Pictures

I've been meaning to post a few pictures. Today was one of those rare days where we woke up earlier than usual, school went smooth and fast and we ended up with hours of extra time before lunch! Usually school runs right into lunchtime so this was a nice treat for everybody.

Anyway, back to the pictures. Here are the boys having their bears play chess. It was very important that I knew the bears were playing, not them. Isaac and Sammy are actually quite interested in chess. Elijah, not so much.



This is Sadie's favorite spot. She loves to sit here and hold on to this handle and open the drawer, shut the drawer, open, shut... you get the picture.



Finally, this is the best I could do for Jonah. He was much too busy building to look at the camera.

Where Was I....

before I was so rudely interrupted by flying glass shards? As for the guilty party, I won't name names but lets just say only one male in this family is strong enough to throw a snowball hard enough to break a window...

So anyway, I did have a few more bullets.

• Denise's little 2.0 has arrived!
  
• 3 more days until Lost! We already agreed the boys will be going to bed a little bit early on Thursdays.
• The boys have been really interested in tornadoes lately. They checked out four library books on tornadoes. We ordered a tornado movie thru netflix. Earlier Jonah asked if we could watch the "mashed potato" movie. It took me a few moments, but I realized he was asking for the tornado movie.

This and That

• A few nights ago I watched the movie Waitress. I can't say that I liked it because it was basically about an extramarital affair. The doctor was creepy too. However, I did enjoy all the parts about creating pies. I loved the end too when she is singing the pie song to her little girl. So cute.
• Ron Paul came in second in Nevada and Louisiana! Don't expect to hear about it because the media is blacking him out. Seriously.
• I would write more but somebody just broke the front window with a snowball...and I'm not kidding.
  

Paddle Block Boats

This weeks project was paddle block boats. They are very simple and fun. You need one big block of wood, one little block (we actually used small blocks from the boys wooden blocks), two nails and a rubber band. You can see in the picture how to put it together. You just twist the little block in the rubber band as much as you can, put the boat in water, and watch it go! I think it's good for kids to see there are ways you can make things move without batteries or electrical cords.

What's wrong with this picture?

Here is a view from our kitchen window (0 degrees, in case you can't read the thermometer)



Pretty, isn't it? Makes you want to dress in a nice cozy sweater and sit by the fire. I love sweaters, I keep the boys well stocked in nice sweaters. So why is my 4 year old dressed like this today? And no, we do not keep our house toasty warm.

The Winner Is...

Kathryn! Looks like your little sister is getting a Carebear quilt :)

Root beer!

Instead of an art project today, we did a chemistry experiment. We made root beer, and it does involve chemistry. My sister got us a make-your-own-root beer kit for Christmas and the boys have been so patiently waiting to make it (if by patient you mean asking 10 times a day when we are going to make root beer). Anyway, it was fun and the kit even came with a booklet to help explain the chemical reaction that occurs between the yeast and sugar. It can take days, or even weeks for the root beer to be ready so I made sure the boys understood this before we started. Of course, Jonah still didn't understand and you can see in the picture that he wants his bottle opened NOW.

A bonus is that our house now smells pleasantly of root beer.



I will be drawing a name for the quilt this evening, you still have a few hours to get in!

8 Months

This has been a month of big changes. A month ago, Sadie could get into a crawling position and rock but not really move. She could not sit up for more than a few seconds. In the past month she started army crawling which proceeded to real crawling, started to sit up unassisted, even gets herself into a sitting position, and is starting to pull herself up. She can feed herself cheerios. No teeth yet, though. I look at her all the time and think how unreal it is that it's been 8 months already! I can't believe the teeny tiny 5 lb baby we brought home is mobile already.



Don't forget, there is is still time to get in the quilt drawing!

Blog Giveaway - CareBear quilt.

When I thought about things I would like to do in 2008, one of the things I decided to do was to sew some things to give away on my blog. Here is the first giveaway of 2008 - a CareBear crib quilt. I know lots of my readers are moms of boys...but if you don't have a little girl then maybe you know somebody who would like it. All you have to do is comment to get your name in the drawing (which will probably be Friday).

5 on the move.

Can you believe we already need gates up again? Sadie is quite adept at crawling now, and getting faster every day. She is also starting to pull up on things. I kept finding myself leaving the room, then remembering "shoot, the steps!" and running back. For the last couple months we have been talking about what to do about the steps. Not only the top of the steps, but the six feet or so of railing that she could easily fit through. I found this 18 foot flexible gate that seems to do the job. It's the kind that connects together to create an enclosed area, so it will work great for bringing outside in the summer. Now we just have to find a new spot for the dog bowls.

How boring is January? Pretty bad when I have nothing to write about except baby gates. We will be starting up our weekly art projects again next week. Also, Jeremiah and I have spent the last few months watching all 3 seasons of Lost, so we can't wait for season 4 to start on the 31st. That's one good thing happening in January. Anybody else anxiously awaiting the Lost season premiere?

Philisophical Sam

The other day I was talking to Sam about how he was the middle child. I held up my hand to show him my five fingers and we talked about how he had two siblings on one side, and two on the other side and that he was right in the middle. "Oh!" he said "like a big juicy burger and I'm the chicken".

30!!

Jeremiah turns the big three oh today. We went out to eat for lunch and had some birthday pie (he prefers pie, which is nice since we just had cake yesterday). I wanted to have a party but he nixed the idea. To think that I have been with him for half his life now!

Here is his new gun blog if your interested.

Happy Birthday babe! Your the best!

30 candles is a lot of fire! Jonah was so happy to help out again though.


This is Jeremiah actually standing and holding all 5 kids.

Six!

Elijah is six today! He wanted an army tank on his cake this year, and he already told me what he wants on his next three birthday cakes (dinosaurs, monsters trucks, hippos). Recently he watched an episode of The Crocodile Hunter on Animal Planet and did an impression of Steve Irwin that was quite impressive for a not-even-six-year-old. I suppose it shouldn't come as a surprise that Elijah is good at impressions, it goes perfectly with his personality.

I love this pic, you see Jonah trying to sneak in and blow the candles out. I have a pic of him trying to do the same with Isaac's cake. Notice Elijah trying to hold him off with his arm.