Shorn

I'm convinced that whoever created tub crayons--and soap that looks like ice cream--does not have children. At least not children who color on walls and eat soap. Anyway...you can see that Little Buddy LOVES his new tub crayons. You can also see the bad haircut that was...

Now introducing....Little Buddy's post-Christmas buzz (and ravioli face). I'm sooo sad that his curls are gone, but by my estimation they should be back for birthday pictures in February. He's still adorable and really looks like his daddy now. I just loved his blonde curly locks.

Like a Good Friend, A Good Bra...

I saw a sign that said something about how good bras are like good friends. They always support you, and you always hold them near to your heart. Because my mind can't stop until a metaphor is completely exhausted, I thought of a few more similarities. (Sorry, men, but I have to read your sports posts too.) Like a good friend, a good bra...


1. lifts you up when you are down.

2. knows how to hold you tight but still gives you room to breathe.


3. adjusts with you through different phases of your life.


4. knows that though she may be cast aside for a while, she will still be your best friend through pregnancy and motherhood.


5. only reveals your secrets with your permission.


6. makes you look good without needing to flaunt her presence.


7. makes life more colorful. The more the better!

No Pictures Please

Remember how cute Little Buddy was in his Christmas picture? Well, he got a haircut. Not a cute one either. We were trying to avoid clippers because his hair is so beautiful and curly, so we got out the scissors, strapped him in his booster, and let him watch Backyardigans while Daddy tried to cut. There were lots of tears and quiet mumblings not meant for little ears, a couple of loud outbursts, and a grand finale of the slamming of a barber kit lid. I won't say who was doing what. I'll just say that he may be getting a buzz soon. Or a real haircut at the barber shop. We'll see how it looks tomorrow.

City Kid

Big Sissy got Lincoln Logs for Christmas. It's a good thing, too, because she was starting to get resentful that both of her siblings got Legos and she didn't. She LOVES to build and create. So tonight she built a farm out of her wooden logs (which ironically comes with a plastic and paper stagecoach). She already told me she had built a sty for the horses. Assuming she meant stables, I asked her if one particular area were the stalls. "Yes," she informed me. "The farmer and his helper will probably need to go potty while they're working." I guess I should have asked if it was the horse sty. We can't even pretend to know about country life.

St. Louis Christmas

I just got back from Illinois. I'm exhausted, and my house is a wreck, but those are signs of a great Christmas. The kids were more excited than ever this year, and that just made the season so joyful. The celebrations started early in the month at church, with Breakfast in Bethlehem, and continued all month.

These are my darlings on Christmas Sunday morning. Notice the lack of big girly bows in the girls' hair? That's because I had to leave early for choir practice and Daddy got the kids dressed. I am proud of him for getting them there!

Sunday night was our Carols & Candlelight Service. The kids got to participate by dressing up in costumes and singing Away in a Manger. Even Little Buddy stood up there for a little while. He is the shiny one in the middle with the very large wise man hat. Adorable, if I do say so myself. Little Sissy was a sheep, which was very appropriate since she carried Brown Lamby with her the whole time. (This photo was stolen from Joseph's mommy. That would be Baby Jesus's grandma. Oh, please forgive me.)

Since I'm such a diligent mama who would never let an occasion go by without photo documentation, of course I packed my camera on our trip to Illinois. Somehow in the excitement, however, I let the batteries go dead and never get recharged THE ENTIRE TRIP. I don't know how that happened, but I am relying on family members to provide photos from our time there.

Go Wrestle a Lion

Look at me. I'm a blogging machine!!!

I know I've been posting a lot about Big Sissy lately, and as I analyze it I think it's because she's in a "good phase" right now. She's reasonable, sensitive, and wants to please usually. The other 2--well, they're in harder phases right now. Especially Little Buddy. Aye aye aye. To all those people who asked me if it was different having a boy and I said, "No. He's so sweet and cuddly," I stand corrected. It's totally different. Completely, undeniably, maddeningly different.

Little Buddy has a charming personality. He makes me laugh multiples times in a day. But the reality is that he has changed from a cuddly little baby boy into a testosterone-filled, energetic, sometimes just flat WILD toddler. He's in a phase of hitting, pinching, pulling hair. I'm 99% sure he has broken my nose twice in the last 2 months. It still sounds like I'm crumpling paper when I push on the side of my nose. I'll just be honest. I don't know what to do with him. I do believe in spanking (I know some of my readers don't), but I don't feel like spanking is an appropriate response to aggression (you hit me, I hit you back). So I've been sending him to his room or holding his arms still when he does it. If someone has some suggestions, I am open to them!!!

Tonight, while I was at the Princess and the Frog with the girls, Daddy had some one-on-one time with Destructo. They threw balls, they played on the toddler roller coaster, and they spent a lot of time wrestling our huge stuffed lion downstairs. He was wound up. He was aggressive. And the only repercussion was a lion turned upside down. I've decided that is going to be my new answer. I don't want him to be girly or weak. I just am tired of getting hurt (and comforting other children who are getting hurt). So when he's being wild, I'm going to send him down to wrestle the lion. I have an extra seat in my van. That may be Mr. Lion's seat. You never know when we might need to wrestle a lion at WalMart, at church, at the mall. You won't believe how sweet and gentle he was when I got home. Thank you, Mr. Lion!!!

Begging to be Caught

Tonight I decided to splurge and take the girls to see the Princess and the Frog. I've taken them to movies before, but this is the first time I actually paid for it. (I know, I'm cheap.) Hubby told me before we left--as I was packing up all our snacks (did I mention I'm cheap??) that they were cracking down on sneaking snacks in and checking everyone's bags. Assuming they wouldn't frisk preschoolers, I put fruit snacks in each girl's cargo jeans pocket. All I put in my purse was a water bottle. The worst that could happen is that they would make me throw it away, right?

When I got to the counter, I realized that my water bottle was on top of my wallet. My purse is compact, forcing me to get the water bottle out of my purse in order to pay for the tickets. Having nowhere else to put it, I set it on the counter in front of the window. Just a few feet away, the lady was waiting to take our tickets. That really didn't give me time to stuff the water bottle back inside of my purse. Thinking I needed to be sneaky, I shoved it inside of my coat while I handed her the tickets. Since there was no pocket there...yep, it landed with a thud onto the floor and rolled several feet in front of the ticket lady. I laughed out loud while I picked up the bottle and shoved it into my purse.

Apparently they're not too strict on the rules about sneaking stuff in. And apparently I should never try to be a spy.

Christmas Fun Night

I love the Christmas cookie tradition. Since we usually go to Illinois for several days during Christmas, we try to implement some of our own family traditions earlier in December. This week we had cookie night on Sunday night. Since my counter space is limited and everyone wants to help, they all bring their little chairs over and line up to wait for their turn to crack an egg, dump in some flour, etc. It takes a little longer than doing it myself, but it's more fun if they get to help.

The rolling and cutting is done. My little bakers are so proud.

Now for the fun part--the decorating. This year I bought small tubes that we could write with. It was nice to have some cookies not totally smothered in icing (my preference--not the children's, of course!)

My special cookie. Everyone in my family thinks it's just for him or her, so I guess I'll have to eat it myself.

Wrapping it up--Watching Rudolph in their new Christmas pajamas. Aaaahhh...I love Christmas with these little guys.

Maybe an Editor?

I am always trying to figure out what Big Sissy will do when she gets older. She has so many traits that remind me of myself. In the end I decided to mostly be a mommy, and so far that's what she wants to do too. But she may have a stint as an editor like I did. Here is her first proofing project.

First she circled all the food words she knew. If you click on the picture, you can see that she wrote at the top, "Words we ne." Words we knew??? Then at the very bottom she crossed the "es" off of tomato because that didn't look right to her. She processes things by writing them just like I do. I love watching the differences in my children and the unique ways God has made and gifted them. And I'm processing all of that through my blog. Thanks for joining me. :)

Fight For Your Rights

Big Sissy has been learning about trademark infringement (although we haven't called it that). So today she was pretending that she worked for My Little Pony and someone tried to copy her ponies. She jumped on the computer, and after asking me the spelling for a few words, typed up this:

You
Quit
We hav the rits to letol pones so so you should not copy our idea

You don't mess with this girl. Maybe she's going to be an attorney???

Craft Fair

Saturday I did my last Thirty-One event of the year. I had given my friend Chris some catalogs to take to the school where she works to see if anyone was interested in ordering. No one was, but the catalog ended up on the secretary's desk. She looked through it, decided she wanted to order something for her sister for Christmas, AND invited me to participate in a craft fair. What makes it even more cool is that it is the school where Big Sissy will go to kindergarten next year (but don't make me talk about THAT again).

I didn't know what to expect AT ALL. I don't do crafts, craft fairs, or anything remotely related to a craft usually. It just happens that now I'm a vendor. I had heard that usually a vendor doesn't make many sales (unless you're Pampered Chef, who apparently OWNS the craft fair I went to), but it's a great place to make contacts. I found this to be true. The cake lady in the booth next to me is my new best friend and will definitely be helping me out at future kid birthday parties. She works out of her home so she's reasonable, and her cakes were amazing. AND she could ice cupcakes, talk to people, and not get her cute jeans messy all at the same time. I was impressed. The lady across the gym has a granddaughter who is a missionary and who makes these cute hats to raise money for missions.

Aren't they cute??? And the hats are pretty adorable too. So I think I was supposed to go there to make money, but it turns out that I kind of like craft fairs. Who knew? I did learn some things, though--like always take someone with you so you can go pee sometime during the day and not leave your booth unmanned. I also learned that it is totally appropriate to wear jeans to a craft fair even when you're working. If you're selling hemp necklaces, it's also fine to not even comb your hair. And if you're selling Pampered Chef, you don't even need hair. People will just stand in line to buy your stuff. (And no, I don't regret selling 31 instead. People will stand in line once they know what it is. Just wait...)

So I'm hoping that the end of my events for the year means more time for blogging, wrapping presents, ordering Christmas cards, catching up on laundry, and reconnecting with YOU.

Git 'R Done

Apparently I am not moving fast enough in getting the house decorated for Christmas. In my defense, we do have a mantle beautifully decorated with red and green paper chains for our "days 'til Christmas" countdown. But I keep finding these all over the house.

Red and green popsicle sticks are taped all over our house. "We just need some Christmas decorations, Mommy!" By tomorrow we should at least have our Little People nativity set scattered throughout the laundry in our living room. See, I can decorate!

Our Little Research Scientist

Big Sissy never has accidents any more--well, not when she's awake. But today she did. I don't know why. But when we walked down the hall later, this is what we found.

Clearly there is some information she has not yet read about the matter. She will research it. No doubt about that.

It's Finally Here

Big Sissy has been waiting and waiting and WAITING for her birthday to arrive. It's been a little confusing because we celebrated with the big family party back in October. But today it's official. She's 5. You know the question people always like to ask: What do you think you'll be doing in 5 years? Five years ago I could never have imagined how full my life--and my heart--would be today. I feel so blessed. I'm so proud of Big Sissy. She is becoming quite the little lady. She has her share of attitude--don't get me wrong--but she is also very sweet and sensitive to others. She is reading like a champ and writing words on her own. The other day she wrote "Broun Lame." That's the phonetic spelling of Brown Lamby. I was pretty excited about the ou diphthong in there. And I like to say diphthong a lot. It makes me giggle. She loves to use her imagination making up games and stories. And she LOVES to play hide and seek. I got the notice the other day that I need to sign her up for kindergarten in February. We do year-round school in this district, so she will start in July. I almost cried. I really wanted to homeschool her, but that has proven to just not work. She is a wonderful student. I just can't focus more than about 30 minutes a day on it. That's fine for her age, but she needs more. And she can't wait to meet all those new friends. *sniff*

We had kind of an interesting celebration today. Daddy took the day off to hang out with us, but then we realized that we had MOPS all morning. So we met for lunch and then went to Monkey Joe's--a whole place full of inflatables. That was quite possibly the best $20 I've ever spent. They got lots of exercise, lots of fun, and it wasn't hard for me because there was really no way to get lost. Then we came home and put up her and Little Sissy's new bed. In an interesting chain of events, I was getting sick of changing sheets on bunk beds and my parents were tired of storing Hubby's bedroom furniture from before we were married. So the girls are now sharing a queen bed. I think that will be great--until someone pees the bed or starts throwing up in the middle of the night. I'm really excited to have a real bed for guests if they ever should show up at my door. AND, that means that Little Buddy is done with his crib. He cried for a minute at naptime, but by night he was begging to get in his new big boy bed. I would have taken pictures but I'm embarrassed about how much he loves the Disney Princess sheets that are still on there. I will get him a new set soon. I promise.

One thing I love about Big Sissy's birthday is that for 3 months, when I tell people the ages of my children, they don't stare at me and for a short time can believe that I spaced my children "responsibly." Right now it sounds like they are all 2 years apart. They are 5, 3, and 1. Until February, when they are 2, 3, and barely 5 and I get the looks again. They're just jealous.

So happy birthday, my baby girl. And no talk of kindergarten yet. Mommy can't STAND it!!!

The Addams Family Goes to China

These are our cute children before we made them dress up like China dolls. My dad brought the kids some great outfits from China. All was well until I tried to add black wigs. My idea was to put them in buns and stick chopsticks in. Wala! China dolls. But wigs are even less cooperative than their real hair, and it didn't work. The final result was a little more ghoulish than I intended, thus the Addams Family in Asia joke was born.

Dressed in China man costume, but still happy.

Pugsley Addams. Add hat. Present doorbell. Now he's not so sure.

Sweet Little Sissy has been transformed into Wednesday Addams.

Big Sissy was much happier to keep something on her head than her siblings.

Grandpa is tickled pink to see his China dolls. They get lots of candy. And toys. And white out. Why? Because it makes them happy, and that's what grandparents do.

Next stop: party at church. The Asian Addams Family had lots of fun here--crafts, face painting, inflatables, games, and of course more candy.

Morticia--I mean Big Sissy--diligently keeping her headwear on, though it's starting to slip. She would probably wear a chicken on her head for candy. She's a trooper.

People Don't Have Tails!

This week I was talking to my sister on the phone, and I told her I had been working my tail off. Little Sissy interrupted me and said, "Silly Mommy. People don't have tails." I assured her that she was right, but then...

maybe a person does if her teacher makes her put Brown Lamby down during dance class. Look closely.

Is There Something In My Eye?

True story.

Tonight Hubby is laying down with the girls for a little while since I need to go call a hostess. Right in the middle of my call, I heard this stressed voice call, "Can you come up here, please? I would greatly appreciate it." Usually that means something like, "Kids are crying and they're driving me crazy" or "I'm mad about something and I need to talk about it now." It seemed odd for after the kids were in bed AND while I was on the phone, so I hurried upstairs.

Little Sissy had coughed so hard in her bed that she threw up. In hubby's face. He couldn't even see to clean it up because it was in his eyes and all over his glasses. I sprung into action changing pajamas, changing sheets, giving the lecture about throwing up in the toilet and not in Daddy's eyes...

But then, when all was calm and clean, I came downstairs and giggled. It's really funny when it's not me.

Pony Party

Our girls both love My Little Pony. Their cousins gave them some this summer, and they have enjoyed them for months now. I thought I would try something new this year and have their parties together. Instead of doing one in September and one in November, we just did a combined party in October. There were some things I liked about that: one, it was cheaper to just buy food, decorations, and treat bags one time; two, more time to put all the toys away before Christmas; and three, people didn't feel like they had to buy an "unbirthday gift" to all of the other children. But still...I felt a little guilty for cheating them of their own party. Big Sissy was very confused because she's still not 5 despite the fact that we celebrated her turning 5, she had 5 candles on her cake, etc. I'm not sure what I'll do next year, but it was a fun party.

My mom was planning to make a rainbow cake and I was planning to make cupcakes. In the end, we both had the same idea and both showed up with these coordinating store-bought cakes.

Ummm...this is as close as we came to a good family picture. The kids' outfits are cute though, yes? My friend Amy made them and I love them.

Big Sissy sporting My Little Pony glasses while she prepares to blow...and blow....and blow...and finally just let Mommy blow out her candles.

Still blowing...

Pin the rainbow on the pony (with a fancy dishrag blindfold).

Let gift opening commence!

This is a game called "Please don't beat the pinata because Mommy has to hold it."

Just one more candy, please?

Thank you for the sugar high!

Little Sissy looooooves her new robe and matching slippers. She wore it the rest of the day!

Now I have 4 months to rest before we do a little boy's 2-year-old party. I love parties!

Don't We All Want a Pink Garage?

Sorry I haven't posted lately. We were on vacation for a week, so those pictures will be coming soon. Before that I was just busy or lazy. I get those confused sometimes.

In the meantime, I'll share the Brimm family adventure for today. On nice days I often leave the garage door open and let the children play in the driveway or front yard while I make lunch. That way they can play, and I can watch them from where I stand in the kitchen. Today I left them alone for 10 minutes. I could hear them and tell that they were near, but I couldn't see them. When I went outside to check on them, there were HUGE piles of beautiful rose petals in our garage, in our driveway, all around Little Buddy's basketball hoop. Unfortunately we don't have a rose bush. Our neighbors, however, have a beautifully manicured lawn which includes a large rose bush still in bloom. Or at least they did.

Little Sissy's story is that she wanted to crush the petals to make dye, then use the dye to make everything in our garage pink. "Wouldn't that be so pretty, Mommy?" It sounds lovely...except for 2 things: (1) That would require destroying our neighbor's property and (2) I'm pretty sure Daddy doesn't want his garage pink.

I love how creative they are, but I'm not looking forward to the looooong walk next door for the apology to the neighbors. I guess we can at least offer them the dye, right? Maybe they would like a pink garage too.

My mother has a similar story about me picking all of our neighbor's green tomatoes when I was little. I thought I was being helpful. At least our intentions were good--me helping out with the gardening, her beautifying our garage. This truly is why I can't wait for Little Buddy to start talking. I love knowing what's going through these little minds when they do these bizarre things.

Stay tuned for vacation pictures.

Apple Pickin'

Driving down "The River Road" and going apple picking is one of my favorite fall traditions. We went with friends who don't like fish this year, so we skipped the Beasley's Fish Stand tradition and opted for cheeseburgers and BBQ right on the grounds. That was good, too, and allowed us to listen to the Garth Brooks wannabe croon while we ate.

Last year Little Buddy slept through the whole experience, so this was essentially his first time. I have no idea how many apples he ate or how much dirt he ate (after repeatedly dropping his apples on the ground), but he had a great time. Please ignore his leotard. I'm pretty sure that this outfit fit him at the beginning of the summer when we packed it in the diaper bag. Apparently all that Vitamin D has made him too big for those tiny little clothes. Unfortunately we didn't notice this until AFTER the poopy blowout as soon as we got there and the discovery that the "restroom" is really a johnny on the spot. The good news is that we got a really good view of the ponies while we changed diapers & clothes on the grass.

My New Job

I have a new job. I alluded to it in an earlier post, but now I've actually started. I'm an independent consultant for a company called Thirty-One Gifts. That's a fancy way of saying I do home parties. (I've been reading a little too much Fancy Nancy in my spare time.) So far it's going GREAT. I've met my first 30-day goal (to have 3 "qualifying parties"). I have 7 more booked in the next 90 days, and 3 more who have said they will do parties in later October or November. I feel so blessed! I think it will take all those parties to break even on what I've spent in supplies and items to show, but I should be making some money by next year. :)

Here's what I love about my work:

1) I get to still be a stay-at-home mom. My kids barely notice I'm gone because they get to hang out with Daddy, and that is a big treat for them.

2) I love the products, so I'm excited to talk about them.

3) It's a faith-based company, so I feel free to be honest about who I am and what my values are.

4) I get to meet lots of fun new women.

5) It has caused me to think more about how I can use this job as an opportunity to celebrate and encourage other women. One exciting thing is that I get to do a fundraiser in November for Arms of Love, a pregnancy resource center in Godfrey, IL. It's one of my favorite charities, and I can't wait to do it.

6) I get to help contribute to the family fund. That just feels good. My husband is a wonderful provider, but everyone can always use "extras" now and then, right?

7) Last, but not least, I get to pull a black rolling luggage bag to work. I feel very cool when I do that. I secretly wanted to be a pharmaceutical sales rep. or a court reporter so I could do that. It's the little things that make me happy.

What I don't love about my job:

1) I don't know everything yet, and the perfectionist in me wants to hide in a cave until I can memorize prices, catalog page numbers, embroidery fonts, etc. This is not realistic, so I just show up and have to be honest about the fact that I don't know everything about it yet.

2) I miss my dear blog friends. I haven't logged into Google Reader for a month. I can't imagine the number of CNN news updates that are waiting for me. Hopefully I'll be back into a rhythm once I figure out what I'm doing.

So far that's about it. I think I was REALLY ready to start getting out a little more. I was trying to think of ways to make money writing, but I wasn't getting anywhere. This opportunity came along at just the right time. I never thought I would be doing this. As my Arbonne friend says, I crossed over to the dark side of direct sales. But somehow it seems like God is in it. At least for now. I'm kind of excited to be in the working moms club!

I Do Believe

It's barely September, and I'm already tired of hearing about Santa. We purposely did not push the idea of Santa last year, so I don't know why the obsession. I think it started when we took Little Sissy to the toy store to pick out her birthday present (remember the vulture?) Well, Big Sissy also got to pick out a small treat--2 baby deer figurines. Of course she asks me every day if we can go back to the toy store because they really miss their mommy and daddy, who are still there.

I guess the deer remind her of reindeer, which reminds her of Santa. She's been making up songs about Santa for a week now. Her eyes water every time. She got that weird trait from me. My eyes water when I make up songs too. Anyway...I didn't actually tell her I was getting tired of hearing about Santa but she must have sensed it because after about a ZILLION times, she said, "Mommy, you'll like this one. It's not about Santa. It's about God."

Oh good.

And the song begins..."We are reindeer of the Lord..."

It's going to be an interesting season.

Got Sleep?

I was still laughing about this (how many halves does it take to make a whole banana?)...

when I got out a glass to pour myself some milk and proceeded to pour a whole glass of milk into a dirty cup. I've GOT to try to reset my body clock. This 2 a.m. thing isn't working out so well. That means I have 20 minutes before bedtime. Too bad I still have to finish a newsletter. Baby steps to a new bedtime.

We Made It Through the Terrible Two's!

Although I have to say that the two's weren't really that terrible...comparatively. Enough about that. We can't compare personalities, right? I'll just say that I'm glad both girls made it through, and we're all alive and still love each other.

I can't begin to describe the guilt that I feel because I put so little planning into this day. Usually I have a creative theme, a huge guest list, a hall rented, and lots of party favors ordered weeks in advance. This year I decided to combine the September and November birthdays into one party in October. I'm already regretting that, so I probably won't do it again. Even still, I couldn't let today go by without SOMETHING special. So I invited my friend Amy and her two little girls that my girls love to play with and our friend Lydia to come hang out. We played outside with water balloons, then cleaned up and had "pigs in a blanket," strawberries, and Dora cupcakes (which I made at midnight last night).

Look at all these cute girls!

Poor Little Buddy. Don't worry...he got half of a cupcake.

After naps, we let Little Sissy pick what she wanted for supper. Cheeseburgers won, and we "helped" decide on Johnny Rockets instead of McDonald's. The girls put on lip gloss and sparkly shoes, and off we went.

This is the new gangsta sign for "I'm 3. Don't mess with me!"

Then we played on the playground.

And ended up in the toy store, where we let Little Sissy pick out what she wanted for her birthday. (See? I didn't plan a thing!!!) She chose a rubber banded frog that you can shoot across the room, a figurine of a polar bear, and a figurine of a vulture. It's a GOOD thing I didn't plan this, or I might have gotten her something silly like My Little Ponies or a Barbie car.

We topped off the night with a bunny chase outside the mall. Perfect! I couldn't have planned that even if I had tried. I think Little Sissy had a great day, and I learned to relax and go with the flow. I may try it again the next time a birthday rolls around!

And Then There's Today

When Little Sissy hugs me and says, "You're the beautifulest mommy forever."

And all the stress fades away for a moment and I remember why I wouldn't change a thing.

One Week In

And I'm thinking that homeschooling may not be a long-term solution for us. Big Sissy is soooo motivated and eager to learn. The problem is more that I am not so motivated and not as eager of a teacher. And I have 2 little kids who also need attention. And I'm trying to do publicity for my MOPS group. And I'm trying to start a new business. And my grandpa is very sick and I'm trying to see him on the weekends. The hives are telling me that I won't be able to keep this up for long. I'm praying for wisdom and balance. I didn't make the first payment for preschool because I wasn't going to do it, but now I'm doubting my decision. *sigh*

So that's where I've been. Trying to balance my world on my finger. Suddenly I don't feel in control of this spinning ball. I'm glad that my spinning ball is a tiny little thing on the bigger ball that is humanity on the bigger ball that is the earth on the bigger ball that is God's domain. At least I can rest in that.

First Day of School

OK. So I've decided to "homeschool" this year. For all of you educators whom I greatly respect, don't panic. I'm only committing to doing it this year since Big Sissy isn't old enough for kindergarten yet. It's a bonus year. If we love it, I may keep going. If I blow it, there's always "real kindergarten" next year. So I have a great reading list from one curriculum, a big book of science experiments from the teacher store, a pile of math manipulatives (play money, clocks, shapes, etc.), and a bunch of workbooks from Target. I have no structure in mind, but before you turn me in to DFS, let me reassure you of a few things:

a. We will have fun.

b. She teaches herself, so she will make up for my weaknesses.

c. We are planning to be involved in tons of things that will round out her education (Kindermusik, MOPS, swim lessons, zoo trips, etc.)

d. She will not be confined to social isolation and I will let her watch TV on occasion.

I'm still kind of in summer mode, and did I mention I'm very unstructured? So I didn't really have a start day in mind. But today Big Sissy was in the living room working on a project for quite a while, and then she asked me how to spell "Dora is eating." When she was done, she brought this to me.

Oooo, great idea. Attach a sticker to a piece of paper and write a sentence about it. I think we just had our first day of school. I wonder what her lesson plan is for tomorrow.

Classic Quotes

I'm a little behind in my blogging, so bear with me through the MULTIPLE posts today. My children have been saying such cute things lately, and I am writing them here since I don't really keep another journal outside of this. Please be warned...we talk about potty and poop a lot in our house.

Little Sissy classics:

Little Sissy (peering into the toilet while Big Sissy is wiping): Your poop looks like mudballs.
Big Sissy: Yep. No snakes tonight. Just little mudballs.

Little Sissy (having her morning poop): My poopy made my potty come out. They like to be together. They're sisters.

Little Sissy’s prayer:
Thank you God for Jesus.
Thank you Jesus for God.

Me (explaining why we wouldn't see pigs at the aquarium in Springfield): I don’t think pigs can really swim.
Little Sissy: Yeah, they probably just piggy paddle.

Big Sissy classics:

Me: Y is for Yak.
Big Sissy: Where do yaks live?
Me: Ummm…let me go google it.

Big Sissy: Is there a dogfish?
Me: Yes, I think so. At least there is one in the Dr. Seuss books.
Big Sissy: Do dogfish chase catfish?
Me: Ummm…let me go google it.

Big Sissy: How come I never see eyes on a starfish?
Me: I don’t know. Maybe they’re on the bottom.
Big Sissy (laughing): I don’t think so, Mom. Then they can’t see the danger up above.
Me: Oh yeah. Let me go google it.

And from a couple of months ago...
"So if you grill the grilled cheese, do you french the french toast?"

Little Buddy classics:

grunt. grunt. point. point. mama. grunt. grunt. point. point.

Apparently boys are different.

In a Trench...

Digging for worms

Little Buddy's Special "Camera" Smile

Rain boots double as mud boots