A Full Foliage of Fall Festivalllnnneesss

Trying to figure out if that title makes sense…hmmm.

Anyway, our church hosted a fall festival this past weekend and we survived delighted taking all of our children to it.

First, we caged them.


Then, we spun them around until they got sick (not really…no one got sick that we know of…our kids have excellent inner ear abilities, including that you can spin Zoe around a ton and she comes off walking straight as an arrow…probably because I spun her one too many times in the office chair when she was a toddler).

Thirdly, we stuffed them full of cotton candy…
…as big as their heads.

Josiah decided to save some for later! And this picture and the videos below made it all worth it.

Look at the Lights! from justabunchofcharacters on Vimeo.Next up, more spinning!

Attacking siblings from justabunchofcharacters on Vimeo.And then set them to attack each other.
After that, they crashed, hard, in their beds dreaming of all the candy they had in their sacks!

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Pumpkin Patch

For your viewing pleasure…our field trip to the Pumpkin Patch…in pictures (with a little narration from moi).

This was pretty much his demeanor the whole trip. Lovely huh?! The boys’ behind us were part of a group who’s moms pretty much let us parent them. One little boy tried to throw a very large rock at some of the children before I told him (several times) to put it down.

Craft time! Lots of glue and small wiggly eyes. The kids enjoyed it and I had plenty of “glue skin” to play with the rest of the trip.

See? Happy Josiah.

Hay ride time!

Almost a smile!

This sweet little one has two older siblings who were with us. She thought the straw was awesome! Later she somehow managed a Cheese Nip down her onesie (saving it for later).

Most of the gang. Notice Josiah is absent.

He finally perked up when he found a granddaddy long legs (spider).
He is our boys’ boy.

And now we have our pumpkins that were not really picked from a patch…more like they bought pumpkins and threw them in this little area…the children, none the wiser and still enjoyed picking out a pumpkin.

Zoe’s BFF, Laura, came along even though her little brother was sick…they piggy backed in my van…cuz’ it’s a cool ride.

Ace’s BFF, Jack, who is Laura’s brother. He had a good time!

Liam enjoyed picking up the pumpkins, getting me to take a picture and the subsequently throwing them down.

Finally! A smile! Josiah was smiling because he was picking up the pumpkins and throwing them down (wonder where he saw that??).

Ta Da! Josiah loves getting pictures taken. We survived and had a great time! Thanks Kristina for letting me borrow your two!
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Aha!


This week, I’ve been busy, as I said before, implementing ChorePacks. I really want to write more about those and how it’s worked (let’s just say lifesaver!) but have to find the time (maybe this weekend) to do so…But, I wanted to share an idea I came up with and implemented as well. Ace is a typical boy/kindergartner and therefore, has trouble focusing on what he is doing. And Zoe, well, Zoe’s a smarty and when I’m working with Ace or a little with Liam, Miss Firstborn just has to chime in with the answer. So, I grabbed these “tri-fold display boards” when I ran to the craft store last weekend and made this:There are five pockets on the boards that hold each days work. That way, if they want to work ahead, they can. The pockets are made of 12X12 scrapbook paper that was folded then taped onto the board. Although Ace’s is having a hard time staying on so we may have glue them on. On Zoe’s, I also laminated paper that I taped to the front of each pocket. That gives my firstborn (overachiever) her “to do” list for each day including her reading lessons.

This has been awesome to say the least. Ace really has benefited from it. Although he can still be distracted, it doesn’t happen quite as much. Now, I need to call these things something…right now, I just say, “Grab your divider, thingy, pocket, holder…” Any suggestions?

Not a bad deal for $4 each!!
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How to Potty Train a Boy

Okay, so this isn’t really on how to potty train a kid. I will say, though, that each child is different and so is each family. So, potty training is different for everyone. We typically start each child off the same way (at least after Zoe) in putting them in undies at 2 and then setting a timer, taking them every 10 to 15 minutes, giving them juice, and giving them a treat when they go. After that, I gradually move into where “I’m” the one potty trained and take them at certain times during the day until they get the hang of it. As I mentioned here, I didn’t have to do that gradual thing with Josiah. He (along with lots of cheers and praises and examples from his brothers) did it himself. So, what is life like with a twenty seven month old potty trained little boy? I give you Josiah, the undie boy!


I told him to put them on and then watched as he stuck them on his head and said, “Ho, ho, ho.” Then, when I pulled out the camera he said, “Take picta of me mama.”

As for potty training books, I would recommend Potty Training in One Day along with any potty videos or kids’ books. I was going to post a link to this book but I’m not sure which one it is. I borrowed it from a friend when Liam started training. And, honestly, I didn’t follow it to a ‘t’ but I did use some of the activities with Josiah and with Liam. Liam was fully potty trained at 2 1/2 (as was Zoe and Ace) A children’s potty book was passed down to us from somewhere and that was staple while Josiah sat on the potty. That book, The Little Engine that Could, and two animal books got us through many trips to the potty.

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Ceili Rain’s Seven Months Old!

I can not believe this little girl is through half of the first year of her life. Shes adorable, lovely, and super cuddly. She also can’t sit still in your lap for more than a split second. She wants to wiggle, squirm and move all over the place…and she does it very well. Although her friend is starting to crawl, she is just content to sit and play. In fact, when I put her on her belly or laying down on the floor she fusses pretty quickly. She’d rather be up and watching what’s going on. Today she started making, “Dada” and “ni-ni” sounds. Like I said, she’s adorable.

And I’m a bad mom because I haven’t gotten any pictures lately besides the ones already posted. I’ve also been busy as we’ve implemented our ChorePacks this week and trying to get those going has been something else…and rewarding all at once. I’ll post about that when we’ve got a few more days under our belts.

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Catch Me if You Can!

So a few Fridays ago, we have a very busy day. Ceili Rain had a doctor’s appointment that lastest awhile which put us with just enough time to grab something to eat and then head to drop Zoe off at art (She’s taking art at a local Christian school.). I got her dropped off and since none of us were done eating, we just stayed put. It was a good thing we did.

About five minutes after Zoe went to class, we heard police sirens. I told the boys to look for the police car and so we waited. But, we didn’t see anything. Then they got louder and sounded like a lot more. All of a sudden we see a blue car, a Yaris, to be exact, fly down the road. I thought that was a little strange to see a small, cheap car driving so fast. Then, quickly, behind it, I saw one, two, three police cars and then two unmarked police cars. Hmmm, there must be a big wreck and that car must have just been trying to get out of the way.

A few more seconds pass and we probably see two or three more police cars go by…lights on, sirens on.

Then nothing.

Then I think that there was probably a really big wreck at the intersection up from the school. That’s a pretty busy intersection, so it was possible.

But about five to ten minutes later we hear the sirens again and the little blue Yaris appears again going a little bit faster (the cops said they didn’t go over 50 but I believe it was more like 60-70 mph)…and it was smoking! I saw the cop cars again. And there were lots more of them than before!

So, by the time I got home that afternoon, we looked it up on the internet, and low and behold, our wonderful Sheriff’s department had to chase down a man in a stolen Yaris.

This is just wrong on so many levels:

First, he stole a Yaris. Mark commented that they are fairly cheap as far as cars go.
Second, he tried to out run a Crown Victoria and other fast police vehicles. In a Yaris. Which probably explains why it was smoking.
Third, and I failed to mention this above, after he was chased for awhile, he decided to stop the car (near where we were) and run away on foot. I don’t think he rationalized (obviously since he stole a Yaris) that there were a lot of policemen pursuing him and they were physically fit…nor did he realize that our K-9 Unit was also out. Yep, the dog got him.
Fourth, can you imagine what it’s going to be like for that poor man in prison? When they discuss why they are in jail…what will the response be when he tells people he stole a Yaris and then tried to outrun police!?

That was pretty exciting for the boys to see. Ace thought it was really cool and talked about it all weekend. It also gave us a chance to talk about our choices and making good choices versus bad and why we need police officers, etc. They really got it too! Now, if they had seen the arrest, I think they would have gotten it even more.

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Yeah, I Make This Look Easy

I do declare that I now have four day-time potty trained children! Wooohoooooooo!

Two weeks ago, I decided to put Josiah in undies when we were home. I knew it was going to be a little work because we go to the gym twice a week and are out and about with other activities but we just had to bite the bullet and do what we could with what we got.

So, a week ago from Tuesday, I stuck Josiah in undies and set the timer for 15 minutes. If he went, he got jelly beans and I set the timer again. If he didn’t go, I gave him one bean and set the timer for 10 minutes. Wednesday we had gym and church so no undies. By Thursday, I had him in undies, didn’t set the timer, and he started telling me he had to go some and I was also taking him a lot. Friday was crazy, so I didn’t fool with undies until that evening after naptime. Still was telling us when he had to go and still taking him some. By Saturday, he was doing really well. Sunday was church so it was back in pull-ups.

And on Monday, he pooped, peed and did all the other things you want your kid to do in the potty so you don’t have to clean up their rears a ton every day! Monday was my official declaration of potty trained…especially when he said he had to go 100 billion times (“go pa pa” is his telling of choice) and only had two accidents.

Today, Thursday, he’s made it through two undies tests…church and gym and stayed dry through both. He has had two accidents today though because he’s in the concentrated play stage…but he has gone a lot. He realized what he was doing, stopped himself and finished in the potty. He’s also decided that he wants to stand up to go. Which is fine but given my incident with Liam earlier this year, I’m anxious to see what the outcome (no pun intended) will be when he does have to do #2 (I’m praying he’ll sit for that one).

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Sew Lovely (or how we like to torture our kids)

My friend and I, on our excursion without kids and Mark’s lovely introduction to what it would be like with nine children six and under, found this adorable fabric and grabbed it up to be cheesy and make A-line dresses (not paid to link to them or give free stuff…just a disclaimer) for our girls who are roughly four months (the older ones) and four days apart (the younger ones). The babies were thrilled with this idea and chose to let us know by their cries of sheer anger happiness.

Okay, so they weren’t completely angry with us!
Yep, their best friends!

I used the different animals on the pattern in the girls’ shirts, cut them out, stuck some double sided fusible webbing on them and slapped them on some $3 long sleeve shirts for the boys! They turned out might cute and took about 2 minutes (but if anyone asks, it took forever and I gladly labored over it).
This here is James…he’s into a little bit of everything and is equally adorable…especially since what hair he has sticks straight up on his adorably drooly head.

And what photo shoot is not complete without Ceili Rain and Megan…

Screaming! In case you are wondering, I made Ceili Rain’s shoes too…they look a little better than last time…at least they keep her feet warm!

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I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends

Obviously, I was not shoveling it in as fast as big brothers wanted. After taking something into the kitchen (which is a couple of steps away) I hear, “fee, CeiRai Mama.” And turn around and see this…
So then everyone else wanted to get on the act but only one other little person wanted their picture taken…

Is that a look of sheer terror on her face???
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