Out of the mouths of babes....

I was just coming back from taking Benjamin to school and was backing into our driveway when Avery started asking what that white thing was. Now it's early, I've had no caffeine yet, and I did not sleep well. Avery's voice tends to take on a very annoying shrill tone when these previously mentioned factors all take place at once, so I was pretty much ignoring her. She was insistent that I tell her what "That WHITE thing is!!" So I finally look up and start naming white stuff that I see. A house. "No." The mailbox. "NO!!" Clearly, I'm the idiot here. Then she looks up and screams "It's AIRPLANE POOP!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! I look up at sure enough, way far off, there is a tiny jet with a small string of white coming out from behind it. She thinks this is the funniest thing in the world, while all I can think is at least she doesn't need glasses.

Halloween Party

Avery had her Mom's Club Halloween Party this past Friday. (I'm on top of it, huh?) She, and about 10 other little 3 year old girls, dressed up like a princess. The organizers planned all sorts of games and sing alongs. Avery liked the hop-scotch set the most.

Here they all are listening to one of the mom's put on a folk-style type story time with songs and stories. It was okay. Most of the kids were already hopped up on sugar so they didn't sit very still. Avery is on the bottom left in the purple.

For all the Mom's planning though, most of the kids hid in the coat closet the entire time. Any time anyone lost sight of their child, someone would go open the closet and call out which kids were in there. Here is my child getting in on the fun:

And if it all wasn't enough, there was a pinata!! That was an adventure. Avery got to hit twice, but she didn't have the pent up aggression that some of the boys held. Still, they were only three year olds so the adults had to bust the pinata open for them.

All in all, there were crafts, games, food...a LOT for 10:00 in the morning. The kids were done after only an hour and a half. I was, too. I will also post a picture of Benjamin in his Peter costume from Narnia. He just wants the sword.

Benjamin's Reading Skills

On Mondays, the school sends home this ridiculous amount of papers with the kids. I usually go through most of it, but it's always a fund raiser for this or that, papers that he has worked on, or some other useless paper that ends up in the trash. Today when I was sorting it all out, I found his "Oral Reading Fluency" assessment. I will type out what they say about it:

"The Georgia Performance Standard for 1st grade states that students should be reading 60 words per minute with accuracy and fluency (speed) by the end of the year. Please note that DNM stands for Does Not Meet, IP stands for In Progress, MS stands for Meets Standards and E Stands for Exceeds Standards."

The teacher sent home the paragraph they had to read and she marked all of the words they missed or stalled on. They had 60 seconds to read this paragraph:

'This is a good snack. I will try just one more. 'Mom, I need just one more.' 'Here's one more for you. Then it will be time for bed.'

'I saw one more, Mom. Can I have it?' 'This is our last one. Then you'll go right to bed.' 'This is good! I want just one more thing, Mom. I want a good night kiss!'

On Benjamin's sheet, there were no errors!! He read all of it, and she wrote that he had 23 seconds to spare! I'm impressed, anyway. He is his school picture proof. I did buy some, so if anyone wants a copy, let me know. The quality isn't good, but they did it intentionally so people won't scan them and send them out and not buy them. The pics should be here in the next two weeks.

Benjamin's Face!!

It was pointed out to me that I hadn't posted a pic of Benjamin's face in a while. It isn't on purpose of course, that kid just runs away screaming whenever I pull out the camera. I told him this morning though that someone has specifically requested a picture of just him smiling sweetly and he obliged. I may scan his school picture later, but it won't look very good. They put words all over it to make sure people didn't do that instead of buying them. Avery got really jealous after I took pics of just Benjamin so I took one of both of them as well. These were taken about 10 minutes ago, right before I dropped Benjamin off at school. And yes, Avery is still in her pajamas for the ride, but so am I!!

The Teddy hit the Fan

Benjamin came up to me in tears a few minutes ago. He had apparently been throwing his favorite teddy bear, named Teddy Bear, up in the air and it got caught on the ceiling fan. Now the ceilings in this place are about 10 feet in the peak. I had been in my room finishing a great book when all this was going down. I came out to see if I could help and there were all sorts of things all over the floor that he had used to try to get the bear down. Naming a few: a stethoscope, blankets, spatulas, etc. He was rather upset:


Here is the poor little furry guy up in the air:I was finally able to get him down using a stool and a pair of kitchen tongs. Now peace is restored...for a few minutes, anyway!!

Dora Pajamas

My mom sent Avery and Benjamin some clothes. Benjamin was happy about his football boxers, but I am having a hard time describing how Avery reacted to her Dora pajamas. I think that the dogs next door heard. It was loud, it was high-pitched...it was awful. But she likes them. In her words "DORA!!!! PRINCESS DORA!!!!!" She's happy. Now we are off to the library...

Extra Pics from the farm

Benjamin picked this flower for me from the gardens with signs that said "No Picking Flowers". I swear his ability to read just comes and goes! It was a beautiful flower. I really like my camera....
This was one I just took on my own. No illeagal picking here. Just a pretty flower.
The kids being still and quiet. I had to capture it. What's funny is I found this to be the most boring part, but this is where they were the most still.

I have a busy day ahead of me, I have to get ready for a yard sale we just decided to have. I guess I should get on it. Blah.

The Princess, the Pouting and the Peas

So being a complete glutton for punishment, I decide (during the week that Elijah works 20 hours days every day) that I need to get my kids to eat their vegetables somehow. I got the cookbook from the library about how to 'sneak' or hide the veggies into food, but I thought I would try bribery first. While making dinner, I made up some pudding. I also made peas. I came and got the kids for dinner from their 'boat' in the middle of the living room, but I told them I had a deal for them. IF they could eat everything on their plate, I would give them dessert. Benjamin was all excited because we never have dessert...then he saw his plate. God forbid I ask the child to eat something green. Now I remember being exactly like him. I can remember the mere thought of eating a green bean making me physically ill. Although let it be known, I ate a Healthy Choice meal for lunch yesterday that was 60% green beans, and I ate them all. Anyway, it didn't go well. Avery just hopped up in her seat and ate the peas first and asked for pudding. She had no issues. Benjamin cried and threw a fit like I had offered him rocks with a side of mud. I told him I wasn't asking him to eat the peas, he didn't even have to try them. Our deal was for them to clear their plates and they would get dessert. He cried for quite a while:

And then he pouted some. I told him I would never put anything on his plate that he didn't like, because when I was a kid I was even more picky than he was. He tried to argue with me, but I stood my ground and Avery ended up getting a little and he wouldn't even let one pea grace his lips. We had a nice talk about making choices in life, and how sometimes to get what we want, we have to do something we don't like. It all depended on how much we wanted it. He understood and decided that pudding was not worth eating peas. He still tried to get around it, but I figured last night was as good a time as any to teach some life lessons. He was only upset for a few minutes after dinner was over, he got in the shower and was fine. He didn't even mention anything about it after that or before bed. It helped that we had a huge stack of books from the library to pick from for bedtime stories. Now I know to just hide the veggies. Here are some pics of Avery enjoying the fruits of her labor:

Pumpkin Patch

Yesterday was a Mom's Club field trip to Uncle Bob's Pumpkin Patch. I got lost getting there, even using my GPS. Apparently TomTom has no idea that a certain road has never been completed. Elijah got stuck in this same spot not too long ago. It takes you right up to a fence that is up against the underpass to I-85. Once we got turned around it still took us a while to find the place. There was only a hand painted cardboard sign by the road, and it had an arrow pointing, but there were two roads to choose from. Both were gravel and looked like driveways. I was behind a minivan and I just followed them. We went around a lot of twists and turns and finally came out by some guy wearing a bright orange t-shirt that said "Uncle Bob's". We had made it! I wished several times we had met up with the others and driven in the caravan.

It really was a great farm. It reminded me somewhat of the Museum of Appalachia. They had a hayride you got onto first that took you all the way around the farm. The man even pulled right up to the fences and let the kids throw hay out of the cart to the horses. He did this twice, so both sides could have a turn.

The girls loved it, but Benjamin seemed to get more out of the whole day. (We were with my friends Susan and Malinda, and their daughter's Anna and Maddie). After the very bumpy, muddy hayride, we were sent to a variety of stops, starting with a beekeeper who explained to the kids (all 3 year olds, only Benjamin and the mom's got anything out of it) all about how bees make honey and about the queen, etc. Then the kids got to watch a movie on bats and then we were sent on a nature hike. It wasn't a bad walk at all, I just felt for the moms that had strollers and babies. Malinda said it wasn't too bad, but her baby was being carried by someone else so she didn't have to worry about shaking the stroller. Anna, Avery and Benjamin took it more as a 'nature run' so Susan and I had a fun time keeping up with them. They were supposed to have these sheets with different trees on them to label, but again, 3 year olds have no interest. They just wanted to see how fast they could get through it.

After the hike, they gathered the kids for a story. It was okay. The storyteller was all of 15 years old and tried to read a pretty hard book to the kids. It had a lot of motions and such for them to do at certain points, and again, the moms and Benjamin got it.

After this they got to go to the chicken coop and learn about how the chickens lay eggs and how long it takes for the egg to become a chick. Benjamin stayed in there with the lady explaining things for over 10 minutes, all the 3 year olds just ran around the fence listening to the rooster crow. I wouldn't go into the coop, it was all of 4x3 and I wasn't about to go in. Benjamin would go in for a while, run out, tell us some interesting fact and then run back it. It was funny to watch. I really am glad he got to go because school was out for the day. Right next to the coop was the petting zoo. I wasn't going to go in, but it was small and pretty clean so I decided to head on in and make sure the kids didn't throw poo at one another or anything. The only thing worth mentioning about that place was this tiny baby goat that was actually cute! He would stand in the water dish and wait for kids to come pet him. If none did, then he would walk up to the adults and lightly tap your leg with his head. He was cute. We only stayed a few minutes, the smell was more than any of us could handle.

Then we went to watch a lady take a variety of things and show us how they could be woven into yarn or string or whatever to make clothes. She had sheep shearings, corn husks, soy products...a ton of different things. But at this point, the kids lost interest. There was another display to go to after that, but the girls were done. Benjamin enjoyed it, the lady was showing them how they used to husk corn with this old metal contraption, but Anna and Avery took off after the pumpkins. After that we all sat down and had a picnic. It was a really fun day. I am running out of time, so I may post more pictures of our day later.

Who's Sarah?

I think Avery has an imaginary friend. That or an identity crisis. She has this headband we put on her at mealtimes to keep her hair out of face and tonight, after dinner, I tried to take it off and she got really mad at me. She said "NO!! Then I'm not Sarah!!" I asked her to repeat herself, and she said the same thing. I put it back on her and she said "Good, now I'm Sarah again. What's your name??" I said 'Mommy' and she said no, you're Mommy Sarah. Whatever that means. She has mentioned 'Sarah' for the last couple days here and there, but this is the first time I've really paid that much attention to it. She just sat down on the couch next to me and yelled "Sarah!" and then jumped off the couch headed to her room. I asked where Sarah was and getting the 'you're and idiot' look, she pointed to herself and walked off saying it was her turn at the doctor's office. She just got Benjamin to call her Sarah as well. She has always had a great imagination, I guess this was coming. Weird thing is, we don't know any Sarah's that she sees regularly. Elijah has a cousin named Sara that stayed with us back in the early summer, so that may be it, but otherwise I have no idea!!

Additional Pics, now that the computer works.

Moving Day Pics

Well, we are finally in. All we have at the other house are the kid's outdoor things. We still have to vacuum there, but our vacuum died so I have to take it back today then we fill finish that up. All the boxes for the house are done, now I am mostly sorting and trying to get things where I want them. Well, there is a box in Benjamin's room full of Buffalo Bills stuff that Elijah is going to put up once I get shelves that he can't reach since it is a bunch of autographed memorabilia. The kids are really adjusting well to the new place. Benjamin says his favorite part is that there aren't any steps to go up and down all the time anymore. The only thing I don't like so far is the fact that the backyard has no fence so they can't go out anytime they want. There are people out in this neighborhood all the time. It seems that the kids pretty much get to ride their bikes and play unattended, but I haven't met anyone yet, and even then I doubt Benjamin will be allowed outside to play without me watching. Once I get settled they will be outside a whole lot more. It is so nice down here right now! I also came across a great park yesterday that I want to take the kids to. Anyway, here are the pics of the kids 'packing themselves'. There are more, but the computer is being retarded and not letting me upload any more. Maybe later...

Moving Day

I have all of two minutes while Elijah is setting up the table at the other place. We kind of forgot to schedule new Internet service, so unless I can get on someone else's wireless network then I may not be online for a few days. Everything is going okay, despite being up all night at the ER with Avery and no sleep at all before trying to move furniture. It's starting to catch up with me. I saw Susan, the woman who kept Avery for me today, a few minutes ago and she said Avery did great. She was sleeping away in Susan's car so I was able to get Benjamin into co-op undetected. I'm glad she's done well, I worried about leaving her after the night we had but it really couldn't be avoided if we wanted to get anything done at all. My friend Brandy's husband is supposed to be here in a couple hours to help move the big stuff, but we already have a big portion of the house done. I suppose I should get back on it!!