Making 'Soup'

One of Allie's favorite things to do is to make 'soup'. Not actual, edible soup, but a concoction of any number of things that can be stirred with a spoon. Sometimes she stands at the sink with a big pot of water and a spoon and I give her some spices, sprinkles, glitter, assorted things that look like they could be in soup, and she will stand there forever mixing and adding until her 'soup' is just right. The soup Du jour is a mixture of beads and string cut into teeny pieces. She has been sitting there for over an hour cutting bits of string and choosing just the right beads to add to the soup. It looks pretty, and definitely keeps her happily occupied. Oh, and the hat...I have no idea.

Crazy Skeleton and Chicken Feet

This is Maya making a crazy face in her day before Halloween shirt.

And then... Allie came into the living room and said, "look Mommy I have chicken feet!" She came up with that all on her own.

Maya's Version of Chess

Clearly she has her own strategy...

I Never Thought I'd See This

Not that I never thought it was possible, just that it wasn't even on my radar screen. Our friends Ryleigh (2) and Brandon (6) spent the night on Saturday. Sunday morning as I was making waffles and whipped cream and the kids were (I thought) watching cartoons in the next room. I went in to announce that the feast was about to begin when I came across this;

Will taught Lilly to play chess about a year ago, and they have been playing quite a bit lately, and she wanted someone to play with, so she taught Brandon to play. They played all morning instead of cartoons, toys or general kid craziness they played chess. I love unexpected things like chess over cartoons.

Allie's New Pet

Allie has a new pet, her name is Cinderella. She goes everywhere with Allie. She is a welcome addition to the family. We love her, she is very low maintenance.

Little Thing Big Thing

Today was one of those days when I really saw Lilly change. She is clearly becoming more comfortable and familiar with her new routine of going to school, being at school, and trusting that that will stay fairly constant. Every morning when she gets on the bus, I stand on the sidewalk and wave to her. She usually walks to her seat, sits down and watches and waves until the bus is all the way down the street where we can no longer see each other. I wave back the entire time, and a little longer than I probably have to, just in case she can still see me. We have done this every day since school started. Today she walked on to the bus, found her seat, then she peered out the window at me, flashed the sign for 'I love you', and turned to talk to her friends. She never looked back. My sweet Lilly girl is growing up.

Allie and Irish Grandpa Being Silly

Hair Bows

I was inspired by Kaycee at http://lifeasamomat21.blogspot.com/ to make my girls hair bows. I never thought they would wear them, but they are currently begging me to make them some more, as well as some to give their friends. Go figure.

Four Generations

We went to visit my Grandma with my Mom and Dad this weekend. It was her eighty seventh birthday. The kids picked her some fake flowers from the craft store, and we made her a book with all the pictures from the day we made pasta. She loved both the gifts and the visit especially. The girls found great pleasure in emptying my Grandma's cabinets and reselling all of her canned goods to her at a fraction of the original cost. I used to empty the cabinets when I was little too, but never had the brilliant idea of reselling the goods. We got a pretty good shot of four generations of our family, and gave my Grandma a day of family, good food (that she didn't have to cook) and fun.

Worn Out

Allie after a cold, a flu shot, a morning of errands and an outdoor birthday party with a bounce house. Worn out.

Doggie Twister

Right paw yellow, left paw green...

The Gallery

I thought of a new way to display all the artwork that comes into the house. I painted frames on the small wall in the kitchen. The girls love that I painted the wall and didn't hang frames. They are empty now because they are still a bit wet, but soon they will be filled with masterpieces.

The Goat Whisperer

My niece, Isabella is four and has a fear of dogs and cats. I mean a real, intense fear. Goats, sheep and pigs don't seem to bother her. We took care of her and her brother Jack for the weekend so her parents could attend a wedding out of state. We went to the petting zoo, one of Isabella's favorite things to do. As it turns out, she sings to the goats. She visits with all of them, talks to them, and sings them each a sweet little song. I love her so much and love that she will face a big horned goat and sing it a sweet song, but a cat sends her jumping into my arms. I miss her already.

This is Isabella singing to the goats. She is too funny.

A Note to Their Mom and Dad

We were taking care of the girl's cousins, Jack and Isabella, and this was E-mailed to their parents at the end of the first day so their Mom and Dad could see them. If it was me on the receiving end of the E-mail, I think I would be a little worried.
They really were fine...

Apple Knowledge

Allie's class went apple picking yesterday. After picking, they had a snack of...apples and pretzels and juice. As the kids were sitting on the blankets the teacher asked the kids to tell her something they knew about apples. One kid said "they are red" one said, "they grow on trees" one said, "I like apples". Allie? Allie said, "Apples have vitamin C". Yep. That's Allie.

Rats Don't Like Jelly Beans?

We were all at the animal shelter this afternoon entertaining the idea of adopting a second smaller dog. Why? Because I think Lukie would like a friend. He has no dog friends, and I don't think it's nice to not have friends. We all have friends, and it's nice most of the time. So I am on the hunt for a not small but not quite medium dog. So we were visiting all of the animals and we came to the little critter room. They have bunnies, hamsters, gerbils, and rats. Rats. I know, I hear they make great pets, but that tail freaks me out. We will never have rats as pets. No matter who begs. Maya is looking at one particularly large black and white rat climbing around his cage and she notices the rat turds on the floor of the cage. She turns to me and says,

"Mommy, he no likes those jelly beans?" I just about fell over with gales of laughter. I explained to her that no those weren't jelly beans, they were rat poop. She was much less interested after that

Making Wine

Last night we carried on a family tradition. We started a new batch of wine. My Dad had gone to get the grapes earlier in the day, and after supper it was time to crush them. no, we don't stomp around on them in order to get them crushed, we have a passed down from my Grandfather or Great grandfather grape squisher. I know that's not the technical term for it, but at the moment I cannot recall the actual name, and press sounds too simple so...

We had to crush eight boxes of Zinfandel grapes. Each box is 42 pounds I think. So each of the girls took turns turning the crank and watching the juice and grape bits fall into the barrel. After the squishing, the grape juice pulp stem mixture sits in the barrel for almost a week before being transferred into bottles to ferment. We will have our first taste around Christmas, but it will be drinkable around Easter. I really look forward to doing this with my Dad and the girls who each ate their own weight in grapes before the grapes met the squisher. Hopefully this tradition will continue for many more years.

Pumpkin Festival

We went to a pumpkin festival on Saturday. All the proceeds from the festival went to Camp Sunshine, a camp for sick kids. The goal of the festival was to raise money for the camp while trying to break the world record for most lit jack-o-lanterns at one time. The record (held by Camp Sunshine, achieved in another state) is 30,000 plus a few. The record wasn't broken, it fell about 7,000 short, but what a sight it was. All of the pumpkins pictured above are carved by hand and will be lit at sunset. We brought our friends Brandon and Ryleigh, and my Mom and Dad came along too. There was a band, games, and lots of places for carving. We added 5 pumpkins to the total, and had so much fun. I am hoping there will be another attempt next year, and that we will be there again. It was a wonderful time, and we all slept well afterward.

Our Own Sarah Palin-ish Moment, but it's okay Because ours is Four and not Running for Vice President

Allie: "Mommy, the animals that come out at night are noc-turtle"


Mommy: "That's right Al, they are nocturnal. Good remembering!"


Lilly: "Allie, what kinds of animals are nocturnal?"


Allie: "Well, lots of them are."


Lilly: "Yah, but which ones, the names of the ones that are nocturnal"


Allie: " Well, some of them, you know, the ones that come out at night"


Lilly: "What are their names? You know, like a racoon."


Allie: "Yah, racoons, they come out at night. That's what I said. The animals that come out at
night. They are noc-turtle. Those."

Go Diego Go! Seriously. Please Go.

I used to think Go Diego Go! was a cute show. Really, I did. Now, not so much. Maya is seriously addicted to that show. Well, as addicted to something as you can be when it is controlled by someone else. She LOVES Diego and everything about his show. She loves the animal noises, the Spanish words she learns, and the songs. Yes, yes quite educational if you care to know a half an hours worth of cartoon information about Pygmy Marmosets or some other creature of the sort. I am not really that interested. I wish the Pygmy Marmoset well and all, but I can't take it anymore. Either can Lilly and Allie. We all have Diego sized nightmares and try to ignore all requests for Diego.
It goes something like this:
Maya:" Mommy, I please have Go Diego?"
Mommy: "Diego's not on right now."
Maya: "Mommy, you just check, OK?"
Mommy: "Maya, Diego isn't on until later, we can watch before bedtime."
Maya: " Mommy, just check...please?!"
(Maya, thank god, has no concept of tivo and therefore has no clue that Diego is
available at all hours.)
Mommy: " No, I am not going to check, because you do not need to watch Diego right now,
let's go color."
Maya: "No, I no wanna color, I wanna watch Go Diego."
Mommy: "I know you want to watch Go Diego, but we're not doing that right now."
Maya: "PLEASE! I really want Go Diego. Mommy, I can watch Go Diego? Mommy, I watch Go
Diego? MOMMY, I WATCH GO DIEGO?!"
Mommy : gives silent warning Mommy glare
Maya: (in the calmest sweetest voice she can muster, which is actually surprisingly sweet and
calm) Mommy, I please watch Go Diego?"
Mommy: "Diego is on at bedtime. You can watch then."
Repeat ten times a day.

Fast forward to bedtime and Go Diego music is playing

Maya: "YEAH! GO DIEGO! YEAH YEAH YEAAAHHH!! HeeHee Haaaaaa Yeahhhhhhhhhh!
Go DIEGO IS OOOOOOOONNNNNNN! Whoo HOOOOO! "
Lilly and Allie simultaneously: "Not again! We are tired of Diego, can we PLEASE watch
something else?!"

Please let her pick a new show soon, for the sake of every one's sanity.