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Many hours that I will never get back were spent freaking out here. I especially remember throwing up in the middle of a math test. Fortunately it was the only math class I ever had to take at BYU.

Ahh, good times...

or the night I went insane.

I get the magazine Family Fun, which I love. But every once in a while there is a craft in it designed to both draw parents in and make them crazy at the same time. The Gingerbread Train is one of them. Let me give you a timeline.

Sunday I made the gingerbread dough, which needs to set for at least for hours or overnight. No problem. You also need two times the recipe, but you can't double it, you actually have to make it twice.

Monday I baked it and cut out all of the pieces. It took me a good two hours. Then it had to sit for at least two hours cooling. It was Emma's birthday, we let it sit overnight.

Tuesday we assembled and decorated it. Finally.

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday I attempted to pull Annika off of it. She is a candy fiend. Seriously. She will climb any height and do anything for candy. I also attempted to get the rest of the royal icing off of my counter. I have not been successful. Maybe by next Christmas.

But, without further ado, here is the finished product:

There is an engine, a tender, a lumber car, and a caboose. All lovingly crafted by these hands:


Annika is saying "I need more candy. Can I have some of yours? But I neeeeeed it."

We went to the mountain on Saturday to check out the snow and drink hot cocoa.


This is not a snow man, it's a snow hamster. It's very important. See the ears? No, well, I promise they were there. Along with a tail.

Do you see them now? Most of the family; I was the one taking the picture. See Emma, that;s what she did the whole time we were there. We just watched to make sure it wasn't yellow.

Oh, hey, there's me. Quite possible the only picture of me in 2008.

Sam is strangly impervious to cold. He's also the only one who didn't have a heavyish coat, so that's a good thing.

Harry is not impervious to the cold. He went down the hill two times and declared that he was cold and wanted to sit in the car for the rest of the time. Seeing as we are incredibly mean, we didn't let him. "We brought you up to the snow, little boy, and you are going to enjoy it. Now go have fun!"


Annika didn't like the snow at first--it came up past her knees and she couldn't walk right, but got used to it pretty quickly. Plus she really likes hot chocolate. We are not above bribery here.

Just teaching the little ones the ways of the snow.

Just sitting back, enjoying a snack.

Our little gnome. She really liked being out in the cold. Of course, she's one and had no choice. But look how cute she is.

We went over to a little shop and had hot cocoa and macaroni and cheese, the real stuff, so none of the kids would eat it. But I did and I fully blame that for the extra pound I've put on over Christmas.

Anyway, must go. Little Emma isn't actually asleep and it's taking me too long to upload pictures. I don't think I'm the only one out there trying to post cute kid photos.

Although, we all know, mine are actually the cutest!

I have been meaning to post these pictures for a couple of weeks now, and it just hasn't happened. So here they are, from oldest to newest.

This is Annika's burn, three days after it happened. We had just unwrapped it from it antibiotic padding and I took a picture. Thankfully it is healing really well and looks nothing like this now. I'll get to those pictures in a minute. FYI: if you click on the text here, you will go to a life-sized pic of the burn. I don't know how that happened, but trust me, you don't want to. Sorry about that.

I'm saving this one for when he's dating.

Annika's dream come true--surrounded by cupcakes and candy.

well, yesterday, Emma was born. We celebrated with cake last night:




And after the cake, a bath!
Happy Birthday Little One. You'll always be My Baby. (in a non-creepy way of course!)

First I was going to make all of our cards. Then things happened--birthdays, Annika's burn, my parents visiting (hi!). The cards never got made.

So I figured, no problem, I'll order them from somewhere. So I checked around, Costco had the best price. But they only had one with four slots in it and I didn't want that one. I checked Walgreens, CVS, Target, Winkflash, and Snapfish. They don't carry any cards with four equal picture slots. They had one or two with four pictures, but one of them is bigger than the others. I don't think Christmas cards are the right time to declare my favorite child. Finally, I looked into Walmart--they cater to large families, right, they should have one. But they didn't.

Knowing this, I tried to take a picture of the kids looking cute. Have any of you ever tried to get four smallish kids to look in the same place for any length of time? Especially when one of them is Annika and another one knows how to crawl? It ain't happening for probably another three years.

Until then, though, I need a card with four equal picture spots. The only place I found was Shutterfly.com. So, I ordered my cards from them.

And most likely, I will actually get them out to you sometime around Christmas. I hope.

I just realized this evening that I have some graham crackers. I also have a couple of Hershey's Bars that I haven't made into gifts yet. And yes, I made some marshmallows the other day.

Can you see where this is headed?

S'mores made with homemade marshmallows ROCK.

Thus ends my quest for a better mallow.

Last night Annika burned herself on our grill outside. You may ask, why were you grilling outside in December? Well, it was Harry's birthday and I wanted tri-tip. Unfortunately, it's a Weber kettle and they stay hot for a long time after use.

So, now Annika has first and second-degree burns from her shoulder to her elbow on her left arm. My poor baby. Forget everything I've ever said about her being evil or ever doing anything wrong. She's my baby and she has a big ouchie.

How big, you may ask? Take a look for yourself:

This is right after it happened--well, one Cinderella movie, half of Snow White, and a spoonful of Children's Tylenol after. She cried for a long time right after it happened, but pulled it together enough to be able to eat some of her brother's pudding pie. Or, really, to have her uncle feed her pieces of pudding pie. She's left-handed, you know.

This is right now, after the doctor washed it, put antibiotic pads onto it, and wrapped it. The bandage is having a hard time staying on near her shoulder, so I have a call into the doctor about what to with it. If you have any suggestions let me know.

If you are going to say to keep her away from a hot grill, believe me, I already know.

I've felt kind of scattered this week, as evidenced by the fact that Harry finished his homework at 8:35 this morning, dinner tonight was pizza, and I haven't slept in about two-days. Darn flu shots and teething. Not a good combo for the 11-month-old.

Here are a few things from the week:

1. Fujitsu customer service is really good until you actually want something from them. After that it kind of sucks.

2. I love that Harry, Sam, and Annika are upstairs writing a screenplay for their trains. I told them that if they write the script we could use the video camera to tape it.

3. Etsy. I've completely stayed away from it for good reason. I broke down today and spent an insane sum of money. Thankfully it was all in my mind.

4. There is a good chance my kids won't get anything for Christmas this year. Not because they were bad or I don't want to buy them something. Just because I can't find anything worth buying.

5. Except Emma. She's getting a ton of stuff. Hehehe.

6. I read Twilight this week. It would have been a lot shorted without all of the descriptions of how beautiful Edward and the others are. I'm not sure if that would have been a good or bad thing.

7. Comments are now moderated on this site.

8. I have only gotten one Christmas card so far--hi Marty and Jenny. My wall is looking really pathetic with only one. I think I should have waited until more came.

9. Gingerbread moose are so much better than gingerbread men.

I never thought I'd say:

"No, Annika, do not eat the fur that rubbed off in your hands off of the HAMSTER."

ewww...

Actual conversations I've had with my three-year-old:

What trains do in their spare time:
"They are going to go into their shed and watch a movie"
"Trains watch movies in their sheds? What movies do they like?"
"Thomas and Pinnochio and WallE and sometimes they like Cinderella."


Dragon Anatomy 101:
"Dragons have fire and fingers. They can beat Pokemon and they have wings. Dragons have claws."


Why Cinderella is actually evil:
Cinderelly likes go to the water fountain. With the Prince. Cinderelly don't like go by herself."
(we're still working on using articles)


Maybe its Lunner:
"What's this Mama?"
Ravioli
Ravyrolly?
Yes, ravioli
Dinner?
No, lunch
NO, DINNER
it's lunch
no lunch. It's ravirolly
Yes, we're having ravioli for lunch
Ravirolli for dinner.

(yes, I kept the conversation going just to hear her say ravirolli.)

More About Food
Me, "Can I eat you?"
No
I'm hungry, who can I eat?
Harry.
He's not home and I'm hungry now. Can I eat Emma?
No, Daddy eat Emma.

Harry came home today with a hole in his jeans and grass stains all over his pants. That I don't really care about, it's part of being a boy. But he told me that he was playing football with some kids in his class--it's supposed to be touch football, but the kids tackled him instead.

On one hand, it's football, they are seven, and they are boys. It's going to happen that someone is going to get pulled down, even if they are playing touch football. But this isn't the first time something like that has happened and it seems like it's always Harry that it happens to. I'm frustrated a bit by that.

But then Harry told me that a couple of kids in his class use bad words. He's said this before and the words are like, "stupid" and "shut up." Not really nice words, but not truly bad words. This time he whispered them to me--they were bad words. Apparently the kids just say them at recess and lunch, so no adults hear them.I asked Harry where the adults were and he said they are on the field while the kids are on the playground and vice versa.

This bothers me to no end. I am sending my child to school to meet kids and make friends. That's the only reason--academics I can do and do well. It seems that the kids he is with are just not good kids. Part of that is a function of where we live--a nice neighborhood with a nice neighborhood on one side and a ghetto on the other. Of course we are districted to the ghetto side for school. But what do I do?

A big part of me just says pull him out and keep him home. But for right now, I honestly don't think that's the answer. He went through such a hard time at the beginning of the year that I feel like it would be wasted for me just to pull him. Another reason is that we didn't start homeschooling with the sole purpose of sheltering the kids from other kids--it was just a benefit. And I feel weird making it the reason for homeschooling. I told Harry that he needs to be a leader and tell the kids who are swearing that he's not going to play with them any more. Then he should talk to the kids who are nice and get them to play football, leaving the swearing kids out.

Honestly, I never thought I'd have to deal with this yet. I'm at a loss. I'm calling the vice principal to talk about the lack of supervision, but I think that mostly I need to help Harry learn to deal with this. And if that fails, switch schools.

Friends who read this, who have kids in school, what would you do? I'm on the verge of just pulling Harry and having Sam finish out kindergarten, but it just doesn't feel quite right. Argh. Give me sleep deprivation and poopy diapers over this any day!

We don't decorate our house until after Harry's birthday, but that doesn't mean that we ignore the season all together! In fact, I love the idea of Advent--a time of preparation. Ask anyone, I'm good with the ideas and the preparation. It's carrying out the ideas that I have trouble with.

So, I've mapped out a few things for each day leading up to Christmas. Most of them are really, really easy. There are a few more involved things that will wait until the boys are out of school, but most of the things I have planned can be done in about half an hour. Some of them require some prep work, but I'm trying to keep that to a minimum. But why am I telling you all of this?

I'm posting what we're doing over at my other blog--Wonder House. It has a nifty new Christmas header and everything. At some point I'll put up some pictures, once I upload them to the other computer. And even better for all of us, I'll try to put up my plans for the next day the day before, so you can follow along too!

So, not unlike everyone else I know, I've been thinking a lot about Christmas the last few days.

We start our celebration and decorating after Harry's birthday on December 10th. I might be able to sneak a few things out, but mostly we look like Scrooge until the 11th. And now, with Emma's birthday on December 22nd, we won't be getting a tree until the 23rd.

But I always sneak some stuff in before these dates. We can't have a Christmas-free month. If I can get myself together, I plan to make an advent calendar. (Click the link, it's way cute.) There are also a few decorations I will get out. The hardest thing for me is to see all of the cute crafts out there and not make them all. Seriously, I want to do everything--it makes Christmas more stressful than it needs to be. And more expensive.

I've also decided that I want to have a "Target-Free Christmas." And I don't plan on running across the street to wel-mart either. So I'm not going to get gifts from Target. But I don't know where I am going to buy gifts from--or, really, what these hypothetical gifts are. And since I made this rule, now I need to decide what is or isn't allowable. For instance, is it okay to go to Target in December for anything or is it completely not okay? I think it is--for example, I might buy diapers there, but I won't buy diapers for Emma's stocking in there. (Not that I'd put diapers in her stocking anyway.)

Right now I need to concentrate on Harry's birthday--especially since I haven't finished making the Pokemon invitations.

Have I mentioned that I hate Pokemon? It's a good thing I'm not a 7-8 year old little boy.

when I decide to schedule a post to go up in the future, I should check the date.

Happy Thanksgiving, a day early!

I've been thinking a lot about gratitude and all that I have lately. It kind of seems as thought things are helping me remember how grateful I am for the material things I have in my life.

And the current experiences of a friend and some of my own past experiences are reminding me to be grateful for the little ones in my life. And of course for all of the big ones too. I don't know where I'd be without Jason. Not to mention all of my extended family.

But really, to enumerate all that I am grateful for would seem like boasting, not to mention that there is no way to list everything and everyone.

So, I hope it is sufficient to say "I am grateful."

Thanksgiving comes but once a year,
But when it comes it brings good cheer.
For in my storehouse on this day
Are piles of good things hid away.
Each day I've worked from early morn
To gather acorns, nuts, and corn,
Till now I've plenty and to spare
Without a worry or a care.
So light of heart the whole day long,
I'll sing a glad Thanksgiving song.

~ Thornton Burgess

I was pretty skeptical when I saw this:

and I wondered how it would ever become this:

dragon cake picture

Even when I followed the directions to do this:


and this:

I worried.

But four round cakes and a ton of frosting tinted green later, I had this:
And then I had one happy little boy blowing out his candles!
And, just to make me feel even better about being a mom, I asked Sam later what his favorite part of his party was. His answer? My dragon cake!

Woohoo!

The only good thing about having an all-white kitchen is that I can see everywhere the tomato sauce splattered.

Yay for me!

I think not.

I always get more done when I listen to General Conference talks while I'm doing things around the house.

Hmmm....food for thought.

We had a hamster move in the other night. The kids wasted no time in naming him (her?) Rhino from Bolt. She is adorable and fuzzy. I like to take her out of her cage and play with her after the kids go to sleep.

She eats carpet, too. I'm thinking "Annika" is a good nickname.



Hippo, No Rhino

huge budget deficits, not to mention crappy schools and expensive housing. And if that isn't enough, half of the state catches on fire every year. But days like today make me glad to live in Southern California.

This is why:

I decided I wanted a salad for lunch today. So I went out and picked one. And you know why I could do this? Because today it's about 76 degrees and sunny outside.

So I picked some carrots and celery.

And some lettuce.
The broccoli is growing well.
As are the artichokes.
The kids really like to come out and pick some peas off of the vine.

We have a beautiful apple tree. (We have other trees too, but I didn't take pictures of all of them.)
Tonight I'll make something for dinner using some basil and eggplants. (I think it'll be safe to say there will be some tomatoes and cheese too.)

And we have sunsets out over the ocean. Jason took this one from our balcony last week.

Oh, just so you don't get the wrong idea, I had nothing to do with growing any of this food. Jason did absolutely everything from building the raised beds to bringing in the dirt to planting and caring for it all. I just pick and cook it. I am incredibly lucky.

We also grow kids who don't like their pictures taken.

After dealing with the mess that was last week, my creative juices are gone. I'm trying to plan the rest of Sam's birthday and completely failing. I have the activities and games planned, but I can't seem to put them together at all. I want to do something like a find-the-dragon scavenger hunt or a "knight's test" type thing.

So I'm asking you guys. I know you are busy and have real lives of your own, so don't worry too much, but if you happen to think of something "knightly" would you send me an email?

Here is what I have planned:

make shields
knight bingo
catch the dragon's tail
joust
storm the castle
rescue damsel in distress
jump the moat
make pet dragons out of paper cups
and obviously cake and snacks

Harry has a dragon from IKEA that he got for his birthday a few years ago (he had a knight party too). I was thinking of having "dragon sightings" where the kids would see it slinking off and see some sparkles or something left behind. I was also thinking that it could be protecting the kids's goody bags or something.

That's as far as I got. I also printed out a bunch of copies of medieval clip-art that I can use for something.

I have the ideas, I just can't figure out how to pull them all together. Thanks. Cute kid and baby pictures to follow soon.

Okay, so I think we can all say that the beginning of my week absolutely sucked. (Sorry, Mom, but that's the only terminology I can use for it.) In the grand scheme of things my computer being destroyed and wallet stolen are not major disasters. I would like to leave that for tsunamis and earthquakes and things. But in my little life they were major.

Still, by Wednesday, I started to feel a little like Ross on Friends:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Coto51k2rHY

(One of my favorite scenes ever.)

Fortunately I do have great family and friends who can pull almost anyone out of a funk. I talked (and yes, cried) to my mom at length about what happened. I called a couple of my friends and they came over and brought me this:


It's a candy rebus. I highly recommend them. They are funny and tasty!

And, for a little more perspective on life I took the kids to the beach. We played for about an hour, running in and out of the water, writing notes to each other in the sand, and trying to keep the seaweed out of Emma's mouth. We totally failed on the last one, but I've decided to call it sushi and let her go.

So, what am I saying? I have no idea. I think it's just that I have a really, really great life. One that I probably don't appreciate as much as I should all of the time. But I'm working on it.

Oh, and my computer turned on last night!

in the last post.

The other voice you hear, besides Emma, Sam and me is, of course, Annika.

Sam loves the part where he asks why he can't take a picture. He only wants to listen to that. The rest of the video is nice and all, but the part where he talks is most important. He also loves that he can see the workbook at the end of the video.

So, if you have any weddings that you want kept for posterity, Sam is available.

but the Baby made me do this. What an otherwise (relatively) sane person will do to get her baby to laugh.

Awesome videography (?) by Sam:

No, we don't have a secret child. Cinnamon is Sam's stuffed seal. Her birthday was celebrated in style.

Here is the schedule of events:If you can't tell what this says, it's "games, snacks, sing 'haggy birhday,' presents"

They spent a lot of time making her presents:

Here she is opening one. She is the little white blob next to Sam. Sam kept the presents and has them in his "special box."
Snacks:Here she is while they sang 'haggy birhday'

All of the party-goers.



A good time was had by all!

It was so fun to listen to the kids do this all on their own. I was there strictly as a photographer.

In the last two days:

1. Annika dumped water all over my laptop. We're still seeing if things will work out, but it doesn't look good.

2. Harry pulled his palate expander off of one side of his mouth. He is fine, but we had to make an emergency trip to the dentist.

3. My wallet was stolen.

I've decided to skip the rest of the week. It's just not worth it for me to get out of bed anymore.

We are all looking for ways to cu our spending in these trying economic times. I have stumbled upon the perfect idea.

Have your wallet stolen. Practically impossible to spend money when you have no wallet.

Just thinking of the little people.

why I love my husband.

He took the three oldest kids out for 3 hours while Emma and I napped. I had been trying to get a nap for the last three days and it never worked and he knew I was at the end of my rope.

It was so peaceful here I actually slept and worked a bit on my Christmas lists.

So, every year the elves bring the kids pajamas. They magically appear when we are out for a walk enjoying the Christmas lights on our block.

Unfortunately this year the elves are having a hard time finding jammies they like. They have checked Old Navy, Baby Gap, Gymboree, and Children's Place. Usually at least one of them will have cute and affordable (the elves don't make much working for Santa) jammies. This year, though, the affordable jammies are not cute and the cute jammies are not affordable. What's an elf supposed to do?

Well, this elf is going to pull out ye old sewing machine and make them. Easy peasy. No problemo. Just don't think about the pants the elf sewed in high school that didn't quite work. Nope, this elf should have no problem sewing four pairs of jammies for four little kids. Pajamas that will be in our photo album forever. No problem.

Wish me luck. And that the kids never see this post.

There must be something in the fall that makes me want to declutter our house. I know I went through this last year, when we were trying to sell our old house. That made sense, but now, I'm waking up in the middle of the night thinking about all the stuff I have around the house.

I have a big house now, and I decided when we moved in that I would not squirrel things away in every drawer and cupboard like in our old one. I did well for a while, but then the kids went to school. I now have about three pounds of paper coming into the house on a weekly basis--they do a lot of worksheets in school. So those papers went into a drawer in the kitchen. Annika goes to preschool--her papers go into the drawer. I read a magazine and decide I like the projects in it, those go into a drawer. Someone comes over and I need to clean quickly, everything goes in one, two, or three drawers.

So, I've decided to get rid of the stuff in the drawers. School papers and projects--the good ones go in a special box, the rest of it, the recycling. I hate throwing it all away, even into the recycling box, but I have to or I'll never see my counters again. Most of the magazine projects I like are on-line. There go the magazines.

My goal is to be able to clean the house easily when people are coming over. Preferably without having to shove stuff into the drawers.

My other goal is that the kids won't notice that I'm putting their papers in the recycling. There is a good chance I'll be more successful with the first goal than the second.

The kids have been seeing ads for the movie Bolt. Now they want a dog, cat, and a hamster. I can honestly say that the chances of them ever getting a dog is less than none, and a cat only a bit more than that. But a hamster we might be able to handle.

Plus Jason got a hamster condo at a yard sale a while ago, so we have the accommodations.

So the other night Jason told the kids to make little signs to put outside for any passing hamsters to see. Then they might want to move in and hang out with us. They made signs that said, "Hamster wanted. Inquire inside between the hours of 1-5 pm." On Harry's he made sure that the hamsters would know that he gets home earlier on Wednesdays.

Sam's sign was missing yesterday and today he had a new sign with hamster paw prints on it. Sam also found the hamster's deposit--some shiny things that the hamster must have left to let us know he's interested. We're pretty sure the hamster wants to move in, he's just waiting for us to get the wood shavings for his new house.

Hamsters are picky like that.

Now I can cancel my Family Fun subscription:

http://belladia.typepad.com/crafty_crow/

Just kidding, I still love you, Family Fun.

Sam to me after I've just tossed today's junk mail in the recycling bin,

"Mama, why do they always send you recycling?"

are you sitting here reading this?

Go Vote!

even though Harry has missed twelve days of school this year, today is the first day that he's actually been sick!

Just, please don't tell the school.

More Halloween Pictures:




On Tuesday, after we left the pumpkin patch, we headed to Adam's house and went to the New Children's Museum. See, we went to a museum, it was an educational field trip, really.



Yes, the pillow fight room was very educational! No fun at all. But really, it's an amazing museum. I'd highly recommend it, if you are in the area.