New Heights

We have been painting like crazy around here the last few days. I spent all day yesterday and today painting (with McKay's help here and there). I'm sore! I didn't realize you used so many different muscles just for painting.

Last night Brian tackled our two-story high entry way. This is the area the two painters we got bids from told us it would cost $500 for them to paint for us. (Ouch!) Brian managed to get it done in a few hours and it looks great!

I was a little nervous for him up on the high ladder, because those things are always a little wobbly, but at least it wasn't up as high as when he puts Christmas lights on the house. Hannah seemed the most worried of the kids. She watched him saying (in a very worried voice), "Don't fall off, Daddy!"

Here he is edging along the ceiling:


And I took this one from the upstairs hallway/balcony that overlooks the entry way. We're on the same level!


And the view looking down!


It seems tedious and slow at times, but we are making progress. Here's the list of rooms to check off so far:

-Kitchen/Breakfast area

-Downstairs hall (by half bathroom)

-Entry way

-Hayley's room

-Upstairs hallway


Here's what's left on the list:

-Stairway (partially done -- as far as I could reach anyway!)

-Family Room (started a little on)

-Game Room

-Master Bedroom

-Office (we're going to do the same darker color as the dining room and McKay's room)

We also ordered the carpet for the house today -- all 2840 square feet of it. (Major ouch!) We're told it will take about a week for it to be delivered, then we'll schedule the installation. She thought they could get it all installed in a long 10-hour day -- I thought they'd need at least a copule of days with how much carpet we have. I'm excited for the new carpet (I can't stand what we have now) but know I'll be stressed about keeping it clean.

We're looking forward to our break tomorrow -- I'm taking the kids to my aunt and uncle's home on the lake for the day. We'll have an Easter egg hunt and play on the beach (if the lake level is low enough) and have lots of fun! We needed at least one day of some fun and relaxation for Spring Break!

Rodeo Girl

Last Friday, the 1st Grade had their Rodeo Day (since the big Houston Rodeo is going on right now). All the 1st graders go to the park next to the school and rotate around various stations, like the "bucking bronco" (a relay on one of those big bouncy/hoppy balls) or steer roping (throwing a lasso around an office chair on wheels). When McKay was in 1st grade, I was able to go to the school and help a little, so I got several pictures of him. I wasn't able to go over for Hannah's this time, but she said it was a great day.

The week before, she brought home a painted stick, a piece of fabric and some paper pieces to make a stick horse. We were supposed to stuff the head, attach it to the stick, add the paper face pieces and the fabric scarf and then add some kind of hair. We did yarn hair for Hannah's horse, which she decided to name "Sally." (Here she is with her horse the morning she had to turn it in at school.)

Spring Break

Today is the beginning of Spring Break. We don't have very many exciting plans, unless you count cleaning and painting as exciting. :-) Although, we are planning to go up to my uncle and aunt's house (except for Brian) one day for a break and to visit with them and my two cousins who will also be there.

Hannah came downstairs this morning and excitedly told Hayley (who was already up), "I don't have to go to school today!" Then she announced that she had thought of a poem and hurried over to the table to write it down. It's actually more of a little song (which she sang for me). Here it is:

"No School"
No school today (clap clap clap clap)
Cause it's Monday (clap clap clap clap)
And it's Spring Break (clap clap clap clap)
And I can't wait (clap clap clap clap)
For Summer too (clap clap clap clap)
Ya-hoo!

I had to run a quick errand over to Kroger a little while ago (although having to take all 4 kids with me is definitely anything but quick). I saw one of the workers with some kind of green headband thing on and it dawned on me that it is St. Patrick's Day. I hadn't even thought about it! For the past several years, I've taken a picture of all 4 kids wearing green shirts, but I don't even think they all have green shirts this year. Oh well... Happy St. Patrick's Day anyway!

The Painting Has Begun

One room down, how many to go? (Too many!) Brian finished up repainting the kitchen over the weekend. He did it all himself. I'm sure I will have lots of painting opportunities myself in the next week or so.

Here he is hard at work putting on the second coat:

And this is after we put the curtains back up (same curtains we had before with the yellow walls, but hopefully they still work okay with this color):

The color is officially called "Cottonwood" and is a beige color, although for some reason it almost looks a little grayish to me in the kitchen. It's definitely different not having our bright yellow kitchen anymore, but I think it looks nice. At least it's missing all the fingerprints and marks. We only re-hung a few things back up on the wall, as will be the case in the rest of the house.

After getting some bids from painters, we realized we're saving a ton of money by doing the painting ourselves, but it also takes a lot longer too! Hopefully we can get a lot accomplished this week, although with all the kids home for Spring Break (and they all want to "help" paint), it will be interesting!

Swimming, Sunburns and Daylight Savings

The kids all got invited to a birthday party this afternoon for a little neighbor boy a couple of houses down (he was turning 5). They have a pool, which they heated for the kids to swim in. The kids were SO excited to go swimming, although Hannah had a little breakdown on me last night when she found out I had already packed up our swimming stuff (floaties & goggles) and she couldn't see how in the world she could have fun swimming without her goggles. (She did just fine.)

There were a lot of people there and most of the kids stayed in the hot tub (not as deep as the pool), so it was pretty crowded in there. I let Hayley play on the steps in the hot tub and the pool and she did okay staying there without me needing to get in with her. We were there about 3 hours and I had to drag the kids away to come home.

I noticed later that they all got sunburned (yes, Mom admits she wasn't even thinking about sunscreen). Courtney definitely tans the easiest, so her cheeks were hardly pink, but her shoulders were a little. The other three all have pretty pink cheeks (especially Hannah), and McKay & Hannah both had fairly red shoulders as well at bathtime tonight.

Poor Hayley was so worn out from the swimming and from not getting a nap all week that she conked out in front of the TV just before dinner. Now it is after 9:00pm and we're still trying to get them all settled down. (I'm sitting here at the computer in my bedroom because it never fails if I try to go downstairs and start cleaning up before the girls are pretty much asleep, I end up going up and down the stairs multiple times.)

It seems like Daylight Savings has been a lot harder adjustment for the kids this time around. Usually they adjust their schedules within a day or so, but this whole week has been a struggle to get them to bed. Then those that don't got woken up for school are sleeping in later than usual (although I have been trying to wake them up at a reasonable time). And of course the longer daylight hours don't help when you're trying to get kids to bed.

With Spring Break next week, they are really not going to want to go to bed on time! :-)

The Word is Out

Well, the word is getting out -- we are moving! We have only told a handful of people so far, but now that our house is hopefully only a week or two away from going on the market (and Brian has talked with one of his co-workers who is also in our ward), we are no longer trying to keep the news quiet. We told McKay it was okay to tell people if it came up. (He has been very resistant lately to the whole idea of moving, which he was excited about initially.)

So now comes the big push to get this house in shape. We decided to try to do all the painting ourselves (I'm still a little worried about those high, high ceilings in the entry, but Brian thinks we can do it). Brian started on the kitchen last night. I have been cleaning blinds and cabinets and trying to pack up non-essential stuff. I still need to hurry and get going on baseboards and doors. We are getting some bids on capret -- we have to replace the carpet in the whole house, and we have a LOT of carpet! That's going to be fun because we'll have to move the furniture in and out of each room as the carpet gets put in. We also need to get the outside cleaned up and looking good. So much to do!

So wish us luck with all these projects! I hope it all comes together without us falling apart. :-)

A New Critter

Just had to report that I saw a new little critter in our backyard this morning that I've never seen in the wild here before (although Brian says he's seen them alongside the road at night). I just happened to look out the back door and saw a good-sized possum walk across our patio with a little baby clinging to its back. I called Hayley (the only one around), but by the time she came over it was out of our sight and when we opened the door to go out and look, it was nowhere to be seen.

I wonder if that's the critter that gets into our trash can all the time? We have one of those big trash cans with a hinged lid that we keep just behind our fence. Ever since we moved here, some animal gets in there and tears up the trash bags I put in it. I had been thinking it was raccoons, because it would have to be animal large enough and strong enough to get the lid open. But maybe it was the possum. Hmmm....

Hannah and Her Animals

Hannah is our little animal-lover. (The other girls like animals too, but they don't seem to get as emotional about them as Hannah does. But then Hannah gets emotional about a lot of things.)

She is always writing stories about animals, playing with stuffed animals, pretending to be an animal, and begging me to let her have a pet. Just a few recent examples...

1. Hannah brought home a President's Day bulletin board project from school (you know, the kind of project the kids make to hang on the bulletin board outside the classroom). It was titled "If I Were President..." This is what she worte (I've corrected her spelling):

I would make everyone have a pet. Because I think that dogs and cats are cute. I would make sure that there were no stealing. Because so everyone could be fair. I would make sure that everyone looked both ways before they crossed the street. Because so no one could be smashed.

2. A week or so ago, Hannah watched an older dog movie called "Bingo." (I had never heard of this movie before.) I saw parts of it as the kids watched it -- it was basically about a runaway circus dog named Bingo that finds a boy, but then the boy moves leaving the dog behind so the dog has many adventures -- using remarkably human-like skills -- to cross the country and find the boy again. It was bath night at our house that evening, so I had the two little girls up in the tub while Hannah was watching the end of the movie. She came upstairs with tears in her eyes and asked me to print out a coloring page from the Internet with a dog that looked like Bingo. Then she asked me if I knew why she was crying (I didn't). She said through her tears that the movie was "so sad and so good" that she wanted a picture that looked like Bingo to put on her wall to remind her that when she's a grown-up she wants a dog like Bingo.

She went on to tell me more about the end of the movie and how Bingo saved the boy from the kidnappers and the bomb, etc. She was quite affected by it! Then it was time for her bath so I got her in the tub and she just sat in the water sobbing. Now it was more "Why can't I have a pet?" and "I just want someone to keep me company," etc. Yes, there is some Mom guilt with the whole pet issue -- I know pets can be great for kids and teach them a lot of things but adding a pet to our family right now is just not a good idea.

My best solution for her was to maybe look and see if there was a WebKinz that looked like Bingo that she might have enough of her money saved to buy. Of course, then I had to figure out what kind of dog Bingo was, which took some searching around on the Internet. We decided he was a collie mix and we found a collie WebKinz that Hannah had just enough money to order. So we ordered it and there's no surprise that she named her new stuffed friend "Bingo."

I've been meaning to take a picture of her with Bingo, but haven't had the chance yet. But here's what the WebKinz collie looks like:

3. Last Saturday Hannah starting making something at the kitchen table. She disappared for a little while and came back with her clothes changed. She was wearing a brown shirt backwards and inside-out and some black pants also inside-out. She proceeded to create some things from paper and tied a rope around her waist ended up with her costume. Can you guess what she is?

If you guessed kangaroo, you're right! She made herself a pouch and put some little pictures in it (but they kept falling out). She went outside for a good part of the afternoon in her costume.

4. Finally, another story from Hannah. She also wrote this one during church, but I'm pretty sure it is all her own creation this time. :-) She asked me to write the title in cursive, I guess because it looks fancy to her. Then she told me to be sure and type up her story so everybody could read it. Here it is (with spelling corrected -- and can you tell she likes exclamation points?):

The Tale of the Pegasus Pony

by Hannah

Once upon a time a little girl who loved to hunt went into the forest and guess what she found! She found a magic ring! The little girl did not know what it was so she brought it home and showed her mom. But yesterday there was a big storm! And her whole family died when the storm happened!

So she looked in the dictionary and found out what it was. So she looked it up. And found out that it was very special. And this is why. Whenever you make a wish on it - an animal wish you will automatically turn into that animal! so she wished to be a pegasus pony! And guess what she was one! And then she flew up up up into the sky and found a magic castle so she went into it and that was where she lived.

The End

So, it's a little morbid with the family dying and everything (I thought she was going to use the magic ring to bring them all back to life), but it's cute. And I've decided that her stories remind me a little of Junie B. Jones books with all the exclamation points and "guess whats".

I love my little animal-lover!

Frog Jumping!

Yesterday after church, Brian and the kids decided to have a frog jumping contest, using little folded paper frogs. The kids were excited and started making frogs right away.

(I think in the end Brian ended up making most of the frogs...)

Hannah & Courtney decided to "dress up" their frogs. At first they were going to cut out paper clothes to tape on their frogs, but we convinced them the frogs would jump better if they just colored on the frogs. Here are their frogs. You can see Hannah's frog (on the left) is even wearing a helmet! (The chin strap goes all the way underneath, too.)

Time for the race! First frog across the kitchen to the carpet wins (fewest number of jumps). On your mark, get set, go!

Here's McKay jumping his frog...

And Hannah trying to get hers to go...

And this is how Courtney spent a good part of the competition... hollering loudly in tears...

Her frog was not doing as well as the others (except for Hayley's) and she has a really hard time when she's losing (at anything). She was also upset that we gave Hayley a couple of extra jumps during her turn because her frog just wasn't going anywhere (and even after extra jumps she was still in last place).

The final race picture I took...

I think it was sort of a tie between Brian's & McKay's frogs, although McKay will probably claim he won (he is very competitive) despite the question of exactly how many turns he'd had. :-) All in all, it was a fun little activity!

Pinewood Derby

We had a fun time at the Pinewood Derby last night. McKay's car ("The Cougar") did really well overall, although we're all still a little confused about the final outcome. But the most important thing is that McKay had fun and saw an improvement over last year.

Here's McKay by the big fancy computerized track they have (I remember going to Pinewood Derbys with a wooden track and stopwatches!).

And each scout got his own "Pro Racer" name tag:

Most of the cars checked in and ready to go (McKay had number 9):

And McKay with his building/designer consultant Dad:

While we were waiting for the race to start, Courtney & Hayley had fun racing with the missionaries on a Hot Wheels track set up at the back.

And Hannah picked out a good spot front and center on the floor.

Somebody made a lot of cupcakes and added a LOT of frosting for the dessert!

Finally, the races started. Here is McKay's Bear den during their race.

And I did manage to get one finish-line picture (well, almost the finish-line) of McKay's car racing -- he is in track 3 (counting from the top). Interestingly, the car he is just edging out here is the car that won the overall championship of the night.

McKay having fun watching his car win!

And here's McKay with his first place blue ribbon for being the fastest car in the Bear den (along with the 1st place winners for the Wolf den and Webelos).

As far as the final results, we're still scratching our heads a little. The race officials had quite a little huddle going on as they were determining results and when they announced McKay as the winner of the Bear den, they said they had a unique situation where the fastest car of the night was not the overall winner. McKay won the "Fastest Average Speed," meaning that overall his car was the fastest of all the cars that race. They have each den (Wolf, Bear, Webelos) do their own race (each car races four times; once in each lane on the track), then they take the top 3 winners from each den for the Grand Championship and have another race. I guess McKay's car didn't race as fast during the Grand Championship so he ended up not placing in the top 3. Some of the races were very close, with the top cars separated by only hundreths of a second.

They had large trophies for the three Grand Championship winners and small trophies for a few of the categories (best sportsmanship, etc.), but McKay didn't end up with a trophy and he was a little disappointed about that, considering how well his car did. I try to tell him that a trophy doesn't matter -- what's important to remember how much fun he had and know that he had a fast car!

The Cougar

Introducing "The Cougar"...

McKay's Pinewood Derby car is all set for the big race tonight! I'll try to post race pictures tomorrow!

Hooray!

Just a quick post to say we are all very happy that Courtney went to preschool without crying this morning! Yeah! She had been saying she wasn't going to cry, but then she's said that before and when it came down to it, she would be crying and refusing to get out of the van. This morning, she said she wasn't going to cry and on the way to preschool, she said "Mom, my tummy isn't hurting today!" (That's one thing she tells me sometimes is that her tummy always hurts on preschool days.)

We got to carline and had to wait a few minutes before a teacher came to get her out. I turned around and told her I was proud of her and she said, "I'm proud of myself!" And she got out of the van like a pro (like she always used to, except for the last few weeks). Now I just hope that this will be the turning point and she will keep it up next week!

Coming Soon

The Pinewood Derby is coming up this Friday and McKay & Brian have been busy working on his car. McKay is very excited. He had to turn in a name for his car last week and he chose "The Cougar." Can you guess what design will be on it? Stay tuned!

Commercials

I've realized lately that it's been a long time since my kids have watched "regular" TV. We have a whole hard drive full of kid's shows that we've recorded over the years that have all of the commercials "trimmed" off them, which is what they usually watch. (For example, we have every episode I think of Curious George, The Backyardigans, Dora, and many other kid shows.)

Lately, the kids have been requested Tom & Jerry -- not the most educational kid's show, I know, but I figure it's fairly harmless and good fun. We have a few recorded episodes, but I've started recording a few more so they have some new ones. They've been watching these before I get a chance to trim off the commercials, so they've been watching the commercials too. And you can bet that almost any girl-related toy that comes on, my girls will want. They've learned, though, that I won't go buy it right then. Instead, they tell me "Put this on my Christmas list!" I have heard this countless times the last few weeks (I need to get busy trimming off commercials!).

I'll admit that I just tell them "okay" and don't do anything more at this point. They're happy and I know that Christmas is so far away they won't remember any of it by then. In fact, they don't often remember from one day to the next what they've told me to put on their Christmas list. Sometimes I'm even upstairs and just have to holler "Okay!" when I hear the chorus of "Put this on my Christmas list!" -- they don't even realize I can't see what they're talking about. :-)

So this tells me two things. (1) Advertisers know that they're doing and can make almost any toy attractive to kids in a commercials and (2) My kids are probably watching too much TV lately!

Monday

Favorite Things About Monday
1. Getting back into a routine and schedule after the weekend
2. FHE (the kids love it even though it is often very chaotic, plus it gives me incentive to make cookies or another treat!)
3. Library Storytime (my girls love to go and participate -- they answer questions the storyteller asks and Hayley especially has become a little chatterbox adding a lot of her own little comments)

Least Favorite Things About Monday
1. Alarm Clocks (that 6:00am wake-up time is hard after the weekend)
2. Toilet Scrubbing (Monday is bathroom cleaning day and although it's not my least favorite chore, it's not necessarily all that fun either.)
3. Bunk Bed Sheets (Changing bunk bed sheets -- especially the top bunk -- has become my all time least favorite chore.)

Least Favorite Thing About This Particular Monday
Finding out that the compressor on our upstairs A/C has gone out (it hasn't been working at all this very warm weekend). We were hoping it just needed a freon charge. The service guy recommended an entire new condensor unit, but even just replacing the compressor is NOT cheap. :-(

Favorite Thing About This Particular Monday
Rain and a cold front that has dropped the temperature significantly so we won't be sweating terribly while we figure out what to do with our broken air conditioner.

Story Update...

So, this morning before school I told Hannah how I had typed up her story and everyone was really impressed that she wrote it. She looked at me and laughed and said, "Mom, it was a show I saw!" Apparently it was a little video she watched on the WebKinz web site. She is pretty good at remembering dialogue from stuff she watches, so it would be interesting to see how much of what she wrote is word-for-word from the show. She thought it was pretty funny that we all thought she wrote it herself. :-)

(But she still is a good writer and likes to rhyme a lot!)

UPDATE:
I just got on the WebKinz Web site and found the little video clip Hannah had watched. It's pretty basic animation -- a couple of characters with dialogue bubbles (so she would have read it instead of just listened to it). She actually got it pretty close! She left out a couple of lines and mixed up the ending a bit, but overall, she quoted it fairly closely. I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing...
:-) Of course she never claimed it to be her own story -- I had just assumed it was.

Once Upon a Rhyme

Okay, so I know this is my third post tonight, but I just had to put up Hannah's story that she wrote today. She is quite the little writer!

Hannah was really whining before church today that church was so boring. She kept trying to get me to let her take toys or games with her to church. Finally, she thought she would be okay if she could write a story in a notebook, so I let her borrow a notebook I had and she got right to work as soon as we got to church. This is her story (if I can translate all the words right). I have gone ahead and added some commas and corrected all the spelling so it is easier to read. (It also needs some quote marks, but I added hard returns to help you figure it out.)

“Once Upon a Rhyme”

One day a princess said Oh what a beautiful day. I think that I will stay outside and play.
Now wait a minute in time, why am I only speaking in rhyme?
Ha ha ha ha ha you silly princess. I have put a spell on you!
That was a horrible thing to do. Remove the spell I command you!
I can’t it is a infinity spell.
Gasp…
A spell that lasts to the end of time! What life can I have while I rhyme?
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Now your perfect princess life is ruined.
If I really concentrate, I can make rhyming great.
Oh you’ll never think of anything give up.
Now the tables have turned.
I know it, I will become a professional poet!
Noooooooooooooooo.
Roses are red, violets are blue, be gone before I call the guards on you.
Back to the drawing broom.
Yippee. Good wins over evil that is what I have learned.
The End

Gymnastics Girl

Saturday was Courtney's last gymnastics class at the YMCA. They actually had one more make-up class (due to a canceled class a couple of weeks ago), but they unfortunately decided to schedule that for a Sunday, so Courtney couldn't go.

She has seemed to enjoy the class, although it's hard to say how much she actually learned from it in terms of gymnastics skills. I'd love to get her into a more "official" gymnastics program someday. This particular Saturday also happened to be a Primary activity, so I let Courtney choose which to go to. She picked gymnastics (which was just fine).

I snapped a quick picture of the kids when I dropped them off at the Primary activity. They were doing a "Called to Serve" activity and got assigned a mission when we arrived. Our three kids got the Mexico mission (I think this was mainly to divide the kids up into groups for rotating).


Here are some pictures of Courtney at her last gymnastics class (in her pigtails!).

Doing warm-ups (she is quite flexible!)...


A backwards roll...



A diving forward roll...


Jumping off the springboard...


And walking sideways on the balance beam...


I hope she can continue with some gymnastics in the future!


(And speaking of Courtney, the last few weeks have been a big struggle with her in terms of preschool drop-off. Just out of the blue, she has started saying she doesn't want to go to preschool, cries every preschool morning and refuses to get out of the van when I drop her off at car-line. I have tried every angle I can to talk to her/reason with her, her teachers have talked to her and we cannot figure out what is up. She will usually say that she doesn't want to go because she misses me (although I've gotten other reasons from her). When I pick her up, she is always happy and excited and tells me how preschool was "super-fun" that day. Her teachers tell me she is a little sad/teary in the mornings but perks up before too long and is just fine the rest of the day. I really don't know what else to try and it's getting very frustrating to deal with this every preschool day (twice a week). I hope we can all get it figured out soon!)

Hair Adventures

Just had to post a quick update to my hair help request last week. My sister Sandra got some great tips from her friend (thanks!) so I was brave enough to try a couple of new things!

The first tip was just a variation of a ponytail/pigtail -- just "flip" the ponytail underneath for a cute little knot. I tried this on Hannah Saturday morning and of course, she didn't like it so we had to take it back out and find a headband. But Hayley was willing to try and it turned out cute (even though you can't see the top of her head very well in the picture)!

Courtney also wanted something different on Saturday. She requested two pigtails, so we tried that. The hair in the back wasn't quite long enough, so we just left that hanging down. She did cry about the hair pulling as I put in the pigtails, but then she liked them.

Both Courtney & Hayley got haircuts today (along with McKay and Brian). So now their hair is a little shorter (not an awful lot). I've decided Hayley's hair is the hardest to cut. It is finer than the other girl's hair, so it slides around more and is really hard for me to get even. Courtney's hair still has a slight wave to it, so it doesn't matter so much if it's not exactly even! (And we were looking at some old video of her recently when she was 1 1/2 - 2 years old and I forgot how curly her hair used to be!)

Today for church we tried two little ponytail flips on the top of Courtney's head. (That is a big scratch by her eye that she got from a bush while playing outside.)

I thought it turned out cute and hope that Hannah will be willing to let me try someday. She has school pictures on Tuesday, so I'm crossing my fingers we'll get something besides a headband over messy hair! :-)

I'm Always Amazed...

...at the creative ways the kids come up with to play with toys. It seems like our kids rarely play with toys in the "traditional" sense -- instead they mix them all together and make up all sorts of fun things.

I walked past the game room the other night and saw this sight:

I really have no idea what they were playing except Hayley told me they were playing "ducks" (they got the rubber ducks out of the bathtub toy basket). They had quite the set-up!

And I'm also always amazed at how quickly a clean room can become a giant mess! We try to clean up the game room at least once a week, but it seems like it only takes a few minutes before the floor is a big mess again.

And we have far less toys in the game room now than we used too -- I've sold a bunch, plus packed up several other boxes. I guess this is just proof that we have too many toys!

But it's so fun to watch cute little girls like this play make-believe!