Brown Bear and growing up

Oh my, growing up can be cruel sometimes. But growing up is necessary and the little lessons learned along the way are so very important.

 

I've decided it's more than time for Eily to break the habit of bumping. This morning I told her that if I caught her bumping during the day, I was going to take away Brown Bear and put him in a safe place until she could break the habit.

 

 

I caught her.

 

It was awful. There was wailing and crying and gnashing of teeth. Brown Bear is now resting peacefully in the top of my closet and Eily and I had a long talk about how this new way of sleeping will be hard to get used to but she's a big girl now and very strong and will succeed. 

As we left her room, she looked at me and between sniffles and shudders said, "But Mama, this is going to be worser than hard!"

And she's right. It will probably be worser than hard but we will work through it together and it'll all turn out ok.
And when she's a teenager and sleeping over at a friend's house, she'll thank me that she doesn't have to bump to get to sleep.  And if she doesn't thank me, her friend probably will.

I'd say we're related.

Not for another 100 years

It's 12-12-12, y'all. And it deserves a post.

Today was a really, really good day. We usually have our co-op school on wednesdays, but we are finished for the semester so instead, we all spent the day just hanging out with Jason until he had to leave on a little mini-trip. (When I say all, I don't mean the entire co-op, I mean our little family.) We ran some errands, ate some meals, watched some shows and had some conversations. It was really lovely and I hated to see him leave.


Totally unrelated...  Nora has woke up dry twice this week. That means potty training is in the near future. Someone hold my hand, please.

Count Your Blessings

Having good friends and close family nearby makes life pretty good.
This week we went out to eat to celebrate one of my oldest and best friend's birthday, played dress up with more recent friends, and went on a train ride with some of our favorite cousins. We are so blessed.

Candy, candy everywhere and all the children didn't sleep.

We went to two Christmas parades last Saturday. The weather was so, so beautiful which made the decision to actually go see the parades very easy. Even though it was nice outside, I put this hat on Nora. It was just too cute to pass up and since it was officially December I thought I could get away with it.

At the first parade we got a decent/normal amount of candy. Still too much in my opinion but not really a terrible amount. None of that really matters anyway because I let them eat their fill that first day and then threw the rest away or gave it away.

Here's Elaina with her empty bag waiting for the parade to start. She couldn't take her eyes off the scrolling bank marquee to look at the camera so her smile is a little distracted.

It was a good parade and really fun family time, but we had to move on because Aunt Sarah and Uncle Brad had a housewarming that afternoon and then that evening we were going to go to the Charleston parade.

 

 

 

Let me tell you something. This was the best parade I have ever been to and I've been to a lot of parades in my thirty-one years. It basically had the same participants that the Lavaca parade had (I guess these people just do a parade circuit) but the thing that made this parade AMAZING was the group of little people that I watched it with.

Audrey and Elaina VERY excited and walking quickly to stake their spot on the best corner.

Let me set the scene for you. This was the first parade that Audrey had been to in years and probably the first one that she will remember. She was so excited she could hardly contain herself. This of course, rubbed off on the other kids so the anticipation level was quite high. We parked ourselves on the corner where the parade started from and waited and waited and waited.

You know how pretty much everyone at a parade just stands there and watches and the youngsters run around gathering candy but no one really says anything? Well, we were the opposite of that, except for the watching the kids part. From the very first cop car to the very last fire truck, those kids waved and screamed and cheered and whistled as if their lives depended on it and if the person that was in front of us had their name written somewhere on their float, the kids yelled "Hello" and said their name nice and loud and waved so hard I'm suprised their arms didn't fall off. It was hilarious. Since we were at the beginning of the parade, when all the participants still had a lot of candy, and since the kids were so good at showing their enthusiasm, they RACKED UP the candy. The poor people on the other side of the street were partially ignored and while I felt bad for them, I was laughing so hard at our little group of cheerleaders and they were working so hard at being enthusiastic that I felt they were earning every single piece of candy thrown their way. I hope we started a trend because parades would be so much more fun if everyone cheered the way these kids did. It was great.

Crickets

Today, after school and laundry and babysitting and playing outside (barefoot) in this gorgeous December weather, we went to Petco and bought two crickets. They cost 32 cents. It was a good day.

Bullet List

Some points of interest. (Or not, but let's just pretend, ok?)

• Remember when I had the best mail day ever?

Well, Volume 2 arrived in the mail yesterday. This is the funnest thing ever. It's like I have a secret pen pal. Except instead of stickers, I get books! Woo Hoo!!

• I cannot believe December starts tomorrow. Crazy, crazy.

• Last night, my Dad and a bunch of other people went to the UALR game. Every year around this time, Pappy (Dad) rounds up Pappy's Army and treats anyone that shows up with a ticket to the game. It's a bit of a different crowd each year but always a lot of fun. I stayed home with Eily, Claire and Nora so that Jason and Elaina could have some fun one-on-one time. Rumor has it that at one point Aunt Kat, Elaina and a foam finger made it onto the big screen while dancing. I would have loved to have seen that.

That's all. Have a great Friday!

Recently...

I have several things I want to share with you today.
Every year, instead of giving gifts to each other at Christmas, my family does a gift exchange at Thanksgiving. We call it Family Day. I thought I made a point to take a picture of each of the girls with a gift but apparently, in all the chaos, I forgot to take one of Claire.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I didn't make as much food this year as a couple of years ago, but I did make two pumpkin pies.

(P.S. This is the best pie crust recipe I've ever used.)

 

 

 

Eily made a Christmas list this year. It's hilarious. Click on the picture to enlarge it so you can read her gift ideas. I'm thinking I may borrow some of them for my list.

                           During all the water problems the other day, Aunt Sarah came and got Eily and Claire and took them to her house. Apparently she's updated her dress up supplies.

 

I've had some "proud/hooray/we've improved/I can see a difference" moments lately.

When we started the school year, Elaina's handwriting was horrible and she wrote almost all of her letters incorrectly. She'd start at the bottom or circle around the wrong direction. This paper is from her spelling test this morning. All letters were written neatly and correctly the first time and she made a 100% on her test!! Go Elaina!

Claire made her own bed this morning. It's looks perfect.

 

Elaina made her own bed this morning. It looks perfect.

Their housekeeping skills are greatly improving.

Hooray for Mama's helpers!

He's pretty special and I like him.

Thanksgiving is over. It's my favorite holiday every year and this year is no exception, but it seemed very short this time around. By Saturday, a stomach virus had started making its way through the crowd and people were dropping like flies. So far, it has avoided our family, although Jason did feel very nauseous Sunday morning.  I'm crossing my fingers that somehow we managed to hide from the germs. (Logan did throw up in the sink at our house so it's not very probable. I'm just going to continue to think positive.)

Sunday morning, as Kathryn was taking a shower, water started pouring in from under the toilet again. It was A LOT of water. Our plumber is supposed to come today or tomorrow to replace some of the line so we left the house, went to church and then went to my mom's house for the rest of the afternoon. After evening services, my oldest brother came over and cleared the line so that we could at least use the commodes. I still keep running back to check my bathroom floor every time someone flushes or turns on the sink. I've become paranoid about the whole thing.

Another week of school is starting and I need to get in the schoolroom and start the lessons. Have a great Monday!

Today

Earlier this morning...

Today I am hosting a 31 party at my house. I'm feeling good about it. I'm not going all out on the food. Just simple things that are yummy and hopefully filling. There is only one load of laundry to do and it's just the clothes we wore yesterday. I'm just going to sweep, mop, vacuum and clean the bathrooms. It's all easy peasy and should be able to be accomplished before 6:30pm. There's plenty of time for school to be finished, too. Sounds stress free, right?

Two hours later...


Elaina hopped in the shower this morning after breakfast. Claire had to go use the potty so she went in my bathroom. I started cleaning the kitchen. Screams started coming from the back of the house. Jason started yelling to pull Elaina out of the shower. Water started pouring out of the bottom of the toilet in my bathroom. Pouring.

I now have two bathrooms out of commission. I have a basket of soaked, and I mean soaked, towels that need to be washed but can't be because of the backed up water line. I have almost no clean towels left in the linen closet. I have three little people that will need to go use the potty at a moment's notice, but can't. I have women coming, women who expect (and rightly so) clean, working commodes. I have a crockpot full of homemade chicken stock that needs to be strained and put in freezer containers which will then leave me with a greasy mess that I can't wash because of the backed up water line. I have nasty, greasy hair that can't be washed because of the backed up water line.

You think I would now be stressed, right? I admit that I was. But now I'm just laughing. It is what it is. And it will all work out in the end. If my house smells like a chicken carcass during the party, oh well. At least it's an organic chicken carcass. If I have laundry everywhere, oh well. These people have laundry at their house, too. If I look gross, what's new? I'll spray some perfume on me or wear some sparkles or something.

Life seems better if you just learn to laugh and move on.

Entertaining myself

*snort*

A while back...
on a Sunday morning...
while we were singing hymns at church...
particularly Wayfaring Stranger...
even more particularly during the I'm going there part...
Elaina leaned over to me and whispered...

"Where is this guy going?"

On that same Sunday morning...
while we were still singing hymns at church....
particularly Rock of Ages...
even more particularly during the let me hide myself in Thee part...
Elaina leaned over and whispered...

"That's a very bossy ending.

 

Weaving

One of the projects in the Little House class at Wednesday School was learning how to weave on a loom like Almonzo's mother did in Farmer Boy. Claire made a bookmark out of yarn for her daddy. She's pretty proud of it. :)

It's Monday. I promised you a post today and I intended to deliver on that promise.

It would probably make a very interesting post if I told you all about all the things that have I have been mulling over in my mind but that would require an awful lot of typing and I just don't have the energy. I'm having to prop my head up on the bar stool just to get this post written. When I'm in this sort of slump, I like to make lists.

1. I don't really enjoy Parables from Mother Nature. Sorry to offend, but I'm just being honest.
2. Elaina and I both enjoy 50 Famous Stories, though.
3. Punctuation can save lives.
4. I ate, Grandma.
5. I ate Grandma.
6. I saw that on Pinterest and laughed.
7. Maybe you'll see it on here and laugh.
8. Nora has been very climby today,
9. On me.
10. Only.
11. I need coffee.
12. Despite my energy slump, I want to exercise.

Remembering what's important

I'm slacking but I'm slacking on purpose. I need to devote my time this week to my house and my family. I'll be back Monday. Promise!

Well, ok then.

Someone found my blog because they searched for canine drool.

I'm not sure how to feel about that.

Also, did I ever even write about canine drool?

Sweet, sweet baby

She's due with Her today. She's too shy to pose for the camera. She went to dinner with us.

She's Stephanie. :)

Phone Photos

In no particular order:

Corn cob toss pictures
Famous second cousin
Yelling for Aunt Kat
Daddy's airplane
Bed hog

Here's what happened. I took the time to download all the pictures from the good camera and I don't know where they went. I can't find the folder anywhere. So until I have time time to reload them on the computer, you'll get posts about something else.

I'm doing a bit of a home tour this morning. My house is by no means perfect. It's not decorated in my "dream" way, but I think it's pretty homey and it has some items that I really enjoy looking at. (How could you type that sentence but not have it end in a preposition?)

 

Jason gave me this painting for our anniversary. I love it and it's not often I get to keep a painting.

 

 

I love this lamp. I got it at TJMaxx on the clearance isle. I love my little tooth box. It has quite a lot of teeth in it already.

 

 

This is a new addition. My cousin, Kathryn, made this tree in her pottery class. I think it's an artsy jewelry holder.

 

I have a big girl dresser. Sometimes that cracks me up.

 

One of my favorite pictures of the girls. Elaina was two, Claire was one and Eily was... younger than that.

 

 

 

This is a picture of me from second grade. Jason likes it.

 

These are our bedside lamps. They were another TJMaxx find. I think they're purdy. And cool.

 

Our bed. I like the pillows. They are from Target. At night, when the lamps are turned on, this part of the room has a very calm/serene/soothing feel. I like white walls.

 

Jason's current reading stack.

A gift card. He's been winning those a lot.

 

Pinterest find. I needed a way to store the girls' toothbrushes in the main bathroom. It looks better than what the picture shows.

 

When Jason worked at the FSAC, he found this old print in the attic and the bosses told him to throw it out. He brought it home to me instead. It looks nice in the bathroom. These two have become like old friends to me.

 

Well that's it for now. There are still a few items that I want to show you but at some other time. One of my favorite things broke yesterday. I'm sad. :(

 

I exercised yesterday. It was like a breath of fresh air. Then I came home and ate some candy corn.

 

Oh well.