Her Dream Haircut

Think she's happy?

She's wanted her hair short for years.

She finally got it that way she's wanted it.

Rose thinks she's nuts for cutting off her hair, but she loves her anyway.

Anna's 9th birthday letter

Wild, wild sunflower child Anna,

You make me happy. You are sunshine and you are thunderstorm. You are giddy and you are silly. Your sense of humor has developed and I'm beginning to wonder if you might not be destined for a career in stand-up comedy. You can seriously get on a roll!

Your heart has softened so much this year. So much less of the stubborn and so much more of the sweet. You say that you got saved this year at the patriotic concert at Gran's church. I don't know exactly when God changed your heart to flesh, whether then or when you first told me that you belonged to him many years ago, but I do know that He has definitely begun a good work in you, and I so love to watch His work in you progress toward that day of completion!

You learned to ride your bike all in one day. A nasty fall almost made you quit. But you're no quitter. You want to ride the best, climb the highest, and get the answers fastest. I love your sense of adventure and your competitive streak.

You've become quite crafty. Crocheting, knitting on your loom, sewing your own Barbie clothes, and always a creative artist. I want to do more needlework with you this year. It's going to be awesome.

Dolls are big this year. Your own first American Girl doll! Bought from a nice lady on Craigslist with your own money. Felicity has been a good friend. And today, the long awaited Hearts for hearts doll, Consuela. I'm going to be very sad when you're too old for dolls, but for this year, I think I'm safe.

Your woodland fairy party was wonderful. I love how you have very specific opinions and ideas when you're asked about things. I make myself crazy sometimes for asking, but you are so thrilled when your visions come to life. The best part of the party, though, was seeing you with all of your sweet friends. You've always been such a people person, and I'm glad that these special little girls value you as much as you value them. I look forward to lots more girl parties and lots more girlfriend time.

You are so thoughtful. You like to make surprises for people. I loved all of the little surprises that you made for my birthday. You want to help people feel better. I love your empathy.

You don't like to be too girly. You like to consider yourself a tomboy. But you love a new skirt or dress - just as long as it's comfy. And you do have a deep appreciation for a real haircut. You were so excited to cut off your long hair to a more medium long length. And it really does look great. We're long overdue. I'll take you with me soon. Promise. Oh, but one more thing. Keep your earrings in! If you read this again, and you're fifteen, and your holes have closed, and you're not happy because you want them now and have to be re-pierced, this is my proof that I TOLD YOU SO. Soooo, Anna girl, put in plain little earrings, if you must, but leave them in.

You are an amazing auditory leaner - and what a memory! You can give me back all sorts of detailed information from lessons I read to you (even from days before!), and you can answer all the questions Ethan misses. And you've pretty much caught up with his Scripture memory stride. You're doing great with that this year! Just no monotone. Let the meaning sink into you. Because this will be the most important thing you remember. I want you to memorize as many verses as your mind can hold. You've just about got Philippians in the bag. Can't wait to see what we'll learn next.

The piano. Don't know what lit the spark again. Maybe that competitive streak not wanting Rosie to pass you by. But either way, let's not let it die. I want to figure out how to use your ability to learn by ear to your advantage, but in the meantime, keep practicing! Let's get out of the kiddie books and into the real stuff. Be my pianist. You can do this. Then maybe we'll get to that violin...

Be nice to your sister. You broke her heart by not inviting her to your big girl friend party. But I'm pretty sure she'll forgive you. You've been friends for a long time. She'll be your friend when you're a mommy. She'll probably even babysit your kids. I bet you'll talk on the phone, or facebook, or whatever there is then, all the time. So try to forgive her for being so annoying sometimes. I know how much you love being Ethan's sidekick and how easy you find it to love cute little Bella no matter what trouble she causes. So try to remember how lovely it can be to have a Rosie girlfriend that you can share a room with, and holidays, and vacations, and maybe even your barrettes... One day you'll know I speak the truth. Listen to your mother. "For they will be a gracious ornament on your head and chains about your neck" - remember that?

Sweet Anna girl, I could write about you forever. You are precious to me. I love you. I value you. I enjoy you. I am so very glad that you're mine.

Loving you lots and lots,
Mommy

Sneaky

Anna Kate, whose birthday is April 1, just handed me a paper, saying, "these are my fears". It reads as follows:

fires

that my mom wont Get my Doll on time for my Birthday

that I'll have a Bad jream

*****

Think she wants me to order her birthday present soon?

Illness and The Quotable Kids Roundup

It's been a crazy couple of weeks. Last Wednesday afternoon the two older kids came down with a fever/body aches/turns into a nasty cold after a few days virus. Rosie got it Saturday, and Bella came down with it on Tuesday.

Meanwhile Brian was working 12 days swamped in projects that served to make his fibromyalgia stay at a completely hideous level, so if he wasn't at work he was completely crashed here at home. Now I know what house arrest is like, unless you count Walgreens runs for more medicine and tissues or midnight trips to WalMart.

We did make it out to enjoy the gorgeous early spring weather for a short picnic on Valentine's Day, but it kind of backfired as toddlers and picnics really aren't the best combination, and the feeling better kids of the morning all came home moaning. Rosie suggested that we reschedule Valentine's Day because it didn't feel like Valentine's Day.

Which, considering that Brian's mom also had emergency surgery for a ruptured appendix this past Friday, and is of the same opinion, may just happen. We did, however, do the best we could on the actual day, but I was seriously outnumbered by sick people.


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Now for the funnies. If you're my friend on facebook, you can disregard the rest of this post because I type them in there first, but I have to save them here for posterity. Blogger better last for posterity...

February 13 -

After having a fever and body aches all day yesterday, Rose ended the day by saying, "This was a wonderful day, I got to watch lots of movies, eat yummy food [like frozen yogurt tubes], and take my favorite medicine!"

She then went on to have fever induced night terrors two nights in a row and she wasn't as easygoing about her holiday being spoiled the next day, though. She'd been sick Christmas day too, and I think she was more than a little bummed to be sick on a holiday again. :^)

February 14-

Anna: Where's Daddy?
Me: He just went to work.
Anna: It's Valentine's Day!
Me: You don't get off work for Valentine's Day.
Anna: Why?? That's rude!
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Ethan had a very similar, though less shocked, reaction.

And today:

First a discussion on a dinner dish morphed and Rose elaborated, "But I don't like it because it has beans, and I don't like beans. Except for chocolate beans - those are the best beans!"

Then later:

I was trying to figure out how and who might be able to make it to the missions conference tonight that we've been planning on and preparing for.

Me: I wish I knew what to do.
Ethan: Don't ask me. I wish I could give you advice, but I don't have any experience being a mother.

He continued on about how there were probably mothers at church that had experience -why don't I call one of my friends - and besides half of my friends were grandmothers, they had children and grandchildren which was double experience and there were probably even some that had great great grandchildren and that would be a lot of experience!

I want to live in Alaska when I grow up.

Ethan: I want to live in Alaska when I grow up.

Me: You just said you were tired of ice.

Ethan: Yeah, but all those beautiful sights and camping.

Me: I think you could do more camping here.

Ethan: Sarah Palin goes camping like once a week.

Anna: Sarah Palin's lived there her whole life. She hasn't found a warmer place.

Icy Day

Anna Kate: Can we have our dolls outside? We're playing Antarctica!

Daddy's Strong Today!

This was Anna's joyful deduction as she watched Brian and Bella dance around the living room to his new favorite song. He lasted a few rounds on this cold day in December, and that is certainly reason to rejoice!

A Believer

Ethan: "Mom, doesn't Santa only deliver to children?"
Anna: "No! He delivers to believers. People who don't believe get coal. I don't get coal; I'm a believer...(quickly turns into the Monkees melody)."

Turkey making

Today, Anna helped me mix the aromatics for the turkey, then I offered to hold the turkey up while she stuffed the cavity.

She began, then, "EWW! I touched the turkey! Eww! I touched the turkey! That is so gross. I'm dropping this stuff in one at a time...I don't care.. so that I don't have to - Eww! I touched the turkey!"

Rose murmurs in the background, "Why are you whining about something you're going to eat?!"

Botany

"Me and Ethan are going to be investigators today and investigators stick together." - Anna Kate on the monocot and dicot hunt they embarked on with nature journals in hand.

Owl Day

I've missed doing themed school days. It's a lot harder to fit in when multiplication and writing and so many other things second and fourth graders need to know overshadow the simple joys of early school days. We did a lot of these days when Ethan was younger, now I try to squeeze them in when I can, especially for Rosie, who ought to be doing fun things for kindergarten.

Sooo... Ethan is rather obsessed with owls right now. They are his favorite animal and he's really nature-obsessed anyway. He constantly is working on decorating his room to look more like nature with stuffed animals, vines, and other natural things. He recently confiscated two fans that I was getting ready to put in the attic and positioned them in his room so that he could simulate windy days.

When the National Wildlife Federation magazines came for October and Your Big Backyard was completely owl themed and Ranger Rick had an owl feature too, I knew that it was time for an owl day. So yesterday, we did our usual math and breakfast Scripture reading, then launched into our theme.

First we watched this video of Owl Moon:



Next Anna Kate read us Snow Moon, its wonderful illustrations making her giddy with delight.

Then I read Baby Owl's Rescue, and Rosie read the simple Owls Live in Trees.

They watched a Birds of Prey video, then read their NWF magazines (wow! didn't know all that cool owl stuff was there!).

Ethan read The Life Cycle of an Owl.

They watched Animal Profiles: Owls (sorry most of these videos are on the Discovery Education member website that our state pays for) and National Geographic Kids Wild Detective: Night Owls.

Then we grabbed a quick lunch and headed to a local college campus for the kids to ride their scooters (we've been trying to get out as many days as possible for some exercise) and to collect and observe different types of leaves for our botany studies. We left the scooters to take a nature trail that turned out to be at least three times longer than I'd expected. Ethan's leg hurt, and sleepy Bella was cranky and bit heavy in the Moby, but Anna Kate kept exclaiming that it was the best nature walk ever as we found wildflowers and leaves and pincones.

Not long before we made it back to where we'd started we found these gorgeous trees. Look for Rose at the base of the tree for some size perspective:

We made it back home and put Bella to bed and the children still had happy hours to spend outside with their friends riding scooters, playing basketball, and enjoying the tree house. We topped it off with Rose's favorite barbeque pork riblets and some owl cupcakes (cupcake topper template here, addtional party details and products here.)

We like to do bat watches, particularly when driving home at twilight. Night before last, we had a bat watch and saw several, but Rosie kept missing them. She was particularly distressed as Anna counted off "14, 15, 16" (I only saw two.) She never could see any, so tonight as darkness fell, I swooped her up from her chair at the table and carried her across the street to the field and we watched and waited.

*

We were finally rewarded by a bat swooping right over our heads! Rose was a happy girl.

*

This morning she said to me, "I loved Owl Day - can we do it again today?" I promised a Bat Day soon.

Sweet Summertime

Cub Scout camp

Ethan's really struggled with some health issues lately,

but despite extreme heat that week and having to miss some of the camp,

he hung in there and was able to still enjoy most if it.

This is Bella's version of water skiing

Father's Day

JULY FOURTH WEEKEND

We decided to buy our own fireworks this year. I'd been given some extra money

as a gift and decided that it was a good way to spend it. We had a great time

setting them off and enjoying the neighbors' as well.

Anna Kate went to Little House on the Prairie camp.

She picked blueberries and peaches, made a corncob doll,

cooked, fed farm animals, made friends,

and came home every day just bubbling over with delight,

and saying that she wished she could just live there on the farm. :^)

Kiddisms (copied from this month's Facebook statuses to be preserved for posterity)

Rose has decided that we should just eat blueberries, broccoli, and panacakes for every meal. (Not necessarily all at the same time.) Then after being happily surprised to find a dinner that included all things that she liked, she said that she forgot to add meatballs, and wice, and cawwots to the list. (See Gramma, she does eat more than just peanut butter and jelly!)

Me: Rosie, you're crazy.
Rose: No, I'm not! I'm good and beautiful.

Anna, Rose, and I were playing memory. Rose won with five, Anna had three, and I had two. They proceeded to declare pace standings.
Anna: Yeah, you're first, I'm second, and Mommy's third.
Rose: No, you're first loser.

Anna: "My eye, matey. That's how pirates say, 'me too'."

Anna's Mr.Ocax

We read Poppy as one of our read-alouds last month, and this is Anna's impromtu drawing.

Warning: Killer Roses

A few minutes ago, Anna Kate started yelping that she's stepped on one of my roses. My roses? I'm trying to figure it out as she continues yelling about her foot. Did she bring a branch in from the rose bush in the backyard yesterday and it suddenly appeared on the floor? No, she tells me, it's from those roses. The roses from my Valentine bouquet. And sure enough, I pick up from the floor a long stemmed pink rose whose petals immediately fall off in bud form. Who took this rose out of the vase? No one.

So, after she finished howling, Anna Kate sat at the table to eat something. I told her that she better watch out for the roses. That since no one had dropped that other one on the floor, they must be killer roses. They might jump out at any moment and throw themselves on the floor for unsuspecting victims to step on.

She said that she'd heard of that on a commercial. A commercial? Yes, she said, don't trust roses that come in a box. You don't know what they might do. Give a bouquet yourself.

Now we know.

Southern Snow - A Rare Treat

From Three Weeks Ago: This is Anna Kate standing in flurries excitedly exclaiming, "I have snow on my finger!" (swiped from the bag of mulch.) That was pretty much it for that time.



Yesterday and today were our annual Ice and Snow days for the year. that's about how often we get a snow that you can play in. and it was a good crusty snow this time, perfect for sledding.

that's how far the sled would go

my family loves the way the ice molds, then

comes off the magnolia leaves in imprinted sheets

Anna Kate handed Bella a piece of ice, which

she thought was very neat for about one minute -

then she started yelling about how could it

made her little fingers!