Lavender Blue Days

in daddy's boots?

So--a few days ago I asked Lucy what she wanted for lunch and she said, "Hmmm..." and scratched the top of her head. Then she smiled and said, "I'm scratching my head! That means I'm thinking!" And she laughed a little. It was hilarious. I said, "Yeah, it does! How did you know that?" She said, "Chris taught me that!"

Then yesterday she said, "I think we should name the new baby Pedro." I said, "That's a cool name. Where did you hear that before?" She said, "Chris told me about it!"

She also does dances sometimes and says that Chris showed her how to do them.

It's pretty cute. I don't know if Chris really did teach her those things or not (Chris, did you?)--but she definitely knows that he's the guy to go to if you want to learn funny things.

--love,val

I think I found buddy town. We're going to take this place over.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaver,_Wyoming

Or if you don't want to get the deave, we could go to Beaver, Pennsylvania

"Hey Ruby, what did God do on the very first day?"

(Thoughtful pause-)
"He knocked the animals down"

So--I've been trying really hard to have a better attitude about February--especially since Becky gave me so many great suggestions.

Here are some of the things we've done:

--we made sock puppets! this was really fun. Lucy's is the white one--it's a skunk. She designed and cut out the whole thing--i just hot glued everything where she told me to. Ruby's is a bird. It looked a lot better right after we made it, but it hasn't held up so well with all the playing. She told me what kind of animal she wanted to make, and what colors to make everything.





--shawn and the girls have been making forts (becky suggested it) in the living room out of the couch cushions. They have a pretty good time doing this--but it always makes them sleepy, so we try to do it right before bed. oh--it makes them static-y too. (ruby says it makes them "stagitty.")





--we went to Sapora Playworld today. It's kind of like a giant McDonald's play land. The girls didn't really like this too much--i was surprised. Lucy got lost when she was way up inside of it and some older kids had to help her down. ruby thought the little kids area was too boring, and the big kids area was too scary. oh well. at least we tried it. i think they both would've had more fun if we had brought some friends with. If they knew some other kids there i don't think either of them would've been scared--but all the other kids that were there were either much older or much younger than either of them.

--I've been trying to do more homeschool-y activities with Lucy. This has actually been really fun. We've been trying to decide if we should send her to preschool in the fall or not. I don't know... what i really want is to keep her home at least until she is five/kindergarten age, but i don't know if that would be too much of a shock since it's kind of hard to find kindergarten that isn't full day. Going from no school to all day school seems like it would be hard. We had really planned to homeschool like maybe through 4th grade or so, but now i'm just not sure if that would be the best thing for us... i don't know. so anyway. yeah--we've been doing some homeschool activities and it has really been fun. so i guess we'll just see.

--i gave lucy some yarn the other day. it turns out that she really, REALLY likes tying things to other things. so--right now there is red yarn tied to just about everything downstairs. chairs are tied together and tied to some dinosaurs that are tied to a doorknob that is tied to a cabinet that is tied to the table that is tied to a tote bag that has a bunch of toys in it that are tied together.

i'm having second thoughts about the yarn. =)

--We're going to start having library day. Library day is every monday. Seriously. Rain or shine (but probably not snow) we will be going to the library. No more late fees. No more procrastinating it. The girls love it and so do I--it's just sooo hard for me to get us there once a week for some reason. I paid my $50 fine so now there is no excuse not to go.

Anyway. we are going to try to have a good End of February no matter what!

love. val.

Hey guys--I know it's been a while since I did an actual blog. things are crazy here. CRAZY. here is just a list of what's been going on.

1. The girls have major cabin fever. (not just beaver fever.) They are bouncing off the walls. They ask me several times a day when they can go back to the park to play. And they are bored to death. They hate all my ideas for craft/science/math projects and they are doing crazy things--like climbing on pianos (WHAT??!) and standing on the counter to sneak tastes of honey. Seriously. Every time I turn my back they are doing something completely insane.

2. Every single room in our house is a complete disaster. We've been redecorating our bedroom and somehow that made every other room explode. there is just stuff everywhere! And the worst part is that none of it has a place. We've had to rearrange a lot of things and we got rid of some dressers/got new dressers so nothing really has a place yet. I want things to be super organized so I'm trying not to just stuff all the junk in the new dressers, but if I don't figure out something soon--it is going to have to come to that.

3. Ruby insists on being called "Diego Go." She's seen "Go, Diego, Go!" a couple of times now, and she loves it. She's always pretending to rescue animals and all that. Well--for the last three days she hasn't let me call her Ruby at all. She won't respond to any question unless I call her Diego Go. I'll say, "Ruby, do you want some juice?" and she'll say, "I just Diego Go." and she won't answer unless i say, "Diego Go, do you want some juice?" It was funny for a while, but now it's really starting to get on my nerves. I named her Ruby!! How long is this going to last??

4. The neighbors keep banging on my door and yelling at me for parking in front of their houses! It's been snowing a lot here, and we are supposed to do that even/odd thing--we park on the even side of the street on the even days, and the odd side of the street on the odd days. anyway--every time I park somewhere other than right in front of my own house, someone comes over to yell at me!! I've always considered us to be really good neighbors--we're not drug dealers, we're not loud, and we aren't letting our house fall to ruins. We don't even have any annoying dogs! I mean--what more could you ask for in this neighborhood?? I guess the neighbors don't look at it that way...

5. I had to quit women's Bible study at church after being told that my kids were going to grow up to hate Jesus and hate me and that I am disobeying God's commands because of the way I parent! blah. I don't really feel like going into details about it right now, but I wanted to mention it so you could see how awkward things have been at church lately.

6. I am not prepared for the new baby at all! I feel like I haven't done any planning, or organizing--the house is a mess--our car doesn't fit 3 carseats--we don't have names picked out--ruby is crazy attached to the crib and I was expecting to have her on the bottom bunk by now--and I feel like I haven't had any time to prepare mentally or emotionally for having THREE kids.

So--yeah. I feel like things have been really chaotic lately. And dumb. And I am soooo ready for summer. And I miss all my friends who live far away. And I wish I had an attached garage. And some chocolate.

love ya, val

It's cabin fever. The whole family's flippin out. I feel like I'm a pretty good sport, working outside in this foot and a half of snow drifts, but February never ceases to end my patience. After weeks of December, weeks of January, and half of February, we only have 3 more months of terrible weather before it's 90 degrees out. Any ideas for fun stuff to do in the middle of February? Apparently, eating half a box of chocolates was on my list. Happy V day.

Shawn

Not really sick, they were just talking about the beaver fever.

I think the girls have the Beaver Fever

Lucy: Axlebass (bass like fish)

Ruby: Meenomonomeenomo

I asked Lucy and Ruby what we should name the new baby

Ruby said Alpha, which was pretty cool.

Lucy said adiaper, which I still require some convincing on.

Shawn

Oh--here is another one i wanted to put up. It looks like an ad for the gap or something. (Shawn took all of the pictures, by the way.) I can't believe how well all the kids got along over the weekend. It was just so cool.

I also realized that we've seen a bunch of buddies since I got my camera, so i'll try to post some of those pictures in the next few days, too.

love ya,
val

Sorry, guys. I haven't blogged in a long time. Here are some pics of our weekend! We had a great time! Things have been so stressful lately--it was awesome to just spend some time with some buddies.

love, val