Adventures of Plenty

3 years could be viewed as a "hiatus"... right?

2011-01-26T22:53:00.000-08:00

I figured a 3 year break needed an new blog entirely. So! If you're looking, I can be found at Adventures in Character Building. After all... don't all adventures build character? I think so ;)

I will and shall return.. famous last words

2008-10-15T23:07:00.000-07:00

I know... I've said this. I mean it this time. The whole "moving" thing completely threw me off. Really badly I might add. Schooling - not so much. To say unschooling is even a horrible stretch. Losing our preschool room really killed me schooling organization. Losing about 500sqft of house didn't help. However! We are moving.... again. To a different house, still here in monterey. Although we will now have my ever precious and missed school room back. I will post, there will be pictures. And we will learn so much I promise. PS - I can't wait for Christmas decorating to start!!!!!

Quirky girl say what?

2008-06-02T21:55:00.000-07:00

Ok.... so Kate tagged me to do this quirky deal. And I am so so so far fallen by the way side with biting off more than I can chew that I have neglected my blog. Yes I swore once my dear hubby returned I would post. Yes I have about a million pictures I should/could and would post yet have not yet even started to upload. So, I shall emerge from my super long silence to tell everyone how truly bizarre I am. I'm pretty sure everyone has already done this 'cause I'm really that slow. But if you feel inspired feel free to continue the natural progression of a meme. So, 5 quirky things about me... *my list may run over*

I count everything. Steps, seconds, floor tiles. I have no clue why.

I remember numbers by making correlations. Like.... if a phone # were 242-1266 I'd say oh, so 2x2 is 4 and 12-6 is 6. but I do it with any and all numbers, even if the connections make no sense.

I hate being wrong so much that I will keep my mouth shut and rather sit by in silent compliance than risk being wrong... I will regretfully admit my mistakes if I do happen to open my mouth and be wrong, but ooooh how I hate it.

I hate conflict so much that I will avoid it at all costs... even if I end up being miserable as a result.

I refuse to do the dishes if the dish rag is left in the sink. This has been known to lead to full on "domestic engineer strike" in which I refuse to do a single dish and generally if the dishes don't get done within the day I go on full house strike where I wont sweep or mop of do laundry either. I then end up having to do 3 days worth of chores when I give in because I hate feeling dirty.

I LOVE gardening, but wont do it if it's below 60 or windy.... needless to say my garden is sad this year

I'm convinced all insects have a conspiracy to attack me and where normally crickets and the like jump away from people, they actually attack me.

I'm scared of lightening to the point where I get anxiety attacks during storms

See.... totally blew past 5 and I'd keep going but well.... I need to go do dishes. Perhaps I'll find time soon to do a "3 months in review". We have had some mighty adventures, that's for sure! Alas - I shall have to get my act together another day.

Our coastal adventure

2008-04-19T11:09:00.000-07:00

Well, I decided that it was about time we go on a grand adventure. We haven't had nearly enough of those lately. So - we packed up our bags and headed south. We stopped in LA to visit the family and then took the 9 hour drive to Sierra Vista, AZ to visit DH while he's at army type school. It was a pretty smooth drive for the most part, especially since sitting still is not easy for my children for 9 minutes let alone 9 hours. Once we return I shall post pictures. Until then we're having some rockin' family time which we totally missed for the past month.

More on the art of house keeping

2008-03-31T11:59:00.000-07:00

Well, all this housekeeping must be a darned good lesson for Soph in being a domestic engineer. Yesterday she insisted on helping me with my daily chores (which have completely filled my days lately) - I showed her how to sort the laundry and let her push the buttons to get the wash goin'... much later after it buzzed I was changing B's diaper - when returning I saw the dryer going. I asked Soph if she did it and she said "yeah, I saw you do it, I made the light be at the top and took the fuzzies out of the screen and pushed the button". I'm not so surprised that she put the wash in the dryer as much as I am baffled and amazed that she did it correctly - and even took the lint out of the trap! What?! I'm pretty sure I was doing no such thing when I was 3 (or 4, or 5 or ever until I was on my own). After it dried she even folded it. Perhaps there's something to my non-academic lessons. She has been "reading" a lot too, perhaps because I spend my downtime (HA what down time?) reading books about being a better (and more organized) person. I suppose the best lessons are those that aren't taught but observed. I think our non-lesson will be my slim in 6 DVD, she can learn about the importance of structured exercise while joining me in my quest to live an all around better, healthier, more productive lifestyle.... it takes 21 days to make/break habits and I figure I have 39 until DH is home again - I can make so many good habits in that time!

Unplugged Project : We return for Eggs!

2008-03-24T12:23:00.000-07:00

It has been so SO SO long since we've done an unplugged project! I totally should have posted this last night, buuuut I was baking tasty treats for DH and "the guys". It was a wee bit hard to do this one, as my Soph is really really really allergic to eggs. I can't wait until she out grows it 'cause I really want to dye eggs with her. I have a fun way of taking silk scraps and tying them to the eggs and then boiling them and they look AWESOME... alas I digress. You may have read a while back about how we made an Easter basket for daddy and mailed it to him. I took that to be our Egg project, plastic counts right? Here's the re post of the pictures.

B totally had a blast trying to put the eggs together

She never did quite get it, but she had fun banging them together too

Soph put peep chicks in the eggs to send to daddy

And little army men, so very appropriate!

I stuffed the eggs with not so Soph friendly treats like M&Ms and cadbury eggs, good stuff like that. If putting eggs in the cookies and brownies I baked counts then yay for me! Now! On to a super awesome contest that Momma (and more) is hosting on her blog! It's a chance to win a free subscription to KIWI magazine, and even more importantly, shared ways to be a little more green. What's more unplugged than helping our planet one family at a time?! Go check it out and share your ways of being more user friendly to our planet... after all, we only have one.

Sunshine and good times

2008-03-23T14:41:00.000-07:00

The sun is shining, and despite a slightly chilly breeze, we headed outside for some fun in the sunshine.

Lil' B (not so lil') moving at lightening speed on her little ride on thingy... At least she didn't fall off.

Soph actually going quite quickly and throwing flowers at us - I'm very surprised she didn't fall off given she was throwing the flowers pretty hard.

Soph sharing her flowers with B

B trying to give it back.

This was the other day, but we were still outside! Brenna had too much fun I guess and passed out.

Since today is Easter for most that celebrate Easter, I thought perhaps I should include a picture of B's participation in the making of the package for daddy. She mostly pounded plastic eggs together.

Also, the other day, Soph made mud soup. Delightfully tasty.

B wanted in on the action ... or at least the ball.

Ah back to today - B found a pine cone and came to share it with me! So thoughtful.

So that's a lil' of this and a lil' of that -all of which involves a healthy dose of Vit D. If my children actually go to sleep (ha! a girl can dream right?) then tonight I'm going to bake some cookies for DH. Oooh I do miss him so. What's the countdown - 47 days or something like that? Little actual sit down learning is going on right now - it's mostly just trying to get through the days. Its hard enough when I just have to maintain a cleanish household, but to have to unpack and organize and maintain and do it alone? hot damn! I'm tired just thinking about it! Oh and I have a new found appreciation for DH - mowing a lawn as large as ours is hard work! Holy cow, I'm exhausted just thinking about the fact that I'll have to do it at least 3 more times while he's gone!

Hope every one's day is great!

Rosetta Stone!

2008-03-20T21:43:00.000-07:00

Well! It seems that this is so awesome that I couldn't pass it up. Having been one who has learned a foreign language, and even taken a gander at Rosetta Stone I couldn't resist posting this to share. I wish that they had Serbian/Croatian or Greek.. ok so I already speak Serb, but it would be awesome for the kiddos! I wonder what I'd want to learn next... hmmm maybe Russian - perhaps Irish. Oh the possibilities are endless!

Rosetta Stone has been the #1 foreign language curriculum among homeschoolers for a while -- next week they are unleashing a brand new curriculum, and you can WIN the *all new* Rosetta Stone Homeschool Version 3… FOR FREE! This is a $219 program (and believe me it's worth every penny!) and the winner gets to pick from any of these 14 languages: Spanish (Spain or Latin America), English (American or British), Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Irish, Hebrew, or Russian. This will also include a headset with microphone, and students will participate in lifelike conversations and actually produce language to advance through the program. Rosetta Stone still incorporates listening, reading and writing as well, in addition to speaking. Many homeschoolers requested grammar and vocabulary exercises, and with Rosetta Stone Homeschool Version 3, they're included! For parents, the new Parent Administrative Tools are integrated into the program and allow parents to easily enroll students in any of 12 predetermined lesson plans, monitor student progress, and view and print reports. To win this most excellent program -- in the language of your choice -- copy these (blue) paragraphs and post it in (or as) your next blog post -- then to enter the contest, go to the original contest page HERE: and leave a comment with the link showing where you blogged about it. And please make sure the link works to get back to the original contest page when you post it. And good luck! The winner will be picked randomly on March 26, and will be notified thru the link they left to their blog pg. And if you have more than one blog, you can post them and enter those separately for more chances to win. Yay for free stuff!

I'm on a roll ~

2008-03-20T10:12:00.000-07:00

Well, I didn't think that I would be posting much until DH returns from his adventures - apparently he takes up lots of my time or something 'cause I haven't posted this much since... well a long time. Granted most of these posts are less adventuresome and more random pictures with captions - I do get some points for trying right? Well, here goes

Soph is doing well outgrowing the milk allergy, so we can have pizza now. It's still soy cheese, but there is casein in 98% of the soy cheeses out there, so up until now we have gone cheese-less. I let her make her own.Then while enjoying her pizzas she looked out our dinning room window and... SURPRISE - a few smaller turkeys were hanging out in our yard. Perhaps they thought it was the wilderness since it's in desperate need of a mow.

Brenna has taken a liking to feeding herself. This was fun because I put her in her exersaucer, thinking she couldn't get into trouble - or make a huge mess while I did dishes...

Apparently this is what sisters are for. I asked Soph how Brenna got food, she said "Oh, like this (view picture), she looked hungry so I thought I'd feed her)

At least she's helpful? I don't even know how she got the food without me noticing, since it is in the kitchen and yeah... does this make me neglectful? Brenna wasn't really hungry I swear - I have the lack of sleep due to Brenna being up all night with an upset tummy to prove it, really i do! It's pretty nice outside today, perhaps we shall go adventuring when I feel my house is "good enough for now".... right now, definitely not good enough for anything except cleaning.

I wasn't kidding around -

2008-03-18T23:46:00.001-07:00

When I say 16 minutes I definitely mean it... So here's how we spent the rest of our day.

Soph was a mermaid, yes that is my pillow being dragged on our floor, I'd rather not think about it... next.

We proceeded to stuff plastic eggs to mail to dad while he's away. Nothing says Happy Easter like pink peeps and green army men!

B got in on the action too... well, mostly she tasted the army men and threw the eggs at me.

Then they built a house together... ok, so Soph built and B tore apart - at least it was a joint effort?

This was the charging of (not so) lil' B. Doesn't she look serious when she's attackin?

I do not recall signing up for this...

2008-03-18T23:25:00.004-07:00

this being these... and these being crazy huge wild turkeys that seem to want to attack me while getting my paper. I know, what you're thinking... what does this have to do with adventures in learning? Well, for now this blog shall be about adventures in general.

Now that that's been said... back to turkeys. So, in my travels I've encountered many animals that seemed a bit out of place. Deer in my stairwell the first time I was in Monterey, fluffy cottontail bunny rabbits in Baltimore (city), and now I'm faced with a whole new slew of crazy animals. In the several weeks we've been here we've seen a coyote, a mountain lion, crazy huge turkeys, deer and ground squirrels - in our neighborhood. Now, lets keep in mind I'm not living in the woods, nor out in the country. Crazy I know.

Where is the adventure you ask? (As if all these new animal neighbors aren't adventurous enough)... well Soph is scared to death of these turkeys (after all, some of them are bigger than her) - however, she must have this natural "face your fear" thing inside her, for she saw them out her window this morning and asked me if they would bite, and then informed me we should go for a walk to see if they would run away. So, we went on a walk - they didn't run away, they just walked around us like we were in their way... which we probably were since I bet they were here first.

Other than that we didn't do much, it seems all I ever do is clean and try and have a somewhat inhabitable house. I really need to hurry up too, because B is into everything. If I take my eye off her for 4 seconds, this is what I see.

That is a sticker, on her forehead. I have no clue where it came from, but she came barreling full speed at me and then started cracking up. Good thing I was quick with the camera! I have a few other choice pictures from our day, yet those will have to wait until another time... perhaps in 16 minutes.

Ah yes... at last

2008-03-16T21:37:00.004-07:00

I have not only taken pictures, but have even put them on my machine! *small victory* So, here they are. Nothing special yet, as I am clearly not in any state to do anything that fun or educational. Alas - Here's what I have, in no particular order of course... and accompanied by my self justification that learning is happening. :)

Soph and her new very best friend at the Easter Egg hunt

The kiddies with the Easter Bunny, yes B is missing - she was busy getting a tattoo.

Ok, not the greatest picture, but it'll do. B was surprisingly not upset by the big furry bunny holding her - perhaps because Soph assured her it was a man in a suit. Talk about a killjoy!

The "sleep over", otherwise known as me watchin' the kids. Talk about out numbered! 4 to 1, I'm glad I survived. They had a good time playing with the "computers" - interestingly enough Soph's current catch phrase is "you're blog is awesome!", if only she knew what a blog was and that I do indeed have one.

Our new preschool room. Clearly I'm not done unpacking and it's still a work in progress, at least it's not a death trap anymore. It's too bad I couldn't have had "before" picture, this entire room was wall to wall boxes.

The other side of our promising room of learning :)

Our super tiny kitchen, fully equipped with our washer and dryer. I'm sure many math lessons and home skill lessons will be taking place here. Let's note it's maybe 1/4 the size of our old kitchen - talk about creative use of space.

Yeah, the other side - see very small. Soph's hand is on the fridge, it really is that tiny.

We planted our garden. The veggies are in front of our very unsightly outdoor storage shed, and although most of our learning will be on that side, the flower bed I dug is deemed Soph's garden. She helped dig up the grass and she waters it, she even helped pick out the flowers that we planted. That's definitely learning!

Well that's it, a quick glimpse of out weekend and a brief tour of our humble abode. I'm back to unpacking and planning our trip to AZ to visit DH. Hopefully I shall have more adventurous and fun filled pictures soon.

Ah yes... I have been tagged

2008-03-14T16:20:00.002-07:00

Ok, so I've been tagged twice. To do this thingy. I'm really not that interesting, but I must come up with 5 whole things that are interesting about me. Then I'm supposed to tag more people. However I do believe I'm so far behind that everyone else has been tagged that I would possibly tag. (wow that's a lot of tagging) If you stumble upon me, or perhaps lurk, let yourself be known! Tag yourself for me and then let me know :) I love finding out things about other people. I'm nosey like that :) Here goes -

1. My father passed away when I was 16, and where as this would cause most people to have "issues" I'm surprisingly (apparently) well adjusted to this. I never really grieved, I just always accepted it - perhaps that in itself could be considered an "issue".

2. I wish I was more domestic. I try to be, but I hate the dishes and the laundry and the cleaning. Yet I hate having dirty laundry, dirty dishes and a dirty house. A great paradox I know.

3. Since 2002 I have moved 6 times and lived in 3 different states - Texas, then CA, back to TX, then MD then back to CA.

4. I love the smell of clean sheets straight out of the dryer. For this reason I always wash my sheets at night and then make the bed right before getting in it - so warm and cozy. I love it.

5. I am horrible about putting things in the mail. If I had to rely only on the mail to pay bills they would never get paid. I have piles and piles of cards, Birthday cards, thank you cards, Easter cards, Valentine's Day... you name it, I have addressed and stamped envelopes with these cards in it that simply never make it to the mail box. I'm that bad at mailing things. I try though, I really do - and I must say I'm much better at it now that I don't have to drive to the Post Office or find a blue mailbox. I've mailed more things in the 2 weeks we've lived here than the 3 1/2 years we were in MD.

And that'll do it. 5 things about me that you may have known, may not have known - but now ya do! Aren't ya glad :)

I suppose it could be called Unschooling

2008-03-14T15:04:00.003-07:00

So... with all the chaos that has been going on the past couple weeks I feel I have been very neglectful of my children's learning adventures. I suppose the whole experience could be a bit of unschooling. Very unstructured, very uneventful - I find myself feeling very blah about the whole thing. DH left Wednesday for Army school stuff, which is better than being deployed - but none the less it will be 2 months of flying solo. So - back to our adventures. I suppose laundry and organization is an important part of life, so my kids are being very educated in household chores :) This past Sunday the weather was fantastic, so we planted our garden - yet another important life skill :) I must say in a crazy attempt to settle in, poor Soph has had to (or "gotten to" depends on who you ask) watch a bit of TV, more so than ever before. She is on a new kick where she really wants to be in 1st grade and so she's been asking for homework and she's teaching herself how to write - some of her letters are pretty darn good - others not so much, but I figure there's time for that. She's constantly finding things to add and subtract so I suppose learning is going on whether I instigate it or not. Such is life.

Oh and to any/everyone that commented on my last couple of posts (which were ages ago I know) - in all the chaos I totally forgot that I had email notification set up and that once we moved I had to change email addresses - here I figured no one bothered checking back anymore, come to find out I had 14 unchecked comments. My bad! I promise to catch up soon. Promise Promise :) I think we're going to do something productive now - what.... I couldn't say for sure, but something. I feel totally stuck in and exhausted by all our life changes, I need something to kick me back into the swing of things. Sorry for the rant. Hope everyone's having a nice day :) Oh! and I found my camera chip in a random box of bathroom stuff (Yeah... I don't know either) so there shall be pictures soon!

I seem to have lost my living space.

2008-02-27T07:30:00.004-08:00

It has been over run with piles and piles and mountains of boxes. Nothing quite says reality check like seeing all one's personal items in 1 place. It is most definitely time for us to do some serious prioritizing and downsize (I know I've said this, but having actually received our household goods make this task even more urgent).

Yesterday was a good day, despite being a wee bit overwhelmed by the magnitude of it all. We've met several of our neighbors, one of which has a little boy not much older than Soph. They played together for about 4 hours while the movers unloaded our boxes on Monday, and all I heard all day yesterday while waiting for the phone guy was "Mommy.... when do I get to see my new friends?"...*10 minutes later*... "I see them over there in their yard, I could just walk there while you wait. When is the man coming?"...*5 minutes later*... "How about I just go over there for a little bit"...*repeat all day long*... So, I'm we found a playmate that lives close and is always around just like us :) Our Next door neighbors have a little girl also who is 3 - so we are definitely surrounded by children. Which is a very welcomed change to before.

Oh and I do believe the highlight of the day was when we found a caterpillar crawling up our house, we put him in a jar (with no lid), so we could watch him squirm around, then we went to look up what kind of caterpillar it was - alas our encyclopedias were not accessible, so perhaps we'll have to look for him today now that I've uncovered our Encyclopedias. If it's as beautiful today as it was yesterday, I might have a hard time staying on task. Something about CA weather just yells "COME OUT AND PLAY!"-after being in MD (where nothing about the weather ever said come outside), I must say it's nice to be back on the left coast.

Small houses, Big yards and too much rain

2008-02-22T11:20:00.002-08:00

Well, that about sums it up - we now have a house, a small house - but a house. I look at it as a step towards my ideal of less is more. This will force us to prioritize and decide what of our mounds of ~~crap~~ stuff that we really can (and should) live without. I don't think it'll be half bad.

Our yard however totally and completely makes up for the small interior. It's HUGE! Really Huge, and it wraps around the entire house so I can have a nice large veggie garden on one side and all the play stuff can be on the other side with no threat of trampled tomatoes or squished squash. There's even a little teeny tiny patio for DH's Weber. Yay :)

However our huge yard and awesome NorCal location are being totally wasted as we have no household goods (to be delivered Monday), no car (as DH has stolen our transportation to transport himself to and from work... sheesh) and no sunshine! Rain rain rain. Enough already!

The light draws near

2008-02-17T22:51:00.003-08:00

It has been a long road (2900 miles of it), and finally the light at the end of the tunnel is starting to emerge. I'll spare the boring details of bad luck and frustration and make a long story short (well as short as a long winded person such as myself can make it). Tomorrow we're going to look at the 60 some-odd houses available on post. We searched for a week or so for a house to rent on the economy, but decided perhaps the super homeschool friendly atmosphere on post would make up for the out dated and rather small homes... after all a home is what we make of it right? I must say our large house in B-more spoiled us. Soooo, by tomorrow afternoon we should (fingers toes and nose crossed) have an address and we should be moving in. It'll be nice to get out of the hotel and into our new abode. Speaking of our hotel - it's not a bad gig. We're staying in the old Del Monte Hotel, which was built in the 1880s and use to be the place to be if you were "anybody". It burned down and was rebuilt twice, and apparently it's haunted by a friendly ghost. The navy bought the land in the 20s during the depression and turned it into the naval postgraduate school.... which it remains today. Nice little history lesson :) Give me a week and I'll be posting and perhaps uncover my memory chip for my camera and I'll even post pictures :) Have a nice presidents weekend! We'll be reading a picture biography of Abe Lincoln and a few others along those lines to learn about the day - had to squeeze some sort of "school" in.

Adventures in CA

2008-02-06T14:03:00.000-08:00

Since arriving in CA we haven't done too much. My goal was to clean/re-organize the rooms we're staying in so that we actually have some liveable space... we did take a few breaks and I snapped a few pictures. So, in this 5 seconds of time I have, I shall give a brief overview.

We visited the family. Talk about making someone's day :)

Brenna played... she's quite the adventurous little one, and darn curious too!

Who doesn't love a good bounce?

Our neighbor since forever came over to pick some lemons from our tree, which has more lemons than one person could possibly know what to do with. Well, he did - he and Soph made lemonade.This is the "before sugar added" face.

What trip would be complete without a fashion show?

Or a trip to the interperative center to see the cool stuff about whales?

Poor B got horribly sick (and still is), you wouldn't be able to tell from the picture. She had 4 baths yesterday, it was the only way I could get my non-crier of a child to stop crying and be happy.

Today is B's day of feeling better enough to sleep. Thank goodness. She's been sleeping most of the day, but she still wont hardly eat anything, even her favorites. Hopefully she'll rest up and feel better. DH survived AR, he drove 15 hours yesterday because he was scared to death to stop driving. Both of us nearly had a heart attack when we watched the news last night and saw that there were 51 tornado touch downs and lots and lots of damage and many deaths as a result. I am beyond thankful that he made it through ok. If all goes as planned he'll be in Albuquerque tonight and then HERE tomorrow! So excited! He'll stay until Sunday and then head up to Monterey to report. It'll be a really nice visit and hopefully we can get a house soon so we can join him :)

Update in a nutshell

2008-01-31T23:00:00.000-08:00

Ha! Like I do anything in a nutshell. Well, here's my attempt. I made it to CA with 2 kiddos in tow all in one piece. Now, for anyone out there who isn't a football fan (such as myself), might I suggest making sure you don't plan a 8 hour flight across the country solo with 2 kids the week of the super bowl. Definitely don't schedule your 1 stop in the city that the super bowl is taking place. I did not have this foresight back in November or December, or whenever I got our tickets. I thought for sure we'd have plenty of seats and even though B was a lap child, we'd have a seat for her. Yeah.... not so much. We lucked out and had some really nice folks that sat next to us. From Phoenix to LA there was a really nice guy that sat next to us and he totally entertained Soph for the last leg of the flight. Talk about a God send. (I think she had a bit of a crush on him, he was the same age as her daddy and well... all little girls want to marry their daddy)

Ok, so that said.

Movers came and went. Our house is now empty, except for one lonely DH who shall be leaving soonish. We've made our list of adventures to partake in while in LA - since everyday is like a summer day for us we're having a nice time. I gutted, cleaned and re-arranged my old room in my ma's house to be more child friendly and welcoming - it's amazing that I got it accomplished in 1 day while alone with the kids - why can't I do that kinda stuff at my own house? *sigh*

Oh, and good news/bad news.- I brought my camera (to document our adventures), yet forgot my memory card (D'oh!). I have been using my mother's newly acquired (well not that newly) digital camera as a fill in until I can get a chip - once I load the pictures I shall share them. Most are of B who is crawling amuck and being crazy. I swear this child has no fear - I wouldn't be surprised if I woke up tomorrow and she had escaped from her crib and crawled into my room and scaled the bed to join me. She really is crazy. Happy and adorable, yet loud and crazy.

Yeah well, that's it. I'm sure that there will be strife in a matter of days, but for now - things are goin' good.

Snow is not on my agenda

2008-01-17T21:01:00.000-08:00

Apparently, no one told our atmosphere that snow was not on my agenda. There is enough on my "To Do" (tomorrow) list, shoveling snow and salting the sidewalk were not on this list! Normally I wouldn't mind, I'd enjoy some nice hot cocoa, we'd cuddle up in our bed and watch Shirley Temple and watch the snow fall from our window. We are leaving in 11 days! No time for shoveling! No time for salting! Wait... I don't even have time for posting. *sigh* oh well. Since we'll be staying with my mother for probably about a month, I have been trying to select which toys we should take with us and which ones we should have moved. Talk about a daunting task. I started to sort through our books, but when I realized our "take with us" stack was about as tall as me while sitting, I had to re-think my plan of attack. I do believe rather than take any of our books, I'm going to get a library card for the local library and we'll just check out books weekly like we do here. Then I wont even have to worry about losing any! Soph's getting excited about moving. I don't know what it is but she really really wants to go to school for some reason. She talks about it ALL THE TIME. I think since her classes ended and it's colder out she just really misses being around other kids. I kinda feel bad - I'm sure she'll come around when we get out west. I heard on the news (and researched to be sure) that Gov. Terminator has massively cut funding for education to try and offset the serious state deficit. Not cool. All the more reason why my child will be homeschooled. I'm pretty excited about the homeschool population in Monterey. Apparently many many military families homeschool their children. Especially since the average stay of a person stationed at the Defense Language Institute (our location to be), is about a year and a half.... not very long. We're lucky and we'll be staying at least 3 years. So by the time we leave (if we leave), B will be Soph's age. Not too shabby! At this point I'm just rambling - So I'll spare some boredom and bid adieu!

Surprise!!!!

2008-01-11T09:53:00.001-08:00

Not only am I posting, but I am posting pictures! I know, you all probably thought my camera had been destroyed by now. These are a few of our adventures from the past few days.

Well it appears that B has learned a new trick. She not only mastered the art of crawling in the blink of an eye, but apparently it wasn't challenging enough for her so she has moved on to bigger and better things - pulling herself up to stand. I have a feeling this one might be an escape artist.Yet apparently, she doesn't like company? This picture cracks me up because it's a bit of a roll reversal. B is always smiling and never really mad or anything, and Soph is always getting mad and protesting. Silly girls.

Soph and I busted out her tinker toys, she built a microphone and started singing with a guitar she made. Then she saw the bin and realized the girl had a pretty rockin' "guitar" - so I foolishly volunteered to make it for her. Hot DAMN that thing was complicated! There is no way little kids made half the things in those pictures! It's all a lie!

Yeah so DH couldn't resist joining in the jam - an every day rock star for sure. This is why I love the guy folks... he really is like a great big 7 year old. And who can resist a face like that?

Today we did some patterns- always fun

This would be Soph being me and DH - she stole my glasses, and his boots, and voila!

This would be us - I don't think I've ever ever posted a family photo before - this one is the best we could do, and believe you me, it's 1 of like 20. How sad is that?

B got a VTech car thingy for Christmas. I'm not sure who likes it more, B or Soph. Soph is taking B for a ride, as you can tell she's in the back seat :)

While cleaning and preparing B's room for moving, I stuck her in her crib so she wouldn't be crawling all over me - well I returned with a box and this is what I find - Soph "reading" to B in her crib - apparently she was lonely.

Yeah and that's about it for now. Hopefully, perhaps I'll have more to share. I'm fairly confident that I took more pictures than that, if I can remember where I saved them I'll post them later. Oh, and have I mentioned my children really really don't like clothes? Perhaps California and our family are just meant to be - we're not "winter" people.

Apparently -

2007-12-30T16:04:00.000-08:00

I am so bad at this game! I realized I haven't posted anything since well before Christmas, and this post isn't going to be of any substance. We are trying to get ready for our big move (which shall be occurring in less than a month) and things are crazy. Hopefully I'll get around to returning my lay out (which I never even finished Holidizing). Perhaps after the lead guy comes to make sure our home is OK to legally rent out I'll get a chance. Hopefully DH will actually tell me when the lovely army folk are sending the movers, and HOPEFULLY he'll actually take a pass that day so that I'm not saying "Pack this, not that" while chasing an overly friendly 3 year old and a sick 8 month old through the house. Yes yes... both lil' B and I have returned from our Holiday adventures in NY with horrible colds - Yes, Soph and DH are totally fine. How exactly does that work? Hmmph. My new years resolution I do believe shall be to not be a flaky blogger! Happy New Year everyone, and I'll "see" you ~~on the other side~~ in January.

The Christmas Conundrum

2007-12-13T14:56:00.000-08:00

This year I am faced with a particularly puzzling situation. For a while now, I have been quite exhausted by the commercialism of Christmas. I feel like the whole point of the holiday is being torn apart by the pressure of trying to do everything perfectly. I know that this is a topic that I've talked about previously, but as Christmas approaches I too am starting to feel the strain. I accomplished my mission of finishing all my homemade gifts. Which covered most people, I got Soph accomplished, her 2 older cousins, my mom and grandma, my MIL and my biological mother. Since Lil' B is so... well little - me crafting something for her would have been ridiculous, so I got her some wooden old school style toys that are NOT a lead risk, and I got some similar type toys for my youngest niece, although she got some homemade wooden puzzles. Now I am faced with my conundrum. DH, my sister and my BIL. DH wants nothing - literally nothing. I can't get him nothing, that's horrible. I'll have to think extra hard for him. My sister is the worst of all though - I asked what she wanted/what she was interested in. Her response - I like coffee and cigarettes. Ok that's not gonna happen, so that was negative amounts of helpful. She assured me that it was ok - I assured her it was NOT. I don't care that those are her interests, I wish she had other interests to make my life easier - but I'm not about to give her a carton of smokes and hand it to her in from of my whole family! Talk about a foot in the rear, I'd get some serious strife for that one. So how am I supposed to stick to my homemade pledge if it would go unappreciated/wanted?! *sigh* BIL wants something that although isn't homemade by me personally, or anyone unless a large machine is handmade. BUT! He wants a set of router bits, so I can probably be ok with that since the router bits would be a tool for him to craft things by hand - so that's my story and I'm stickin' to it! Oh and sorry I've been a slacking blogger. We've been traveling so much this past month that I've barely had 2 seconds. I'll be better - I'll make it a New Year's resolution :)

My new adventure

2007-12-05T23:53:00.001-08:00

I have been inspired. Yasmina is a genius and started up a blog of recipes. So, I'm sure she's not the first person, but still. I decided to be a total ~~biter~~ ~~copy cat~~ --ly eager to share person, and start my own. I do love to bake... oh so very much. Especially when it's super chilly outside and I love excuses not to have to leave to go anywhere (what better excuse is there than a pie in the oven? ... that's what I thought!). My goal is to post at least 1 tasty treat a day during the month of December. I even back posted like 4 things, just so I would seem to be with it. We'll see how that goes. So, I have added a link to my new foodie person blog in my sidebar. Feel free to visit, and if you feel like trying something new, and decide to try one of my recipes, do let me know how it turned out! Or! I have a huge repertoire of recipes, so if anyone has any requests hop on over and let me know what you'd like.

Could it be?

2007-12-04T21:14:00.000-08:00

Snow before Christmas?! We're supposed to get 2-3 inches of snow tomorrow, which although may seem like nothing to those closer to the lakes or a bit north of us - but for us lowly MD folk, that's not bad. In all honestly we're sissies and that amount will probably cause totally chaos and schools to close - sad I know. I love watching the snow fall and I love how excited Soph gets at the idea of snow. Since this will more than likely be her last snow I hope we get a good amount before we leave. If I recall correctly we didn't get more than 2 ft all winter last year - and it didn't even make it's debut until February (the day we settled on our house, because if the weather was nice that would have made things too easy). I'm (almost) sad to say we've been a bit on the hermit side lately, which is mildly disappointing. Usually I have no problem staying home, but this time of the year it's always fun to bundle up and take evening walks (or even car rides) to look at the holiday displays. However, with 60mph winds and temperatures well below freezing I just can't bring myself to take B out into the elements - not to mention Soph is so darned stubborn that it took me 20 minutes and much negotiation to get her to take off her bathing suit and put on tights. Checkmate came when I told her she could open the door and if she could honestly tell me it wasn't freezing outside she could wear whatever she wanted - if it was cold I was going to pick her attire. Let me tell you, that little girl is stubborn as all heck! I was surprised that her legs didn't fall off while she stood on our porch in protest. Luckily she didn't last all but a minute. Mom - 1 Soph -0. Once she was fully dressed in seasonally appropriate clothing I told her I was packing up her summer clothes for good. I was then informed that she was fine with that because in CA she can wear summer dresses in winter and swimming pools are open year round. Now - I don't know if she figured that out on her own, was "making it up" hoping it was true, or if she has been speaking with good ol' dad - either way I'm sure she's going to enjoy warmer weather. She's not one for being bound much - by my rules or by clothes.

I'm pleased to say that my to do list is getting shorter. I really should put it in the sidebar and cross things off as I complete them - perhaps then I would feel more accomplished. The inside of our home is about 80% complete. The outside needs a bit of love due to crazy style winds, but nothing a few minutes wont fix. I've been working on our Christmas Cards for about 3 days now and my goal was to get them sent out by tomorrow. Well, that's not going to happen. Sadly, DH believed me to be far more on top of things than I really am, and tossed our address book that was damaged in a tragic counter flooding incident. He thought I had transferred all of the address - in reality, I had only transferred the super important ones. That left about 30 that were lost (yeah, that's a lot of family). So after many phone calls, my list is finally complete with the exception of 3 families that moved.

Which reminds me, I have about a dozen and then some left over cards, if anyone out there collects cards to use in crafts or just likes to have pretty card displays this time of year let me know and I'd be more than happy to send a card your way. Alas, it is far too late and I need to save my kitchen from DH's great cake adventures (which was 3 days ago!). For some reason he has decided to start baking - bless his heart for trying. I bake quite a bit and I am still baffled by the fact that he managed to dirty 5 bowls while making a boxed cake mix - and then proceeded to leave the dishes for me. One would think that after many failed dishes boycotts I would learn my lesson. No, I now have a dirty kitchen and I'm itchin' to get baking, so I must take the plunge. I wouldn't be so willing to give in if it weren't December. I do love December.

It's the most wonderful time....

2007-12-01T22:38:00.000-08:00

I have been neglectful of my blog. As much as I ~~am addicted to~~ love blogging - the holidays come with such long "To Do" lists that I really just haven't managed to find the time. Shame on me. Most of the past week was spent "winter cleaning". After all - what good is a decorated house if it's dusty and dirty? So after facing my greatest fear (our basement) to lug up boxes of decorations - Soph and I set to work. I am very very picky about my holiday decorating, and since this is our first (and last) year in our house for the holidays much thought has gone into this year's decor. Although the inside of our house is still a work in progress, I'm happy to say that I am so so SO happy with outside. Although I drastically underestimated the amount of garland and lights required (I'm pretty sure the folks at Michael's know me by name), the look is what I consider to be very "traditional". Red and white and garland. Once I find my camera I shall take pictures. Tomorrow is going to be the final day (I hope) of decorating so I can haul the now empty boxes back down to the basement. After all, it's hard to enjoy a warm cozy and festive house if you can't even find a place to sit among the boxes! That and I need to get back in the gift making swing - only 23 days left and I don't want to have to settle for gifts I don't feel are complete - that would be pretty lame of me.

So with all that rambling outta the way - all I have left "to do" is...

1. Decorate out living room/kitchen

2. Gingerbread houses (!)

3. Finish the family gifts. (this is no small feat. I have Soph, Lil B, DH, and 10 or so other people to create for - gosh)

4. Bake, bake and then bake some more.

5. Do the card thing.

6. Wrap presents (this is possibly my 2nd favorite part of giving gifts. I'm a firm believer that careful and pretty wrapping is an outward display of how much one cares about the recipient of the gift - it's almost as important as the gift itself!)

and... 7. Work on the "moving in February To Do" list - which has like 100 things on it.

I love December. I can't guarantee that I'll get much posting in - but I can guarantee that the less posting that gets accomplished, the more we are enjoying our season :)

One bad apple...

2007-11-27T07:00:00.000-08:00

At last we have returned. Talk about some serious blogging withdrawals! My God. So much happened and so few pictures got taken (by me), that I seriously don't remember most of it. In a nutshell, we all had a really great time. Thanksgiving was delicious, although I ended up handing over crafty projects to DH and his sister and did a good chunk of the cooking - which I'm pretty sure my MIL is more thankful for than had I merely occupied the kiddies - anyone can occupy children, but I guess not anyone can cook.

After that DH had the idea to swing upstate to visit some other family folk which went pretty well for our sort day stay... then came the bad apple. And I'm pretty sure this bad able is the reason I can't recall all the great fun we had (it may have ruined the whole bunch). We got tragically lost in the backwoods of PA for something like 5 hours, in the pitch black and pouring rain. Horrible horrible horrible. I now hate driving through PA way more than the Jersey Turnpike. In fact - while driving aimlessly with no clue where we were and no visibility I longed for the comfort of the Dwight D Eisenhower rest stop. Once I've unpacked and re-settled and what not I shall probably have more to say. Until then... the Christmas decorating shall commence! Soph and I are so so very excited.

Turnpike Ho!

2007-11-20T11:48:00.000-08:00

We are off to NY for a fun filled week of family - well, fun! Wish me luck on the ~~hellish~~ lovely Jersey Turnpike (no offense Kate) - perhaps I'll get to post while there, but if not - "see" you all Sunday with pictures and stories galore!

The Westward Migration

2007-11-19T07:50:00.000-08:00

Well, it would figure that no sooner did we buy a house and settle into it - we're moving. DH is being relocated to CA and we'll be moving in March, or perhaps May - depending on his schooling. As exciting as it is to return to CA, it's a bit overwhelming. It seems like we just finally got this house unpacked, and now we'll be packing it up again. Having been spoiled by owning our own home and having a huge yard and decent sized house, we're going to have to either a)find a super awesome deal on a house or b)downsize. At least this time we wont have to do any of the heavy lifting as that's all taken care of and paid for by the Army. So thank you tax payers for funding our move!

Unplugged Project - The Box Edition

2007-11-18T23:08:00.000-08:00

Well here they are! The much anticipated pictures of our Unplugged Project - The Box Edition.

But first a word from ~~our sponsors~~ me. I thought it would be nice to incorporate some books into our unplugged project - so while at the library on Thursday I picked up Not a Box by Antoinette Portis and The Birthday Box by Leslie Patricelli. We had read Not a Box before, but it's cute enough and Soph didn't object. Soph really enjoyed The Birthday Box as well, but I think that's because she desperately wants to be 4 and therefore is mildly obsessed with birthdays.

Now on to the pictures. I must state that the pictures didn't really turn out too well - but you'll get the general idea. Oh and Soph also made a Christmas Box with some snowmen (very cute), but it's not shown. She's "hiding" it in her room and I wasn't about to start looking for it.

Here she is, working diligently. I bet pealing stickers is a pretty good exercise in fine motor skills. Conveniently it's one of her very favorite things to do.

I let her use my "fancy" markers to decorate her box. She was quite pleased.

Here are my box lids. The flash made the Christmas one unhappy, but the shined out part is just a definition of Joy.

The side of my box and Soph's box. She didn't stop at the lid, not the sides. She went whole hog and decorated the inside as well. No wonder she was occupied for so long.More sides. Exciting right?! You guessed it! More sides. But that's the last batch, promise. For you math wiz's out there, you may notice I left a side off. I didn't like it - so the poor guy didn't make the cut.

Well, hopefully you guys weren't too disappointed. After such a huge build up you were probably expecting something quite spectacular. Let's be realistic here - my skills are a "work in progress". Perhaps if I actually continue with my new interest, I shall have something a bit better to show. Although, if that's the case I may have to start charging - 25 cents per view seems fair ;). Tune in next week for - Being Thankful. (with a special guest appearance by, Thanksgiving Box!)

Leaves, and Legos and Cookies oh my!

2007-11-18T20:52:00.000-08:00

Yeah so, in all honesty - my new obsession really monopolized the majority of my weekend. I figured since weekends are the only time I'm not out numbered, I may as well take advantage of it. We did do some stuff though - I shall recap.

DH and Soph raked leaves today. They were really adorable, the picture is not so great. In my defense I took it from inside the house, from our bedroom window - so there was a screen and glass involved. Before they could finish and jump in them it started to pour - lame.We also baked sugar cookies. Since Soph's doing well with the wheat allergy and it seems to be leaving, we made real cookies (well, without eggs or dairy) - they were tasty and Soph loves to bake so it was a swell time. She wanted to make gingerbread girls. I tried to explain the concept of trying to get more than one cookie out of each roll - I failed. She's not to bad at rolling out dough - although she really must have missed the memo that states - "Summer is over. It is now fall and barely 45 degrees outside - bathing suits and dresses are no longer suitable." *sigh* at least we stayed indoors. This was our first attempt at our Unplugged Project. Filling a box with legos. (Fun I know) Interest - gone. Thus begins the creation of a sword. I do believe the soul reason for the creation of the sword was to attack me, luck me. For any of you curious folk out there, the box was 5 legos deep. I did go on to fill it - mostly because I was trying to hog the Legos. A smile and a pat on the back to anyone who knows how many legos fill that box. :) And so ends a wonderfully lazy weekend.

The Fine Line

2007-11-17T20:19:00.000-08:00

I do believe there is a fine line between "enjoyable hobby" and "addiction". It is quite possible that I am teetering on that line. Its not like I have time to decorate these boxes - but oh I love it so! I decided that in addition to the Thanksgiving Box, I wanted to make a Christmas Box as well. It is part of my mission to simplify Christmas and get back to what really matters. (I have a post in draft that expands on my mission, but it requires much thought, and well.... I've been too busy decorating boxes! No time to "think".) I believe traditions are important and since Soph is old enough now to begin to appreciate them, I thought perhaps we would start one. Every year I hope to put a few things in the box that really capture our Christmas that year (nothing big of course, after all, the box isn't a moving box) as well as a picture (or a couple pictures). Every year on Christmas Eve, I think it would be nice to open the box and spend time reflecting and remembering the happy holidays we've had. I might have to dig out some photo's of Soph's past Christmases, lucky duck little B gets to start out with the tradition!

I do suppose I'll hold off on posting the picture of my new box until Monday as well. And I must say, this may only be my 2nd box, but it's already much better than my Thanksgiving one. Perhaps that's why I'm not done yet - deeper concentration. :)

Unplugged Gone Wild

2007-11-16T20:08:00.000-08:00

While trying to decide what we were going to do for our Unplugged Project : The Box edition, I was trying to think outside the box (pun intended). I thought it would be a good exercise in math and what not if we tried to see how many legos we could fit into a box. We guessed how many it would take and then started filling - let me tell you, the box wasn't very big, but man did it fit a lot of legos. Needless to say, about halfway through filling the box Soph was sick of the whole thing and as I continued to fill the box, she began snagging the legos as I would put them in so she could build a sword. So - then came my next idea. Well, why not decorate boxes. We went and acquired the goods (2 boxes from Michael's, one for her and one more me). I dragged out all of my craft supplies. You know, the ones that get put in hiding for fear that your 3 year old will ransack every last border/sticker/stamp pad/etc, and you will walk in a room one day to find that your couch is a distressed black beneath a mired of letters, flowers, and holiday paraphernalia.

With boxes in hand we dove into my supplies, and started digging out what we thought we thought would fit our themes. Mine, a "Thanksgiving Box"; Soph's, a sparkle pretty box. Well, she had a grand time. I let her use my special fancy markers, she was quite delicate. I started on my box - but being the perfectionist I am, nothing seemed quite right. Well - here is where the project went wild. Soph finished up her box after about an hour or so (Never has she been so involved in a project). But I wasn't done! I was determined to finish my box before night fall. Rather than neglect my children (tempting though it was), I put my project on hold.

Finally, DH arrived home. I fed them all, did the dishes, and then vanished into my room. Before I knew it, it was 5 hours later. I still wasn't finished - something just wasn't right. After much thought and a quick trip downstairs to make sure the family was faring well without me, I returned to my lair. My project was completed, and I was happily able to go to sleep.

By this point I know you're all dying to know what this box must look like- but I guess you'll just have to wait until Unplugged Monday to find out. ;)

The approach of turkeys and comas

2007-11-15T18:47:00.001-08:00

Ah yes. Thanksgiving. As it quickly approaches I find myself quite thankful that we live far enough from family, and are anti-social enough to not have a full thanksgiving at our house. As much as I envy the beautiful displays in magazines and the idea of a "perfect" thanksgiving where the bird is a golden brown and the mashed potatoes are creamy and delicious - the truth of the matter is, regardless of the fact that I am a pretty good cook, and a darn good baker - when it comes to birds I am definitely not skilled. So! I shall brave the massive amounts of dog hair, and the very full house - and shall go to my in-laws for our first Thanksgiving at their place since DH and have been married. I figured, since I don't actually have to cook, or really do anything other than smile and be my delightfully charming (and modest) self - I should gather up some ideas of crafts to do with the kiddies to keep them out of my MIL's hair while she does the cooking. With 5 kids in the house ranging from 7 months to 7 years, I'm sure she'll be quite thankful for that. My challenge is finding several projects that can span the ages - lucky for me the Internet is chalked full of resources. Here's what I came up with -

The ever popular paper roll turkey. Simple enough for a 3 year old - yet still entertaining for a 7 year old. And what Thanksgiving would be complete without children running around in Pilgrim hats? Exactly. Perhaps I shall acquire some good stories about the history of Thanksgiving to read to the kiddies as well. I have several coloring sheets and what not to print up as well - maybe if I'm feeling extra inspired later on, I'll come up with some games to play as well. We'll see.

After all is said and done - I look forward to the L-tryptophan induced coma that my child will hopefully fall into.

Fun filled fall

2007-11-14T16:13:00.001-08:00

So we had our fall fun adopt-a-park clean up with our new homeschool group. Very very fun. Soph had such an awesome time learning about nature and mostly running around in circles. After going on our nature walk, the kids made bird feeders. I made almond butter so Soph could participate, she had a great time. All the the people in the group are so nice and considerate about her allergies, and they really go the extra mile to make sure she's not excluded. This is new for us - when Soph was in preschool, they use to sit her at her own table by herself and not let her participate in anything they thought might perhaps cause a reaction. They wouldn't tell us when there were parties or such, so often she was left out. So, needless to say we are VERY excited to have such wonderful people to spend time with!

Here are the kiddies making their bird feeders.Me and B while on our nature walk. The picture worked out well, as it's both B's and my best "side". The walk was a bit over a mile I believe, but with all the stopping to look at neat things, and chasing my wild child - it sure felt like a lot longer! If I had been thinking I would have strapped B to me! I do believe my left arm is extra ~~sore~~ strong now. Soph and her new friend found some really large leaves while on our walk. They were having so much fun together we lost the rest of the group for a bit (notice you can't even see them in the picture, and that's quite a bit of path!), but it's ok because they were busy being trees. We wouldn't want to interrupt the imaginative process, would we? Soph was having such an awesome time, she pretty much refused to leave. I had to drag her to the car. As a result, we ended up missing gymnastics. She was really upset about it and I felt horrible because I know how much she loves it. Perhaps next time when I say we have to leave or we wont make it _(fill in location we're headed to)_, she'll be a little more cooperative.

Unplugged Project : Red

2007-11-13T04:41:00.000-08:00

For some reason my blog went on strike and wouldn't let me post yesterday. So this is a day late. Sorry folks!

For our red Unplugged Project I had tons of ideas of things to do. Red collages, nature walks in search of red, scavenger hunts... the list could go on. Alas, Soph really wasn't into it. She loves to cut, so I thought she'd be up for cutting up old magazines - No, I ended up doing that myself. Then I thought perhaps she would want to glue them to paper because she loves making massive messes with glue... nope. The city tore up our sidewalks to fix the "walkways and driveways" so we had nowhere to walk to do our nature walk.

What we ended up with was a race through our house. The contenders, my mom and Soph. Little B and I were the refs. They had 2 minutes to find everything/anything red that they could on our 1st floor. They each made a pile of their findings. Well, the race ended, and I ascended up the stairs to change Little B - all the while hollering down the stairs not to clean up, and to count them, find the largest and smallest, and other assorted tasks that could stem from all the red objects that had been gathered. Well, when I returned - they had cleaned up. So sorry folks, no pictures. Hopefully the box adventures will go more smoothly - after all, what kid isn't always up for playing in/with/on/around boxes?

Random/ Weird Fact Tag

2007-11-11T23:38:00.000-08:00

Well it seems I have been randomly tagged by Binary Blonde for a late night tag. Thank you NaBloPoMo for yet another reason to avoid sleep.

Link to the person that tagged you, and post the rules on your blog.
Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself.
Tag 7 random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.
Let each person know that they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

7 Random and/or Weird Facts About Me

1. I love the sound of rain pattering against my window late at night.

2. I have over 50 books out from the library right now, and I'm not sure where half of them are.

3. I find it the hardest to sleep when I'm the most tired.

4. I'm addicted to flossing my teeth.

5. I hate carousels, they make me sick. My dd loves them - this is unfortunate for me.

6. I love "useless" information, and seem to retain it better than anything "worthwhile".

7. My #1 pet peeve of the day is being asked constantly and repeatedly, "Yeah, but, are you sure?"... gah!

So, now I shall take Binary Blonde's lead, and shall use the fantastic NaBloPoMo Randomiser to select the ~~targeted~~ lucky seven -

ladylanguage

three little birds

My Second Life as a Verb

Life in Freedom

Creative Treasures

CityMama

Who Said Anything About Common Sense?

Weekend Adventures

2007-11-11T21:18:00.000-08:00

My mom came to visit us in Charm City. Always fun. So we actually did quite a bit this weekend. Somehow I did not manage to capture most of these moments on film. Oh well. C'est la vie.

We did have quite a bit of fun though. Lets see... we all went out to lunch, and Soph went on the Carousel several hundred times (ok, it was 3, but it sure felt like more than that). We went to LakeShore for their Make and Take Crafts on Saturdays - Soph made a recipe card holder and had a grand time. We went to a Greek Festival downtown. We attempted to make turkey cookies to decorate at the Preschool Co-op tomorrow, but they failed miserably. The flour we used was just not up to par. These cookies were SO bad, that I'm almost to embarrassed to even mention them! So, after all that - we made a sheet cake and used the cookie cutter to make little turkeys. That worked out just fine. We did a mock Thanksgiving dinner tonight which was quite tasty - although I think we'll be eating left overs up to and past the real Thanksgiving. While I had my KitchenAid mixer out, I figured it would also be a good time to make our first batch of Pumpkin Bread... so we had that for dessert. All in all, aside from several emotional breakdowns (aka tantrums.... both mine and Soph's), several massive spills, DH almost setting my kitchen on fire, and other various other unpleasant isolated incidents, we had a nice weekend... Here are the few photos I do have -

While doing some last minute cleaning the day my mom arrived, I let Soph have at her windows with her window markers. I figured I had to wash them anyhow - may as well keep her occupied and thrilled while I got to vacuum. Worked like a charm. Soph and Little B were playing dress up together. I'm pretty sure that B was not a willing participant, but such is the life of a 7 month old with a big sister. It seems she would have preferred to have been Cinderella than... buried in Soph's clothes. While I was washing the windows (which by this point were covered in marker and quite colorful), Soph went to the bathroom. Well - imagine my surprise when rather than using the bathroom, she had opted to clean it. Well, I appreciate the eagerness to help - but that container of soap you see... well it was full when she started. And for those observant folk, yes she did change from Tinkerbell to a ladybug ballerina. After all, if one is going to clean, they may as well look their best and be graceful, right? This was the only picture I snagged while baking today. It was while making our tragically horrible cookies. Soph is very good at scrapping down the sides. She even put on her apron to keep her "pretty dress clean" - and yes... that is a summer dress and the high today was 44 degrees. I really think my child is in denial that summer is over. This upcoming week is super busy with Co-Op, art class, adopt-a-park clean up/party, gymnastics and what not... so expect a fun-filled post to come! Oh and of course there is Unplugged Monday! Which we're still working on - it seems that Soph really just isn't feeling it this week. We shall see if it works tomorrow. I had tons of ideas, but she really just didn't bite on any of them! More on that later :)

My budding photographer

2007-11-11T14:35:00.000-08:00

While attempting to finish the project of organizing Soph's room I kept her occupied by allowing her to take pictures. I was so amazed that the pictures were actually pretty good that I felt compelled to post them here. I think perhaps one of those indestructible cameras that are a bit more little hand friendly will be on the list of potential holiday gifts. I made a resolution to myself not to buy anymore junk toys - every toy that comes into our house is going to have some educational benefit... lucky for me, I do believe a camera falls into this category :)

I know- quite a messy room... while "organizing" I figured it was a good time to get a freecycle bag going. Yup... this is B... She really likes taking pictures of B. I think it's because they're best friend sisters. (That is my knee though) And what kind of artist would she be without a self portrait?

100 Books Accomplished

2007-11-10T19:17:00.000-08:00

So when I started my blog back over the summer I had what seemed like an impossible task of reading 100 books all children should read before going to 'school'. Well, it seems that I have in fact finished that list - I just seriously slacked off on marking them off... so - In it's entirety, here is the list of 100 books all children should read. For the sake of "recommendations" I have coded them, green are favorites (or well liked enough to read over and over), yellow are ok but I wouldn't go buy it, and red are "why is this book on this list". If I can't recall it well enough to code I left it black :) (after all I'm getting old, if I don't write it down or take a picture I can't be sure to remember)

1. Where’s My Teddy? Alborough, Jez

2. Miss Nelson is Missing Allard, Harry

3. Happy Birthday, Moon Asch, Frank

4. Ten, Nine, Eight Bang, Molly

5. Animals Should Definitely Not Wear Clothing Barrett, Judi

6. The Three Bears Barton, Byron

7. I Like Myself Beaumont, Karen

8. Madeline Bemelmans, Ludwig

9. The Mitten Brett, Jan

10. Clifford, the Big Red Dog Bridwell, Norman

11. Stone Soup Brown, Marcia

12. Goodnight, Moon Brown, Margaret Wise

13. Mr. Gumpy’s Outing Burningham, John

14. Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel Burton, Virginia Lee

15. The Very Hungry Caterpillar Carle, Eric

16. Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed Christelow, Eileen

17. Miss Rumphius Cooney, Barbara

18. Freight Train Crews, Donald

19. Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type Cronin, Doreen

20. Today I Feel Silly Curtis, Jamie Lee

21. Strega Nona De Paola, Tomie (This gets a brighter green because we love Strega Nona so so much)

22. Bed Hogs DiPucchio, Kelly

23. Are You My Mother? Eastman, P. D.

24. Feathers For Lunch Ehlert, Lois

25. Go Away, Big Green Monster! Emberley, Ed

26. Olivia Falconer, Ian

27. Lunch Fleming, Denise

28. The Magic Hat Fox, Mem

29. Corduroy Freeman, Don

30. Millions of Cats Gag, Wanda

31. The Three Billy Goats Gruff Galdone, Paul

32. Barnyard Song Greene, Rhonda

33. Is Your Mama a Llama? Guarino, Deborah

34. A First Picture Book of Nursery Rhymes Harbour, Elizabeth (Illustrator)

35. Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse Henkes, Kevin

36. Where’s Spot? Hill, Eric

37. Bread and Jam for Frances Hoban, Russell

38. Is it Red? Is it Yellow? Is it Blue? An Adventure in Color Hoban, Tana

39. Miss Mary Mack Hoberman, Mary Ann

40. Rosie’s Walk Hutchins, Pat

41. Harold and the Purple Crayon Johnson, Crockett

42. Splash! Jonas, Ann

43. Jump, Frog, Jump! Kalan, Robert

44. The Wolf’s Chicken Stew Kasza, Keiko

45. The Snowy Day Keats, Ezra Jack

46. The Caterpillar and the Polliwog Kent, Jack

47. Anansi and the Moss Covered Rock Kimmel, Eric

48. Leo the Late Bloomer Kraus, Robert

49. The Carrot Seed Krauss, Ruth

50. Over in the Meadow Langstaff, John

51. The Story of Ferdinand Leaf, Munro

52. Tacky the Penguin Lester, Helen

53. A Color of His Own Lionni, Leo

54. Frog and Toad are Friends Lobel, Arnold

55. Froggy Gets Dressed London, Jonathan

56. Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom Martin, Bill

57. All By Myself Mayer, Mercer

58. Guess How Much I Love You McBratney, Sam

59. Make Way for Ducklings McCloskey, Robert

60. Pigs Aplenty, Pigs Galore! McPhail, David

61. Martha Speaks Meddaugh, Susan

62. The Jacket I Wear in the Snow Neitzel, Shirley

63. The Day Jimmy’s Boa Ate the Wash Noble, Trinka

64. If You Give a Mouse a Cookie Numeroff, Laura

65. Amelia Bedelia Parish, Peggy

66. The Kissing Hand Penn, Audrey

67. The Rainbow Fish Pfister, Marcus

68. The Little Engine That Could Piper, Watty

69. The Tale of Peter Rabbit Potter, Beatrix

70. Good Night, Gorilla Rathmann, Peggy

71. Curious George Rey, H. A.

72. We’re Going on a Bear Hunt Rosen, Michael

73. The Relatives Came Rylant, Cynthia (It wasn't bad, we just didn't get it... perhaps it was over our heads and really is phenominal)

74. Grandfather’s Journey Say, Allen

75. Cars and Trucks and Things That Go Scarry, Richard

76. Where the Wild Things Are Sendak, Maurice

77. The Cat in the Hat Dr. Seuss

78. Duck on a Bike Shannon, David

79. Gregory, the Terrible Eater Sharmat, Mitchell

80. It Looked Like Spilt Milk Shaw, Charles

81. Caps for Sale Slobodkina, Esphyr

82. Imogene’s Antlers Small, David

83. Sylvester and the Magic Pebble Steig, William

84. And the Dish Ran Away with the Spoon Stevens, Janet

85. Joseph Had a Little Overcoat Taback, Simms

86. Who’s Counting Tafuri, Nancy

87. Pigsty Teague, Mark

88. Polar Express Van Allsburg, Chris

89. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day Viorst, Judith

90. Lyle, Lyle Crocodile Waber, Bernard

91. Farmer Duck Waddell, Martin

92. Mouse Paint Walsh, Ellen Stoll

93. Noisy Nora Wells, Rosemary

94. Knuffle Bunny Willems, Mo

95. I Went Walking Williams, Sue

96. A Chair for My Mother Williams, Vera B.

97. The Napping House Wood, Audrey

98. Owl Moon Yolen, Jane

99. Seven Blind Mice Young, Ed

100. Harry, the Dirty Dog Zion, Gene

And there you have it. I see that there are quite a few (too many perhaps), that I don't recall well enough to have a solid opinion of. And for the most part... they were all pretty good reads - There was only 1 of all 100 that we found to be a total waste of time, but perhaps that's because at this point "finding" colors is a wee bit below Soph. While looking through it I believe her words were "Mom, this is boring, I need something with some action". Alrighty then! *side note* I have accomplished 1 of my goals. Yay me!

Coming Attractions -

2007-11-09T18:57:00.000-08:00

I have so much to post about, and so many pictures - yet so little time! Hmmph - now that I think about it I'm not quite sure where all the time goes, right now I'm thinking that the answer is dishes and diapers - but I know surely there must be a better answer than that.

So, I have come up with a list of things I hope to accomplish this weekend blog-wise - here goes

First, I realized just now as I looked over our list of 100 books that we actually have read just about all of them. So, hopefully I'll archive the list as a reminder of our accomplishment. As if that wasn't outdated enough on it's own, I've been to the library about a dozen times since updating our current library books - surely there are people out there thinking I forgot how to get to our library, rest assured this is not the case. I'm just lazy. :)

Also, Soph has taken quite a liking to photography, she has been taking pictures like crazy on my camera, and they are surprisingly really, really good.Especially since her hands aren't quite large enough to hold the camera in position and hit the trigger, yet she somehow manages. I'm going to try and post her pictures as well.

Then of course there is "RED" , our unplugged project!

The list could continue, but why finish the list when I can just get to it? Eyes peeled everyone! These next few days are going to be (hopefully) some very fun-filled posting days! ;)

Unplugged Project : Haiku

2007-11-05T08:30:00.000-08:00

Soph and I really had no clue what to do for our Unplugged activity. We tried to think of a fall related haiku, that did not happen. Then we made some food for Brenna together (OK, I made food for Brenna while she "taste tested" it and told me she was glad she wasn't a baby anymore - in reality she just really doesn't like broccoli, and I can't change that. I came up with a haiku about that, but it really was mostly blah. Then, DH and Soph found a ladybug crawling on our front porch railing. It was caught in a piece of Halloween fake spiderweb and couldn't really move because it's little legs were all tangled. Well, they sat and spent about 15 minutes freeing the little ladybug. Then Sophia went on to tell me how this little ladybug was her new best friend and they were going to be best friends always. Then she tried to kiss her new friend. Bad idea. Ladybug friend was almost a ladybug snack. After being nearly loved to death, the little ladybug flew to a nearby leaf for a snack of his (or her) own, and Sophia and I went to acquire a ladybug habitat from Lakeshore... Thus my inspiration for our haiku! I had her illustrate (with my help of course)-

Little Friends (by Me & Soph)

Little ladybug

My new best friend forever

Until you fly home

The process - The finished product -

I'd say weekly.... but...

2007-11-04T17:21:00.000-08:00

Well I had the best of intentions of posting at least weekly. It seems, however, that after posting our Unplugged Project, that I totally forgot to post all the other stuff that had gone on! So rather than a weekly update, this will be a photo journal... in no specific (and definitely not chronological) order, although I did try a little to have it flow. Here goes nothin'! We have a calender in our "preschool" room, however I wasn't thinking clearly and put it on our back door... needless to say it has seen better days. I acquired this one and rather than have the whole month set up to start we are doing it together each day. So we have one calender that gives the whole picture, and one that goes piece by piece. Hopefully she'll develop a better sense of how long a month is and what not. It seems to be working well. Hopefully it will help with number recognition as well. She's pretty amazing at looking at a group and just spouting out how many there are and she's good at adding and subtracting, but not so much with saying which one in a group is the number 7, 9 etc. After nearly 7 months of having raspberries blown on her tummy, arms, legs, face... any inch of baby that there is... Little B discovered her tongue... and how to blow raspberries of her own. She spends about 70% of her day blowing raspberries, and is quite content in doing so. It's quite funny to watch - since most of the time she ends up cracking herself up. Silly girl! We enrolled Soph in an art class for preschoolers. In addition to acquiring the calender, I also scored some "frames" for her artwork. The one on top is the "piece" she did in class, it's water color that she textured a bit with sand or something... the nice lady that runs the class framed that one. The one below it was one of our early finger painting adventures. We thought it would be fun to have an art wall. I think this shall be the wall... although that might be changing soon - it might not be big enough. One of the reasons that my DH is the greatest is he made pumpkin (excuse me... Jack-O-Lantern) pancakes for Soph for Halloween. They turned out pretty cute and decently tasty too... the only negative - they turned Soph's face blue from the food coloring. That's OK though :) Small price to pay. 22222222 (that's was B's toe's contribution... I thought I'd leave it) Soph was Dorothy for Halloween. She put her costume on at about 10am and had me do her hair and she refused to take it off all day. Needless to say her hair wasn't so pretty by trick-or-treating time. Oh well. She was hilarious though, running around like she was on speed 'n such. She asked one man if there were peanuts in the candy and he was like "um, I don't think so I'm sorry" and she said "oh I don't like peanuts, I'm allergic, so this is good"... poor guy looked so confused. She definitely was high energy that night. I'm almost sorry I missed it - I only did the top half of our block with DH and the kiddos, then I had candy duty. yes... my living room is a mess. I know. But lets all look past the mess and see the really awesome Alphabet activity mats :) Sophia loves them. They come in quite handy when I'm attempting to feed B, do dishes, etc. The other day we lined them all up in alphabetical order and she hopped from A - Z telling me what she was hopping on as she was landing. If she knew what letter it was she told me, if not I told her. Then after that got old I "hid" the letters all over (except the kitchen), and then I would tell her what object and letter to find and she would run to it and bring it back to the box to put away. It was a very productive game. Soph wanted to color a Wizard of Oz picture after Halloween was over... alas, here she is... coloring. Exciting I know. I'm addicted to coupons. And clipping them. I usually sort through and take out the ones I want, then I clip the rest of them and either give them to our neighbor to pick through or in days of past I was part of a coupon train, and I would just mail them along. Well after I finished ours, Soph wanted to help me cut the rest of them. She did a good job of keeping her thumb up and scissors out.:) Can you tell whose pile is whose? I'm usually the moon foam police. I don't like the mixing of the colors - only because a)they're hard to pick apart and b) there are no single colors when she wants them... tears usually follow. Prior to the addition of the white I asked her why she was mixing up the blue and green. She told me she was making a flat globe and it was the Earth. Cool. Then I saw the glob of white headed towards the "Earth". I asked what the white was for on the globe and she said that it was from space and the white was the clouds. Rock on Soph.

Unplugged Project

2007-10-29T13:19:00.001-07:00

This past weekend we partook in our first ever Unplugged Project! Pumpkin painting. Oh what a spectacular adventure it was. For those of you who may be unaware of the Unplugged Project, it is the brain child of Unplugged Mom, and it involves various activities that don't include anything electronic. Here are the pictures that resulted. Of course I made one too. More later - I must feed my youngest youth now. I just wanted to make sure I didn't forget to post ;)

Trapped indoors

2007-10-27T06:59:00.000-07:00

Yes - we are trapped indoors. It has been raining since Tuesday - pretty much non-stop. Now, I am all for going outside and running around and getting so cold and wet that the only thing left to do is come inside and take a nice bath/shower. Well, Sophia didn't want to, and I did realize that perhaps Brenna wouldn't appreciate that much either. Needless to say, I was out voted 2 - 1. So instead we had a rather uneventful week (yes, by this point I realize that "uneventful" is quite the norm.) The high point was way back on Monday when we went to our first Preschool Co-op. Oh it was FANTASTIC! The other moms were so nice, and all the kids were so nice. It was so great. And even though it was our first day, there were other stragglers that stumbled upon the group by accident as well - the more the merrier right? So there ended up being about 20 preschoolers - that's nearly a classroom full. Sophia had a great time, the theme was pumpkins so they read pumpkin books and did some pumpkin crafts and sang pumpkin songs. Oh it was grand. My camera is MIA or I'd have taken/posted pictures.

One of the crafts was the 5 little pumpkins sitting on a gate. Well - not only did Sophia insist very adamantly that she do all the cutting herself (others let their moms help, probably for the sake of time... as we only got to do 1 craft), AND she refused to put faces on her pumpkins because the poem went 5 little PUMPKINS sitting on a gate.... not 5 little JACK O LANTERNS. Touche.

I really don't know what we did the rest of the week, gymnastics of course, library twice. Lots of reading, tons of singing and dancing. Oh and we did our Unplugged Project (pictures Monday!). very messy, but that's OK - I'm getting used to the fact that anything fun with a 3 year old is going to be messy.

Other than that - nothing. Oh I did chop off my hair and we woke up to a foyer full of ants this morning. Needless to say I'm letting DH deal with that, while I sit here, post to my blog and tickle Brenna. I do believe another trip to the library is in order - but that will have to wait until they're open.

Sneaky Kate Tagged Me!

2007-10-21T17:42:00.000-07:00

So I was tagged to list 8 things I like about myself. It's really hard to think of 8 things about myself that I like enough to mention. Here goes nothin'

I like that

1. I still manage to surprise myself.

2. I have 2 children that surprise me just as much.

3. I sing with my kids even though I can't carry a tune in a bucket (and they both sing right along)

4. I know myself enough to know when I should steer clear of people as to not spread my case of the crankies (this tends to be rather often at times)

5. I tend to have a very keen 3rd person perspective.

6. I don't sugar coat things, or beat around the bush

7. my DH puts up with me (ok I guess that's something I like about HIM, but I'm running out of things!)

8. I have overcome my distaste for cleaning up paint... thanks much in part to the genius at Crayola that made everything "washable".

I'm supposed to tag 7 people or something like that - however the only people that probably read this have either a) been tagged or b) saw a blog that had already done it and felt inspired. So I do believe that I shall retire the chain (sorry I'm really just not that popular). If someway somehow someone reads this silly little blog that I don't know about, feel free to work your brain for 8 things you like about yourself.

That being said, I think I'm going to take it one step further and list 8 things I would like to change. Here's the kicker... I'm going to actively try and actually make these changes - rather than whine and say "oh blah blah" which is usually what I do. Perhaps publishing it for the world (or 5 other people) to see will make it more concrete.

I would like to

1. Be more tidy on a day to day basis... not just when company is coming

2. Take Sophia to the park more often

3. Be more positive about myself and life in general - this includes not being negative about how people in MD drive

4. Remember with success that Sophia is only 3 and it's not entirely her fault that she doesn't listen to me (ever)

5. Remember that respect is a 2 way street, and the best way to get respect is to give it (yeah, talkin' about my 3 year old again)

6. Actually go to the gym rather than whine that I want to

7. Be more frugal/thrifty and actually completely adhere to my carefully contrived budget

8. Actually tell my DH how awesome he is rather than tell everyone else but forget to tell him.

Hopefully this list will be completed. Definitely not today, more than likely not tomorrow... but I'll get back to you someday. And as hard as it was to pick 8 things I liked, it was just as hard to pick 8 things I wanted to actually truly change.

The New Rotavirus "vaccine"

2007-10-19T11:29:00.000-07:00

Ok - So this post has nothing to do with school... well I guess it does have something to do with lessons learned however. Brenna had her 6 month check up yesterday. She's still way to little. She's only 12.8 lbs and 26 3/4 inches. the doctors have NO clue why she is so tiny because she eats about 28-32 oz of formula (nutramigen... good stuff too!) AND at least 1 meal of solid food a day. yet she's still so tiny! Hmmph I wish that were my problem. Anyhow, so they're making me drive into downtown to go to John Hopkins to have a sweat test done on her to rule out any horrible things like CF. (God I hope it's not CF). She's had a permanent "cold" since birth where she's always congested. So the doc listened more carefully than one would usually, and said that I was right and she could hear something in the right middle lobe of her lung - so we had chest x rays done and it wasn't pneumonia... great but what is it? Now the lesson learned part of my adventure. There is a "new" rota virus "vaccine" that they give infants orally to help and build an immunity to the virus so that they don't get the uber poopies, because I guess diarrhea can be fatal for infants - well I didn't really think they were serious when they said to wear gloves and not use the cloth diapers for about a week or I'd get it... I figured if I just wash my hands as usual I'd be fine. WRONG. So wrong. So now my little one has this great "resistance" to rota virus... but I'm miserable! Good golly I hope Sophia doesn't get it. I'm trying to keep her away from both me and Brenna, it's not working so well. The moral of the story - Gloves no cloth - doctor's orders!

Slow week and Pumpkins

2007-10-15T20:25:00.000-07:00

Well... It seems that not much of anything got accomplished since my last post. I'm sure that more gets accomplished than I recall by the time I get around to posting. It I don't have a picture of it, I don't seem to remember it - gosh I'm getting old. We do lots and lots of puzzles. It would be silly to take pictures of all of the puzzles we do. This one is an alphabet puzzle with pictures of words that start with that letter beneath where the letter goes. It is working quite well with Sophia learning letter sounds. Sometimes she surprises me. Like when we were looking at a catalog today(her new thing is she likes to look at catalogs and dog ear what she wants....even if it's a curtain catalog) - there was this doll that I'm 99% sure she's never seen before, and I sure had never seen it but there was a dialog bubble that said "Uh-Oh, I made stinky" - and Sophia looked at it and she said "mommy I want that doll. She says Uh-Oh".... what? Perhaps it was coincidence. We dress up all the time... usually I don't find dress up picture worthy - unless she is wearing belle, Cinderella, little mermaid, sleeping beauty AND snow white all at the same time. I don't even know how that's physically possible - I wouldn't think they'd fit. My child defies all odds. The definite highlight (and only thing I really remember well) of the entire week was Friday when my bestest friend Maxine, her fiance and the kiddos and I went pumpkin picking at the ONLY farm around here that actually had pumpkins for picking! Oh it was a blast. She picked out her very own pumpkin. It was little and a bit lopsided, but it's the one she wanted so I wasn't about to tell her it wasn't good or anything like that. 'Cause it was perfect and adorable. We also "planted" seeds in her window greenhouse so we can see how plants grow. They suggested Lima beans - we went with morning glory seeds we harvested from our morning glories growing on our front steps. We hung them in her bedroom window so they can get lots of sunlight and she can see the daily progress. Hopefully it will go well. We also went to the newly opened Lakeshore Learning store. If heaven was a place on earth... it would be Lakeshore. It's a CA based store so I grew up with it- imagine my excitement when I found out there were opening one 10 minutes from our house. They're an teeny bit pricey, but some of their things are very reasonable... and they offer homeschoolers the same discount as teachers (15%) . I got lots of good stuff from them. Like Write and wipe numbers and letter books and a real cool teaching clock... oh it was fun. They have a website too at www.lakeshorelearning.com . Great stuff. Well that's abouts it.

Book Reviews

2007-10-09T19:41:00.000-07:00

Well - it's hard to narrow down our list of favorite books. We have many of them. Most of them are classics that are probably very well known. So rather than list reviews and opinions about books known to most, I figured I should try and pick some that might not be as well known. Here goes nothin'

Tomie dePaola is one of our very favorite all time authors. I'm sure that most have read Strega Nona. Our new favorite is The Art Lesson. This is the story of little Tommy who loves to draw. He draws and draws and draws, and is so excited when it's time to go to school because his big brother told him that he gets to have real art lessons once in school. In the end we find out that little Tommy is grown up and in fact the story is the story of Tomie dePaola himself. Sophia loved reaching the end to find out that this little boy grew up and was able to do exactly what he wanted to do his whole life. She looked at me with wide eyes and said "Mommy! He did it. He's a real artist." I think it is a wonderful story to show young children that they really can be whatever they want if they work hard at it.

Graeme Base is another favorite author of ours. I loved reading The 11th Hour as a kid, and loved solving the mystery of "who did it" - but at 3 true appreciation of the story is a bit above Sophia. Uno's Garden and The Water Hole are more on her level, and are both fantastic lessons about our world and how important it is to give back what we take.

Uno's Garden is about Uno, a man that travels to the jungle and loves it so much that he decides to stay. Over time more and more people come and build more and more buildings. As the buildings double, the animals and plants all but vanish until there are no more plants or animals left. Once all the people realize that there are no more trees they all leave and the city is abandoned - except for Uno and his garden and one long animal. Uno's children continue to tend to his little garden and over time the forest and it's animals start to come back. It takes many many years but eventually the balance is restored.

The Watering Hole is along the same lines, but it features animals from all over the world - many of which are endangered. It is the story of a "secret" water hole that the animals drink from, unaware that they are not the only animals aware of this "secret". Over time more animals come to drink and the water hole gets smaller and smaller until it is gone. Then it rains - and all the animals come together to drink once again. The story is nice, but our fun lay in finding the "hidden" animals within the artwork (how we love Base's illustrations!)

Alice the Fairy by David Shannon is great too. No, David! is also one of Sophia's favorites, but I think upon the discovery of Alice, poor David got tossed from the top of the list. The book is about a little girl who likes to pretend she's a fairy. She often causes a bit of mischief while being a fairy, but I'm willing to overlook that. Pat (DH), started reading it to her, but changed the name Alice to Sophia, and changes the parts of the book he didn't want to "encourage" - like the distaste for Broccoli. This is Soph's favorite thing to do now - I think we read that story on average of 5 times a day.

Outside Overthere by Maurice Sendak is definitely one of my least favorite books ever. I recalled while at the library that when I was a little girl I had received it as a gift and my mom read it and swiftly confiscated it. (I couldn't have been more than 5) Well I figured, how bad was this book really.... well - REALLY BAD. In my humble opinion. Something about little goblins stealing away a baby to marry her off just seems absolutely horrid. I am so sorry that I didn't pre-read that one, I usually do that. I was in a rush, there was Sophia-pressure... She was worried for the following 3 days that goblins were going to steal Brenna. NOT GOOD.

well, seeing how I started this post about a month ago, I didn't get much reviewing done, but I may as well post it now. I have a running list of books to write about - my mind and heart are just too heavy right now with the world. Between fires, flooding, and draught - it seems no matter where you look we're in peril - and that's just in the US! That doesn't even look at all the other countries that have it so much worse. *sigh* It makes my heart sad.

Weekly Review

2007-10-07T06:28:00.001-07:00

I know this is so long overdue that it's not so much a "week in review" because I meant to post it like 3 days ago. My bad. Well - here is as much as I remember. It seems that unless I have pictures my memory is shot. Gosh having children ages a girl! We acquired a Bumbo seat for Brenna. I had heard such good things about them, and although she can roll over until she's blue in the face and almost crawl, she doesn't like staring at every one's feet. She loves sitting in it now. Sophia is diggin' it too because now they can have tea parties together. Last weekend (not this past weekend... but the one before that - yes this is that overdue) Sophia and I decided to make bubbles at night for the next day. The dish soap was blue, and Sophia wanted purple. So, she added lots and lots of red food coloring. A very dark purple resulted. We also played with her counting/sorting bugs. Here she was doing them while I made breakfast. Later we did them together. Every now and then I would make a mistake - she thought it was hilarious. I realized I never quite give Soph enough credit. Whenever we've done computer games on my laptop I also assumed that she didn't know how to use the mouse since it's different than a normal mouse (that and my mother can't even figure out my laptop mouse when she visits;)) Well I was very wrong, Sophia is a pro at the laptop. She really likes playing Disney Preschool Time online - here she is doing just that. There were a couple mornings last week that were quite cool and not humid and nasty (like it is right now). She's usually not hungry when she first wakes up, and on this day we were lucky enough for Brenna to be napping, so we went out in PJs and all to swing on our new swing set that we got from Freecycle. After I gave her a couple pushes she took over and didn't even need me anymore - I took pictures instead. Puzzles are on of our favorite things as well. We also got these from freecycle from a very nice lady who, after giving us a felt board was so kind as to tell me she was cleaning out duplicates and she would put them out for us to take what we wanted. So nice! The bag was filled with awesome treasures that both Sophia and I appreciated greatly. So many nice people out there!A bit ago Soph picked out a cat costume for Brenna. She decided she should be a witch so while at the dollar store she used a dollar of her allowance to buy a witch costume. Then after getting Halloweena from the library she thought she should read Brenna the story while wearing her witch costume. Brenna seemed to be having a good time. I didn't get to hear the story however. I got to put away laundry (lucky me). I just thought this was too cute. Talk about a flexible - I hope they were tasty. Brenna really is such a good baby. She just hangs out and follows along. She's probably going to be laid back and easy going like her daddy. Sophia is probably going to be off the walks and always busy like me. No wonder we butt heads - we're a bit too much alike.Well that's all I remember. We also went to gymnastics, went grocery shopping, went to the library - same ol' same ol'. Since so many people do book reviews, and I appreciate them so much - I figure I should be so kind as to review the books we read - we read enough of them! I'll only do the good ones though :) Hopefully life will be less hectic and I'll be able to post a bit more soon.

Scattered learning

2007-09-28T19:00:00.000-07:00

Wow - I'm not very good at this game lately. In my defense we've been quite busy lately. Thursday was DH's birthday (the big 23), so Sophia and I had been "planning" our "party". Sophia is so sweet though - I swear she was more excited about her daddy's birthday than he was. Perhaps I shall give a run down of our (un)schooling that went on this week.

Monday - Sophia, Brenna and I took the 40 minute drive to post to go grocery shopping at the commissary. We've only done this once since moving because it really is so far... but so cheap! So - we made it a math and science field trip. I discovered (and it only took 5 months) that it is easiest to strap Brenna to me and let Soph sit in the seat so we can chit chat. So for math we counted everything we put in our cart (in multiples, like canned goods). We did adding when we had 3 cans of tomato paste but needed 5. Then we subtracted when Sophia told me we needed to leave some for other people, so we took the 2 we added away again. (It's not like we took the last 5 cans, there were at least 100+ of them) Science happened mostly in the meat section. Well... it started in the meat section, with a question about fish - then it proceeded to the fish section where they had a tank with live lobsters in it. Now does that just scream science or what?! Although, the man that was following the same "route" through the market as us had his fair share of chuckles... up until Sophia asked why the lobsters were alive but the salmon were dead... (see... culinary insight as well!) - I have taken an up front and honest approach to giving her the facts, so I told her that when people cooked lobster they needed them alive first. She figured out on her own that what I really meant was that they were cooked alive... of course the man that heard the other 90 minutes of our lesson missed that part but walked by just in time for her to ask if it hurt them and me say "I don't know, but they make a high pitched sound that is similar to a scream when they're thrown in the pot"... Sophia was fascinated... the man looked at us and said "wow, you're brutally honest"... luckily I didn't have to reply because Sophia chimed in with "Oh, it's ok - I'm allergic to lobster, so we wont eat them anyways"... ha... Yeah so that was Monday.

Tuesday - We went to Target to get cards for DH's birthday... and to see if perhaps we could find a little something for him, even though he was very very stern that he wanted no presents. Um... yeah right?! So I let Sophia pick out a card and I picked out a card. (She picked out a huge Spongebob card... so appropriate and way cute) Then she saw some blue ribbons that said "birthday boy" and she said that he needed one. I agreed so we tossed that in the cart. We then spent about an hour wandering around - Our conversation went like this -

Me - "What should we get daddy"

Sophia - "That"

Me- "What is that"

Sophia - "I don't know, what is it"

Me - "It's a fort, Daddy's to big for a fort"

Sophia " But I like the fort"

Me - "I know sweetheart, but daddy is too big for that fort, and I'm not sure he'd want it - but that was a really good suggestion"

*repeat 60 or so times replacing the fort with other objects such as crochet, princess dresses, hello kitty puzzles, AC filters, a set of dollhouse book selves, a few spiderman shirts (boys)... you get the idea. We arrived home barely in time to get dinner going... Alas, I succeeded

Wednesday - The most exciting day of Sophia's week... Gymnastics day. Nothing but gymnastics gets accomplished on Wednesdays because she is really just too excited to function. So we usually watch Peep to sneak in science... she usually wants an encore (yay science! Thank you Tivo!) We arrived quite early to gymnastics, and Sophia is one of 2 children there that are 3. She is by far the bittiest, but she so doesn't care. I watched through the glass as they all did forward and backward rolls into the foam pit. Then I watched as the 4 year old's in line in front of Soph said no to the rope (older kids climb it, little ones sit on the bottom knot and swing over the foam pit), Sophia hoped right on, held on tight and swung all the way across the foam pit without batting an eye (or falling off)... then she did it 3 more times, trying to get the other kids to do it to. When they were all done she came right up to me and said "Mommy! Did you see me swing?"... sure did! "Good, did you see I was Brave? I tried to help the other kids be Brave but they were too scared". Yay! My kid is brave. So that night DH was home before we were, and after dinner he announced he and Soph were going to the store to get the ingredients for cheesecake for his birthday. I thought it would stop there, 'cause Sophia and I had planned to make the cake Thursday while he was at work... well, I came downstairs after getting Brenna to sleep and they had already started.... oooooh brother. Now that was an adventure. It was ... borderline tragic. Here is why - 1. Sophia can't eat a single ingredient in a regular cheesecake (literally not 1) 2. DH refuses to believe I know more about baking than the numbers in a cookbook... so he neglected to heed my advice about too much butter in the crust 3. Sophia was "helping" us by throwing the almonds everywhere and 4. It was 10pm!

Well I was in charge of the filling, DH and Soph handled the crust. I suggested pre-baking the crust for a few minutes since it wasn't made of the normal ingredients... good thing I was very very firm in this suggestion because DH hadn't planned for me being right about the butter and it was dripping out the sides of the spring form and smoking out our kitchen as the butter hit the bottom of the oven... So we had to overcome that hurdle - DH Decided to make a chocolate swirl cheesecake... but I made the mistake of assuming it was common knowledge that when melting chocolate on the stove, it is done in a double boiler... we all know what one gets for assuming anything... So when I turn around and there is an entire bag of chocolate chips in a pan on the stove top, oh boy. I was beginning to wish I had put the nix on the project and insisted I do it myself with Soph the next day! By now, Brenna has awoken and Sophia's face is covered in cheesecake filling, and we FINALLY get the cake into the over for an hour. (By now it is 11:30pm). So by 2am I crawl into bed, after letting the cake cool all the way and what not I crawl into bed. I wanted to take a picture, but couldn't find my camera before it got cut into.

Needless to say... very very tasty considering there was no dairy, eggs, or wheat in it (and it is a cheesecake... a chocolate cheesecake). If anyone out there wants the recipe, please let me know - I'd love to share.

Thursday (I know, this is long) - DH's Bday. When Sophia woke up DH was already at work. I was downstairs hanging out with Brenna when I heard her at the top of the stairs having a total fit. Not the norm if I let her wake on her own. DH called just to say hi while this massive screaming fit was occurring. An hour later I finally got Soph to calm down enough to tell me what she was so upset about. She wanted to tell daddy Happy Birthday but he wasn't there anymore. So sad! So I distracted her by telling her that it was good he wasn't there because we had to make his present! So we made him picture frames out of Popsicle sticks and clothes pins for him to take to work. She LOVED it, I didn't even help her one bit. She "wrote" on his card and then told me i had to write it so he could read what it said - so we did that. Then we went to the library. There was a really nice little boy there that was also 3 and they took to each other very quickly. They were having so much fun playing that neither wanted to leave. His mom was really nice, although after 3 hours of our kids playing and us chatting away we never thought to get each others names (how rude am I?!?!). It was really nice though, because Sophia really needs some little friends and it's hard with Brenna being so young because it's not super easy lugging her around anywhere that is outside when it's in the 90s with 90% humidity.

Friday - Alas my week found an end... FINALLY. We went to dinner last night for DH's Bday, and then after devouring our delicious cheesecake Sophia was so excited about everything she didn't get to bed until gosh... midnight? (WHAT?!) I thought she'd sleep late... Nope. Up at 6:15. So we had a very early morning. But it was a pretty fun day, she told me she wanted to start doing homework. When I told her that all our "work" was homework she said... no like homework after dinner, with daddy. So I'm going to start giving the worksheets to her before DH gets home, for them to do either while dinner is cooking, or after dinner while dishes are getting done. Hopefully this works out because I really want her to enjoy the "traditional" aspects of learning for later on when it matters. But I definitely can't force this one to do it, so I'm glad she came to it on her own. The only fun thing we did all day was we dyed pasta. Lots and lots of pasta. I only had 1c. of rubbing alcohol so we had to be creative with how we went about the process. I used 2 glass measuring cups and put 1/2c rubbing alcohol in each. We started with yellow and red, so that we could add to them after the first batch was done and have 2 more colors. I let her put in the food coloring, and then I let her pick what color to add to the red and yellow to make 2 new colors. She picked blue for both to make purple and green. The purple and green turned out the best (I think she added a bit too much dye, but it worked out). Tomorrow we shall create with our pretty colored pasta in a bazillion shapes.

Thanks for following to the end :) If you made it this far you're a real trooper.

Long overdue

2007-09-21T15:58:00.000-07:00

Well, here are the pictures as promised... in somewhat chronological order. So we arrived Wednesday, and didn't do much. On Thursday we went to the LA County Fair. Talk about some all around family fun. Huge! Good times, not so good french fries. There was a super huge Ferris Wheel.... not my forte. Sophia however loved it, she wanted to go on it again. I took a picture of it. I bet the view from the top was pretty sweet. So while Sophia was on the Ferris Wheel (with my sister). Pat saw a booth where you could win a guitar by throwing a dart. He made me a deal... if I won the guitar, he would carry it for the rest of the day. Well - I won the guitar on the 1st try (I know, I so rock), yet by the end of the day he was carrying Brenna and her carseat was carrying the guitar... hmmm I didn't see Sophia most of the day, although she did manage to pop up every now and then to make sure brenna was ok and not "lonely", or bored. I swear that little B is a trooper. We literally dragged her around for a week straight and she couldn't have cared less. Yeah, Soph likes Carousels - that has been establised. And Pony rides. And Ferris Wheel #2. Please note she went on probably 5 different Ferris Wheels. The 1st was by far her favorite. We stayed until about 8pm, long day for a little Brenna. She was quite thrilled to play with her newly acquired and quite age appropriate toys. Soph loves to help her play with them - she also likes to "read" Brenna her new book. So - we went to Knotts on hmm... Sunday (I know what happened to Friday and Saturday?!) Friday we did lots of not much. Oh I did discover LakeShore - very expensive, however they are based out of Carson, CA which is like 25 minutes from my mom's house. So they have an outlet and we went to check it out. So awesome. No words.... I should take a picture of all the ~~crap~~ good learning materials I purchased at almost too good to be true prices. Perhaps I'll take another picture... ha. And Andrea (aka sister) had her Bday.. the big 22 on Saturday so there was a BBQ. Knott's on Sunday... SURPRISE - there was a ferris wheel. And a truck ride... if I wanted to be entertaining I'd have posted the picture with my sister and mom sitting on the back of the truck... but I think I might get hated on for that. Red Barron!!!!!! Charlie Brown and Snoopy were definitely a staple of my youth. I didn't realize Sophia had never even heard of Snoopy or the Peanuts gang. Well we dug out some of our old VHS before we headed out and now she love's the good ol' Peanut gang. I must say, little kids on rides made to mimic adult rides are so too cute. This was taken on the way up, and once the other kids (all 3 of them) realized that the boy on the end had his hands up, they all put their hands up too. Way too cute. So on Monday we went to visit my grandma's house. Sophia really wanted to go to her house earlier in the week when we went to pick up supplies (read as folding chairs) for sister's Bday. However, she fell asleep and was sad she missed it... so we made a trip Monday. We went out to the patio and Sophia was amazed that the entire back of her house was windows (or french doors or sliding doors... but all glass). So she kept peeking in to look in the windows. When you see the view that Patrick (aka DH) is admiring, you can see why there are so many windows! Awesome awesome awesome. Sophia had fun wandering aimlessly and smelling YiaYia Annie's flowers. Good thing she has lots of them! So, that's what we did in a very very small nutshell. We also went to the museum of Natural History, which she loved. We thought she'd get bored after an hour, but when we finished the 1st floor she insisted that we go to the 2nd floor to see all the other animals, then she found out they had a discovery zone for kids and we went to that too.... sooo 3 hours later, we headed out. While in the discovery zone she followed around the vet that was taking care of all the snakes and asked her probably about a million questions. So after the museum we headed to my uncle's store downtown for some lunch. If you ever find yourself around Pico and Normandie in LA go to C&K Importing, he has a restaurant called Papa Christo's Taverna and it is so awesome. He has the absolute best Greek food ever. And the portions and prices are awesome - so perhaps I'm plugging his restaurant a bit, but I'd say the same things even if we weren't related! The flight both went well. Alas, I have tons of unpacking to do. Hopefully our "schooling" will be more on track now that all the traveling is done.

Alas, we return

2007-09-20T17:33:00.000-07:00

We have returned from CA. After a long long week (that felt like an eternity and a heart beat at the same time.) chalked full of many fun adventures (and learning I'm sure) - I shall post the play by play and pictures once my jet lagged little girl on CA time is finally sleeping. Just thought I'd let anyone still following along know - good times are a'comin'!

Silly Billies

2007-09-07T12:31:00.001-07:00

So, last night I made a quick run to the library and flew solo. DH was making some chicken burgers and little B was sleeping so I planned my escape. I wanted to pick up some non-picture books and I knew that taking Soph along would not allow such a luxury. While I was there I dropped off her books from last week (another task that is not easy while trying to hold a little hand and juggle an infant carrier). She had been pretty negative about leaving the house for anything yesterday - and given the heat and the negative attitude I wasn't about to even attempt to force the issue. So, on the off chance that her mood was equally ucky today I picked up a few books, just to hold us over. Well she was so so excited that I came home with library books for her that she insisted we read them all. Immediately. After about 5 of them dinner was all done and off the grill so I told her she would have to wait for the rest - not happy but she got over it. Why the dissertation so seemingly unrelated to the subject title? We have a new favorite book! And as if that wasn't awesome enough, it is a mutual favorite! (although probably for different reasons) The Three Silly Billies by Margie Palatini. It is a really funny book, very silly and it incorporates a bunch of different children stories, which is why Soph likes it. And it is a good way to sneak in math! Which is why I like it. After we read it for the 5th time in one day, I went and found all the coins that were talked about and we "acted out" the story and added up all the coins and we got to work on coin value and she didn't even know it! Ha, I tricked that little one good! She really really doesn't like thinking I'm trying to "make" her learn. She likes to "surprise" me with what she has learned rather than be taught formally. I do suppose it is a good thing that I picked up on this early. *NOTE THIS IS REALLY LONG* you may want to skip it if you're crunched for time Now... on to the conversation we had in the car because I'm wondering if anyone out there had these moments when their kids were 3. So we're driving along and I don't know exactly what prompted the question, but Sophia asked who made her. And I was like "oh great - she's 3 and we've already had the death talk, and now we have to have the where do babies come from talk" So I answered her by saying, "well, Daddy and I made you" - dreading the "how" that I thought was about to come out of her mouth. Instead however - I heard "No. I mean who mademe. It was God right? God made me? Just like he made the ocean and the trees and all the other people? And why are we all here? Why did he make us?" Ok, so I was glad I didn't have to have a sex talk with my 3 year old... by why is she asking about the meaning of life at age 3? And how on Earth am I supposed to go about answering that? As I was not so gracefullystalling she seemed to answer her own question by saying "so we can be with other people right?"... right! Ok. So then once we got to Wal-Mart, they had their Halloween display up. Now, who in their right mind would put up a life-sized mummy that was motion activated to growl and be scary right next to the children's toys? Ok, not a good idea in my book. Sophia hatedit. She made it very clear that we were not to walk past it again(even as we were checking out). So then after re-assuring her that she'd be fine this conversation followed - (as if the why are we here talk wasn't enough) Sophia - "Mommy, what was that scary man, and why was he wearing toilet paper?" Me - "It was a mummy, and he wasn't wearing toilet paper, he was wrapped in cloth. But you don't have to worry because he wasn't real" Sophia - "So he wont hurt me?" Me- "No he wont, I promise" Sophia - "If he isn't real, why would they put him in a store and have him pretend to be real" Me- "Because that is how people decorate at Halloween time" Sophia- "Why would people want to put out scary ... what do you call them?" Me - "Mummies... they put them out because at Halloween people like to try and scare other people" Sophia - "I don't like that, I like Christmas better" Me - "me too" *by now we are in the car ready to head home... one would think a change of topic would be nice - or perhaps silence even* Sophia - "So... mummies aren't real? They don't exist?" Me- "No they don't... wait. They do, but they're not alive. So you really don't have to be scared of them" Sophia - "So mummies are real. But they are dead?" Me - "yes." - I proceeded to explain what they are blah blah blah. By now we're almost home. Sophia - "soooo... Adults like to pretend that dead mummies are really alive?" Me- "yes at Halloween time" Sophia - "and this is fun?" Me- "yes for some people" Sophia - "Mommy, that's not fun. It is mean. I'd rather pretend to be a princess." Yes I know that was really long.... but what?! Why why WHY am I explaining this to my 3 year old?! WHY DOES SHE CARE?! It's Halloween - can't she just accept it? Sure, I could have lied and said that mummies are not real, and cut my conversation in half, but I hate lying to her. And whenever I do just make things easier on myself she ends up calling me on it later and I don't want her to think I'm going to sugar coat everything... yeah yeah yeah. Am I alone on this one? Alrighty. I need to drag her to bed now. I meant to write about how even after I went to the library by myself yesterday, we went back today for 2 hours and checked out another 20 books - we ended up reading them all last night and she didn't want to return them yet so we just added to our collect. I almost feel bad hording so many books.

A weekend (and then some) in review

2007-09-04T21:51:00.000-07:00

Well our weekend came and went, and seemed to have done so very quickly. My sister came out from CA to visit and that was a blast as usual :) We did some fun stuff, mostly the MD State Fair, but of course that is the one event when my camera was MIA (read as left in the car). Her flight came in a half hour late - so a 12:50am (yes that is am, as in the sun is sleeping) arrival turned into a 1:30am arrival. It's all fine and dandy though because I didn't mind. By the time we finally got back to the house and settled and all that good stuff it was around 3:30am and we didn't hit the sack until 4:30am-ish. Needless to say we were quite the cranky adults when an ecstatic Sophia woke up at 7am (I couldn't even tell you when the last time she was up that early was... it really has been that long). We hid our crankiness well and had a grand day. Since most of the time blends together, I shall talk in pictures - with a few tangents as I recall events. So what do you get when you mix a very sleepy Nouna (Godmother) and 2 pretty cute and equally tired children? Why bandanna peek-a-boo of course! At some point and time Sophia convinced Andrea (previously mentioned as "sister" and "nouna"... talk about a girl with a lot of names) that it would be super fun to go swimming - they may look happy but in fact it was 8am, and although the day got quite warm... it wasn't very warm at 8am. I'm pretty sure this was the point in which Andrea said "What did I sign u for?" A little while later, and long after Andrea was done with the whole swimming thing, Sophia decided she was going to put on her skirt and get in the pool. She said it was "in need of a wash" and proceeded to jump on into the pool. After about 10 minutes of wading around and splashing she climbed out and grabbed a towel. I asked her if she was done for a while and she said "yeah, my skirt is cleaner now, but the water made it to heavy to have fun in". Alrighty then. Sooo... at some point and time (please note I started writing this entry about 2 days ago, so I really have no concept of days anymore) we went to the mall to go on the carousel. I get very very dizzy on carousels, I get almost as dizzy just watching it spin around. I took one for the team to snag this picture. It was the only one that Sophia wasn't looking at me in, and it was the only one that wasn't blurry from the motion (go figure). She absolutely loves carousels. She went on it 3 times in a row before we called it quits and went to feed geese instead. The first 2 times she went in the spinning tea cup but I requested she ride a horse so I could get a picture. By the time she walked off she was so dizzy she couldn't even walk straight, it was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. So, this was after my sister left - Tuesday I believe. She has this new found thing for Polly Pockets (she calls them Holly Pockets, I tried telling her it was Polly pocket and she said, "I know it's Polly Pocket, but I like the name Holly better") - Andrea bought her a little set while we were waiting for the carousel to start back up (we had a half hour to burn) so she said decided it would be a great idea to take a wide eyed 3 year old into Limited Too. yeah that was fun. Anyhow, she is completely in love with her Holly Pocket and would play with it all day if given the chance. I figure it's good for the fine motor since the clothes are so darned little, and good imaginative play - so its all good (right?) So this is what Brenna does 85% of the day. She's perfectly content hanging out on her tummy while I fold and put away laundry or while Sophia sings her songs. I'm so blessed to have such an easy going 2nd child, and to have a 3 year old who didn't want me to take her baby sister back to the hospital a week after coming home.Yes, this would be Sophia singing to Brenna because she was upset. She doesn't look that upset, but she had just been poked in the eye by herself and was quiet unhappy about it. Sophia sang her Mary Had a Little Lamb - I love pictures of the 2 of them together, they always make me happy... ok well most of the time. And this... I am so proud of this I had to post a picture of it. Yesterday Sophia told me that she loved her finger puppets, but she needed a castle for them so she could put on a show. She told me that we should go buy a pink and purple castle. I said well I think I can make one... she did not believe me. As I was making it my DH was not so D and said "um, you realize you're using Personal pizza boxes and construction paper right? Do you really think she'll play with it"... well that was before I finished! After he said, wow that actually turned out a lot better than I though (yeah thanks for the confidence A-hole). I must say that it does look better in real life, but you get the point. Soph and I agree that the best part is that the roof with the flag comes off so the princess can be "locked in the tower". Usually she is rescued by the Circus Lion. But yeah, she liked it so much she asked if she could sleep with it... Sorry kiddo, 2 hours of being hunched over and about 50 paper cuts later... I wasn't about to let it be destroyed by a non-play method. Played to death - fine.... slept on to death - not fine. And yeah so today was a really really rough day. I don't know why really, it definitely wasn't Sophia or B, it was totally me. I think I was just really tired and having girl issues. It did become Sophia when we went to go to her very first gymnastics class and she fell asleep in the car and had a total hysterical fit. She totally loved it though and told me she never wanted to leave and that she needed a leotard so she could show her armpits. I watched her for a while through the glass and she had the biggest smile I've seen in a while. So yes that is good. She has so many things that she wants to do - its a good thing DH just got promoted. She also wants to do ballet and learn how to play the violin. Now... no one in our house plays violin, I don't think we've ever seen a person play the violin. I keep asking her why the violin and not the guitar or piano and she says that the violin is the most beautiful sound and it's littler than a guitar and there aren't as many strings and when I asked "well why not the piano" she said "mommy, where would we put a piano? there is no space" - touche. So tomorrow is library day, we are quite excited for some new books - hopefully we'll make it out of the house in time for story time... if not perhaps we'll go to the park and then the library. But clearly we're not so good at the whole "planning thing".

3 Days for the price of one

2007-08-29T22:42:00.000-07:00

So... I haven't really posted anything about "preschool"... that's a my bad. I really don't know where my week went, or why it has been so rough since the family returned from NY... I have a few ideas why (they may or may not involve Sophia being allowed to stay up until 1am and watch not so good TV)... Yeah so a few moments of this week have been great... other's about as far from great as humanly imaginable. So... rather than dwell on the negative (which I would rather not remember anyhow)... I shall do a "Week in Review" of pictures... even though it really is only hump day. (It should be Friday though... don't you think?)One day this week... Monday perhaps? Sophia decided that it was only appropriate to eat breakfast outside since it was really nice outside and not too hot and not to cold. She tried to convince me that she needed coffee in a mug to enjoy while listening to the birds sing... I compromised with a Juicy Juicy instead. *Notice the super tacky yet totally awesome metal porch circa 1927) Another day this week... we finger painted. I have no clue what day this was... only that it wasn't the same day as the outdoor breakfast. Sophia somehow managed to make a really pretty shade of teal out of Blue, Green, Red and Yellow. I know she mixed them all together... I was there. Yet the result was quite surprising... I think she was a bit taken back herself. After that she said she needed to make orange, but to just give her yellow and red because she didn't want to end up with the Ocean again (as she appropriately named her color). Later some night (not tonight, maybe Monday)- She had a total and complete melt down. She's usually a verbal melt down type of person... alas, here she is laying on the floor having a complete tantrum because she wanted to do another letter. What?! I bought her a pre-K hooked on phonics because it was a) on sale and b)mis-shelved at target so I got it for $15 (I couldn't pass that up). She found it in my closet while looking for my high healed shoes so she could "practice being a princess" (I must say she walks better in them than I do). So she opened it up and saw that there was a CD-ROM. Now this little girl has never shown interest in letters, let alone their sound. Now... she is having raging fits because she can't do more letters? At least she's not screaming for Spongebob Squarepants (Thanks DH for introducing that one). Same day... an hour later.(yes that would put it at about 11pm... thanks again DH for the 1am bed time in NY)... Much calmer with a pile of books on my bed. I was tired... I wanted to sleep... I was told I was not invited and that I could sleep with Brenna. Gee... thanks but I think the crib has like a 75lb limit. So.....another day, another puzzle. Must have been the finger paint day. I like puzzles. I wanted to "help" her, or at least participate. I was not allowed. She informed me that if I wanted to do a puzzle I should do an adult puzzle because this was a children's puzzle and I needed something harder. Not very friendly now is she? Hmmph. After finishing her puzzle she took her counting bears and decided that they were going to drive in the taxis and eat ice cream.She said they weren't going to the toy store because they weren't for sale. Keen observation.I know this day... this was today. We made a huge mess making paper mache ~~beads~~ balls of goo. She had a grand ol' time. I didn't even get mad when my computer ended up covered in glue... I should have moved it. She really liked the ball she made. I liked it too, until she squeezed it. Now that she was effectively covered in glue. She decided she needed a bath, but not to wash her hair (we did that last night)... rather she wanted to stop being sticky while blowing bubbles. While in the tub (in her bathing suit of course because this was not a "bath" she just didn't want to be sticky) she noticed that her car would float from the back of the tub to near the faucet when she lifted the stopper. She asked me if I knew why it did that - I told her I was totally baffled and asked if she had any thoughts on why the car was drifting without her splashing it or pushing it. She told me it was because of the current. For that I say thank you Kate for mentioning Peep and his big big world... I forgot all about the link until Monday when we watched "Current Event" (like 10 times)... and everyday since the first thing Sophia says "is there a new Peep?" yup sure is... She especially liked today's about shadows. Although, she's not to keen on using her "imagination" about Peep, Quack and Chirp. She's actually pretty adamant that Quack is not a duck... he is an egg with legs. I tried to explain that he was not a real duck, but just a cartoon duck and she should use her imagination. She still wasn't feelin' it. So I said, well his name is quack so why wouldn't he be a duck? She said "You can name a chicken quack but that doesn't make him a duck".... game, set, match - I couldn't even argue with that.

101 Things About Me

2007-08-26T13:25:00.000-07:00

I saw this on someone else's blog. I am sure that not everyone wants to know 101 things about me... I'm looking at this as more of a challenge for myself to a) come up with 101 "things" about me (that is a big number) b) do some "self reflection" and c) procrastinate finishing my "to do" list that has barely been dented... 'cause lets be honest - when is the next time I'll have "me" time... like never. So where is the desire to spend the entire time cleaning? exactly. 1. I am 25. 2. I was born and raised in Southern California. 3. I was adopted at birth. 4. I was in the Air Force. 5. My husband and I got married when I was 21 and he was 18 (yes, he is younger than me). 6. My pre-pregnant size was 4. 7. I am not a "happy" pregnant person. 8. I am bi-lingual, as is my husband. 9. I am addicted to medical & forensic TV shows. 10. I am a total science geek and proud of it (although you wouldn't guess it if you saw me). 11. I am very organized... 12. ... in theory. In reality - something seems to have gotten lost in translation. 13. I am not a social butterfly. 14. I ramble a lot 15. I have lived in CA, NY, FL, TX, and MD. 16. I like CA the most. 17. I like TX the least. (no offense Texans - we were in San Angelo) 18. Before pregnancy #2, I was going to school to be a nurse. 19. My GPA was 3.94 20. I am deathly allergic to Ibuprofen, penicillin, spiders and stinging insects. 21. I am stubborn. 22. I am either ultra focused or completely scattered... there is no in between. 23. I can't believe I'm only on #23. 24. I am easily frustrated. 25. I have ~~low~~ no tolerance for "stupid" people, rude people, and bad drivers. 26. I enjoy procrastination. 27. I love the "pressure" of a deadline. 28. I hate beer. 29. I do enjoy red wine. 30. I will rarely answer a question unless I am 99% certain of the answer. 31. I detest being wrong... but when I am I'll suck it up. 32. I love being right. 33. I am loud. 34. I am very loud when fueled by emotion. 35. 11:45am is my favorite time of day. 36. That's when the mailman comes. 37. I am horrible about mailing things. 38. I love reading children's books. 39. I like reading in general. 40. I enjoy watching movies... 41. I tend to get my best sleep during them. 42. I am an aspiring hobbyist. 43. I often forget my daughter is only 3 and that I need to treat her like a 3 year old. 44. I absolutely hate doing the dishes. 45. I am scared of what lurks in our basement. 46. As a result my husband does most of our laundry. 47. I am scared to death of lightening. 48. I give everyone a chance, but when I'm done I'm done. 49. I am a pretty good cook. 50 I'm only half way done. 51. My daughter (Sophia) is allergic to peanuts, eggs, shellfish, milk (casein), wheat, and until recently soy. 52. I am very interested in allergy research as a result. 53. I need a cup of coffee. 54. I have been to Canada, England, France, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, and Turkey. 55. I would like to go to Ireland, Scotland, Croatia, and Montenegro. 56. I am a realist. 57. My husband is a dreamer... we but heads often but keep each other in check as a result. 58. I am a military wife. 59. I am very behind on household chores. 60. I enjoy reading other people's blogs because I enjoy peeking into other people's lives. 61. I feel a bit voyeuristic when doing so. 62. Although I enjoy most types of music, I do not like Rap, nor do I like R&B. 63. I rarely go to bed before midnight. 64. I enjoy photography. 65. I am creative. 66. I enjoy exercising, but have fallen off the horse since having Brenna. 67. I do not like the "idea" of change... I like things to stay the same. 68. Once they do change I see it's not so bad. 69. I'm running out of things about me. 70. My favorite color is maroon. Followed closely by green. 71. I do not wear jewelry other than my wedding ring. 72. My husband lost his wedding ring 2 years ago in Bosnia and I am still pissed that he hasn't replaced it yet. 73. I bring this up when I am especially frustrated with him. 74. I love icons. 75. My father passed away when I was 16. 76. Daisies and sunflowers are my favorite flowers. 77. I love going to museums. 78. I hate going to the park. 79. Swinging and watching people swing give me motion sickness. 80. We have lived in our house 6 months and I still haven't put the shade in the window of our upstairs hallway. 81. I do not like the sun, I am very fair skinned. 82. I get carded at R-rated movies. 83. My first car was a 1989 Jeep Cherokee. 84. My favorite season is Fall. 85. My 2nd favorite season is spring. 86. I have ridiculously curly hair. 87. I wear bandannas every day (well... most every day). 88. I enjoy any type of pizza as long as there is pineapple on it. 89. I am very competitive. 90. Pat (my husband) will not play scrabble with me because of this. 91. I swam competitively for 9 years. 92. I liked playing water polo more. 93. I also played soccer. 94. I have no hand eye coordination. 95. I could live on quesadillas. 96. I don't eat enough fruit. 97. I will spend hours coming up with a "plan" only to find it's a waste of time every time. 98. My mom and sister still live in CA and we're going for a visit soon. 99. Pat is a New Yorker. 100. I am 5'4'', Pat is 6'4''. 101. I need to get back to my cleaning. C'est tout. To je sve. That's all folks!

Positive Energy

2007-08-24T21:15:00.001-07:00

There sure is a lot of positive and kind energy floating around this past week. It warms my heart and makes me smile seeing so many people (some longtime friends, some people that have only stumbled upon each other through the awesome power of a little free time and a great big internet) offering such kind gestures and word to one another. I am of course referring to the current circulation of the "Nice Award". Now... I don't know how it got started, and I definitely don't know how I got nominated for it (although, it had been a bit of a rough week and it really did make me feel so much happier to know someone thought I was nice. So, thank you very much Amber and Yasmina.) I was a bit delayed in passing it on because I didn't want to neglect anyone. I can honestly say I would have to nominate every person whose blog I have ever bookmarked to sneak a peak at when I find a free moment. So, rather than have to choose I would like to pass it on to anyone and everyone who has ever inspired me, made me smile, or encouraged me through the words they have written in their blog. Given that I am somewhat "young" as far as a parent of a 3 year old and 4 month old go, most of my friends don't have kids and simply don't understand what the challenges and joys of being a parent are yet - so I truly value and appreciate finding other people that I have never met but seem to know so well. gosh I feel mushy PS My goals of cleaning have yet to be accomplished. I indulged in my guilty pleasure of Monk and Psych instead. *tee hee*

Peace, Quiet and a To-Do list

2007-08-24T15:30:00.000-07:00

Well... after leaving for NY last night, we got as far as Northern MD when suddenly there was some crazy traffic. 1 hour later, we had traveled 1 mile and I was a very very unhappy Daphne. Especially since it was 11pm and all we could see was tail lights as far as the eyes could see. Needless to say, we turned around. Given my horrible terrible no good very bad allergy to dogs, and the fact that his family has several - my hubby reminded me that I didn't have to go (I have cranky tendencies when unable to breath). I felt pretty bad because I know that his family wanted to see Brenna, and I didn't think he'd ~~be able to handle~~ want to take both girls with him. On the other hand I didn't want my crankiness to ruin their trip. Well I stayed, and he took both Brenna and Sophia with him. Until about noon, the peace and quiet was nice. Now I'm bored. I have decided that I'm going to totally clean our house, since that never seems to happen with the kiddies are around. We'll see how well that works out. And since Sophia's not here, I'm going to sort through some of her toys for Freecycle. Perhaps I'll even do some sewing! (wow It seems I may be getting a little ahead of myself). I might even ~~re-~~organize our craft stuff since right now all the supplies seem to be a bit nomadic in that they really don't have a "permanent" home. 2 Whole days! I just hope everything goes OK for him *fingers crossed*

Porridge, Libraries, and trips to NY

2007-08-23T15:39:00.000-07:00

So, today was mildly more eventful it seems than the rest of the week... that really doesn't say much though. Last night was another late night so rather than letting Sophia sleep until she felt like getting up, after Brenna ate and was sound asleep I went to lure her out of bed. Now... I don't know how it works for anyone else out there, but the waking of my child is like opening Pandora's Box... it really isn't a good idea - but oh so tempting. Well today I decided to go with a different method. Rather than be nice and rub her back and talk softly and try and sway her with the thought of pancakes - I thought perhaps if I just opened her shades and said softly "I know you're sleepy, but its time to wake up. You can keep your eyes closed, I'll just read you stories until you feel like getting up". Holy cow. Talk about working like a charm. I've never known that child to resist a story. Even if she says she doesn't want to read.... if I start reading to Brenna, or her dolls... or the monster that was hiding in the hallway - she always ends up listening (although if you ask her if she is she'll act like she's simply too busy for a story). So that worked swimmingly. I thought perhaps she would enjoy a change from the normal oatmeal/kix/pancakes for breakfast so I made some Scottish Porridge. Talk about another smash hit! I hate letting her watch TV, and since the porridge did require a bit of attention, I set her down at the kitchen table with 5 types of pasta, some markers, paper plates and some glue. What resulted was "daddy" - mustache and all (only to find out he finally shaved the icky thing this morning while we were still sleeping). So then while eating our porridge of course we had to be the 3 little bears - well I doubled as mama and papa bear, and Brenna was baby bear (even though she was sleeping) - Sophia was Goldilocks. Needless to say she ate all her porridge, and when I went to check on Brenna she finished mine too. (Sneaky girl) So we played and frolicked a bit, read a few more books - practiced cutting a bit (my over zealous daughter loves to cut, but doesn't like to stop... it is a process). Then I decided since the library near us is so close yet so so worthless if I was going to continue my quest to read the 100 books all children should read before school I would have to find a better library. And I did! Oh my gosh it is awesome. I didn't know this, but MD has a state wide library card, so I can check out books anywhere! Even in the super awesome huge library that is only 5 minutes driving from us! Oh my gosh. (Yes I really am that excited that I can't form sentences) I got a whole new library card since my old one expired anyhow, and Sophia got her very first library card. When I signed the back of hers I gave it to her and said she could print her name if she wanted - she said she should sign like me... she tried and it was cute. They even gave her a backpack to carry all her books in for free (my favorite word). We were directed to the children's section... my hopes were not high - I was just hoping for a library that didn't have an armed police officer in it. Oh it was fantastic! There was the young readers section, and then in a room all of its own was a brightly colored adorable room with nothing but picture books. And not just the junky ones - good picture books! Sophia was so excited she wanted to take them all home with her. I told her that wasn't fair to the other children that might want to borrow some. She agreed and instead we came home with 11. All the way home she asked when we would get to read them. I was very happy the car ride was only 5 minutes. Needless to say we read them all when we returned home, with the exception of Mother Goose (illustrated by Mary Engelbreight) which we only read 4 or 5 before we headed off to play with Brenna. I have never been so happy to find a library in my life. New York. We are going to a wedding on Long Island. I am not thrilled. I don't like functions in which I must look nice. I don't do it well. Brenna has just fallen back asleep (it really has taken me that long to type this... much coming and going) and I do suppose DH would like some help with the dishes that I am "making" him do. (I may have signed up to cook and raise the kids - but I did not see "dishes" in the contract). I hope this 5 hour trip plays better than our last long car ride. Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

Lazy Monday? How about lazy week.

2007-08-22T21:22:00.000-07:00

I don't know what happened... Ever since we got back from PA it seems that we're way out of whack. Sophia has been up way,way to late. Therefore, I have been up way to late... which definitely makes for a cranky mommy. Cranky mommy means lack of creative juices flowing. Perhaps the reason she is up so late is because I'm so tired I can't tire her out enough. Talk about a vicious cycle! And how did it get to be Thursday? What happened to Tuesday and Wednesday? Oh my word. I guess although it doesn't seem like I've done much with the little ones I've been busy busy planning various ventures. I'm not too keen on diving head first into things without careful research and planning- no wonder I'm so exhausted all the time, my poor brain is overworked. Anyhow. So I decided that Sophia is in need of a gymnastics class. Partly because she showed great interest before she even knew what gymnastics was, and partly because she just needs to work off some of that energy so I don't end up with permanent sleep deprivation. I didn't want to enroll her in the first class I stumbled upon, so of course I had to spend a great deal of time researching that. Then, my DH reminded me that we were going to be super busy with mini trips to visit family and have family visiting us, so I had to plan for that. We're going out to CA to visit my family in mid September and every time we go for a visit we spend the entire week sitting in my mom's living room saying "ok so what do you want to do?" " Hmm I don't know, what do you want to do". Talk about a waste of time. So this time, I'm coming armed and ready for any free moment. I would like to thank Chere Mere immensely for her links of things to do in LA she has on her blog. I had totally forgotten about all the awesome museums for kids in Exposition Park and what's even better is ever since Sophia remembered she had Danny and the Dinosaur she has been saying how Dinosaurs aren't real because they're too big and would trample all the people. I explained to her that they are real, but the are extinct so all that is left are their great big skeletons. She's a seeing is believing type of girl so the LaBrea tar pits and the Natural History museum are totally right up her ally about now. I must say, when I left LA I was ready for a change, and now that I'm gone I miss all the great stuff it had to offer. So yes, as off now our list of "things to do" consist of The Long Beach Aquarium, LaBrea Tar pits, Disneyland (DH tries to get out of this, but it never works.... he's a sport), Museums in Exposition Park, and whatever else we can cram in, I think Sophia wants to go to the Zoo too. I'm thinking up hitting up the mini golf at Mulligans - for old times sake. And although Mexican food is not "Sophia friendly", I will definitely get a Mexican food fix while the kiddies are babysat (I love how family = free babysitting). So, all in all, this time around will hopefully be quiet eventful and we'll walk away saying "wow what a great trip" rather than sitting on our rumps doing nothing. Hmmm I wonder if the LA County fair will be going on! OK enough brain vomit. A list of the books we read well past "bedtime" which seems to be non-existent at this point - Strega Nona, Danny the Dinosaur (and the birthday one, and the camping one), Three Billy Goats Gruff (twice), Caps for Sale, Harold and the Purple Crayon, The Snowy Day, A National Geographic Kids magazine and the 11th Hour (her new favorite, and mine too because it put her to sleep tonight). Its almost a shame I feel bad putting a cap on the reading - I just can't tell a her "no more books" because I love them so much too!

Lazy Monday

2007-08-20T17:59:00.000-07:00

I must say.... today was possibly the laziest day ever. Aside from Brenna's doctor's appointment this morning and a trip to target for necessities, we really did absolutely nothing it seems. Everything I usually say "hey! lets do...." Sophia said "no I don't want to do that" and when I said ok well what do you want to do (which usually is the highlight of her day) all she would say was "nothing. I don't want to do anything". What?! While at target I noticed this set of 500 of those beads that click together to make bracelets and necklaces and what not, and it was for 4+, but its not like my kid is gonna put the stuff in her mouth. So we paid with that for quite some time, I guess we did get in some fine motor (so the day wasn't completely worthless). I made a necklace for her (while I was supposed to be cleaning up her messy messy room), and then she decided that she needed to put on her snow white dress, but she needed earrings (oh but of course). There were no earrings in the set so she took some of the rings and made them into earrings (hey whatever works right?) She got bored with that after dumping out all 500 beads and deciding she had enough already. So then we usually read a million stories or so (ok that is an exaggeration for dramatic effect) but today I was like hey! lets read some stories and she said "um no i don't like to read". What?! At this point I feared my child had been abducted and replaced by a clone. She told me that there was a monster in her room, but he wasn't mean- just lonely. Then she told me he needed to take a nap and to be very quiet. So I asked the monster if he wanted to read a story ... I took silence as consent. I started reading "him" Today I feel silly, then I started reading him Animalia but he was scared of the dragons and the elephants were just too big. So we read Danny and the Dinosaur instead. Sophia had to keep scolding him because he wouldn't sit still and listen (he just liked the stories too much). I think tomorrow (if all goes as planned which it never does) will be a fun filled day of crafts and art. Perhaps we shall make some Jell-O. Since I hardly ever talk about Brenna I shall interject a little B here. (Just in case any family folk read this and think... hmmm I thought she had 2 daughters) Well she had her 4 month well baby today. That meant shots. Sophia was quite concerned about her being hurt from the shots, but she said as long as she had band aids after Brenna would be ok. She is 25 inches long, but only 10lbs 14oz. That did not make the doctor happy. Not one bit. At 2 months she weighed 10lbs and at 1 month she was 9lbs2oz. Our little B is not getting bigger! She looks healthy (by mommy and doctor standards) and she has hit all the other milestones for her age like responding to my voice and lifting her head up 90 degrees and all that good stuff. And she laughs up a storm and smiles and coos all the time. She's just not growing. And this little kid eats. Holy Cow does she eat, and never spits up or anything! Needless to say we are quite baffled. The Dr. decided perhaps she has reflux so she prescribed her some meds but we're going back in 2 weeks and if she has gained some weight that's great and she probably had reflux and we didn't even know it. If she doesn't gain weight the poor little thing is going to need lots of blood work. After the allergy adventure when Sophia was little bitty this is like a walk in the park - I just hate seeing the little ones poked, its so sad.

Overdue Camping Pictures

2007-08-19T19:23:00.000-07:00

First I would like to say that arranging these pictures took me a very long time, as I am not very blogger savvy yet. So they are in no particular order, but I shall describe each for you... since they probably don't make too much sense on their own. There was much fun had... which is the one thing I'm fairly certain you could gather from the pictures :) So the first is of Sophia in front of our lovely little cabin. We were

going to tent camp, but thought perhaps that wasn't the best of ideas with Brenna being only 4 months old and what not - so we were definitely living in the lap of luxury as far as camping goes. I mean it wasn't the Ritz... but we're camping! It was exciting that we had a bathroom and little fridge for good eats. The next picture is Pat and Sophia after their adventure in the creek. (when I say creek I mean little trickle) He found some Indian face-paint rocks and with a little water and a lot of love my family came back looking like warriors. Pat did Sophia's face, and she did his face. I never would have guessed. Not only did we have a nice cabin, but there was a little playground to keep the kids occupied during those moments when running around in nature wasn't ideal (IE when mom was prepping dinner) So to the ship they went. Sophia never called it the playground, she always referred to it as "her" ship. The first of this group is her and Pat having a jolly good time. She is actually pointing her "wand" at me saying "expeliramous" (which bless her heart sounds a little more like "fairyanus", but that's OK). I don't know where this kid gets this stuff! So then after Pat made a great demonstration of how not to go down a slide, they decided to play in the sand at the bottom of the slide. Good thing they were the only ones there or perhaps they would have gotten a bit in the way. The last of this group was when I first came upon Sophia. Even though the little play area was in sight of our cabin she discovered and and disappeared for a couple seconds (so she thought). I followed her and snapped this one of her swinging all by herself. I didn't know she knew how to do that. So as if a cabin, creek and play area weren't enough... they had a pool! I'm telling you - lap of luxury. I not being one for being seen in a bathing suit in public (ever) hung out with Brenna while the 2 adventurers went swimming. Brenna and I got bored by ourselves so we went on a walk and came across the 2 of them. Now... I had warned them that I heard the water was very very very cold and not for the faint of heart. They did not believe me and both froze their little butts off. When B and I came up they both looked miserable - I told them to pretend they loved it and were happy. This is the best they could come up with... I do give them credit for trying though. A for effort! So while I was hangin' out they got bored of "relaxing" and went off to find something new... What exactly I can't recall, but few things in the world are as adorable as little girls on their daddy's shoulders. In addition to canoe-ing - rafting was also added to the list of things Sophia absolutely hates to do. As I went wandering I saw them coming ashore from the lake. I said to go back out 'cause I wanted a picture. Sophia was not happy about it. I was mean and said I wouldn't help her out until she looked happy for the picture. We seriously need to work on her faking it! Geeez. Pat was having a grand time and asked if I would mind if he stayed out a bit longer. I had a moment of weakness and said fine - I then had to give Sophia a piggie back ride all the way back, while being choked to death and trying to carry the life vest and something else, can't recall what. Not an easy task but she enjoyed our little bout through the trees so it's OK. This would be Sophia playing her harmonica and singing. She has no clue what the heck she's doing on that thing... but I must say she makes it sound better than either me or Pat would. Its actually much less annoying than one would think and I don't much regret buying a 3 year old a harmonica. I do however regret that she likes to share with daddy. *sigh* oh Patrick. And lastly, since there are hardly any pictures of Brenna since she slept the majority of the time I though perhaps she should be included since she is just really cute. She really was quite good given that she's bitty and it was really freaking hot. She was definitely not a happy camper the last day. And since there is a HUGE bluegrass festival that went on that weekend (we left before it started) and our cabin was designated as HQ for the whole thing we didn't have it the last night. After realizing it was virtually impossible to get her to sleep without the awesomeness of the bed I decided it would just be best to rent a hotel room in town. Very very cute town. Wellsboro, PA. So cute. And it was perfect because it was right across from a CVS so we could get some nice clean nipples for her bottles and not even have to worry if they were clean enough because they just needed a good rinsing, AND there was a heated pool and a little swing set there too. We got a nice full night's sleep before our long (LONG) drive home so none of us were too cranky (except Brenna who was definitely NOT feeling the 6 hour trip) and the pool was open 24 hours so the minute Sophia woke up she was in the pool where I literally had to drag them out because we needed to load up an check out by 11. Very very fun trip. Next year when B is not so bitty we're going to stay for the festival and tent camp. We are all very very VERY excited for Brenna to be less fragile because we had a great time and can't wait for the less foo foo version.

Why is my child still awake?

2007-08-18T21:36:00.001-07:00

This is a question I find myself asking ... well myself - on a somewhat regular basis. Tonight we read - The Little House, The Lorax, Animalia, The 11th Hour and then Miss Nelson is Missing (twice). One would think that would be enough. So Pat (aka DH) brushed her hair and she brushed her teeth and off to bed. Oooh if only it were that simple! I hear her calling my name at 11:30ish so I go up to see what exactly all the fuss is about and she is sitting (in the dark) with the Little House and when I ask what she's doing she says "trying to read but I don't know how yet". Alrighty. So I agreed to read it to her 1 more time if she pinkie swore to go to bed afterwards (yeah right). So we read the Little House, then we read Sylvester and the Magic Pebble... and THEN we read the Jolly Postman (TWICE!). I left her room because I am really just too tired for all this reading! Why oh why is my 3 year old still awake at 12:30?! Its not like the child naps. I think I need a permanent coffee IV or something. I sent DH up there to squash the tears - 10 to 1 odds he is now asleep on her bed. If only I could find my camera, that would make for a good picture (since he's a good foot longer than her bed) - snides.

Long day of "recovering"

2007-08-18T11:50:00.000-07:00

Well.... I have yet to find my darn camera. So I do believe that the camping post shall have to wait one more... well I don't know if its a day - just until my DH returns from Saturday training. Sophia is still so wound up from the adventure of camping that she is driving me absolutely batty. The things she usually loves.... not so much. I swear this little girl is on speed or something. We tried reading... no, coloring... no, collages (she even got to do the cutting!)... no. All she wanted to do was watch Spongebob.... I don't think so! Maybe when dad is home and in charge of the entertainment but not so much when I'm around. I had reached the end of my rope (which happened to be a bit shorter than usual today. Then... she came up to me with a VTech game. We'd never opened it, it was a Christmas present from my mom but I didn't want her getting "sucked in" to the whole video game crazy - that and she was too frustrated when it took more than 3 seconds to figure out how it work the joystick. Well I decided today was a great day to give it a whirl. To much amazement it really is so much better than I thought! The color stuff and numbers is really easy for her but its good for the alphabet because she flat out refuses to say what letters are when I try and go over it with her. Perfect. Although she must be tired because she is acting like a super cranky.... I do suppose I should tend to her before she wakes Brenna. *grumble*

Camping... Part I

2007-08-17T14:49:00.000-07:00

Holy Cow did we have a good time. I somehow missed the memo stating how difficult camping with a 4 month old would be (chalking it up to experience). I think the "worst" part of it all was definitely the drive. 7 hours there and 6 hours back. Needless to say I am very super tired so once I am done unloading the car I shall post pictures and a (hopefully not to long) play by play. I will say this.... canoe-ing has been added to the list of things Sophia hates to do.

Busy weekends and furry friends

2007-08-14T05:01:00.000-07:00

Well this past weekend went by really quickly. We didn't get too too much done which I don't understand. How is it that I get more done during the week when DH is at work? upload the Hmmm. I don't know but that's ok. I figured I should at least pictures I took before we leave for out awesome camping trip. Other than the pictures I took I don't have much recollection of this weekend. We mostly hung out and read stories, cleaned the house (not as much as I would have liked.... but I'll survive), we watched a couple movies. Sophia picked Harry Potter and Eloise. I started reading her Harry Potter (she requested it since daddy is reading it), but I was getting annoyed because she was asking too many questions since there are no pictures.... who am I kidding she asks that many questions anyways. So sometime on Saturday we decided it was time to have a water fight and make some bubbles. Sophia kept me posted until we got to 50 water balloons (we decided that was enough) and then we made bubbles (pic.1). Later in the day I snagged a picture of Brenna and Sophia looking at something, I don't know what but I thought it was a cute picture. I said "Hey girls why don't you turn around and smile... they both did (sorta) I asked Sophia if she could pick out any of all of her books which were her favorite right now. She told me she couldn't pick one and I said that was fine. I asked her why each one was her favorite... She said she like the Kumon because they were easy and fun. Eloise because she is always going on adventures and never getting in trouble, the Lorax because the once-ler was bad but tried to fix it. The Cat in the Hat because he causes trouble, On Bugs and the Space one because the cat in the hat doesn't get in trouble and Brain Quest because she knows the answers.... We're an hour late for leaving for our camping trip now. I really must go. PS Anyone that replies to the previous post please know I'll be camping in PA until Friday. So please don't be sad if I don't respond.

Nifty Gifties

2007-08-13T21:52:00.000-07:00

Today is a day of idea pillaging apparently. Whereas I "borrowed" the book list. I also stealthily acquired this gifting scheme from Cher Mere she got it from Here’s the deal, from Kim at Relaxed Homeskool If you are one of the first three commentors on this post, then you are in. I send you a homemade gift sometime, er, soon. When inspiration and time collide for me (usually 2am). [As in, let’s all be patient with each other.] In return, you go to your blog and make the same offer. So, you’ll be making 3 things and receiving one. Kim’s list of useful FAQ’s: What if you don’t have a blog? Well, if not, I’ll host your request here. But only if you are a really awesome knitter. Haha. Okay, I’ll do it no matter what. If you join the exchange on your blog let us know here! What if I don’t like my gift? Too bad. Mom taught us all how to be gracious. What if I’m not crafty or artistic? So? Do it anyway. There are millions of things to be made and some part of you needs to get in to the process of creating something with your hands. It is therapeutic and eye opening. Even if it is a paper airplane. You could always do an artist trading card…they can be easy or hard, depending upon your effort. What about shipping? Like I said, an artist trading card? That might cost one stamp or less. But if you want to make a bust of the recipient out of pine, go ahead. [And yes, I will ship overseas! ] What? I have to give someone in cyberspace my address? Well, yeah. So you should probably only sign up here if you have read or known me for a few months, that way you know I am a fine upstanding citizen who will only plague you with annual Christmas cards after the exchange. Also, you don’t have to be a homeschooler, but you can’t be related to me by blood. You can be a lurker, but then you will have to emerge from the shadows at least temporarily. Come on, you know you want to! I don't knit either. Not in my skill set. Lets do it! Everyone loves little surprises! And snail mail makes everyone feel special! That's lots of exclamations!

Book List

2007-08-13T14:04:00.000-07:00

I tactically acquired this list from Kate who borrowed it from Nina. A good number of these books are beyond Sophia, so what she has read with me is in Pink and what I have read shall be in a lovely shade of maroon. Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss Good Night Moon by Margaret Wise Brown I Love You Forever by Robert N. Munsch Because of Winn Dixie by Kate DiCamillo Oh! The Places You Will Go by Dr. Seuss The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg Skippyjon Jones by Judy Schachner Thank You Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco The Cat In The Hat by Dr. Seuss The Lorax by Dr. Seuss The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo The Mitten by Jan Brett Crunching Carrots, Not Candy by Judy Slack Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willlems Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman Corduroy by Don Freeman Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes Stellaluna by Janell Cannon Tacky the Penquin by Helen Lester The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams (*sidenote* this was my favorite as a little girl, I had all but forgotten about it! ) Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. Click Clack Moo: Cows That Type Doreen Cronin Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson Horton Hatches the Egg by Dr. Seuss Junie B. Jones by Barbara Park Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder Make Way For Ducklings by Robert McCloskey The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster Piggie Pie by Margie Palatini The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper The Monster at the End of this Book by Jon Stone The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo A Bad Case of Stripes by David Shannon Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg (another favorite) Inkheart by Cornelia Funke Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli Officer Buckle and Gloria by Peggy Rathmann Olivia by Ian Falconer The BFG by Roald Dahl The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett The Sneetches by Dr. Seuss The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle Tikki Tikki Tembo by Arlene Mosel A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett Bark, George by Jules Feiffer Bunnicula by James Howe The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl Charlie the Caterpillar by Dom DeLuise Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary Frederick by Leo Lionni Frindle by Andrew Clements Frog and Toad by Arnold Lobel Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney Harris and Me by Gary Paulsen Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss I Love You, Stinky Face by Lisa McCourt Is Your Mama A Llama? by Deborah Guarino Jan Brettâ€™s books Knots on a Counting Rope by Bill Martin Jr. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George No David! by David Shannon One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein Stephanie's Ponytail by Robert Munsch Swimmy by Leo Lionni The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Warner The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper The Empty Pot by Demi The Five Chinese Brothers by Claire Huchet Bishop The Giver by Lois Lowry The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown The Last Holiday Concert by Andrew Clements The Napping House by Audrey Wood The Quiltmaker's Gift by Jeff Brumbeau The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats The Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt Holy Moley do we have some work to do! Some of these books I haven't even heard of (shame on me). I wish I could find versions of some of these books with pictures. Sophia will sit and listen to any story... no matter how long or "adult" as long as it has pictures so she can connect the dots. Right now she is on a Lorax kick... she made me read it to her 3 times yesterday alone. And she gets so upset with the Once-ler every time. She made me read her Eloise too, which is very (very) long. It wouldn't have been tragic had she not made me go back and read her the part about Saylor (who was in a very bad accident and bleeded so much that she had to go in the ambulance to the hospital because it was an emergency... ) every 5 pages. (That's her favorite part). She's very into ambulances and hospitals and doctors helping people when they get hurt to try and make them better. I do think it is time for a trip to the library!

No Brainers and Puzzles

2007-08-10T21:44:00.000-07:00

Well, our great Brain Plans for the day fell through. Needless to say Sophia and I both were quite disappointed, but We were hoping for Brenna to take a descent length nap so that we could do our experiment without interruption, but the whole teething thing seems to be dampening our plans lately. We decided that since DH is going to be home not only all weekend but is on leave Monday and Tuesday (in prep for our awesome camping trip)so we're going to hopefully enlist his help in occupying Brenna while we have our hands at some mad science. We did however have a nice relaxing and fun day. Sophia decided Friday should be "fancy" day, so she put on her "wedding dress" (she wore it to DH's uncle's wedding in September 06, hence the reason her "wedding dress" doesn't resemble a white wedding dress). I decided it was time for our kitchen to have a nice thorough cleaning. I don't know what DH was doing this morning when leaving for work but it looked like a wild boar had ransacked my counters. Not cool. Sophia helped empty the dishwasher but decided she would much rather take part in her "fridge quiz" as she calls it. I think it's meant to be a learning tool, which is what I thought she was doing with it - until I realize she was "quizzing" herself. It asks questions (not hard ones obviously) like "can you find the food that is yellow, or can you find the fruit that starts with the ggggg sound" etc, and she would keep going until she got one wrong. Then she would close it and then open it again and start over. It took me the entire time I was cleaning to realize why she kept closing and opening the door, I figured it out after a while (I'm a clever one) Once our kitchen was in order I made lunch, she didn't feel like helping, she worked did a Winnie the Pooh puzzle instead. The first shot was a candid one, when I realized she decided to work on the puzzle, the 2nd was her finished product. I must say that girl works fast because she was finished with her puzzle before I was finished making lunch.... she wins. I asked her if she would mind if I took a picture of her with her puzzle. She said it was OK and she was going to take a picture too with her phone.... It seems her phone is more fancy than mine. She asked if we could go buy more puzzles that make pictures because she already knew how that one "worked". I agreed but we never quite made it to Target. I think if I wake up early I should be able to snag some at yard sales for a quite pleasant price - or perhaps I can find some online. I don't feel like paying 5 bucks per puzzle if she's going to do it once and after finishing it be finished with it. Perhaps she'll change her mind, we'll see. For now I'm not going to risk it though. After that we had another go at Ants in the Pants. We decided to cheat. We pretty much set it up, dumped out the pieces, started to try and make them hop. Both lost interest (again), and went upstairs to read some books instead. We read some poems out of Where the Sidewalk ends (Sophia always asks for the same two... Crocodile Toothache and I must remember...), then we read The Jungle Book 2, and Larry Boy and the Golden Bumblegum. We only got half way through Larry Boy when Brenna woke up and I told her alas she would have to fend for herself and it was "nap" time anyways. She wasn't very happy that she didn't get to hear the end of the book (its OK because we read it again later). Some might think that reading stories would take 10-15 minutes tops. Oh no. She asks at least 10 questions... PER PAGE. Its great that she's curious, but she doesn't settle for "hold on lets keep reading you'll find out". So the reading of 1 story can take half an hour. That's OK though (as long as Brenna is sleeping). The rest of the day pretty much consisted of "entertaining" Brenna (read as Sophia singing and dancing in front of her rocker) and going to Barnes & Noble. Since there were no other kids in the children section at all I let her play with the train for a good half our since theirs is bigger than ours and she likes the table it's on (I can see why; it's easier to push a train when you can walk around rather than have to nearly demolish the track while crawling on your knees). *note to self* buy train table. Well that about does it, DH got home at 7 and decided that he'd rather go out to eat than wait for me to finish making dinner (grumble). So that made for quite a late evening. Perhaps the kiddies will sleep in tomorrow! fingers crossed

Bouncy Balls and Books

2007-08-09T19:22:00.000-07:00

Today went a million times better than yesterday. Thank God! I really think that she just needs to have stuff to do, and she likes having company to do it. Today Brenna was awake but quiet until about 10am and then slept until we woke her up after Sophia's "nap time" at about 3pm. Sophia even stayed in her room and was quiet the entire time. I actually even got her 5 minutes before her alarm because I was so happy that I didn't hear "my nap is over" every 2 minutes for an hour. While Brenna was sleeping we had quite an eventful day. We played Ants in the Pants, that's quite a hard game for a 3 year old. The concept is easy enough, but even I have the darnedest time getting to ants to hop! They are so temperamental! Too much pressure and they flop, too little pressure and they flop. Very frustrating! So that didn't last long as we both lost interest. So then we decided it was time for "science" and we made bouncy balls which she loved. We had a really good time and that lasted for almost a full hour and a half. After we made our bouncy balls she decided we should make one for daddy too or else it wouldn't be fair. The bouncing of the balls kept her occupied while I made lunch (another bonus). After lunch she wanted to look at her activity book we bought during our trip to Toys R Us yesterday. I thought it was a bit above her (its K - 1 and she's only 3), but she was very persistent and I gave in. Much to my surprise the only part of the book she doesn't know how to do is the writing of the alphabet. I don't know if this is normal, but that's OK. She has known her left and right since she was probably 2, maybe a little after that. She has no problem with finding "which 2 are the same size" which is smallest, largest... all that stuff. She can count as high as she wants, the teens trip her up but once she gets to the 20s its smooth sailing from there. She proudly informed me tonight that I have 2 Hun-der-ed and 6 bones in my body and that boy mosquitoes don't bite, only girls. (She has a taste for the Dr. Seuss books that are "about" topics like Inside my Outsides, Oh my a Butterfly, etc). So after she realized she knew stuff in her workbook she asked me if it was 2 o'clock yet so she could go to her room. It was about a quarter till so I said, not yet but we can read some if you want. Sooo, she wanted to "read" her "princess words" book which isn't so much a book as a picture dictionary. I never realized how long that darned thing was! Gosh. We had a bit of a debate about cauliflower and broccoli. She said looked at the picture and said, mommy this book is wrong broccoli is not white it is green. So after explaining that it wasn't broccoli, it was cauliflower but they looked similar because they were part of the same family of plants she told me that it should just be called white broccoli because that is easier. Good point. Not like I eat it anyways. By the time we got to the page of instruments it was already 15 minutes into nap time and she was over it and told me I could leave and she was going to be quiet (*gasp* who is this girl and what has she done with my daughter). Nothing eventful went on after that, just some more building and pretending we were little red riding hood - we played with phonics cards a bit but after B-E-E and C-A-T Brenna woke up and put an end to that. We went grocery shopping and she helped me count out how many cans of fruit we needed and how many bananas we should get. I tried to trick her but it didn't work. She helped me load up the conveyor belt and headed home. No outside play today as it rained really hard all day long and even when I tried to get her to the front porch to watch the misc. trash sail down our street she told me the lightening and thunder was not safe to be outside and scary. Best to stay indoors. Brenna was back to her usual self. Mostly slept or watched us. Didn't fuss to much, not a single peep in the grocery store (rock on). Pat is taking leave all next week so it should be a good one - and Wednesday is our big camping trip! We pretty much didn't stick to the theme because she learned everything there was to learn pretty much the first 2 days. Tomorrow we are going to make brains, she was so excited she didn't want to sleep (OK that's not new). I told her if she didn't sleep she would be too tired to make brains - that ended that and off to brush her teeth she went. The End.

Who we are and what we do

2007-08-08T21:15:00.001-07:00

I figured that perhaps a family history/overview would be in order. After all - its always nice to know about the person/people you're reading about. I'm Daphne. I'm 25 and a native Southern Californian. I met my husband Pat when I was in the Air Force and we were both stationed in Monterey, CA at the Defense Language Institute. He is still in the Army, but I separated when I was pregnant with Sophia (apparently pregnancy is a "get out of the military free" card). I loved being in the AF and miss it lots. I've never been a stay at home type of person, I always felt most comfortable working hard or learning hard. I don't like doing anything half-assed. Up until getting pregnant with Brenna I was a nursing student and I was happy as a clam going to school full time and working PT as a manager at a Yankee Candle. Right after I quit my job to go to school more I found out I was pregnant and due before the end of the semester so I dropped out of the program. I was pretty upset but got over it. I like staying home most days, some days (like yesterday) are harder than others, but everyone is adjusting well... better than I anticipated. As far as hobbies/interests I like to think of myself as an "aspiring hobbyist". I have the desire to keep up with hobbies but usually end up having to put it aside due to lack of time and then I forget about it or lose interest. Examples of past ventures failed are Scrap booking, Crocheting, Knitting, and Cross stitch. I really really enjoyed Cross stitch, but when I would get going I don't like stopping projects (or anything really) until I'm finished, so Pat would get a bit frustrated with my "absence" for a couple days (or perhaps several) at a time. I really enjoy stamping, and making mini cards as well as gardening, canning, garage sale hopping, and reading when time allows. I most recently read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, busted through it in 3 days so Pat wouldn't get disgruntled. Before that I hadn't read a book that wasn't school mandated since Middlesex - but I must say it is one of my all time favorite books EVER. I really really loved every line of that book. I do enjoy more classic authors like Salinger, Steinbeck, Kerouac... you get the idea. Patrick- talk about an awesome hubby and daddy. He's 22 and just got promoted to Staff Sergent in the Army (that's an E-6). He's a really smart and creative guy, although I think the whole army thing and the family thing hinders it a little as he can't really spend time on his hobbies as much as he would like. When we met he swept me off my feet with his guitar playing, I wish he would play more because its almost like you can feel how much he enjoys it by listening to him play. As much as I am an aspiring "hobbyist", Pat is what he deems an aspiring reader. He loves reading, loves thinking, loves debating (just not with me because I don't take kindly to the devils advocate which is his favorite position regardless of what he actually thinks), after much nagging he JUST started reading the Harry Potter series and has read the first 3 books in the past 5 days.... that's fast readin' for him! Anyhow...Sophia is definitely a daddy's girl. She is so crazy about him its almost nauseating. Its sweet though because the goof off like only a daddy and daughter can. Every day she'll randomly ask if I'm comin' to the wedding - everyday I ask whose getting married and she looks at me (as if we've been over it a thousand times before... because we have) and says, I am! Me and Daddy are getting married in the back yard and you're invited. When I ask well why can't I get married too? She explains that she can't marry me because I am a girl and I can still be married to daddy but I can't get married in the yard. Cute kid. Sophia - Oh my. Our little 3 year old princess. I love that little girl but sometimes I think she might be the death of me. She is always coming up with things that blow me away. She's pretty bright for a girl her age, but the poor thing is allergic to just about every food you can think of... She's severely allergic to - Peanuts, shellfish (iodine), casein, and eggs. She'll get hives but not go into anaphlyaxis from wheat, peas and high fructose corn syrup... and up until about 3 weeks ago Soy was on that list too. Talk about a limited diet! When she did go to daycare while I was in school full time I packed her lunch everyday, and if there was a party of any kind at all I would make her cupcakes to bring in for her to eat (most of the time the "teachers" didn't tell us about the party and the poor child had to sit alone and not get a treat). Every day she would sit alone at a table because even though she knew not to eat anyone else's food or even touch it, the staff was scared of the liability and would isolate her. Talk about a sad experience. She never seemed to be phased by it though. Whenever we go out to eat she'll always order for herself and she will tell the server "I'd like a hamburger with no bun and no cheese. I'm allergic" Hopefully she'll outgrow some of the allergies. She is a thinker too that little girl. Always scheming and coming up with ideas. Endless energy though - runs me into the ground. Brenna - Well she's only 4 months, what could I possibly have to say about her? We barely know what color her eyes are heading towards (looks like green). I can say is very quiet. She sleeps very well, eats very well. Is long and darned skinny and always has this look on her face like she is seriously thinking about what is going on. I get many comments from random ladies standing behind us in various lines that say "ooh it looks like she's going to start crying but she doesn't" I tell them its her thinking face. Well that's us

The good gone bad

2007-08-08T19:40:00.001-07:00

Holy Bananas. Where do I even begin. Our day started out flawless. Brenna woke up at 6:30a but looked so so sleepy that after changing her I brought her into our bed to play and snuggle a few minutes before heading down to feed her and she fell right asleep. Awesome, half an hour more sleep for me! So exciting. So I ended up waking her up at 7a so she could be all fed and happy in her chair before Sophia woke up. Which happened at 7:40a, just as I was putting B in her seat and about to start getting breakfast ready. Usually she doesn't have specific breakfast requests (Sophia that is... Brenna has no choice -ha) so I just serve up whatever I feel like, but when she came down the stairs she asked if she could please have a blueberry muffin and she would wait (I had to thaw it since we stash them in the freezer). So she sat and loved/played with (translate as "smooshed a little) Brenna, I went and fetched the paper and when I walked back in Sophia informed me that her muffin beeped and Brenna pooped but she would change her stinky nasty poo. Thanks but no thanks kiddo. Sophia asked if it was going to be hot and yucky like yesterday and when I said "yes its going to be really hot, probably too hot to play outside much" she replied "with oh that's ok, I'll just wear my bathing suit"... She wasn't kidding. (She wore it all day long, and then complained about wedgies) So after breakfast we went out and watered the garden and I found 2 renegade veggies, a cucumber (pickling variety) and a summer squash. Sophia laughed at how huge they were so we decided they needed to be documented.

Its kinda hard to see how big the squash is, but I usually don't let them get larger than 6 inches long, and I get the cucumbers when they're 4 - 5 inches long. Both are way bigger than that, she had serious issues holding both. So a bit later after some bingo B was hungry and when I put her bottle in the mason jar I use to warm it up Sophia looked at it and said "mommy! Her bottle, it looks bigger". So she asked if she could borrow my jar and proceeded to drop random little toys in to see what they looked like. After putting a teacup in to see what it looked like she decided to use the water to fill up all her tea cups and have tea. When she realized she had made a huge mess she went and got the bar of soap out of the bathroom and used it to clean her table when I realized what she was doing I asked her about it and she said she had everything under control but could I please get her a towel to get the soap off and a towel to dry. Crazy kid.

We went to Toys R Us to get some large building blocks and a train set, we saw a mole running wild in the parking lot.. its the large brown mound... talk about an action shot. So things even went well after we got home, she was really good in the store - only asked for a princess dress about 10 times when finally I told her her options were to get what we came for or to put everything back and go home.... she stopped asking (victory for me). When we got home Brenna was screaming, she was hot, and tired and hungry and that is a lethal combo. So usually Sophia understands that the baby is needy ("since she's a baby and can't do things herself like a big girl can" in Sophia's words), but today she was super not happy whenever I had to do anything with Brenna, which unfortunately was quite a bit since she had killer baby gas. Then when 2pm came and it was quiet bedroom play time (which she has been doing well with since I instituted a small present bribe- candy didn't work, but small dollar store toys wrapped up work(ed for 2 days)) everything went from bad to worse. I really needed that hour today too! It took 30 minutes of the time just to get her to go to sleep since every time she would start to drift off Sophia would burst in yelling... thanks a lot! So eventually she got so tired that she just passed out. Sophia continued to scream over and over and over and when I tried to explain that part of the reason I needed her to stay in her room was that I was trying to assemble her 45 newly acquired blocks (very not adult friendly) so we could build with them after. So she started screaming about her alarm not going off yet but it was so close it should blah blah blah blah BE QUIET!!! my goodness. I wanted to put a pencil in my eye. Then I got a call from my super awesome (not so informative) husband (with a horrible memory) saying he forgot to tell me BUT (my favorite way to get a phone call during a near mental meltdown)... he had Sergent training today and he forgot to tell me and then he had formation so he probably wouldn't be home until 6:30pm (It was 4pm - he usually is home by 5pm to save me and let me actually cook dinner distraction free). Well at 6:30pm he called to say he just got done and he'd be home in an hour. I had already relayed to him my crankiness, yet upon returning home he read Harry Potter while I fed Sophia and myself and continued to do so as Sophia pretended he was the big bad wolf and She was a little pig and Brenna and I were her brothers. She got the brick house (which we built with her new blocks) while I had the straw house and Brenna the sticks.... why did I get shafted? She literally recited the book word for word and corrected me when I said "No, not by the hair on my chinny chin chin"... apparently its "No, I will not let you in, not by the hair on my chinny chin chin"... my bad. After the entire story ran it's course we then played little red riding hood and when it came time to clean up she had the largest melt down of the day (I didn't even kow that was possible) so I told Pat I was done and she was all his before I lost it. And here we find ourselves.... 2 1/2 hours later. Hot damn that was long. I feel better though! I don't blame anyone who quit reading an hour ago ;)

Postponed adventure

2007-08-07T15:35:00.000-07:00

Our super awesome grand geocaching adventure (aka our search of hidden treasures) had to be postponed until tomorrow. Hopefully it will not be so overcast. Apparently GPSes don't like to work when they can't actually find a satellite to bounce off of. Hmmph. That's ok. We decided to put together our own treasure for people to find! So far we've decided to include a spongebob disposable camera (so people can take pictures and we can see who has found our treasure!), an Air Force coin and a littlest pet shop cat. That's about it for now. I think we'll add to it as we think of bitty things that would be fun to find. Perhaps I shall take a picture later. Sophia came up with the idea that we should have a notebook with pictures of the places we found our treasure so we could remember it always. I thought it was quite a good idea so we found a little blank notebook and labeled it and bright and early tomorrow (before it gets up to 98.... ouch) we shall embark on our 1st treasure hunt. We did however bake some sugar cookies today, quite tasty considering they lack all ingredients one would usually find in cookies. We did decorate with sprinkles and crystal sugar though! I should have taken pictures of those too, but I think they got devoured once daddy got home - I shall ask and perhaps update. (No promises though)

The start of our GRAND adventure

2007-08-07T04:51:00.000-07:00

I was up into the wee hours of the morning having discovered a link to "geocaching" on a blog I stumbled across while waiting for my laundry to finish. After reading about it and checking things out I decided it was the absolute coolest most awesome adventure EVER! And since many of the caches are easy to get to it is definitely a good adventure of the whole family. I am going to acquire a GPS today and we're going to hopefully start our adventure today (maybe tomorrow... I do have to learn how to work the darned thing). I'm so excited I just can't hide it!!!!

Lazy day of re-organizing

2007-08-06T18:14:00.000-07:00

So I guess the task of re-organizing a 3 year old's bedroom isn't so much a "lazy" day, but it sure felt like it. Perhaps because it was so nasty and humid that we hardly went outside at all. Pat went outside with Soph when he got home and came back inside with 6 mosquito bites that I counted on his back, 2 on his tummy, and 3 on his arms. I surely would have ended up a swollen mass on the floor had it been me. Anyhow, Sophia played in her room while I fixed our organizational issues. Some water company guy came to drain or pump or so something I don't know what with our main water lines and was in the manhole right in front of our house so Sophia got out a stool and stood at her window watching and giving me the play by play of what he was doing. Very informative. All the while she was drawing on her windows. (I bought some "window markers"... her special window washing day treat... I figure if I have to clean them that day anyways I may as well let her have fun messing them up first).

When she tired of that after a while she decided to "help" me, which mainly meant sitting in the bins and blindfolding herself with Pat's tie while asking me to take pictures so she could see what she looked like when she wasn't looking.

Then she decided to get to work and helped me put the little pegs in the big holes, she did a pretty good job for a 3 year old I'd say.

Brenna helped too by passing out in her carrier after watching us quietly for a long while... I must say the poor little girl probably slept better in that darned carrier than she has since getting her cold.

After all, it is much easier to sleep sitting up when the head is filled with snot. When I had my wretched cold I would wake up constantly from the pressure in my sinuses, I imagine it is the same whether you're 25 or 3 months.

Sick Baby girl and weekend fun

2007-08-04T16:14:00.000-07:00

Well there was no post yesterday, as any free minute not spent running in circles and getting sprayed with silly string was spent tending to poor little Brenna who has her first cold (poor little B). Apparently Sophia however (who started the horrible circle of sickness), is feeling very full of energy and has a new found love of silly string. She doesn't like doing the spraying as much as she likes being sprayed with it. Very fun. So then today was definately a water play day. I filled up probably about a hundred water balloons and the squirt guns and the water mat. All while Pat cleaned out the pool so it wasn't icky with germs (definately don't need anymore of them here). Just as I finally lugged out the last bag of water balloons Brenna woke up all stuffy and sad. So by the time I made it back outside a little while later there was a daddy, and a Sophia, a nicely watered lawn but not a water balloon to be found! They use every last one without me! No big deal. I quietly went inside while they finished up playin' in the pool... little did they know I was planning my revenge! I filled up my own private stock pile and snuck outside while they were in a water war and had a good dozen to attack them with unbeknown to them! Mommy wins :)

Bubbles and water balloons

2007-08-02T15:50:00.000-07:00

Today was a serious scorcher. 100. phew. Perfect day for bubbles and water balloon fights! Brenna is breaking some teeth (her first ones actually - yay Brenna!) so she's been sleepin' a lot, which makes things easy on me. Sophia never EVER slept when she was a baby, who am I kidding... she still doesn't sleep. So after getting some food in our tummies and clothed and all brushed we made some home made bubbles and went outside to see just how big we could get them. Here are the results-

A curve ball

2007-08-01T18:49:00.000-07:00

So, as if starting home preschooling wasn't a fun enough new challenge - I apparently get to give it a whirl with a nasty head cold. Apparently my loving and (overly) active daughter loves to take care of me.... for 5 minutes and then she likes to pretend she's super girl and fly straight onto me while I'm still under the impression she's being a doctor. That's fine though, at least I had a blanket over me to buffer the impact. After a little while I realized that any attempt to relax was just not going to work, so I thought perhaps if we go to the park I can sit back and she can run off her energy (not like the kid naps, despite my greatest efforts). My luck, we get to the park around 1:30pm.... if I had been thinking clearly I would have recalled that 1:30pm is the time normal children nap - soooo just as we got there the only other kids there were leaving. (what are the odds?!) so as I tried to feed poor little hot Brenna (95 in the shade is not infant friendly weather) and poor Sophia is begging me to play with her since we're literally the ONLY people at the park, I convinced her that it would be a fun ride to go to the "big circle" mall and give the new tandem stroller a go. Apparently that was a good idea because she was totally up for it. That lasted a good hour - enough time for my head clearing drugs to take a decent effect. So we headed home, I tried desperately to keep Sophia at bay while I fed Brenna. Then since she was such a sport we filled up the pool. That was good fun. Around time that I was trying to "escape" to make some dinner my husband (and his impeccable timing) arrived and took over. The following resulted-

And by "the following" I mean a serious dinner protest - and some silly splashing, good thing I was at a safe distance!

Day 1 - Camping

2007-07-30T00:06:00.000-07:00

Today marks the first "offical" day of our camping theme. Tis the wee hours of the morning, but I wanted to get the bulletin board put together before the day started and it took a bit longer than expected, all in all the I think things turned out nicely.

My lovely Camping bulletin board

My organized chaos of a "system"

A nice overview of our preschool room

More of our stuff

Picking and plucking

2007-07-29T09:41:00.000-07:00

Since we actually got a decent amount of rain for practically the first time all summer, we started our morning by going out and picking some of our veggies. We check on them daily, but I had a feeling that they would have grown tremendously since it started raining around 3am and didn't let up until around 8 this morning'. Well, I was definitely correct in my assumption. My squash that I was going to let go just one more day yesterday is monstrous today! I should take a picture its that incredible. The bees are a bit scary to Sophia, so I did the harvesting and she did the bag holding. Since Brenna is teething and an insy bit cranky she slept until 10am (holy cow I didn't know that was possible), so while Sophia and Daddy ate breakfast I actually got to enjoy a cup of coffee while watching the blue jays and cardinals duke it out with some squirrels over the sunflower seeds we have out in the yard. Always a fun way to start a Sunday morning. Perhaps if these thunderstorms let up we shall go swimming in our friends pool. Since its a real in ground pool and not just large and inflatable like ours it is much more inviting. We'll see how that goes.

On your mark...

2007-07-24T01:09:00.000-07:00

So the adventure begins. Having being thrown a bit of a curve ball and having to put nursing school on the back burner indefinitely - Sophia and I now embark upon a homeschooling adventure. With themes, activities and theoretical knowledge in hand we will hit the ground running. Of course Brenna will be along for the ride. Since we'll be going camping in the August I decided our first theme should be just that. Camping! Sophia has never been camping and doesn't know much about it, so I think this is a good way to introduce her to it and as a bonus our camping trip will be a field trip and a good way to put to good use all of her new knowledge. I do believe that if all goes as planned I'll post our daily adventures... well daily.