Harvest

Sarah spends a great deal of her time coloring and drawing. I could not (still can't) draw like this when I was six. This was her first art lesson of the year: The Harvest. Can't wait to see what the rest of the schoolyear holds!

35 weeks.
Not ready to harvest but plenty of "contraptions", as the kids call them.



Harvesting the first corn of the year from the jungle of impossibility. Again.

I don't weed. I don't have time or energy. And I might not be able to get back up again. (Good excuse, Anne!)
Hence, the jungle of impossibility.



These have nothing to do with the harvest. But, oh my, how they grow!

Nathan learned how to swing this past week. He can sit and pump and everything. This is a terrible picture, but I wanted to document that he is still only "ONE YEARS OLD" and can already swing independently!

Sleeping In, Schoolwork, and Why I Will Never Be the Favorite Parent

"Babe. I'm so tired. I need you to go downstairs and feed the babies."

Chocolate Milk?

Really?

I swear Matt does this so that I never ask him to do it again.

I guess that is why the children write things like THIS in their schoolbooks.

Me- "Joseph, sweetie, Mommy said you have to write words that tell about your family."

J- "Right! I love Daddy is ALLLLLLLL about my family!"

Happy First Day of School banner.

 Matt and I draw a small picture for each child on our annual banner. Something special. Something they like.

I drew a test for Sarah. See the bottom? She got an A+! 

I drew Nathan in his car bed yelling, "Naptine!"

Cuz he likes his bed...and I like it when he naps.

Matt drew Thomas driving his VERY OWN JOHN DEERE TRACTOR!

And.....a GG1 for Joseph.

How in the pants am I supposed to compete with these?

Verbatim

~Silly things that have been said around these parts that I NEVER want to forget~

Nathan, singing the theme song to Bob the Builder: "Baaaaaa da dilder....canna friggit? Baaaaaa da dilder.....hanna CAN!" (Real words: Bob the Builder! Can he fix it? Bob the Builder! Yes, He CAN!")

Sarah, when she was far past angry with me: "I am so angry at you that I will kick a horse!"

Matt, in response: "I'm glad we don't own a horse!"

(Side note: This only made her more furious.)

Matt: "No, seriously, PETA would be all over that."

Sarah, when Matt told her to get in the kiddie pool on a hot day and cool her jets: "If you get me wet, I will kick you for the rest of the day!"

Matt, seriously confused by Sarah's dramatics: "What makes a 6 year old so mad that she would want to kick a horse, anyway?"

(Kicking seems to be the theme for the week with Sarah.)

Thomas, who I just caught jumping head first off the couch: "We are doing Jedi flips! My training is almost complete!"

Joseph, who was about to get a serious time out for pushing: "It was an accident! I didn't know it was bad! She did it first! I am hungry! I am tired! I am thirsty! I just don't like time-outs! But I REALLY love you, Mom!"

Thomas, who is very eager to meet the new baby: "She's gonna be naked when she comes out of your tummy!! Hahahahahahah!"

Time

If I ever want a good cry, I think about how quickly time passes. How quickly these children grow. How I can never spend enough time with them, soaking them in, learning from them and with them. Matt and I are both trying our hardest to appreciate each and every moment. Our last few weeks have been filled with cookouts, campfires, ice-cream, house projects that the children can "participate" in, and sleepovers in our living room. One evening this week, Matt took some time off from our never-ending home repairs...and we played with the kids. Played hard. We turned the playroom into an airport, made a dinosaur zoo (complete with parking garage), played dinosaur bowling (don't ask), laughed until we cried, wrestled, played dodgeball, etc. And then we looked around and discovered the children were no longer in the same room as us. Just kidding, almost.

We had a sleepover in the living room that night and watched Bob the Builder (Nathan's new fave). After the children fall asleep, Matt spends half the night reorganizing them. They feel the need to sleep half-draped over eachother...and they roll. It's hysterical. I call it Musical Children. But I guess Matt is more correct in saying that it is like Parking Lot, that game where you have to get the one car out of the parking lot by moving around all the other cars. You know. So Matt stacks them around like Tetris blocks. And we fall asleep for another 15 minutes until he has to do it again.

It makes me chuckle in the middle of the night, so it was worth documenting. 

My brother is getting married soooooooo soon. The children need dress shoes. I have never walked into a store, found exactly what I wanted for all four children, and walked out again. Going shoe shopping normally entails a trip to 3 different stores in 3 different towns and I ususally cry. No shoe shopping trip is complete without a meltdown from Mommy.

So yesterday, I politely asked (begged) my mom to go with me and the four crazies to the mall. She jumped at the chance...and so did Scuba Steve. So all 7 of us prepared for the worst and braced ourselves as we walked into the shoe store. 

It was perfect. We were the only ones there. They had a toy section for the children. They had perfect shoes in perfect sizes. The very sweet girl at the counter measured the childrens' feet. She measured Thomas twice... because he wanted to. 

This was the picture I sent to Matt when we arrived home.

Matt- "Pants, that's a lot of shoes."

Me- "Best part: Boo and Koala can put their new church shoes on by themselves!!!! That takes, literally, about 7 minutes off our Sunday morning routine! I mean, right? Between wrestling them to hold still and tying laces, I think its about 7 minutes."

Matt- "Oh definitely, at least."

Hurray for the gift of more TIME!

Dinosaurs

Joseph is hooked on this Dinosaur book by Dorling Kindersley.

This means that we talk about, dream about, think about and play dinosaurs alllllll day long.

The boys were doing their rendition of "dinosaurs on parade" through my kitchen, dining room and living room the other morning. I told them to go quietly read down in the playroom.

Found this.

They were reading the book to their toy dinosaurs, pointing out to the dinosaurs which type of species they were...and, at the end of the day, who was gonna eat them!

Just to show you how the far down the line this new obsession has taken hold:

Nathan has his dinosaurs lined up on the couch and is singing Happy Birthday to Dinosaurs...until he sees that  I am recording. Then it  turns into "Hey, Mom is watching. Can't let her think that I can speak or sing in a normal voice. Her expectations of me might get higher."

So he changes to his dinosaur voice.

Disturbing.

Two Weeks

Two weeks. That is how long the littles have been withOUT Sarah and Joseph during the mornings. The olders have been attending Faith Formation every day. 

"Church School", as Tommy calls it.

It has been so hard on the two babies that Thomas has even played Pretty, Pretty Princess with Sarah in the afternoons...just because he missed her. 

 After I drop off Sarah and Joseph in the morning, this is what I have to deal with.

 Until Noon! In mommy-time, that is like 14 years...of pure toddlerhood.

 Which is only slightly terrifying...but enough to start making me wish that I had my two "stabilizers" back in the bunch.

I mean, C'MON! He's scary!

Yikes.

He's in a laundry basket.

 On a table.

 Covered in his baby sister's new quilt.

Mommy misses you, Sarah and Joseph!

"Cackers"

The children have been behaving better at Church lately...except for that time when Thomas punched Uncle Nick in the face last week and Nathan yelled "cow" through the entire Mass two weeks ago and Joseph had to go potty three times, in succession, the week before that.

SOOOOOO, all in all, pretty good.

I think the reasoning for all this good behavior is Joanna.

Joanna is a kind Italian grandmother that sits in the pew directly in front of us. She has a soft spot for our Nathan. And by soft spot I mean that she feels a strong and urgent desire to feed him. Everything. All the time.  Each week, she sends us home with another bag full of homemade/ Italian goodness.

This is the most recent treat. Nathan is packing on the pounds now.

He calls them "cackers". Joseph, Tommy and Sarah all call them by their real name: "Biscolussi". AND they say it with an Italian accent! I don't call them anything, because my Italian accent sounds just like my German/ British/ Irish accent....and I can't read the package because it is all written in Italian, so I don't technically know if they are cookies or crackers.  

Which means that they must be crackers so that I feel zero guilt when giving them to my children at 8:30am.

Feeling Hot! Hot! Hot!

We have been spending a lot of time in the "kiggie pool" in the early evening. We go out around 4ish and stay out until Matt comes home and makes dinner and does everything that I was supposed to do during the day but couldn't because of the extra 75 pounds on my anterior...

We eat, and then this happens:

Almost every evening around 6, Nate crashes.

When he doesn't fall asleep, we have about one more hour of family time to do whatever. I always pick food, obviously.

I'm hot. Let's eat.

And since I know the children have good taste in food, I allow them to pick.

Ice cream, each and every night? Sure!

During the day, we spend most of our time in the house. We just don't do well in this sunshine for more than 45 minutes or so.

Sarah has been helping me with my nesting techniques. I guess I haven't been warning people when I polish the floor and scrub the tub. She says I need to hang up signs. 

I walked into the bathroom last week, and this is what I found: 

Sarah had washed down the sink for me. I love the figure of the hunched over stick person, preparing to wash his hands. Lateral view, obviously.

31 weeks, in this picture. Lateral view, obviously....just not as trim as the picture Sarah drew above.

 If you want to know what 32 weeks looks like, in your mind, double the size of my abdomen, fingers, arms, face...you get the drift.

Joseph's Storm Troopers from his Star Wars Lego set...with Sarah's accessorizing.
She's an artist.

For Real

I asked Matt to get the kids into their suits and hats and to, pretty please, sunscreen them so we could take them outside before they destroyed the house. 

Found this.

Diaper Wars.

There were diapers hanging from the lights and stuck on the top of the bookcase. Joseph had stashed a bunch and was about to go into rapid fire on Tom.

 I didn't get a good picture, but my husband was also participating in the insanity...laughing like a 2 year-old...and carpet bombing the spinning ceiling fan, causing projectiles.

I was not pleased.

Matt: "What is that face for? I got them ready like you asked!"

I threatened to give away all their toys and just get them each a box of diapers.

Joseph: "Size 4, please!"

Road Trip- Home

It did not feel like a complete Pernot Vacation without trains. And up there, in the Adirondacks, we were not disappointed. The Adirondack Scenic Railroad was a stop we made before our departure home. We wanted to take a trip on the RR, but the ride for that day was a Bandit Train. My children still have nightmares about Max and Ruby. 'Nuff said.

We explored the yard and even found an old turn table for the children to march around. It was awesome!

Matt insisted on taking a different route home. Driving through Watertown on the 4th of July was not his first choice...so he took us on some back roads through some sleepy little towns.

Don't even try to tell me he DIDN'T plan THIS:

Matt promises me that he had no clue that there was a steam engine and museum on this particular route back home. I told him I would now be referring to him as a train magnet. Or maybe the trains are the magnet. Either way, we can't go anywhere without being drawn to some type of locomotive.

The kind lady at the museum started up this train table for the kids. It is a model of their town and has a precious little train that runs around, under and through it.

The kids LOVED this little locomotive. On special occasions, the museum starts it up and gives rides to its members.
Joseph wanted to know where to sign up.

"Thomas," I said, "please don't touch the coal in that box!"

Nathan is becoming a train nut like his father. You can't see his face straight on because the photographer's swollen abdomen kept getting in the way and threatening to knock off one of the sides of the train table. But you can imagine the sheer joy of that little face, no?