Happy Thanksgiving!!!

My Girls

A few days ago we got a note from Kylie's teacher letting us know that Kylie was going to be receiving the Hughes High Flier Award, an award they hand out I think every six weeks when report cards go home. Each teacher picks a student from their class to single out due to their achievements. We were excited for Kylie (she didn't know though), but we were a bit concerned about how Megan would feel about it. Megan has been trying to earn one of these awards since she started Kindergarten. She's even asked her teachers what she can do to earn it (her teachers have told me that honestly half the time they just pick names out of a hat, choosing from the kids who work hard and do what they are supposed to do). We were concerned that Megan would be really upset that Kylie got this award only 12 weeks into her first year and Megan still hasn't gotten one and she is almost halfway through her third year.

This morning was the assembly where Kylie found out she got her award. Rob went alone as Jack and Beth weren't awake yet. He called me later to let me know how things went. When Kylie's name was read, Megan clapped the loudest. Rob said he could hear her as she turned to her friends and proudly said "that's MY sister!!!"

We are so proud of Kylie! She was singled out for always being willing to help others and for working really hard on her own work as well. We are incredibly proud of Megan as well! My children's love for each other and selflessness in support of each other never ceases to amaze me. What incredible children they are! All I can do is stand back and say "those are MY daughters!"

Kid Quotes

Having a somewhat frustrating day in regards to the munchkins. I went into Megan's room to wake her and Kylie up and discovered a book with the cover cut to pieces all over the floor. I was proud of myself that I did not yell at them, but I really wanted to! Then I discovered that Beth left her brand new shoes outside in the backyard all weekend (we had a rainstorm yesterday). Someone took the goop we made last week, left it out to dry, then crumbled it into a million pieces all over the floor. *Sigh* Some days I want to move to Alaska - ALONE!!! :)

Anyway, I thought it would be a good opportunity to remind myself of the various and sundry cute things the kids have said lately so that I can focus on the good rather than the bad :)

Kylie has decided lately that she is going to be a vet. She wants to take care of hip-po-mo-pot-o-muses (the way she pronounces it). She says that way she will have lots of medicine to give them when they are sick. She will also have a dog.

Megan wants to live on a farm with her kids like her great-aunt Cathy.

Beth apparently had another mother before me. Her name was Banana Apple and she is actually Nona.

While driving home from somewhere, Kylie told me she would help me get home. If I passed our house, she would say "zero" and then tell me what color it was. She has also taken up "helping" while we drive. She uses an umbrella stuck between the seats and pushes it forward to go faster and pulls back on it to slow down. She apparently also is capable of mind control. When we are at red lights, she uses her mind to change them to green. I can't remember if I included this in a previous post, but she apparently uses her mind to do other things too, like make the teacher not give homework. She told me the other day that her brain tricked her because it made the teacher give them homework and she didn't want it to. She says she learned to control things with her mind because she is magic and she creates magic kingdoms.

Beth and Jack have also started "helping" while driving. They push on the seats with their feet to help the car go faster and help change red lights to green by blowing on them. Beth apparently (Kylie and Megan as well, but not as often) has "scopes" in her eyes that allow her to see pretty much anything from anywhere.

Beth wrote a story with Megan's help the other day ~
"Once upon a time there was a princess named Beth. She had one brother and two sisters. Her daddy was named Robert and her mommy was named Laney."

Beth has been on a roll this week. Several days ago she came up to me and said "I found this Mommy." Thinking it was a nail or something, I put my hand out. She put a booger in it and said "It was in my nose."

On Saturday I was slicing vegetables for a veggie tray. When I cut into one of the bell peppers, I discovered a little pepper growing inside the big one. I called the kids over to see it. Beth's response was "Oh, what a cute baby!" She then looked at me accusingly and said "WHY ARE YOU CUTTING UP THE MOMMY???"

Parents' Day and Goop

Several days ago, Jack and Beth disappeared while I was working on something. They were unusually quiet, so I went looking for them. They had found the "pre-k box" in the library and were happily using markers to color all over the workbooks. They were very unhappy when I took the markers away. Mean old Mom who doesn't want the library couch and knick-knacks covered in markers like the bathroom wall is decorated with crayons!


Saturday morning Rob and I got to sort of sleep in. The kids watched tv for a little bit, then headed downstairs (Rob got up and got them breakfast, then came back to bed). An hour or so later the kids came running upstairs, very excited. They told us they had a surprise for us downstairs.

A sign in the playroom pointed the way to the library ~


Signs on the library door announced "Happy Parents Day!!! Look in the Library" and in case we were unsure where that was, we had another arrow to guide us.


Inside the doors, there was a basket labeled "presents" containing items such as a broken magnet, a blue plastic ring, a picture of Kylie from when she was in nursery at church, and scrapbooking items. There was also a letter for us which read "Dear Parents, We have a box to color. It says our names. Love, MKBJ ~


They even set up a photo op with the cat scratching post and a large Raggedy Ann doll. The note says "sit here and take a picture of you" ~


Meg and Kylie demonstrated how to use it ~


They sat us down on the couch and presented the presents one by one. Kylie was especially excited to give me "credit cards" (coupons from Kohls that expired about 6 months ago). Then they brought out their piece-de-resistance - a pinata! Megan had folded and taped several sheets of paper together and filled it with halloween candy. She handed Kylie a wrapping paper roll so she could hit it.


They even made a blindfold out of another piece of paper ~


After breaking the pinata, they asked if since they had made us one, they could eat all the candy in it . . .

It was a such thoughtful thing to do and we are so blessed to have such incredible children!!!

This morning we had friends over to play. It's a family that lives very close by. We've played with them a few other times and Beth gets along perfectly with their three year old girl. Beth says she in her BFF (best friend forever). They have a little boy just a little bit older than Jack and a baby girl who likes me and spends a lot of time sitting on my lap, which I very much enjoy as Jack really isn't a baby any more :) Today the mom taught me how to make "goop", which is basically moldable plastic. It's made with Borax, cornstarch, water and elmers glue and you can use food coloring to dye it whatever color the kids pick. Beth picked purple for herself and decided Jack should have blue. Jack didn't have a preference.








We all had so much fun! It was really nice to do something with the kids and to have a wonderful conversation with the mother as well!

Turkeys (and forgetten pics of the hat parade)

I forgot to blog about the hat parade. Every year the elementary school does a science hat parade and each kid (I think it's voluntary in the older grades) makes a hat that represents one of the science words for that year. This year we sort of forgot about it. The hats were due Tues, Oct 27th. I remembered as I was at the gym with Christy around 9:30pm on Monday night. The other years we've done hats, Megan and I have decided on the word and then put them together. Due to our forgetfulness, this year I made them. We couldn't find Kylie's list (man, this post is making me out to be a wonderful and organized mom!), but I knew that Meg's list in kindergarten had included words like flower, leaf, and roots, so I made multiple big white flowers out of felt and sewed them onto on of our dress up hats. I made Megan a hat that could be either the ice, water and steam or solid, liquid and gas, by stitching some stuffing to the top of a hat, attaching a blue wave-shaped piece of fabric around where the band would be and using thread to hang a blue square block from each side. Next year, we are making the hats the when they bring home the paper!

I've never actually gone to watch the hat parade as it's at 8:30am and after getting Megan off to school, it would have been difficult to get the other three up and dressed and down to the school in under 30 mins. This year I had a dr's appt at 9:15am though, so Rob stayed home to watch the kids and I left a bit early and watched the hat parade. None of the pictures turned out great, but at least I got one of each girl! (It was also their "fight drugs" week, where they have a theme for each day - like Tuesday was "give drugs the boot" and they got to wear boots. Friday - the day of the parade - was "team up against drugs" and they wore clothing with their favorite sports team - in this house there is only one possibility on days like that and that's Red Sox clothes!)




Yesterday afternoon we made turkeys to replace the Halloween designs in our front window. It was the first year that all four kids were old enough to really have fun doing it (last year Jack just ate the pieces I cut out for him). All I do is cut out a body, head and neck, feathers and feet. I don't give them any directions beyond that, but let them figure out what they want to do with it. I was really impressed with Beth's turkey. She's never put her turkey together in a way that looked much like a turkey (granted, last year she was only 2). They all had a lot of fun gluing everything together and then coloring their turkeys!


Kylie attached 6 of her 7 feathers to the back of her turkey, then flipped it over and attached the last one to the front. Her turkey is also apparently looking up at the sky :)


Jack loved smearing glue all over the middle of his turkey's body, the slapping the feathers down one on top of the other. We decided he was going for a more Picasso approach this year :) He did put his turkey head on the side of the top, however he turned it around so the head part is glued to the body and the neck is sticking straight up, complete with a beak sticking up at the end.




After gluing the feet on (one right side up, one upside down), Jack decided his turkey was finished. He was delighted with it! He picked it up and had it dancing around on the table in front of him while he sang.


Megan being a cornball ~




You can see Kylie's one feather ~


Beth refused to hold her turkey up so I could take a picture. She told me it needed to dry first.

Halloween

This week was incredibly busy for me. I had a ton of homework and didn't have time for much else, especially factoring in Halloween festivities. Doing two classes at one time is hard - especially when you have multiple major assignments due for each on the same week! I'm almost half way done with the quarter though and this week's homework load is lighter, so I'll try to actually do something other than sit at the computer and do homework (or sit at the sewing machine and make costumes) :)

On Friday we had Beca's two youngest over to play for a while as she had a dr's appt. Jack and Jorja had so much fun playing together! They found Meg and Kylie's umbrellas and had a blast running around the house together with umbrellas over their heads. Occassionally Jorja would stop and say "MONSTERS IN THE HOUSE JACK!" and they would both point the umbrellas in front of them like guns or something to get the monsters :)


Beth spent much of Friday sitting on my lap. Made it difficult to do homework, especially as she decided we needed to do a photoshoot with the two of us. She's a cutie though and I'm so glad I have a little girl to climb up on my lap :)




Saturday morning Rob finally got to go to Muay Thai again. He hasn't been since August for various reasons. He really enjoyed it :) When he got home, we told the kids they had to clean their rooms and then we would paint pumpkins. Megan did a great job on her room and Jack helped out a bit, but Kylie and Beth were not thrilled by the prospect of having to work before doing something fun. They did everything except actually clean, which really would have taken only about 5 mins if they had both just done it. Instead they played and Kylie crawled under the bed, stuck her hand in near the mattress and announced that she was stuck. Beth spent quite a bit of time announcing to us that Kylie was stuck and then that their room was clean, which of course it wasn't as somehow rooms tend not to clean themselves merely because someone stands at the top of the stairs announcing that they are clean. We gave Kylie and Beth lots and lots of time to clean (about 1.5 hours), but they decided not to, so only Megan and Jack painted pumpkins this year. It made me feel very guilty to tell a 3 year old and a 5 year old that they couldn't paint until they cleaned their room, but I stuck to my guns :) Someday it will pay off, right? :)

Megan painted a face on her gourd first, then painted her little pumpkin with a happy face on one side and a sad face on the other. Jack discovered that the paint could move around on the cardboard palette and that if he got paint on his brush and then stuck the brush in the water, the water changed color. He smeared a bit of paint on his pumpkin and gourd and spent the rest of the time happily mixing paint and water in his cup, on his palette and on the newspaper. He also spent a fair amount of time painting various body parts, such as his tummy and his arm, making me glad I just took his clothes off instead of putting a smock on him.








We had another family over for dinner that night - a friend of mine from high school and his wife and four children. I had not really talked to him (ran into him once briefly about 8 or 9 years ago I think) since the summer after my junior year and had never met his wife or his children. We had a wonderful time! The kids loved playing together and us wives had fun talking about organic foods and reading and things like that.

We grilled hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner, then went trick or treating. Our neighborhood set up was perfect. All four adults and eight kids started out (with the dog as well, although it was discovered that Simon does not really like Halloween that much - the more decorated houses freaked him out), then Rob, Jack and Simon headed back after a few streets. One street later we passed our house and I took our girls and the youngest of their girls home. The older kids got to trick or treat longer. It was nice having the option to have some of us go home earlier without having the older kids have to stop.

I really should have taken a picture of all eight, but didn't get one. I took a picture of the five who came home first with their loot ~


After trick or treating was over, we let the kids eat as much candy as they wanted. We decided we'd rather do that then add several pieces of candy to their diet each day for the next month or two. We let them pig out again yesterday, but starting today, one to two pieces per day will be the max.

While the kids played, the moms talked and the dads played chess. The kids were really interested in the chess game and the dads ended up surrounded :)


We had a wonderful time :) It was really nice to have friends to share the night with!

All my homework got done this weekend and I am looking forward to this week where I only have four small papers, a quiz and two sections of larger projects due! This week I will be watching Forrest Gump as one of my projects is to evaluate the character of Jenny using various models of therapy.

The Color Band

First a picture of Kylie dressed up as "Robin Hood" ~


After seeing the pictures I posted of Beth and Jack's band, Meg, Kylie and Beth decided to make a band. They named it "the Color Band" because of the colors on the guitar. They practiced for a while and then gave a wonderful performance! (Jack was taking a nap) ~




I love Beth's expression in these next two pictures!










I tried to tape it with my camera, but there was no sound and it turned out really, really dark. Oh, well. Need to charge the camcorder as I stated in my last post.