School Choice

Some have asked us what we're going to do for school for Carver. While there are many good options, we have finally decided on this...

"Occifer Philosophy"

Today we got out "Cars and Trucks and Things That Go," which we have not read in a long time. Carver and Ellie loved looking for Goldbug, but Carver especially loved watching out for Dingo Dog. Dingo is a bad driver who is speeding through the pages and knocking over innocent parking meters. Officer Flossy is dutifully following after him (on a bicycle, no less), yelling "Stop!" and trying to write him a speeding ticket. For some reason Carver, who really doesn't have trouble pronouncing words if you say them slowly to him once or twice, was really struggling with Officer Flossy. No matter now many times I repeated it for him, it always came out "Occifer Philosophy." I can't help laughing every time I hear it! Only a philosopher's kid would think "philosophy" an easier word to say than "Flossy!"

It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

I love Christmastime! Not only do I get to decorate, bake, and enjoy the snow, but it's the season we celebrate the birth of the Savior! I love using Christmastime to remember the blessings that God has showered on us! Of course, this year we have the additional celebration of expecting a little one in the summer. And, today in particular, I can celebrate that God gave me a reprieve from the morning sickness I've been fighting!

Today we spent the day doing Christmas decorating and enjoying the few inches of snow we got early in the morning. David treated me this morning and got up with the kids to get them breakfast, letting me catch an extra hour of sleep. After that, I attended a Christmas Tea that the church was hosting and David and the kids got going on setting up the tree. When I got back, after some serious adventure driving in the snow and ice (I thought I remembered how to do it!), David took Carver sledding. As you can see, the amount of snow is just barely enough to make it down the hill, but Carver loved it anyway :)


The girls and I watched from the upstairs window.

When the guys came in, we had hot chocolate and snacks, and then got started decorating the tree. Laura quickly broke an ornament (fortunately, not one of the special ones) and was put on ornament probation. Hence the headband you see her chewing on.

After decorating, we went and visited some friends who have just had a baby. The kids were happy to come home and see our tree, all lit up and shiny!

David made us nachos for dinner, and then tucked the kids into bed. I don't think I'm too far behing them...

Something Old...

This is the quilt my grandmother made for me. It served a long and faithful life on my bed growing up, and now it gets to be displayed with honor in the girl's new yellow room.




Here are the girls, climbing into the bunkbeds, which now belong only to them. Ellie loves being on the top. In fact, when we told her that she would get to sleep up there, she came running into the room, climbed up on the ladder, and yelled, "Sweet!" Laura likes her bottom bed, though she still has a little trouble climbing up into it. She's a pro at getting down, though, and we haven't had any trouble with her falling off.

Thanksgiving and cravings...

Unfortunately, our internet is running like it's back in the dial-up days. So, while I did have a great picture to post of BJ reading to all 3 kids, it was refusing to load up because it was so big. Sorry, you'll have to settle for a story without a picture.

I ran out to the Sahara Mart today while BJ babysat to finish up my Thanksgiving shopping. Thanks to the sweet new baby, I haven't been feeling very good, and eating in general makes me feel sick afterward. However, something about the Sahara Mart, with all of it's wierd ethnic food and spices, smelled amazing. So I bought some "Extreme Garlic Green Olives" from a vat in the back of the store, and have been munching on them ever since. They taste amazing, and my stomach isn't mad about my eating them! David, who hates green olives anyway, came down in the afternoon for a break from work, and couldn't believe what I was eating. I've never felt like I have huge, wierd pregnancy cravings, but I think this one definitely deserves that name!

To Our Leiden Correspondents...

...you know who you are!

We wanted to let you know that you have got some legwork to do to keep up with us in the kid department! You'd better start hoping for sets of twins...

That's right, come mid-July, baby #4 will be on his (his, because Carver is prettymuch totally convinced that it's a boy) way.

So, now that you know, I'm waiting on pins and needles for some of your wonderful name suggestions...nothing Dutch, thank you.

Chocolate Chip Cookies!

My Christmas Present, a Few Weeks Early

David and I bought my Christmas present yesterday. It is an antique dresser that we found off of Craig's List up in Indianapolis. I am completely in love with it. It has been wonderfully taken care of, and the drawers actually work (which is the litmus test of dressers for David, who will nix a dresser based on that alone, no matter how amazing it may look)! The previous owners said that, based on the name on the back, it dates to somewhere around 1900, but I have no idea how they know that, based on my googling of the name.

Anyway, here it is! A big improvement on the plastic Wal-Mart storage bins we've been using since we got married! A scarf from my closet, a few old books off the shelf, and some yarn in a hurricane, and I'm completely in love with the whole thing!

Carver's Writing for the Day

Can you decipher it? Hannibal
Murdock
BA
Face (spelled two different ways)

Hey, if the A-Team encourages writing practice, I'm all for that :)

Snug as a Bug...

They aren't really rolled up in the rug, though that has happened a time or two. They've taken all the cushions off the couch and are using them as blankets as they sing each other to sleep. Pretty funny.

Eating with a Spoon!

Laura usually eats cereal dry, so that I don't have to feed it to her. This morning, I put soymilk on it, gave her a spoon, and let her go for it! She was pretty sticky by the end of breakfast, but she loved it.

Saturday Afternoon Hike

As you may have noticed, I have forgotten to blog this week. I've been working on a new project, which consumes all of my energy for the first week or so until I get tired of it. When it's finished, I'll show you, but not until then...

We went for a family hike this Saturday. It was great to be outside with the kids, and I love it when the weather turns cool. It was cold enough to warrant hats and gloves, but not so freezing that you couldn't enjoy the fall air. Perfect!

The hike was 1 1/2 miles, so David and I strapped two girls into backpacks (extra calorie burn!), but made Carver hoof it. He did great. He was tired at the end, but I think he was proud of the fact that he was able to make it the whole way.

Here we are, starting out. The long stairway goes down the hill, past a cave, and lets you out next to a small waterfall. Then the trail winds it way back up the hill.

Here's the semi-scary foot bridge across the stream. Don't worry, it's all screwed together, and then wrapped with wire mesh for good traction. I don't think it's going anywhere.

I have no idea what kind of a bush this is, but the bright green foliage was beautiful.


I love hiking, so I'm trying to get the kids as excited about it as possible. We'll have to see if it's warm enough this year to do our traditional Thanksgiving week hike at McCormick's Creek State Park.

All that hiking wore sweet little Laura out!

A Sweet E-mail

Check out this e-mail Carver got this morning from his friend, Samuel:

Hi Carver I am happy that you are my best friend. And I don't want too be mean and want too be nice. I am happy that you came to my house.
And I wish that I could come to your house every day.
Love you
Samuel

I was cracking up and going "Oh, how sweet!" all at the same time. Here's Carver response this afternoon:

Hi Samuel, I'll be more nicer to you. I hope I can see you everyday. Thank you for letting me come over for a long time. I would like to play with you everyday. Have fun with Cynthia and Mary Ella. I love you, too. carver

Kids crack me up.

Halloween, For Real!

We don't do Halloween every year. It's not out of any particular religious conviction (sorry, Mom!), but more out of annoyance at the rudeness of the trick-or-treaters that we have skipped it in the past. This year, David decided that he wanted to give Carver the fun of picking a costume and going around the neighborhood. I'm so glad he did--we ended up having a blast! We were planning to go with just our family, but two friends called that afternoon and asked if they could join us, since they both live a little too far out in the country to have a good neighborhood for it. Since our neighborhood is such a typical subdivision, it was perfect!

Here are Ellie and Josiah (c'mon--how cute is that?? a lion and a tiger?--I don't think we could've planned it better!), checking out Laura's antenna on her ladybug costume.


Here's everybody! L to R: Carver (Batman), Ellie, Jonathan, Nathan (Goliath--what a great idea!), Josiah, Samuel (the Hulk), and Mary Ella. In front: Bayly, Laura.


The 3 ladybugs (also unplanned):

Dad, trying to pose our kids for a picture (no, the actual picture didn't turn out):

Ellie and Mary Ella eating some of the spoils while the big boys finish trick-or-treating:

It was so fun! I'm really glad that friends came over--next year I'm going to plan it that way.

Halloween Practice

Today we got out the costumes to make sure they fit:)

Two Bathrooms

After being in Christina Francisco's lovely home on vacation, I have been inspired to try harder at home decorating. My current room that I am working on is our bedroom. This has been especially hard, mostly because our bedroom is huge (15 by 20), and is used for two very different things: half is our bedroom, and the other half is David's office. So far, I'm not having much success. If anybody has any brilliant ideas, let me know!

However, I have had two exciting successes: two bathrooms.

This is our downstairs bathroom. It started white when we moved in, I painted it brown with darker brown sponging, and then 3 years later David and I painted it blue. The blue was starting to worry me, until I remembered that I could put things on the walls! David installed a new lighting fixture, and I went to work trying to figure out ways to fill up the walls. The first thing I did was these three fabric-covered panels. I love fabric, and I'll try anything to be able to decorate with it. I love the way these turned out, and they come with an added bonus: in a room with no carpet, they absorb a ton of sound!



My next idea was to use plates from Pier 1's clearance section to decorate the tall wall behind the toilet. After a few different attempts to affix them to the wall and a few broken plates, we finally got it right. I love the look, although David's not totally sold on it. The wall that you can't see I stenciled very lightly with this cool wallpaper-looking stencil (you'll see more of that in the next bathroom!)

I'm really happy with the way it turned out, and it's fun to have a sort of funky bathroom in the midst of my cream-and-white downstairs.

Moving on, we come to the upstairs bathroom, used by the kids. It also was white when we moved in (noticing a theme yet? why don't builders do something more interesting?). The upstairs loft that this bathroom comes out of is light green with a dark green accent wall. I used the same dark green paint, took the plunge, and painted a small room a dark color (something I'd always heard was a no-no.) I really liked it, but it stayed boring green for about 4 1/2 years--until Deb was here last week. She and I used the same wallpaper stencil in light green on the biggest wall. Then, I made her help me take pictures of the kids in the woods. It was not a very pleasant experience, between crying when I tried to get them to sit still and eating leaves and dirt, but I was able to get 2 shots of the kids having fun, and Deb got a few of me holding crying Laura. I used a cool website to turn them into old-looking black and white photographs, used cream cardstock to mat them, and put them in some super-cheap Bed, Bath, and Beyond frames I've had lying around forever. It turned out way better than I even dared to hope! I finished off with a trip to Sam's for sage green towels for the girls (who had been using baby towels), and it's done!


I love being in there now. It doesn't feel like it only belongs to kids, though they do have toys in the bathtub and a fish toothbrush holder. I love having pictures of us on the wall. And the kids think it's really funny. "Look Mom, that's me!"

I'm hoping that with a lot of thought, I can somehow turn our master into a place that I love also!

P.S.--That second bathroom doubles as our guest bath, and we'd love to have you come visit!

Reading

Making Grandma Earn Her Keep...

Grandma Talcott came to visit us this week. She somehow knew to come right when we would need her the most. All 3 of the kids have been sick this week, and she has been helping wipe noses, comfort kids, and even stay home from church and Bible study when they were too sick to go. It has been a huge help! She leaves tomorrow, so I decided to send her home nice and exhausted, ready for a vacation from vacation: today we made and canned 34 quarts of applesauce. Here are the very first fruits of our labor:

Here's Carver, turning the crank (look familiar? Thanks for the loan, Heather!)

Here's Grandma, filling jars:

Oh, and we decided to throw a little pumpkin canning in at the end, just for fun! The pumpkin I had picked was so huge and unwieldy that I ended up cutting it with a saw from the garage. The kids helped scoop out the seeds:

And, just because there are no pictures of Laura yet, here she is!

An exhausting but successful day! We will be eating yummy homemade applesauce all winter!

Cinnamon Rolls

Last Tuesday was a drizzly, dreary fall day. I love those kinds of days. It means I can stay inside, read books to the kids, make cookies or treats, and wear cozy fall sweaters. So our treat this dreary day was cinnamon rolls. Carver and Ellie did a great job helping, and an even better job eating!