Hand Me Down Clothes

My kids get so excited when another bag of hand-me-down clothing comes home with Daddy.  There is a lady with twin girls a couple of years older than my twins at the school where Ryan works, and they've been so kind in sharing their clothes when they are outgrown.  Annie and Maddie had a fashion show with their new threads.

Snippets From My Day

This morning I took Elizabeth to the doctor's office.  I took her in to prove Elizabeth has enough wheezing to warrant the use of an inhaler.  It would be nice to have when we are out hiking or camping, or even one of those middle of the night, "Mom (wheeze wheeze) I'm having trouble breathing (wheeze wheeze)."  I'm not very kind at 2:30 in the morning.  Early Sunday morning, I plugged Elizabeth into the nebulizer, and sat on the opposite end of the couch so I wouldn't breath in the albuterol.  After a game night with friends and getting to bed late, the last thing I wanted was to get jittery myself and not be able to sleep.

As it turns out, the Elizabeth's cold has gone into bronchitis.  We got the inhaler, and more medicine and tubing to take home.  

Before we left the doctor's office, Ty apologized for practically ignoring us at Costco a couple of weeks ago.  As he was talking to a sales person at the Verizon counter and had two kids with him, we kind of figured the most polite thing would be to leave him alone after saying hi.  I told him he should feel bad.  Can't you see we are totally more important than discussing cell phone problems?  (haha)

Then Ty asked if all of our kids didn't like asparagus.  I figured he was referring to this picture I posted on Facebook last night:

(Maddie trying to "sneakily" give that pesky asparagus away.)

Maddie is the only one of the family who doesn't like that particular vegetable.  All of a sudden, Annie disappeared from the table, and I heard something going on under the table.  Once I saw what was happening, they stopped.  I grabbed the camera, and told them to do it one more time.  I'm sure I'm teaching the kids it's ok to be naughty as long as they are cute about it.  Annie loves asparagus, and was happy to eat the left-overs.

After dinner tonight, Emma wanted her eyebrows plucked for the first time, mostly in that "unibrow" area.  She's a bit of a wuss, and Elizabeth kindly offered to let Emma squeeze her hand when she was hurting.  After a while, Elizabeth excused herself to lotion her hands and arms.  (Annie and Maddie were applying copious amounts to their skin while my attention was on Emma's face, and had plenty to share.)  When Elizabeth came back to let Emma squeeze her hand again, Emma complained she couldn't get a good grip.  (Touche' Elizabeth.)

When Ryan got home from work, Maddie was howling on the stairs while I read Hook's Revenge to the other girls.  He surprised me by arriving home a half hour early.  (Before 8!  Yay!)  I was only too happy to let Maddie fuss about not getting "her spot" on the couch, away from me until she could calm down.  Ryan was kind enough to listen to her sob story (told yet again) and help her to calm down.  Then he held her while she listened to the last few pages of the chapter.

It must be nice to be the dad and come home to the frazzled mom and be a calming influence.  I know I am grateful for him.

Masquerade

Ryan surprised us today by bringing home masks that look like they belong to Mardi Gras.  The theme for Prom this year is Masquerade, and the prom committee were selling masks for revelers dancers.  Even though none of us are going to prom, we still had fun with the masks.

 (top- Emma, Elizabeth   bottom- Annie, me, Maddie)

 We've been dealing with some spring time colds.  Elizabeth has been struggling with her breathing, so the nebulizer is one of our family room decorations again.

Elizabeth liked her mask so much, it stayed on all evening.

Kindergarten

I spend a couple of mornings a week in Maddie's classroom, helping out.  5 and 6 year olds are so funny.  I had to take a picture of this paper of what the kids "know" starting the unit on caterpillars and butterflies.

Some of the sentences are pretty standard- they eat leaves, climb trees, and turn into butterflies.  My favorites are:

-Whatever they eat, that's the color they turn into.
-They are little animals and turn into a round raccoon.
-They eat ham with cheese and egg.

I don't know how teachers don't just burst into laughter at some of the things kids say.

One Decade Old!

This is only a place holder post, until I get the pictures from the camera uploaded to the computer.

Wise Birthday Party

James and Tiffany's kids all have their birthdays in April.  They decided to do a combined party for all the kids, and we were invited.  After dinner, there was a pinata for the kids.  I think the dads get just as much of a kick out of the pinata as the kids do.  Maybe for different reasons, however.  Ryan had one line of the rope, standing up on the tree house.  Job had the other, and that pinata got some good swinging.

 The kids were lined up, youngest to oldest to take their turns.  So out of my kids, Maddie went first.

 Elijah's scout bandana got some good use tonight.

Emma was the very last one of the thirteen kids.  After her, all three of the birthday kids got a couple more tries without a blindfold.  By the time Elijah was done, the candy was ready.

Then it was cake and presents, and play time.  It was so nice to get together with people.  It has not been happening as much as I wish it would.

Museum Open House...

...And Asparagus Festival.  I didn't even know we had an Asparagus Festival before today.  It was a let down as far as that went- the asparagus from the one booth there at the museum was all gone by 2 pm.  As we still have asparagus in our fridge, we weren't disappointed.  We actually went for the museum open house.  We've lived here for almost 11 years, and we had never been to our local museum.  

There were free paletas, so we had some after our tour.  The kids had watermelon or strawberry flavored paletas, Ryan had coconut, and I had cookies and cream.  Mmmm.

Emma was at a MESA convention/competition.  That's why she wasn't in the picture.

Balls of Fluff

Today is hatching day.  Well, maybe just round one of a couple of weeks of hatching eggs.  The kids get very excited to see the baby chicks.

 Once Ryan got home, we set up an old swimming pool with shavings and a warming lamp for the cute balls of fluff.

I have to enjoy them when they are small and cute, and you can hold them.  Once they are grown up, I find I have to arm myself against attacking roosters.  We currently only have two roosters, but they can be wicked.  I don't consider myself a violent person, but I've had to beat down the white rooster a few times.  And I don't feel bad about it.  I hate it when he tries to attack me from behind.  When he went after Maddie, I chased him for quite some time trying to beat him.  I'm sure it was amusing for the neighbors to watch me running all around the field with a 1 x 2 stake after that darn bird.

In which Annie masters using the telephone

I ticked Annie off.  Truthfully, I'm not exactly sure what is was that made her mad, but something did.  I probably did something awful like tell her, "No more snack.  I'm going to make dinner now."  You know, something atrocious like that would set anyone off.  Especially when it follows things like, "Eat over the table," "Stop dropping crumbs on the floor," "Only nice words, please," and, "You don't need any more crackers."

Annie shouted at me, "You're mean!  I'm going to call Dad!"

I had to ask, "What number are you going to call?  Do you remember Dad's phone number?"

Annie looked insulted.  She told me what she remembered, which was close, but forgot the two 5's in a row.  I made sure she got it right, and she called her dad.

Annie got right to the point, "Mommy is so mean!  You need to come home right now!"

To his credit, Ryan did come home relatively quick after that.  I was happy to have him home. But today when Annie was mad I wouldn't let her play games on my phone, she went back over to the counter, grabbed the phone and called her dad.

This is going to be a "thing" now, I guess.

In which the kids learn how to insult each other silently

Ryan is currently teaching a group of Special Ed kids as one of his horticulture classes.  This is the second year he's had this type of class, and he's done a good job.  This is also the second time he's had a deaf student, and Ryan's goal is to learn one word in sign language a day.  He's worked up a pretty good vocabulary.

One day Ryan came home with a couple of new words to share around the dinner table.  "Pig" and "dirty" are very similar signs, both essentially waving your fingers under your chin.  So, "dirty pig" is an easy sign to make, and Ryan showed all the girls how to insult each other.  They started incorporating the sign for "beautiful" as well, so then we had, "beautiful pig," beautiful dirty pig," and just plain, "dirty pig."   They spent the entire evening signing, "dirty pig" to each other, and of course, after a while, the kids started to feel insulted rather than thinking it was funny.

Today at church, Maddie was either feeling ornery or she was trying to be funny.  She looked up at her dad sitting on the stand during the sacrament (you know, the time you should be the most reverent out of all 3 hours at church), and started signing "Father you dirty pig."

Ryan started cracking up.  Quietly, of course.  It wouldn't do for a member of the bishopric to actually guffaw during the sacrament.

Annie figured out what Maddie was doing, and started signing too.

Ryan leaned over to Bro. Weaver and whispered to him what his kids were doing.  Then there were two guys on the stand staring at my not-so-reverent offspring with big smiles.

I got the girls to fold their arms again, and wished the floor could just swallow us all.  It would have been so much easier to have stayed in my bed this morning.