on high. And if we aren't listening, this particular angel will TAKE US OUT!!!
Since the Christmas pageant at church a week before Christmas, Mermaid Princess has taken to putting on her converted-from- fairy-to-angel wings, putting my embroidery hoop on her head, and making "pronouncements."
But by far, this has been my favorite exchange of this holiday season:
Mermaid Princess (floating in from the family room): "I have good tightings."
Flash doesn't look up from his coloring.
Mermaid Princess: I SAID, "I have good tightings!"
Flash determinedly does not look up.
MP (hands and wand on hips): Excuse me. You're the shepherd.
Flash: No, I'm not.
MP (stepping aggressively toward her shepherd): Yes, you are! And I'm the angel!
Flash (throwing his hands over his ears and trying to run for it): I'm not listening!
MP (full shepherd body tackle in the hallway): THE BABY JESUS IS HERE!
Flash (crawling out from under the angel): I'm not listening! I'm not listening!
MP (clinging to her shepherd's shirt): I'M THE ANGEL! I'M THE ANGEL WITH GOOD TIGHTINGS!
Mommy: Honey, I think you have a reluctant shepherd.
MP (getting up, helping her shepherd): Well, at least he fell to the ground when I showed up.
Somehow, I don't think this is quite the image Matthew and Luke were trying to convey.
Happy New Year - we hope you have a year full of "good tightings" - keep us posted!
December 27, 2007
Angels we have heard...
December 22, 2007
JackJack turns the big 0-2
JackJack has a fixation with The Little Einsteins,
and particularly with Rocket.
Our routine in the morning includes me reciting all the main characters in Little Einsteins and including him in the list. Here's Rocket, cleverly disguised as a birthday cake:
I did the rough construction here and Big E did the fine detail work. Not bad, eh?
JackJack blew out the candle, getting by with a little help from his friends.
He intently watched the distribution of the cake.
Oma secured him his very own piece.
"Yummy (gluten-free) rocket cake is so good, I need two forks!"Happy Birthday, sweet JackJack!
We love you and we KNOW you were handpicked just for us.
December 19, 2007
We wish you a
In truth, I have had days where I have frantically dug in the mulch outside of said proverbial window in a desperate attempt to locate said security. I'm sure Big E. has too, although blessedly, never on the same days.
In the end, as these experiences always seem to do (amazing, isn't it?), I can't remember when I've grown so much in a single year. Last January seems like another lifetime and perhaps another person ago. And these three are growing so quickly, it only adds to the sense of just how fast life is moving...
1. Discovering JackJack's food allergies and getting them under control.
2. Having Daddy working from home so he can run out when the snow only falls for 30 minutes.
3. Beginning to homeschool. I love my kids. And now, I really know my kids.
4. New friends. We (me especially) are blessed with so many new friends. Unbelievable.
5. Learning just how much God really does love me.
Daddy: "Who wants to jump on the trampoline?"
Mermaid Princess: "I'm a great artist, amn't I? And dancer. And speller. And singer."
Flash: "Mermaid Princess!!! Let's go be superheroes!"
JackJack: "I JackJack Einsteins. I cute. My turhn!"
Mommy: "Can you pick that up?" or wait, maybe it's "what should we have for dinner?" or no, maybe it's, "Let's make a list..."
I should go ask the kids.
peace, joy, contentment and love.
We are praying for a year full of His presence for each of you.
The Curly Redhead and family
Mermaid Princess
While her birthday isn't until just before Christmas, Mommy has learned that the focus cannot be switched TO Jesus' birthday until Mermaid Princess' birthday has been celebrated. So, somewhat early in the month, we had (and I'm sure you'll be shocked) a Princess Party for her 5th birthday.
All her friends brought princess dresses - we ended up with about 18 to choose from. I kid you not when I say that some of the princesses waltzed in and out in 5 or 6 outfits before the party was over...
Here she is on her throne.
The cake:
and one very happy birthday girl!
Jack strikes again... and again...
Someone has gotten tall enough to pull things off the counter. And so my very favorite form of discipline kicked in: natural consequences.
The hot chocolate was no longer hot, but it was sticky and JackJack does NOT like his clothes to be wet.
And so, our brief foray into the countertop reach, grasp and pull, has ended. If, perchance, it does happen again, I am strongly considering dumping a glass of water over his head just to reinforce the lesson.
Ah, but what's on his foot, you ask?
Yes, I stripped off his hot chocolate soaked clothes to find this:
Sing with me now! "I love Crayola! I love Crayola!" Because, my lab assistants experiments show that only Crayola's "washable markers" actually wash off.
And by the way, I think all three lab assistants were involved in this little experiment.
Peep peep
Okay, so this craft will have to be repeated nearer to Easter. See, we were reading about chicks in our Animals Animals book by Eric Carle and it seemed appropriate to make little chicks of our own (and I had all the materials in-house already!)
On a side note, we saw Eric Carle on Mr. Rogers this week reading Brown Bear and the kids were amazed to see that he was a real person. Mermaid Princess promptly wrote him a letter.
Anyway, the photo above is of our new duckling, just hatched in the nest...
And here is our baby swan...Flowers, ponies, kittens, rainbows, dragons...
All black.
But his favorite color is green.
(Also, as I look at these photos, I am realizing that we started this project to make baby chicks, and neither child ended up with one. This philosophy -- "rules are only guidelines"-- is from their father. I, myself, am a recovering rule follower.)
One moment in time
when mommy-ing is all that it's cracked up to be...
Does the bravery of holding a "snake" cancel out the sparkly pink crown?
First snowfall
Not enough to write home about, but not enough to mess up the roads, either... I love that it was the day after JackJack's birthday. And I love even more that my friends from Las Vegas who were only here 4 months got to see snow before going back home.
JackJack loved the snow...
For about 8 minutes.
Poor planning... with great results
I am a planner. Since you already know I fight perfectionist tendencies, this should perhaps not come as a surprise. I knew how old I wanted to be when I got married. Check. How many years before our first child. Check. Second child. Check. Third child. Check.
What I did not figure out... December birthdays make for a rough month.
(I also didn't plan on child number 3 having massive food allergies. That, however, is a story for another time.)
JackJack (or as he likes to insist, "Jack Jack Einsteins") turned two in early December. Two! I have got to stop calling him 'the baby'. He's a little boy...
This is his actual birthday. His full-out birthday party with aunts and uncles came a few days later. He got his very favorite, gluten-free chocolate chip cookies. A little sandy for my taste, but I think he ate 4.
We sang Happy Birthday to him about 15 times that day. Now, whenever he hears the tune, he lights up. Then, when he realizes it's not for him, he scowls and says, "MY turhn!"
What can I say? His nickname IS JackJack.
December 1, 2007
Jumpin' Jellybeans!
If there is a single "toy" in our house that I would chain myself to in order to prevent it from being sold or dismantled, it's the giant bouncing cage just outside the kitchen window.
On the trampoline, all the kids play together.
On the trampoline, Flash burns off stores of excess energy.
On the trampoline, the kids get Mommy to act their age.
On the trampoline, Big E. often gets a fresh perspective -- and a little exercise.
On the trampoline, neighborhood kids come to shake off a bad day.
Here's a slideshow of one day this past week when we took a break from school to get some fresh air and learn some new maneuvers on the trampoline.
Thanksgiving moments
I have two Thanksgiving moments from this year that I think I'd like to share. The first was a lunch time prayer that Mermaid Princess gave before lunch the day after Thanksgiving:
"Hi God! I wanted to ask you to take care of the kids in El Salvador who don't have very good homes and are living in the mud. Could you send them some new trees to build new homes with so they don't have to live in the mud? And could you send them some food and some new clothes? Actually, could you please take care of people who are needing homes and food everywhere and help us to know how to help them too? We are very thankful for all the food we have to eat and for being safe and warm and having lots of friends. I love you. Amen."
As the adult heads lifted up, there were tears in more than one eye. This caught me offguard, as we haven't talked about El Salvador in months AND we were all expecting the normal mealtime prayer - a poem in four rhyming lines.
My second moment was with Flash. We had talked, in the days leading up to Thanksgiving, about the two horrible winters the Pilgrims survived before being solidly established in this New World. I've been looking for the link that gave a detailed history of the first three Thanksgivings, but I can't find it right now. Suffice to say, for two consecutive winters, the Pilgrims had many days in which they had only 5 kernels of corn to eat as their rations.
So, two days after Thanksgiving, we had popcorn for snack. Flash took five pieces off his plate, pushed his plate to the middle of the table and said, "This is all the Pilgrims had for the whole day, right Mommy?"
"That's right, honey."
He studied the pieces, now arranged like the five dots on a die.
"They must have been hungry, Mommy."
"I think so, sweetheart."
Now, the storyteller in me would love to tell you he did something heroic here, which he didn't, other than generously sharing his popcorn with his siblings after eating some of his.
But I think I will be content that he is three, he understands our bounty, and he is learning to be grateful and empathetic. It's a good start!
