That wiggled and jiggled and tickled inside her...

We read about the old lady who swallowed a fly (and a spider, among other things) in Book Buddies today. Then we made our own wiggly spiders to eat. Yum!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

From,

Eleanor the Eaghoul

Squidzilla

Super Puppy

and the dancing Tadprincess!

(Who is also a monkey on occasion...)

(Or sometimes a bear...)

Hope yours was spook-tastic!

Early Morning Ramblings

Our John is a sleep talker. A major sleep talker.  This morning I was in the kids' room when he started to wake up. This is what I heard...

But Seth, with his squid hat and his badger bag, you can just recycle them because they're all natural material..... Justified!..... Next month... Pitch black.... Rose? Oh good she wasn't awake. She can't tell me if she sleep talked. 

Then he abruptly sat up, totally awake and said...

Oh! It's 5:59! I can get up in 1 minute!

I am still mystified as to how he wakes up at exactly 6:00 every morning. His internal alarm clock is wildly accurate.

Sneak Preview

This weekend was the ward Halloween Party and our kids debuted their costumes. After much (and I do mean MUCH) debate they decided to go as spooky versions of their Fierce Squiddy characters.  

For those of you that aren't familiar with Fierce Squiddy, let me give you a brief explanation.  Every night before bed, Stephen tells the kids a Fierce Squiddy story. These started with just three characters (for three kids) but slowly expanded to include another main character (for Joy) and several side characters- the four crazy friends- who try to sneak into every story by employing increasingly ridiculous costumes. Also, whenever a friend is visiting at bedtime, they can create a character as well. It has become quite the tradition, and we sometimes refer to it as the Fierce Squiddy Universe.

So anyway, their characters and costumes ( and side characters, just for fun) are as follows:

Rose:

Eleanor the Eagle, dressed as an Eaghoul (a ghostly eagle).

(Side character: Ruby the Rabbit)

John:

Fierce Squiddy (a colossal squid) dressed as Squidzilla.

(Side character: Jack the Stag Beetle)

Seth: Puppy dressed as Super Puppy

(Side character: Mr. Prizzly)

Joy: Teeny the Tadpole, dressed as The Tadprincess

(Side character: Kitney the Fennec Fox)

I didn't get a picture of John's spikes, but they are amazingly awesome. I will post more pictures after Halloween.

ONCE!

I didn't post last Friday because I was busy having a night out on the town with my sister. Our amazing, talented cousin is performing ON BROADWAY! So of course, we went to see her. She is in Once, and she was fabulous. It was also just lovely to go out with my sister with absolutely zero kids along for the ride. I even wore a dress since I knew I wouldn't have to nurse while I was out. Major bonus points to our husbands for making that possible. We also got to meet up with more cousins and an aunt after the show. We stayed up way past our bedtime visiting and having fun. It was a wonderful evening.

Sick Baby Update

John had to stay home today, even though he didn't feel sick. He threw up in class on Tuesday, but seemed perfectly fine by Wed morning. It was picture day and he really wanted to go, so we sent him to school. He made it through the class photo, but threw up again before the individual shots. Once again, he felt totally fine afterward. I told him he had to stay home today anyway, because if he managed to throw up in class for the third day in a row the janitors would hate me. (And they wouldn't be too fond of him either.) The good news is he didn't even feel like throwing up today. The bad news is he "missed a day of school for nothing." Poor baby.

Our little politician

So yesterday, before John puked all over his classroom, I got to hear Rose give a speech for her class election. 

She was running for Vice President, and her platform included rewarding good behavior and making sure no one felt left out. She explained that she had lots of experience with being in charge of people, because she has three younger siblings. 

She decided not to include her slogan (found on her poster) "Grapes are great!" I always wondered what that had to do with class politics anyway. :)

Sick baby

John came home from school sick today. He told me "it's so weird, because I feel absolutely fine except when I'm throwing up."  Then he asked if he could go back to school. 

Seth's Toy Story Party

The moment Seth has been waiting for for weeks finally arrived. We had his friend party this weekend. A neighbor lent him a Buzz Lightyear costume to go with the Toy Story theme. I think he liked it.

Among other things, we had fun playing with some classic toys, like barrel of monkeys...

And etch-a-sketch...

We pinned the body parts on Mr. Potato head...

And ate pizza from Pizza Planet...(cute delivery guy!)

Of course we had cake...

(Joy helped us clean off the toppers.)

And we finished the whole thing off with a piñata.

It was a great party, and we were glad to be able to celebrate our awesome little guy again.

Apple picking

Here are some pictures from our apple picking trip this weekend. 

As you can see, actually picking apples was just one small part of our grand adventures.

Creative vocabulary

Words my children invented in the last few days:

Rose- cracklehead: one who is confused or mistaken

As in: "No! You're wrong, you cracklehead!"

John- choiceable: optional

As in: "You can add crushed pretzels to my Witch's Stew recipe, but they're choiceable."

Seth-to lell: to yell at someone

As in: "He lelled me!" 

Joy- uhuhuhuhuhuhuh: I definitely don't want that (usually accompanied by frantic squirming)

As in: "Uhuhuhuhuhuhuh!!!"

Boo at the Zoo

We continued our annual tradition of visiting the Bronx Zoo during their Halloween celebration. Our weekends were booked, so we took advantage of a day off of school and went today. I didn't take a ton of pictures, and most of the ones I did take have friends in them. Until I get permission from their grown ups, I don't want to post those. So... Here are a few pictures of the cuteness that happened today.

By the way, they were a fancy skeleton, a fly who wouldn't wear his costume, a hockey player who made his mom carry his stick, and a baker.

Priorities...

On entering the apartment after a long day out:

Mom: I call the bathroom!

Rose: (grabbing a toy) I call the couch!

Seth: (grabbing another toy)  I call Batman! 

John: (grabbing a book) I get to find out what a hippogriff is!

Ingenuity

Today Joy invented the bacon spoon. That's right, THE BACON SPOON. My child is a genius.

Hmmm... What should I do with this?

I'll just have a little of these hash browns....

Yum yum yum...

Costco is a dangerous place...

I went in with six items on my list and walked out $150 poorer. I obviously found a few more things that had to come home with me. There is a reason I plan monthly trips instead of going every week. I'm just saying, it's probably a good thing I don't have a mini van or any place for food storage.

Perspective

This afternoon we were reading books when I noticed Rose was dancing a bit. Then this happened...

Me: Hey, do you need to use the bathroom?

R: NO! I do NOT!" 

Me: Sweetheart, you do not need to yell at me. If you keep speaking to me like that you will have to go to your room.

R:  Why would you even ask me that?

Me: You were wiggling around like you might need to go.

R: I DO NOT NEED TO GO! AAAARRGH!

Me: Ok, you're yelling at me again. You need to go to your room.

R: I DID NOT YELL! I JUST RAISED MY VOICE!

Me: You're yelling at me right now. Go to your room, please.

R: I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU DON'T KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN YELLING AND RAISING YOUR VOICE! ARE YOU TOTALLY OUT OF IT? THIS IS COMPLETELY UNFAIR!  (Grumble grumble stomp yell etc...)

Ten minutes later, when released from her room she approached me and said in a totally calm voice, and in all seriousness, "Wow, Mom, you really lost your temper there!"

Four already?

Holy birthday, Batman!

General store

I would buy anything she is selling.

4 in the bed, and the little one said...

It is 2:23 in the morning. I totally fell asleep while getting Joy to bed tonight. Apparently Stephen moved her to her bed at some point.  (Helpful husband points, yay!) However, in the last 20 minutes not only she, but also Seth have both made their way back into our bed. They are both sleeping soundly now, but I am feeling a wee bit crowded. Time to put some babies back in their beds. Good night, folks.

Book Buddies!

Today was the first day of the literacy class I am teaching this semester. It is essentially glorified story time, but if you ask I can give you all kinds of teacher-speak reasons as to how it is making our kids smarter. Most importantly, it is fun!

The book today was "Just For You" by Mercer Mayer- one of my all time favorites. We had a lot of fun with it- games, music, activities. The highlight was the happy face sandwiches we made at the end of class- incorporating elements of the book into snack time, hooray! All of the kids were very creative. Here are some shots of my little food artists.

Seth's sandwich was basically happy...

Rose's was cute and dimply...

And John's was slightly concerned...

Apparently they were all delicious.

Sports education

On Saturday we took the kids to a Columbia football game at the stadium down the street. We have been before, so Seth was excited to see "that lion guy" (aka their mascot). He even got his face painted like a lion.

This time, though, he actually paid a little bit of attention to what was going on on the field. After we had been watching for a bit he saw an ad with a picture of a football helmet. He got excited and said, "Mom! If I get one of these I can be a basketball guy like them!"  We reminded him that he was watching a football game and he said, "yeah, that." Later he wanted me to peel an orange for him, so he bent down and threw it to me from between his legs. Then he cheered and said, "I did the football thing!"

I am not counting the scholarship money yet, but I think he may know more about football than any of our other children.