6.5 hours

For all of the afternoon and most of the evening, my can't-focus-on-anything kids played Monopoly with their daddy. They sat calmly in their seats, bought and sold, counted their money, negotiated, made change, sat still some more, assessed probability, made educated guess-timates, played banker, continued to sit still (even while in jail) and loved every minute of it.

I think this should count for an entire week's worth of math! I can't get this much cooperation on any school day.

FWIW, Cayli Grace claims victory, but in reality, Mabry and Cayli tied (but after 6.5 long, tiring hours, we let CG think she won!).

So I took a blog break...

Want to know why?



It's all his fault:

This michief maker keeps me hopping. I have no time to do anything other than chase this little devil around and around and around and....whew! I'm dizzy!



He hates toys. So please don't bother with any for Christmas. He'd much prefer to swish my hairbrush in the toilet, try to pry the protective covers so that pencils with stick in the electric outlets, throw handfuls of dog food/giggle/throw more and mess with my computer so that sometimes it sleeps, sometimes it types in a funny font and sometimes it just crashes. Then he giggles more.



And that in the first two minutes he's out of the starting gate his crib.


He can't open doors but he takes full advantage of the fact that his sisters can't close them. And if he gets outside, I get plenty of exercise chasing after him. Oh, if you see him walking down the road, please bring him home.



Love my boy, but don't expect another blog post until he's in college. lol

Actually I've got some great pictures of the girls' Pennsylvania presentation and I hope to get those up sometime this weekend during a naptime; for now, though, I've got to go stop him from propelling all of his blocks into the dog's water dish. Wish me luck. :)

It's raining, it's pouring...

in the rainforests that is. Rainforests get anywhere from 30-100 feet of rain each year. Makes the miserly 47 inches we get each year seem like only a drop. Though yesterday we finished up our study as a record-breaking 2 inches of rain fell from the sky during the day. And since it was fiercely thundering as the rain began pelting the earth, the kids were up before the roosters. So we jumped into our final day of rainforest study by making chocolate.


Chocolate pods are native to the rainforests. You break open one to find the beans:

You crush the beans, add some sugar and cocoa butter a la Milton Hershey (who perfected the process for chocolate-happy Americans) and viola! you've got chocolate:

Very enjoyable, rich, smooth tasty chocolate...until Micah gets a hold of it. :)
Did you know that the aztecs enjoyed hot chocolate? Of course theirs was crushed cacao beans mixed with water and hot peppers! So glad Mr. Hershey left out the spices...or chocolate would be worthless bribe for my kids. ;)

Uplifting words

My nature artists designed a sign just for me...on a day that wasn't necessarily going as planned and was going downhill fast:
But the girls redeemed the day with 3 simple words and a heart. I love it when they love me!

Micah is now 17 months, 11 days...

A trivial young age for sure, but very tender to my mommy heart. For it was the exact age that my sweet, sweet oldest darling, Cayli Grace, was the day her sisters were born. For the most part, I remember every aspect of Cayli Grace's life up until the moment Mabes and Kenna were born. But then my happy-go-luck life became a collection of mundane, rigorous, frazzled-mommy schedules. I remember nothing from those early years. I can look at pictures to put together pieces of our family's adventures, but I really don't have any warm-fuzzy recollections of life with three less than 18 months apart.

And that's why Micah, our surprise baby, is such a refreshing blessing. I cherish each step and word and laugh. Even the messes...I love them all! Even though he's baby number four, it's really like the first time I've experienced it.

 

God Bless America

Don't you love a kid's version of patriotic pride?

Our patriotic fieldtrip

to the polls so that the girls could collectively tell me how to cast my vote. Who knew 7-8 year olds could be so opinionated?

I bribed the kids with Sonic slushes. I brought book and paper and pencils. I was prepared for a lengthy line. Four years ago I waited over 2 hours to vote and was expecting the same this year, but with rowdy kids in tow. I was anxious about the anticipated wait, but 36 minutes later, I was surprised that the cup of cheerios (but not the Dr. Pepper) lasted longer than our wait.

We'll be finishing up our election study this evening as we plod through the election returns. Such an historic election should provide some great entertainment. :)