The Wright Side of LifeThe family is one of nature’s masterpieces.

The beginning of our second “Daddy has an insanely complicated work project to be completed in an impossible timeframe” week started with a playdate at the Cook’s house.  The kids loved having the opportunity to dig through someone else’s playroom, and Lincoln discovered that he would make a very dashing pirate:

You cannot keep this kid away from food.  He can smell you making/eating it from another room and will come crawling as fast as his little legs and arms can bring him!

“Muffins??  Did I hear something about muffins?!  I’m sure it was a simple oversight that I do not have one in my mouth this very moment – don’t worry, Mom, I will just snag one of the girls’…”

For the next couple of days, everyone had snotty noses which I have to assume was allergy related as no one ever got really sick.  We kept ourselves entertained by playing the piano in our jammies…

…or in Scarlett’s case, playing the piano in her standard issue uniform (princess costume + hijab):

We did some cooking and baking which resulted in a good amount of oats on the floor (shocking), and I volunteered Sissy to clean them up.  Although initially reluctant, she really got into it since she was able to use our new little handy kitchen sweeper.  Jim bought this for me when our Dyson had to be sent in for repair (seriously, I must be the only person who can break a Dyson within 2 months of owning one – eesh!) and it has come in very handy.  The girls love using it, and Lincoln really likes trying to catch it!

One of the things I love about being homebound for a few days is being able to notice all of the funny little things that happen when we’re otherwise rushing around or out and about.  For instance, being able to snag a picture of Benito-cat locked in a 3-minute-long staring contest with a squirrel out on the deck – see him outside, right above the door handle?

Both of our cats our indoor-outdoor and pester me all day long with their cries to be let in or out.  I probably open that back door 40 times a day without even thinking about what I’m doing… which is why I literally screeched to a halt when I realized that Sparky was escorting a kitten into the kitchen!  I was baffled, but couldn’t help noticing that 1) the cat was a mini-Sparky in color and they shared incredibly similar markings, and 2) the cat was clearly following Sparky around.  My assumption is that the kitten is Sparky’s and maybe the mama cat needed a day off??  I don’t know, but it was truly bizarre and I was glad that both Gram and Mikayla were there to witness the proceedings.  I was able to get a picture of them downstairs, enjoying a mid-afternoon snack break.  They hung out for a while, but then the kitten wanted out and hasn’t been back since.  I’m sure we’ll see him around more as the weather gets warmer.

Papa came by one afternoon, and nothing made Sissy happier than to have a good snuggle buddy:

One night for dinner, I tried a new, easy Chicken Fettucini Alfredo and by all accounts it was really good!  (I still can’t eat very much “normal” food yet without it upsetting my system~)  Mikayla was trying to teach Linc how to eat pasta “Lady and the Tramp” style, but neither of the girls would partner with her, so the task fell to Grammie

Let’s see, here’s the original inspiration:

Yep, I’d say they pretty much recreated the scene

I know what you’re thinking, and no, we never were able to establish who was the Lady and who was the Tramp.

We also spent a LOT of time coloring, painting, stamp-padding (yep, just invented that verb-), and dressing up dolls with our favorite Melissa & Doug stickers:

(the above picture is awkward, but Mik snuck in and snapped it while I was mid-conversation with Scarlett; however, since I am hardly ever in the day-to-day pictures because I am the one taking them, I thought it was nice to show us together)

One of the highlights of the girls’ week was receiving a Valentine’s Day package from Aunt Jen filled with story books, activity workbooks, games, special cards and money!  Thank you so much Aunt Jen, you have no idea how much they relished opening up the stuffed envelope and going through each item one by one

By the end of the week everyone was feeling great and we were ready to get out of the house.  Fortunately, we had a fun homeschool group Valentine’s Day party to attend!  Everyone brought their decorated boxes, cards and candy were exchanged, pizza was eaten and best of all – cookies were decorated and consumed en masse

Scarlett showing off her monstrously over-decorated (and virtually inedible) heart cookie:

I giggle every time I see this picture.  This is SUCH a perfect Olivia-being-silly picture – we sure do love her!  She was so excited to show me her cookie:

The kids all loved the create-your-own-Valentine-magnet station!  Great job to Brandee and Brandi Lee and any of the other lovely SASCH ladies who were involved in organizing the event.

Lincoln was so good and patient while I helped the girls distribute our valentine’s cards, then made sure they had lunch…he noshed on a pizza crust while I supervised some cookie decorating and craft-creating, and again waited patiently to be fed his sweet potatoes.  But then he’d had enough and wanted OUT; here’s his pitiful look of “I’ve been soooo good, Mom! Please-oh-please let me out!”

…”so that I can dig through all of the cards and candy while the girls are distracted!”

The Saturday following my surgery was the end of our Recovery Week, and we celebrated by having our friends the Sahli’s over.  We had to postpone our original dinner plans from the previous weekend due to a rather ill-timed hospital trip, but in the end it all worked out to my benefit since they brought over dinner and all the fixings!  A minor organ being removed is well worth having Elizabeth’s home-made enchiladas and cornbread.

Scarlett and Victoria both love having Sam over to play, but Sissy *really* loves Sam;  Lincoln is so funny when another boy is in the house.  How can a little baby recognize gender distinction, and then realize “hey! it’s a boy, I want to follow HIM around!” at 7 months old??

Buddies:

I’ve been working on organizing our enormous cache of digital pictures from the last 11 years of our life together, and in doing so it has made it hard not to stop, go digging, and pull photos that remind me of any current ones I am editing.  For instance, when I look at the picture above of Scarlett, Sam and Victoria I think, “Aw, they’ll love having that picture to look back on in a few years when they’re bigger.”  Then I pulled this photo of Scarlett and Sam on the same sofa circa 2007 and realized Wow, they ARE older:

I am constantly amazed by how much alike and yet how different the kids look then as opposed to now.

The following morning, Mikayla was kind enough to get up with Lincoln when he decided to wake for the day at 6:30 so I could get a final solid night’s sleep before church.  I came downstairs and found them lying on a pallet in the living room enjoying some quality cousin-snuggle-time:

Although I know that all sibling relationships are not created equal, I have been a little troubled with Scarlett’s continuing lack of interest in Lincoln.  She’s not unkind toward him exactly, it’s more like he doesn’t exist… unless he’s bothering her.  It was such a radical shift from how she was toward Victoria (doting), and although she is sometimes sweet with him, I mostly feel as though she would vanish him from existence if she could :-/  And so I started praying about it – just really asking that God would work in her heart and help her love her brother more and more each day.  I also prayed for patience with her about this attitude, and I have to say there have been noticeable improvements.  She’ll now sometimes kiss Lincoln “good morning” and “good night,” and she’s started helping me change some of his diapers and whatnot.  Last week she even offered to feed him some baby food, and although it was somewhat short lived, I was still encouraged!

Lincoln absolutely LOVED having Scarlett feed him:

Me:  ”Okay, Scarlett, let’s not give him a tonsillectomy!”

Scarlett:  ”Well, I gotta get it IN THERE.”

Nana and Papa have started keeping DJ (Papa’s grandbaby) occasionally when Elishia needs help.  Once again, although the girls played really well with him, it was Lincoln who instantly gravitated toward the other boy in the house.

Lincoln is a total pacifier thief, which I find odd considering he HATES his.  He crawled over to DJ, who was playing so nicely and minding his own business and just popped it right out of DJ’s mouth and into his own!

DJ was very sweet about it and didn’t take advantage of his superior size to knock him into the wall like he could have

Jim is in a super busy phase at work right now, and although the kids miss him when he has to stay at the office late, everyone chips in to make a fun night with all us gals (well, and Linc!) at home.  One of our favorite things to do is to make a stage (read: spread a blanket) and put on ballerina skirts and dance.  Everyone gets involved:

We were so happy to get back to playdates!  During my recovery week, we basically holed up at home and we were ALL happy to visit with our friends.  The Phillips’ came over and we had a fun lunch and the girls played together while Lincoln and Judd spent equal amounts of time giving each other sweet kisses and trying to wrestle  I was also able to share with them the wonders of our new Teavana tea. Amanda really liked it, but Judd… well, he was a convert.

Loran brought over her crew and our combined total of 6 kids (!!) had fun running through the house and playing “jail” (read: we put a new gate on the lower portion of the stairs going up, and now everything north of the gate is “jail”).  Notice how Lincoln is all but sitting in Carter’s lap?  Yep, totally trying to get the ‘big boy’s’ attention:

Although not true 100% of the time, Victoria usually loves Lincoln to mess around on her and will lay down from time to time and just let him clamor up and over her.  Lincoln, of course, is all too happy to oblige

It’s good to be back to normal!

Grammie had gone to visit her brother (Uncle Bob) over the weekend, and when she returned on Monday she brought a special friend with her to show the girls.  Read the rest of this entry »

One Monday evening I decided that biscuits would be good with our dinner – now usually I am all about cheating and taking the easy way out:  buying frozen Pillsbury biscuits!  But when I went to pull them out of the freezer, I realized we were completely out.  No worries, I had two mommy’s helpers more than willing to assist in making some the old fashioned way (and by old fashioned I clearly mean using Bisquick). Read the rest of this entry »

Tuesday morning (the 16th), our friends the Cooks came over to play and visit.  It had literally been months since the kids had seen each other, and my girls were dancing by the door in anticipation.  There was much running, jumping, playing and general excitement before lunch, and afterward I was able to snag a few pictures while the crew was mostly stationary and busy painting. Read the rest of this entry »

Thursday morning we headed over to the Cook’s house to romp and play.  Loran had set up some paper on the floor for the kids to color/paint on… however Victoria was mostly interested in either 1) standing in the center of the art-work space, or 2) taking the tops off the paint-brush pens and turning the inside of her mouth blue:
Read the rest of this entry »

Memorial Day was spent taking it easy.  Jim went with the girls and I to do our big Publix shopping trip (they were having great BOGO sales, which when combined with coupons helped me save 73% off my total bill!) and when we got home, the girls were ready for their naps.  When they woke up, we decided to take them over to Toys R Us for an hour of browsing/playing before dinnertime.

Now, Scarlett has always been a little freaked out by dinosaurs – at this particular Toys R Us they had a huge display with a large robotic dinosaur that you could make roar by pressing a button.  She loved watching it… from a distance, and IF someone was holding her    I think that toy has made her a little leery of all play dinosaurs, and so when we saw this 2-foot tyrannosaurus in the education section, she pretty much scooted past it with a wide berth and moved right along.  Victoria, meanwhile, had a different approach and decided it needed kisses:

Maybe it wouldn’t look so fierce and scary if it just had some quality lovin’??   Soon, all the dinosaurs were coming over for their turn 

Seriously though, we are always so amused and interested with how quirky and unique they each are!  They both agreed that this empty display shelf was pretty awesome, and spent a lot of time “hiding” towards the back of it:

While we were at Target (with Grammie) a few days earlier, I had decided it was time to buy Scarlett a baby-doll crib and changing table.  She plays with her dolls each and every day and wants to be able to reenact all of the steps involved in taking care of them, which I just love    There was a combo changing table/little sink at Target that she really likes playing which, but it was $60, bulky and still didn’t have a crib.  I’d been pricing out some used items that were similar on Craigslist, but nothing was quite what I had in mind.  Since we were already at Toys R Us, I figured it would be worthwhile to look and see what they had and at least have some better search terms for continuing my Craigslist quest.  I looked and looked and found exactly what I had in mind – a set that came with a little rocking crib and a changing table too… and it was on clearance!!  I was so excited, but there was no price, so I snatched one of the employees and asked her to check for me and was so thrilled that it was only $23!  I hadn’t been able to find anything (even used) that cheap, so I went ahead and got it but didn’t tell Scarlett.

So that evening while I gave the girls a bath, Jim snuck downstairs and put the crib and changing table together and Scarlett was SO excited when she saw them!  It was so fun to watch her using them and just how much she enjoyed her new additions 

On Tuesday, Grammie and I took the girls up to DACKids and had a really fun time.  Grammie had never been, and of course Scarlett had her running through all the bounce houses and nearly injuring herself in a tunnel built for 5-year-olds!

That evening after dinner, the girls “reorganized” my tupperware cabinet – an activity Scarlett loved at Victoria’s age, and apparently something she has renewed interest in doing now that she has a partner in crime.

It’s worth noting that Victoria DID manage to climb up onto that second shelf inside the cabinet and wedged herself in there so good Jim had to go in after her!

By Wednesday afternoon, a WalMart trip had become necessary for a couple of baby items.  Grammie and Scarlett took off for the carousel first thing upon arrival, while Victoria and I went to grab a few essentials and then locate our friends Erica and Elizabeth who were there as well.  Victoria *loves* the new captain’s position she’s occasionally allowed to assume in the cart:

After catching up with the rest of our crew and chatting with our friends, we finished up in the produce section where we taste-tested some cherries and bananas:

I don’t know how it is that I ended up not taking any pictures that evening – possibly due to the fact that Scarlett was being especially testy and pushing the limits a LOT.  Aside from that though, we had a really good time stopping by Erica and Elizabeth’s to exchange some muffins (us to them) for some delicious homemade Indian food (them to us), and then inviting them to join us for a work-widow’s dinner at Moe’s.  We got to sit outside, eat Mexican and enjoy the beautiful weather!

Thursday morning we headed over to the Cook’s house for some fun with Carter, Sydney and baby Camelia.  Loran had some rice and beans for the kids to play with by pouring them into empty baby food jars, which was a very creative playdate idea:

I mentioned to Loran how weird it is that Victoria and Camelia always end us sitting THIS close to each other – almost on top of one another!  Camelia for her part has started crawling and pulling up to furniture all within the last week or so.  She’ll be running laps in no time I’m sure

The kids also got to help make their own rolls to bake for lunch.  Scarlett, Victoria and Carter mostly just ate huge chunks of the raw dough in between attempts to pretend they were punching it down and rolling it, but Sydney was very attentive to bringing her dough under subjection with her fist:

Scarlett realized this little mallet was on the table (for unrelated purposes) and decided banging on the dough and table would be much more fun than trying to shape it into little balls:

I typically dread the drive home from the Cook’s because both girls inevitably fall asleep, and for Scarlett a 20-minute car nap means she’ll lay down in her crib at home but not sleep anymore than that.  But pulling out every trick in the book (i.e., babbling nonstop at them, promising an extra “Super Why!”, etc.), I managed to keep both of them awake – and that is a stretch, truthfully they were more or less sleeping with their eyes open by the time we pulled into the driveway – and both girls had a great nap!  Nana came over that evening and had dinner with us and the girls loved that, as did I 

Monday morning we met up with the Cooks at a place Loran suggested called DACKids in Acworth, GA.  It was a little bit longer of a drive than I’d typically make, but this place was worth it!  Combining all the great elements of Kangazoom, Little Bear and then mixing in sand and air-propelled nerf machine guns??  Oh yeah  Read the rest of this entry »

It has been very daunting to get caught up with all of the pictures and videos since the week-long incident with Picassa!  Between tonight and tomorrow night I am going to try and throw up the highlight pictures from the past two weeks so we can stay more current, and keep the posts mostly to their actual days.  So without further ado, below is the chronicle of our “work week” from April 13-17. Read the rest of this entry »