"How can one read a story with no pictures in it?" - Alice In Wonderland

Lately, I have been somewhat frustrated/concerned about my blogging friends because of their lack of blog updates. I realize that life gets busy and that my friends are probably out in the actual world (as opposed to the blogosphere) experiencing life. I also realized that I don't do so well at keeping my blog updated myself. For this I quickly rationalized, "no one reads it anyway" and "nothing happens here". Well, I can't really say about the first but as soon as I finished the latter sentence I knew it was not true. There is a ten year old, four year old and an 18 month old in this house, as well as a cat. Something is always happening here.

Just this morning Eden had decided to fill the toy grocery cart with all the t-shirts from dad's t-shirt drawer. For any of you who know Ben well, you will know that this does not mean a few shirts. There were probably about 20 or somewhere close to it, piled high in the little green buggy situated near the end of the hallway. Eden was happily and quite busily waddling to and fro carrying armfuls of shirts. I was trying to make myself look like an actual human being in the bathroom so I decided to let her finish making her mess and I would pay for it, I mean, clean it up later. Soon though, Hope randomly decided to push the cart over spilling the contents throughout the hallway. Eden was devastated to see all her hard work disrespected by being spewn about the floor (much like mommy was when she saw the many, many, many once nicely folded t-shirts in piles all over the house). Eden began complaining saying bits and pieces of words-some actual, some made up. Her tone was obvious though, she was not happy with her sister and she was telling me all about it.

That was just one of a few events from this morning. I didn't get a picture of it because I didn't think anyone would care to hear about it. But look you just sat through and read an entire post about it. :)

***P.S. I just want to clarify, that although the tone of this post my be sarcastic and indicate some level of frustration with the messes that my children make that in no way means that I do not love my children or love being a mother. I may include this disclaimer in all future posts...I haven't decided yet. ***

Twinkle Twinkle - Abracadabra!

Several weeks ago when Noah and I went to Lagoon, Ben stayed at home to take care of the girls in between working from home.....and apparently, doing crafts. This is what he did, spur of the moment, all on his own. I thought that maybe he saw the idea on one of the craft idea sheets at the craft store, but he said he came up with it. This man is a genius.

 He took the girls to Michael's (I think, it might've been Hobby Lobby) and let them each pick out what would go on top. When I first saw the wands, I thought that the sunshine wand was for Hope since she has been our Sunshine since day ONE. But I guess she picked the heart and Eden actually picked the sunshine.

At first, Hope would swing her wand in the air and say a mess of words. I think it took about 24 + hours to realize that she was trying to say "Abracadabra".

Eden still sings "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" every time she see the wand.

Noah thought these were pretty cool too. He asked Ben if he could make him one. :) Muffin also enjoys watching the ribbons fly through the air and every once in a while he'll swat his furry little paw at them.

Does anyone ever get sick of me bragging about what an amazing/talented/smart man I am married to? I suppose if you do you can keep it to yourself. :}



Coloring & Preschool

Eden has a new love for coloring. Surprisingly, most of the time she colors intently, holding the crayon near perfectly and leaning in close to the paper as if she is considering carefully where to put her marks. For the rest of the time she is sticking crayons in her mouth and either sucking on them or chewing them to pieces. She reminds me a lot of Noah when he was her age. He would sit for long periods (for an 18 month old) and draw or color. Looking at his art you can see how he has nurtured his creative gift over the years. It is amazing. So perhaps little miss Eden will be another artist in our family.

Hope enjoys coloring as well, but not like the other kids. She cares nothing for staying inside the lines, or even finishing the object she's coloring. She's content to scribble her crayon around the page for a minute or so, but Hopie is really more interested in following Noah around and singing songs.
She can now write her name and I am helping her with preschool activities which she is very excited about. Everyday she asks me, "Can we do preschool stuff?" Rememer that time, when you were excited to learn? You know, it's right before you get to be about 8 years old and realize that sometimes learning is difficult and not as much fun as finishing patterns and tracing lines. Below is a sample of her work.

Noah's 10th Birthday Party - Zelda

***Let me preface this by saying that I feel a little guilty about posting Noah's birthday (which isn't really until Wednesday) before posting Hope's (which was August 5th). My only excuse is that all her bday pics are on Ben's work laptop and we keep forgetting to transfer them. No need to worry! It is one of hundreds of tasks on my mental "to do list" that is swimming wildly in my head. I'll make the post sooner or later.***

The planning for the party began exactly one week ago. Why? You ask. Simply because I have been so preoccupied that I didn't realize how quickly time was flying and that in order to have a celebration for Noah and his friends it would've had to have been last weekend. First thing I did was get on Facebook and ask for help. "How do I turn Noah's party into a life-size video game?" My ever witty brother soon answered, "Fill his room with bats and have him kill them with a boomerang." Once I finished laughing, I realized that I could do that to some extent; I would just find a pinata. This was the first idea for the party. Other siblings and mommy dearest gave me awesome ideas and called me several times trying to help. I can honestly say that this party would have been a complete disaster or never would have happened if it weren't for my family and Ben. So to them, THANK YOU!

The kids all arrived together, which was both a relief and weird. A relief because they were about ten minutes late and my heart started hurting thinking about the possibility of everyone being a no-show to my child's birthday party. Weird, because....it was just weird that they all showed up at the same time. First, I explained that this was a Zelda themed party and asked if anyone was familiar with the game. More relief...they were all familiar. I handed them each their homemade drawstring bags which contained a compass, a rupee, and an ocarina. Pretty proud of myself for sewing the bags. This was my second sewing project and granted they didn't turn out perfect, they were recognizably a bag. Next the kids told me whether they wanted red or blue potion which was funnelled into an a cool little potion bottle. Brian and Autumn helped with the dispensing of the potion since I was making a huge mess. Thanks guys! They also got a slice of pizza and then they all ate and Noah told them about his many adventures with playing Legend of Zelda.

Once everyone was full the adventure began. I gave them each a Bremen mask which Ben and I made from a mask, a feather boa, spray paint and a sharpie. I think I had to tie just about every one's mask on, as you can see from one of the pics they were having some difficulty doing it themselves.

 The first dungeon was Skulltulah's House. They needed to wear their masks as they ventured through the big spider web so that they could rescue bugs from the web. To open the gate to Skulltulah's house they had to play a song on their ocarina.

Dodongo's Cavern was next. I explained that they would find their power bracelets by killing the bat. Noah went last and after a couple of whacks candy and prizes...and power bracelets went flying!

The power bracelets had to be worn in order to accomplish the next task, which was target practice with bombs at Arbiter's Ground. I filled enough water balloons for each kid to get two bombs and they took turns throwing their bombs at the target (which Ben made to look like the Triforce) until their bombs exploded. One of Hope's bombs was exceptionally strong and survived many many throws at the Triforce. Finally daddy threw it way up in the air and when it fell it exploded and all the kids thought the grass crater that it left was very cool.

I don't know what was so cool about it, or why I felt the need to share the picture of the grass crater, but there you have it.

Caleb also had a resilient bomb. In the bottom right corner you can see Brian showing Caleb how to throw his bomb way up in the air.

The last "dungeon" was City in the Sky. Ben placed boards around the yard and dug a trench in the sandbox. The kids had to collect all the boards and build a bridge across the trench to get to the Triforce (the cake). However, I didn't communicate my intentions well to Ben before he dug the trench and the objective got a little lost. The kids still had fun though and I am just relieved that we were able to pull it off in a week.

Next, we sang Happy Birthday and had birthday cake. I was disappointed with how the cake turned out, but it was a learning experience and when Noah first saw it his face lit up and he said "Awesome!" That made me feel good because I thought it looked like a mess.

Last was presents. He got a race track and a couple of cars for the track, an AirHog rocket, and a Nerf gun with darts. From Uncle Brian's family, Brian's old comic books which Noah thought was amazing and kept making comments about how old they were.

It was a great party and hopefully a very memorable one for Noah. I have decided that these kind of parties will only occur on my children's 5th, 10th, 13th and 16th birthdays. With a big celebration for their baptisms around their 8th....but that doesn't count since it is technically not a bday party. They can have family parties in between and dare I say I am excited for the next "big" bday party. Which will be next August for Hope's 5th birthday! I think I will give myself the entire year to plan and prepare for it instead of just five days. :)

***This picture was after he opened the present from gpa Bosley, a laptop and a wireless mouse from Aunt Cheryl's family and a laptop case from our family.***

Happy Birthday Noah! You are LOVED!!!

Finger Paint

These pictures were taken a few weeks ago. I have been pretty distracted lately, so I apologize to the few of you who read this blog. Anyway, we decided to bust out the finger paints one day and this is what happened. Hope enjoyed it, but she really didn't like getting messy and would run to wash her hands every couple of minutes.

Eden thought that making a squishy colorful mess was great fun. Of course she does this many times a day with things other than finger paint.

She had stuck the purple paint in her ear and it took several days to get it out entirely. So long as she had fun, right? :) This is where she ended up shortly after though.
 

There was a funny colored ring around the tub afterwards. It reminded me of The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, when the cat leaves a pink ring in the tub after eating cake in it. 
 
Stay tuned. More posts coming!