How to keep a toddler occupied at a restaurant, after she’s finished her meal and before dessert arrives: put a napkin on your head.
It’s a hat, a peek-a-boo device, a laugh producer.
You may look a little goofy, but it’s no stranger than singing Jingle Bells, Happy Birthday, the ABC’s and Itsy Bitsy Spider aloud in a crowded restaurant (this technique also works).
Most importantly, putting a napkin on your head makes little girls smile.
Original post by piseco
We had a great Thanksgiving Day at our friend Krista’s house. We were joined by another lady from our HS group and her daughter, so we had 7 kids and 5 adults in the house. It was Krista’s first time cooking Thanksgiving dinner and she did great! We had chicken, sausage, stuffing, green beans, corn, potatoes, pecan and pumpkin pie and great conversation. Hannah found a computer and got onto webkinz and ‘did her account’ for awhile. Krista’s son Elliott made a paper titanic and we watched it sink in the backyard, it went down just like in the movie too (what HS’ers will do!) We watched some TV, ate and talked. I think we’ll invade someone’s house every year that doesn’t have family in town, it was fun.
Today we started on our Thanksgiving meal with my mom (she came in at 2:15pm) We had turkey, mac and cheese, stuffing, […]
Original post by liese4
Seven hours at Heather’s today, and at least six of those hours looked like this:
and like this:
BabyGirl and Jamie just love that baby Jillian oodles. They squeal her name and want to hold her, pet her, feed her, bathe her, change her diaper. Of course I was in the center of most of that, because of course I wanted to be holding, petting, feeding, bathing and changing the beautiful baby too.
JediBoy and Ethan spent hours upon hours playing Spore, which JediBoy hadn’t played before. We heard barely a peep from them (they did surface for lunch eventually and a short Lego break) and they were completely entranced.
Poor Ben bounced back and forth between playing with the girls and the baby and wanting to play Spore with the boys. It’s somehow my fault that I don’t have a child his age! That Heather is always trying […]
Original post by piseco
We’re ever so thankful that our friends are home again! Leigh’s family is living in a town several hours away for a few months, and we haven’t seen them since Nov. 1st. They’re home now for Thanksgiving, and we spent the day with them.
The theme for Muffin Tin Monday was foods you are thankful for and so we let everyone give a little input. Anna likes string cheese and salad; Nate wanted cheddar Sun Chips; Emily loves (imitation) crab meat; Leigh requested clementines; BabyGirl wanted Goldfish crackers and hot dogs (cheddar li’l smokies, so they would fit in the trays); JediBoy chose pepperoni, Ranch dressing, Kung Fu Panda Cheeze-Its and mini-marshmallows (he chose those last two as we shopped); and I added the ham.
Today’s photo by Leigh and her happy new camera.
We stayed for a couple of hours after lunch so the kids could play […]
Original post by piseco
The theme for Muffin Tin Monday this week was Fruits & Veggies, Dips & Spreads. We were lucky enough to be spending the day with our friends, Heather and her kids, and so we shared our muffin tin with them.
We had four fruits (apples, bananas, grapes and clementine slices) with two fruit dips (caramel spread and peanut butter mixed with vanilla yogurt) and four veggies (carrots, broccoli, snap peas and celery) with two veggie dips (ranch dip and guacamole).
BabyGirl liked the apples with caramel the best.
JediBoy loved the celery with peanut butter. Jamie tried a little bit of everything! There was even some left when Ben came home at noon and he got to share in the tin too.
We were also visiting beautiful 3-week-old baby Jillian, but I don’t have any pictures, because taking a picture would have required me to let her go and I couldn’t do […]
Original post by piseco
Uncle M. was bored. He said we should all come over.
We did!
We descended on their formerly quiet, clean & peaceful home and made it our own: loud, messy and rambunctious. The kids played and fought and wrestled and sang and danced and ate. The grown-ups mostly just played and ate. We had two rousing games of Hex Hex mixed with the Hex Hex Next set, and then a play of the CSI: Senses game (reminiscent of Cranium).
It was a wonderful night. JediBoy enjoyed watching movies, pretending to be the character in a video game while we all called out what buttons we were pushing, and helping Uncle J. and me do some charades as part of the CSI game. (He acted out “answering the phone” by himself, then helped us act out “sketching the crime scene” by being in the crime scene, and “putting […]
Original post by piseco
I haven’t participated in this meme before, Blogger Friend School, which provides a weekly “blogging homework” theme. As I was browsing through some of the amazing blogs listed over at the HSB Awards, I clicked onto this week’s theme for the BFS, and was totally inspired to join in, since it goes hand in hand with thoughts and observations I’ve been having here in the last couple weeks anyways. Technically, I believe that the “assignment” is supposed to be posted on Tuesday?, but in my natural way, I’m posting mine a day two days late!
The passion to sing, the passion to draw, the passion to build, the passion to ride, the passion for reading, the passion for nature… the list is endless. Some children exhibit their passion from day one, others need an experience to spark that passion.
Assignment: Share a field trip/lifestyle learning experience where you really felt you were […]
Original post by Beth
I live in a house full of bibliophibians.
This week, the local branch of a large publishing company is holding its annual warehouse sale. It turns out that our community is full of bibliophibians.
Yes, I need more practice on adjusting-one’s-camera-settings-in-the-dark. But the photo above shows a small portion of the line of traffic waiting to get in to the warehouse.
Once we got in, we were greeted by piles and piles of empty boxes waiting to be filled, and rows and rows of remaindered, overstocked and returned books piled on pallets.
Books with a cover price of $9.99 or less are $1 after tax. From $10-$14.99, the books are $2, up to $24.99 are $3, and so on. Nearly half the sale is kids’ books - paperbacks, hardbacks and board books, DK readers, DK Eyewitness, Caldecotts and Newberrys and more. We restrained ourselves greatly and only bought two […]
Original post by piseco
~Well, today is my mom’s birthday. Happy Birthday, mom! I am going my Grandma and Papa’s house for the weekend and the boys have a slumber-party birthday for a friend. So I am excited!
~I am going to get my own cell-phone (you probably already know that) I am not going to get it until probably after Christmas because my parents might do something special
~Awana has been going good. I am on my second book. The verses are getting a lot longer. Like 2 paragraphs! I can do it though. I am working really hard to finish my second book by the end of the year so I can go ahead and get my third book. I made a calender!
~ Also 13 more days until Twilight comes to theature! I am so excited!!! I marked the calender!
~ Nothing much is going on this week. I think you already know […]
Original post by natalie
With all the excitement of Halloween and BabyGirl’s birthday party, I’m late uploading my Halloween photos. Here are a few glimpses of our Halloween.
The kids were wildly excited all day, from the moment they got up and opened their presents from The Great Pumpkin til they collapsed, exhausted, into bed that night.
They couldn’t wait for the dressing-up part to begin, so they tried out two other sets of costumes. In the morning, they were a vet and his poodle patient:
In the afternoon, they were a farmer and his pumpkin. JediBoy acted out the whole story of the farmer growing his pumpkin, harvesting it, and carving it into a jack o’lantern - several times!
The excitement really kicked in when Pappy and Nita arrived in the afternoon, bringing with them books and candy.
At dinnertime, we made our way over to Leigh’s house to meet up with friends and family […]
Original post by piseco
Life with a little one is busy… ALL. the time. I’d forgotten just how busy one baby can keep a Momma, and then, throw in a seventh grader and a fourth grader, with so many of their activities and a large part of their education hinging on my daily accessibility… not to even mention everyday stuff like housework, cooking healthful meals, running errands, etcetera… and then wifedom too! …and there you have ‘em… my reasons -in a nut shell- for neglecting this here blog of mine lately. I mean, the baby girl turned ONE year old back in August, and I have yet to get a picture of her sweetness in cake up here on my blog! Pitiful… *smiles*
There’s also the general brain-writer’s-block and tendency towards passivity and wanting to just veg-out, read or play when I do sit down at mr.mac here, or baby S’s thinking that this computer/desk […]
Original post by Beth
My immediate family is small and spread apart. When we’re lucky, it’s just between two states, but four months of the year my dad is on another continent. We don’t see family very often!
We live in the town we moved to when we were just married, a town where we knew no one at all, and had no close friends until I met R at work. We’ve made a few good friends here over the years, and imported some friends from home. And we’ve learned that dear friends are really part of the family. I wrote about some of them here in January, when we went to the portrait studio for my birthday.
Today, I returned to the portrait studio with another chunk of our found family: the unsocialized, wild, weird & wonderful homeschooling kids. Leigh & her family are leaving next week (her husband has […]
Original post by piseco
We had a marvelous time - JediBoy’s naturally dour expression aside - at the opera today! It was a wonderful experience, a short 40-minute program full of laughter and song. There were enough speaking parts that the kids could easily follow the story, and some wonderfully funny moments of Pig-and-Wolf drama set to familiar passages from Mozart operas. The kids all seemed to enjoy it, and BabyGirl was held absolutely spellbound, sitting perfectly still on my lap to watch the entire performance. She seemed to be able to recognize a bit of the Three Little Pigs story we’ve been telling all week.
The kids even got to chat with - and post with - the four-person cast after the show.
After the opera, JediBoy asked to go out to eat, since we were all dressed up anyway. What’s better than an opera and some ice cream? […]
Original post by piseco
Forgive me for not posting… I spent all of yesterday at Leigh’s, helping sort out clothes. We left 11 bins in the garage for a garage sale, 3 bins of clothes they’ll use this winter, 2 bins of clothes they’re saving, one bin’s worth were trashable, and I brought home 6 bags - the equivalent of 3 bins. That’s 20 bins we sorted! Phew. AND we did the basement toys, too.
I kept myself too busy to take pictures!
Oh, and after all this time I was finally nudged into signing up with Facebook. That took a bit of time too.
Today was quiet but brought on another big headache - they’re getting more frequent and it’s becoming a puzzle I need to solve.
JediBoy is gliding right along with his math, doing another whole lesson today (adding money - $1.89 +$3.97). It pleases him very much, because […]
Original post by piseco
A 3-hour park date with him…
can make her feel like this…
We spent 3 hours at one of our favorite playgrounds with Uncle M and Cousin C this morning, and the kids had a blast. Cousin C took a tumble down the tallest twisty slide - like a rock in the dryer, he was, poor thing! But he seemed no worse for wear a bit later. After her swing-nap, BabyGirl wanted to try the same slide, but I wasn’t about to let her go down alone.
This insulted her BabyGirl independence and she tried to climb off my lap as we were sliding. Her shoe caught a bit on the edge of the slide (though we were going slowly enough that I stopped us and fixed the problem right away) and her hip seemed to bother her after that.
So our afternoon at home was a quiet and as-still-as-possible […]
Original post by piseco
We couldn’t bring our Chesso friends to the lake, so we brought the lake - or at least the lake bottom - to them.
Before we left camp last week, we filled up six quart-size freezer bags with sand and rocks from the lake. Today, we brought the bags over to Leigh’s house and let the kids dump them out into foil pans, swish them around with water, poke at them with brushes and sieves and basters. It was fun in the way that the pricey “pan for gems” tourist traps are - the kids were delighted to find “crystals” and “coal” and “gems” in their pans.
Paula and Emily look for treasures:
Nate concentrates on using his baster:
Anna can’t help but smile:
JediBoy delights in a fabulous find:
Ben and BabyGirl bond over rocks:
It was great fun, and kept the kids occupied for a long time. Emily even went back out […]
Original post by piseco
Amy of Dandelion Seeds is inviting anyone who would like to commit to praying for the Drews family to please email her to sign up for a specific time, or just let her know that you’re praying, and she’ll then let the Drews know that so many are lifting them up. You may go to her post here to read more about it and to see what times are left. Her goal is to have every hour of a 24 hour day covered by Sept. 25, which will mark a month since they lost their precious baby boy, Christian Edward Drews.
I’m asking anyone interested in lifting Marsha and their family in prayer every day at a promised time until the 25th (marking one month since “Dozer” went to be with Jesus) to email me (amy@dandelionseeds.com) with the time you’ll be praying (please include your blog link if you have one […]
Original post by Beth
The evening before yesterday I was so sad to hear of the news that a precious homeschool family had lost their three year old little boy in a tragic accident. And so I went to bed praying for this mother, unable to fathom how her heart must be breaking… yet compelled to imagine what it must feel like, what her reality was even then- heart-wrenching and mind-numbing. The next morning I was stunned to learn that the mother I’d been praying for was none other than Marsha Drew, a fellow blogging friend that I used to keep up and share with very regularly. She has been on my mind and in my prayers continually these last few days, and how I’ve wanted to do something, to somehow just reach out and touch her across the miles, offer my sincerest love and support.
You may go and read a tribute to little […]
Original post by Beth
12 hours.
5 kids.
1 van.
1 zoo.
30 kinds of animals.
3 parks.
4 carousels.
6 happy meals.
2 sheet pizzas.
16 balloons.
196 photographs.
1 happy 4 year old.
That’s how we spent our day. It was lovely. Happy birthday, Anna!
Original post by piseco
We didn’t have good luck with the Perseid meteor shower last night, what about you? We did go out at bedtime (from about 9:00 until 10:30) and saw maybe half a dozen. The sky was so bright with the moon, it was hard to see much. We planned to go out again, but when I woke up at 2 am it was overcast… and again at 4 am, and again at 6 am. We were sad that we didn’t get to see the peak of the shower, but we might try again tonight.
The Perseids are particularly sentimental for me. Ten years ago this week, PisecoDad and I were staying with my parents, getting ready to move away and get married. As the household started winding down for bed one night, I started talking about the meteor shower and peeking out the windows and getting […]
Original post by piseco
There’s nothing like a day spent with friends. We haven’t spent nearly as much time this summer with Heather and her kids as we usually do - we’ve traveled at different times, and our kids have been sick at different times, and things just haven’t worked out. Finally today the sun shone down and we got to spend a happy day at Heather’s.
I only took pictures while the kids were outside, and they were doing so many different things (and in so many shades of nekkid) that really only this one candid group shot seemed postable.
It’s the five kids - doing their own things. Jamie’s hanging out on the slide, JediBoy is playing but unwilling to get in the water, Ethan has been swimming and is now sunbathing, BabyGirl is exploring the toys, and Ben is jumping into the pool.
I also snapped this picture of BabyGirl holding […]
Original post by piseco
It’s 5:20 AM!, and I’ve been awake for well over an hour now. I laid in bed for almost 40 minutes, trying to go back to sleep, but to no avail. My mind was whirling with thoughts, composing them, winding words onto skeins of memory, hoping that I could even find them to explore and ravel later, these prose lacking cohesive meaning. I deliberated over whether or not to risk waking baby S, whether to get up and write them out, lest they disappear with my consciousness if I sleep- elusive and so easily lost they are, like grasping at wind, trying to hold onto light. I was wishing that I had one of those writer’s pens with a light, but wondering would that even work, without waking S and Chris, both obliviously snoozing on either side of me… and so, as the thoughts piled and sleeping I was not, […]
Original post by Beth
In between everything else that’s going on this week, we have gone to two very fun birthday parties. When JediBoy was born, I started going to La Leche League meetings here in town, and I met a group of moms who remain very dear friends. All of our first babies were born in that summer or fall. JediBoy was the oldest on June 19, and Ethan was the youngest on October 2. All the others came in between, including B. on July 24 and A. on July 31. Here they are the summer they turned one.
Now they’re all turning six! If you want to see how big they are, I have lots of pictures after the cut.
Original post by piseco
I just love my friends’, Carey and Don, blogs. Carey is such a great writer. So, I’m giving their family blog a little plug here. (They do have two other blogs that they contribute to and you can find the links to those in their profiles.)
little house in the ghetto
Original post by a conscious life
We’ve had a very nice weekend, in spite of the heat and humidity. We were able to take the time to be with several of our good friends and family this weekend, and that time was cherished.
Yesterday morning started with soccer… here is 40% of Team USA! We’re lucky to have three of JediBoy’s friends on his soccer team.
JediBoy was thrilled to have his Grandma & Grandpa come down to watch him play. After the game, we went with them to lunch out and then for a hot but yummy trip to the pick-your-own farm for fresh raspberries. The kids liked seeing the animals and eating berries right off the bush.
When Grandma & Grandpa had to leave (which put JediBoy in a bit of a snit), we drove home and relaxed for a couple of hours.
In the evening, we went over to Aunt R & Uncle J’s […]
Original post by piseco