I'm getting tag-teamed at night

Last night I got up with Rylee, as usual. (She's back to 2 nursings a night.) When she was mostly back down, I went to check on her sisters and noticed that Delaney was very wet, as were her jammies and sheets. I changed her out and got her settled back into bed and tucked her in. I was ready to snuggle back into my bed, but Rylee was vocalizing unhappy noises, so I went back in with her and sat by the crib pat-patting her and shhhhing whenever she grumbled. She finally fell asleep enough for me to leave, and I walked quietly out. As I came out, I could hear Delaney babbling to herself. I was hoping to head off her nocturnal movie watching, so I went back in to her room to check on her.

I climbed into bed next to her and she looked over at me and said, "I'm going to have a pinata at my birthday party, and snacks. Hmmmm, maybe crackers." Seriously?! This is what she thinks about in the middle of the night?! I snuggled with her and then tucked her in again. As I left, Rylee was fussing again. She's been coughing, and I think it is waking her up. So I got to go sit on her floor some more. Sigh. I was up for an hour between the 2 of them.

And on a totally different topic, this was so cute.....

Yesterday we were in church and you can look out the window closest to the front and see some lovely landscape. It is very pretty and Callie looked out there yesterday just after church started. She grabbed my arm and whispered, "Is that the Garden of Eden?"

Dress Ups and Decorating

Delaney discovered the box of dress-ups that I had put under her bed. She and Callie have gleefully been trying on everything all week. I never know what they will be attired in when I see them. Although, to be honest, Delaney is usually wearing no clothes. The better to put on whatever dress up item she fancies. Lately, it has been the collection of tutus.

The 2 girls were in Pretend Heaven when it was time for Family Home Evening this week. I figured they were dressed, so it was good enough. Now that I am posting pictures, I wonder if perhaps I should have had them put real clothes on first. Still, here is what we did for Family Night!

Callie and Rylee helped pull stuff out of the Christmas box. It was so exciting!!

The lovely ballerina, Delaney is showing me her tree ornament.

Marian was so cute, decorating our tree. She was so methodical and carefully selected each spot each ornament should go.

As an aside..... this is the cheapo Walmart tree I bought 5 years ago when Dan was deployed and I was having my very first Christmas at my own house. Somehow, we can't make ourselves spend money to upgrade to a nicer tree, although every year I swear I will at the after-Christmas sales. (I never do!)

Rylee had a blast and was in to everything! Look at that face. Pure mischief!

Callie, in her flapper dress-up was a great helper with the tree. And then she wanted to put up all the other decorations. Unfortunately she doesn't have a sense of moderation and likes to put everything in one place. It is festive, but everywhere else gets lonely.

It was so fun to see the kids decorating the tree. I didn't put any ornaments on! They did all the work themselves, and it was so sweet to see. They also put out the Nativity set- unassisted.

While everyone else was putting things on, this one was deviously working on how to get them off!

Joshua was very good with the breakables and he made sure things were all over the tree.

My 3 best helpers in front of the merry little tree. Sigh. I guess it really is time to get a bigger one.

Rylee has a new ability. The clever little minx has discovered the step stool. She now carries it all over the house, to better reach whatever she wants. She has also learned to improvise and will stand on whatever she thinks will help her reach her goal. This is becoming a problem:

She is on the toy box so she can reach the Nativity. She had such a good time with them, and I let her do it, hoping she would get it out of her system. She did well and nothing is broken!

Later, Delaney shrieked, "Rylee's on the table!!" and sure enough, she was. She had used her step stool to climb on a chair and from the chair she scooted right up onto the table. You can see that she made a beeline for the glue stick and was busy snacking on it when I saw her. She's trouble! I just hope she grows up to use her powers for good.

Quiet Book #3!

I thought it would be fun to do the LDS themed quiet book. I tried it out and it has been a lot of fun. I get bored doing the same pages and when they are no fun, I don't want to do them anymore, so this was good!

I'm not sure why this came out horizontal, but you can still see. The template had hooks, but I did velcro to close the "Red Sea".

Its a basic lift-the-flap and you can see the people inside. Super easy. I just copied the picture onto the muslin.

The pioneer page was fun, and this is the first time I have used brads. They were better than I expected. Usually I just sew a button on to allow something to move. The wheels turn and the ox velcros to the front of the wagon. I should have put another pioneer themed page across from it, but I don't think that well in advance! So it has the Armor of God there instead.

Again, lack of forward thinking that I didn't write the title up high enough. The accessories velcro on.

I really liked the Jesus picture. The 2 little kids velcro to the page, and I sewed plastic on the faces, so you can put a picture of your own kid inside. The Liahona is suppose to have a compass in the center. You would be surprised how hard it is to find a small flat compass! I'm waiting for mine to arrive, since I had to order it off ebay ($1 for 2 with free shipping!) When it arrives, I will glue the compass to the center. And I will finish coloring it.

Noah's Ark is not new. The Brother of Jared is! The top of the rock is one big velcro piece and the shiny rocks velcro to it, so they can be moved. And the arm moves up and down.

The Brother of Jared picture is from googling the phrase and looking for coloring pages. The arm is made from a foam popsicle stick and is sewed to the page with a button. The ark has a bunch of animals and Noah.

Piggy Bank still needs some coins. I will have 10 coins with the numbers 1-10 on them. Moses goes in the basket and I have a shoelace to tie the basket shut with. Its a little bulky, but fun.

I need a pen and notebook for the pockets. The temple picture again came from googling coloring pages. And again, I didn't think about where I was writing the phrase! Oops. The flowers button on and come off.

Joseph has felt strips in matching colors to snap on. I detest sewing on snaps, and have not yet mastered the non-sewing kind, so this is not yet finished! The other picture is Daniel. I thought it would be more fun and cave-like with the felt flap. Lift it and.....

Picture courtesy of google, and plastic pocket that holds finger puppets of Daniel, a lion (hee hee, I wrote loin first!), and an angel. Someone has run off with my angel puppet, so I need to find it or make another!

Last page is this one. The gifts and baby all velcro to the page.

The bottom line- there were lots of ideas but not a lot pictures of finished books, which is why I'm putting this out there. There weren't a lot of patterns or directions, but it was pretty easy to google a coloring page for a picture I wanted. You can find half of the patterns for my pages at ann f. pritt qb pdf (from idea door).

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Okay, I have been finishing up m books and have a few more pictures for you:

I hadn't wanted to do this picture because it didn't seem to have enough going on. I kind of accidently ended up making it. To make it more interesting, I added the buckle. Joshua informed me that it was not a correct representation. I know. It isn't. However, I think it is more fun than not having it.

See, I want a quiet book with activities. There are LOTS of adorable things out there, but I want something that is going to occupy my kid. I want an activity quiet book. So I had to add the buckle to make me happy. And I ended up making a set of gold plates out of felt and sewing them together. I'm sure there are better and more interesting things, but I'm all out of ideas for now!

Long story, and it took me forever, but I did get the darn snaps done on this page. Ug. I detest snaps. And I should have used pelon on them, but I didn't.

I am still waiting on a mini compass to glue into the center here, but this is the almost-finished product. I think the jewels make it lovely, and I know my kids love anything shiny! The 4 velcro pieces have matching "N, S, E,& W" letters on them.

And I am done. I have finished my books! Okay, except for the darn compass!

Thanksgiving Day

We had a decent Turkey Day. The food was great. My philosophy about Thanksgiving is that it is a day to enjoy family and to celebrate the things we are thankful for. So I refuse to stress out and overwork myself on this day. We were pretty low-key: 20 pound turkey, stuffing, yams, mashed tatoes, green bean casserole, jello salad (made the day before) Rhoades rolls and pies. I only did chocolate truffle and pumpkin pies. And those were done before Thursday. So, not a lot of cooking for me, and plenty of time, since the turkey took about 4 hours to cook.

Dan and Joshua had a good time playing Wii together. Rylee loves her little chairs.

Marian worked on a cute Thanksgiving book. She made an adorable pop-up page; sorry I didn't get a picture of it.

Here's Rylee with her favorite part of dinner. Jello salad is about all she really ate, but she sure had fun with it.

Callie managed to dibs a turkey leg and she was able to put a pretty good dent in it.

Delaney said, "Take my picture!"

And Rylee helped polish off Joshua's turkey leg!

It was a good meal, but the day was dampened a bit by a tummy bug. No, it was NOT food poisoning, and shame on you for thinking it! Delaney had spent Tuesday puking, but I hoped everyone else would stay healthy. Dan felt crummy on Thanksgiving Day and didn't eat much. Friday Callie and Joshua spent the day barfing. I started feeling rotten after my session at the Temple and didn't get to enjoy any leftovers. I still haven't! I feel barfy today, but have managed to avoid doing it. Marian had an unsettled tummy today, but also had managed to keep her food down. She has eaten more than I.

I am thankful that it is about a 24 hour thing. I am doubly grateful that all my kids have good aim (except for a minor incident with Delaney who yakked a blue popsicle all over my bathroom floor), and they have diligently carried buckets with them and I have not had to clean up much vomit. I am grateful that they have not been too hungry and eventually I WILL get my turkey sandwich!!

Shots Hurt

Some of you may know that I am going to go to Africa in 2 months to visit my parents (if you haven't checked out their blog, I have a link on the right and you should!) and to play. I am taking Marian with me. I am very excited about it and so is Marian. To be honest, she is the only one of my children I would take on such a long plane ride and on such a pricey trip. She is mellow and self entertaining enough to not whine the whole time and she's easy to get along with. Plus, she loves animals and I figured that she would get the most out of the journey. So, we're going to Africa!

Unfortunately, that necessitated a visit first to the Travel Doctor. The end result of that, in addition to a supply of Malaria pills and a Z-Pack of antibiotics (in the expected event of "travelers diarrhea"), Marian and I got some shots. I know that some doctors claim that shots don't really hurt kids, but I am here to tell you, they lie!

I had the not-pleasure of getting a Hepatitis shot, a typhoid shot and DTap that day. The Hep shot wasn't actually bad at all. The DTap was fine going in and fine for 5 minutes. The typoid felt very thick and heavy going in. While not painful, it was uncomfortable and a bit freaky. The biggest problem was that within 10 minutes, I couldn't move my DTap arm. It hurt! It really, really hurt! And it hurt for a few days. Just so you know.

Marian and I got to go back last week for the Yellow Fever vaccination. They didn't give it to us originally because it apparently is an exceedingly expensive shot, and they won't open the vial till they have at least 5 people who need it. Oh, and its only viable for an hour. So once open, they have an hour to get rid of it all before it goes bad. They called us back and last Friday I pulled Marian from school so we could get poked.

That shot stung. It stung going in and it stung a bit for the 20 minutes we had to wait before we could leave. Marian was so brave, by the way. She took each shot with a brave face. (One more reason I'm happy to bring her with me!) After that Yellow Fever shot, I ended up with a red, swollen knot that was tender, sore and itchy. Its been a week and it is still a little tender and itchy. But I'm glad they are done.

And I now have a testimony that kids cry at vaccinations because some of them plain hurt!