Four Bad Apples

Zion is turning 3!!

2012-02-01T19:03:00.000-08:00

It's that time again. Another birthday has rolled around in the house. This time three years ago, I was battling a nasty stomach bug and preparing for a 6am c-section. Those are two events that one does NOT want overlapping. Fortunately, I made it through. Tomorrow, Zion Sage turns three years old. It's been a fun three years. She's as quirky as she's ever been.
-she loves to dance with her hand on her hip (thanks Bijou)
-she can color like a pro
-she's pretty adept on a scooter and a two wheeler (with training wheels, of course)
-she loves animals but has a fear that all dogs will, indeed, lick her.
-she puts all of her clothes on backwards and shoes on the wrong feet (not always, but often enough for me to mention it)
-she eats like a man, but prefers beans and rice to anything else
She's fun little monkey to live with. I look forward to her little voice each morning. I decided to celebrate her birthday a day early because I will be at work tomorrow during the day and Taariq will have to work tomorrow night. I figured I would let her spend the day with me at school today, then take her for ice cream and to play at the book store. Tomorrow she gets to spend the day with daddy and her older sisters and then we'll make a special dinner when I get home. Happy Birthday, little monkey. I'm looking forward to the next year.

Birthday cone! This year she chose strawberry. She ate a few bites and then it hit the floor. Fortunately the owner of the shop is very sweet and replaced it for her.

I love the little elf ear under the crown. You may (or may not) recognize the crown from Bijou's third birthday.

Replacement ice cream in a cup this time. We used the cone as a topper.

This is the sweetest picture of Zion and Ashni. They are so silly together. This is what they look all the time.

All my girls.

Last but not least, a comparison between last year's birthday ice cream trip and this years birthday ice cream trip.

2012

2011

And I swear I did not have them sit in the same positions. I think that automatically sit in order of age.

Yeah, I'll admit it...

2012-01-21T16:52:00.000-08:00

We LOVE Angry Birds around here. I mean, we really love it. I haven't bought any merchandise or anything, but I will play. A LOT! And the girls love it too. I don't mind them playing, but they will veg out in front of the computer forever if I'd let them. Now I'm not a huge fan of them having tremendous amounts of screen time, so they don't get to play very much. So, to satisfy their need for destroying questionably stable structures inhabited by pigs, I decided to make them a table top (or floor) version. Actually, they started building their own Angry Birds games using blocks and dinosaurs and dollhouse people. So, technically this was their idea. I just spruced it up for them a little bit. The pigs are just some little wooden balls that I had in our craft bin and the birds are rubber balls from the dollar store (they came three in a bag). Total cost for this project? $1 (plus tax) and about an hour total of painting. I will post pictures of them playing when the sun comes up. It's too dark in our house right now for my little point and shoot to get a good picture. But they are playing happily, I assure you.

And completely off topic, I have been having trouble posting comments to my own blog (probably me doing something wrong), but I always want to respond when you all comment. Know that I do read and appreciate whenever I get comments!

Little Reminders

2012-01-12T20:13:00.000-08:00

I am a big fan of little reminders for the kids to help them remember the things that need to get done each day - particularly the younger kids. So I thought I would share a couple of the little reminders I have for the girls. These two just happen to be in their bathroom. I used to have two that couldn't read (now I just have one), so the reminders have to have pictures. Here's our potty reminder for Zion. They are just little drawings that I made in some frames I had in the garage (spray painted red).

This is our reminder for the all of the girls. Since I've started working, I'm not here to make sure that everyone is taking care of those basic needs in the morning. This way, they can still see what needs to be done each morning and evening. Sharpie works really well on mirrors and comes off easily with alcohol.

Some day I will get a really good camera and learn how to take really good pictures and then these pictures won't be blurry, but you get the idea.

2011 Recap

2012-01-05T19:54:00.000-08:00

I know it's been 2012 for almost a full week now and I am late with the whole "year in review" post, but I am nothing if not an avid procrastinator. So it brings me great pleasure to bring you (a week late) my favorite moments from 2011.

The first real snow that the kids ever experienced. It was the greatest thing they'd ever seen. I spent more time in snow that day than I have in YEARS.

Zion's trip to the ice cream/candy shop. I just think this is the sweetest picture of all of my ladies.

The little girls' room makeover. Granted, it has been revamped since this picture, but I still think they're room is pretty awesome (when it's clean)

Our little garden, which looks much nicer in this picture than our actual harvest looked. We did not get much, but the kids did their best. We'll try again in the spring.

Jena's final birthday party. I can hardly believe that she is 10. There was a grand rainbow-y time had by all.

Ashni's introduction to the decanomial.

Our bed/bookcase. Still one of my favorite things that I made this year.

There's no particular order to these pictures, and we did a lot more fun stuff this year, but of course we were without computer access. Anyway, we're looking forward to the upcoming year. Jena is moving on the 5th grade (her last elementary year!) and Ashni is moving to 4th. Bijou has requested that she start 1st grade this month. She's learned to read, add and subtract, so I don't see why not. I don't know what this year brings for me, but I'm excited to find out.

The little ladies doing some work

2012-01-03T12:13:00.000-08:00

Just thought I'd share some pictures of the little girls doing some school work this morning. Zion is really, REALLY good at coloring and loves coloring this same page of shapes almost everyday. I'm really impressed with her ability to color neatly within the lines.

Bijou wanted to do some math this morning after her reading, so we pulled out the addition strip board and she worked on adding numbers to nine.

Cardboard Playhouse Makeover

2011-12-29T07:35:00.000-08:00

I don't know if anyone remembers this cardboard playhouse that I made for Bijou and Zion a while back. While incredibly economical (it cost me next to nothing to make) and easy to move, it did not get used as often as I would have liked. It get HOT here in Mississippi and playing out in a cardboard house that's been sitting in the heat was no one's idea of a fun afternoon. So the playhouse got retired to the garage and there it sat for awhile. I decided that all was not lost for our little playhouse and with some tweaking, it could still be a really awesome toy. So, I scaled the size down a bit and attached some Velcro (to stand up to rough play a little better) and brought it in the house. I have this strange obsession with paint chips from the hardware store, so I literally have every singe one that Home Depot has (thanks to a very patient cousin who helped me collect all of them one afternoon). I used one stack (of many, many) paint chips to cut apart and make "bricks" for the outside of the house. I also added a little chalkboard (actually just a rectangle of chalkboard spray paint framed with wood grain contact paper) for them the draw or write little messages. Now it's cheery and colorful and when I want to free up the floor space, I can just take it apart and store it under their bed.

Bijou's Dinosaur Tea Party

2011-12-27T16:40:00.000-08:00

Bijou is five years old today. I know I say it every time a birthday rolls around, but I can hardly believe that she's five already! She has had such a big year. She learned to ride a two wheeler, tie her shoes, got glasses and learned to read. So what better way to celebrate such a big year than to have cinnamon pancakes, scrambled eggs and hot chocolate for breakfast and then a dinosaur tea party? And that's just what we did. The party is over and Bijou and her friends had a great time. I'm tired and glad it's over. Here are some lovely pictures for you to enjoy!

I made fossil shortbread cookies. The cookies kind of puffed for some reason while they were baking, so the fossils weren't as defined as I would have liked. I dusted them with a patina of cinnamon to make the edges stand out a little better.

Dinosaur birthday cake (white cake with raspberry lemon buttercream frosting) surrounded by chocolate rocks.

Thanks to our local Goodwill, we are now the proud owners of a bajillion tea cups. I am sure they will be put to good use.

Dinosaur garland...

The entire spread. There were cheese sandwiches, jam sandwiches, fossil cookies, chocolate rocks, peppermint tea, pink lemonade and birthday cake. Oh and of course a multitude of prehistoric table dwellers.

The birthday girl. We had a Cosby Show moment before getting dressed for her party. Remember the episode where Rudy wants to wear the summer dress to the fall party and her mother wouldn't let her? That was us this morning. But just like the Cosby Show, it all worked out in the end and she looked perfectly cute in her sweater dress.

Last, but not least, I thought I would share the gift that I made for her. She'd been bugging me forever to make her a wooden camera. So I gathered a few blocks from her room, some other random wooden bits and some paint. Voila, homemade camera. Nothing like a present that doesn't cost me a dime.

Bijou is turning 5!

2011-12-22T19:36:00.000-08:00

Bijou's fifth birthday is just around the corner and the addition of a full time job makes the time I have available for birthday party prep very limited. This one feels like it's sprinting up on me way faster than I am prepared for. BUT, I know that things will come together in time. This year, Bijou is having a dinosaur tea party. Yes, a dinosaur tea party. The girl still loves her dinosaurs and what better way to turn five than with a tea party. This year's party will boast fossil cookies, tea sandwiches, tea, pin the bone on the dinosaur and a variety of other dinosaur/tea party related activities and decor. So, without further ado, here is Bijou's dinosaur tea party invitation.

I got the floral frame from Graphics Fairy which I think adds a cute vintage, girly touch. I also think it's super funny with the ferocious "tea-rex" in the tiara.

Little Girls' Room Do-Over

2011-11-13T17:56:00.001-08:00

Not long ago, I posted about the girls bedroom makeovers. All in all, their rooms have stayed about the same. But the little girls' room seemed to become the bane of my existence every week. It was constantly a mess, no one ever wanted to clean it up and things were getting broken and torn form being stepped on. It was driving me insane! A few weeks ago, I decided to take half of the "stuff" that they had and store it in the garage (to rotate out next summer). Things were STILL constantly a mess. So yesterday, I decided that today would be spent cleaning house and the little girls' room was my first stop. As I was cleaning (mainly alone, because Bijou decided to spend this time laying on her back staring at the ceiling), I realized that it was pretty difficult to get toys in and out of the bins on the shelf.

The only logical solution, of course, was to build a new shelf. So, that's what I did! I am going to insert a complaint here. I love Home Depot, don't get me wrong. But I was SO annoyed with HD today. I went in to get wood for the shelf, found the pieces that I needed place neatly above a $5.98 price tag. The very helpful HD employee even did some comparison pricing for me with a piece twice the size to see if we could cut a cents off the price by just cutting them in half. We found that it would be about the same price, so I got my four boards. The very helpful HD employee cut my boards and loaded them into my cart. I get to the cash register with my plan to spend about $27 on wood and about $4 on nails. The checkout girls scans the pieces and they are $8.40 a piece! I mean, it's not a HUGE difference, but it added like $12 - $14 to my total cost! I was so annoyed...ugh. Anyway, complaint over... The shelves were quick and easy to put together and the bins are much more accessible for small people who don't want to work to hard get their toys put away.

More homemade Montessori

2011-11-05T21:38:00.000-07:00

So, on occasion the little girls come spend the day with me at work. They love visiting the school and getting to use the materials. I try to watch and see what things they enjoy and figure out if I can recreate them at home for little or no money. Last weekend I made a decanomial. It's made from craft foam (cheap, $5, and easy to cut). Ashni (who HATES math) said, as soon as a demonstrated it for her, "Oh, it like multiplication." I think the universe must have opened up and rained down joy on me!!! It's like this method is what she has needed (particularly for math) for the last couple of years.

Tonight I made some insets for Zion and Bijou. They both love the metal insets at the school, so I decided to make a set from mat board to have here at home. I traced the set at work to use as templates and the knobs are just wooden beads that are hot glued on. Total cost of this project $0.

Bijou loves the object boxes at work. She likes being able to read the words and match them to their object. I could not imagine having additional tiny objects in the house, so I printed some pictures of objects and labels for her match.

Today's Bijou-ism

2011-10-27T17:31:00.000-07:00

So, I posted a picture a couple of days ago of Bijou sitting proudly with her list of words that she'd spelled with her letter cards. Unfortunately, I forgot to share the great Bijou-ism that goes along with that picture...

Bijou: I can spell "as". A. S.

Me: Very good. Now can you tell me a sentence using the word as?

Bijou: (looking very thoughtful and serious) Like, pain in the as???

Me: (falls on the flooring laughing)

Okay, so maybe I won't win mom of the year for that one, BUT I did let her know that it was not polite for little girls to say that and gave her the correct use of the word "as".

Goodbye to a friend

2011-10-24T19:47:00.000-07:00

The girls pet fish died tonight. He was their first pet, so everyone was very sad. I think Jena took it especially hard because she bought him, named him and took care of him the most. We had a small fish funeral in their bathroom before sending him to the big fish bowl in the sky (think Cosby Show circa 1984). We'll miss you An. The dining room won't be the same without you.

Homemade Montessori

2011-10-23T08:05:00.000-07:00

So, in my last post before my blogging hiatus, I mentioned that I was going to start working again. Well, I've been working at a small local Montessori school. It's a great job and I love it. I miss being here with the girls for their schooling, but I love Montessori and am really happy to have had the opportunity to take this job. (I am also happy to have a regular paycheck again. Yay, income!). Over the summer, before school officially started here, we had the opportunity to go observe a Montessori school in Memphis. I was already pretty familiar with the method for preschool (we wanted to send our older girls to Montessori school when we still lived in St. Croix, but we could afford it, so we incorporated a lot of the ideas and materials into our homeschool then and with Bijou and Zion now), but hadn't had the opportunity to see an elementary aged class. I have to say that I fell in LOVE!! I wished we lived in Memphis just so we could send our older girls to school there. BUT, since we don't live in Memphis, I decided to incorporate some of the ideas and materials into our soon-to-be-fourth-and-fifth-graders school day. The director of the school where I work was gracious enough to give us some of her old materials when her new ones came in. I was immediately struck by how enthusiastic Ashni was to do pages of subtraction problems using the subtraction strip board (if you follow us, then you'll know that Ashni HATES math). I really think that Ashni could excel in a program like this (and I think it would take some of the pressure off of my husband who, despite our homeschooling for the last 5 years, is very new to actually having to school the children).

So I guess a new addition to this little blog will be some of the Montessori type materials that I make for the girls to use (because the materials are terribly expensive, and we just can't afford it). Today, i will leave you with a picture of Bijou making a list of words that she can spell. She has the attention span of a flea right now, so after about 5 minutes, she was over making words.

Please excuse my husband's giant shoes that I didn't notice until just now...

I told you I'd be back...

2011-10-16T16:10:00.000-07:00

I am officially back to blogging. I know, I know, it's been FOREVER! Hopefully there are still a couple of people who still care about what's going on in our little corner of the world. There have been big changes around here.

First and foremost, I am now an official member of the work force again. So, I am up and out everyday at 7:20 (that's in the morning), which is a HUGE change for me. That also means that The Hubs is now handling the bulk of the homeschooling activities. I'm still putting together the lesson plans for the most part, but he is carrying them out. We will be wrapping up 3rd (Ashni)and 4th (Jena) grade in the next few weeks and begin 4th and 5th grade in January. Bijou has learned to read several sight words and can sound out short words on her own. She's very proud.

Jena turned 10 on August 20th. She officially had her last big birthday party. It was rainbow themed and all of her friends came out to celebrate with her.

This is a version of a very complicated sounding cake that Jena saw in a Martha Stewart magazine (a frozen rainbow chiffon cake). My version consists of several flavors of sorbet melted and refrozen in a cake pan in rainbow order, then covered in whipped cream. It looked and tasted awesome! It was a bigger hit than the cupcakes!

I haven't really created much in the way of crafts or art, but I have a couple of portrait commissions waiting in the wings. I did make chocolate souffles several weeks ago. They weren't as difficult as I thought they would be and were delicious. (I think I won Mother of the Year the day after the souffles were made because I let the girls have them for breakfast. I mean, they're mostly eggs, so that makes it okay. Right?).

(they were taller when they first came out of the oven, but I didn't think to take a picture when they first came out)

I will be back...I promise

2011-06-20T12:04:00.000-07:00

It seems that I have been put into some sort of communication bubble. My communication with anyone outside of my immediate four walls has become nil. I will regain the ability to communicate with the outside world soon. It feels like my connections to the outside world have gotten shakier and shakier over the last year, until is has faded away to nothing. But I promise I will be back.

For now, a tiny update. We are half way through our 3rd and 4th grade school year (WOO HOO). Next year I hope to be working, so that was add an entirely new dynamic to the whole home schooling thing. Jena is participating in a dance workshop this week. She will spend 8 hours a day immersed in dance. She has also asked to play soccer this year. Team sports are a new addition to our household. Ashni has decided that she wants to take Taikwondo and will hopefully be taking part in a theater workshop. All the girls are taking swim lessons again this summer. Jena is the only official swimmer, though. On the "making stuff" front, I took the little kids' cardboard playhouse that I made last summer and cut it down so that it can be assembled and disassembled in their room (pictures to be posted at a later date).

Cheating...

2011-05-21T21:21:00.000-07:00

So I have been totally cheating on my vegan diet while visiting my mom and brother in St. Louis (I am marinating jerk chicken as we speak) and let me tell you, I feel like CRAP. Crap that has been dipped in crud then rolled over a waterfall in a barrel. Okay, maybe that's a bit extreme, but I definitely don't feel good.

Big Girls' Room Preview

2011-05-19T12:19:00.000-07:00

In all honestly, the big girls' room has been finished for weeks now, but because they are "big" girls, it is quite difficult to get a picture of a clean room. So I figured I would share the one picture I have of their little writing/work table. I really will share more pictures as soon as I can get the room clean for more than 30 seconds because it really is cute.

My favorite part of this little area is the turquoise typewriter. It's in perfect condition (they occasionally type little notes for me). I spruced up the cork board with a stencil of Shingai Shoniwa of the Noisettes (the girls favorite band right now). The red drop leaf table was mentioned in one of my very first blog posts, here.

The Kids' Garden

2011-05-13T14:37:00.000-07:00

We had our first attempt at a garden last spring and the girls could not wait to start their garden again as soon as the weather warmed up. This year their garden contains potatoes, onions, carrots, lettuce and tomatoes. We planted spinach, but I don't think it gets enough sun, so the plants sprouted and then stopped growing. Last year, we got a good amount of basil and rosemary, but just a few tomatoes. Hopefully we will have a more bountiful harvest this year. The girls love being able to eat food that they've grown.

Oh yeah, we also accidentally "planted" some black beans. Bijou and Zion were playing with a big bowl of dried back beans in the backyard and dumped a bunch in a pot of dirt. A few weeks later, we had a pot of little bean plants.

A Quick and Easy Kid's Gift

2011-05-09T11:30:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine has a son who turned six over the weekend and she decided to throw him a little impromptu party at the playground. I, having had four daughters, have absolutely no idea what to get a six year old boy for his birthday. So, I figured I could probably whip something up on the fly before the party. Here's what I came up with.

It was super simple (and free) to make. I just used a Sharpie pen to draw the heads, noses and mouths onto white card stock. I laminated them with some clear contact paper that I had in the craft room. I also cut some mustaches from black craft foam. Then I stuck some magnets (the kind with adhesive on them) to the back of each facial feature (notice the big googly eyes, too). And Voila! Funny face refrigerator magnets! Just tape to head to the fridge and make as many silly faces as you want. Apparently he (and his brothers) are having a grand time making silly faces at home.

Vegan Eating: Week 2

2011-05-06T17:41:00.000-07:00

So this is the post where I am supposed to share my menu for the week, but I have yet to create said menu. I did go to the grocery store today and will be forced to create a menu for the week based on what I bought today. Instead of sharing the menu that I failed to create, I will share my shopping list. That way I will still feel like I got to share.

Vegan Shopping List (week 2)

carrots

lettuce

broccoli

eggplant

zucchini

red, yellow, orange peppers

avocado

Brussels sprouts

white, shitaki, portabello (How DO you spell this?) mushrooms

tofu

apples

tangerines

bananas

strawberries

whole wheat tortillas

applesauce (no sugar added)

raisins

triscuits

graham crackers

canned tomatoes

black beans

chic peas

olive oil

sugar (raw)

orange juice

soy, rice, almond milk

cereal

pistachios

walnuts

brown rice

We already had some staples here in the house, so this plus the stuff we already have is what I have to work with this week.

While I am discussing food, I should share that I did cheat on my vegan diet during the week. BUT, in my defense, I was celebrating my fifth anniversary with my hubs in Memphis. We went to our absolute FAVORITE restaurant, Flight. This place makes me want to be access to large amounts of money on a regular basis so that we can eat there more than once a year! I should explain that a "flight" is three small (they're not that small actually) portions of dishes grouped together and paired with three small glasses of wine (I am not a wine drinker so i usually forgo this). This year, for starters I had the seafood flight, which consisted of a portion of tempura Caribbean lobster, two ginormous shrimp with mango/ginger salsa, and four lump crab fritters. YUM! My entree was a flight I created myself. They have the most insanely delicious duck, so I had dick confit over a "hash" of butternut squash and duck. I also had quail stuffed with shrimp and grits, and Maine lobster over shrimp risotto. We were SO stuffed, but I had to get dessert (so we took it to go). I had a mini chocolate cake, vanilla bean creme brulee, and cheesecake with vanilla syrup soak strawberries. I swear, I have never been so happy to eat numerous members of the animal kingdom. I should admit that my stomach was not as happy about the onslaught of meat, cream and sugar as my taste buds were. But if I had to cheat, I am glad that I cheated there. I'll be dreaming of our sixth anniversary dinner for the next year.

Kale Chips

2011-05-02T14:00:00.000-07:00

Well, those are two words that I never thought I'd put together. And I never thought I would follow those two words with these words "Oh my god, SO delicious and addicting!" So, yeah, the lady clan and I made kale chips this week. I'd seen them mentioned a few times on vegan blogs and had been curious. I guess my curiosity got the better of me. The girls and I could not stop eating them. I'm sure we've consumed at least five bunches of kale this week alone. "How in the heck do you make a kale chip?" you may be asking yourself. Well they're super simple.

One bunch of kale (or two or three depending on how many you want to make)
a little olive oil
a little red wine vinegar
salt, garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne (and/or any other seasoning you like)
nutritional yeast (because I love it).

Pull the kale from the stems and break the leaves into 2 - 3 inch pieces. Toss in olive oil and vinegar. Arrange on a cookie sheet in a single layer. Sprinkle with nutritional yeast and seasonings of your choice. Bake at 275 degrees for about 30 minutes or until they are crisp.

That's it. Oh, make sure to put them in an airtight container or zip lock back to store them or they'll get chewy. Not that my kids cared, they ate the chewy ones too.

Vegan Eating, Week One

2011-04-25T11:12:00.000-07:00

So, I'm a procrastinator. I know it and will admit it freely. Generally I like to be done planning my weekly menu before the week actually starts, but that didn't happen this time. I just finished the menu today and have to go to the store this afternoon or no one will be eating anything! Alright, here's this week's vegan menu (side note, when I refer to milk it will always be either soy, rice or coconut):

Monday: Breakfast - cinnamon oatmeal with fruit (bananas/apples/raisins), Lunch - ramen (noodles with mushrooms and spinach), Dinner - stir fry (peppers, onions, mushrooms, broccoli) over soba noodles

Tuesday: Breakfast - cereal with banana & milk, Lunch - homemade hummus on toast with carrot stick and apples, Dinner - sauteed mushrooms over couscous and oven roasted asparagus.

Wednesday: Breakfast - millet (cooked, then pureed with almonds, milk, nutmeg and cinnamon), Lunch - PB&J with fruit, BBQ tofu with mac-n-cheese (I'll post a recipe for vegan mac and cheese below) and sauteed green beans

Thursday: Breakfast - cereal with banana & milk, Lunch - leftover BBQ and mac, Dinner - mushroom risotto and broccoli

Friday: Breakfast - Fruit Salad (apples, bananas, raisins, coconut, almonds with a peanut butter sauce...I guess I should post the recipe too), PB&J with fruit, Dinner - red lentils (I'm going to try something fancy with that...I'll post the recipe if it turns out tasty) over rice.

Saturday: Breakfast - smoothie (frozen strawberries, frozen banana, frozen peach, milk, OJ and maple syrup or sugar), Lunch - veggie wraps with hummus, Dinner - black bean burgers and roasted potatoes

Sunday: Breakfast - Oatmeal with fruit, Lunch - leftover black bean burgers, Dinner - Pasta with sauce and veggies, salad.

This menu is not super different from our regular menu, just much less cheese melted on things. I am also eliminating soda (which I am ashamed to say that I have a slight addiction to, but in my defense, I really only have one soda a day, two MAX and probably not even every day). Alright, disclaimer over. On to the recipes.

Vegan Mac-n-Cheese (sauce to pour over whole wheat macaroni, makes enough to feed a family of 6 for dinner and lunch the following day. And these are approximations because I rarely measure anything)

3 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp flour

2 1/2 cups unsweetened milk (I use soy, but it works with rice or coconut too)

1/2 - 1 cup nutritional yeast (depending on your own taste, I like a lot)

1/2 cup vegetable broth

1 tsp turmeric (it makes it nice and yellow)

1 tbsp mustard

1 tbsp basil

1 tsp thyme

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp garlic powder (or you can use fresh garlic, minced)

sea salt and pepper to taste

Heat olive oil in a medium sauce pan over medium heat. Add flour, stirring constantly for about a minute (you're making a roux - think that's how you spell that). Slowly add milk (whisking constantly) letting the mixture thicken before adding more milk. Add broth. Stir and simmer over medium low heat to thicken slightly. Whisk in all of the seasonings and spices (there's not order to this, just do it). Last, add the nutritional yeast. Whisk everything until it's smooth and creamy. I just pour the sauce over macaroni and serve, but it can be baked in the oven (in the fashion of baked macaroni).

Peanut Butter Sauce for fruit salad (this also works with cashew or almond butter)

1 cup of peanut butter

1 cup of milk

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 cup (or less depending on how sweet you like it) of maple syrup

Put everything in the blend and blend until smooth. You can add more milk if it's too thick. Pour over fruit salad of diced apples (I like Fuji or granny smith), sliced banana, raisins, almonds (or any other nuts) and unsweetened coconut flakes. It's a very filling breakfast

It's time again...

2011-04-20T19:01:00.000-07:00

I think it's time for another round of better eating. Not that I have terrible eating habits, but the last couple of years have been a huge change from what I've been used to as far as eating goes. The fact that I was vegetarian for a good ten years consistently (and on and off from the time I was 12) makes eating meat now even more of an issue for me. My older kids were raised vegan for quite a while and all of the children are vegetarian, so for me to eat meat seems thoroughly hypocritical. Fortunately for me, they are grossed out by the thought of meat, so it's not a huge issue of them feeling slighted or anything. I still maintain a mostly vegetarian diet. It is SUPER rare that I purchase meat to cook at home, but I will eat it if I'm out. But I've noticed how tired I am and how stiff and achy I feel. All of those thing are nonexistent on a vegan diet. SO, I think I am going to attempt a 30 day vegan diet. You may remember that I tried a 30 day raw fast last year. I think I made it about 2 weeks, but in those two weeks I felt better than I had in a long time. I figured vegan is a whole lot easier to shop for and along the same lines as how I cook now, so it won't be too much of a shift for the kids. I do think that Zion will flip out at the lack of yogurt and string cheese in the house, though. That girl loves some dairy products! I think I will start Monday. That'll give us a chance to eat the stuff that's already in the house, eat at the going away party for my mom on Friday and probably make something cheesy for my brother while he's here over the weekend. No use setting myself up for failure by starting before then. So, now I'm off to find some good vegan recipes to create a menu for next week. I'll post the menu once I've put it together.

What we do each morning...

2011-04-14T21:19:00.001-07:00

Some families like to start their school day with a prayer or the Pledge of Allegiance. I think that starting your day the same each morning gets the kids mentally prepared for school. It separates their free play time in the morning from their more structured day (if you have a structured day). We do not pray or do the pledge. What we did was come up with our own set of expectations for behavior in our home and out in the world. The children are every involved in the creating of our house rules. Our rules morph as our children do. So I thought I'd share our current ones.

I am in control of my actions. I can choose to behave in a positive way. No one can make me think, feel or act in a way unless I choose to. I can choose to be a good influence on my sisters, family and friends. I can choose to be responsible, mannerable, strong and kind. I can choose to be my best everyday.

1. I will not question adults that I trust. (we made this rule because we were having a lot of "why do I have to do xyz, when (insert sister's name here) doesn't have to do xyz?")

2. I will not interrupt

3. I will take care of my belongings

4. I will use kind words.

5. I will be honest.

6. I will take responsibility for my actions and not blame others.

7. I will do everything to the best of my ability.

8. I will respect myself and others.

9. I will be a good influence on my sisters.

10. I will be satisfied with what I have and not feel entitled to have more than I need.

Jena is in charge of helping Bijou to recite the house rules each morning until she memorizes them and even Zion likes to follow along (in her own language, of course). Now, our house is a mass of chaos quite often (I'd like to see a house full of kids that isn't), but the rules do give us something to refer to when things get too out of hand. What do you do to start your school day? (Or keep some sense of order if you aren't home schooling.)

The Little Girls' Room

2011-04-11T13:33:00.000-07:00

The little girls' room makeover is finally complete! Yay, me. I have to say that they really are enjoying having their own space. My mom hasn't moved yet (she's leaving in a couple of weeks), but the bigger girls have already moved into their new room and my mom is their temporary roommate. I still have some work to do on their room. Anyway, here are some of the perks of the room redo (that were not featured in the room spoiler post).

This is their little chill out/reading nook. The orange rocking chair was mine as a kid (and another lady's before that) and is about 60 years old. It's been painted and repainted so many times that I couldn't get all of the old layers off. So I just painted it orange and did a little rough sanding. I couldn't sand the seat very well (it was very close slats), so I cushioned and upholstered it with a nice soft fleece. The little piano is one of those Melissa & Doug ones that I spray painted a glossy black.

(I probably should have vacuumed before I took this picture, but honestly, this is what it looks like most of the time...)

Zion's awesome quilt was a HUGE score at a local yard sale. Sometimes it pays to show up at the eleventh hour. I acquired this hand sewn morsel for literally nothing. They were to the "fill up a garbage bag and we will sell it to you for $3" point in the sale. The quilt was originally marked $125 (I repeat, hand sewn), but If I hadn't bought it, it was going to Goodwill. So they were happy to shove it in a $3 bag for me.

Jena and I made paper cranes from scrapbook paper scraps and some maps of NY city that I had laying around. Those we made into the lovely crane mobile.

The play mat was definitely a labor of love. Their floor was a large expanse of ugly blue carpet and I wanted to make a play mat for them to build block towns and play with their little wooden people. It took me a few days to draw and paint the little topographical landscape and sew on the little felt trees. My dining room/craft table will be forever speckled with green paint (this is why we can't have nice things).

And finally, I figured while I was painting religiously for days, I may as well make the play mat two sided. So what does every preschooler need in their bedroom? Yeah, hopscotch. Double the fun. The girls have been really good about keeping their new room neat while spending a lot of time playing in there. Next up, getting the big girls' room looking like a big girls' room.

Who are you and what have you done with Zion

2011-04-06T21:04:00.000-07:00

Somewhere in the last few weeks my sweet, squishy Zion has turned into a shrieking, boneless, miniature ball of snack craving madness! I know, it happens to all sweet kids at some point between birth and college, but it remains a shock when it happens. It probably wouldn't be so shocking if it didn't seem to happen overnight. Don't get me wrong, she's still a pretty sweet kid. She still climbs in my lap and gives me kisses and buries her icy cold feet into the warmth under my shirt (thanks for that by the way). It's the times that she wants pasta at 9am (ten minutes after breakfast) and slides, limp, from the chair into a puddle on the floor. Or when she wants to ride her tricycle to the cul-de-sac at a snail's pace (LITERALLY) when I need to be in the kitchen making dinner and the entire neighborhood is treated to her brain melting scream. Or when she refuses to be strapped into her car seat and turns herself into the letter "c" making it impossible to get a grip an any part of her body. Who is this kid? She looks like my Zion. She smells like my Zion. She has that cute baby voice and crazy language like my Zion, but MY Zion would never do me like this. MY Zion loves me and proclaims (to anyone trying to get within five feet of me), "My mommy too!!" This look alike Zion is cute and all, but I still wonder what she did with my original Zion....

Party over here...

2011-04-03T22:26:00.000-07:00

It's Ultimate Blog Party time again over at 5 Minutes for Mom. Woooo! I love a good party, especially a party that I don't have to cook for or clean up after. So welcome to my blog party. Grab a cupcake, a soda, some chips, whatever and make yourself at home (excuse the mess, i have a bunch of kids). So I guess I'm supposed to introduce myself to those of you that I don't know.

I am a freelance artist and homeschooling mom of four bad apples (also known as the lady clan, the girlies, the kiddos, the tribe, etc.) Jena, Ashni, Bijou and Zion. I live in the south by way of St. Croix (three of my four girls are Crucian, the baby was born here). I guess I am another "Mommy Blog". I talk about a lot of different things going on around our house (school, food, art, parties, vexations, crafts, grievances, projects, annoyances, successes). We do a lot of things and I try to record those things here. Honestly, a blog is a lazy homeschooler's ideal record keeping system. Despite living in the suburbs and driving a minivan, I am not a soccer mom (no offense to soccer moms. We need soccer moms!). With four kids the vehicle options tend to be limited and our rent is cheap. My kids know no kids' songs (they are into Janelle Monae and the Noisettes at the moment) and I am okay with that. I make stuff out of necessity (i.e. I like awesome stuff but don't have the money for awesome stuff, but I am smart and crafty and will make awesome stuff out of crap that I already have around the house). I have an eclectic style to homeschooling. I don't homeschool for religious reasons, I homeschool because I love it. My kids are smart and have lots of friends (Who's an unsocialized homeschooler?). So yeah, that's kinda who we are. Welcome...

Happy Birthday Ashni!

2011-03-26T07:53:00.000-07:00

Today, Ashni is eight years old. Eight. There I said it. This day has been coming for...oh...well, eight years now, I guess. So in eight years this is what I have learned about Ashni:

1. She must eat. A lot. All day. BUT, she's not just an eater. She's a foodie. A fish eyeball eating, balsamic reduction requesting, ingredient tasting, Food Network watching foodie. She loves to be in the kitchen. She needs it. It drives me insane some days (because, honestly, I'm not a fan of the kitchen).

2. She talks. And talks. She always has. She's one of those kids that you can't remember NOT being able to talk. She uses (and has always used) big words, like atrocious and pessimistic. When she was young and would use a big word, we would say, "Do you even know what that means?" It didn't take long before we stopped asking her that.

3. She is enthusiastic about new things. All new things. Except for math. She is incredibly unenthusiastic about math.

4. She will take care of you when you are down (or sick or hurt). She's the sweetest kid you'll ever meet. Granted, she may talk you to death.

5. She is stunningly beautiful. Yes, I know, every parent thinks their kids are beautiful (humor me). But really, her perfect skin and long eyelashes and deep dimples...

6. I love her ferociously.

Today, she is eight years old. And unfortunately, not feeling well. So as she sits, sipping ginger and lemongrass tea, watching the kids' movie du jour, I just want to wish my food loving, non stop talking, over enthusiastic, sweet, beautiful girl a happy eighth birthday.

extended vacation?

2011-03-25T19:05:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, when homeschooling, it can feel like everyone else around you has it all together and you are the slacker mom who can't get it together long enough to get a proper workbook page done, let alone plan out an entire week of enriching, educational activities. Honestly, I am having one of those moments. To be truthful, we have been loosely schooling for weeks now. I know, it's something a lot of HS moms do not want to admit. But to be honest I school 12 months out of the year, no summer vacation, no spring break. I get burnt out from time to time. I don't have the luxury of janitorial, cafeteria or nursing staff. There's no sub to step in when I need to take a personal day or have a cold or migraine. I am the teacher, the janitor, the cook, the nurse, the bus driver. I do it all. All day. Everyday. Without fail. Do I feel overwhelmed? Sometimes. But honestly, that comes with the territory. No job is great all of the time. Do I feel like my kids are being slighted? No. This is the time that they are self reliant. This is the time that they ask to do work. BEG for it actually. And I am more than happy to oblige. Do something, anything. Whatever you want. There are gardens being tended, math games being played, books being read, stories being written. There's pretending and sharing and entertaining each other. There's food being cooked, recipes being created, ideas being formed. There's learning taking place all around us. Did I do a lesson of the associative property of multiplication (which is what's on the schedule for today)? No. Did we discuss the Mongolian invasion of medieval Europe? Nope. Are they going to be doomed to a life of crime due to lack of education? I highly doubt it. My motivation will return soon and we will back to our regularly scheduled schooling. Until then, happy learning.

Jena Thinks She's SO Cool

2011-03-25T08:24:00.000-07:00

This is a story I wrote for Jena and Ashni back when they were little. My brother just resurrected it and uploaded it on YouTube. It is handwritten and the pictures are all paper cutouts. Thanks for bringing it back from the dead for me, Derek.

Little Girls' Bedroom Spoiler

2011-03-17T13:17:00.000-07:00

The big move hasn't officially happened yet, but redecorating the little girls' room is in full swing. (I will post pictures of the whole room once the bigger girls have moved out) For now, I thought I'd share a few completed projects. The little workbench had been successfully turned into "Little Monkeys' Farm Stand" complete with shopping carts and specials chalk board. If you need to drop off some mail on your way to pick up groceries, there's this little mailbox on the way! Once you've mailed your letters and picked up your groceries, it's time to head home to make dinner (or maybe vacuum or take care of the baby). I am still stocking the kitchen with canned goods and such.

We finally got a bookshelf back in the room (we moved it out last year because Bijou and Zion kept pulling ALL of the books off and throwing them around the room). Now all of the books that have been stored are sorted and shelved. The big girls' books went on the big book shelf in their new room. The little house on top of the book shelf is a super simple little night light that I put together for Bijou (who is afraid of the dark). It's just one of those papier mache houses they sell at Hobby Lobby (about $4) and a battery powered LED touch night light with an adhesive back (about $5). It casts great shafts of light from the windows and door of the little house onto the ceiling and walls of their room at night.

This is the little workbench as it was when we bought it. Notice the curious little one trying to figure out what the heck I'm doing.

A couple of wooden boxes we already had and a plethora of felt food later, they have a cute little market stand.

I painted the black sheep painting for Bijou when she was first born. I think it works well here.

In closet playhouse, complete with vacuum for tidying up!

I didn't really have anything to stock the kitchen pantry, so I saved a couple of cans and glued pictures from magazines to the outside. I just used up some stickers we had in the craft cabinet for the words.

The night light after dark. Looks a little creepy here, but it's not creepy in real life.

And finally, my very sweet little Zion in front of her newly organized bookshelf!

Finished Bed...

2011-03-16T13:39:00.000-07:00

So our mattress came and the bed is completely assembled in our bedroom. I realized, after I shelved all of the books that we had hiding in the garage, that we really didn't have THAT many books. So now I have plenty of extra storage space to buy more!

The next batch of pictures will be little girls' room makeover...

New Painting...

2011-03-14T15:12:00.000-07:00

...that's it. I painted this last month. Just thought I'd share.

Oh, and I got my new mattress, so I will post pictures of our finished bed soon.

New bed and bedroom changes.

2011-03-12T18:58:00.000-08:00

I spent my Saturday cleaning out my garage to make space to build a platform bed for our new king sized mattress that will (hopefully) be delivered this week. Now we don't live the in the biggest house, so with a family this size, I am ALWAYS trying to make things that serve multiple functions. I scoured the internet looking for free platform bed plans (because I'm cheap like that), but didn't really find anything that I liked. Plus, I really wanted somewhere that I could store all of the books that had been taking up space in my garage. So after hours of Google searches, I decided to just design my own. I wanted something really simple with ample storage.

The great thing about this is I could have the lumber cut to size at the hardware store (because, as you know, I do not own power tools) and I put it all together in about an hour and a half. The total cost of the bed with lumber, cuts, sandpaper and wood glue (I had nails already) was about $95. (I will post more pictures when we actually get our mattress and move it into our bedroom)

Our house is going through some sort of spring transformation right now. My mother is moving back to St. Louis to be closer to my older brother, so the girls are separating into two rooms (bigger girls in one room, smaller girls in the other). There are a lot of redecorating projects in the works (which means my entire house in a disaster area at the moment). Here are the bones of my ideas for each room:

Smaller girls room has beige walls and a bare wood bunk bed. They will get their own pretend little town. They will have the play kitchen, the doll crib and clothes in their walk in closet to play house. They will also have a book shelf and the old modern doll house and barn. I just found (for crazy cheap at a church yard sale) a Melissa & Doug wooden mailbox (pretend post office) and a wooden work bench. I am turning the workbench into a farm stand that will be stocked with felt produce. There are a couple of other things that will happen in there.

The Bigger girls' room is green. They will get twin beds and the new modern dollhouse (I haven't taken pictures of it yet). We have a red, antique drop leaf table (that belonged to a relative of my grandmother) that will become their writing table (pen pal letters and such). I also found a vintage, turquoise typewriter (YEEEEE!!!!) at the thrift store in perfect condition. It will go on their writing table. I'm not sure what else I'll come up with as I start putting things together, but I promise to share pictures as I go.

What the fock??

2011-03-06T14:05:00.000-08:00

I've mentioned before that Zion has her own little language. Generally, she is full of very sweet little speech impediments and mispronunciations. But sometime I really need her to get some words right. Case in point, she has a REALLY hard time pronouncing the word frog. Not a big deal, right? I mean, how often does a two year old really need to use the word frog in a sentence? Honestly, not often. The problem, you might ask? Well...she says "fock"(Yes, I know we all loved Ben Stiller's quirky name in the movie). Compounded with the fock problem is the random addition of "a" at the end of words (i.e. "me lika juice." or "I'ma back." I think Super Mario had a huge influence on her vocabulary, but I digress). Where is all of this going? I guess I'm pretty used to all the fock talk around here (apparently EVERY picture book has a frog in it somewhere. Who knew?). Well, a couple of days ago, Zion was crouching on the dining room table (naked, but that little issue is a post for another day), and my mother called her a little frog baby - because of the position she was in. Zion thought this was hilarious and figured she would say back (loud and proud) to her grandmother, " ME FOCKA BABY!!" Yep. That's what she said.

Spy vs Spy

2011-02-09T14:35:00.001-08:00

Another birthday party is upon me. The youngest three girls are born the end of December, beginning of February and end of March so I feel like I am constantly thinking about birthday for about four months. Ashni's eight birthday is March 26th. (I know I've said it before, but I really can't believe how fast they are all growing up). She asked me a few months back if she could have a spy birthday. Actually, she says she doesn't remember asking me that, but "it sounds like a good idea anyway." So, the pre-party planning is underway. I try to start thinking about things early (although I typically procrastinate on the actual work) and this is what I have on my to do list so far:

1. find some cool Spy vs. Spy imagery on the net

2. print out invitation in a secret code (with decoder) and enclose in mini manila folder and sealed in "top secret" envelopes.

3. create id tags with space for fingerprints for spy kid party guests

4. come up with a secret code scavenger hunt

5. think of some other spy-like games (suggestions welcome)

6. fingerprint cupcake toppers

That's it so far. I will post as things start coming together.

Jena's newest obsession

2011-02-07T18:23:00.000-08:00

I know that a few years ago (and still today) there was a HUGE American Girl craze sweeping the country. Fortunately, we lived on an island then and our girls were still pretty little so they A) had never even heard of American Girl and B) were too young to care. Besides, I am not a fan of most dolls because I think they are creepy (that's my secret phobia). On top of the dolls being insanely expensive (to me), they did not resemble any part of my daughters, so we skipped the whole thing. Until recently. A couple of months ago, we came across a doll at Tuesday Morning that Jena fell in love with. She'd saved up some money so we let her get it. It's from a brand called Karito Kids. It's along the same lines as American Girl (they come with a book, and some other things), but each doll is from a different country and actually LOOKS like she would be from that country!! Jena's first doll is named Ling and she is from China. She loves her, but really wanted to get Lulu, the doll from Kenya (which really resembles her). So on our last trip to Tuesday Morning, guess what we found. So, my mom shelled out $30 to bring Lulu home. Now, I still think that these dolls are CRAZY expensive (they retail for $99), but Tuesday Morning is an awesome place to get stuff for a bargain. Of course, now Jena is busy everyday sewing clothes and making furniture for her dolls. Soon, she's going to have to build them a house in the backyard because I don't know where to plans to put all of this stuff.

Happy Birthday Zion

2011-02-02T14:17:00.000-08:00

While others elsewhere were waiting on pins and needles to find out whether we will have six more weeks of winter, the David clan was celebrating the second birthday of its youngest member. Yes, today is Zion's second birthday. I really can't believe it. It seems like just a couple of months ago I was posting about her first birthday and how bittersweet it was. This one is equally bittersweet as we have seemingly left behind all things baby. Instead of her chunky, cloth diapered rear end toddling around the house, we have her extremely slimmed down rear end running at top speed in underwear and jeans. Instead of sweet little baby babbling, she's been saying for days now "ater tomorrow and ater tomorrow, my birtday". Well, it is after tomorrow and after tomorrow kiddo. Happy Birthday to my sweet, sweet Zion Sage!

The girlies at Holly's Sweet Tooth (the local candy shop and ice cream parlor) enjoying mini ice cream cones.

A VERY happy ice cream face.

Notice the fresh birthday haircut. I thought cutting it the first time would make it all grow back evenly. I was wrong. It just grows weird, I guess.

We took a trip to Square Books Jr. (the local children's book store and all around fun place to hang out) to play and read books, but was quickly reminded that Zion had not had a nap. So she slept through her play time.

I'm back....temporarily

2011-01-31T22:07:00.000-08:00

Thanks to a VERY generous friend, i am back online and able to blog regularly (temporarily). I really have missed being able to regularly record the things that we have going on around here. Anyway, I will enjoy blogging for however long I have access.

Just needed to share this...

2011-01-29T10:39:00.000-08:00

70 degrees today! That is all. (I figured it would be fitting to share this immediately after my snow day post.)

Snow Day

2011-01-18T09:16:00.000-08:00

Snow in Mississippi is like some sort of urban legend. Everyone knows someone, who knows someone, whose sister's neice's half brother has seen real snow in Mississippi. This past week dispelled the myth of Mississippi snow! We got snow. Almost eight inches of snow at my house and it stuck around for a couple of days. The girls finally got to build their first snowman. And we found a really good use for loaf pans (well, other than making warm delicious bread).

We were a snow fort making MACHINE! Three loaf pans and a couple of hours in the snow and we had a fairly unstable, but totally fun snow fort.

There was quite a bit of snow consumed by all (except Jena is WAY too cool to eat snow).

Free Range Kids

2011-01-11T09:18:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite blogs of late is Free Range Kids. It's basically a site dedicated to the freeing of our children and allowing them to be kids rather than being guarded 24/7. I love reading the positive storied of parents whose children are independent and responsible. I am a big fan of my kids being "free range". I think it's very important that they learn how to navigate the world without constant adult direction. We live in a town that could be seen as half and half. Half free range parent, half hover parents. You can see it on the average trip to the playground. There are the parents that sit and talk to one another while their kids play with other kids and there are the parents who are two feet behind their 4 year old on the way to the slide. Some people may be thinking "I'd rather look silly on the slide than have anything happen to my kid." And I can respect that, but that's not my philosophy in life. Kids (just like adults) learn from mistakes. They have to be allowed to do some things wrong, go the wrong way and sometimes, god forbid, hurt themselves (gasp)! Kids fall, my kids fall, your kids fall, all kids fall, but from that fall they learn that if you run too fast before you make the leap you'll be moving too fast when you hit the ground! Slow down next time. A valuable lesson. For example, when it's warm, I go walk in a park near our house. The kids ride their bikes. Bijou (who was three at the time) loves riding her bike down the hills. Yes, I could jog along next to her in case she tips, or find a new route with less hills, but she LOVES the hills. This particular day she was riding down one of the longer hills, squealing in excitement the entire time, and something in her mind said "hey if I wobble the handle bars as I go it'll be EXTRA fun!" I saw the fall coming from the top of the hill. Needless to say, she fell and scraped her elbow pretty good. I don't even think she cried. We washed the blood off at the water fountain and she rode her bike the rest of the way around the park and we went home. The next time we went to the park she rode down the same hills and squealed with the same delight, but she hasn't wobbled the handle bars since! Lesson learned.

Winter wonderland party and other stuff

2011-01-06T22:10:00.000-08:00

Okay, here are some pictures from Bijou's birthday party. It turned out exactly the way I pictured it. Well, I pictured it in a nice clean room, painted a nice soft blue, with maybe just a fireplace with a mirror over it or something. But it was just as nice in our rather cluttered school/dining/multi purpose room. I lost my camera in the house halfway through the party, so there are no pictures of Bijou blowing out the candles. But here are some birthday party pics and some other stuff that has happened over the past few weeks.

The morning of Bijou's birthday. I made her birthday shirt the night before. I stenciled the sneaker and ironed some rhinestones on (the girls loves her sparkle).

These are the goodie bags from the party. They included the crayons (from and earlier post) and a handmade finger puppet (either owl or fox).

I made shortbread cookies with lemon icing for the kids to decorate. We had snowmen and snowflakes!

The cupcakes were chocolate with vanilla buttercream frosting. I used snowflake stencils and sprinkled cinnamon over them to create the shapes on top. Everyone had their own mug for hot chocolate with a little tag with their names on it.

I love between meal parties (after lunch before dinner) because I don't have to try to prepare food. We had popcorn, pretzels and hot chocolate!

The bigger girls helped cut snowflakes out of coffee filters to decorate the windows. We pulled a branch from the backyard and hung snowflakes from it. This was a VERY low budget party.

Okay, off of the birthday party.... the dollar store had these piggy banks! YAY! So I bought one for each of the girls...

...and let Bijou go wild with Sharpies. The older girls painted theirs.

And this was my latest cool Goodwill find. Zion rides it around the house and I don't have to worry about having to push her around on the tricycle anymore when it gets warm. This on is just her size. It was $7 well spent.

.

A new year...

2011-01-03T15:14:00.000-08:00

It's a new year and we started it off with a bang....well, not really a bang. Bijou's winter wonderland party went off without a hitch (pictures forthcoming). Unfortunately half of her friends were sick this weekend (she and her sisters were all sick last week) so there were only half of the expected guests, but it was fun all the same.

Today marks the first day of our 2011 school year. Technically the older girls started 3rd and 4th grade work a couple of months ago, but we still like to treat January like a fresh start to a new school year. Today was Bijou's first day of kindergarten though. She's been eager to become a part of our school day. I will figure out to how to handle three different grades as I go I guess (but if anyone has suggestions I'm open!!!). This year we are going to tackle some long term projects. This is what we have planned:

1. A monthly newsletter/newspaper - The girls will each write an article on a topic that they will research, an article on a current event, a creative writing piece (story, poem, joke, etc) and include any artwork or photos that they may have created over that month. We'll print our one for them to keep and maybe email it to family.

2. A quarterly biography - They will have three months to study and learn about a significant person of their choice. This person can be living, historical, a family member or whoever they want. Each quarter they will create a trifold display for their person of choice.

3. A monthly book report - We started having a book of the month to encourage the girls to read more books from our own personal library (which has hundreds of kids books). They read a lot from the library, but our personal library was being neglected. So they have to choose one of our books each month to read and write a very simple book report about.

4. A short animated movie - Jena has been very interested in making an animated movie, so we decided that she and Ashni should write a story and create some characters and we will work with my cousin to create a short animated movie. They are excited about this one.

So the rest of the school day is pretty much the same. I will juggle a few things to make time to work on the additional projects, but I think it will be good for the girls. I also think we will spend a little more time with science this year. The kids LOVE science but it always gets put on the back burner for math and reading and writing. So this year, MORE SCIENCE - more experiments, more machines, more nature and animals and biology and habitats. More of it all. We'll see how it goes, but right now, our schooling future looks bright! (Oh, yeah and my friend from Senegal who is a fabulous musician and fluent in several languages has offered to teach the girls french AND give them guitar lesson! YAY!)

Birthday party sneak peak...

2010-12-20T10:19:00.000-08:00

So the winter wonderland birthday party is just a couple of weeks away and preparations are in full swing! Snowflakes are being skillfully snipped from coffee filters, crayons have been melted into fun shapes and bagged, components for snow globes, snowmen and shortbread cookies have been gathered and the last invitation was delivered today! Who's on the ball?? I'm on the ball!! Anywho... I thought I'd share pictures of the invitations. Needless to say that Bijou is very excited about her upcoming party, but little does she know that I have a few other birthday surprises up my sleeve...

(this is what happens when you take pictures at night...they are much brighter and sparklier <---just made that one up)

The plan was to make all of the crayons in the kind of snowflake-like shape at the top left, but the mold would not cooperate, so hearts and stars it is. These are the kids favorite pass time. There's something cathartic about stripping the crayons of their paper and snapping them into tiny pieces.

Ah-too-toos and other Zionisms

2010-12-16T14:56:00.000-08:00

Zion was always my least verbal baby. She didn't really say much for the better portion of the last 22 months, but a few months ago, she really had a verbal boom. Now she talk just as much as her sisters and is pretty easy to understand - most of the time. Now like most almost two year olds, she does have her own language that only close family members can understand. So, I thought I'd share a few of my favorites...

1. Ah-too-too - dinosaur ("Mommy, read. Ah-too-too book.")

2. Menonite - lemonade ("Drink menonite")

3. Poopoo dar - people in a car ("Mommy, look, poopoo dar!")

4. erewhere - underwear ("Pee ina erewhere")

5. Dalla - daddy ("Dalla beer." HA)

She is such a quirky, personable kid and I love seeing her personality come out more and more everyday. She is definitely the resident comedian.

Bijou is turning FOUR!

2010-12-11T11:24:00.000-08:00

I can hardly believe it, Bijou is turning four. Yes, the time does fly by, but what I can hardly believe is that she ONLY turning four. She seems like she's been here FOREVER!!! I love her - don't know what my life would be like without her. But this has be a looooong four years. A four years full of laughter and tears and almost constant conversation. This kids talks nonstop until the moment her eyes close for the night. I love that she so verbal (well, sometimes I love it, other times...well....).

She's been asking about her birthday for months now. I think back in September I told her that she couldn't ask about her birthday anymore until December. Well, hello December! Her birthday is all she can talk about with anyone. And it's kind of a big deal in our house. Four is the first year of the big birthday party. But because she has a winter birthday and the thought of 35 kids confined in our small house makes me feel nauseous, she will be having a scaled down party with just friends her age (which will be about 6 or 7 kids). Four her first big girl bash we will be having a winter wonderland themed party. The great thing about having a smaller party is being able to make everything just a little nicer. For example, this will be the first year that I make goodie bags for the party. I think they will include a handmade finger puppet, snowflake shaped rainbow crayons, snow globes (that will be made at the birthday party) and snowflake shaped shortbread cookies (that will be decorated at the party). There will definitely be pictures to share when the party's over.

Jena and Ashni both wanted to make gifts for Bijou. I mentioned in an earlier post (I think) that Jena has taken up embroidery, so she really wanted to embroider a shirt for Bijou. She picked a stegosaurus (Bijou's favorite dinosaur) design from the internet and lovely, bright yellow shirt and there is a stegosaurus t-shirt in the making. I think I will let Ashni draw a picture and we will transfer it to a shirt - maybe a stencil.

Now as soon as I find the cord for my camera I can post pictures of the very cute invitations that I made.

RUN!!!!

2010-12-03T14:44:00.000-08:00

I decided a few days ago that I should start running again. I say that as if I just stopped running a few months ago or even right after Zion was born. If you were thinking that, well....thanks, but no. I haven't run in probably 15 years. Yes, 15 years!! That's back in high school. Honestly, I've been having body image issues since having Zion and holding on to a large portion of the weight. Well, Zion is almost two and I have finally gotten to the place where I figure, this is the body that I have, I may as well dress it and clothing that flatter it. Oddly enough, what comes along with my new found acceptance of my current shape is an overwhelming desire to be in better shape. It's strange how that happens (and it's not the first time it's happened). So today, I ran - for the first time in 15 years. I have to say that I am NOT 17 anymore. I think I may have eaten that 17 year old at some point in the last two years (possibly wrapped in a buttermilk biscuit or covered in melted cheese and sour cream). But it felt good. It hurt (ALOT), but it was good. I think I'll do it again...

Is it bad....

2010-11-23T14:36:00.001-08:00

...that I completely forgot the one year anniversary of my blog? I hope not, because I did.

Finally...

2010-11-14T06:43:00.000-08:00

So finally, I can post pictures! PICTURES!!! Yay. Okay, be prepared for picture overload while I chart the last few weeks. It always looks like we've done so much when I look back over the pictures, but it never seems like we get anything done day to day.

Anyway, Jena tended her first garden this spring/summer. I do NOT have a green thumb (or even pinkie), so this was pretty much all Jena. This is her last tomato of the summer. She really didn't have a huge tomato harvest (maybe 10 tomatoes), but she was very proud of them and they were pretty tasty.

Bijou started ballet this fall. She's very excited to be involved in the same thing as her sisters. She just looks so grown up in this picture.

I had the grand idea to make finger paint for the little girls. They had a really good time and they both know that now that food coloring will stain your hands (and face and clothes and patio...)

We discussed crystal formation for science and decided to grow some of our crystals. So we made a super saturated salt solution and dropped a piece of yarn into it. This was the crystal growth after a couple of weeks. The girls thought this was the greatest thing ever. They both kept big chucks of salt crystal (and every now and then pull them out to observe.)

Regular old table salt on the left and super-ginormous amazing salt crystals on the right. Pretty cool, huh?

Oh yeah, I mentioned in my last post about the girls having a lemonade stand a while back. They really enjoyed it. They made fresh squeezed lemonade (yes, REAL lemons) and sold cups for $.25. They made almost $15, which is big money in kid terms. We'll probably let them do it again next summer.

Jena, my crafty child, spent a weekend making clothes for her doll (which is now Ashni's doll since the purchase of Jena's new one). This was the very first dress that she made.

Notice the fancy buttons down the back and the fabulous hairstyle!

I had to have a gratuitous potty picture. I'm pretty proud of my little monkey and her potty training success. Look how happy she is!

We're studying the middle ages in history, so the girls designed their own coat of arms. They had to choose colors and symbols based on their meanings. They also learned what some of the lines and divisions mean.

Jena was invited to her first drop off birthday party. It's hard to believe how big she has become and how mature she is. She was so excited to get to hang out with her friends and not have any little sisters tagging along. Her little sisters on the other hand where not so thrilled.

I've probably mentioned Jena's love of unnecessarily complicated puzzles. She'd been working on the Empire State Building for weeks. She's finally put it all together. Now what are we supposed to do with it?
Zion, as cute as she is, does not seem to grow hair anywhere but down the center and on the left side of her head. Now if anyone can pull of that hairstyle, it's Zion, but I really couldn't do anything with it. So I decided to cut it off. This is the very first "first haircut" picture I have ever taken. It is also the first first haircut. I have to say that I didn't think that she could get any cuter...I was WRONG!

We made egg tempera paint for art. Just crushed, colored chalk and egg yolk. The chalk crushing was an experience and I think we all have great upper body strength now.

On the crafty front, I found this little doll cradle at Goodwill for $4 (actually it was marked $8, but when the lady heard me say that that was too much, she marked it down to $4!). It was cute, but a little to "country" for my taste. So I decided it needed a little make over.

A can of lime green spray paint and some leftover fabric and we have a much more appealing cradle. It works in their room very well.

My sister gave the girls a very cute Cat in the Hat clock when we visited this summer and the girls were very happy to have a clock in their room. Unfortunately the background on the clock was mostly black and the hands were black. We could never see what time it was. So I took it apart and replace the Cat in the Hat with a little color block pattern that I made with paint chips from the hardware store. I stamped the 12, 3, 6 and nine with some stamps a had on hand and the little pink jewels are some scrapbook accessories that the kids had. I spray painted the frame with the same green as the doll cradle. Next time I will remember to use the spray paint made specifically for plastic, because it's scratched already. Fortunately it's high on the wall, so it's barely noticeable.

Zion has an obsession with cell phones. She will swipe them as soon as you look away. I figured she must need her own, but letting her have an old, dead phone of ours didn't seem like a good idea. So i whipped up this one in about 30 minutes. It's just a piece of scrap wood (from a defunct Home Depot kids project) painted black. I cut a small picture from a magazine for the screen and used a couple of grey paint chips for the buttons. The OK button is one of those clear, bubble stickers for scrapbook pages. I covered the entire thing in Mod Podge to protect it from drool. Thirty minutes of my time, zero dollars and she has endless fun with it.

I try to come up with Halloween costumes for the girls that will work together, so this year they were the four seasons. Ashni was spring, Jena was summer, Bijou was winter and Zion was fall. Gotta love the dollar store and all of it dollary goodness because our costumes are ALWAYS created from dollar materials!

This is An! The girls took about 40 pictures of him the day we got him. They stop by and talk to him every now and then and Zion can be heard saying "Hi Fish!" several times a day.

Blue marker + unsupervised toddler = this.

I bought this bag for a dollar at Salvation Army. It's a very "me" bag (grey and wool), but it needed a little something...

...so I made this drawing from the picture of Zion on the toilet. At some point soon I will post pictures of how these two came together. Their meeting is now my favorite bag ever!

The newest family member

2010-11-09T13:53:00.000-08:00

The girls have been dying to get a pet for the last couple of years, but I am NOT an animal person. Maybe it's the idea of having something else in the house that I have to feed and clean up after. That all sounds just a little daunting to me. But, being that we live in a small town, there really aren't a lot of weekend activities to keep us busy, so when the new PetSmart had its grand opening I figured I would take the kids and let them check out the guinea pigs and hamsters and canaries. While we were there a nice PetSmart employee slipped Jena a gift card. She prefaced the hand off by saying she really didn't know how much was on there. It turned out to be $10. So I conceded and the girls got to pick......a fish. Jena's has been asking for a betta for a few months now. She'd planned to spend her lemonade stand earnings (don't know if I ever mentioned their lemonade stand, but it was a whopping success) for one, but instead we helped her buy a really nice doll (on a REALLY good sale at Tuesday Morning). So, the PetSmart gift card bought the girls the fish, some food, the conditioner for the water, some marbles and a plastic plant. I bought them a very nice fish bowl for $3 at Goodwill. They did lots of research (LOL) in my old baby name books in order to come up with a name. They named him An (pronounced Ahn) which is Chinese for peace (I think). Actually he's a very nice addition to our house. He's quiet, doesn't require a lot of attention and I only have to feed him ONCE a day. Why can't kids be more like fish....

Metal on the horizon?

2010-10-21T14:25:00.000-07:00

So the girls (3/4 of them) had dental checkups today. They all passed with flying colors - not a single cavity in the bunch. Woo hoo! Unfortunately, Ashni has a couple of teeth coming in at an odd angle. I noticed it a few weeks ago when they made their appearance. SO, we get to go see the ORTHODONTIST!!! Yay. I can only imagine the potential for partially masticated chaos that will insue in the braces of my food loving seven year old. How is any human being (doctor or not) going to give MY Ashni a list of things that she CAN'T eat? Can't eat? Are you serious? Oh well, I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

Sad, sad blog owner

2010-10-11T14:59:00.000-07:00

So I swear each day that passes I am one day closer to actually getting the part to fix my computer (I swear!!). There have been all sorts of happenings since I last posted (over a MONTH ago! Really? A month?!). I keep attempting to update, but it's just no fun without pictures. But here's a few things that we have been up to:

On the school front:

Our school year technically ends in December, so the girls will be moving up a "grade" in January. Honestly, I couldn't really put them into grades right now anyway. They are both currently doing fourth grade math (although Ashni's math is a combo of third grade warm ups and fourth lessons), Jena is doing 5th grade language and science, history and geography aren't really grade specific at our house. We've entered the middle ages in history which the kids are really enjoying. So far we've made a shield and they designed their own coat of arms (learning the meanings of some of the colors, divisions and animals).
I've also decided to start Bijou in kindergarten in January. She's been bugging me to start school, so I will try to make her first day of school a grand affair!

With the kiddos:

Jena turned nine back in August and had a lovely little masquerade party. Unfortunately, I was sick for the entire week before and week after the party (blah!). AND she went to her very first big kid drop off birthday party (sans little sisters). The girls went to a Japanese steakhouse, got a double decker bus ride to the square in town for frozen yogurt, then a double decker bus ride back to the restaurant. She had a blast. Ashni broke her third pair of glasses and that's all I really have to say about that! Bijou started her very first ballet class. She is VERY excited. And Zion has been potty trained (yes potty trained WOO HOO!!!) and got her very first haircut. I really loved her patchy bald look that she had going on, but she'll be two in February and her hair shows no signs of growing. So I cut it off and she looks ADORABLE!!!

Of a crafty nature:

I made a new doll for Zion. It turned out VERY cute, so we bough some fabric at a yard sale and there are plans to make new dolls for all of the girls. A couple of winter hats have been crocheted, as well as warm socks for Bijou and Zion to wear in the house. Jena has taken up embroidery and has been making gifts for all of her friends. I need to be painting, but I'm not, so....yeah.

From the kitchen:

Rosemary cornbread and fresh baked cinnamon rolls!

So I promise that I will have a computer before 2011. And I will be back to my regularly scheduled blogging (I promise).

Backyard Camping

2010-08-29T06:34:00.000-07:00

So, my girls were having some petty little issues with their neighborhood friends yesterday. You know, "so and so is being mean and won't let us play with them" kind of stuff. So after a brief "kids can be mean" talk, I decided that they needed something to do here at home. I decided to pitch the habitually neglected tent in the backyard and let them have their very first solo backyard camp out. Their rules were very simple:
1. Do not, under any circumstances, leave our backyard.
2. No one, under any circumstance, is allowed in the backyard with you.
3. No running in and out of the house all night.
4. Please turn off the flashlights before you go to sleep.
5. If you get scared or nervous for ANY reason, come back in the house!
They gathered their sleeping bag, pillow, blankets, books and water bottle and headed out before sunset. By the time the sun went down it looked like they were throwing a rave in the tent. To my surprise, they were asleep by 10 o'clock or so. We considered bringing them in before we went to bed (the hubby's a little more cautious than I am), but we left a light on for them and they were really only 20 or 30 feet from our bedroom window, so we just let them stay. We were awakened at 6:45 this morning by Ashni letting us know that the hubby accidentally locked the backdoor and she couldn't get in the house. They had a great time and I'm sure backyard camping will be requested again and again and again....and again.

I'm still here...

2010-08-17T06:16:00.000-07:00

I feel like a terrible blog owner. It has been more than a week since I posted anything, but the whole Wii internet business is a pain in the...Anyway, I really just need a $50 part to be back up and running. But money around here is tighter than my pre-bab(ies) jeans, so the computer is pretty far down on the list priorities. BUT life continues at a normal pace around here. I roasted my first chicken while in Philly. It turned out perfect (and cookbook photo worthy). My oldest is turning nine on Friday and she's having a masquerade party. My three year old is starting ballet today. We are getting back into the swing of things and finishing the second half of second and third grade (our year goes from January to December). I'm planning an apartment style dollhouse from a three tier shelf that's currently holding baby toys. I'm in the early (early) stages of potty training the baby. She can't say potty, but she can say bathroom (go figure). So, don't give up on me yet. I promise fun things are in the works.

Back to our own little piece of the world

2010-08-09T12:06:00.000-07:00

So we made the 16 hour journey back home yesterday. We were all ready to be back in our own home. This trip was epic! We had a really great time in all of the places that we visited and we are so appreciative of everyone's hospitality. I know that our family travels like a caravan, so we can definitely invade a space. Now it's time to deprogram the kids and get them back into the old routine. I will post more pictures from the trip as soon as I can (back home means back to Wii internet. Blah...)

Where in the world....back to Philadelphia

2010-08-06T04:21:00.000-07:00

Well, it's time to officially wind down our whirlwind vacation. It has been epic, but unless we want to be stranded somewhere on the east coast with four kids and no money, we should probably head back home. So we cut our stay in Massachusetts short snd headed back to Philly. Massachusetts was alright. It's definitely not the place for us. On the surface, it seemed like a place that we could fit in, but alas... I did learn a valuable lesson during our stay there. Just because a kid has all the earthy, natural, organic "stuff" (food, toys, parents) it doesn't mean that they are going to be any more respectful, polite or well behaved. It definitely made me appreciate my parenting style and children for who they are.

Now, I think I am finally in a position to add pictures from the last couple of weeks, so I will be going back and updating some older posts. Feel free to look back!

Where in the world...

2010-08-04T05:34:00.000-07:00

Guess what happens when you put six kids together in a backyard garden in Massachusetts with free reign on the ripe vegetables. Go ahead, guess. I'll wait.....
Well, when if it's my four kids and our friends' two kids, they make a.....wait for it.....SALAD! Yep, our kids gathered cucumbers, green tomatoes, fresh basil and carrots from the garden, raisins, pickles (yeah pickles) and salad dressing from the fridge and made a big vinegary salad. Then they all sat around a table in the backyard (barefoot and in a slight drizzle) and ate it voraciously with forks, hands and chopsticks.

On a side note. Today is my husband's 34th birthday. Happy Birthday, hun. Someday we will have money on your birthday and we'll do something awesome. I guess being in Massachusetts instead of Mississippi could be considered awesome. I guess we'll just have to see what the day brings.

UPDATE: SO we spent the morning at the river with the kids. It was SO hot and river was so nice. This was one of the highlights of our trip. I'd go back there every day.

Bijou-isms hit the road...

2010-08-03T16:57:00.000-07:00

So it wouldn't be a proper vacation without some choice Bijou-isms. Today's Bijou-ism is brought to us by waiting too long to go to the bathroom and a healthy obsession with dinosaurs. So, Bijou is doing the pee pee dance and running up the driveway this morning. It's obvious that she's too late to make it to the bathroom (there was a wet trail following her). "You're just going to have to finish. You can't pee all through the house." So, she "finishes" and comes in to get cleaned up and put on some dry clothes. When we go back out, she sees the puddle that she's left at the bottom of the back stairs.

Bijou: Mommy, my pee looks like a dinosaur!
Me: Um, yeah I guess it kinda does. Gross.
Bijou: Jena, look, I have dinosaur pee.
Jena: Ew, Bijou. You're stepping in it.
Bijou (laughing hysterically): I'm walking in my dinosaur pee, Mommy!

Yep, dinosaur pee. That's today's Bijou-ism. That kid....

Where in the world....Lenox and Greenfield, MA

2010-08-03T04:31:00.000-07:00

I had to make a trip to the art museum here before we hit the road. You know, the one from Rocky? Yeah, I'm not a Rocky fan, so I avoided the long line of people waiting in line to take a picture with the Rocky statue. I did, however, get to see original Van Goghs which were well worth the hike uphill from the car.

So has anyone seen the movies Away We Go (Maya Rudolph and John Krasinski)? Basically it's about a 30 something couple that find out that they are pregnant and head off to find the perfect place to live. They visit crazy friends and relatives and it's a sweet, sometimes emotional, very funny movie. It's a favorite right now for the hubby and I. Well, we've watched that movie about a thousand times over the course of this last two weeks. It's such a parallel to our lives right now. No, we aren't pregnant (again), but we are on a search for our home. A place that will feel right to us. Living in Mississippi has definitely had it's positive aspects, but it's really not the place for us. We stick out like a sore thumb, and as much as I enjoy being, well, off the beaten path, I don't like sticking out quite as much as we seem to. So the second goal of this trip has been scouting out locations that may work as our home. Ultimately we would like to keep heading north to Canada, but until we are in a position to do that, we need to find a home that makes us all happy. There are plenty of place that we know we don't want to be, but we are still figuring out where we'd be happy. So here are the places that we have visited so far on this trip: St. Louis, Columbus (OH), Washington DC, Leesburg VA, Philadelphia (actually Lafayette Hills) PA, and Atlantic City NJ. Yesterday we spent the afternoon in Lenox, MA. It was actually a really nice town. It's one of those place where people ask you if you live there all year (several moms asked me that while we were at the playground). It was also one of those towns that I could just tell that we could never afford to live in. From Lenox, we headed to Greenfield. It's our first official day here, so I haven't had a chance to feel it out just yet. I have to say, I'm excited to be with friends who have kids and are raising them in a similar way. The kids have yard space to play, a garden to help tend, cats and chickens to feed and no TV, Barbie or Justin Beiber as far as the eye can see. Right now I am watching Zion, barefoot, in the backyard, waist deep in what I think is basil (but I could be wrong). It feels good. I keep waiting for the black screen to pop up saying "away to home", but life just isn't that simple. I don't necessarily think that Greenfield, Massachusetts is the place for us, but I know that place is out there and we have been having a blast trying to find it.

Where in the world....Atlantic City

2010-08-01T09:28:00.000-07:00

We took a short trip to Atlantic City yesterday to visit a family friend. We've never been to Atlantic City before, so it was a fun, new excursion. But, because we'd never been before we didn't foresee to horrendous Saturday traffic caused by the thousands of people flocking there for the weekend. Ugh, traffic makes me ill (one of the perks of small town living). I really enjoyed getting to the ocean again, though. I haven't seen the ocean since we left St. Croix. Granted the Atlantic Ocean is not nearly blue as the Caribbean Sea, but I'll take what I can get at this point. The kids had a blast, even though they could only put their feet in the water (it was an impromptu trip, so no swimsuits were packed). I realized halfway through the beach visit, that it was Zion's very first trip to the beach. I realized this as she was using my flip flop as a shovel and laying face down in the sand. I think I can safely say that she enjoyed her first trip to the beach (maybe she can feel the island blood coursing through her veins despite her Mississippi birth).

Zion's first steps on the beach. Her little toes were made for sand.

Yep, Ikea is the highlight of the day...

2010-07-30T16:33:00.000-07:00

Okay, so theoretically we are seeing lots of fun and educational sites in all of the places we are visiting on this massive family road trip. But I have to admit, the highlight of our Philadelphia trip so far (you now with the exception of hanging out with my sister and brother-in-law) has to be our trip to Ikea today. I'm probably a little biased (because I love Ikea and the closest one to Oxford is in Atlanta, so we never go there), but our trip to Ikea today was the best. First of all, I love any store that provides a fun place for me to drop my kids off and leave for an hour. Don't get me wrong, I love my girls, but browsing is so much easier when I don't have to do the periodic head count or catch the baby or wrestle the three year old into the cart. So, I got a good hour of browsing peacefully with just the baby. About 45 minutes in, the baby got hungry so we went up to get a little kids meal from the cafe (pasta with marinara, veggies and an apple juice). Now the kids menu in itself is only $2.97 which I think is a good deal, but when I got to the check out line the lady just printed my receipt and said have a nice day. That's right, kids eat FREE until August 13th!! So on top of a peaceful hour of shopping, I fed all of the kids of $0. AND they keep diapers and wipes stocked in the changing area of the family bathroom! Yeah, so maybe I'm easily impressed, but I love a store that makes shopping with kids easier.

Where in the world...Philadelphia Bound

2010-07-29T06:56:00.000-07:00

Today, we hit the road and head for Philadelphia. Washington DC has been great, but I'm ready to move on. The kids are getting antsy and are falling prey to some modern day influences that we try to avoid at home. Basically, too much TV, too many movies, too much computer access, too much weirdo kiddie pop music, too much staying the house, too many Capri Suns and way too much getting their way. The kids love visiting with their cousin and I love watching them spend time with family, but it's completely affecting the way they interact with each other. There's so much more fighting and bickering and being mean. It's driving me nuts. So, I am looking forward to heading to our next destinations and getting back to what we are used to in our kids.
We don't have much planned for Philadelphia. My sister in law and I have planned a trip to Ikea (just because I LOVE Ikea) and they just opened a HUGE Whole Foods in her area and I think there are plans to make vegan marshmallow treats. There won't be 1000 TV channels or extensive computer games. And best of all? NO BARBIE!!! Goodbye Barbie and Justin Bieber (whoever you are) and hello vegan marshmallow treats and arboretum!

Wrapping up in DC

2010-07-27T14:58:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is our last day in Washington DC. Today we took the kids to the National Portrait Gallery and the Museum of Natural History. I'm not really a fan of the stuffy presidential portraits, but I do appreciate them for their technical skill. What made my day was the gallery filled with the 49 chosen portraits from the annual portrait competition. I have to acknowledge how difficult it is to be inspired to paint when there is so little outside art in my life. Today was inspiring. I think I want to start a long term project (a year maybe), where I create a self portrait each week. That's really the only goal. Mediums and techniques will vary, but I will be the subject. I think I will enter the National Portrait Gallery's annual competition (I picked up the info today) and see where that takes me....

Anyway, after the NPG, we had lunch in the Sculpture Garden (and I got to see a friend that I haven't seen since college.

This metal tree was awesome.

It was a brief meeting, but enjoyable none the less.) and headed on over to see the dinosaurs at the Museum of Natural History. Of course it was Bijou's favorite part of the day (she was annoyed that the Portrait Gallery had no dinosaurs). She got to see her favorite - STEGOSAURUS!

Model of what it may have looked like when dinosaurs roamed the earth.

It was too dark and WAY too crowded to get a picture of Bijou with the stegosaurus, so we had to settle for the triceratops skull.

We also checked out the rocks, gems and minerals. Ashni and Jena were both pretty intrigued by the Hope Diamond, but both were more impressed with the toxic fibers of asbestos in the area with crystals. It's is fun to watch Ashni go through and pick out rocks and crystals that she has in her collection at home.

We're all exhausted now, but it was well worth it. Thanks for hanging out with us Uncle Gregory (we'll be waiting patiently for your awesome pictures of our visit).

Where in the world... or The great DC blackout of 2010

2010-07-26T06:09:00.000-07:00

The day was going along just fine. We were preparing for our Sunday cookout - pasta salad was being made, apple pie in the works, charcoal going in the grill. The sky was blue , the sun was shining and the kids were entertaining themselves. Then the sky started to look a little gray. "I think it's going to rain, but that will cool things off, so that's good." Withing moments the sky went from gray to black. The wind kicked up and sheets of rain moving horizontally blinded us all. For ten minutes the weather was pure chaos! Thunder, lightning, hail in some areas. With a particularly loud clap of thunder and frighteningly close bolt of lightning the power was knocked out. "It will be back soon. I mean, it flashed for a minute earlier." Um, yeah, we were wrong about that one. After ten minutes the storm was over, but the power was AWOL! For 12 hours we had no lights, no fridge, no stove, no air conditioner, no fans. Has anyone been checking the weather on the east coast lately? Yeah, it's HOT!

The cookout went as planned (without apple pie or cheddar biscuits though, because the power died before I could get them in the oven). We ate, drank and were merry, but soon the guests went to their homes that had lights and air conditioning. So, we played board games, painted our finger nails and toenails, laughed and drank warm soda, all by candle light. We had a blast. It was HOT, but we made the best of it. The power came back in the wee hours of the morning. I was awakened by lights, fans, humming of appliances. It was a welcomed sight. After going through the house turning everything off (including the oven and garbage disposal), I could sleep comfortably beneath the much appreciated and fully powered fan. This morning as I use the internet, listen to the radio in the next room, and absorb the white noise of the air conditioner, the black out becomes just a fun vacation story to talk about later. I'm sure there will be many more over the next couple of weeks of travel.

Where in the world... Hello DC

2010-07-21T16:40:00.000-07:00

Today is our first full day in Washington DC. We planned to leave St. Louis around 4am on Tuesday, but lost track of time and long story short, we ended up just getting on the road at 2am instead of trying to sleep for two hours. We drove through a massive thunderstorm in Illinois (at 2am!), but after that the weather was great. The trip from St. Louis to DC is supposed to be about 14 hours, but we got lost somewhere in rural Maryland and it ended up being about 16 hours (but that's what makes it an adventure, right? Yeah...). Surprisingly, the kids did great (and neither of the drivers fell asleep behind the wheel)! I have to admit that staying up for 48 hours was much easier when I was 19 and had no children (staying up that long now is just plain stupid and I'll be paying for it for the next three days, so I don't recommend it).
Anyway, on the itinerary for the next week are:
1. A family and friends cookout with the in-laws and hubby's friends
2. The portrait museum for Jena
3. Dinosaur bones for Bijou
4. A quick trip to see the White House and Washington monument
5. Lots of sitting around and naps to make up for yesterday's loss of sleep.
Unfortunately, my father in law's computer does not have a slot for my SD card and I left all of the camera cords at home, so pictures will have to come later..... Well, it's later and here are pictures.

Apparently Zion is unhappy with her current amount of accessories and would like to add large, flower shaped clip on earrings. I think they make a statement.

Generally we don't allow hula hooping in the house, but when you're this cute with a hula hoop exceptions must be made.

This is what being on vacation has done to rides in the car. No matter where we went, this is what it looked like in the back seat. This is reason enough for everyone to take a massive road trip with their kids.

Just before we go lost in Maryland, this was the lovely view from the car. Not that the view wasn't lovely while we were lost, but things are much nicer when you assume you know where you're going.

Happy Trails...

2010-07-19T07:45:00.000-07:00

Today is our last day in St. Louis. Early tomorrow morning we hit the road and head to DC. I've enjoyed spending time with my family, but this trip has been a reminder of why I left St. Louis. For a brief moment we considered coming back here for a year or so until we decide for sure where we want to live. The moment was brief. St. Louis is NOT the place for us. I've had my time here and now it has become a great place to visit for a few days. That's it. It's been fun St. Louis, we'll see you on the next go 'round. Look out Washington DC, here we come!!!

(No trip to St. Louis would be complete without a trip to Crown Candy for ice cream!)

Where in the world, Part 2

2010-07-18T07:51:00.000-07:00

So we are still in St. Louis and as I mentioned we are staying at the family house here in the city. This neighborhood has changes so much since I was a kid. There are so few people left in the area. This lovely dilapidated building is my childhood home. It's hard to believe that the bulk of my childhood was spent in this house.

The "big house", as it is affectionately called is one of the few houses left standing and livable in the neighborhood. The house is over 100 years old (I believe) and still has original hardwood floors, ornate fixtures and woodwork. There are even a couple of original stained glass windows along the front stairs.

Zion and Granny share a granny/granddaughter moment on the front steps. I think they were counting the rocks that Zion had collected from the front garden.

All the kiddos by the big beautiful hydrangea bush in the front yard. We were on our way to the Friday night family meet and greet.

Yesterday was the family picnic. The big girls were in charge of creating this family tree. I drew the tree and they had each member of the family leave their fingerprint "leaf" and name. I was hoping for a fuller tree. Maybe we will leave it unframed here at the house and as more family members gather for other family functions they can add their leaf to the tree. There were more leaves than this by the end of the day, but we have a HUGE family, so we could fill the page with prints.

Jena had a ball playing Davis bingo. She didn't win, but she had fun all the same. I think it helped that her cousin Nia was sharing the bingo card.

Zion ended her day exhausted and filthy, the true sign of a great day.

A little people pow wow.

Where in the world...

2010-07-15T17:20:00.000-07:00

So we made it to St. Louis yesterday after a surprisingly easy drive. The kids were content and quiet and we only had to make two bathroom stops (okay, maybe three).

We are staying in my family's house a.k.a "the big house". The house has been in our family for at least 60 years and it is the central location for most family gatherings. The big house, at one time, housed my grandparents, their four children, my grandmother's older sister and her nine children. The walls still echo with the distant sounds of generations of Brown children. I love seeing my girls run up and down the same ornately carved stairs that I did before them and my mother did before that.
We spent the day visiting the zoo and the Science Center here in St. Louis. I have to say that we left Mississippi thinking that going up north had to be cooler that staying down south. We were WRONG! It was at least 95 degrees today with humidity so thick it was like walking at the bottom of pool! After passing a few pens with nothing in them (we decided that animals are much smarter than people and they were hiding in any shady nook they could find) we finally got to see some animals. We started in the Insectarium which was heaven for my seven year old bug enthusiast. There was a huge variety of creepy crawlers and a great butterfly house. There were hundreds of butterflies that fluttered around our heads. The girls even got to see a butterfly coming out of a cocoon! We really only made it through about half of the zoo (it was just too hot, except for the penguin house, which was FREEZING), but we got to see lots if things.

Giant horned beetle

Bijou making friends

Watching leaf cutter ants

There' s a butterfly coming out of there!

Studying the map to plot out our next excursion.

Little monkey in the butterfly house.

Hippos are very graceful underwater.

snakes

lizards

flamingos

Chimp-sicle!

We got to the Science Center too late to spend a lot of time there, but we did get see a few things. Maybe we will try to make it back before we hit the road again.

The highway beneath our feet

Checking to see who's speeding!

The effects of earthquakes on a several different types of foundations.

Touch sensitive animated floor - this was Zion's favorite part of the day.

Triceratops for my dino-loving Bijou!

Where in the world is the family David?

2010-07-10T11:04:00.000-07:00

Okay, so still no computer, but we are embarking on our first major family road trip in a few days. Where are we headed, you may ask? Well, we will make a giant loop from Mississippi to St. Louis to Washington DC to Philadelphia to somewhere in Massachusetts then back. We will be on the road for three weeks with four kids! Since I will be with people with working computers, I will be able to update while we travel (given that we all survive being closed in the car for so long). So for the next three weeks we will be playing "where in the world is the family David". I'll be posting pictures and keeping you up to date with all of the fun stuff we're doing.

A quick update...

2010-06-23T19:57:00.000-07:00

Okay, so my computer is in need of a new motherboard and thanks to a techie friend, I can get it up and running for a fraction of what the computer place was going to charge me. Now I just need to order a new motherboard. So tonight I am borrowing my cousins laptop to do a little update.
I mentioned before that the girls and I made puppets from gourds. Everyone was a bit snippy that day and I felt like a little project would soothe the savage beasts. I really made this up as we went along, but they turned out pretty good. The large part of the gourd is the puppets head and we hot glued fabric to the smaller part to make the body.

Also, I haven't had the confidence to tackle the fabric playhouse I'd planned to make for the big girls, so I made them a tepee (or tipi or teepee, maybe?). Some one hacked down a TON of bamboo and left it at the curb (and everyone knows that I am a sucker for usable goods left at the curb) so of course I loaded up the back of my mini van. I used the sheets that I bought back in the winter for the fabric playhouse and let the kids go to town decorating it with sharpies. The tepee was really simple to put together and I love looking out of my kitchen window and seeing in the far corner of the backyard. Bijou, Zion and I sat out in it this morning with Popsicles and library books (generally not a good combo, but no books were harmed). It was great until a HUGE daddy long legs ran Bijou off. Eh well...

On a side note, I got some comments from a couple of new people and I wanted to say thanks for stopping by. I always love comments, but typing responses on the Wii....ugh!

Booooooo...

2010-06-15T08:18:00.000-07:00

Ugh...I am still without my computer! But I will have lots of fun stuff to share when I get it back. The girls and I made puppets from gourds (which turned out really cute), I'm planning a Caribbean inspired party (for the grown ups this time) and we will be putting together some interest based work boxes for the girls to take on our upcoming road trip. I'm really looking forward to being able to share...soon.

An Unplanned Blog Vacation

2010-06-08T19:49:00.000-07:00

So, my computer is sick and has been hospitalized. But thanks to our newly purchased Wii I am not completely without internet access. Unfortunately, my keyboard is not a USB so I have to use the controller and the on screen keyboard. This took me 15 minutes to type! But never fear friends! As soon as my computer is back in good health, I will be back to my regularly scheduled blogging! (20 minutes...sheesh!)

Mini Farmers

2010-06-06T17:02:00.000-07:00

I finally got around to making boxes for the kids to put their plant in. I've had scrap wood laying around the garage forever, so I just took it to Home Depot and got the pieces cut down evenly. A few weeks ago I came across a very cool little project to make garden markers from old spoons. Of course I can't remember what blog it was from, but they had great letters to stamp into the metal. i don't have those, but I do have a sort of metal punching tool. I bought some old spoons (and a couple of butter knives) at a garage sale on Saturday for a quarter. I wrote the names of the plants on each spoon and used the punch to go over the letters (making a dotted line of sorts). So now the girls have their very own little plot of land to take care of. Jena feels like the plants are her babies, so if no one else takes care of them, Jena will.

This picture is really just to show off Ashni's fabulous outfit. She has her own style!

Parsley, basil and rosemary.

Zion is in charge of picking all of the flowers from the plants when no one is looking.

Cardboard Playhouse: Day 2

2010-05-27T16:33:00.000-07:00

I added some fun details to the playhouse today. I decided against making curtains because I want to make sure enough light gets inside, but I did use some tulle to make a screen on one window. I was going to screen the openings at the top, but it just didn't look nice (so we will have to just deal with the bugs). I will, more than likely, make a little mail box over the weekend to put next to the front door. So, here's the playhouse at 99% finished (and the cutest residents EVER).

The lovely red door for good luck!

My fairly crappy version of some cherry blossoms on a tree. It's not that I can't make cherry blossoms, but I had an impatient toddler helping out. So they just became random blossoms on a naked tree.

I wanted to add something fun to one side of the house. It is a little minimalist without the bakery and post office. I personally enjoy a little minimalism but...

...look how cute it is when there's a little postal employee hanging out the window!

And how could anyone pass up the sweetest thing I've ever seen in any bakery EVER!?

Cardboard Playhouse

2010-05-26T18:27:00.000-07:00

I feel like I haven't made anything for a long time. Maybe I just needed a break from the constant mess that seems to follow me when I make things. Whatever the reason, I felt the need to make something today. It just felt like a project kind of day. We started the morning with the girls bedazzling a couple of pairs of jeans. When I was a kid, I used to LOVE to cut daisies from fabric and sew them to my jeans. So, it was like life came full circle today watching my girls embellish their first pair of jeans. After they were sufficiently fancified, they headed out to transfer some of their plant into real pots and I sat down to design a little playhouse for Zion.

(I still haven't made the fabric playhouse for the big girls, but I feel like my sewing machine and I have such an on again, off again relationship that we are not ready to take on a large task together. Maybe we should consider counseling.) I make a lot of different things for the older girls, but haven't really had the chance to make anything special for Zion. My plan was to make a small playhouse for her that was just big enough for her (to keep her older sisters from taking over). Thanks to our local Sears appliance store, I acquired 5 very large, very sturdy pieces of cardboard. They were about an inch thick had a honeycomb type core, which makes them VERY sturdy.

I like the way it turned out and Zion LOVES it. It is definitely bigger than I originally anticipated, so technically, the bigger girls can play in it (but I think I will make it three years old and under area). The plan is to be able to move it from the garage, to the backyard or front yard depending on where the rest of us are. It weighs almost nothing, so it's very easy to move. I will keep a blanket to spread beneath it in the grass (to prevent the backyard itchies). I will add some details to the outside of the house, attach the front door and probably make some curtains.

I made just some simple line drawings on the inside for the different rooms of the house. I may do something a little more detailed later on, but this works for now.

The Golden Compass

2010-05-24T05:53:00.000-07:00

My big girls are in love with all things related to The Golden Compass. We've listened to the entire Dark Materials trilogy and they've just discovered that there's a movie. Thanks to Netflix, we've watched the movie several times over the past few days. I have to say, without some very pertinent information that you get in the book, the movie was rather confusing. So much so, that I didn't even remember that I saw the movie when it first came out on DVD a couple of years ago. I didn't get it at all then. It's a much better movie once you've read the book and can fill in the gaps.
Jena was devastated to find out that there isn't a movie for the Subtle Knife or the Amber Spy Glass. She's decided that she wants to make those movies. I wonder where she plans to find armored bears in Mississippi...

We took a little Golden Compass quiz (which the girls were very excited about). They did a good job. I will have to come up with a quiz for the other two books. These kids love taking quizzes (I'm not sure where they got that gene from).

Raw Diet: A Premature End...

2010-05-21T17:36:00.000-07:00

So, I've officially ended my raw food diet and no, it hasn't been thirty days. I am officially a quitter. BUT, in my defense, I a:) still had to cook three meals a day everyday for the other five people in the house who weren't going raw. I know that's probably a cop out, but it is what it is. b:) I am still nursing the baby which meant that I was either eating all day long or my energy was just zapped (which made me snappy at everyone else). c:) Well, I went to New Orleans on Monday and honestly, who can go to New Orleans just eat raw food. Really? I'd say I made it two and a half weeks, which isn't really bad considering that I haven't even attempted a raw diet since before I had children (about 10 years ago). I'll try again soon, I'm sure.

Wordless Wednesday...Fun in NOLA

2010-05-19T16:59:00.002-07:00

Spring Cleaning: School/Dining/Craft Room

2010-05-16T20:01:00.002-07:00

I know after my last burst of spring cleaning, I said I would work on my living room. I did actually get my living room/office space in order, but I figured since I don't have any before pictures of the room, and after picture would be rather anticlimactic. So instead, I am sharing our school room (which is also our dining room and my craft space). I posted pictures a few months ago when we started 2nd and 3rd grade. This is what it looked like before. That blue furniture served its purpose, but I was SO sick of looking at every time I walked through the dining room. It has found a new home in the garage.

This is what the room looks like now. It's so much more open and the kids have been getting to a point where they do not work well sitting together. Instead of working, they are either playing or writing notes to each other. (Really, you guys? You're passing notes in a homeschool class?) This way they have their own work space to do independent lessons and we can still come together at the dining room table for group activities. I save jars and other glass containers because I love them for storage. I decided to keep small items that we have lots of (i.e. crayons, erasers, paper clips and chalk) in them. I feel so much better about the space now.

My craft space is still a work in progress. I have a massive amount of craft supplies to try and organize in this shared space. This is my progress as of this weekend.

I got this book at the Salvation Army a few weeks ago. I'd say it's from the 60's. I thought the cover was hilarious, but it does have some pretty cute projects in it.

Who knows where the spring cleaning will take me next, but I'm leaving for a child free, over night trip to New Orleans in the morning, so no more cleaning until at least Wednesday!

Ballet Drawings

2010-05-14T19:53:00.001-07:00

So I was asked to do some ballet inspired drawings to have at the girls' ballet performance. Ballet art is not really my thing, so I scoured the internet for some ballet inspiration and did a few drawings. Here they are (I did take them out of the sketchbook to display).

I found it where???

2010-05-14T19:40:00.000-07:00

Today has been a CRAZY day. It started out like any other, until I remembered that I couldn't find my wallet (which I discovered yesterday while attempting to pay for some stuff). Unfortunately, I didn't remember this until 3:30pm while I was out dropping some things at Salvation Army. Now, I keep my entire life in my wallet (which I understand is not the best idea, but I like to know that I have things with me when need them). The bigger girls were performing in Sleeping Beauty with their ballet school and had casting call at 4:45. So I had to rush back home and tear up the house looking for it...no luck. The last place I remembered using it was Walmart. So I rushed over there...no luck. Check Goodwill just in case...no luck. Maybe it fell out of my bag during dress rehearsal yesterday. Check the theater... no luck. So now I'm super frustrated (I hate losing things) and the kids need to get their makeup and hair done and I still have to mat the drawings that I volunteered to have for sale (I also hate rushing). Long story short, after a second time of tearing up the house (and the garage and the car), I was encouraged to check the trash (thank you mother), just in case. Lo and behold what do I find at the very bottom of the kitchen trash can? Yep, that's right. We can all thank my VERY helpful baby (who enjoys throwing trash and apparently wallets away) for making my afternoon a nightmare. Thank you, Zion.

New(er) Play Kitchen for the kids

2010-05-13T07:47:00.000-07:00

So, I might be a little obsessed. I'm not sure why. Maybe I was deprived of a fabulous play kitchen when I was child and have repressed that memory and it is resurfacing as this play kitchen obsession that I seem to have. Who knows. Anyway, I found this kitchen at our local Goodwill on Sunday (yes I spent my Mother's Day at Goodwill). I forgot to take pictures before I took the doors off the microwave and oven. Ooops.

(I'm thinking that this is pretty much what the one I bought would have looked like new. It's very.....pastel.)

Granted, it already pretty cute, but I'm not really a fan of cutesy things. So, I decided to put my style into it. A couple of cans of spray paint, some new hardware, a little creativity and a jar of Mod Podge later, this is the new kitchen the kids have in their room. I had a piece of wood cut at Home Depot to make a refrigerator (that part was missing when I bought it). This kitchen was much more expensive from start to finish than the last one. This one cost around $50 total (I generally like to keep my projects under $20 because I'm cheap). Now I just need to replenish the felt food supply.

Bijou Talks....and TALKS

2010-05-11T06:13:00.000-07:00

All of my girls are very talkative (well, not the baby, but she couldn't get a word in if she wanted to....). I have to say that Ashni and Bijou are by far the most talkative in the house. They are the kids that I don't remember ever NOT talking. Ashni has always been full of deep. insightful, probing questions (as well as bad jokes and goofy perspectives on life). We've learned that Bijou, at three years old, will continue to talk even when she needs to inhale. This means that there are little snippets of her sentences that are inaudible because she is talking while breathing IN. Here is an excerpt of our conversation at 7 o'clock this morning:

I come out of my bedroom carrying the baby. Bijou is laying on the living room floor, fully dressed and wrapped in a blanket.

Bijou: Good morning mommy. I was a big girl while I was asleep!
Me: You were a big girl while you were asleep? Well that's good.
Bijou: You only have on one sock mommy. That's funny. You have on one sock, Daddy has on two socks, Me and Zion don't have on socks. I thought I had shoes on in my bed, Mommy, but I didn't. It was just my feet. I wore these clothes for pajamas. These are my pajamas. Can you make me some breakfast.
Me: Yes, sweetie, I'll make you some breakfast in a little bit.
Bijou: Can I have oatmeal? Or waffles? I can eat waffles because I have these teeth. (smiles really big and shows me her teeth) When I was little I didn't have these teeth (points to her molars) and when I get bigger my teeth will get wiggly. They're going to get wiggly, Mommy, and then I am going to pull it out. It's going to bleed when I pull it out. Ashni pulled her tooth out and then she used a towel and showed me her blood. And that wasn't nice. Nope, that was mean. Right, Mommy? That was mean.
Me: She probably wasn't trying to mean, Bijou.
Bijou: Showing me her blood was mean.

The conversation goes on. Actually, the conversations never stop. She talks like this ALL day. It has become background noise in the house. I've gotten so used to the non stop talking that when she's asleep, I feel like I need to turn on the TV or something just to get the noise level back to normal (I don't do that though, I really appreciate the quiet when I can get it).

Happy Mother's Day

2010-05-09T13:07:00.001-07:00

Every morning I am awakened by Ashni (my seven year old) coming to get the baby for some early morning play time. Today, in exchange for the baby, I was given a lovely Mother's Day note written in yellow crayon.

It says (because I know it's hard to read): Todays the [day] for you. I like all the t[h]ings you do for us. Now you do not have to do that stuff. Happy Mothers day.

Gotta love that kid! Happy Mother's Day!

Wooden Block Upgrade for the Kiddos

2010-05-07T08:14:00.000-07:00

Our house has an abnormal number of wooden blocks. I think it may be some sort of obsession on my part, but I'm trying to get it under control. It's one of those toys that the kids play with, but not often. So I decided to give some of the plain blocks a little makeover. Here's what I came up with.

I added very simple architectural details with black sharpie. Nothing too complex and there wasn't a lot of emphasis on straight lines or perfect circles.

Maybe the blocks will get a little more use now. They did, at least, play with them this morning.

Accidental "unschooling"

2010-05-04T18:46:00.000-07:00

Well, I wouldn't say that what I'm doing in unschooling (mainly because I think unschoolers are WAY more involved than I feel like I have been for the past few days). I really just can't seem to get myself motivated to do any traditional schooling. It happens every time the weather gets warm. Since we moved here and have to readjust to seasons again, whenever the weather gets warm I just don't want to sit in the house and talk about ancient civilizations or memorize multiplication facts or write paragraphs or talk about adverbs. I want to hang out, take trips, feel the sun on top of my head. We've been doing just the bare bones of school lately. I've renewed my library books on ancient Greece three times because we have yet to finish the unit. I figure if the girls do some math, write pen pal letters (with correct spelling and grammar), read for a GAZILLION hours each day, take care of their plants, play some games, listen to books on CD, pretend and draw some pictures, then we've had a fairly productive day. I know we will get back into the regular routine....eventually.

Raw Food: Day 4

2010-05-04T18:35:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I caved today. I just really did not want to eat anything that we had in the house. Does that make me a wuss? Maybe, but I just really needed a sandwich. So, I had one. I have to admit that as much as I wanted that sandwich it wasn't very good. I don't know if my tongue has gotten used to different flavors already, but that sandwich was WAY too salty. I'm sure it tasted the same as they always do, but it just wasn't tasty at all. It was filling though and I haven't been hungry since (that was around 1 this afternoon). Even after this short period of time, it is strange to not be hungry almost eight hours after eating. For the past few days I've eaten something every couple of hours (a salad, a piece of fruit, a smoothie, juice, something). I do feel less like I need some cooked food now. So tonight I made hummus. I soaked the chic peas over night instead of cooking them (or using canned which is usually what I use). At some point I will get hungry again and that hummus will be calling my name!

A few of my favorite things...

2010-05-03T10:16:00.000-07:00

I love finding great things at the thrift store (or on the side of the road or in the trash or in my grandparents' basement). I keep a shelf or two on my bookshelf just for all of my random things that I love. My current favorites are these...

The awesome fan is something I got from my grandmother years ago. It's one of my most prized possessions. It's really loud, but it still works (we don't use it because of all of the small fingers in the house that could be potentially lost). I got the little Japanese kokeshi doll at a thrift store in St. Croix a few years ago. That wooden bullet thing is a set of nesting dolls just waiting on me to make up mind about what I'm going to paint on them (I will make up my mind eventually). The little blue bottle of tooth powder that I bought at my next door neighbor's garage sale (there's still some tooth powder in it). I really love old cameras and I found this 8mm Revere at the Salvation Army for $3. It weighs a TON and still works! The metal "ORTH" is a broken piece of a sign that I found in a parking lot. My "stuff" shelf changes fairly regularly as I find new stuff, but this is what it consists of today. Oh, the portrait in the background is the first one I painted of my husband and the little 7UP photo was taken by a friend.

Raw Food - Day 1

2010-05-01T18:39:00.001-07:00

Okay, I have to admit that I am not totally prepared for this upcoming week of raw food. My monthly trip to Whole Foods is not scheduled until next week, so I foresee the next few days as being challenging. I do know that the first few days are rough. All I can think about right now is how delicious a cheeseburger would be, or fried fish and fries, ooh or four cheese tortellini, or.....but this is not helping anything. So I should just recap what my meals consisted of today (which is a more productive subject).

Breakfast: Strawberry smoothie (a BIG one)
Snack: apple, raw almonds, green grapes
Lunch: A big mixed green salad with spinach, tomato, avocado, pumpkin seed, sunflower seeds, flax seeds and almonds. I made a dressing with garlic, raw almonds, a little water, nutritional yeast, olive oil, sea salt, black pepper and a touch of red pepper. The dressing was DELICIOUS!
Snack: orange
Dinner: (which I actually haven't had yet) Fruit salad with apples, raisins, fresh coconut and banana with a peanut dressing.

As much as I love fruit, my day was fruit heavy today and I feel a little ODed on sugar. I'll have to work that out. We'll see how tomorrow goes...

Sleep Lessons for Baby...the sweet sound of success

2010-04-30T21:39:00.000-07:00

We officially have an all night sleeper! Oh how sweet it is. A ten to twenty minute bedtime ritual followed by hours of uninterrupted sleep. The only drawback? Zion being asleep at 8:45pm means Zion waking up at 6:45am. Sigh....but I'll take what I can get.

30 Day Raw Food Fast

2010-04-30T21:31:00.000-07:00

So, somewhere in the last few weeks, I got the bright idea that a raw food fast would probably be a good thing for my health and general well being. Tomorrow marks day one of thirty. I figured I would post my progress here because I think this will make me more accountable for what I put in my mouth. I do have to admit that this last week has been like the feast before the famine (so to speak), but I'm looking forward to the next month. I've done raw before, so I know how time consuming it can be, but I also vividly remember how much better I felt everyday. I'm clinging to that memory as motivation. Keep your fingers crossed because I'm going to need all the support I can get....

Spring Cleaning...the girls' room

2010-04-29T20:55:00.000-07:00

Round two of spring cleaning takes me into the girls bedroom. My seven year old and three year old share a room and we FINALLY got them bunk beds. Yay, bunk beds! The bunk beds are really simple and I will probably spruce them up at some point, but for now, they are the greatest thing since sliced bread. With the addition of the new beds I had to rearrange the entire room (well, I probably didn't have to, but I'm OCD like that). There is finally storage space for everything and the room can be easily kept neat. Life is good. I tried to make sure that their shared space is not too "little kid" for Ashni, but still little kid friendly enough for Bijou. I think it works well for the two of them. I think eventually I will build some storage boxes on wheels to go beneath the bottom bunk for storing pajamas, but at the moment they are tucked away in the closet and that works for me too.

The paper lanterns are left over from the Mad Hatter birthday party a few weeks ago.

These little flower shelves are a Goodwill find from a while back. They work for holding small objects like glasses and small artwork.

The art is a mixture of my art, the kids' art and that little mushroom painting (from the Salvation Army)

This white shelf was given to me by a friend and all of the bins are from the Dollar Store (my favorite one stop shop for storage containers). The orange cloth bins we've had for years.

The new play kitchen area.

Next up, my living room/office...

Double Decker

2010-04-28T19:25:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was Double Decker weekend here in Oxford. Double Decker is an arts festival held every year in the square. There's local art, music, food, activities for the kids and all of the people watching you could ever want. This year the girls demonstrated some ballet steps with their ballet school. Kids in the audience could participate, so Bijou and Zion joined the party.

Ashni seems to have misplaced her ballet shoes, so she had to go commando.

I'm really proud of the progress the girls have made in ballet this year. They've both been placed in the next level ballet class for next year. The school that they attend typically requires two years of each class level, but each of the girls is being advanced after one year. I am particularly proud of Jena who is the youngest in her Ballet III class this year and had been placed in Ballet IV for next year (I think most of the girls in that class are 12 and Jena is 8!). Good job, ladies. I think I see Alvin Ailey in your future!

Happy Anniversary....

2010-04-28T19:04:00.000-07:00

....to me. Yesterday was my fourth wedding anniversary. Hooray for us! It has been an interesting four years full of transition and change. It has been fun and stressful and joyous and trying and fulfilling and I'm looking forward to a lifetime of more anniversaries. To celebrate, I made a fancy brunch for us all. We had spinach, portabella and Gruyere quiche with fresh berried and whipped cream (all made from scratch. Well, except for the berries because, well, I just don't have those skills). I even put the fancy tablecloth and place mats on the table.

Then the hubby and I got a much needed day without a single child! We drove to Memphis and really just hung out. The hubby really wanted to go to Bass Pro Shops (um, yeah okay). So we did that and got some stuff for him and the girls to go fishing. I equate Bass Pro Shops to Hobby Lobby for outdoor enthusiasts - aisles and aisles of tiny packages of brightly colored "stuff". He had a blast and fulfilled a childhood wish (yes, childhood...). Then we went to The Great American Homestore. This was my default destination. I really wanted to go to Dixon Gallery and Gardens but we left Oxford too late and they were closed by the time we made it to Memphis. We took a short trip to the mall. (I know this all sounds really lame, but we don't have any of this stuff in Oxford and before Oxford we lived on an island and didn't have any of this stuff there either. So yeah, it's lame, but we had fun).
Our actual anniversary celebration was dinner at a FABULOUS restaurant called Flight. The experience was amazing (after we finally found the place, anyway). The food was delicious and the staff was SO nice. I can only rave about this place and can't wait until we go back. The food...I will be thinking about that food for weeks! If you're in the Memphis area (or will be at some point), pop over to their website to check them out and stop in for a bite. You will not be sorry (and there's complimentary valet for their patrons).

Sleep Lessons for Baby, Part Deux

2010-04-23T20:43:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been a week of no night nursing, no nursing to sleep and Zion going to sleep on her own. Still, so far so good. The one thing that we're still working on is getting her to sleep in her own bed. She is not a fan of her crib, but she does sleep most of the night with us. For some reason though, she has decided that once the sun starts to come up it's her queue to climb on top of me and sleep on my chest. I'm not really sure where that came from, but we'll work on one thing at a time.

Do Not Disturb

2010-04-23T20:08:00.000-07:00

So I'm sure lots of parents have this problem, but my kids have no concept of knocking on the door before coming into our bedroom. It seems to be one of those things that they need to be reminded of every morning and as the day goes on their memory gets foggier and foggier. I decided to make a couple of door knob hangers to gently remind small people to knock before entering (or to not knock and go away).

I got a couple of wooden door signs at Hobby Lobby (for a whopping $.47 a piece) and some cool scrapbook paper. A quick Google image search and some cutting and pasting in Word and there you have it. (The cloud paper is for my mother. I am forcing her to make her own. You may notice that there is no picture of her completed project...)

I figured while I was at it, I would make one for the kids' door. We have an open door policy in our house when it comes to their room, so there's no need for a "please knock" reminder. Instead, their sign lets them know if it's quiet time or play time. Hopefully this will help keep the peace when the baby (or Bijou on those rare occasions) is napping.

Wordless Wednesday...tea party @ the library

2010-04-21T09:27:00.000-07:00

I got a Blog Award!!!!

2010-04-20T07:12:00.000-07:00

Amy over at Peppertowne has graced me with this lovely Sunshine Award. Peppertowne is a great place to find all things refurbished, reconned and recycled into fabulous functional goods. We also share a love for great thrift store finds. I feel so special, thanks for thinking of me!

I think I'm supposed to say a little something about myself here...
I'm still pretty new at this whole blogging thing. I've been at it about 6 months now. I am a freelance artist focusing mostly on portraits, but lately I think I am becoming the local dog portrait artist (I've been in the starving artist category way too long, so if painting dogs will put me into a new category, I'll take that). I have four wonderful daughters that inspire LOTS of kid centered projects. I guess I'd fall somewhere between crunchy granola hippie mom, tattooed rocker mom, homeschooling mom and soccer mom (I have to drive a minivan). Do with that what you will....

Alrighty, I would like to pass this award on to...

Stef at Oops...There Goes My Mind. Definitely the place to stop by if you are in need of a good chuckle. She makes my day.

Cheri at I Am Momma - Hear Me Roar. Her blog is full of inspiration and great photography.

To accept your Sunshine Award: post the award on your blog, link back to us, and pass it on to other blogs you love.

Sping Cleaning

2010-04-19T19:26:00.000-07:00

Since the warm weather seems to be here to stay (finally), I figured I'd hop on board with this whole spring cleaning myth I keep hearing so much about. I admit it, I am NOT an established house keeper. I collect clutter, but in my defense my clutter tends to turn into the fun projects that I share here with all of you. What would my life be without my random piles of collected crap, right?! Well, honestly, I would like to have a neat house. I love looking at the photos of well decorated, impeccably clean homes filled with put together moms and stylish kids. But more often than not, my carpet has Cheerios crushed into it, our dining room table is perpetually sticky or covered in paint, there is no noticeable surface to my desk and I couldn't tell you the last time our bed was made more than two mornings in a row. BUT I am trying to live more like the mother of four and less like a frat boy. So today, I thought I would share the project that has been the thorn in my side for months. I'm not proud and under normal circumstances would not share this sight with any human being that had not previously seen me in, say, my underwear, but we're all friends here, right? So here it is, my closet.

Somewhere beneath the pile is a floor. I know it's there because we probably would not have moved in if the closet hadn't come with a floor, but I couldn't tell you the last time we actually saw the floor. But I did it! I tackled the closet and it may have taken me days (DAYS I tell you), but I found the floor. Not only did I find the floor, I got rid of massive amounts of outgrown baby clothes and cloth diapers, found articles of clothing that I forgot I had and created room to actually move about freely in there. There is ample space in there now for my clothes, my husband's clothes AND the baby's clothes.

I'm going to master this grown-up thing if it kills me!! (But hopefully it won't)