She does do more than sleep in her high chair.

Carrots anyone?

Leaves. Lots of them.

Things that come to mind when I look at this picture:

• Safety first.
• "Ok, everybody put a hand in, we jump in the pile on three,...."
• "If we pretend like we are talking, he'll keep working and won't notice."
• "Mom says she loves raking leaves, I'd rather be jumping in...."
  

He did get to play in them....

And so did this cutie:

Nigh, nigh.

We spent the afternoon at Grandma L & Grandpa D's house. Can you tell she played outside? Right after her last bite of chocolate chip cookie she faded away to dreamland.....




Now, officially, all of our kids have fallen asleep in the high chair. Good food, good times.

I want to be Tallon.

Today is my nephew Tallon's 9th birthday! He reminds me so much of Ryder, they have the exact same playful smile with that sparkle in their eye. Last night I was talking to Nicole and she began to tell me the list of food this kid was getting for his birthday. So, here in no particular order is why I want to be Tallon today:

• Pancakes for breakfast.
• In-N-Out Burger delivered to him at school for lunch.
• Chocolate Chip Cookies and Brownies for dessert at school.
• Tacos for dinner.
• Cheesecake for dessert.

Need I say more? Don't you want to be Tallon?

It must be Christmas!

Yesterday we woke up to a little white on the ground. I grumbled under my breath about having snow so early and let out a sigh. As I walked in the kitchen there was Gage, standing on the chair peering out the window, shouting with excitement, "It's Christmas, mommy, it's Christmas! I wuv the snow, I wuv the snow!" How could I burst his bubble of joy? With a smile on my face we looked out the window together and I let his excitement pour into me (for a little while anyway:-)!). Later in the day the dusting of white had melted (to my relief) and when Gage woke from his nap, he cried when he looked out the window and shouted, "It's gone mommy, the snow is gone! I want it to come back, I don't want no snow, I want it back!"

That's the nice thing about kids, just when you are ready to be miserable, they come along and see the greatest joy in the situation. Let's hope I can continue to allow their excitement for life to spill over into mine!

Darf Bader and Obie Nobie

It's official. My kids are Star Wars fans. Thanks to Auntie Paula.

She somehow stumbled on Return of the Jedi and had the kids completely engrossed in it. Next thing I knew they had rented that and Episode IV (I only know the episode number because I looked at the DVD). Ofcourse, there were some scenes they skipped, but all I have heard from Gage is, "Darf Bader, mommy, it's Darf Bader and Obie Nobie!".

Personally, I'm just not a huge fan of fantasy/sci-fi type movies (unlike the rest of my siblings). No offense to the gajillion of you that are, but, Lord of the Rings, Narnia, Spiderwick Chronicles and the like have never made it to my top 100 must see films. So, thanks a lot Auntie Paula, hopefully they will be returned soon and I won't have that muffled breathing, "Luke, I am your Father" in my head anymore!

Higher level thinking.

Friday, I was reading "The Great Turkey Race" to the kids. It's a cute little story about three turkeys who are competing to be the "special" Thanksgiving turkey for Farmer Joe and Farmer Kate until one of them realizes they will actually be "dinner". With that information, they throw the competition out the window and quickly find a way to escape. The second to last page shows them jumping the fence and running away and the last picture is of Farmer Joe and Farmer Kate having vegetable stew for Thanksgiving instead.

Then, the questions began.....

Ashlynn: "Mom, what are they doing? I don't get it."

Me: "The turkeys are running away so they won't get eaten for dinner. See how the farmers are just eating veggies for Thanksgiving now?"

Ashlynn: "Yes, but mom, if they run away, they are just going to get eaten by wild animals in the woods....so what's the difference?"

How can you argue with the concept of the food chain? Seriously, I was like, "Why didn't I ever think of that?"

The view from my window.

Oh, how I wish I had my camera! The weather is just gorgeous here and since October was so dreary and drizzly, we are basking in the sunshine and warmth outside every scheduled minute we can :-). It's been so cute watching the kids play and I keep seeing moments I would normally capture with my precious camera, so since it is apparently gone for good and the budget doesn't warrant a replacement just yet, I'll give the you the best description I can.

Ashlynn has on a pair of red, comfy cotton cropped pants with tiny cream hearts all over them. She is wearing her tan Ugg boots with a multicolored pink long-sleeved shirt and a bright pink Green Bay Packers beanie. Seriously a photo-op for all times! She has the football in her hands and is running with wild abandon, giggling all over the back yard. I can see my carefree girl traveling the world and living at the beach one day!

Gage has on a blue pair of track pants with a t-shirt that has some sort of truck on it. I'm pretty sure there are no shirts without some sort of truck/motorcycle/dinosaur/etc available for three year old boys. He has a Cars beanie on his head and is chasing after Ashlynn, gets a hold of her for a moment and crashes down through the leaves like a linebacker who's missed his man. He doesn't even wince and gets right back up to chase again. He just might be a lineman one day, and the running back had better hope to have Ashlynn's luck!

Addie, with her tan coat striped cotton pants and sparkly pink shoes is plopped down in the horseshoe pit and methodically scooping tiny shovels of sand into the dump truck. She is very diligent in her work and has not missed the dump end once. The surrounding chaos doesn't even phase her........definitely a fourth child and an air traffic controller in the making.

Ryder, in his usual pair of shorts, t-shirt and flip flops, is climbing the swing set. He has the swings and ropes twisted into wild knots and keeps calling, "look at me mom!", while maneuvering jumping from one pole to the next. I will not be shocked if this kid climbs rocks for a living one day, though he might pursue that for a hobby and settle on engineering so he can challenge even the best builders.

Hopefully this will help me to remember what I saw today when I looked out the window, every minute that passes takes a little piece from my memory and there is no way to slow that down!

Scheduling, a dangerous job.

My dear, sweet sister sent me the coolest book on scheduling and organizing my household. She actually bought the book for herself and didn't see the subtitle (that was quite large:-)!) "A Practical Guide to Daily Scheduling for Christian Homeschool Families" and since she is not homeschooling yet, thought it might be good for me.

I read through the entire book in one evening.

It's like 175 pages of organization on steroids. I loved it.

I am not an organized person. Routine, yes. Scheduled, uhhhh...

The next evening I set out scheduling everyone's chart and what our goals for each day would be. It was akin to a really challenging math problem, trying to get all of the time slots for five people to mesh and become cohesive. But, alas, I came out the victor and our schedule was born.

Ofcourse, this all happened by Thursday night and I prepped the kids for it on Friday and let them know we would start Monday. Some of my kids fall into the type A category and begged to start at that very moment, so me being flexible said "sure, why not?".

I don't think that was part of the plan. Oops. Oh well.

Ashlynn started rinsing dishes (her new job) and Gage began to load the kids plates (his new job) and the next thing I knew.....water was all over the floor and Gage didn't realize the rack needed to be pushed in before the door was closed resulting in a broken plate.

Who's idea was this?

The rest of Friday actually went really well and all of the kids had quiet time (so did I!) and we all played together (scheduled now) read together (scheduled now) and made dinner together (also on the schedule). We spent Saturday really cleaning and Sunday was very relaxed. We are now in our official first day and it has been AMAZING!

Seriously, I am so not into schedules; I like to wake up and see where the day takes me. But we have not wasted a moment today, no TV, my house is clean, laundry is done (scheduled to be put away at 3:30), school is done, the kitchen is clean and I know what I making for dinner!

The best part of all, the kids love it. So thank you Nicole, now I'm sorry, but I can only call at scheduled times only.......:-)