It's a SIGN!!!

Sometimes I drive down the road and just laugh out loud at the signs that I see.  Other times I simply shake my head and wonder what the heck happened.

I've shared this before, but it's one of my favorites.
The best thing is that it was pointed at a 'T' intersection.

I think I hear my mom calling...every Wednesday morning.

Maybe you can help me out with this one from the bottom of a girly Sunday shoe.

I don't even want to know.

Thanksgiving feast--er, smoothie?

Seriously?

Another one?  What kid has FOUR missing teeth at once???

Oh.  Right.  This one.  And he looks pretty happy about it, too.

The Whole Tooth and Nothing But the Tooth...or, How Alex Saved the Day

I know what's on his Christmas list!

 I was hoping that the second one would come out soon.  Love it.  He looks like a jack o'lantern, and he even has a wispy, lispy 's' when he talks.  Super cute.  He pulled the last one out at the beginning of a potluck at church, of all places.  So we folded it in a napkin & put it in my purse so it wouldn't get lost.

I love this boy.

And this boy--THIS boy, with teeth issues of his own (pardon the terrible photo, I just wanted a before photo of his wicked crossbite)--he saved my bacon.  Big time.

You see, after Lee's first top front tooth came out (about a week before the 2nd), the Tooth Fairy sort of totally forgot to come.  She was doing other things, got distracted and forgot.  

Oops.

So when Lee woke up, he was disappointed.  But Alex--sweet, thoughtful Alex--told Lee about his own experience with that same sort of thing.  He had awoken to find his tooth still under his pillow, but returned later that morning to find that the Tooth Fairy had come while he was eating breakfast.  Amazing!

Lee came downstairs, and Alex put on his own glittery fairy wings.  He opened his piggy bank and pulled out two Canadian quarters.  (Whichever apprentice fairy is assigned to us is a little mixed up; she always leaves a quarter plus a coin from another country.  Sometimes as close as Canada, sometimes so far away it has a hole in it!)  Then he replaced the ziplocked tooth with his own money.

Absolutely, completely saved the day.  Mine...  Lee's...everyone's.

I love this boy.

TWO!!!

I love this boy.

In his defense, he did come to tell me.  "Mom, ay.  Mom, ay." (ay = egg)

He did this himself, by the way.

His first attempts at 'smiling' for the camera.

It's a package!!!

This boy loves to play with his "Daddat."

You see the incoming kiss?

He can do this forever.

Happiness.  Pure happiness.

 

We've come a long way.
Happy Birthday, sweet boy.

Angels or Abduction: you decide

This evening I was out by myself, attending the Church's semi-annual worldwide women's conference.  It was lovely and wonderful.

When I got home, however, the real lovely and wonderful started:  Cora called from the open upstairs window that she folded her laundry.  That right there, ladies and gentlemen, is a feat.  Like the-world-just-paused-a-little-turning-on-its-axis feat.  Lee was rinsing the dishes.

Of course, that did my Mama heart good, but it got better!  Riah told me that Alex and Cora sat there folding laundry (Alex finished his 2 days ago, so I have to presume that he helped with hers), having a deep, detailed discussion about Idon'tknowwhat.  I wish I did.

Then.  THEN I walked into the kitchen up next to Lee at the sink.  Abby, Miss LeeIsTheThornInMySide Abby was just behind him to the left, and said, "Look in the mirror--I mean the window reflection."  He did, and she proceeded to make a goofy face.  He glanced back at her, and she instantly morphed back to normal.  When he looked at the window again, she did it again--only more silly!  Again, he turned to her and the crazy face disappeared.  At this point I just had to laugh, spoiling the fun.  But Abby--ABBY--was playing--PLAYING--with LEE!!!!!  I made sure to point it out, and praise her up one side and down the other for that little tidbit of goodness!  I swear, the heavens opened for that 30 seconds.

One more:  Cora does everything to avoid housework, but after she excitedly told me about her laundry, she got the vacuum, "plugged it," and vacuumed her assigned parts herself.  While she was vacuuming, Alex was telling me that "Dad said if we got all our stuff done we could watch a movie."  And over the din of the Dirt Devil came Cora's cutie pie voice: "But not until I finish vacuuming!  And then I have to bathe."  Sure enough, after she dumped the vacuum--literally, it's still on the floor--she ran the bath, got in long enough to get wet, jammied herself and headed downstairs in record time.

I had a little chatty-chat with Riah about the miracle that is our home this evening, and we discovered a few factors.  Mostly it was a little of this, a little of that, and just a pinch of something else.  It had to do with expectations, parental play, then parental cooperation, praise, a group reward, and frankly, a large dose of angelic intervention.

Whatever it was, I'd like to bottle it.

August

Shel Silverstein wrote a little poem years ago about the 4th of July.  It goes something like

Oh

CRASH

my,

BASH

it's

BANG

the

ZANG

fourth

WHOOSH

of July!

WHEW!

And although last month contained exactly zero fireworks, this poem still sort of sums up my August. Except mine might look more like

I

DRIVE TO SEE COUSINS AND PICKUP DAD FROM THE AIRPORT

think

FAMILY IN TOWN

my

SUPER FUN REUNION IN CANADA

August

FOGGY BEACH DAY

was

BACK TO SCHOOL

slightly

BARF

full.

FLOP DOWN NEARLY DEAD

Hm.  I'm not quite as eloquent as Shel.

But no matter.  I've wanted to blog and blog and blog about my August, overloading the world with photos of our fun-filled month, but so many things have taken priority.  Like feeding children.  And washing their clothes.  And starting Music Time, homeschooling my preschooler, starting to babysit a little girl Wes's age, hold down the fort (quietly) while Riah starts a weekend-night shift LPN job (PS--we found out in Canadia that he passed his LPN test YAY YAY HOORAY!!!), cleaning, organizing, etc etc etc.

My one concern is that I'll forget.  I'll forget how in the "No Parking No Waiting in the Airport Drive" area of the airport, Abby unbuckled Wes, then he crawled out of his carseat and over his brothers in the back seat so he could hug his dad, who'd been gone for 2.5 weeks working on a project at his dad's house in Utah.  And how even though we weren't supposed to park or wait, that little boy kept hugging and hugging and hugging his daddy.

I'll forget how amazing it was to go to a family reunion full of people that I only know a little (thanks facebook for helping to establish commonality ahead of time) and be welcomed so thoroughly.  And how doubly amazing it is that there were so many people (1 Grandma, 5 children + 2 spouses, 19? grandchildren + 15? grandspouses, I don't know how many great grandchildren there were) and no crazy drama.  Just everyone wanting to have a fun time with everyone else.  PS--Riah is one of the grandchildren, and his Grandma is something else! 

Besides the agenda filled with model rockets, shooting stars, cup dancing, lake swimming, playing Pick, hiking, pool swimming, going to a hot springs, swimming in a different pool, boot camp twice, a slide show featuring twin belugas named My Thighs, immersing (not swimming) in a glaciery river, glow in the dark bowling and foursquare, sitting in pools fed by a different hot spring, getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, roasting marshmallows, sandcastle competitions, and Holy Cow I do not even know what else...

Yes, that really is Grandma back there in her wheelchair watching the fun.

Yeah, besides that, I love how Riah's mom's family is close-knit, yet welcoming and non-judgemental.  No gossiping, backbiting, icy stares or stupid exceptwedon'tsaythatword stuff.  Just fun.

I would, however, like to forget the 2 weeks that it took for my right hip and back to regain some sort of painless normalcy after I slept a very comfortable and sound sleep on a fully extended recliner at my brother's house.  It would seem that I am no longer 15.  Bah.

And I would like to have a do-over about the call from the friend who was guinea pig sitting to let me know that just a few hours prior, one of our cute sweet rodents had met her end after a little too rough of play.  Poor Chocolate. 

And how the friend graciously replaced her with another who is nice and cuddly and beautiful, but is very very mean to Honey, the remaining half of the hairy duo.  At least she used her really nice camera to take some pictures of them at one point during the week!

But I don't want to forget the weird foggy, slightly breezy but still warm day at the beach.  We went to the spot we usually do, but there was a big sandbar that blocked the waves until the tide got really high, at which point they simply spilled over the top, creating a perfect shin-deep pool for the kids to play in.  

So we ate, played, read and occasionally glimpsed the water through the fog.  It's back there, I promise.

Wes was amazing, for his first beach trip.  My Ninja Vanish boy defied all logic and stayed put.  He didn't move.  Well, he moved, but he didn't leave.  And that's the amazing part.  He's usually all over everywhere into everything he can reach.  But I guess he just needed my sister's new puppy, sand, a shovel, food, and whatever else within the vicinity of the cars.  Until near the end of the day when I showed him that there's water at the beach.

Cora, however, was another story.  She spent the day in her own little imaginative world.  She lay on her belly scooping wet sand with her feet, letting it plop onto her bum; hopped up and down the beach; crawled sea turtle style up from the water, over for a while, then up to the cars; and gave herself a lovely exfoliating sea scrub.  On her face.  With handfuls of sand.

It fills my heart with love and contentment just thinking of the way she played happily by herself with simply her creativity.  The older three were running around having way too much fun in the water, sand and grassy dunes with their cousins.  I sort of forgot to take pictures of them, and it's too much work to save my sister's facebook photos to my computer.  Lazy.

That was Saturday.

Then on Tuesday school started up again and all of a sudden, summer was gone.  I think next year I'd like 2 Augusts if you don't mind.  

Just no tummy bugs that hit the second day of school.

The Cutting Edge

Before Cora made her earthly debut, she went to the Utero Salon to get her tips frosted.

It's fuzzy, but you can still see.

Then when her newborn hair fell out (that part always makes me a little sad),  it grew in as fine, straight, soft-as-silk baby hair.

In time, a new batch grew in, and it was curly!  Like bouncy, boingy, fun to play with curly!

And we loved it.  

Nevermind the Ugly Christmas sweater.  It was a varied photo shoot for all the different grandparents.

But as it grew and grew and grew, I noticed that the top layers of her hair were straight.  I was afraid that we'd eventually lose the curl.

Boing! Boing! Boing!

Recently, though, I've pretty much had it with the snarls.  And the food getting in it.  And the split ends.  What "four girl" has split ends? 

Snarls after jumping on the trampoline?  Oh, yes!

When her hair was "done" it usually looked like this.

So last spring I mentioned to Hubby that it might be time for Miss Cora to get a haircut.  His response?  "Over my dead body!"  So it stayed over the summer...until now.

Ready for her very first haircut at 4 years, 10 months.

I think the goofball smile means she likes it.

Cute & Sassy hair on a Cute & Sassy girl.