Comments

I have no idea how many people read this blog, mostly just family and a few friends I think. I haven't been faithful to the "daily" blog anymore, but I'm doing my best. I'll go back to "daily" as soon as school is out for the summer, I promise:) Please feel free to write a quick comment in the comment section once in a while so I know you are reading...it would probably encourage me to write more often. And I will share the comments with the kids, if appropriate. Thanks!

Of girls and pets...

Lucy has been asking for a pet for a long time...and she specifically wants a fish. We have pushed the pet issue off until the summer, since this year is way too busy to add anything else to the picture. Anything else that requires attention, that is. And thought of any kind. So, the topic comes up every few weeks but conversation about a pet never lasts long.


Until tonight. Somehow Jane was thinking about pets, and picked out the perfect pet- a hamster. But then she reconsidered and decided a family of hamsters would be better. Babies, a brother, a sister, and a mama and papa. We would have to have a cup of water in their "tank", she said. So they could drink whenever they were thirsty. And then her thinking went off on a strange tangent..."And when we get the family of hamsters, don't let the babies come out...When she (the mother) gets married, then they can come out."

This is for you, Aunt Emily!

Emily, for some reason I remember all the interesting outfits you used to put together when you were little. Now, you have gotten more sophisticated in your clothing choices, of course. But I think some of your genes have passed down to Jane and Lucy...these were the play clothes they chose today:



It's a SNOW DAY for us!!! Like much of the rest of the country, it sounds like. I won't be the only blog posting those words today:)

Random thoughts

Here's what's on my mind at the moment...

-I was just checking the school calendar and marking everything down on my own calendar, when I noticed something: the kids and I have a week-long "Mid-winter break"!!! We just had a week off for Christmas, and I did a double check about Spring Break- yep, we still have a week off in the Spring. What's with the Mid-Winter break? We didn't have that growing up!!! I don't know why this is such a big deal for me- it doesn't exactly bother me, but I'm realizing that the kids are not actually in school THAT MUCH! And when they're home, we do some school-y things. So, in all actuality, I think we are half homeschooling and half real-schooling.

-Our house is so much cozier with a fire. And we have had a fire going for the majority of the time since mid-December I think. Our wood pile is almost gone...

-I took Lucy to a birthday party at Chuck-E-Cheese today. Way overrated, I've gotta say. She had fun, at least she would say she had fun, but mostly because she got a lot of stuff at the end. She spent the time wandering around with me, putting tokens in random machines that played mediocre games, and hoping they would spit out tickets. She didn't even get what the tickets were for- but she was glad to accumulate them. She ran into kids from her class (it was a whole-class party) occasionally, but no one stuck together. Some of the games she wanted to do were out of order, or too hard for her. Not a single one was really interesting or challenging. The only one I liked was skee-ball, but she couldn't even get the ball up into the first little hole. They did have pizza and cake, and Chuck E. Cheese himself came out to dance and sing with the kids. That was somewhat entertaining. On the way home, she was glowing over her balloon and goody bag, and insisted she wanted to have her next birthday party there. We'll see...:)

That's all for now. Consider this blog "posted"!

Kid Quotes

And another update of random quotes...no pictures this time:)

Lucy and I had just finished reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory...a couple days later at breakfast, "Mama, wouldn't you like to have chocolate dishes? So when you were finished with your food, you could just eat them!"

Lucy, randomly one day, "Jane, you're in the middle of the terrible twos!" Jane looked up from what she was doing..."What am I in?" "Nothing," said Lucy.

Gene spent a long time trying to tell us the name of a game he had played that day at recess. "It was called Sussie...Su-ssie...Su-u-ss-sie...he couldn't quite pronounce it. When we tried to help him out by just asking him how they had played it, he said, "How should I know- it's Portuguese!!"

Jane came running barenaked downstairs one day, with not a stitch of clothing on, when she was supposed to be getting dressed. When I asked her why she was downstairs, she exclaimed, "I have no socks!"

Jane likes wet washcloths. She likes to spread them out, roll them up, do all sorts of things with them, usually instead of just wiping her hands and face and getting down from the dinner table. Case in point: One evening she spread a wet cloth on the seat of her chair, and stood on it, with her bare feet. When I asked her to bring it to the sink, she said, "Well Mama, my feet are wet." And she handing it to me. When I asked her to walk upstairs and get some socks on, she thought about her wet feet and said, "I'll just walk on my heels." And she did.

Gene woke up at 6 am on a non-school day, which is even earlier than usual wake-up call on a school day. I asked him Why??? and he said, "Well, I don't know. It's just one of my hobbies."

Gene, one afternoon, was enjoying his spelling assignment- "Homework is AWESOME!"

Jane had hated pears for a long time, and had disliked them even when she was a baby. We usually have her eat a couple bites, and then she can pass on the rest. However, because pears are a common fruit in our house (and the rest of us love them) we made sure to talk up the fact that SOMEDAY she will learn to like them. One recent morning I gave her one slice, and said she could have a different fruit if she ate the pear first. She took it with little hesitation. After eating it fairly quickly, she looked at me and said, "Mama, I'll just take one more small one."

Jane and Lucy have really enjoyed using our wooden nutcracker to crack pistachios this winter. One night Jane asked what I was making for dinner, and the nutcracker must have either been in sight or just on her mind. Dinner was chicken nuggets, and she stated with gusto, "Mama, I want to try and nutcrack my chicken nuggets!"

Gene and Lucy were hiding upstairs from Brendan, and he knew it. He asked Jane if she wanted to help find them. She replied, "Yes! I have wonderful eyes!"

Gene, Lucy and Brendan came home from a local, routine errand. Jane hadn't really noticed they were gone, and was too little to care where they were. But she was obviously thinking about them at the moment Gene walked in, "I'm so glad you didn't get lost!"

Jane, covering one eye, "I look like a pirate...one eye off and one eye on!"

All the kids were eating breakfast one morning when Gene found a sticker on his banana showing a picture of a man with a banana for a bicep. He found it funny, and Brendan jokingly said that Gene should eat the whole banana so he would have "banana muscles" too. A few days later Jane went upstairs to get more toilet paper for the bathroom. She came down carrying two rolls, one in each hand, balancing them on her biceps. She proudly proclaimed, "I have toilet paper muscles!"

Gene and Lucy were getting lectured by Brendan for harassing Jane. Jane observed the whole thing. Afterward she came over and briefed me in, "We were just having a thinking...but I was all right."

Pre-Christmas and Christmas Week

Gene and Lucy performed in their "Winter Songfest" which was actually quite entertaining. The younger grades (both my children included) put on a modified version of The Nutcracker. Gene had a solo (only 8 words long, but it was a pretty slow song so it was actually a rather long solo, if that makes sense.). He received many accolades for his effort. His teacher informed me afterward that he had volunteered to NOT have a major role...but he still somehow ended up with that solo:) Lucy was a mouse, along with all the other kindergarteners. They all just danced and sang a bit, and were fun to watch.





Meanwhile, our house was decorated for Christmas, and our child-friendly Nativity set was put out on the living room ledge. It got a lot of use this year, especially when the blocks and various other animals started moving in. The angel supervised...


The wise men were plotting their course...


Everyone decided they wanted their own room in the stable...


One day Brendan decided to do a project, and Gene of course wanted to help. He was also convinced that his overalls (new since Halloween) were perfectly suited for the job. They would hold ALL his tools:)


The days leading up to Christmas were kind of busy and blurry (meaning they went by in a blur)...but we bought and wrapped everything, made a bunch of pound cake to bring to various parties and give to various people, made our lists and packed our bags to spend the night at Grandma H's on Christmas eve. We went to the Vigil Mass at church, and the kids stayed awake, and enjoyed all the Christmas songs they knew. Christmas Day at Grandma H's in the morning, and Grandma P's in the afternoon.

The next day, we had our own little family Christmas...gifts from Brendan and I, and a few stocking stuffers. The kids are really confused this year about Santa...I think they are starting to believe in him, but since they receive so many presents from so many different parties, which are from him gets a bit hard to decipher. So, we kind of told them the presents at our house were from us, but we didn't go into great detail... Gene received a Michigan snuggie from his godmother, and he immediately put it on. Just. Loved. It.


Lucy and Gene painted with little paint sets they received in their stockings.



Brendan read their new Calvin and Hobbes books.


We also managed to snag a dart gun from a family white elephant party, and that was a hit for B and the kids. He hunted them down all over the house, and they loved it:)

Everyday Life- late fall 2010

Grandpa Ken came to put up the swing he made Lucy for her birthday...she loved it. The other kids were a little unsure but they soon got the hang of it. This was mid-November, but the day after he put it up, the weather was gorgeous and a few neighbor children came over. They stayed out there for about 3 hours, taking turns on the swing!




Jane was using pattern blocks one day, and called me over to see what she made.


A few minutes later, she called me again. "Mama, I made ME!"


The car was covered with condensation one morning before school. The kids were miraculously ready early, so I let them wipe the windows.



This puzzle of the United States has been sitting out on our floor for a couple months, and all the kids have done it a few times. Even Jane can put all the pieces in within about 5 minutes...she's our Puzzle Girl now!


Jane somehow got interested in counting all the way to 100, so we stopped at the library after school to get her some books about it. That fed her interest, but she was always asking for help when she got to 29, 39, 49...what comes next? So we made her a chart, and she could look for herself. She figured it out pretty quickly, thank goodness. I'm talking about EVERY TIME she was in the car with me, she'd start counting, and needing help. Now, however, she is doing it in Spanish. And there's no way I'm making a Spanish counting chart...she can't even read yet. But she can go up to 100 (cien) with help.



I forget why we were so tired, but I know we stayed up really late one night and then had to wake everyone up to go to church. The girls crashed with Brendan in the afternoon.


Gene almost fell asleep, but then for some reason Brendan turned on a football game to fall asleep to...but Gene's eyes stayed open from that point on.


Jane figured out the entire ABC puzzle, which stretched across the dining room floor.


The girls built a barn stall for their animals.


Lucy arranged all the different-diameter pony-tail holders in concentric circles.


And Jane...she's into headbands these days:)