Attack of the children

I have too many cute pictures so they get an entry of their own.

Impromptu Birthday Party

Where the C-family comes down with balloons and whoopee cushions while I scramble to make a cake and hors d’oeuvre and P-daddy steals the boy away for us to shout “Surprise.”

And Dougie is surprised….

And shorn….

And so happy!

Merry Christmas to All!

and may your cookies be tastier than ours……

Happy Solstice

We enjoyed a wonderful celebration with our friends.

Nothing went as planned, pretty much….nothing! The cookies didn’t turn out, the food didn’t all arrive at the same time, and it rained alllll day so we didn’t do the tree for the animals.

BUT we had fun! Much laughter, and love.

But we did have 14 children opening Christmas gifts at one time. That was impressive. And then we sang Happy Birthday to and shared cake with the Solstice child, who turned three that day.

This is us prepping, earlier that day:

Literacy is Good….and Funny

~G~ has really been feeling her oats lately with writing. She writes us notes all the time, knowing how much we love to read them. We get many of them at bedtime, asking us to sleep with her, or to let her stay up, etc etc. That’s what I thought this one was going to be.

P-daddy had installed the new shelves in the school room and ~G~ was helping em put the supplies back up. We’d gone along at a steady clip when I realized it was way past her bedtime, and I sent her on, telling her I knew how tired SHE was because I was about to drop myself. We had a solstice gathering the next day and I knew we’d all be exhausted; she needed to sleep.

About ten minutes after I sent her to bed, in comes this note, careening to the floor:

I want to be with you. You’ll never make it without me.

I burst out laughing, and told her “You know, you’re right. But we’re both still going to bed.”

Warming up for the Solstice

Yesterday we had a very calm day planned- I was potentially meeting up with the C-family while we ran a joyful Christmas errand, but then we were going to work on hanging shelves in the school room so as to get the boxes OFF THE FLOOR. I want them up for the kids, but hey yeah, the Solstice is coming and it would be more hospitable to not have people box-diving.

So my life is a sit-com and it didn’t work out that way. But we had fun anyway. We ended up with the C-family here, with another friend of ours and her two boys joining us later. She’d thought the Solstice pot luck was yesterday instead of the coming Saturday, so she’d worked her butt off on her fabulous dish and had called to apologize for being late. “Late? What?”

So we said “Hey! Let’s have a party anyway!”

And so we did.

I love Yuletime.

Adventures in weaning

“OK,” I said cautiously, “you can come sit on my coffeetime lap if you want to cuddle,” weighing the word cuddle meaningfully.

“OK,” D-baby said sweetly, nodding with eyes as big as he could make them. Up on the lap, up into my arms. For a brief moment I was able to enjoy the little legs and arms, the soft tufts of toddler hair. Then the wiggling and the arching began. Ah the true Machiavellians, the toddlers.

“Noooo D-baby,” I admonished, “we only nursey once a day, not right now!”

“YEEEEEEESSSS! NUUURSSSSSEYYYYYYY!” the stutter-temper-cry started, tensing me instantly.

“D-baby, D-baby,” I said calmly, straightening him up, “You’ll be THREE soon, and three year olds don’t nurse!” I silently prayed for forgiveness as I left off “in my house.”

“I a BABY!” he retorted. Choosing not to respond to that, I said “WHAT are we going to do for your BIRTHDAY party? You’ll be THREE soon!”

Blink blink.

“Do you want a pool party? A pizza party?”

“Noooooooooooooooooooo,” he grinned.

“Do you want a party together with Nomi?”

“NOOO! It’s MY ONE! Nomi can’t have my party!” he shouted indignantly.

“Well,” I asked again, “What kind of party do you want?”

He grinned mischievously…. “A NURSEY party! A BOOBY party! At the ComPOOTER party!”

AGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Placeholder for our wonderful zoo trip

wherein I post pictures of the nice meet up we had with Nikay (including free boxes of won’t-poison-you animal crackers they gave each child)

and

try not to cry again that I barely made it home because the tranny on THIS van has decided to kill itself.

St. George and the Dragon

Edited to add link above

~N~ loves theater, with a pretty steady passion. Especially after taking a theater class last summer, he’s been bitten by that bug. This year, instead of being shooed aside, he actually won a role in his favorite act at the fair. Robin Hood comes every year and with Maid Marion, directs an impromptu show. ~N~ was St. George, who rescued the fair maiden, fighting dragons, rascals and even death to do it.

In the cast!

On the quest for the bad guys!

Slaying the dragon

Oh no! Felled by a bad guy!

Checked by a concerned audience member

St George Saves the day!

Take a bow!

More pix here.

Too much to sensibly update.

Especially since it hurts to sit at the computer right now. Lots good, some bad. It’s life, you know?

My friends and I officially decided to pretend we’re a homeschool group since, as Niki points out, we already are. But we’re really an exclusive group. Totally selective. You must have three children, live in the Puget sound area and have an ongoing struggle with food allergies. So far there are four of us families, all of whom have tongues firmly planted in cheek.

3/4 of us attempted IKEA earlier this week. We’re nuts, I guess.

My back is on the mend after deciding to go on strike. I went speed-hiking in the woods with Birk clogs but no socks. I expected to only venture a little ways in, but Neighborgirl hijacked one of mine and two of Mack’s boys on our Wednesday lunchfest and took them to the &^@ beach cliff. SO out of her boundaries, SO out of my boundaries, and completely on the down low from her mother. I was livid when I finally found them– coming down the path from the cliff and past the turnoff for home. She was leading them on to the gulley in another far off section of the woods. I don’t usually yell at other people’s children but I did that day. Our boys were in the back picking berries– Pickles didn’t even have on shoes or a shirt– when she said she’d take them to “see a waterfall.” I am growing more than weary of Neighborgirl issues.

Can’t go to Renny fair today because while I have range of motion 70% back, I won’t risk that kind of event with a toddler and G-girl. P-Daddy has N off fishing with buddies from work, so I am happy to see that happen. We did however, go to the GH Farmer’s Market for a trial run of my back. I made it through, but just, and the kids got their faces painted. Very cute. the artist was an artist, so the pictures on the little guys were very good. D-baby didn’t move at ALL while he was being painted.

One of G’s crabs died, for no explainable reason, and she was heartbroken. She doesn’t want a replacement crab because these crabs were from Santa, and the ones from the store are just too mean.

Plucked another zucchini from our bush in the dry garden, and a spaghetti squash from the big garden. The acorn squash are coming along nicely and apparently I forgot to plant cucumbers.

I am excited to try to win Jubilant Tulip over to the world of stove top espresso makers. I am making a latte now as a matter of fact.

And most importantly of course: