting because that's what it's all about right now really. :) I used to have such high ideals about sacrament meeting but being alone with three little kids every Sunday has lowered my expectations a great deal. Haven't stooped to bribery with candy yet, though. I do have some small standards left. :)





I also wanted to see the aquarium while we were there, since we don't have one in this area. It was a small place, but just right for kids and we got to go with my best friend and her daughter so it really doesn't get much better than that. I hate that the picture of them on the frog is a bit blurry because it was so cute - I was facing away and I hear, "Mom, take a picture of us!" and they'd all piled on the frog to pose. They had some really cool stuff there, such as penguins, a sting ray tank in which you could pet the sting ray and a pretend motor boat which you could "drive" while watching a video of local areas as if you were going through them. They also had a lady holding a tarantula who spent a long time showing the kids and answering their questions. That fascinated Benjamin. Seeing a woman hold one of those and not freak out was new to him. :)





All in all, it was a great trip and it flew by in a flash. Now we're back at school and back in the swing of things and the kids are already asking, "When are we going to go live with Mimi again?"