Sick Baby

Wednesday night Grace woke up with a fever (which frightens me to death after this summer...)
So this was not a typical Thanksgiving for me since I stayed home part of the day with Grace. It was an odd feeling, I didn't know what to do with myself. You would think I would have made good use of the opportunity of having an almost empty house. But as much as I tried to accomplish something... anything... I was quickly reminded that I had a one year old that had no one else to play with and, of course, didn't feel well. Needless to say, I didn't get much done.
Well, I didn't get my house clean, and I didn't get my checkbook balanced, or do any laundry, or finish any of the many projects I have taking over the kitchen table. But I did get in some good cuddle time with my baby and that I can be thankful for more than anything on my to do list.
Too mushy for ya? OK, I'll get on with the story.
So now it's Sunday and the fever has slowly turned into a cold. Her sleep schedule is thrown way off because her cough wakes her up and then she just doesn't think she needs to go back to sleep. This morning she woke up at 5:45. I brought her down and lied with her on the couch until Courtney came downstairs (holding Grace) and woke me up. "Uh, does this belong to you?" I guess I wasn't paying her enough attention so she thought, "Well, Courtney will play with me, I'll go wake her up."
So ya know what happens to a baby when they wake up at 5:45? By 9:30 they look like this...



She looks pretty pathetic here, but it's mostly because she had just woken up (it might have been all the camera clicking.)





After she woke up a little she was back to her normal, happy self. She even ate (and wore) a good dinner.

Boys

We took our Christmas picture today (you can't see it yet). And I got a lot of other cute ones, too. The boys were really cheesing it up for me. I showed Paige this picture. "Isn't this one cute?" I asked her.
"Hmm. I would be even cuter if they were girls."

The Big Caterpillar

I was sitting on the couch last night, and just happened to glance over at the plant and notice something strange. What in the world? Either we have one really big caterpillar in the house or one of my kids has taken a bite out of my house plant. Now what would possess a child to do that? It couldn't have tasted very good.
I made a point of taking a picture this morning. Joe happened to be standing near and he thought I was taking a picture of him, so he bent down for me so I could see his face better. He was thinking "crazy mom, can't even point the camera in the right direction."

Craft Day

We went over to Amy's today for a craft day.
Since it was "pouring snow outside", we came over dressed in our snow clothes and the kids played outside as soon as we got there. It was a little too cold for me, but I managed to sneak out for a few pictures.



We have issues with snowballs. I end up having to ban snowball throwing at our house pretty much every other time they go out to play. It's all fun and games till someone gets snow in the eye. I never remember getting upset over a snowball in the face. I think I would now, of course.



The best part about playing in the snow is the warming up. If we had a fireplace at our house, I would never get the kids away from it. I'm forever finding them huddled around the hairdryer (I wonder where they get that from).



We made feathered headbands for our craft. I figured it was simple enough for all the ages. It turned out to be a great project.










"We are Thankful for..."
. Easy craft projects
. A fun day out
. Time spent with family

We made a Thankfulness paper chain. I was surprised at how quickly and easily the kids came up with their answers. Some of them even made two or three chains.





This one is my favorite. Can you guess who made it?

Found it

I knew I had this picture tucked away somewhere. This is Paige back in the winter of 97/98. The outfit seems to be a little whiter and a little fluffier.

And I thought we had a lot of snow yesterday!

My new favorite picture...

Little bit of snow

We had little bursts of snow storms today. Everybody (except Paige, who could care less) threw on their coats and ran out to play in it. Then it would die down and they would come in shivering. No sooner did they get their coats hung up that the snow would start up again and they would go running back out. This went on for some time.
It sure was beautiful.





Did anyone catch the Wizard of Oz last night? Jacob kept calling it the Wizard of Uz. I let them stay up a little late (OK, a lot late) and watch it. They were all so excited. Grace didn't stay up for the whole thing, of course, but she sure liked what she did see. When Dorothy started singing over the rainbow (it's stuck in your head now, isn't it?) Grace started swaying and mouthing like she was trying to sing it. She would stop only for a second when we got laughing too hard, look around and smile as if she were embarrassed, and then continue on with her song.

"Coco, isn't this show great?"

Markers

You have no idea how many times a day I hear that pop of the marker top and have to go running to snatch it away before it goes in her mouth. We buy washable, but when washable hits liquid (or saliva) it spreads, and fast. So she can have a mouthful and a face full of blue, orange, or the color of the day in under a second. What? Put them up where she can't reach them, you say? Oh, now, that would be too easy.

When Paige was this age, I sat for as long as I could hold her attention and teach her how to make circles and lines. Maybe that has something to do with her artistic talent. It didn't hurt, anyway. But I have a little more to do now than scribble for hours. But I do know that a baby has to put in some good coloring time. So I came up with a solution. Let her have the binkie. Then she can't put anything else in her mouth. Yeah, I know, I'm such a good mom.

"Christopher Columbus was an ice cream cone"

"...and his crew was from Mississippi."

Not too many of these days left

A trip to Micheals (who doesn't love a trip to Micheals?) had all the kids begging for a fun craft project. Well, you can get carrried away but I was able to talk them into those 25 cent wooden cutouts to paint. Who would have thought that they would have so much fun and spend so much time working on this simple little project?





Courtney, as always, is willing to help.



Um, or take over.



"HE-LLO - MY - NAME - IS - RO-BOT-CHU"

What strange weather we had this week. Sunday ended up being a beautiful day. Nice and sunny and rather warm. We wanted to take advantage of it so we went out to the barn for a little ride.





Then Wednesday came along and we had snow, a lot of it! Well, enough to cover the ground by Thursday morning. The kids loved it. Grace went out when it started to see "her first snow that she's alive and she remembas!"



By Friday afternoon it was warm again. I think it got up to 65. It was great because we had friends over and the kids were able to play outside all day.
The cowboys loved it.



But Caleb didn't. No, he wasn't sad all day, just when Michelle held him.
Just kidding - he cried for me, too.



"Can YOU pick me up?"



We painted some pumpkins (well, gourds). Nina picked a white one and told us she was going to paint it black and orange. This was her reaction when someone asked her "why didn't you just get an orange one?"









We also had google eyes in case someone wanted to make a silly face.
I meant on the pumpkins!



These ones tasted extra yummy.