spooky house

the girls are proud to show off today's ambitious craft: a "spooky house" as they call it. we kinda think the windows look especially spooky that way...

mmm, mmm, yummy as pumpkin pie

mommy's cousin Bethany took us and all the other cousins to a pumpkin patch on Sunday. There was a straw maze and a corn maze, and a petting zoo and a hay ride. The kids (all of them!) were cute enough to gobble up.

i claim this pumpkin for the Republic of Ah-maree.

L. was really, REALLY excited about the hay ride: (holding up her hand) "See? I got my stamp, I'm READY! You need to get yours, go, GO! The driver is WAITING, he is READY for us, come on, let's go on the ride, HURRY!" And then... "Wow, this is so much fun, I am having SO MUCH FUN! This ride is so long. Wow, another bump! Tee hee hee! This is FUN!"
So that evening I was asking A. what her favorite part of the outing was and mentioned that I already knew L.'s favorite part.
L.: "The hay ride!? What!? That was SO boring. I NEVER want to do that again."
That's our A-plus Stinker.

Weekend Update

Things I have heard myself say this week, some more than once.

"No, no, please don't put yogurt in your eye."
"Don't hit your sister."
"Chapstick is not a snack."
"Don't hit your brother."
"Please don't lick that doorstop."
"Put that stick down."
"Stop eating that lightbulb."

In other news, apparently L. has taught herself to read. She's been working on it for weeks, but today it was full (though simple) sentences and short paragraphs. We were at church and she was reading out loud from a book she had sneakily brought along from home so I wasn't exactly ecstatic, but still secretly and guiltily hoping everyone around us noticed.
They didn't. So I had to brag here instead.

today I learned about dinosaurs

(her inspiration: Mo Willem's "Edwina, The Dinosaur Who Didn't Know She Was Extinct")

A. loves to pose for the camera. Especially in her new pink and yellow raincoat. She wears it round the clock, and indoors and out.

things your mother will let you do so that she can cook dinner

yes, we're pretty excited about having wood floors. no, we do not keep them immaculately clean.

it might be cold, but we love Fall

sometime soon...

we have moved into our very adorable little house (rental) and we're told that our internet line will be up and running on the 9th. hopefully I will have found the camera under the piles of rubble by then. i promise, we're still very, very adorable. way more than the house.

it's been quiet

We are still in transition and will move into our new home in another ten days or so. The frequent moving back and forth from family's couch to motel to cat/house-sitting location led A. to ask her daddy today (when he stood up from the couch) "oh, are you going to go put pack all our suitcases again?" Poor childrens, they are used to being homeless already. Here's to Oct. 1...
In the meantime, the camera is lost under some piles in public storage and our internet access has been limited. But try not to forget about us, we're still really, really cute.

brand new

For those who might not have noticed that I added a link on the right, the kids have a new cousine! And we are so proud and need to show her off. She is French and loves baguettes and brie. Um, no. But my oh my is she a cute one. If you have any doubts, go see for yourself.

mommy's still a failure (suite)

So we're stealing some moments away from other activities to do some "preschool" at home. I wrote out some letters on a piece of paper for her to practice writing.

"But Mommy, I wanted to do lower case letters!"

feel the mommy guilt

I was thinking out loud with L. the other day, saying how happy I was that she wasn't in preschool as we had originally planned (the mid-Sept. move is kind of bad timing for school so that's on hold at the moment). I said I was happy that she was home with me because I would have missed her.
She immediately burst into tears.
"But Mommy, I want to LEARN!"

cutie pies-es

"look, mommy! I spelled 'rainbow'!"

such a flattering image of myself I find reflected by my children sometimes...

overheard while I'm cooking dinner:

A.: "Hi, what's your name?"
L.(holding stuffed toy): "This is the Claire shark."
A.: "Let's play together, Claire!"
L. (sharp, flesh-tearing teeth bared): "Argh! No, I can't! I have to do my work! You are going to have to play on your own for a little while so I can finish my work!"

help, i need an interpreter

more adventures in spelling, by L. : WEOR GENA MOOVA
("we're gonna move")

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L., chasing after Riceball: "Hey, Stinker, get back here!!"
(comes from me teasing him, "you're a little stinker, aren't you!?")

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A., pointing to her forehead: "Mommy, this is my father."

(the sign of the cross. yeah, that one took me a minute, too...)

even when we're not packing...

...they find boxes to sit in.

(by the way, although it might look like she's kissing him, she's actually licking him. for some reason.)

photo shoot (2)

photo shoot

another favorite

L. loves her magnetic erase-board. She teaches herself to spell, to draw, and now she makes up stories. She makes blocks for each vignette and then has me sit down so she can "read" me the story. Pictured above is one of my favorites. I don't actually remember the story line because I didn't make it past "Once upon a time, there was a pirate poivron rouge who was digging for gold." I guess that explains his enormous smile.

driving

there I am, one hand steering, one shifting, there's no way I can intervene. So someone pounces.

BR: "Waaahhhh!!!"
Me (losing it): "L.! A.! what did you do now? Can't you just leave him alone!"
L.: "But, Mommy! I'm just trying to love him!"

Gaga's visit

Gaga came to visit for a week and we did SO much fun stuff. We went to the beach, the zoo, a playground on the bay, the race, great-grandma's...

race day

the kids came to cheer us on as J and I climbed the hill at mile 12 of our Half Marathon on Sunday. If the pictures didn't turn out so well it's probably because we were lightning fast with a finish time of 1hr 53min. Yup, we pretty much rocked it.

(In the future we'll probably avoid races with hills, though.)

Out of 8,000 total runners, I came in as the 321st woman! This mother of 3 preschoolers was pretty darn proud.

this is too easy

L. and A. are pretty good eaters, and I don't often have to coax them through a meal. But sometimes I need to. This morning's conversation with L.:

"Mommy, may I be excused from the table?"
"No, you need to eat a few more bites."
"How many?"
"Uh, how about, 7?"
"No, I'm going to eat 10!"

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A., at age 2.5, is in that magical phase of desperately trying to express her wishes through any means and especially through, um, volume. There was some great disappointment for her yesterday and she wouldn't stop wailing. I guess her sadness was too much for L. to bear because after a few moments I heard her trying to soothe her, by commanding her:

A.: "Waaahhh!!"

L.: "A, giggle!"

A: "Waaahhh!"

L.: "Giggle, A., GIGGLE!! GIGGLE! A.: GIGGLE!!!!"

A.: "Tee hee hee!!"

L. & A: "Ha ha ha, hee hee!"

Wait a minute. That actually worked?

"i look likes Aunt Mer!"

(i'm pretty sure she means with the hat, not the bib)

masterpieces

L. calls this "hearts smoke":

L. is also teaching herself to spell. I give you two samples:

1. "WDR" (water, of course)

2. "L. RUDROWNAPAZO" ("L., are you drawing a puzzle.")

feel the love

A: "i'm sorry for hitting you, L."
L: "i forgive you."
A: "i forgive you."
L: "no, I forgive YOU."
A: "I forgive YOU."
L: "I FORGIVE YOU! A. you say you're sorry and I say I forgive you."
A: "I FORGIVE YOU!!!"

"hey mommy, i'm going to play that Beatles song"

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In other news, when we're out and about A. keeps us all informed about cars (pretty much each car that passes us or that is parked within viewing distance). There are three very important distinctions:

"hey, mommy! that look likes our car, it has a roofrack!"

"hey, mommy! that car has a VW!" (she recognizes the insignia--she doesn't actually know her letters yet)

or,

"hey mommy, that car's not likes our car, it doesn't have a VW and it doesn't have a roofrack."

thank you, Margaret and H.A. Rey

curious george once had to go to the hospital because he ate a piece of puzzle. he had to have surgery and then was in recovery for two days afterward.


now we play, "we're sick." it involves plenty of moaning and groaning and some ticklish surgery and a very attentive nurse who needs to be at the bedside at all times providing ice cream and jello and advice like, "now try and rest for a Really Long Time" and that sort of thing (the jello is accepted but the advice is never followed).
in the above photos, I think he had eaten "a piece of train" and she had eaten "a piece of teddy bear". hazards indeed.

at this rate...

...we won't even need a moving truck. there will be nothing packed anyway.

i'm learning!

L. likes to have "learning" conversations with me these days. She'll say, teach me something. And then I'll pick a topic (or I will be given one) and then she will start learning. So, we talk about volcanoes and how they work, or I discuss feelings and provide some new vocabulary words so that we can learn to talk about them, or something like that. tonight's conversation:

L.: "So, what is fair and what isn't fair? What does cheating mean?" I explain and then she asks for an example.
Me: "Well, like when I say 'close your eyes while I hide this toy and then we'll play hot and cold until you find it. But then someone opens their eyes when they're supposed to be closing them. That's cheating and it isn't fair."
L.: "Oh, I do that. I open my eyes."
Me: "Well, that's cheating. It isn't fair because then the other kids don't know where it's hidden."
L.: "Right. So that's how I can win."

Ah.

Moving on to the next topic:

L. "I want to learn about how my feelings get hurt sometimes. So, what hurts my feelings?"

Me: (Hmm...that sounds maybe just a little negative..? Think of a happy topic, quick...)

Me: "Uh, let's talk about something else... I know, how about you tell me where different foods come from. Blueberries?"
"Bushes."

"Milk?"
"Cows."

"Cheese?"
"I don't know. Cows?"

"Great. Apples?"
"Apple trees."

"Good. Chicken?"
"Uh, cows?"

"No... try again."
"I don't know. Cows?"

Four years old and doesn't know this. Either we've lived in the city way too long or mommy needs to be fired.