Life In M-town

We're moving!

2008-08-27T16:19:00.004-04:00

Now don't get all excited, thinking we have neglected to tell you some very important news personally. I'm talking about this blog -- it's moving to a new site, hosted by WordPress. This will be the last post on Blogger, so be sure and update your links (and RSS feeds if you're into that sort of thing).

Go on over to the new blog!

Just different

2008-08-20T15:42:00.016-04:00

My children are very blessed to have all 4 of their grandparents alive and well, along w/ a great-grandparent as a bonus. Doug and I both came from loving homes, but we had fairly different upbringings. He spent the first 15 years of his life in the suburbs in New Jersey as the youngest of 2 children. I grew up in the backwoods of North Carolina as the 5th of 6 children. I've adopted some of Doug's family's way of doing things, and he has taken some of mine. I like to think our children are a nice mix of the two.

These different backgrounds mean my children get very different experiences when they visit their 2 sets of grandparents. I think this is a good thing; it's a blessing that I hope they will appreciate one day. Time spent w/ one set is not better than a visit w/ the other; it's just different.

This past weekend we visited my parents. They still live in the house I was raised in. We arrived on Saturday night, hoping to get a swim in at the pool down the road where I learned to swim (or should I say where my daddy threw me into the deep end). It belongs to a very elderly gentleman that I have known all my life. Unfortunately, there was a lot of lightning and thunder so we just stayed at the house w/ my grandmother (my parents were out of town until the next day). Chloe seemed particularly fond of my Grandmother Louise (her great-grandmother) and we got some cute shots of inter-generational affection. I think I spotted a little puddle of Grandmother-Louise-heart on the couch afterwards:

After church and then lunch on Sunday we headed over to the pool. The children enjoyed their time in the water. Doug and I entertained them by jumping off the diving board and doing amazing feats of somersaults, twists, and flips before slipping gracefully into the water (making little to no splash, of course). Or maybe not. But I did touch my toes before that belly flop. And I think the children were amused.

My parents returned on Sunday afternoon, and we enjoyed a yummy supper w/ them, my grandmother, my brother Sid, his wife Tina, and their crew of 4 young'uns. Noah and Claire had an absolute ball playing w/ their cousins. Chloe liked to follow them around and got totally filthy in the process:

That afternoon we discovered that one of the nanny goats had had twins the day before. They were so little and cute! But very loud if you took them away from their mama:

My nephew Sidney, Noah, and Claire playing together:

Noah, Claire, Sidney, and Chloe playing:

My nephew Lincoln pulling Claire and his sister Rachel in the wagon:

On Monday, Doug and I went whitewater rafting on the French Broad River while my parents looked after the children. (Wasn't that nice of them?) It was in celebration of our 8th wedding anniversary, which is officially next week. We had a good time but got a bit crispy around the edges (i.e. sunburned on our arms and legs). While we were gone the children got to go fishing and played w/ their cousins some more. They also gorged themselves on tomatoes, blueberries, and raisin bread.

On Tuesday we got ready to leave. But first we had to sneak in a little bit of blueberry pickin'. Chloe did pretty well choosing the blue ones and not the green unripe ones.

But why bother when Mama will pick for you?

My mama loaded us up w/ produce before we left, including tomatoes, peppers, cantaloupe, blueberries, watermelon, okra, green beans, eggplant, pumpkin, and some honey from their bees. She wanted to give us some squash and cucumbers too but we already have a lot of those from our own garden. Mama says she needs to stop planting such a humongous garden every year, but I don't mind it one bit. We'll be eatin' pretty good this week!

For lunch we met Doug's dad (Grandpa Dave) at Olive Garden. This was planned at the last minute so we decided not to tell the children beforehand. I think they were very pleasantly surprised. Grandpa Dave quizzed Noah on what he had done in school the previous week. I'm sure he was dazzled by Noah's extensive knowledge of killer whales. He also gave Doug his birthday present (it's next week, 3 days after our anniversary). We had a nice meal and visit w/ him before we had to head on home. Claire told me in the bathroom at Olive Garden that we needed to come back again w/ Grandma Carol. I'm sure she would agree.

It was a fun weekend for everyone involved.

My kitchen table

2008-08-14T14:46:00.005-04:00

So guess what we've been up to this week?

Monday was our official start to school. I wanted to do something special to commemorate the occasion, so that morning the children and I went to one of their favorite restaurants for breakfast: IHOP. I took my camera along to take some pictures but realized the camera's batteries (and the backup batteries) were dead after we had settled into our booth. Then we went to Wal-mart to pick up a few things and then the dollar store. Noah bought 2 items w/ his tooth money and I got a few school supplies. Then we came home to actually start school. We mainly just looked thru his books and talked about what we would be doing this year. We did complete the introductory math lesson as it was quick and easy and I read the page about killer whales to him out of his animal encyclopedia. The plan is to do 1 animal a week for science, 20 animals in all. He's really digging orcas (another name for killer whales) right now, so we started w/ that.

On Tuesday we did a full day's worth -- math, reading/phonics, recess, handwriting, and then a trip to the public library to get more books about killer whales and Noah's very own library card. We've been doing Bible/history time after our main meal w/ Daddy everyday.

Here are some pictures from Wednesday's recess:

In case you're wondering, this is what "kitties playing soccer" looks like:

We combined today's recess w/ a lesson in auto mechanics, taught by Daddy. It's an integral part of every proper kindergarten curriculum, you know.

Today I had Noah tell me what he has learned about killer whales while I typed it into the computer (a narration). I had to do some prompting, but it is really quite neat how much he has retained. Then we found a spiffy picture on the internet, put that at the bottom, and printed it out for his science notebook. Doug suggested I look on YouTube for some killer whale videos. There were a couple of really neat clips from SeaWorld that the children enjoyed thoroughly. Also a few National Geographic-type videos of orcas in the wild.

Overall, he has been very receptive and cooperative about school. He tends to get tired after math (he has 1 worksheet to do every day and writing seems to tire him), so I do reading/phonics first, then math so that he has a break after that. He is holding his pencil correctly now, thanks to some triangular crayons and a special pencil grip I got for him.

It's quite satisfying to hear him talk about things he has learned outside of "school" time. He was playing like he was a killer whale today and told me that Chloe's pajama bottoms were his "prey"; he then started to "eat" them. I praised him and reminded him that he was the predator of the pajama bottoms. Then Claire held up a pillow and said she was going to eat and pray. So I guess she's learning something, too. :)

A too-fer, Part 2

2008-08-04T14:38:00.002-04:00

Noah found his tooth on the floor on Saturday night. I also found out the rest of the story on how it came out. He had been playing and slipped and hit his mouth on a chair. This totally dislodged the tooth that we knew was loose, and it fell out on the floor. It also must have hit the tooth next to it, and all it took was me wiping Noah's face to have it completely fall out. It had been a teeny bit wiggly, so I guess it was going to come out in the next few months anyway.

I learned all this on Saturday night from Doug. Evidently I hadn't asked Noah the right questions. Questions such as, "Did you fall and hit your mouth on a chair?"

A too-fer

2008-08-02T14:38:00.002-04:00

So I told you about how Noah started loosing teeth a little under a year ago. He lost 2 more back in May or June, and then about 3 weeks ago, one of his top front teeth became noticeably loose. He's been working on it, so today when he told me that it had come out, I was not surprised. He had a little bit of blood above his lip so I got a damp paper towel and started to clean him up. Then all of a sudden another tooth popped out! It scared me which I think scared him. I looked at the tooth and it didn't look decayed or anything. I asked him where the first tooth was and he said he didn't know. So he showed me in the playroom where he had been when he noticed it was missing and I looked all around to no avail. I asked him if he had swallowed it and he said he didn't think so. Doug suggested that maybe Chloe had eaten it. Ick.

He has 2 adult teeth w/ 4 empty spaces. I told him he was my cute little snaggletooth now.

On on an interesting side note, I recently found out that my niece lost 2 teeth at almost the exact same age that Noah was (approx. 4 years 10 months). Maybe it's a genetic thing.

School is (almost) in session

2008-07-26T15:39:00.001-04:00

For those who don't know, we are planning to homeschool the children. For years now, we have been asked if we are homeschoolers and I would reply, "Yes". Then I would usually have to clarify that my oldest was only x years old, but I would be homeschooling him in the future. We were homeschoolers at heart, if not in action.

Well, the future is now. Noah's birthday is in late November, so he was not eligible for kindergarten until this school year. Honestly, I've been dreading it. I've briefly looked at homeschooling methods in the past, but none of them really grabbed me. And don't even get me started on choosing the curriculum. There are dozens of websites and 2"-thick catalogs filled w/ thousands of choices. It's just so overwhelming, especially for someone who doesn't know what her homeschool ideology is besides "I don't want my children to be ignorant."

A few months ago I realized that I absolutely had to get cracking on this. I again looked online at the different approaches to see if I could narrow it down any. A few I could eliminate immediately as unsuitable candidates for our family. I knew I didn't want to order a bunch of textbooks and have public school at home. I like the idea of using "whole" books instead, where possible. (Though textbooks are necessary w/ subjects like math, in my opinion.) I also am not big on unit studies or "unschooling" which seems like it could become very hit-and-miss. So I ordered books about the Charlotte Mason (CM) method and the classical homeschooling (CH) method.

Without explaining what these different approaches involve, I'll just say that I had to make myself read the CM book. It took me 3 weeks to get halfway thru -- it just wasn't sparking my enthusiasm. So I put it aside and picked up the CH book, The Well-Trained Mind. WOW! Now we're talking! It actually got me excited about homeschooling, which is exactly what I needed. In particular, the approach to history is just so awesome and novel. Instead of jumping here and there, it's done chronologically! What a concept! :) I remember disliking history because it seemed so disjointed; there was no flow at all.

The authors have lots of book recommendations (some of those books having been written by themselves), which I wrote down and then researched online. I also used the website for Classical Christian Homeschooling to get book ideas. In the end, I picked some from each. We will also, of course, become good friends w/ our local public librarian.

So now I have half of my book choices sitting on my kitchen island, w/ the other half on a United States Postal Service truck somewhere between here and Atlanta. I'm going to really concentrate on improving Noah's reading and handwriting skills this year (he can read simple stuff but he is not very confident about it). We'll also be doing some math, ancient history, and science. I really like his history storybook; it mainly focuses on the Bible w/ some information about the surrounding cultures woven in. For science we'll be studying different kinds of animals, the human body, and plants. I'd like to keep the science light, interesting, and fun w/ plenty of hands-on activities and experiments.

We'll see how it goes. We may get 2 weeks into this and realize the classical method just isn't going to work, or we may love it. Noah likes to learn but gets discouraged easily. My job will include giving him lots of encouragement, I'm sure.

I told Doug I was kind of excited about learning all the stuff I should have learned all those years ago. My public school experience wasn't too bad overall (hey, I can write a semi-coherent blog post), but I know it was pretty deficient in a few areas. Hopefully Noah won't be able to say the same thing about his education.

Can't we share?

2008-07-24T15:40:00.003-04:00

The other day we were at Office Max to look at copiers and also to copy some math worksheets for Noah. I was standing at the copier while Doug was watching the littl'uns. I guess Claire was bored or tired or both, because she started sucking her thumb and rubbing her neck. Chloe saw her doing this and decided that Sister looked like she was having a lot of fun. So she came over and tried to rub Claire's neck, too. But Claire swatted her hand away as if to say, "No way, it's mine! Get your own neck."

Fun with Family

2008-07-07T20:18:00.005-04:00

My children are not lacking in the extended family department. Besides having the perfect number of grandparents (4), they also have 1 great grandmother, 5 uncles, 6 aunts, and 16 cousins.

I enjoy seeing the children interact w/ their various family members. Because I love my children and I love my family, it's nice to see them getting to know each other. In May my little (as in younger AND shorter) sister, Sandra, came to visit us for a weekend. Usually when the children have seen Sandra it's been in a new environment w/ lots of other people around. So this time they got to interact on their own turf, w/ more individualized attention. Over supper we told them some riveting "How Aunt Sandra broke her arm the first, second, and third time" stories, in addition to "How Uncle Sid almost killed Aunt Sandra the first, second, and third time (unintentionally, of course)". All very exciting tales, indeed.

Here we are at Dollywood (that's Claire on the right side):

And then after we ate at Brumley's (a fantastic Sunday brunch buffet place):

Then this past weekend we went to my parents' house for the Fourth of July.
In addition to visiting w/ Grandma Sandy, Grandpa Louis, and Grandmother Louise, they also got to spend some quality time w/ their Uncle Sid, Aunt Tina, and cousins Sidney, Lincoln, Rachel, and Prairie. Sid and Tina took us thru the woods to see their beautiful new house (not quite finished).

Claire and Rachel w/ Uncle Sid:

Feeding the goats and donkeys (and mosquitoes) w/ Grandpa Louis:

Having some sort of cousin convention:

Claire "helping" Grandma Sandy in the garden:

Every year there is a neighborhood pool party and potluck at Papa Henry's house on the 4th. This is the second year I've gone since Doug and I got married (we went just about every year while I was growing up). We went a little early so the children could swim for a while w/o lots of other squirmy little bodies splashing and screaming around them.

On the night of the 4th, we went to Tina's niece's house to watch fireworks and enjoy some ice cream and yummy blueberry cobbler (made by Tina's sister, Brenda). We headed back home on Saturday after having lunch w/ Sid and Tina and crew at Fatz Cafe. By the time we got home, the children were exhausted (and so were Mama and Daddy).

From Grandpa and Grandma, with Love

2008-06-21T15:33:00.000-04:00

Have I ever mentioned before what generous in-laws I have? I mean, you'd think they love us or something. Well, this week we got something very special from them. A new playground for our backyard! They ordered it while they were here for Mother's Day. On Wednesday a homeschooling family (father, mother, 2 teenagers) came and installed it in 3 hours flat. They didn't even have to look at any directions. The dad said they had been doing it for 9 years. It would have taken us fo-evah to have done it. Or at *least* 2 very long days assuming there weren't any cute children around to ~~distract~~ help us.

On Thursday we had 13 cubic yards of playground mulch delivered. We've got it spread out pretty well now, but need to make it thicker in some places. We'd also like to get a bench for us big folks to sit on while we're out there supervising the li'l folks.

The playground is in a nice spot as there are trees around. It's pretty shady in the morning and then again in the late afternoon. It had a bit of a slope, but our friend David Gaut (of Gaut Construction Company fame) brought his BobCat over a few weeks ago and leveled it out for us. He also got us a bunch of used railroad ties to use for mulch containment. For FREE! He and his son even spent the good part of a hot Saturday afternoon putting them in place (Doug helped). What a blessing he has been to us!

Here's Claire keeping a safe distance from the BobCat work:

Nice and shady in the morning:

The weather has been gorgeous this week (low 80s w/ clear skies) so we've been outside every day. On Wednesday they spent 3 hours playing on it. They've been a lot more tired lately, begging to take naps and go to bed at night. There's just so much for them to do on the swingset -- 3 swings, a slide, rock wall, 360 degree tire swing, Jacob's rope ladder, trapeze/rings, ship's wheel and binoculars, and a cool little clubhouse.

So I have a message for Grandpa Dave and Grandma Carol from Noah, Claire, and Chloe: THANK YOU!!!

Down on the farm

2008-06-21T14:46:00.005-04:00

Last night we went to our new milk source to pick up milk for the week and to witness the evening milking. The children always enjoy our trips to the various farms we patronize. We've gotten milk from several different places, and they always find a new way to differentiate between them. There was the "farm w/ Bullet" (Bullet was a big, sweet German Shepherd), then the "farm w/ the swimming pool" (self-explanatory), and now the farm we visited last night. So far they're calling it the "farm where we watched them milk the cow". I hope they find a shorter name for it soon.

Besides the 2 Jersey cows (Milly and Tilly), this farm has a Jersey calf, 5 or 6 steers, a duck, a turkey named Tom, numerous chickens, a chocolate Lab named Buddy, and a cranky chihuahua that we didn't actually see but heard yipping like mad in one of the bedrooms.

Here are Chloe and Tilly sizing each other up. My money's on Chloe:

I like this picture because it looks like Tilly is giving Chloe a big kiss (though she's not):

This strange-looking contraption is an invention of David's, the farmer. He took an old washing machine and made it into an automatic butter churn. He just puts a gallon-sized jar filled w/ cream in the tub, selects the "Delicates" cycle, and presto! You've got butter in just 8 minutes.

The Schneider Beauty Parlor

2008-06-18T13:38:00.002-04:00

Chloe was sitting on her little potty the other day and so I sat next to her to keep her company. Then suddenly I was the victim of a vicious attack by 3 hairbrush-wielding cutie pies. (Notice the pink brush that Noah is using. This is one of a set of triplets, separated at Wal-mart. Aunt Sandra and Aunt Laura have its long-lost sisters.)

Honestly I have to say that I enjoyed it except that it made me very sleepy. They did a pretty good job of not ripping my hair out.

Summer fun

2008-06-18T07:29:00.006-04:00

So what have we been doing lately? Having fun, of course!

Yesterday was a gloriously beautiful day. Sunny skies w/ a few wisps of clouds. Doug and I trimmed the bushes in the front yard while the children played outside. Chloe climbed on the tricycle and Claire decided to give her a little push like I do sometimes:

After their naps we took them to the Splash Pad, which is basically a glorified concrete sprinkler here in M-town. It's much better than those glorified lawn sprinklers since the children don't end up w/ grass clippings all over them. And it's free!

They had an absolute blast. Although they were pretty cold when they stopped playing long enough to think about it. The wind was blowing slightly and it was only 80 degrees at most. It was perfect for Doug and I while we sat watching them.

Good times

2008-06-06T16:25:00.008-04:00

No, not the cheesy old sitcom, I mean the super-fun weekend we spent w/ Grandma and Grandpa (Doug's parents) at their condo in Myrtle Beach.

We arrived at Myrtle Beach on Friday. That evening after supper, we played putt-putt. This was the children's first putt-putt experience, and they really enjoyed it. Until the "volcano" started spurting fire, which broke Claire's concentration so much that Doug had to finish out the course for her. Here is Grandpa giving her some pointers on her golf game:

Here's Noah at the driving range afterward:

On Saturday we went to Alligator Adventure. It's kinda like a zoo except it's mostly alligators and other reptiles. Noah got to pet a small alligator (its mouth was taped shut) and both Noah and Claire petted (is that a word?) a Galapagos tortoise. So soft and fuzzy, those Galapagos tortoises.

Then that night we went to the beach. It was a bit chilly w/ the wind blowing, but the children seemed to enjoy it anyway. There was a wedding right next to where we were playing. The bride was wearing high heels in the sand for some strange reason.

Afterwards we went to Krispy Kreme so that the children could experience their first KK doughnut. Somehow we ended up bringing home almost twice as many doughnuts as we had planned. The guy at the drive-thru did a little sales pitch on Doug (who was driving) and he fell for it hook, line, and sinker. I admit I would have, too. I mean, come on, the Hot Doughnuts Now! sign was on. Like moths to a flame...

Sunday we went to the IMAX theatre where Grandpa and Grandma treated us to a movie about whales and dolphins. We got to wear the goofy 3D glasses and everything. Noah was a little disturbed by the apparent close proximity of the whales. We also did some shopping and the always-generous Grandma and Grandpa bought a HUMONGOUSLY GIANT picture to go over the fireplace in the playroom. It goes w/ the figurines they had purchased for the mantel. So now we have an African safari theme going on in there. Getting the picture in the van and back home turned out to be quite an adventure because it is just so HUGE, but it looks great so it was worth it.

Sunday night Doug and I went out on a date since we had such capable babysitters at our disposal. It was the usual kind of date, dinner and 2 movies back-to-back. Those movies being Prince Caspian and Indiana Jones. We were somewhat disappointed w/ both, in case you're wondering.

On Monday Doug and Grandpa played golf while Grandma and me and the children hung around the condo. That night we had a nice dinner and then went to the beach again. The weather was more conducive to beach frolicking that evening.

This picture was staged but it's really cute so who cares:

Then on Tuesday we had breakfast at Hot Stacks (where Noah consumed a wildly inappropriate amount of food) before we headed on home.

Yes, it was good times indeed.

Flew the coop

2008-05-20T12:33:00.005-04:00

By Doug

Our baby cardinals have left their nest. Only 9 days after hatching, they left. From what we read, the mother and father continue to care for them even after leaving the nest. Fortunately, we got a picture the day before they left.

There were 4 eggs, three hatched, and apparently only two survived. Oh, and the mother wasn't eating the egg shells. She was eating the baby bird poop. Yuck!

A special surprise for Mother's Day

2008-05-11T13:42:00.004-04:00

by Doug

A few posts back, we told you about our mama bird that built a nest and laid some eggs. We check on them everyday, and today we saw some little baby cardinals! Very appropriate for Mother's Day.

Update: we got some neat pictures and video of the mother bird feeding her babies:

It was also interesting to see the mother bird eating the egg shells. It looks like one of the eggs hasn't hatched.

Car show

2008-05-05T06:00:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago we went to a car show. The children enjoyed sitting and "driving" all the different types of cars.

Safety tips

2008-05-04T08:00:00.000-04:00

Our state has this program where they send a book each month to registered children under the age of 5. It's absolutely free, sponsored by some organization having to do w/ Dolly Parton. Once you reach your fifth birthday, they give you the boot. Noah has aged out but Claire and Chloe still get a new age-appropriate book each month. It's really quite cool and we've gotten some neat books.

Last month Claire got a book called "Officer Buckle and Gloria". It's about a police officer who goes around to schools w/ his police dog, Gloria, giving safety tips. It's terribly cute, and there's a little girl named Claire in it, too. On the front and back inside covers, it has a bunch of safety tips listed, such as, "Don't take other people's medicine" and "Don't talk to strangers". The first time we read the book I went thru and we talked about each one, explaining why these were good rules to follow.

Well, this book has inspired the children to come up w/ their own safety tips. They've actually come up w/ some really good ones, like "Don't stick your fingers in the electrical sockets" and "Hold your mama's hand in the parking lot". And then there are the equally valid, but a little more interesting ones. Like:

Claire
Don't put people in the oven.
Don't put nails in people's eyes.

Noah
Stay away from skunks.
Stay away from lions.
Don't drive motorcycles.
Don't stand on a rocking chair.
Watch out for cars. And leaf blowers, too.
Don't put a blanket over your head when you go night-night. (He does this every night.)
Don't stand next to Daddy when Daddy is hitting the ball. (The voice of experience?)

Sandwiches

2008-05-03T20:46:00.002-04:00

by Doug

Noah likes to make a Noah sandwich. To make a Noah sandwich, you take a Mama, a Daddy, some love (i.e., a hug), and put a thick slice of Noah in between. Sometimes, we like a little Claire and Chloe on our Noah sandwich.

We made a Noah sandwich the other day, and Noah asked why it was called a Noah sandwich. I explained that Mama and Daddy are like the bread, and he's the meat. To further illustrate the concept, I tried to use real world examples that he could relate to. The exchange went like this:

"Noah, what is on a salami sandwich?"

"Salami."

"Right. What's on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?"

"Peanut butter and jelly."

"Right. So Noah, what's on a club sandwich?"

I figured I had him stumped on this one, but he's a clever little boy. His immediate response:

"Golf clubs!"

We all laughed hysterically.

Daddy's little helper

2008-05-02T21:19:00.003-04:00

By Doug

Noah has always loved to "help" me. Usually, he's not much help, and he loses interest quickly and finds something to play with. One of the things he always wants to help with is changing the oil in the cars. Mainly, he likes to help pump the hydraulic jack, then goes to play. But this time he stayed with me. He was full of questions about cars, and I was more than happy to answer. I taught him about the air filter, the oil filter, the radiator, and why oil is important. He pointed to several things in the engine, asking what they were. I was eating it up! I love teaching him about my favorite subjects - weather, geography, baseball, and cars. Changing the oil is really a one-man job, and kinda messy, but I had to find some way to get him involved. So I got a step stool from the house, and had him pour the new oil into the engine. He seemed to enjoy that.

Fun with Spanish

2008-05-02T16:51:00.004-04:00

Doug's parents bought the children an educational computer game that, among other things, teaches a little foreign language. It does French, Spanish, Japanese, and English. Noah likes to look at maps and learn about geography (as do his parents), so the foreign language thing is a nice complement to that interest.

So for a while now he has been telling me "gracias" for making supper, or asking for "agua" to drink. But then the other morning, he asked me if we were having "werewolves" for breakfast. I stopped and looked at him and asked him to repeat his question. Again, it sounded like he was asking for a big scary lupine creature to eat. I asked him where he had heard that word, as I could not fathom where he could have gotten it from. He said it was from the computer. Then it dawned on me. He was asking if we were going to have "huevos" for breakfast, which is "eggs" in Spanish. Whoo, howdy, did we get a good laugh out of that one.

The French language part of the game has a character named "Chloe" which Noah and Claire got a kick out of. Then Noah told us that there was also a "Claire" on the game, too. Wow, what a coincidence, we thought. Then Noah showed us where the game talks about "Claire". It was also in the French part, where it teaches about delicious French pastries. You know, the ones called "eclairs".

A reward for window washing

2008-05-01T15:24:00.004-04:00

Today I finally started on a chore that I should have done a while ago but kept putting off, washing my windows. I have no excuse, as we have nice vinyl windows that tilt in to make cleaning a lot less painful than it could be. But anyway, my goal was to get all the downstairs windows cleaned today. As I was preparing to start on the last 2 in the playroom, I noticed a little nest w/ 4 eggs in the rhododendron right outside the window. How exciting! I was curious as to what kind of bird had made it, and not 2 minutes later did I find out. A female cardinal came back to the nest and settled down on the eggs. She didn't seem too excited to see me. I heard her "talking" and then saw a male cardinal nearby. After I got out my camera and took a couple of pictures she flew away, but came back after a few minutes. I closed the blinds so that I could peek out at her w/o she seeing me.

Cute pictures

2008-04-25T15:06:00.003-04:00

We haven't posted any pictures recently. Here are a few, mainly from last month. I bought the girls matching dresses from Wal-mart and hats from Cracker Barrel, all on sale since it was just a couple days before Easter. The last one is of the girls on our screened porch, which is where the children have been spending a lot of time lately. It's probably their favorite room of the house.

Sesame Street Old School

2008-04-25T14:47:00.002-04:00

We watched the very first episode of Sesame Street last night. There's a DVD set called Sesame Street Old School Volume 1 (1969 - 1974). It has 1 full episode from each of the first 5 seasons, plus bonus clips. It was fun to watch and see an orange Oscar the Grouch and a funny-looking Big Bird. The children really seemed to enjoy it, and since it doesn't have much of a plot, Noah didn't get upset by it.

You see, Noah is really affected by music. If a video has music that is slow or sad or even happy (like in a crying happy kind of way), he gets very upset. I can't think of a single movie that he has seen where he did not break down in tears at some point because of "emotional" music. Not that he's seen very many, but he couldn't even handle "Milo and Otis", which is about as tame as it gets. He does better w/ shorter videos that don't have much of a storyline. I guess he just gets really involved w/ the characters and music just sends him over the edge.

There were a few times during the Sesame Street video that Doug and I looked over at him to see if he was going to cry. There was this one clip about where milk comes from (cows) that had a slow song playing in the background. He did OK w/ that.

At the end, Noah remarked to us that he had done a good job of not crying during the "movie". We agreed w/ him, and then he added, "I was holding in my sadness."

Life with Chloe

2008-03-14T21:06:00.012-04:00

My baby just turned 15 months a few days ago. I realize I haven't blogged in a while so I'd like to get my faithful readers up to speed on the little personality that is Chloe.

If Chloe were singing the "These are a Few of My Favorite Things" song from the Sound of Music, her list might include the schnitzel with noodles (the girl likes to eat), but it would also include shoes, jacket, bye-bye, bath, and cod liver oil. All these words get her excited!

Chloe is a white girl but doesn't let that stop her from busting a move when she hears any sort of music, even if it's just a ringtone on a cell phone.

She likes to take off her right sock. Very rarely her left will follow suit.

Chloe is very affectionate. She loves to hug and will sometimes give you a sweet pat on the back to go with it.

Chloe will nod yes (and mean it) in response to your questions. She has been doing this since before she turned a year old. I don't know if this is special or not, but Noah and Claire never did that until much much later.

She really likes stuffed animals, particularly baby dolls. "Mama" and "baby" are her most distinct words when talking.

She started walking the day before her first birthday.

If you ask her if she wants to wash her hands, she will immediately begin pulling up her sleeves.

She loves to climb in things. Anything will do: cabinets, drawers, boxes, baby doll cribs, laundry baskets, the warming drawer under my range, and suitcases.

Chloe likes hats.

She is fast and uses it to her advantage when getting to things she ought not to. Which is often. Chloe is more trouble than Noah and Claire combined were (at her age).

It's a good thing she is really cute.

Muffins

2008-03-14T17:09:00.002-04:00

Last week we were all sitting at the table eating breakfast, partaking of some delicious homemade pumpkin spelt muffins. They were moist and yummy, and did I mention they tasted really good? Well, anyway, we were talking about different kinds of muffins, when Claire became inspired by the lively conversation. She suddenly burst forth in song with a rousing rendition of the old, beloved hymn "Muffin But the Blood of Jesus".