Macaroni penguin

Amelia was reading a book with grandma that included a macaroni penguin. Amelia found this title to be hilarious. After they were done reading the book, grandma and Amelia talked more about the macaroni penguin.

Grandma: do you know why they call it a macaroni penguin? Is it because its feathers on top look like macaroni?

Amelia: laughs

Grandma: are you like a macaroni penguin? Does your hair look like macaroni?

Amelia: no!!!! (Laughing hysterically). My hair looks like French fries!

Hairstyles for girls

Amelia is so patient and loves trying out new things in her hair. She is way more confident about my abilities to execute her ideas. Frequently we have to scrap her intricate ideas because of time constraints, crashes in the other room and her hair type just doesn't work for everything.

This was our compromise today. A partial crown braid that held back her pesky long bangs from her face. She loved it because it was like a headband made from her own hair. I loved it because you can see her face. We'll be doing this one again.

Thankful for my turkey

William has been singing this Thanksgiving song over and over again. I finally got permission to videotape him singing....

Thankfulness

This year's turkey of thankfulness courtesy of William.

He is thankful for:
Dinosaur fossils
Me
Teachers
Friends
Everything else

When I pointed out to him that perhaps he was missing a particularly important person he paused for a moment. He paused and then said : "of course I am thankful for you mom! But, you are a teacher, so I didn't have to make you your own feather."

The kid thinks fast on his feet.

On snow

William: mom! Mom! Come see! There is snow on the deck!

Mom: just a minute, I'm combing Amelia's hair.

William: mom! It's so exciting! But why is there only a little bit?

Mom: I don't know William. I'm almost done helping your sister.

William: oh. Nevermind. I think it just a bunch of white bird poop.

Mom: oh. Well....

This snow stuff is so confusing to these Missouri kids that only see snow 1-2 times a year. They can't tell the difference between snow and bird poop.

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Science center

We broke down this weekend after close to a month of begging and brought William to his beloved science center. This is a challenge because most of the activities here ar eh geared towards upper elementary. William is just now starting to understand and enjoy some of the exhibits. Amelia is happy to tag along, but Gemma? The poor girl is confined to her stroller or a backpack. Not much fun.

Happy

Do pieces of paper make you happy? Do they make you dance? If you answered no, I think you are doing it wrong.

Thankful

We decorated the house for thanksgiving/ fall a few weeks ago and found this turkey craft William made several years ago. We were all admiring it, when William dashed out of the room. Moments later, he came sprinting back with a black marker in his hands*.

Marker in hand, he climbed up in a stool and added an "s" to the last feather. When he made the turkey, he only had one sister. Now that he has two sisters, he had to change the turkey to reflect his thankfulness.


*Gemma has developed a fondness for markers. She love to uncap them, suck on them and leave a colorful trail behind her. We have taken to hiding the markers up high AND in another room to prevent her from getting into them. She still manages, somehow.

Piggy tails

The cute. It is killing me. So far she is leaving them alone. The big kids' reactions were adorable. They both shrieked and told me Gemma was cute like a fairy (William) and a princess (Amelia).

The hard questions

Amelia: mom? Is that the town square?

Mom: huh? What? (In my defense, I'm also making a left turn)

Amelia: that place over there, is it a town square?

Mom: oh. No. It is a memorial. A log time ago there was a war. A lot of people died and that is a memorial where people can go to remember what happened.

Amelia: why do people fight?

Mom: that is a good question Amelia. Why do you fight with William?

Amelia: I do NOT fight with William. He fights with me.

Mom: well, why does that happen? Remember this morning? You both couldn't agree on how to share a blanket or who got to use the bathroom first for tooth brushing or who got to sit by Gemma at breakfast or what library books to return to the library.

Amelia: does God make war?

Mom: hmm...that is a hard question.

Amelia: oh! Is it a daddy question. He will know the answer to that question*.

Mom: no. I don't think daddy even has a good reason for that one. I'm not sure, but I think war makes God sad. He wants us to love everyone and get along.

I think it makes him sad when we fight- even with your brother. We need to find a way to talk about the problems without fighting. Maybe you can think about the next time you are fighting with your brother?

Amelia: mooooom! I told you! I don't fight with my brother! He fights with me!

*there are some subjects that John is the clear family expert on (ie: how things work, airplanes, cars, trains, wars, etc). Conversely, there are other areas that I am the expert (what happened on the days the kids were born, every occasion I was right, random kids facts, and family history).

Sent from my iPhone

Amelia

Supercauliflowerexpealodocipus!

Sent from my iPhone

Amelia for President

I'd like to take this opportunity to ask you to vote for Amelia for president. She clearly has a lot to offer including a desire to improve our society starting with your bad driving habits. That's right, as president, she will work to make sure everyone stops behind the stop sign.

"If I were president I would make sure people stop behind the stop sign."

Note: As president she will be able to spot the rule breakers with her superhuman eyes with giant EYELASHES.

Science Center

The Science Center is awsome! When you enter you are in the planatureyum. If you want to get to the Science Center you will have to go thru a skyway. There are bnokelers (binoculars) and speed theroters (thermometers, more commonly known as spedometers). When you reach the Science Center you will go down a hallway. At the end of the hall there is a miny exsevator (mini excavator) and it scoops out beads. And my favrite part is the Robotic dinosurs! Next to that is a tunnal and you have to find stuff. When you come out you are in a volcano room. And when you eat lunch there you can watch a ball mashen (machine) and kids oprate (operate) it! The Science Center is the best placein the unavars.

Blue Humpback

I find things. I don't know where they come from always. But, here is an interpretation of a blue humpback whale. Maybe someday I will write an ABC book of all the pictures I find....

Happy Girl

This is the only kid of the three that will look at the camera and smile. She smiles with a big, cheesy grin

ER Visit

We made our first ever visit to the ER with our children on Sunday evening.

I was cleaning up in the kitchen while John and Gemma played in the next room. William and Amelia were playing in their room. All of a sudden, Gemma started crying - the cry that makes a mama's skin crawl. The crying didn't stop and she came around the corner to find me. She was holding her arm and continued to cry. Any attempts to move her arm were met with more crying.

Gemma (so far) is not a crier. She regularly slides head first off of couches into coffee tables. She either shakes it off and keeps playing or need a 15 second cuddle on my lap before continuing on her way.

She sat on my lap for a long time and did not want to get up.
She continued to hold her arm and cry (although the volume decreased).
Any bump or movement of the arm brought the crying back up.

So, off to the ER we went. I will say it was no picnic getting her into her car seat without hurting her further.

The official ruling: Nursemaid's elbow (or sort of pulled the elbow ligaments out of joint. Kind of). The dr popped everything back into place on the second attempt. Other than the manipulating of her arm, she was very quiet and cooperative.

We got home way past her bed time, but she went right to be and slept until morning. Today she is using her hand/arm totally normally.

Several points:

1. To ensure nothing else was wrong after the elbow was back in place, Gemma had to use her arm. But, she didn't want to because she knew it was hurting her. She was offered stickers, books and finally a popsicle in order to get her to move her arm. Gemma was very creative in using her other arm and mouth in order to get what she wanted. She had both the dr and nurses laughing at her creativity.

2. When we arrived, there were cartoons playing on the TV in the patient room. I thought that was nice that they were thoughtful enough to turn on cartoons for our kiddo. About a half hour later, I realized the cartoon was Family Guy (a totally inappropriate selection for anyone under the age of 25 years.)

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Tooth #6

William lost tooth #6 this Saturday 11/16. He was collecting food for a Boy Scout food drive and horsing around with another boy when the tooth went missing....never to be seen again.

Another reason we are parents of the year: The tooth fairy has not visited yet for this tooth. William hasn't even asked about it. We are such winners!

Gemma snores

Gemma loves to pretend she is sleeping! Here she is trying to copy John's snoring. You can also see who is the boss at our house. The person who doesn't know very many words really runs this show!

Ms Personality

Little Ms Personality is so busy! Here she is pushing her shopping cart after discarding her pants in order to wear my shoes. Silly girl.

A typical Saturday morning

Just a regular Saturday morning....

Grandparents visit 2

Here are a few other cute shots from our visit to the train museum. The weather was pretty chilly and the kids didn't have coats (some parental miscommunication at work). Most of the displays are outside, so we were COLD by the time we were on our way.

Grandparents visit

Grandpa and Grandma came to visit the weekend after Halloween! We are always so happy to see them! The highlights included bringing lunch to William at school, a trip to the train museum, lot of play time with the kids and some game time with the grown ups (we LOVE board games).

Happy Halloween 2

Amelia and I had a difference of opinion about what she should wear to school on Halloween. This girl has big opinions about what to wear.

For trick or treating, John was flying solo as I had to work (so SO disappointing). William decided he wanted to be pirate again, Amelia decided to be a snow princess and Gemma fit into our puppy dog costume. It was fortunate all the kids agreed to use costumes we already had on hand - that way if it didn't work out, we weren't out a ton of money.

The kids had a great time and walked all the way around the block in the rain. Gemma rode in the stroller. The big kids collected a massive amount of candy and everyone was happy. Except Mama who missed everything.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween here was wet and rainy. the temperatures were chilly all day. That didn't dampen the spooky smiles around here! Here are William and Gemma's spooky attire for school.

Library storytime

The library always has a big Halloween storytime for the kids. I was looking forward to it because it will be the last chance for Amelia to attend and we could wear our costumes. Sadly, I had to work this year on Halloween. I knew I wasn't going to be able to take the kids out on the actual Halloween, so it was nice to have a little taste of the fun before the big day!

Amelia was a snow princess and Gemma was sporting her kitty dress. Amelia was much more cooperative about posing for a quick picture.

Matching jammies

I'm embarrassed to tell you how much I love having the girls matching! Luckily Amelia loves it and insists upon matching on every possible occasion.

More pumpkin patch

Here is the final batch of pictures!

The family pumpkin patch

Here are a few of the three kids and a few of the whole family.

William pumpkin patch

William is only slightly more cooperative with the photos than Gemma. Amelia is willing to go along with just about anything for as long as I want. That girl just aims to please and has the prettiest smile!

William on the other hand is only interested if there is absolutely nothing more interesting in his line of sight.
As he has gotten older, he has become only slightly more tolerant of my photography. On this day, I went ahead with the girls' pictures in the hopes that he would get his running exploring out of his system and be more willing to sit. It kind of worked.

Gemma v.2

More pics of Gemma looking away for you to enjoy!

Gemma v.1

Gemma was sporting her candy corn hat. We got tons of compliments. To me, she looks like like one of the 7 dwarves. What would be a good name for a non camera looking, running away, ignoring dwarf? Gemma, perhaps?

She was totally uninterested in playing along with me.

Amelia pumpkin patch

The weekend before Halloween, we took this kids out to the pumpkin patch. I forgot the camera. Can you believe it? I had absolutely no intention of buying a pumpkin. The sole purpose of our visit was to take pictures with the pumpkins. And I forgot the camera. ( in my defense, John forgot it too. But, the camera is more my thing than his).

We went to the pumpkin patch last year the same weekend and it was 90+ degrees. We were sweating like crazy. This year? Is was probably in the upper 40s. What a difference!

Anyway, here are some adorable pictures of Amelia!