Luke's Temper Tantrums

Luke has been a little frustrated by our household rules lately. You know, unreasonable things like, "Don't spit on your sister!"

He's had several time-outs lately. Boy do those make him mad! He doesn't love us, nobody loves him, he's going to live with grandma, he hates our house because it is BROWN....!

That last one made us laugh.

When They Grow Up

The girls are trying to figure out their future together. They asked me if they could live together and I told them sure. Their tentative plan is Mia will have kids and Cailey will help take care of them, but they are trying to figure out how to get the kids in the picture and where a husband would fit in with their family.

Mia asked if she HAD to have a husband to have kids. I told her that was the best plan. So then the other night Cailey thought she could be the kids' step-mom. Mia, using her know-it-all voice, told Cailey that would mean Mia and her husband got divorced, but that Cailey could be the aunt.

Then they wanted to know if a husband could have two wives. Again, I had to break the news that that wouldn't be a suitable arrangement. Seriously, you'd think I was bringing them up in some polygamist compound!

The Post Office

Luke's class walked 5 blocks to the post office at Cap Square. They had been learning about the mail and had "written" letters to us and were going to mail them. The concept was apparently difficult to grasp as many of the kids broke down as their letters were about to go into the mailbox. Also, Luke was very upset because his letter was intended for Daddy and he had to have a Disney Princess stamp. He kept talking about wanting a BOY stamp!! A full blown temper tantrum ensued, with Luke sitting down in the revolving door. He wasn't the only one though, from what Grandma reported.

Luke's teachers report that he still loves building blocks with his friend Sam. When asked to come do an assessment, he balked, until the teacher told him he could use blocks for it. Then he was kind of like, "Okay, lets get this over with" and quickly demonstrated the skills (patterning and counting) so he could get back to his blocks.

Today I sat down to play the Letter Factory game with him and was super pleased and a little shocked to find he knew the sounds to at least 3/4 or more of the letters. He is getting to where he can write L, upside down u, and some lines that will become the k and e in his name!

Farmers

The other day as we drove home from school the girls were talking about being farmers. Cailey decided she was going to be a farmer and Mia decided to join her. They talked about it all the way home. Daddy was going to build them a barn, just like he built their treehouse. I explained that Daddy bought the treehouse as a kit with all the parts cut and ready to go with directions. They thought they could find a barn kit.

At dinner they brought it up again. We were talking about jobs that need a college degree. Cailey thought farming wouldn't need college. We explained that some people did go to college to learn about farming. I also pointed out that since she didn't grow up on a family farm to learn the business that way, she'd need to go to college to learn about it.

David explained learning about how to prepare soil and talked about planting seeds, etc. Then Cailey exclaimed, "I don't want to GROW food. I don't even like that kind of food. Corn... yuck!"
I think Mia piped up that they could grow chickens for chicken nuggets, but then they decided they would just buy their food at the store.

As it turned out, they didn't really want to be farmers, just live on some big open land somewhere and have lots of animals. BUT NOT PIGS! They did not want pigs.

Winter Update

Ok, it is total laziness not to rotate these pictures, but oh well. Christmas came and the kids were very happy. Cailey got her stable she wanted last year for her animal collection, which she continues to add to. Mia got her Kaya American Girl doll. They also got the girl of the year doll, Mia, who they call Tori. They enjoy dressing them up and listening to their stories. I like the lessons about life taught in those books. Lukey got a train table and cars, and Power Ranger he was wanting.

Over Christmas break, the girls got glasses. I had suspected they weren't seeing too well, then at Disney on Ice at Thanksgiving I was quizzing Mia on what some signs said at Wells Fargo and she couldn't see some of the really big letters. Turns out Cailey is at a 1 and Mia is at a 4. I am at 8.5, for comparison. The doctor got a kick out of the girls during their exam. They were getting up out of the chair to try and get closer to the chart, covering the wrong eye to favor the stronger eye, etc. They were pretty funny.

Lukey seems to have warmed up to preschool more and sometimes will tell me about school. They went into the nature section one day and he came home and excitedly told me about the dead badger he saw. Boy did that "dead badger" make an impression on him.

He drew his first real picture at school recently. He had this ghost shape with a little rectangle coming off of it. It was him dressed as a ghost under his blanket with the wind blowing his "taggie." They were doing a unit on weather.

He was very excited at the Tet celebration to see the dragon dance. He was standing on his chair calling to grandma to watch.

He continues to be the flatterer, telling me, "I love you mommy. You're pretty." That is, when he's not telling me he doesn't like me and that I'm "mean."

Cailey will be going to the ear doctor in a couple weeks to talk about getting tubes. She hasn't heard well since at least Christmas. She had wax and an ear infection, so we did a round of antibiotics. She still was blasting the tv and music so I took her back in. She went another round of antibiotics and we added a decongestant. No success.

Mia likes to make doll clothes these days and dress her dolls. While shopping recently she spotted some crocodile high heels she wanted and a pink Coach or Gucci purse. That girl has expensive taste!

I definitely need to write more often so I don't forget all the cute things they all say or do. This blog is a little boring when it is just a summary.

My Superheroes

This year the kids all wanted to be superheroes. Mia spearheaded it; she wanted to be pink supergirl. She's planning her birthday party to be pink supergirl already. So Cailey then became the traditional supergirl. Luke is going as Batman and David going as the Joker. Today Lukey whispered menacingly, "My daddy is....the JOKER!"

Today I took some pictures in the yard and tonight we went to Living History Farms family Halloween event. Wow, it was busy. It is well-organized though, so all the people aren't a problem. The kids trick or treat in town, then we rode a horse-drawn wagon, then roasted marshmallows, and listened to a storyteller in the barn. Luke had a blast making mean faces and acting like a superhero; he really gets into the role! The girls enjoyed spending time with Keegan. It was a nice night.

Fall news

Well, every September my photo album, journal entries, and now, blog, get kind of skimpy. It is just so busy.

I've been having a great year at school. I have some of the best kids in years. We are able to do some neat things like blogging and participating in a national penpal cultural awareness project. My students are really enjoying it and so am I. We even had a front page story (that continued to an inside page!) about our blog project. That was really exciting.

The kids are good. Lukey is starting to talk about preschool more, mostly about "Miss Jessica" and "Miss Bessany." Luke hasn't mastered "th" yet, so it is really cute to hear him talk about Miss Bethany. Apparently their first project of the year was "chairs" and Luke should be bringing home a chair project. I'm not sure what to expect. I didn't know they taught shop in preschool! But their project this week was robots and next week it is pumpkins. Luke tends to spend his time in the kitchen center or playing with the toy garage, trucks, and trains.

He's pretty funny. The other day I came home and the first thing he said was, "Mom I want to talk to you a minute." I was hoping to be told he pooped in the potty, but no, he just told me he wanted more Skittles.

This morning David put him in bed with me when he went to go take a shower. I woke up with Luke bear-hugging my back and drawing on it with his finger. He was grinning when I looked at him. It's nice when they are so happy.

Cailey and Mia haven't been so busy with homework this year! Yeah! That means more time to learn the way we want to, reading what we want to. We are reading the Little House books. We've read Little House in the Big Woods, Little House on the Prarie, and are almost done with By the Banks of Plum Creek. It has been really enjoyable reading these to them. I'm picturing a nice little "Little House" road trip visiting Laura Ingalls Wilder sites sometime.

Mia even wrote about it today. In social studies they read a book about passing down culture, traditions, etc. So Mia wrote that I passed down my Cabbage Patch doll to her and passed down reading the Little House books. That was pretty cool.

Cailey has had a fun fall finding caterpillars, leaves, etc. Everyday she tells me what she found at recess. She and Mia also like showing me the new tricks they figured out on the bars at recess. Now that brings back memories!

The tooth fairy has now visited our house a total of 10 times, 5 for each girl. Mia is working on her 6th. The girls have quite a stash of tooth fairy money. Mia has a penchant for Bratz dolls these days. I'm not thrilled, but some of them are ok, so I steer her toward the cuter ones and away from the trashier ones. Also, Mia tends to gravitate toward pricier items. I have to laugh because Mia always wants the $30 playset and Cailey wants a $4 plastic animal. Cailey never minds though.

Tonight the topic of money came up. We were singing some Annie songs and Mia wanted to know why they were trying to kidnap Annie. Cailey explained they wanted money. Mia pipes up, "Why do they wanna be rich? Money doesn't matter... unless you're poor." It was interesting to hear her perspective. Basically we ended up talking about how we have food and a house, so we aren't poor. So there's hope for my little material girl.

I've enjoyed watching the gas prices go down. Unfortunately it appears house values have gone down too. Houses like mine are listed for what we purchased it for 6 years ago, about $30,000 less than what they were going for not to0 long ago. The economy is scary. I have hope though. I really feel that if Obama wins that hope will begin to restore the economy. Much of the economy is just based on faith anyway. I always think of the movie, "It's a Wonderful Life."

David and I have cringed while watching Palin give answers to interviews that wouldn't win her Miss America, let alone VP. I had seen the actual interview but David had only seen the SNL version. When I pulled the original up on YouTube, David was shocked it really was that bad. It might be funny if it wasn't so scary.

We went to the Howell Tree Farm last weekend. Totally beautiful weather. We spent the whole day there and we all had a nice time. Jaren got to go for the first time and seemed to enjoy being outside and taking it all in. Above is a scrapbook page my mom did.

We are now gearing up for Halloween. The kids got their pumpkins and then helped David get decorations out. They've got their costumes and are all superheroes this year. Cailey is Supergirl, Mia is Pink Supergirl, Luke is Batman, and David is the Joker. He'd like to see me in a Batgirl costume, but we'll see.