Music

Let me just call attention to the newly added music tab on the top. Click on it, and check out some of David's original songs. He's astoundingly talented.

Post-it #4

This morning Morgan was in time-out, standing with his head facing the wall, and crying.  Lydia went to a nearby wall, stuck her face in it, and fake-cried. Then giggled. Is it wrong that her open mockery of her brother drew out much laughter from me?

Third Passage

Morgan and William have both recently learned to ride bikes without their training wheels. Now they ride all the time and have a blast.

But getting them to learn was fun. David had them just start at the top of the driveway and start pedaling. This method worked to teach both boys to ride by themselves. And, if you take a look below, you will see that it also had the same ending result.  

Those cars didn't stand a chance.

Second Passage

On Friday I took the kids to the zoo. We went with my brother and his family and got in with the homeschool discount price.
Here are some of the highlights.
Driving to the zoo, my eyes did that horrible thing where they get all stingy and watery, and you can barely keep them open, and tears poor out. That made for some fun driving. It also made for some ugly Melanie.

 One notable part was the first ten minutes, when the kids were actually still interested in looking at the animals. (The little dude in brown is my nephew, Ammon.)

 Morgan was most looking forward to seeing a giraffe. He got his wish.

 William was most excited to see the lions. He got his wish. (I promise, there are lions in there.)

 Owen was most excited to see sharks. He didn't get his wish. But he thought it would be second best to see the zebras. But by the time we got to the zebras, he wasn't happy about being at the zoo anymore, and wouldn't smile for me.

 Owen enjoyed pushing Lydia around. He also enjoyed pushing Lydia into people.

 

Poor guy did NOT enjoy wearing the monkey backpack. (When you act like a monkey, you have to wear the monkey for awhile.)

 Then we tried to get a nice family picture on the safari jeep.

 There were several attempts. This was the best result, unfortunately.

 Our ratio was 8 kids to 3 adults. Look how 8 kids look all clumped together. That's a lot of kids.

 A great highlight was when we realized that the kids had a lot more fun on the playground equipment than they did with looking at the exotic animals.

 We picnicked at the park afterward. Lydia ate dirt and sticks, and most likely, goose poop. 

 We had a blast! (Most of us, for some of the time.) We sure did miss Daddy though. 

Post-it #3

Morgan, William, and Owen were all playing together in the toy room. I do believe they were playing with little hotwheels cars.
I heard Morgan say, "How about we don't like our girlfriend anymore. 'Hey, we don't like our girlfriend anymore. Let's fight her!"
Then all the boys started making fighting noises, saying, "fire!" and "aaaah!"
First of all, why do they all have the same girlfriend? And second, where do they get the idea that when you don't like a girl, you fight her?

First Passage

Let me tell you a little factoid about Lydia. She likes stuffing things in her nose. And ears. If she gets a hold of a pen I don't worry about her drawing on things, I worry about her jamming it as far into her nose as she can. And my worry is completely justified. In fact, she gets ink marks inside her ears, which is a tell-tale sign that she's had a pen.
Yesterday Lydia was sitting in her high chair eating a grilled cheese sandwich. I left her to it and was going about doing housework. I went and checked on her.
 Saw some of this...

 I pulled her finger out of her nose and saw that there was definitely bread jammed up there. And because I'm blogging again, of course I took pictures before extracting it.

 She has much littler fingers than me, so she had it up farther than I could reach. So I squeezed her nose, with a pimple-popping method in mind. It worked! I got the end out and gingerly pulled. I was actually shocked when it kept coming out, and getting bigger.
And here is the snot covered piece of bread that was closer to Lydia's brain than any food ever should be.

Maybe I'll start keeping a picture log of all the things I find in Lydia's nose. This isn't an isolated incident.

Post-it #2

The boys were watching a Pixar movie. Before the feature film, Tinkerbell had to come out by the Disney castle and wave her magic wand and do her thing. Owen got a big kick out of it, and giggling, said,
"It's a girl with a butt! And no clothes on."
Then he laughed some more.

Post-it #1

Today I was upstairs and the boys were downstairs. I only heard a piece of their conversation.
Morgan said to William, in a I-can't-believe-I-actually-have-to-tell-you-this voice,  "Mommy is stronger than Daddy."
Bless his dear little incorrect heart!