Unveiling the 2012 Circle Picture!

Courtesy of Sarah.  Happy Advent, Everyone!

Panic.

For as much as I love my kids, I sure do hate shopping with them.  Tonight we went to the mall to get the girls dress shoes that fit.  Sounds simple, doesn't it?  Theresa, Noelle, Natalie and Regina needed dress shoes that fit.  I wanted them to have shoes that fit that also strap onto their feet, so they can run about without their shoes flopping off.  

Welllll, Theresa insisted that there wasn't a shoe in the store that would fit her except for a stylish black ballet flat, and she started crying as soon as she learned that I would not be buying any ballet flats tonight.  She can be a total grumpface under normal circumstances, but she's impossible whenever we go shopping for shoes or clothes.  Regina missed her nap today and was fairly hard to manage, screaming and squirming when anyone other than Conor or I tried to hold her.  She immediately put on a pair of pink rubber boots, and refused loudly to take them off.  I eventually found several possiblities, and tried them all on her, but while doing that, I wasn't helping Theresa, Noelle, or Natalie find their pairs.  Noelle preferred a sparkly shoe style, of which only one in her size could be found in the entire store.  Natalie found a shiny mary jane that she liked with relative ease.  The biggest problem with the twins was that I needed a bear trap to keep them in place long enough to try anything on - the siren song of the Shoe Store Play Center was irresistible.  Conor kept complaining because it was taking too long.  Why can't all the girls be quick&easy, decisive shoppers like he is?

 Why can't you control your kids, you may ask?  I don't know.  Too many things going on all at once, too many balls in the air, too many fires to put out.  Just trying to accomplish what we came for, therefore redeeming the price of gas and the marginal cost of the trip to the mall.

After the shoe store, we had to stop into one or two others, and by then I'd had it.  The rest of the mall stores on the docket had to be scratched, and we headed to Kmart, which was a requirement since I had returns to make.  In Kmart, once again Regina proved herself unruly -  I will spare you the details.  Suffice it to say that I wished the floor would swallow me up.  However, it costs me sixteen bucks in gasoline to go to the mall, so I'm going to get what I went to get, goldarnit.

Throughout all of the shopping, Regina kept getting tireder and tireder.  And tireder.  Finally she stopped fighting it when we were about halfway home.  I was able to take her, still sleeping, out of her car seat and into the house.  I just didn't have the energy to haul her up two flights of stairs, so I poured her onto the couch while we got everybody in and headed towards bed.

After the bedtime routines, all was quiet, so I threw in a load of laundry and decided to order my circle picture prints and place my internet Christmas orders. That took an hour or two, a good, solid, satisfying block of time in which I was able to concentrate and knock off a huge portion of my gift list.  The kids only get one gift each from us, but this year my mom and my dad asked me to shop for the kids for them, too.  Anyway, the gift list is relatively short.  Big checkmark.  Feels good.

Then it was time for me to hit the sack.   I thought I'd go sleep on the couch, too, since I hadn't heard a peep from Regina, still downstairs, and I didn't want her to wake up frightened and alone.  I walked down the stairs in the dark, and flipped on a small light to check on her.

No Regina.

The house is all locked up, and she didn't cry.  There's no way she can unlock the deadbolts, and she didn't come past me.  So in my head, I know that she's here somewhere.  But still, my heart freezes for just a split second.

Then at the bottom of the steps, I see this:

 Guess the couch got too warm for her.  But she only made it five feet!

I cleaned my living room on Tuesday.  Today is Saturday, and it's still (mostly) neat and pleasant.  That's some kind of record.

October/November Stuff.

This year's Halloween costumes - which, incidentally, will probably be the last year they dress up for the "holiday" under our watch.  We are completely sick with how this holy day has been hijacked and satanized.  I only ever did it for the free candy, anyway.  Mini-rant over.

Natalie was an adorable and demure Mrs. Claus.

Clare, as zee French maid.

Ma belle Noelle.  Sort of a cross between a princess and Belle.

Regina was a clown, and Theresa was awesome as an ogre.  Her brothers dressed her up with tunic, green face, stout club.  It was great, but I didn't get pictures of either of them.  :(

Homeschooling.  Most days my school table is a sinkhole with no room for anything.  Um, guys?  The bookshelves are, like, three feet away.  

Another variation of the sinkhole, taken just moments ago.  They say a messy desk is a sign of creativity.  I hope a messy table is a sign of learning in progress. 

I can spy with my little eye several math worksheets, one vocabulary book, one grammar book, one reader, and one math workbook, plus a pile of stuff that has to be taken upstairs.  Oh, and THERE'S my purse.  Sigh.  I'll clean it off tomorrow.

I am perpetually cleaning off the school table, and refilling my poor, forgotten pencil apple.  

These kids think that pencils just magically appear there.

Here is a shot of a random school day.  Judging from the clothes, this must have been Halloween day.  Clare's doing math.

Noelle's playing with mosiac pieces, and Natalie's doing tangram puzzle cards.

Fun, but I also find cards and pieces on the floor for two days.

Brian, playing the Best. Logic. Game. Ever.

The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis/

On to November.  I spent a scant few hours this evening preparing my living room for Advent.  I promised the kids I'd bring out/put up one decoration per day for each day of Advent, starting this Sunday.  That way our house will slowly be getting ready to celebrate the birth of Christ, just like we will be.  

But decorating my house always means cleaning and rearranging, since I have to make room for a Christmas tree in an already crowded room.  We moved two chairs and a couch, relocated a shoe organizer, raised a shelf, eliminated some toys, dusted, and vacuumed every square inch.  It's such a pleasant place now.  I hope it lasts for longer than just overnight.  :-/

The Christmas tree will be placed in front of the windows that face the street.

We don't have nice furniture, or even matching furniture.  The green couch is breaking.  The wood couch and chair have cushion covers that are fraying.  But it's all comfortable (enough), and I can't see the use of buying nice furniture now, while the kids are so destructive young.  This means you, Brian.

The mirrors are mostly clean, at least for a few minutes.  What on earth was that woman thinking, putting in floor-to-ceiling mirrors AND light blue carpet?????  And there's that beastly wood stove that keeps me up so many nights.

We enjoy sitting in front of the wood stove and look for shapes and figures in the dancing embers.  Kind of like a winter version of "that cloud looks like a ...."  Plus, that couch is the toastiest place to sleep in the whole world house.

It's such a good feeling, though, when it's all cleaned up and put away.  I love to rearrange furniture.  The seating/lighting setup is better now, and we all sat downstairs to pray night prayers, then played a game where two kids were "it" and sat in the middle of the floor, blindfolded, listening for footsteps and reaching their arms out around them.  The rest had to try to sneak past them without being touched, until everybody was caught, and then two different kids had to sit in the middle.  It was hilarious, nobody got hurt, and it lasted at least half an hour.

It's amazing how they'll run and play in a clean room, but do their darndest to junk it up again as soon as possible.  One of the Great Mysteries of Life.

A Date With the Tooth Fairy.

Natalie came down the stairs this morning, screaming in panic, "Ahhh!  Ahhh!  My tooth feels funny!"  After a quick assessment, we realized that there was no injury involved - it was just a loose tooth.  Apparently nobody ever told this child that her teeth were going to fall out.  She quickly calmed down when we told her it was normal, and it didn't seem to bother her most of the day.

Just before bedtime, I heard her start crying upstairs - "My tooth!  My tooth!" - in a terrified, panicked voice.  Brian dashed upstairs to her rescue and brought her down to us, gave her a calming hug, and sat her on the couch to check out the problem.  She opened her mouth and he said, "Hey, kiddo, your tooth is gone."  "Really?" she inquired with an instant smile.  

Crisis over.

She may be Twin B, but she gets the prize for First Missing Tooth.

Good thing I have some cash on me.

And A Good Time Was Had By All.

Happy Thanksgiving!