rough and tumble

In a moment of unusual calm and relative peace in the house, I'm sitting and posting.  The Boy is at school, Boy2 had his very brief nap and is playing Angry Birds Star Wars, and the girls are both sleeping.  Dishes are currently done, laundry is in the washer, and I can actually see the living room floor right now!

I suppose it's a bit redundant to say that the weeks have been busy...  I've tried out a couple new recipes I've found (one for gingerbread but it's a cake, not cookies and one that is orange cookies) and they both turned out beautifully.  The Boy was given brownies in a jar, and he did those up on Saturday (I do have pictures, but they aren't on the computer yet).  We organized the basement play room, put another book shelf down there, and we've managed to keep it pretty tidy for the last couple of days.  Next step is to go through the toy boxes and sort out what is garbage because it's broken, what can be passed along to Good Will, and what we'll keep.  Living in one place for so long (I know it's only been 2 1/2 years, but it is the longest we've been at one address!) I really notice how much we accumulate.  It's time to de-clutter.

Girl2 is still working on those teeth.  The last two weeks have been pretty rough on her and, because she's not happy, it's been pretty rough on the parents too.  But she's just over 7 months now, no teeth, but she is rolling EVERYWHERE!!!  I can set her down on the floor, leave for two minutes and come back to her all the way across the room!  And, of course, she'll find the one small item on the floor that wasn't picked up and have it almost in her mouth.  Amazing how babies do that!

The Girl is back to her normal self.  Her appetite is back (finally) and she's full of sass again, so I'm happy about that.  She's also toilet training.  We came back from our holidays with that in mind, and so far it's been pretty good.  I'm not ready to take her out of pull-ups, but I don't think it will be very long before she is out of them.  She's even asked to sit on the toilet when we're out at church, and that's a pretty big step.  It was a long time before Boy2 was ready to do that.

Boy2 is back at preschool and enjoying it immensely.  I love watching him grow and develop his sense of letter recognition, and he's working with numbers too.  That's mostly because he sees the Boy doing his math and he wants to learn about it all too.  So I'm helping and encouraging him to count for himself when he asks a math question. 

The Boy is doing very well.  His reading is getting stronger and stronger every week, and so are his math skills.  They are starting to move away from equations accompanied by pictures so that's been a bit of an adjustment.  But the teacher is also equipping the children with tactics to solve those, so he's picking it up.  He's enjoying writing about his show and tell, and he's getting better and better with his spelling and sounding words out.  So far he's done exceptionally well on his spelling tests too.

He does miss being at home, so he'll be happy that there's no school next Thursday, or the following Thursday and Friday.  He misses playing with the other kids. 

It always strikes me at how wonderful my kids are.  I realize I may be a touch biased, but they really do get along quite well (most of the time) and if one is grumpy or sad another one will get them to smile.  The boys are fantastic with getting the girls smiling again, and vice versa.  Not so much the boys helping the boys, but when everyone is tired I can't say that I'm surprised.  But everyone is ready with love and affection.  And playing.  The boys love to "fight" Daddy and so they do that quite a bit.  The Girl even gets in on the action, and it is so fun to watch!  Hubby is such a fantastic teacher when it comes to the rough and tumble play.  And it's essential for children to develop that, so I won't be telling them to stop anytime soon.

There are times when the boys are doing it by themselves (very frequently!) and someone hurts the other, but that's when I tell them that they are playing rough so sometimes it happens.  They stop for a minute then are back at it.  As long as they aren't intentionally hurting to be mean, I'm alright with their play.

Last night, after supper, the boys took all of the chairs out of the kitchen and put them in the living room.  Then they grabbed a couple of flat sheets and I grabbed some clothes pins and we set up a fort in the living room.  We did bedtime stories and prayers in there, and they wanted it to stay up so they could have breakfast in there.  So we did.  The Boy was very careful to not spill onto the carpet, but the others had most of their breakfast in the kitchen.  And I promised we could try to set it up again tonight.  They want to sleep in it, but I said probably not.  Wait for Friday and we'll set up the two person tent in here and we'll try to sleep in it.

Holiday recap

On the road!

They were so happy to be heading out!

Well, I wasn't as faithful at taking pictures this trip, but I did get a few.  Most of them (I am sorry to say) were taken by the Boy,  and not me.

We spent Christmas up here with just us, having pizza Christmas Day as has been our custom for the last couple of years.  Santa thoroughly spoiled us, then we nipped down south and it seemed Santa made a stop at Amma's house too, so we were spoiled yet again.  We spent a few days there, then zipped for a few days to my parents' house, where we all gathered for a picture.  The last time we were all under one roof at the same time for a holiday was Christmas 2000, so twelve years and sixteen grandchildren later we finally got a picture taken.  I'm not sure where our copy is hiding on this computer, so I'll post it when I can find it.

Me sitting with the Girl.

Boy2 helping Poppa vacuum up confetti

But we had fun.  My parents, in a tradition carried on from my Dad's family, has always done a big New Years Eve party.  Popping balloons, throwing confetti, eating almost to the point of illness, and pouring lead.  The kids love it!  Okay, even Great Grandma J (my Mom's mom) loves it!  As we were getting into the confetti fight that happens every time, we noticed that my cousin and her husband (who live across the street from my parents) stopped by just to get into it for a few minutes before zipping back across the street to their sleeping little ones.

Hubby tackled me to the floor this time, but I didn't let go of him, so we were both on the ground, me shoving confetti down his pants, while he was pouring down my back.  Then the boys decided to rescue me and they tackled Daddy :)  So much fun!

Grandma holding her newest grandchild

But now we are back to the grind.  The boys have started school and swimming lessons again.  The Christmas decorations are down (we alway wait for Epiphany to get those down, or as some know it as Little Christmas).  We picked up totes and a few new bookshelves, so today was spent cleaning, building shelves, shifting furniture, and vacuuming.  Finally our living space (at least the main floor) is in some semblance of tidiness.  Next I tackle the toy room and then we'll be good to go.  Since we have now officially lived in this house longer than any other home since we got married, I'm going to treat this spring as though we're moving.  Every other time, we've had to de-clutter out of necessity, so this time I'm going to try this.  It is amazing the sheer amount of stuff you can accumulate simply by living in one spot.  Having four kids doesn't help :)

So the toys and books are going to be culled and sent on to others who could use them more than these kids.  I'm going to have to go through dressers as well.  Children grow so fast!

It's ALIVE!!!!!

My computer is fixed!  Before Christmas, Hubby decided to put a new operating system on my netbook and it has been giving grief ever since, but it is now up, running, and fully functioning!  I have some holiday pictures to post, and lost of cute little anecdotes, but they will likely wait till this evening or tomorrow. 

Right now there is the smell of bacon frying for our fish chowder, the sound of Beethoven as Girl2 plays with her little toy, and the bigger kids are watching Hoowinked Too! downstairs :)  And I need to mend the Boy's snow pants before he goes back to school tomorrow!

Pictures!

Taking lots of concentration

Decorating a gingerbread person

Lots of fun!

Tree is up and all decorated!

Momma snuggling her girls :)

Hubby and Boy2 :)

Super smiley Baby!

Finally an Update!

I know it's been a month since the last time I posted anything, it's been pretty busy here and by the time I think "Hey, I should write something" I'm tired and all I want is sleep.

The boys are nearly done their swimming lessons and are absolutely loving it!  We have them signed up for more in January :)  Poor Girl wants to take them too, but we'll wait maybe another year before we get her into them.  We've started working on the idea that a soother is just for sleeping for her, and I'll maybe start toilet training her in the new year.  She is already aware of what her body is doing, so I hope it won't take as long as her brothers did.  She has a clean bill of health, though, and her personality is one to be reckoned with!

The Boy is thriving in school (but that isn't a surprise!) and he's reading and writing with more confidence every day.  It's neat to see the random pieces of paper scattered through the house that he's written on.  I came across one yesterday that said "When plates push against each other they can force the rock up in folds forming huge mountain ranges.  Oh. Why yes sir." (this punctuation is exactly as he wrote).  I asked him if he was learning about plates in school, and he said the he read it in his Earth book.  So he's grasping the concepts of what he's reading, not just saying the words.  He also read "Mortimer" a while back and laughed when he got to the part about him having 17 brothers and sisters :)  He was starting to speed through some of his math, so I'm working with him to reenforce the idea that it's better to be accurate than fast.  We're working with lego to go over the addition and subtraction, and to review the tactics his teacher has introduced.

Something else that is exciting is that Boy2 is recognizing and calling out letters he sees.  "Mom, that's an M.  There's a T."  He's started his preschool work book that is working on letter forming and sounds.  He can't wait until he can read too!  Because the Boy was further behind in his speech than Boy2, it's really neat for me to see and hear about what is happening in the preschool.  He had his first birthday invitation (wasn't able to go, but it was exciting to get it!), and every day we check the mail, he's disappointed that he doesn't get a letter.  So if anyone wants to write the kids, I'll make sure they write back :) 

Girl2 just had her 6 month check up (wow, time flies!) and tomorrow she'll get her 6 month immunizations.  She's 16lbs, 5oz, and about 26.5 inches long.  She's by far the smallest six month old baby we've had, but she's doing very well.  She's strong, rolls from her tummy to her back and vice versa, leg and tummy muscles get a workout constantly, and she's babbling and laughing right along with the rest of the clan.  She loves when her brothers are silly for her, all I can hear is baby laughter which never fails to make me smile!

Last weekend we moved the kids around a little bit.  The boys are now in what was the Girl's room, and both girls are now in what was the boys' room.  The Girl is in a toddler bed (she's only fallen out of it once) and she really likes being able to look across and see her sister sleeping.  She also like being able to get in and out her bed all by herself.

The house is all decorated, there's been some baking done (although it's mostly gone already), and there'll be more baking to do.  It's difficult to believe that we're just under three weeks away from Christmas already!

Imaginations!

Once again, it's been a busy week.  The boys started swimming lessons (yay!) and we did more baking.  Last Thursday the baking element in my oven caught on fire (yes, I realize that they aren't supposed to do that).  I was preheating the oven for pizza, told the Boy at the table that I was going to sit in the living room to nurse Girl2.  Five minutes later he came in and told me that there was a fire in the oven.  "There can't be, Sweetie.  There's nothing in there to catch fire."  Sure enough, it had sparked and what shouldn't have been burning was doing an awfully convincing job of just that.  Off went the oven, on the phone I went to call the handyman that our landlady uses. 

I gave him the info he needed (serial number, model type) and he got us a new element.  He wasn't able to put it in until sometime Saturday, though.  We were going to be in Edmonton for a chunk of time Saturday, so he walked me through what I had to do to install it myself so he dropped it off while we were out and we put it in.  Works like a charm!  The old one looked very corroded and broke in two places when I was taking it out :(  I'm glad it happened after the baking I did for the Boy's Halloween party!

There was alot of frosting left from those cupcakes, though, so I made another batch of cupcakes and these:

I found a recipe for soft homemade oreos!

But there ended up with more cookies than icing, so Hubby went out and bought cream cheese icing.  Now the cookies are gone and there's still icing left again.  Going to have to do something about that....  :)

Smiley and surprised at the same time.  Love her eyebrows...

It's been a pretty good week.  Everyday when we get home with the Boy I let the kids go to town with their Halloween candy.  They have to stop around 4:30, though.  Otherwise they won't eat supper.  This way they get their sugar rush and crash right before bedtime and they're good and tired. Strategic sugar crash to aid in bedtime.  It also means that they are intolerable for a while, and we'll likely be detoxing next week (since most of their treats are already gone), but it's nice to get it all done and out of the way.

Boy2 took this one as Daddy and the Boy were getting ready to leave one morning.

 The Boy got his first report card of the year.  Or, I guess they call them progress reports, where they cover how the child is learning and not just what they are learning.  The last sentence of the report was a thanks for supporting his learning at home.  I think we all are doing a good job!

And Boy2's preschool teacher (who was also the Boy's teacher) keeps telling us how much of a joy Boy2 is to have in class.  Like his brother, he shows incredibly developed leadership ability and he is always aware of what is going on around him.  Since he's obviously a socialized child, he doesn't have to learn how to behave in a group as well as the other learning that takes place in class.  I guess there have been a few issues of other children having a more difficult time adjusting to class, so Boy2 not having those issues is a relief for the teachers.  He comes home singing new songs, telling me about some of the kids in class.  It's very different from our experience with the Boy, but that's because he was so much further behind in his speech.  Not anymore!  The Boy's language is just about where it should be for his age.  He still falls a bit behind when he's tired or excited, but he's still understandable.  Just needs to be reminded to slow down the word sounds.

The Girl is continuing to do better.  We've turned the humidifier back on to help with the coughing that has started up a bit again.  But she's not constantly demanding "snuggies" and she's able to put her num away if we push the issue.  She's a little magpie.  She finds coins on the bedside table or the counter, picks it up, and then goes off to her room to put them into her piggy bank.  I'm sure she's more rich than her brothers, since she manages to abscond with mostly quarters, loonies, and toonies...

Just today Girl2 has started doing something that really made me chuckle.  I laid her down in her crib while I was getting Boy2 and the Girl ready for nap time.  I looked over and she had rolled onto her belly (not really new, she's been doing that for a little while now) and then she rolled back onto her back (she's never done that one before!).  So when I gave her tummy time this afternoon, she rolled herself back onto her back.  I chuckled and rolled her back onto her tummy.  She rolled herself back.  I rolled her onto her belly.  She rolled herself back.  I did it one more time and she just yelled!  I had to help her back onto her back that last time.  I amused myself with that, though :)

Something else the kids have started doing in recent days is taking the cushions off of the couches.  I don't mind that, as long as they put them back (and they have been pretty good about it).  Then they jump from cushion.  Sometimes pretending there is lava between, sometimes just pretending it's a path or runway.  They've been being the Avengers.  So we've had Stark, the Hulk, Captain America, and Hawkeye in the living room.  The Girl has been Captain Kitty (the concept of the Avengers is a little lost on her) and pink Spiderman (I asked if that would make her Spidergirl but all I got was a look that said, No.  I`m pink Spiderman!).  They have launched themselves off of a cushion ramp, they built themselves Jedi Cruisers and traveled through space as jedi or clone troopers.  Their imaginations are absolutely wonderful!

Happy Halloween!

2 Clone Commanders, 1 dinosaur, and 1 ladybug :)

Here is what we ended up with for tonight's Halloween.  The Girl decided that she didn't want to put her snowsuit on, so she didn't go out, but the boys (veterans of Halloween) knew what was in store, so they didn't mind getting their snow stuff on then squeezing into their costumes.  Some of the muscles in my arms may be a little bit tired tomorrow from all of the pulling and stuffing.

They put in a solid hour of door to door with Daddy, while I fed and put the ladybug to sleep.  Then Miss Dinosaur and I read stories and handed out candy together (every time someone was at the door, she asked if it was Daddy and the boys!).  So far, we are maybe up to a dozen trick-or-treaters tonight.  But there is snow on the ground, it is minus 8, the wind is blowing, and we're forecast 5-10 cm of snow/ice pellets overnight.  Not really hospitable conditions for kids to go looking for candy.

But when the guys came back, we let them put in a good half hour of gorging of goodies before dragging them upstairs to scrub those teeth and get to bed.  There is school for the two of them tomorrow...  And my goodness, were they ever tired!  Howling about teeth and face washing!  Couldn't find one of the many stuffed toys on the bed!  You'd think that it was the end of the world!  But with the sugar and the lack of sleep, it was the end of the world.

isn't she just the cutest little ladybug?

So now the house is quiet for the night (or most of it, I hope).  Boy2 was up at 6 this morning, telling me that we needed to get ready for Halloween.  He was a bit excited!  And he didn't want to nap.  Nobody has really been sleeping all that well these last few nights (again, I think it's largely the anticipation) so they should start feeling better in a few days.

Daddy having fun with the Boy

It's been a very busy and loud house in the last few days.  I'm not complaining, though.  It means that everyone has been playing and having fun.  The kids attack Daddy as soon as they can, and then everyone (usually except Momma and Girl2) are running, chasing each other. 

And Boy2's turn

In the last couple of days, the kids have been going to play in the basement more too.  Boy2 gets the Girl to go with him and they bring up more toys.  The Boy gets Boy2 to go with him and they usually stay down there playing.  One morning, all three of them were down there.  Then the Boy and Boy2 had to get ready for school so they came up.  I went down to see if the Girl wanted to come up, but she was busy and didn't want to come.  So I left her playing.  Two minutes later, she realized she was alone and started yelling and coming up the stairs.  Poor Girl!

she loves this little ducky!

One morning, she brought up this rubber duck.  It went with her everywhere!  I came into the living room and found her pretending to nurse it.  She had my nursing pillow, part of her shirt up, and had the bill of the duck in the general vicinity of her chest.  It was so cute!  I did get pictures, but Hubby reminded me that I can't post them because of certain laws set up to protect children, so I won't post them.  But as soon as I turned around, Boy2 and the Girl were talking about who could make milk and who couldn't :)