Leaky Alibi

What do you do when you're caught bottoms-up-ing chocolate milk straight from the gallon 2 minutes after Mommy told you, "No milk before dinner"?

You act completely puzzled by the strange object in your hand and ask in your best, most innocent, bewildered tone,

"What IS this?"

Gee, Baby Sis, I have no idea what that is.
I'm sure you didn't either.

Mind Reader

I love listening to Bubby "read" stories.  He can't actually read at all yet, so he just makes them up.  But what he lacks in literacy, he totally makes up for in imagination.  And let me just tell you, Thomas the Tank Engine is intense, y'all!

:)

Together

It's time for another birthday here in the M house!

My sister-in-law teases me that every time she calls me to work for her I can't because it's somebody's birthday.

In her words, "It's always somebody's birthday!!!"

Our kids are pretty evenly spaced throughout the year, so it does sort of seem that way.

Anyway, we make a big deal out of birthdays!

We don't have grandiose parties or anything like that, but the birthday person is basically royalty for about a week.  And everyone chips in - and is excited to chip in!

The kids all work together with J to decorate the dining room with streamers and poster board signs.

(This was Little Sis hard at work decorating the "birthday chair" while Younger Brother and Big Sis wrapped presents.)   

*Fun fact: Our dining room is always decorated for a birthday.* 

Yes, always.

The tradition is that the birthday person gets to have his/her decorations up until the next person's birthday; then we switch them out.

I'll admit, I get annoyed with this from time to time when it starts to feel a bit cluttered.
Ha!  The "a bit" part is comical if you've ever been to my house.  :)

But I know I'm going to miss never ending birthday decorations one day when my kids are grown up.

Also a tradition:  In the morning, everyone waits at the top of the stairs for the birthday person.  Then they all come down together to see the decorations, have special cereal, and watch the birthday person open presents.

Princess A has been wanting a Rey costume for forever!  

Younger Brother and I found this one for her over over the summer and have had it hidden in my office ever since.  But yesterday, Younger Brother saw a Rey Nerf gun at the store, and he spent $20 of the $23 he made shoveling snow to buy it for her.  Granted, he'll probably spend a good portion of the next week chasing her around the house and tormenting her with his own, bigger Nerf gun, but I'm taking this as evidence that he does in fact love her.

After breakfast, and sufficiently juiced on sugar cereal, they all scattered to various parts of the house and donned Star Wars gear. Then they spent probably the next hour running around with Princess A in some sort of multi-sibling galactic battle.

I didn't follow the entire plot line, but based on the laughing and screaming I'm guessing it was good.

~

As I sat and had my coffee, and did my morning reading, I was suddenly struck with a deep thankfulness that we are homeschoolers.  I thought about what our morning might have looked like if we weren't.  The kids probably would have had breakfast together and watched the birthday person open presents.  But then they would have gone their separate ways.  They wouldn't have played, and laughed, and had that time.  Princess A would have gone off to school and shared her birthday joy with her classmates.  Not that that's a bad thing.  But she and her siblings would have been compartmentalized.  They would have spent more time away from each other than with each other.

Instead, we didn't have to rush to be anywhere.  

I could afford them the opportunity to play together, to share in their sister's joy, and to build bonds with the ones who will be with them for life.

And then, yes, they did their school work.

 But this is one of the things that makes me really appreciate having my kids at home.

After school, we had an unexpected bonus...

SNOW!

When Princess A went up to take a bath, there was no snow at all.

And when she came out, it looked like this!

I thought, "Aww, hey, this will be great!  Why don't you guys squeeze together for a quick group picture!"

But you can see what Baby Sis thinks about group pictures.

(Side note:  We did not forget a sibling.  Biggest Brother just got a new book series, so I don't expect to see much of him for a few days.)

After sufficiently sabotaging my group picture efforts, Baby Sis retreated back into her world - which at that moment consisted of nothing except trudging through snow in a too-big hat with a snowman in a sled trailing along behind her.  

2 sounds nice.

Little Sis made a mini snowman and a snow angel, which contrary to what the two-dimensional photo suggests, she did not actually make in the middle of the street.

Bubs and Baby Sis are finally getting to the stage where the fun of snow outweighs the cold part of it.

Our yard cannot have more than a 10% grade. if that, but that doesn't stop them.  I shot this based on what I determined our yard must look like to Princess A.  

From what I remember about my childhood, any slope whatsoever was a sledding hill! 

Innovation.

The product of their innovation = Baby Sis approved!

Happy birthday, Princess A!

And thanks, Daddy, for holding her hair out of the candles - always a plus.

I'm very thankful for every birthday celebrated around this overcrowded dining room table.

And I'm also pretty darn impressed that the birthday chair remained (mostly) intact for one entire day!

"Para-Para-Paradise..."

As I've mentioned in the past, Bubs and Baby Sis love the band Coldplay.

When Baby Sis was still just a baby, I could sit and play their songs on the piano during dinner and she would dance ebulliently in her high chair between bites.

They have quite a few favorite songs, but their most favorite is "Paradise."

It has a pretty long intro, and every time it begins they stand perfectly still and wait with anticipation.

And then...

I'm pretty sure they would jump, and dance, and scream like this for an hour if I put it on repeat.

So, I was supposed to be getting some things done this morning.

But instead, we did this!

:)

Little Apprent(sis)

Don't listen to him, Baby Sis!

He jumps off of roofs!

Wake-up Call

There are certain items that should not be given to a 4yo before 9AM on a Saturday morning.

This is one of them.

J enjoys getting up at an absurdly early time of the morning to go to the skate park with a friend of his and some combination of our kids.

This morning, on his way out of our room, I heard him say, "Sure, Bubs, you can play with that for a little bit."

I think there may have been some guidelines or disclaimers that accompanied that statement, but Bubs is 4.  I assure you, he didn't hear them.

Thankfully, J's megaphone does have a volume slider.

Just kidding.

It has a volume slider that does not ever visit the left-hand side of its range - ever.  

And it has a siren!

How's that skate park, Daddy??

No joke, it's 10:45 and he's still going strong!

Geography Twist

If there's one thing I've learned from homeschooling - especially homeschooling with seven children - it's how to adapt.  The kids get cabin fever.  One of the little ones needs something basically every five minutes.  Supplies get lost or broken - all. the. time.

Thankfully, the kids are pretty gracious about rolling with the punches.

I would like to say that our game of "Geography Twister" today was born out of my boundless energy and creativity.  But in actuality, our maps got put away somewhere, and no one seems to be able to find them.  

I had not had nearly enough coffee to go hunting.  So - we improvised.

Someone gave us a world map mat (say that three times fast) a while back.

I was having Princess A jump from continent to continent to help her find the locations we were studying when Younger Brother had the idea use it for Twister instead.

It actually worked out really well.  

The kids took turns being the participants and being the ones to call out, "left hand / Adriatic Sea" etc.

Double reinforcement, boom!

They decided the last one standing should play me.  I should emphasize the "they" part.

So what did we learn?

Continents

European Countries 

European Waters

Flexibility of all kinds is a good thing.

And if it's before noon, and you're over the age of 35, Twister is not a good game for you.

Carpe Diem

It's your birthday.

Cross your eyes and eat waffles in a cake box!!

Big Like Brother

We have a tradition in our house that the birthday person gets to spend an entire day, one-on-one with Grandma.  The kids have coined this their "special day" - and they plan it with great care, sometimes as much as a year in advance.  I frequently get asked questions like, "Can I do ____ on my special day?" in August by the person with a birthday in March.

Grandma typically starts this coveted tradition with each child when he or she is about 5.  But it was decided, with Younger Brother to accompany him as a liaison, Bubby (who will be turning 4 this weekend) was now old enough to go on his first special day!

When Younger Brother told him in the morning what day it was, he sprang out of bed, got dressed in his favorite train t-shirt (with help from Brother), packed his Thomas backpack (with help from Big Sis), and parked himself in front of the schoolroom window to watch for Grandma.  It was so sweet how attentively he stood staring down the street waiting for her car to come around the corner.

He was feeling like quite the big kid.

I got a double thumbs up.

Also watching attentively was Baby Sis, who has no idea what a "special day" is just yet.
But she's not one to be left out of anything.  So she too put on her backpack and gave me a double thumbs up. 

 Thankfully, Baby Sis was as unaware of what she was missing as she is which digits are thumbs.
:)

When I arrived to pick up Bubs at the end of the day, he was totally engrossed in railroad fun.
  Grandma surprised him with the train he's been spying in every Lego catalog for a while now.
Brother provided his expertise in assembly and constructed several other fun features like a train station.  And then they filled the cars up with candy.  So basically, Bubs could pound peanut butter M&M's all day without ever leaving his post.  How glorious!

I'm pretty sure we just added another kid to the year-in-advance planning of the "special day"!

Two thumbs up!
Or fingers.  Whichever works for you.

Hide and Seek

She's good at this!!

Generations

 As you've probably noticed, I am very sentimental.  

Perhaps overly so, since I'm still hanging onto that bobblehead Yoda (still in the package) that J jokingly gave me to use as a focal point during my first natural childbirth.  I realize that bequeathing a head-bobbing, green Jedi to my children one day probably isn't going to fill their hearts with warm fuzzies and a connection to their roots.

Some things, however, are totally meant to be held onto!  

The dress Big Sis is wearing has been handed down to her by her grandma.

It was handmade by her great grandmother, for her grandma, who wore it when she was a little girl!

It now fits Big Sis perfectly.

The dress itself is gorgeous!  

The detail she put into the - (I don't even know the correct terms for the detail stuff) - is amazing.

What's also amazing to me is that it has stayed in pristine condition for more than half a century!!  

Clothing in this house rarely survives long enough to get passed down to the next kid.

(We are taking extra special care of this one!)

I so wish I had the ability to make something that would be enjoyed by generations of great grandchildren after me the way my grandmother has done.  But since I can't sew - at all - I thought I could at least capture our appreciation for this family heirloom in a special portrait session with Big Sis.

The fields of goldenrod at my friend's farm were perfect for the occasion!  It rained off and on and there were pop-up storms all around us, but I think we got what we set out to accomplish.

So here's to you, Grandma!

Thank you for all of the time I can imagine you spent sewing and stitching all of those years ago.  You've left us with something exceptionally cool - something that does give us warm fuzzies and a connection to our roots!

Meanwhile, bobblehead Yoda is still in my basement...

Evening Stroll

 Bubs and Baby Sis have been sick for the better part of a week now.  Of course, they don't look like it here - a bath does wonders for both appearance and disposition.  But nevertheless, they've had a rough week.  In an effort to ease them off to bed early, I decided to bathe them, jammie them up, and take them for an always-good-for-trance-inducing, evening stroller ride.

Can I just say, I am going to be seriously sad when my kids get too big to wear the traditional shirt and pant set toddler pjs.  They are my favorite!

So since I have a major soft spot for freshly bathed and jammied babes, the evening light was way too pretty, and I am - me - I had to take a few pictures along the way.

:)

I didn't realize my stroller driving was this intense. 

She got conditioner in her curls for the first time tonight.

He just realized there's a full moon.

   ~sleepiness~

~summer toes~

I made myself put the camera away after this shot (I really do make an effort to spend as much time just being present as I do taking pictures, even though it probably doesn't seem like it) and we strolled around until it got dark.

Bubs thinks it's hilarious how the moon looks like it's moving when we walk, so we spent the rest of the time playing hide and seek with the moon and seeing if it would follow us home.  

It did.  ;)

He also learned the poem:

"I see the moon.

And the moon sees me.

God bless the moon.

And God bless me."

I love my babies so much.  They absolutely exhaust me to my core.  But I sort of wish they could stay this small forever.

~