Sweet as...

Tonight Paige came up to me and said, "Mommy smell me."  She had the biggest grin on her face.  I leaned down really close and got a HUGE whiff of some sort of perfume that I couldn't quite recognize.  "Oh, Paige," I said.  "That smells nice."  (It's possible "nice" was one of those little white lies Mommies sometimes tell.)  She gave this little giggle and responded, "Do I smell like sugar?"  I was surprised, since sugar was not what I had smelled.  But I told her, "Oh, yes.  You smell just like sugar."  She gave another giggle and crinkled her nose and asked, "Do you think I've been eating sugar?"  And then it was my turn to laugh and ask her, "Have you been eating sugar?"  To which she said, "Yes!!!  Isn't that funny?"  It wasn't exactly funny, but it was kind of adorable.  Although I did have to tell her that we don't just eat sugar.  But a smile or two might have sneaked out while I said it.  Maybe she just takes after her big brother.  Which reminds me...I never did find out what that "perfume" I smelled actually was...

Tuna Fish

Cory was making a tuna fish sandwich for lunch today.  It's not something we have around very often, and Cory is the only one who really enjoys it.  As he was opening the can of tuna, he asked Elise and Merry Grace (who were in the kitchen) if they wanted some, too.  Merry Grace had only been half paying attention, and walked over to see what her Daddy was up to.   He held out the can of tuna and asked again if she wanted any.  She looked at it and said, "Is that for the cats?"  I think that is all the answer you need. :)  (And just for the record, she did not eat any.  Paige did, however, and declared it "Yum", despite her sisters' objections.)

Tattoo Artists?

Over the holidays, the kids got together with some of their cousins to play.  Paige was super excited to have Parker come over.  One of Paige's favorite gifts was her new tent.  Parker loved it, too, and those little girls were adorable playing in it.

Cory and I chuckled as we heard them in there giggling and playing, thinking how cute and sweet they were playing together.

Imagine our surprise when we discovered the source of their giggles...magic markers.  I'm beginning to think its black magic associated with those markers, especially after looking at those little girls.

They clearly realized the error of their ways and were truly sorry and repentant.  I think those smiles say it all.  And I don't think its remorse, no matter that Cory gave them a stern lecture.

And here they are, in their own words, describing their beautiful artwork.

Definitely Double Trouble.  It's not the first time I'm glad they got a double dose of cuteness to go with the trouble. :)  And probably not the last, either.

January in Pictures

I very likely won't remember everything that we did in January.  But I did snap a few pictures along and along.  So I'll use that to record some of the highlights for now.

Between Christmas and the New Year, we went to see my parents.  

 It was very cold and windy, but these two still found the time and will to be outside for some football.  I went out to take some pictures.  But it was too cold for me.

 My brother and his kids were there.  They are so cute.  We love them to pieces.

 We played some games.  Scribblish is a new favorite.  It was really funny.

Playing with legos  and blocks are some of the kids favorite things to do at Grammy and Papa's house.  This little one is VERY proud of her block tower.

The kids looked cute in their Christmas outfits.

We rang in the New Year with family.  It was so much fun!

 

 

We won lots of candy in the games for the night.  Yum.  That was probably the highlight for me.  

 Some people (Paige) didn't make it until midnight.  But we still yelled, cheered, drank sparkling cider and kissed our sweetheart's when the clock struck Twelve.

One morning, Cory (who does about 99% of our breakfast cooking.  I mainly do biscuits.) made pancakes.

He made this one giant pancake which was a big hit.  Merry Grace managed to eat half of it, but then had a tummy ache. :)

                                     

He also made some teeny tiny ones for Paige.

 Which she loved.  She actually loved them so much, she decided they were too cute to eat.  I was beginning to worry we'd end up with a pancake for a pet.

 I spent time snuggling with my baby.  And yes.  Four is still a baby.  When you're little and cute and you still like to snuggle with your Mama, you can still be considered a baby. Also, if you're 11 going on 25 and are still adorable and sweet, your Mama can call you her baby.  Or anywhere in between.  It's a Mama rule.

Next...

My Mom came for a short visit (which was wonderful), Elise got strep (but for the first time ever, no one else did) and under Dr.'s orders had to have a cookies and cream milkshake.  Strep is rough, but it does have a few perks.

 Elise and I had a GNO, that included dinner and a movie.  We saw Wreck it Ralph.  It was really good.  I cried.  A few days later, we went to see it as a family.  I cried again.  More than the first time.  Let's just blame the pregnancy hormones, if we can.

And then...

Homeschool has been going really well.  I probably need to do a separate post about that.  But January saw Elise finish reading "The Prince and the Pauper", which she did NOT enjoy, but gamely read anyway. 

 There was supposed to be 1-3 inches of snow, so we made peanut butter cookies, because good winter weather deserves a celebration.

I drank a cup of hot cocoa when the first few flakes of snow and sleet fell.  Unfortunately, that was the extent of the winter weather.  But the cookies and cocoa were still good.

Then, there was more winter weather in the forecast, and this time we actually saw some.  Mostly sleet and freezing rain, but for us it was a treat.  We even went out and played in it a bit.  The kids "ice skated" in the street (under diligent parental supervision, for anyone who's worried.)

 We decided to put together a puzzle while we were "sleeted in".  It was a 1,000 piece puzzle I bought months ago.  Turns out it was also a mystery puzzle.  Basically there was a picture on the box and the puzzle we put together was "what happens next".  So it was even trickier than it had to be.

 We worked on it for about 4-5 days.

And finally finished it, all except one piece which we never could find.  So it was really close.  And fun, even if it was hard.

 Thanks to the winter weather, Paige became a fan of winter gear.  Gloves and toboggans have now become a regular part of her wardrobe.  Unless we hide them.  Which we do sometimes. :)

 The kids looked cute for church again.  

Also, Merry Grace became a rock star while she swept the kitchen floor.

 And she lost a tooth!  She doesn't like getting teeth pulled and kind of freaks out about it.  But she was brave and didn't even know when her Daddy actually pulled it out.  Plus the tooth fairy left her $2.  I didn't realize that was the going rate.  But the tooth fairy might be a softie.  And now Merry Grace thinks she rich.  So I guess it all works out.

And now January has come and gone.  It was a good month, even if it did fly by.  And now its February, which is one of my favorite months of the year.  And that's a wrap!

Tomatoes

I've meant to blog a million times over the last little bit.  I knew it wasn't getting done.  Then Elise mentioned one day this week that she didn't even check my blog anymore because I never posted.  She said she used to love seeing a new post and might pop in a couple times a day to read what I wrote about.  But now she doesn't even check.  Consider me officially called on the carpet.  So here I am.  A new post.  (Are my loyal followers still around?)

In something totally unrelated to all the things I haven't posted, here is a funny story about Paige.

I love tomatoes. A lot.  No one else in my family does.  At least not plain or on a sandwich.  They like salsa and tomato sauce, but would never eat a tomato sandwich.  One night, we had avocado sandwiches.  I love a slice of tomato on mine.  Everyone else decided against the tomato slice on theirs, but Paige decided to try it.  She took a huge bite of her sandwich and we were all impressed.  We asked if she liked it, and she nodded emphatically.  I, especially, was pretty excited about this accomplishment.  We all began talking and cheering her as she chewed.  All of a sudden, Paige, who was standing in her chair, sort of froze and slowly began slinking down in her seat.  She almost seemed to be in slow motion when her head reached table level, and she attempted to sneakily spit her bite out onto her plate.  We all had a great laugh as it turned out that she also thought tomatoes were disgusting.  On the other hand, she thought the "applecados" were delicious.

All I Want for Christmas

Over Christmas, we were listening to the song, "All I want for Christmas is You".  Immediately after hearing te song, Paige came up to me and, in all seriousness, said, "Mommy, all I want for Christmas is toys."  Since then, she's latched onto the phrase, "All I want for Christmas is" and then fills in the blank with whatever she's thinking about at the moment.  Sometimes she's being sweet and she'll say that all she wants for Christmas is "you, Mommy."  Sometimes it might be something she wants to eat like pixie stix, a cookie, or a popsicle.  Probably the most dramatic one I've heard is, "All I want for Christmas is a double decker bus."  (Not going to happen!!!)  And then I heard the most unique one this afternoon.  Its a beautiful day outside and we've been working around in the yard and outside doing some clean-up.  Paige was riding on her little bike and at some point rode up to me and said, "Mommy, all I want for Christmas is no slugs."  She paused for a second and then yelled, "Do you hear that, Santa?  All I want for Christmas is no, no, no slugs."  That one actually sounds pretty good to me, too.  :)

Announcements

As part of our weekly Family Home Evening each week, we have a short time for announcements.  Mostly this is about scheduling.  Each person takes a couple of minutes to announce what activities they have going on that week.  It could be their weekly lessons, a church activity an awards ceremony at school or a doctor's appointment.  It helps us know what each person has going on and it reminds us of what activities us parents need to be aware of.  Occasionally someone shares an announcement that has more to do with something great they accomplished that week or something they are hoping to accomplish that week.  And we frequently have to re-direct someone who wants to make announcement time a free-for-all time of sharing all their thoughts and feelings. :)  We had a good laugh out of announcements this week, when Cory called on Paige to share her announcements and she responded with, "I love Target."  It may have been a little unorthodox as far as announcements go, but I can't argue with her on it one bit. :)

I'm Thinking of an Animal...

We love playing "I'm thinking of an animal" with the kids.  Its fun when they are little and you give them clues, little by little, until you see their face light up with knowing as they understand what you're describing.  And their clues to you are hilarious.  Its an especially a fun game to pass the time in the car.

Yesterday, while in the car for some errands, Elise and Paige were playing.  Paige is old enough to give clues that actually make sense and lead to a real animal and she's a good guesser.  Most of the time.

Elise gave these clues, "I'm thinking of an animal that lives on a farm.  It is fluffy and has feathers and lays eggs."  Paige only paused for a second before guessing, "A bird-sheep!!!"

Obviously that's what it was. :)

Its hard when you're "just a kid"

We've had trouble with Paige using Elise's markers.  (See the last post.)  It's bad enough that she uses them without asking.  Add to that that she's drawing on all kinds of surfaces with them and then leaves the lids off, and you can understand why a big sister wouldn't be too crazy about sharing her things.

The other night, Paige had gotten into them again.  I told her she needed to ask before she uses others' things and then had her apologize to Elise.  I asked Paige if she thought there was anything she could do to make it right with Elise.  Paige looked at me and said, "What do you want me to do?  I'm just a little kid!"

Oh, that kid!  She makes me laugh.  Its not the answer I was looking for, but she does have a point. ;)

Artwork

You may remember that Paige used to draw on anything that was NOT paper.  We've been very fortunate that for a while we've been graffiti-free in this house.

Unfortunately, that is no longer the case.

 Mostly what we're finding these days are smiley faces and her favorite letter, "P".

The best part is that they're usually written in permanent marker.  In which case, I'm really grateful they're smiley faces.  It could be much worse.

And even better than ONE smiley face, is a LOT of smiley faces.  I didn't get pictures of the ones she wrote on the hallway mirror or the giant letter P behind the towels in my bathroom.  And probably a few more places I haven't found yet.

We try to keep markers away from her, but that's a tall order in this house.  And we are continuing to emphasize "only write on paper."  Until them, I'm just trying to enjoy the little reminders of happiness from that adorable little imp.

This is one seriously sweet kid.

We Love Daddy!

One of our next December activities was a celebration of that wonderful man that my kids call Daddy.  We decorated the inside of his car with crepe paper, wrote sweet notes and put them all in his car, and left a message for him on his windshield.

 We missed his reaction when he saw it, but we got a picture after he pulled all our goodies out. :)

He might not have found it when he did, except that Paige ran and told him he needed to go see if his car was all sparkly. :)  I think it was just exactly that. :)

We sure do love that man.

Days of December

Each October, we do a daily activity to celebrate the fall season and the upcoming Halloween holiday.  This October, morning sickness pretty much wiped out any desire I had to do fun activities.  So we're making up for it in December by doing a neat activity each day of the month.

One of our first activities was going out to dinner as a family.  We went to our local Chinese restaurant, a favorite dinner for all of us.  The kids were very well-behaved, although any time you take four kids out to eat, you can expect a little bit of chaos.

Waiting for our food.

Paige and Ian

Elise and Merry Grace

My sweetie and I.

The food was delicious.  The company was fabulous.  We had a lot of laughs.  Paige ate her weight in duck sauce.  We told the story of my Dad and his buckwheat pancakes.  It was a perfect night and a great way to celebrate the season with the family.

After dinner, we went to the Nativity our church puts on each year.  They have over 600 Nativities displayed and they are beautiful.  Paige fell asleep in the car, so I went in with the older kids while Cory stayed with Paige.  That was probably just as well, because I'm not sure she could have handled not touching them, even though we had that conversation 101 times that day.  It was hard enough for the older kids not to do it.  

Some of the Nativities were so beautiful, I was almost moved to tears.  We snapped a few pictures with my phone of our favorites, but really, every one was amazing.

This was the perfect end to our family celebration evening.  We definitely left with the spirit of Christmas in our hearts.

Summer's Last Hurrah

I've been going through pictures and since I've been a horrible poster the last few months, I found a few things that were worth catching up on.

 Elise hosted a fashion show for Merry Grace.  She modeled some of her favorite outfits and styles.  It was awesome and we clapped a lot.

 Paige wasn't one to be left out, so she joined in a modeled a few of her favorite outfits, too.  Mostly hers didn't match, but she truly loves them and we clapped a lot. :)

 My Grandma's African Violet bloomed beautifully.  It might seem like a little thing, but it made me happy to see it look so wonderful.

 We had a fun picnic with friends.  Elise and Emmy hosted a "shop" for Merry Grace and Ally, which they loved.

They named the shop Sunshine 'n Shade.  It was super cute.

Luckily, everything was free, which was a price we could all afford. 

 Total peace.

Total cuteness.

We've had a wonderful fall, but looking back at the beauty of summer leaves me a little nostalgic for the warm sunshine.  I guess that's the beauty of each season and the different kind of beauty each one brings.