Her Mother's Daughter

I'm sorry the first 2 pictures are so blurry. I was cracking up, trying to hurry, and I didn't have the camera on the right setting. You get the idea though!

Sleeping Beauties and Fingers in the Pie

Callie was sick all week long. She was so pathetic and oh, so cute. She was roasting hot and spent most of the days laying on the couch or my bed. She liked for me to make her a nest of pillows she could snuggle in.

Mostly I set her up in front of the TV and let her watch cartoons all day. She would watch and nap and watch and nap. Here she is, fast asleep in her nest of pillows. She is almost back to normal now. She still has a stiff neck from sore, swollen lymph nodes on her neck.

I didn't go out much this week because Callie couldn't go out. I got wrapped up in my Quiet Book making and occasionally left Delaney to her own device while I was working. I was nearly finished the other afternoon and I looked up to see Delaney, falling asleep in the computer chair!

The poor little pickle had just conked out right there. I was afraid she was going to fall off, the way he head would nod down and jerk. She was too cute!

And Rylee.. ah, non-sleeping Rylee. She is working on growing some back teeth. She has very swollen gums as her molars think about making an appearance. This translates into not much in the way of napping, lots of night waking, and not staying asleep once she is asleep. This day she finally fell asleep after much grumping, but I had to leave in 15 minutes to go to an appointment. Sigh. I just lay her on the couch while I got everyone else ready. Then I took a picture.

And the last picture has nothing to do with sleep. We had the missionaries over for dinner and I made Chocolate Truffle Pie for them. The whole evening was kind of a comedy of errors, but it all began earlier that afternoon when I saw Delaney sneaking away from the refrigerator....
Little Stinkpot had been scooping out pie with her fingers! The evidence was on her chocolatey face. Grrr. Yes, we still served it and yes it was delicious.

Top 10 Excuses

Its been what, a week since I blogged? Since I like to post 2-3 times a week, that's a bit of time off for me. I know when my family and friends don't blog for a week, I miss them. In case you have missed me, let me give you my top 10 excuses for why I have not blogged:

1. I HAVE blogged. I just did them all in my head and they never actually got written down.

2. I get to deal with a lot of things and currently, Joshua is having issues with the mysterious case of the hives. He has been breaking out in them every evening. I guess he is allergic to bedtime. Actually, my best guess is an allergy to the new laundry detergent, but he sure is itchy all the time. Here is a picture of what he looked like last night:

3. Rylee has been having some intestinal issues that have given her such diaper rash that it has blistered and currently looks like raw hamburger. Poor kid is not happy about that. I changed 6 poopy diapers on her yesterday and it looks so painful. To make things worse, (or perhaps the cause?) she is working on her first molars. She has 2 painful swollen gums that feel like squishy blisters. Poor kid.

4. I'm tired. Rylee's teeth growing is a painful process and she is waking up a lot and when she does fall asleep, she expects me to be her human pacifier, and when I say no, she wakes up and cries. Not much fun.

5. I am the mom. I have lots to do and lots I want to do. Good thing I have cute kids!

6. Callie is sick. She's been a little off since Friday with a fever off and on. She went to school yesterday, because she'd been fever-free since Sunday. Unfortunately she came home from school burning up. Aargh. She is quite roasty-toasty today, so she's home from school curled up in a nest of cushions. She's a good sick kid.

7. I discovered a series of books. Darn Goodreads! One of my friends had reviewed a book on there called "Gone" by Michael Grant and I had to check it out at the library. I have been completely sucked into it and I am half way through the sequel. I really hope it isn't a trilogy, since I cannot afford to neglect everything much longer!

8. Halloween is coming. The kids must go through the box 500 times to decide what they want to be and to see how they will look in it. Plus, I have some duties to do before the ward Trunk or Treat. I have done about half of what I need to, but I still need to set aside an hour or 2 to get it all done. Here is Rylee, trying on Callie's Cat ears.

9. I'm unmotivated. The effort of kicking Delaney, or Joshua off the computer and sitting down to write is too much work for the paltry thoughts I have.

10. I am still in Quiet Book Heaven! I now have acquired the coveted pattern book (thank you Ebay!!) and I am almost done with Camden's Christmas present! It is so fun and so darn cute, if I may say so myself! Check out 2 of my favorite pages:
I like the Noah's Ark a lot. There is a plastic piece on the top of the boat so you can set the animals in it. That's where Noah and the horse and giraffe are. The animals all fit into the pocket of the ark. The skink and the hippo are my favorite animals! (The fish are just for fun and do not come up off the page.)

I think the house is adorable. Okay, not that it is well done, but because the door and 2 upstairs windows open. What is behind them?

SO cute! We'll leave the upstairs windows as a surprise for Miranda!

And those are my excuses.

Not so Wordless Wednesday

I have a hard time with "Wordless Wednesday". Mostly because I LIKE the words! I WANT to hear the story. Yes, yes, the picture may very well tell the story, but I still like more than one picture. A series of pictures is better than one, and might even be better than an explanation, but usually, I like the story to be there with the picture.

That being said, I took these pictures to put up wordlessly, but I can't. See, Rylee was falling asleep at the table. I was trying to make dinner, feed her, watch the big kids through the window playing outside, and grab the camera all at the same time. I didn't get the shots I had hoped for. Fortunately, Dan came home and took her out of her chair, wiped her grubby hands and took her up to her crib. Here she is though, falling asleep in her chair, still wearing the residue of leftover pumpkin chocolate chip scone:

And there was more excitement this evening as Joshua headed up for bed. He came racing down with great delight. His other front tooth finally came out! He's been wiggling it for months now. So, my 9 year old, yes NINE year old son has finally lost a grand total of 4 teeth. I'm not sure what the Tooth Fairy will bring him, but he was fairly specific on the envelope he put the tooth in. Can you see if in the picture?
The last 3 teeth have netted a mere $.75 each and he wants at least $1, but up to $20 would be just fine. I think his request may be phrased a little rudely, but I'm also not sure the Tooth Fairy has anything less than a $1.

Temple Trip

Rylee is a force to be reckoned with. She opens the cupboards and pulls out the pots and pans. She also loves her baby dolls. This week, she combined her two loves and pulled out the pots. Then she sat in one with her baby. I laughed much.

The Primary had an activity this week and the kids all went to the Temple. since we have so many, I talked Dan into making it a family trip. So we all went. It was a neat experience for the kids, and they behaved very well. At least, all the big kids did. Rylee ran rampant. At one point, I thought Dan was keeping an eye on her and I was taking pictures of the kids and I looked up to see a family coming around the corner of the Visitor Center carrying a baby wearing the same dress as Rylee. then I realized the dad was carrying MY baby! Rylee had just taken off and never looked back. The nice family saw her racing away, all alone and brought her back. Embarrassing!

Anyway, here are some of the cutest pictures of my children from the trip. And we even managed to get a shot of our whole family! Yay!

Quiet Books!

I love Quiet Books. I love making them, I love playing with them, and I love the memories I have of the one my mom made for us when I was a kid. My sister suggested that her little manling might like a quiet book for Christmas and I was delighted to bust out my stuff to get started. The last time I did this, I had 2 different paperback tutorial books and a hardcover ABC tutorial book. I still have 2 of the 3 pattern books. The third actually was borrowed from my mom and I really hope I gave it back to her, because I cannot find it! The problem is that some of my favorite patterns are in my mom's book. I have been diligently searching online and there is a TON of great stuff out there! Unfortunately, I am not finding the specific patterns I want.

I do love all the variety that I am finding, although it is making things mighty difficult. So many choices! So many ideas! How can I do them all?!! Google "Quiet Book" and check out some of the great things people have done. Some are really simple, and some are pretty elaborate. I like to think that I fall in the middle, and I hope you will support me in this possible delusion.

I am in the throes of creating, so I am not fully finished with any pages, but I thought I'd show you what I have done so far. I am using muslin an the pages and mainly felt for the decor.

This will be the back page and it will hold a notebook and pen. This is the first page I worked on and I made the unfortunate discovery that my fabric pens are not up for another use. Please forgive the lack of polish on this one.

I find this page a bit drab. Perhaps once I get the writing done....

The red, yellow and green circles are velcroed on.

I thought this came out quite cute! And my family may understand why I made the apples large enough to not be eaten!! Plus, I don't have to make as many. The apples velcro on and can be put in the basket.

The fishing boy is one of my favorites. The fish are velcroed on, and can be put in the bucket. I still need to sew a loop on the fish mouths and I need to put the fishing line and hook in the boy's hand.

The kite is cute and simple to do, so I like it!

I had not made this one before, but I thought it came out very nicely! I'm not sure I like the white colored egg on the light colored page since it looks a little plain. But the chick is adorable and goes inside the egg.

So, I am off to a roaring start and neglecting lots of other things to work on it all! If I remember, I'll post pictures of the finished product.. but I may have to wait till after Christmas!

Little Mousie, in my Housie

A few weeks ago, while Miranda and Savannah were here, I first spotted this little guy. Then most of the family also had mouse sightings.

Yes, he was quite cute and he seemed fairly unconcerned about us. Fortunately for him, I can't kill the mousie in cold blood.

So cute! I almost wanted to just let him stay. Then I thought about his little mouse paws running over my floor and I wanted to vomit. He was spotted several more times, and I didn't do anything because he is adorable and he wasn't pooping where I could see, and he wasn't eating any food that I could see.

However, I did eventually get to Walmart and I got some traps. They scare me. I managed to set up 4 of them and within a few days we snapped a mouse. I made Dan dispose of it.

A few nights later, I was up late with Rylee and heard scuffling and spotted his friend, hopping down my stairs! The little bugger boldly jumped down in front of me and scurried in a leisurely fashion around the shelf of movies. It was bad enough thinking the mousies were confined to the basement, but it was an intolerable thought that they might be venturing upstairs!!

So it was war. I went to the commissary today and discovered that among the several options for disposing of mice, my choices were 2 snap traps for $3.69, or 2 circular no-touch traps for $3.69. I got them both. I know the snap traps work, but I was delighted to try out this new circular trap that doesn't bite if you do it wrong. I put on my peanut butter and put out the 2 circular traps.

I wasn't expecting anything until nighttime at least, but as I was moving laundry over at 8pm, I heard scuffling noises. I looked over at my trap. It has 3 settings- Set, Not Set, and Caught. The trap was pointing to Not Set. Hmmmmm..... I know it is a smart mousie, since he managed to lick all the peanut butter off one of the original snap traps, so I picked up the trap to check it. It felt empty, so I went to set it and something moved! I, of course, screamed like a girl and dropped it. I shouted for Dan, who is only slightly less squeamish than I am. He swept the trap up with a broom and we slid it into a gallon zip lock bag. We were trying to see if there was a mousie in it and there was a tail sticking out the door of the trap. As we stared at it in fascination, we decided it wasn't moving, so the trap must have worked. It was suppose to kill the thing. It was also suppose to point to "Caught" when it did, and it actually did neither. As I twisted the trap, still enclosed in the bag, the mouse popped out. Again, I screamed like a little girl and threw it on the floor.

So now I had a mouse in a gallon zip lock bag, racing around on the floor. Joshua and Marian were screaming. Rylee saw everyone jumping and screaming and promptly joined in. We didn't know what to do with an ALIVE mouse! Dan stepped up and picked it up. I was all for just tossing the whole thing into the outside trash, but Joshua and Dan took him outside and released him at the fence line. I just hope he has learned his lesson!

Myrtle Beach

This weekend we took a little trip to Myrtle Beach. I trust that you realize that this blog is not necessarily a view of how life really is all the time. I was grumpy on this trip and will admit that there was chaos and crabbiness and quarreling going on this weekend and it wasn't all me! Callie and Marian were fighting about pretty much everything and that was no fun. Still, I am going to only show the pictures of us having a good time, because, honestly, that's what I hope to remember. It's what I hope the kids remember best too.

We went to the Ripley's Aquarium, which is way cool. And they give a fabulous military discount. The kids enjoyed it. The little girls loved the fish slide!

Joshua did have a good time, but was a pickle about getting his picture taken.

Rylee had a great time. I know this because she was happy to stay in the stroller and just look around. Look at her face.

Did I mention how awesome this aquarium is?!! Look at this shark! It is above us, overhead. The aquarium has a tunnel you can walk through and there are fish (and sharks!) all around you. Very cool!

The girls enjoyed the fish. There were so many and they looked so different and bright.

Marian may need her own fish tank. She loved to just stand against the tanks and watch the fish. This is the Manta ray tank. There were a couple sharks in there too.

And here they could pet the rays if they came close enough. Yes, I was a bit concerned a few times that someone was going to join them in the water!

We also took advantage of the hotel pool both days. Callie and Marian both learned to dive. Actually, they learned to hurl themselves at the water and flip. So sometimes they landed on their heads, sometimes on their back, and occasionally, they would get in a full rotation. Unfortunately, my camera had an issue and deleted nearly all the pictures of the pool. (And all the pictures of playing miniature golf.) So, here is Rylee hanging out at the pool.

As for the mini-golf. I thought it would be putt-putt golf, but it was just mini-golf with no fun things to play through. It was a little disappointing. Joshua really liked it though and actually played, unlike his sisters who just hucked their ball on thru in a race to be first.

We also made it to the beach. I thought it would be too cold, but the kids jumped right on in. They actually raced into the water before we even set down the bag! Here, Marian has talked Dan into "jumping" her over the waves.

Delaney ran herself all over the place and had a ball.

Rylee just ran. She seriously just ran! She took off and never cared what I was doing or if I was following.

One of the rare times she looked back. She took off across the beach and only stopped this one time to giggle at me. Such a pickle!

The girls had a lot of fun in the sand. We brought an extraordinary amount of it back home with us too. Ug.

We were there in the evening and as the sun went down, it got chillier. Here's Callie, so cold, and so cute!

I'm not sure I adequately described Rylee. She did run away, but she also ran into the water- repeatedly. As in, when we got there, she dashed to the water. She ran into it and didn't stop! I was exceedingly astonished. I took her out of the waves and back up to dry beach and she did it again. And again! Since the last time we took her to the beach she just cried, I didn't think she would even get near the water. So she was not properly dressed. I had to remove her clothes and she ran around (and away as fast as she could) in her diaper and was quite cold by the time we managed to corral her and wrap her in a towel.

I did take a video of her dash to the water. It doesn't show her manic persistence quite as well as I would have liked, but you get the idea. Well, as long as you know that she was running in of her own accord, you might get the idea!

Cute kids. That I have.

We took the 2 oldest to get passports. In preparation, I took a couple pictures of Joshua so he could see what he looked like. He was cute.

This is the slightly painful fake smile.

This is the no smile.

This is the small fake smile, which tends to better avoid the hideous fake-smile-grimace.

And this is laughing at his sister.

I love my boy!

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We got in some playground time this week which was nice. It was just cold enough that you had to keep moving or you would get a little chilly.

Someone had no problem keeping in motion!

Marian was too cute, trying to help Rylee. I drew the line at her climbing to the top of the structure with her baby sister.

Marian showed me her monkey skilz. She was so funny. She left her shoes on the ground and swung across the monkey bars. You can actually make a full circuit swinging across 3 sets of bars and never touch the ground. Marian was doing some shoe-less circuits. I asked why she took off her shoes and she told me, "Monkeys don't wear shoes!"

Rylee was obsessed with trying to climb up the slide while Delaney had a blast going down the slide.

Marian finally took Rylee down the slide. Rylee LOVED it!

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The kids' school has a running club that meets after school once a week. Joshua shocked me by saying he wanted to be in it this year. I had tried to encourage him before but he wasn't interested so I was pleased that he wanted to do it. Callie and Marian also said they would. We went for the first time this week. The chaos in the gym proved to be too much for Marian and she didn't last 15 minutes. It always surprises me when her Asperger's jumps out and this was one of those times. You saw 100 kids and thought "one of these kids is not like the others." Poor Marian. It was just too much noise and craziness. It was fine. She hung out with me and the little girls while Joshua and Callie did their thing. It looked like they had fun, but they sure did run!!

Check out the sequence shots of Joshua doing some drills:

That's some fancy footwork!

Yep, Callie may not have liked the running, but she loved being out there with her friends! That's Delaney, pawing through Callie's backpack looking for snacks.