Rainy Day

The back of this rain jacket pretty much sums up life with my dear toddler this week.  Holy moly!  In fact, everyone has been in need of some time out - in one fashion or another.

 I'm pretty sure our kids have been suffering from a perfect storm of cabin fever, Day After Christmas Syndrome (who knew that was a real thing, ha), too little structure, and waaay too much sugar.

In any event, I have been pretty much a glorified referee from the time my eyes have opened until bed. 

And actually, I discovered this week that my eyes don't, in fact, have to be open at all, as I was approached to resolve a dispute over a bad My Little Pony trade deal before I had even achieved vertical status for the day.   

But just when I was starting to think I should get a whistle so I could at least referee from one spot, we got just what we needed - 

a rainy, warm day!

I don't even care if it's raining.  If it's not freezing, we're out!

First, we walked Libby - who is the sweetest dog on the planet - but the most backward, impossible-to-walk canine ever created.  She stops literally every seven feet and digs in her heels with staunch, elderly dog entitlement.  And my left arm brings me to a screeching halt while Bubs and Baby Sis pull away from my right and scatter like chicks in opposite directions - usually in the street.  It's tons of fun.

I knew better than to attempt to bring my camera for that.  And I wasn't actually going to bring it at all - until we dropped Libs off and walked over to our favorite bridge, and the kids were playing, and they all looked so cute in their raincoats and boots.  Then I may have caved and called Biggest Brother to bring it over to me.  :)  

But look!  How could I have missed capturing that precious face?!

She was so happy.

Playing in the rain was exactly what she needed!

Even the big girls aren't too big for that.

They were loving the way their running, rainboot-clad feet sounded like a herd of horses.

Bubs loves anything gross.  Most relevantly, trying to stick his hand down a backed-up drain to see what he could pull out.  Blech!  That's like reaching into after-dinner dishwater to unplug the sink - except you don't know what was for dinner.  No!

Apparently, making faces gives one a distinct advantage in games of Red Light Green Light.

Baby Sis is quite good at making faces.

Bubs enjoys it much more than our fellow parishioners probably do, so we're working on that.  ;) 

 All of these matching lefts and rights were totally worth the hour it took to find them!

We arrived home with a couple of wet, happy, sleepy, small humans, a much more peaceful house, and loads of gratitude for a warm, rainy day.

Thank goodness!

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!