Josiah-isms

Posted on April 7, 2011 by Abbie

While brushing his teeth with his orange tooth brush he announced he wanted one like his brother’s (it was yellow). I told him he had one like his brother’s, it’ was just orange instead of yellow.

“But Mama, I don’t like da color orange because it’s made from oranges,” was his reply!

***

Mark was admonishing him because he had hurt his sister. Mark quoted Ephesians 4:32, “But be kind to one another, tenderhearted–“

Josiah through his arms up in frustration and in tears exclaimed, “But I don’t. Know. What That Means!”

***

We were blessed with a lot of storms a couple of weekends ago. We had thunderstorms from that Saturday night through Sunday. When Josiah woke up on Sunday, we were sitting in the kitchen getting breakfast ready and discussing the storms. In all seriousness, he informed me, “Mama, those storms last night were fweaking me out!”

Oh yes, he’s at that adorable age of silliness and seriousness (Is that a word??? Oh well, it is now). So stay tuned for more from our 3 year old sage!

Bumps and Bruises Week Part 2

Posted on April 6, 2011 by Abbie

Apparently, Bryant was jealous from all the attention that Josiah got from his run in with the counter. So, on Thursday, he got his turn in the limelight. We were riding bikes (just near our house…no major excursions yet) and I had Bryant in the child’s seat attached to my bike. I swerved to miss a stray preschooler and ever so slowly bumped into the curb. I wasn’t going fast but fast enough to bump me off the seat and make me lose balance with the bike. I couldn’t get the balance back in time to stop the bike from toppling. Bryant and I both fell down. He must have had his hand resting on his seat because he came up with a bloody left hand. He had scraped off the skin of each of his fingers. As I got him out of his seat, I noticed a little bump on his head.

When we got back to the house, we called all “the experts” and got opinions about whether he needed to be seen in the ER. By the time we got a hold of all said experts and bandaged up his hand (yes, I was able to keep some bandages on it before bedtime), he was crawling, smiling, and climbing. At that point, all experts agreed that he probably didn’t need to be seen. So, we settled in for waking him every couple of hours to make sure he could wake up.

And since he’s not used to that, he decided on the third wake up to stay up. For three hours. Which taught us to let him sleep the rest of the night.

He is doing much better now! His hand looks awful but it’s healing slowly and looks better than it did the night the deed was done.

And, yes, I’ve learned my lesson, no more biking with baby until he gets his helmet in (which I ordered the night of the accident).

Okay, so the pictures don’t do it justice. You try and get an eight month old to hold still while you take pictures of his hands!

After this accident, we stayed mostly head and body injury free. Unless you count Ace whamming his head on the top bunk one night, oh and…

Bumps and Bruises Week Part 1

Posted on April 5, 2011 by Abbie

Last week made me really wish we had a padded room. Or at the very least, full body armor for the kids. Well, maybe not full body, but helmets for all occasions would come in handy.

Josiah started a head injury trend on Wednesday. As I was teaching the three oldest, he was playing with Ceili Rain. They were racing from the kitchen down the hallway (it makes for a good little raceway). Apparently, he was bent down and/or pushing a toy as he raced, and decided he wanted to try and move the kitchen bar. With his head. Yeah, the bar didn’t move, but he did manage to take a small chunk out of his head. While I wasn’t too concerned about the appearance, it did look rather deep for a scratch, so I called the doctor’s office to see if they could look at it to determine if it needed stitches. The doctor looked and thought that it wouldn’t need it for healing but for cosmetic purposes we could have a stitch put in or a steri-strip put on it or glue. So, I opted to head to the local “doc in the box” that Mark and I call our physican (even though I haven’t been there in several years, who needs a GP when you have an OB). The kids pediatrician didn’t have the “tools” necessary to do the work.

So, all seven of us (yep, I had all the kids), headed to the urgent care. They took one look at me with all my kids and were really questionable as to whether I could hold a three year old down and a baby at the same time. Helloooo…how do you think I maintain peace all day?

The doctor there looked at it and didn’t feel that the trauma would be worth so small a scare. I agreed. They didn’t have any glue (I guess Elmer’s wouldn’t work) but he said because he took a chunk out that a steri-strip wouldn’t work so they cleaned it, put a smiley face on a bandage and stuck it on. Insert happy kid here. The only problem is that now, I am getting requests for artwork on bandages. By Friday, we were up to a small robot!

Yeah, I know it doesn’t look that bad. That was a couple days after the accident. The grimace is because I made him take the bandage off. I think he thought his brains would fall out if I took it off!

Ahhh, smiley face bandages make it all better.

A Budding Photographer???

Posted on March 29, 2011 by Abbie

We took a field trip to the local television station. I decided to be ~~crazy~~ brave and let the kids take pictures while we had our tour. The exciting thing was that Ace volunteered to do it. The bummer was that I forgot to check the battery life and we had to keep turning it on and off. If it hadn’t been so close to dying, I would have gotten more pictures like this

Or this,

I mean really…when you go on a field trip everyone wants to remember…

The desk with the hand sanitizer,

the printer,

news reel cassette thingys,

printers and computers…and who could forget the…

stapler!

They had a bulletin board with nothing on it too. See???

This was cool though…it’s the satellite farm…see those big ones. Those are the mamas…this satellite here had a whole mess of babies! I know what that’s like, let me tell ya!

This is the control room. It was dark in there and I forgot to tell Ace to turn up the flash or the picture woudl be fuzzy. But, this was a cool room and therefore the picture was relevant to the tour.

Inside where the news comes to us!

Who doesn’t enjoy seeing themselves on television?

More close ups!

The souvenir pencil!

Okay, so I know the pictures were a little scattered but for the most part they were in focus and right on the money! I say that’s not bad for a six year old! Way to Go Ace!!!

PJ Day at Brusters!

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Abbie

Yep, we did it again. This time we brought captives…

It just so happened that PJ Day was the same day as Ceili Rain’s birthday. I would like to think that Bruster’s knew about CeiRai’s birthday and chose that day for PJ day purposefully to help us celebrate.. She thought so at least. Papa and Grandmere were able to come up for the weekend. They opted out of the PJ day and chose to actually buy their ice cream. Who knew that people actually do that still!

Bryant gave up trying to get his ice cream and settled for a sock. That’s what you get if you don’t wear your pjs! We don’t buy ice cream on PJ day!

Some people in our family like to wear their ice cream with pride. It’s like a symbol of pure yumminess.

and cuteness!

So, Josiah got some “Purple Dinosaur” ice cream on his shoe. I didn’t realize this and the next day he was getting them on and showed me his purple on his shoe. Being the wonderful mom I am, I started in lecturing him about the reason we don’t write on anything but paper. He smiled and quietly said, “It’s from my ice cream. I have a purple dinosaur shoe.” I had to shut up then and just giggle. That was too cute!

Happy 2nd Birthday Ceili Rain!

Posted on March 24, 2011 by Abbie

So, yes, we celebrated Ceili Rain’s birthday this month. I still don’t think she had a clue what was going on. But now she associates things with her “biffday.” You know, important things….chocolate cake, chocolate icing, ice cream, presents. She’s going to have a tough time when we get to others birthdays and she’s not opening presents. But she did have a wonderful day. No massive party. I’ve learned now, to save those for when they ask for them!

I’d like to say that after my elephant fondant success that I ventured in to ladybugs and made the cake topper. But that would be a lie and I try my best not to lie. But, I did find it at an extremely reasonable price on Etsy at a great shop by KidsCakes. I ordered it about three weeks in advance and it got here the day before her birthday! The owner was amazing to work with and customized the colors to match the plates and napkins I had bought (on sale mind you). Ceili Rain loved it. We used the leftover polka dots from Tracy’s shower to finish off the decorating. Zoe and Ceili Rain did those.

I have my eye on some adorable robot designs for Bryant’s first birthday! I love that you can get their name on there….and she even fit Ceili Rain on her topper!

That’d be a chocolate cake with chocolate icing for our chocolate lovin’ princess. And guess what…she only ate a little bit of it! That’s alright…more for me. It’s justified…I did all the work to get her here.

Okay,s o she had a little pre-party taste testing for the icing. That may have contributed to the no-need-for-awesome-chocolate-cake time.

Chefs in training!

Check out the waves in the hair! Yep they’re back. I’m not at a spritz, gel, and scrunch method. It’s wavy and a little curly and it works (no, I’m not pregnant).

Blow out the candles!

And open gifts!

Happy Second Birthday to our littlest princess!

Absent

Posted on March 22, 2011 by Abbie

This story of absence is nothing short of well, interesting…

It all started when I requested that Papa and Mark work on the front flowerbed while they were visiting a couple of weeks ago. They obliged…somewhat happily. However, they didn’t have time to finish it completely because we were celebrating some special little princess’s two year birthday.

The Before: That pile of rocks is our altar. We really need to get into the New Testament during family worship time!


Papa “working” hard!


The Helpers! We chose this project because we knew that everyone could pitch in…and they did!

This is the side of the house that connects to the front bed.

So, that left the finishing touches to be completed by us the next weekend.

We got to work bright and early on Saturday morning. Everyone really pitched in. We saw a ton of lizards (yay, they eat mosquitos…the more lizards the happier I am…as long as they don’t come inside), frogs (they eat bugs too…stay on little frogs…outside), and a snake.

Trust me. He’s in there.

Yeah, a snake. Just lounging around in one of our azalea bushes in the front yard. One of the azalea bushes in the azalea bed that we were clearing out and Mark was throwing lyme (lime? whatever…the acid neutralizer stuff). Mark threw some lime and then jumped back a few feet. We got out our handy dandy google and realized we weren’t dealing with a poisonous snake. Just a little garter snake. However, they eat lizards. I like my lizards (outside), so I knew we were probably going to need to kill him. But first, I wanted the kids to see him.

So, after several attempts, Mark was able to pin him down with the shovel while I picked him up. Whether we were going to kill him or not was not questioned after that as we realized he was hurt in our jaunt to get him out of the bush, so after letting Ceili Rain touch him (the only one who wanted to), Mark took him off to the side of the house to give him his final resting place. (Sorry Jacie…but it was better than letting him suffer)

It just so happens the place Mark took him was where our cable line was buried. Just so happens that cable line is the same cable line we use for internet and our landline phone service. Just so happens that it’s not buried very deep. And, as you can guess, it just so happens that when Mark sent the snake in to utter darkness, he sent our internet and phone in the same direction. And, we learned all of this on Monday when the cable repair guy came out and found the cut line.

Oh well! He was super nice and did a quick great job fixing it up. He greeted Mark at the door telling us he liked our bumper sticker (about abortion being wrong and such). That was a nice visit!

And now you know why I did not post on Monday!

But hey, we got a nice cleaned up low maintenance flower bed…and I got my azalea bed cleaned out and mulched up.


A side view. I’m going to add a couple of more plants to even it out but that won’t be until the big nursery near here has a warehouse sale and I can get them for dirt cheap…haha..dirt. cheap. I’m so funny.

Ahhh…what a little landscaping fabric and mulch can do for a yard!

Change of Plans

Posted on March 17, 2011 by Abbie

A couple of weeks ago, we had what I would describe as one of the hardest weeks of childrendom. Every day was a struggle to get going and get things done. Everyone was yelling and fighting and disobeying. It was just hard.

So, by the time the weekend came, I was super happy! And by the time the next Monday came, God started putting a plan into action.

Here’s our new plan schedule and it works!

Up and breakfast. We generally try and eat around 7:30 but that may not always be the case and if we eat later, it’s okay. We try to finish up all our breakfast activities by 8:30 or 8:45 so we can get a few chores done before school work.

While everyone is eating breakfast, I read. We have a fiction book we read (generally from Lamplighter Publishing or with some character trait we want to teach) and now, we’re reading Making Brothers and Sisters Best Friends by the Mallys. Of course, with all that reading, I generally am reading while they are finishing eating, so I print out 21 Rules of This House for them to color while I read. Honestly, I learn better and listen better if my hands are busy. And I imagine that’s true for my children as well.

After breakfast we do morning chores. These vary from kid to kid and day to day but always include getting dressed and brushing teeth (very important).

And then it’s school time. Zoe, Ace and Liam go to the bonus room to work on schoolwork. I have toys out in the living room (just in view) for Josiah to play with. Bryant goes down for a nap and Ceili Rain likes to hang out in the bonus room attacking everyone’s papers and then settling in to play with a school toy I get out for her.

We break at 11 for outside play or, if it’s raining, inside free time.

Lunch is at 12 with me reading some more. This time it’s History and Science and then it’s time to sit and read with mom. This is one of those things I love to do but sometimes it just slides. And all my children love it too! Even Zoe. It’s listener’s choice. That means they can pick out any book they want! And they love reading. And mom does those silly crazy voices and it makes it even more interesting.

After reading a few books, we practice our handbells (I’ll have to post a video soon) and listen to our Spanish. And then it’s time to watch Adventures in Odyssey on JellyTelly and then it’s rest time and mommy can get some things done. The boys now have iPod access in their room and will listen to our daily Bible reading and more Adventures in Odyssey or an audiobook or classical music. Everyone gets to stirring about 3 and then we have free time or finishing up school time, snack time, and getting dinner ready for when daddy gets home.

And Mark gets to come home to a happy house. And I don’t feel like my heads going to explode in gray hairs or that I need to be sent to a looney bin. Ahhh peace!

Standing Tall

Posted on March 16, 2011 by Abbie

…but hanging on quite tightly now! Bryant getting more sure on his feet and able to hold on to things is keeping me from going into cardiac arrest. When he first started pulling up, he’d just pull up and let go at random. He’s also learning how to let go and sit down. This face, above, is his “smile” now. Ain’t he just the cutest thing???

There’s a little more of a smile! I just absolutely love him (and his siblings of course)!

Nighty Night

Posted on March 15, 2011 by Abbie

“This bed’s too small,” said Goldilocks.

“Oh well! I’ll make do!”

(That would be Ceili Rain’s version of closing her eyes upon my request)

Yes, we’ve had a princess turn two but right now, for some crazy reason, I’ve signed up to do a work-at-home-mom fair the first of April. I haven’t done any “official” work with my “business” in who knows how long. Might as well jump in with both feet. But, I believe it’ll come along. I’ve got to get my inventory stocked up and dust off my sample cards so my blog posts are going to be sporadic for a week or two until I can get everything ready.

Hopefully, I can get her birthday pictures up soon!

Just a Bunch of Characters

Musings of everyday life in a house full of Characters.

Tag Archives: The Kids 2011