Playing Catch Up

I spent last week sleeping. I think this last quarter finally caught up with me. This week, I've started working my way through the mounds of things that have been put off for the last several months. I have finally caught up on folding the kid's laundry. I have decided they are going to be nudists as I have no desire to ever fold another piece of clothing :) Jack is potty training again and doing pretty well so far (it's only been two days). I might actually get a few months with not a single child in diapers! Someone asked if I would be afraid I'd forget how to change diapers if that happened. I think once you've done something multiple times a day for eight years straight, you can pretty much do it in your sleep for the rest of your life :)

Another thing on my to do list was to sort through the piles and piles of papers sent home with the girls from school at the end of the year (hence the artwork posts yesterday). I accomplished that feat this morning (and feat is an appropriate word considering the size of the task), filled a laundry basket with papers to recycle and in the process found some I'd like to remember.

Megan loves to make books. She takes stacks of paper, folds them in half and writes stories, complete with illustrations. A couple of her books I'm going to take pictures of so we have the illustrations too, but there are several that have just a few illustrations, including (complete with original spelling) ~

************************

Dogs
Ilustartion and Written by Megan

Dogs are excalent smellers. Playful, crazy, funny, and they chase cats around. Ruff!, hiss, Ruff!, hiss, Ruff!, hiss, Ruff!, hiss, Ruff!

***********************

Happy Halloween
A book about Halloween
Illustrations and by Megan

Once upon a time, in Halloween, there lived a ghost, a witch, a spider, a bat. On that halloween night, it was spooky. Across the valley, was houses. "Boooo I will go over there and scare the children" said the ghost. "It will be fun." "We will watch you" said his friends. And all of the people ran as fast as they could. The ghost said "BOO!!!" Finally, the children ran in their homes. "Oh, banicholes (barnacles)" said the ghost. The End

***********************

Jokes
Written and Illustuad by Megan

To my sibleings, who are jiggleing Jellybeans.

What is the potato head?
The bottom of the potato

Who is the chef?
The turkey

Who makes the turkey?
The keys

The paper is the gluestick

Who lives in a turkey under the sea?
The banana

************************

All About My Family
By Megan

Hi! My name is Megan. I LOVE babies. My favortite food is cheese. I have 4 kids (well, we are going to have number 5 near November!) and 2 parents and 4 pets.

My dad's name is Robert. (Although some people call him Rob). He LOVES the UFC (and wrestling). The type of writing he writes in sribble. He signed up for boxing. His favorite movie is the Leagend of Vampires (??????????). He is 34.

My mom's name is Laney. She is 31 (well, in May she is going to be 31) years old. She has beautiful brown hair and brown eyes. She is a great sewer. Once she made a poodle skirt! I love my mom, she is good at math.

My sister's name is Kylie. If someone asks what she wants to be when she grows up, she is going to fight Shelby Marx and a zookeeper and a cowgirl.

My 2nd sister's name is Beth. She is 4. She loves makeup and baby kittens. She has hazel eyes and brownish and blondeish hair. She has the lightest hair in our family.

This is my brother. His name is Jack. He is a funny little boy. He calls me "neigh neigh". He has brown hair and brown eyes. I love him!

These are my pets. The dog's name is Simon. The black cat's name is Cricket, the black and white cat's name is Harlaquin. The brown and black cat's name is Max.

*********************

This year Megan had assignments called "one page reports" due every other Friday. Her teacher picked her top ten reports and put them together for us in a packet. Below are some of them ~

My dog is named Simon. He likes games catch and Simon says and tag. He is a baby. He is a catahoula leopard dog. He has black spots on his tongue. His birthday is on Valentine's day. That's why he has a red collar and a red leash, and a heart dog toy and a bag of heart doggy treats. It was my 7th birthday present. My babysitter was babysitting me that day so my parents could go get him. I was so glad that I got him. My parents go it for my birthday because I cleaned so much and listened to what my parents said. He plays with the cat. It is soooo funny! He runs faster than me, he runs around the backyard.

My New Baby
On 4-21-10 my siblings and I figured out that we were going to have a new baby. It will be born near Thanksgiving. 3 think it is a boy. 3 think it is a girl. This week it is as small as a bug. It is the 5th child. WOW! It is going to be a looooong year in 2011! But it will be fun! I LOVE babies! They are cute and funny.

My Birthday Party
My birthday is 7-31-10. It is my favorite holiday. I hope I get a pinata for my 8th birthday! I love pinatas. I am going to have my ears pierced and go out to a pedicure and before that I am going to have a High School Musical party. I am going to have a looooooooooong day! Well, I may have a sleepover party also.

Cooking Dinner
I got a cookbook for Christmas. My aunt gave me an apron so meat or another kind of food doesn't get on my shirt. My mom said I can cook every Monday. On the first week I cooked pepperoni and black olive pizza and pepperoni pizza. On the second week I made chicken pot pie. On the third I cooked porcupine balls, meatloaf made into little balls. When it's cooking the rice sticks out. That's what porcupine balls are. I love cooking because my mom works so hard on dinner and I want to give her a break. Cooking is fun!

Finding Roly Poly's
On 5-6-10 I was playing at my friend's. We found a ladybug. My friend's mom said to let it go. But we didn't. We removed a lot of rocks and found lots of roly poly's Then we removed a giant rock and made it the roly poly's home. They we pulled grass and picked the rocks that we removed and put them on top of the grass. Then we went back to playing our soccer game. Then we ate popsicles. We had a great time!

My Brother Jack
I love my baby brother, Jack. He is sooo silly and funny. He is going to turn 3! His birthday is August 13, 2007. He has brown hair and always says "ROAR!!!" He is the smallest in our family. My favorite shirt he wears says "mini me" in red writing. His favorite shirt says "robots rule" and with a lion that opens it's mouth. When he sees a car he says "zoooooom!" Once he danced to Taylor Swift! It makes me laugh so loud! And when my parents ask him to do something, he always says "why?"

Dancing in the Rain

We finally got rain the other day . . . lots and lots of rain. It's been quite a while since it's rained here. We've had to water the foundation because the dirt was pulling away from the house. I remember the first time someone told us about watering the foundation. We thought they were trying to put one over on us, but they weren't :) It can get so hot and dry here that you need to surround your house with a soaker hose and leave it running at least once a week for a few hours or your foundation gets damaged.

As soon as Megan heard the raindrops on the windows, she started pulling out raincoats and searching for her rain boots. Having had a lot of experience with Megan and rain, I told her to forget the raincoat, but to go change into play clothes. She happily headed out into the backyard where, as usual, a huge puddle was forming.



Jack ventured out once or twice briefly, then retreated to the kitchen.



Once I found him a raincoat, Jack happily joined Megan, who was making mud soup in the empty turtle sandbox.



Kylie changed into play clothes and joined Megan and Jack. The puddle had gotten much bigger by this time.



Beth decided to stay inside. Rob got home from work, so Beth helped him do his pushups :)

Surprise Garden

We have tried several times to grow a garden. It never works very well. Last year we managed to grow basil, but everything else died. I think I may try herbs again next year as I really like fresh herbs. Anyway, several weeks ago, Rob got sick. He was sick for a couple weeks. Because he was sick, the back lawn didn't get mowed for almost a month. When we finally were able to mow it, we discovered a large patch of something growing in the back corner. It looked like squash or pumpkins, but it was growing up rather than out along the ground. We took a chance that it wasn't just weeds and mowed around it. Megan did an intensive scientific study of it with detailed notes, and a friend took a leaf to compare to all the plants in her garden, but we couldn't figure out what it was. Another friend finally suggested that it might be sunflowers. A few days later, she was proven right when our first sunflower appeared :) The kids have watched with delight as more and more sunflowers have appeared each day.

Random Pictures

The kids kidnapped the camera the other day. Among the dozens of random shots of various rooms, the computer screen, and toys, I found some keepers :)

Megan's Art - 2nd Grade '09-'10

Megan's art was among the few chosen to be shown in the school district's art show last May. I love that both my girls love art! It was one of my favorite classes in high school and my sister, Molly, is pursuing a degree in it. Rob loves art as well, although his preferred medium in high school was a camera. Anyway, here are some of Megan's masterpieces from this past year ~

Her weaving ~


Flower still-life ~


Self-portrait (my favorite of her pieces) ~


African art ~

Kylie's Art - Kindergarten '09-'10

I've been meaning to do this since school got out, but better late then never :) At the end of each school year, the girls bring home their art portfolios. I would love to keep every piece of artwork, but with five kids, I'm sure that will get a bit overwhelming, so I think we're just going to pick our favorite from each year and have it framed. We'll take pictures of the rest of their art work though :) As I previously mentioned, Kylie won the art award for Kindergarten this year :) What does art from an award-winning kindergartner look like? See below ~

A frog ~


Kylie's weaving ~


Underwater seascape (which is the piece chosen for the art show) ~


I love the backwards "S" :) ~


The jungle (the monkeys are my favorite part) ~

Beth's Pre-K Lessons

Megan is giving Beth pre-k lessons and has even made her a workbook to go along with it. They hold "school" almost every day. I tried to video her singing her ABC's, but she refused to perform before a camera. Apparently Beth subscribes to the belief that the louder you sing, the more likely you are to remember your letters, so she sings at the top of her lungs. Her rendition sounds something like this ~

"a b c d e f g, h i k k l m n o p, q r x t u v w x y and z"