The things they say volume 6

Every now and then I get worried about if my kids are eating well enough.  Are they getting enough vitamins and eating from enough food groups?  While I am in one of those worrying modes, I start cranking out green smoothies once per day.  And last year, when our garden was producing lots of spinach and kale and chard, I was very encouraged, because my little boys, who rarely touch - much less eat- a vegetable, would beg for green smoothies and slurp them down and beg for more!  I could give them all of their veggie servings in one glass.  And it felt so great thinking about the wonderful things those vegetables were doing for their little, growing bodies:)

....Not so much anymore this year.

Last night  I made up a green smoothie for them.  Abram looked at his anxiously before taking a taste after much encouragement. He started to shudder as the smoothie went down.

He finally managed to swallow and then he said, "Mom, this smoothie makes my head wiggle.  I can't drink it."

Shawn and I started laughing really hard and then Abram said, "I'm serious.  I'm not doing it on purpose. My head just starts wiggling!"  We believed him!

I told him that he could choose to eat some carrots instead:)

This lack of success made me appreciate even more that Nolan was drinking ALL of his!  I thanked him for keeping an open mind.  He said, "Yeah.  I can get myself to drink it because I just pretend that it's poly-juice potion.  Poly-juice potion is really gross!!!"

Soon after this I headed to bed and found another addition of the girl's paper just waiting there on my bed for me to discover it. I had another great laugh over this section:

Something about that "you can contact him by calling his name" sent Shawn and I into peals of laughter.

Ivy - the girls will be sending you a paper just as soon as their mother gets around to it! They were very motivated by your interest:)

Happy birthday dear Isabelle,

we sure do love you!

Isabelle decided that what she really, REALLY wanted for her birthday was contacts.  And seeing as how she is a very responsible kid - for a nine-year-old- and seeing as Caden also got contacts at this age and did great with them, I went along with it.

Of course, this was AFTER she asked the eye doctor at a regular eye check-up last week if she could try them out.  And he sent her home with a pair to try for a week to see what she thought. And it was AFTER I had some moments of mourning about not getting to see her in glasses very often anymore.  Because I happened to think she was adorable in glasses and that they made her look so little girlish:( And it was AFTER she tried them out for a week and did great with them.

I guess I will have to settle for these photos that show her tan-line from wearing glasses:)

Belle also wanted to go camping for her birthday, so a-camping we did go - for the second weekend in a row! And even though I think I like going camping better when there is a little time in-between, we had a good time and when we came home on Saturday we finished up her party:

I'm so glad that Isabelle is part of our family!
*She has such a happy, helpful nature.  I love how she skips about from thing to thing, humming to herself and in her own little world.  She is such a free spirit.
* How she has learned to make her older siblings laugh at the things that she says.
*How she loves to teach every bit of knowledge that she has!  Sometimes I will give her a job, (recently it was vacuuming a room) and later one of the kids will tell me that they have walked past the room and they hear her saying, "First, you do this.  Then you..." She tries to rope the little boys into playing "school" with her whenever possible.  In fact, besides contacts, all that she asked for was teaching supplies - sticky notes, erasable markers for her white board, pens, etc.
*She loves to read and is a great little student herself.
*She knows how to entertain and care for little kids so well, and enjoys doing it!
*She can be very feisty, and sticks up for her rights:)

more summer pictures

I haven't seen Caden with road rash in a lot of years, but he's got a pretty good case:

And even though his clothes are all twisted up funny and he can't see why I would like this picture, I just had to post it because it caught a smile that he gives me a lot these days.  And I really like that smile. And the way his eyes look when he makes it.

Maddie and cousin Abby got to take some horse-riding lessons.  They both love horses and this was a present they got clear back at Christmas time!:

They have loved it, and are sad that their last lesson is tomorrow.

I'm still enjoying making hats for Pace.  I think I have made seven now, but I have given some of them away.

 Something about it makes his chubby cheeks even more irresistable:

Hollyhock dolls

When I was a little girl, I was at my Grandma Hunt's house one summer afternoon, and she took me out to her Hollyhock patch and taught me how to make Hollyhock dolls.

This year I have 8 and 9 foot hollyhocks blooming all over the yard, so I took my girls outside today to show them what my grandma showed me!  If you have Hollyhocks in your yard and want to try it out, this is what you do:

Select an un-opened bloom that would make a good "head".  Find a larger one for the mid-section.  Then pick an open Hollyhock that is the color of the "skirt" you want your doll to wear. Stick a toothpick down through all three:

Add some arms by sticking another toothpick through the mid-section of the doll:

Now all she needs is a face, added with a permanent marker:

At this point, turn your girls loose, letting them add their own embellishments, such as "hair" and "hats":

A lovely bride:

A town busybody -I love the toadstool "parasol":

A flamenco dancer holding a fan:

These dolls were all created by Madeline.  She was really into doll creating.  Isabelle hurriedly made three darling dolls and then ran off to play with them.  She enjoyed them for quite some time, and then came to me wondering what she could do to make them last longer.  We covered them with damp paper towels and are storing them in the refrigerator.  She has big plans to play with these dolls all week- hopefully they last that long:)

How to get a really good night of sleep

1.Take your family camping.  Try to leave just as soon as possible ( for us this means waiting for our teenagers to get home from work, around 5:30.)

2. Sing during the drive (with gusto) from a packet of fun songs that you -brilliantly -thought to make and print off just for the occasion. (Now the kids will learn and love some of my favorites from when I was growing up!)

3. Drive to an unfamiliar area and circle the lake over and over again as you try to decide on just the right camping place.

4. Finally decide on any old camp because you are running out of day-light. Start a fire so that you can cook your foil dinners just as soon as possible.  Listen to little kids complain about how hungry they are, and pull out lots of snacks as you wait for the food to cook.

5. Read from your current family read-aloud as you wait.

6. Finish eating around 10:00, and decide that it's too late to start the dutch-oven cobbler that you had planned.

7. Get every one bedded down for the night in the camper.

 8. Sleep in the back of the Suburban with your husband and almost 11-month old. Giggle as your baby crawls up and down the inside of the car (and all over each of you) pausing frequently to find his "comfy spot."

9. When he finally falls asleep between you, around 11:30, boost him over your head to the bed that you made for him.  Wake up periodically during the night to pull him out of cracks and cover him up!

10. Wake with the baby at 5:30 am when he won't take his stone-cold bottle.

11. Dress and watch your husband build up the fire and start breakfast.

12. Feel ravenous and eat heartily at every meal!

13. Take off to see the sights at Yellowstone National Park with some very excited little boys that have been dying to go!

14. Stop for lunch somewhere - do something to your hair after seeing the family picture:) enjoy the perfect temperature in the shade, and watch your kid's antics:

These trees gradually got wider and wider, and the kids had to see how far they could go

15.Head out to see "Old Faithful".  When you arrive, offer to sit in the car with the baby who has become overly tired and finally fallen asleep.  When he wakes up, set out across a VERY long, hot parking lot to find the rest of the family.  Search up and down, before deciding that you must have missed them and they are really back waiting for you at the car.  Walk back across the LONG parking lot. See that they are not there.  Get drinks for you and baby.

16. Head back to see "Old Faithful". This time you get to see the geiser go off as you wait for the family!  Head back to the car and wait there for the family, who, when they arrive, explain excitedly that they were minutes too late to see Old Faithful the first time, so they hiked around and managed to see Grand Geiser, which only goes off every 7 hours!

Then they saw Castle Geiser, go off, which only happens every 13 hours.

THEN on their way back they also saw Old Faithful.  Talk about timing it right!!

Abram has been learning about bison, and as they walked around looking at geisers, they saw this one.  Abe is pretty sure that this is a "raging bull".  He was pretty excited to see that;)

17. After all the geiser sightings, make a decision with your husband to leave for home: said decision being precipitated by little boy melt-downs and squabbles amongst children.  Older children are ready to have the younger children STOP singing (at the top of their lungs) the packet of songs that you thought you were so brilliant to make and bring along:)

18. Fall asleep within minutes, along with everyone else in the car, besides your driving husband, and sleep for a good hour. Wonder how your husband can keep his eyes open.

19. Reach home, make dinner and spend an hour or so cleaning up from camping out.

20. Go along with your 11- year- old's request to help her finish her skirt because she wants something new to wear tomorrow. Realize that she needs an accessory, cut apart some old beaded jewelry, and make her a necklace to go with the skirt!

21. Fall into bed and sleep very soundly all. night. long. Aaaaaahhhhh:)

(If you don't feel like you can follow all of these steps for a good night's sleep, reading all of them might just do it for you, it will take so long!)