Another new obsession...will it ever stop?!

My friend just taught me how to make these super cute hair bows. Considering I have four girls who always beg me to buy them bows and then promptly loose them, this newly acquired skill may come in quite handy!

Eensy Weensy Spider

This morning I was sitting in the living room, when I overheard some ruckus in Leah's bedroom. "All for one, and one for all and one for the wall!" WHACK! "EWWWW! There are guts and legs all over my wall!" Poor spider. Never had a chance.

should i be worried?

Yaya, my little one horned devil, is a LIAR. She straight face lies to me hourly. I'll give you two examples from this morning alone!

1. There is a strict food stays in the kitchen rule in my house. Yaya came running into the kitchen from her bedroom yelling, "Heidi made a mess with yogurt!" So I went back to her bedroom and there was yogurt all over the bed and carpet. Sure enough Heidi had a cup of yogurt and spoon in her hands, so I figured she must have grabbed it off the table and taken it back there. As I was cleaning it up I noticed it was not only on the bottom bunk bed, but also on the ladder going up to the top bunk and on that sheet as well. I also found a hot dog on the top bunk with pencil holes poked in it. The more likely story was that Yaya brought the yogurt up to the top bunk and dropped it before Heidi got the yogurt cup and ran off with it.

2. Yaya was standing on the chair eating a broken off chunk of chapstick. I asked her to hand it to me. She innocently handed it over with the explanation, "Heidi did it." I then asked her for the tube of chapstick, which she also had in her possession. She handed it to me with the explanation, "Heidi had it." Really? Like I couldn't see you standing two inches from me chewing on the broken off chapstick ?

I don't want to give her a lot of attention about lying and somehow adversely encourage her to lie even more. I have explained to her countless times what lying is and why it's important to tell the truth but like everything else in life, she just doesn't believe the the rules apply to HER! Help!!

I don't even know

Last night I was in the kitchen cleaning up dinner when I heard the always endearing, "Moooooooooom. Yaya just wet her pants." Ok whatever. I was in no hurry to take care of the mess, so I casually finished what I was doing and then set out to find the crime scene. I walked into the bathroom to find Yaya standing in the sink with a gigantic wad of wipes frantically scrubbing the bathroom counter. It took me a minute to take in the entire scene and put all the pieces together. Naomi was on the potty, so apparently Yaya just couldn't wait until she was done. I'm not sure WHY she climbed on the counter, but she did and wet herself. Well, Heidi's new favorite past time is to pull all of the toothbrushes out of their bin and throw them all over the floor. Unfortunately she had done this shortly before Yaya wet all over the counter which then spilled onto the floor and subsequently the toothbrushes. The greatest part of the whole scene was that Yaya was dressed up in her witch costume when it happened. It would only have been more appropriate if she was sporting devil's horns instead.

A New Obsession

Recently my children have discovered Ramen Noodles. I've never given it to them before, but my friend dishes it out all the time. My girls LOVE them. Yaya asks me every morning if I will make her Ramen noodles for breakfast. I have to limit it to once a day. At least they're cheap right?

Amazing

As I watch all of the disgusting things my kids do and gnaw on and put in their mouths I become more and more amazed that any of us actually live to be semi-normal adults. Today at the grocery store we were walking down the meat isle. I was pushing the cart with Heidi and Naomi. I looked over to Yaya and to my horror saw her walking along side of me, dragging her tongue along the metal lining of the meat cooler. I don't even want to know what disgusting germs and bacteria she ingested. I suddenly am very confident Yaya will get the swine flu.

my most favoritest time of year

Naomi on some pumpkins

Naomi and Heidi

Yaya

Heidi

Leah

Heidi, Leah, Yaya and Naomi

Heidi Baby

There was no school Friday so I was able to take the girls to an apple orchard and pumpkin patch with some of our friends. It was so fun! The girls got to pick out a pumpkin and drink some fresh apple cider (after we fought off the bees for it!) Then of course we took a million pictures and played and had gobs of fun. Sigh....I just love autumn.

wishful thinking

Wednesdays are my piano days. I teach all my lessons on Wednesday evenings and leave Lars with all the girls :) Today I dropped the three older girls at a friend's house and brought Heidi home before I went off the teach. Apparently during my lessons, my brain let go of details it didn't consider important. As I was driving home I was hoping that Lars would have the girls all ready and in bed by the time I got there. I opened the front door and no one ran out to greet me, so I was really excited that they were already asleep and everything! I walked down the hallway to give them each a kiss and as I opened their door and saw their empty beds, I remembered...there's a reason it's so quiet. They aren't even here. So I put my shoes back on, got back in the car, and went to pick them up. So much for avoiding bed time.

Shamelessly living vicariously through my children

As school picture day approaches I am finding myself having a very strange and strong impulse to pay a ridiculously large amount of money for sub-par school photos. As I've been thinking on this I remember longing to be the kid at school that got the really thick packet of photos. You know, the ones with enough pictures in it to actually hand out to ALL of your friends, and not just the first eight people who asked you for one and you felt too guilty to tell them no, even though you didn't really care about them at all. Yeah. Thankfully there is a voice of reason in this house. His name is Lars. He tends to remind me at times like these, that it is actually quite impractical to spend sixty dollars on school photos. Especially in light that we are getting family photos done this same month by my very talented and creative friend who's pictures are guaranteed to be 800% better than any school picture.



But this strange impulse just got me thinking about some things I wanted as a kid that if my girls were ever to ask, I would definitely say yes to...until Lars talked me out of it. Here are a few...and none of you had better give this list to my kids.



1. Hairstyling doll...especially the kind that you could cut their hair and it "grew back".

2. A science kit with real chemicals that you could mix. (I went through a phase of being obsessed with Thomas Edison. Could be worse.)

3. A giant barbie house...the one with the elevator.

4. The toy powered car that you can actually ride in.

5. A pocket knife. Don't ask me why. I just always wanted one.

Papa Murphys

Yaya got a little smurf book from a garage sale this summer. Recently she has been toting it around reading it to everyone. Somehow she got her characters confused and calls Papa Smurf, "Papa Murphy" and every other smurf is "Honey Murphy." It's pretty dang cute!