"You Spa"

After spending the last week slaving like dogs at the new house, I found a note left by Abizella inviting me to make an appointment at "You Spa" for a much needed treatment. I quickly made an appointment for that very night, exactly 1 week after the back breaking labor began.

She had 5 items on the menu for the evening, beginning with cucumber treatment for my tired eyes. 

...and LC's tired eyes too. He was a major fan.

Next came my chilled banana and honey facial mask. 

While a little on the chunky side, this was absolutely my favorite part. It was so cool and refreshing! My skin was super smooth afterwards too!

Next came the mani-pedies! Now that LC knows about nail polish his toes will never go without glitter again!

Next up on the agenda was the foot spa treatment followed by the hand massage. This is what left Tadpole in a puddle. He demanded that "You Spa" become a weekly institution.

Then after the 5-point 5 star treatment Abz pulled out all of the stops with her ultimate surprise! A yogurt-banana-granola parfait! She couldn't find real granola so undeterred she grabbed a Nutri-grain bar and a cheese grater and made her own. It was scrumptious. We all agree. "You Spa" is here to stay! I love my creative an thoughtful daughter!

Burning the Midnight Oil

This is our nightly view. Abizella's bedroom window is situated across the patio from the back hallway. When I go lock the door before I turn in for the night I see my little book worm reading by the light of the closet. We are moving at the end of the week. I am going to miss this view. Fortunately we are taking the girl with us, and her books too!

Sucky Finger Sonnet

The other day I woke up to the sound of Jaws humming to himself while slurping on his fingers. His happy tune was music to my ears. One day I will want to break him of the sucky finger habit, I'm sure. I wanted to post this so I can remember how he just ooozes with adorableness while he hums and sucks himself into blissful sleep and bright eyed wakefulness. I love my Toad baby.

Caught, Green Handed

I went to tuck in the kiddos on St. Patty's Eve to find that I already had a pot of gold! 

Tadpole spent the entire night curled up in a little ball in his "pot". 

He said he was, "the best pot of gold ever!" I couldn't agree more!

The Leprechaun wreaked some serious havoc, to our already disarrayed house, but at least he left us candy!

Abz got up early, surveyed the scene, snatched the candy wrappers from the garbage and found me coming out of the bedroom. She shook her head knowingly and said, "I caught you green handed!" I put on my most innocent expression and she said, "Nice try." She held up the candy wrappers and said, "I've been sneaking downstairs at midnight for a handful of chocolate chips all week. I noticed the candy bags in the same cupboard. I dug them out of the trash can this morning." I congratulated her on her detective work and told her if she could keep the secret from the little boys she could be the Leprechaun next year. She liked this idea! I told her we could let Superkid in on the secret too. She brought him downstairs. I said, "Abizella caught the Leprechaun. She caught me green handed." Abizella said, "Ya! I told you- there's the Leprechaun! (pointing at me)" Superkid looked bewilderingly and said, "Where?!" I raised a guilty finger. Instead of acknowledging the years of deception his gaze followed my finger and he looked up to the ceiling and more emphatically said, "WHERE?!" Sadly, I explained that I was the Leprechaun. He was so disappointed, even though I told him he could be a Leprechaun next year. Completely bummed, he said, "Next year I hope we catch a REAL Leprechaun!" We'll cut him some slack he is 6 books deep into Harry Potter right now. 

Tadpole asked how the Leprechaun turned the toilet water green. I asked him, "How do you think?" He yelled, "Gross!" and ran to check the milk. Fortunately we ran out pigging out on Dad's chocolate chip cookies the night before!

Here are our lucky Shamrock recipients...

And our St. Patty's Day objector. 

His favorite color is red and no amount of pinching could convince him that green was good!

Leprechaun Prep

We take St. Patty's Day seriously. 

Mom dolls us up in our finest green and wrestles us for a festive pre-St. Patty's day pic. 

It's hard work. While we are not always co-operative, we will thank her in the years to come when we pour over our happy childhood memories that she has lovingly recorded on the blog.

Seriously, it would be a crime not to capture this little green cutie!

But on to the fun stuff. Leprechaun trap time.

Or in Little Chief's case, Leprechaun binocular time!

If we capture the little rascal this year, we are prepared with a list of our wishes.

Superkid wants a horn tail dragon egg so he can raise his pet from an hatchling. He is pretty confident he will capture the little guy as he is preparing to stoke a fire every night to warm his little egg, just like a mother dragon breathes fire on her eggs to keep them warm.

Abizella wants a unicorn that will love her to pieces, PINK, of course.

Tadpole wants a Pokemon, Poke-ball and Pokemon guidebook so no one can win a card battle against him again. Ever.

Little Chief says if he catches a Leprechaun he is going to free him so he can play with him. 

He asked if we don't catch one that we just buy one from the store.

Finger's crossed. Good luck running the gauntlet tonight little Leprechaun!

Mamma Mia!

He calls me Mamma Mia. It melts my heart. 

We had a Mamma Mia dance party a few days ago. Now he sings the chorus to me too. 

About a hundred times a day Little Chief says, "Mamma Mia, I wub you!" 

Sometimes he adds, "Now give me your best hug and kiss!" 

and his little puckered lips move in for a smooch. 

I love spending time with this one.

That's What It's All About!

Happy Chicken Pot Pi Day! 

I obviously put a lot of time thinking about the perfect circle edibles to celebrate the day. 

This one was a winner.

This one only looks that way. Mini-banana cream Pis! Right?!

Actually a Pi Day Fail. Stinking Pinterest. It's like I can't learn.

Superkid helped gobble up the couple good ones... but the day begged for another treat.

Pi day fail brownies.

All food aside, truly the beauty of the day is having Abz wake up with wonder and amazement in her eyes, run downstairs with all the joy of Christmas morning, grab a scratch pad and demonstrate her Pi knowledge by calculating the circumference of a circle, all on her own volition.

That's what it's all about.

We Did It!

It's a miracle! 

We bought a house in our dream town that actually will accommodate our family. 

If you've ever lived here, you will understand the enormity of the miracle. 

It is the fruition of 12 years of dreaming. We feel absolutely blessed. 

That being said, there have been many occasions that we've imagined the past owners lying on a lounge chair in Florida laughing their guts out that they've unloaded their dumpy house for a fortune. But it is our dump now, and we're thrilled. We will grow to love it more and more as our family grows up and fills it with memories.

For now, the threshold has become a place where we wait with baited breath to see if our labors in the de-stinking of the place have paid off. While the previous owners swear that they weren't smokers (just incense burners) our sensitive Mormon sniffers know better. 

The kids are in heaven. 

They run around like maniacs casting spells on each other (Harry Potter's influence) until they crash.

They have also spent some time creating art for the bare walls. 

We're all excited to make this place our own.

The previous owner has only stopped by 3 times so I think she is handling the house separation well. The first time was to give us (another) guided tour of the place. Then she was back to to tell us to keep an eye out for the friendly chipmunk she be-friended. Then again to haul away the busted lawn chair that was on the front lawn. Everything's going to be alright. She boarded a plane for Florida yesterday.

It's officially ours!

MIA

I have just been sitting here congratulating myself on a job well done catching up the blog. 

Then I realized that Superkid has barely made the news. I wandered through the house looking for him and found him where I always do... at least for the last couple of weeks. On his knees by the little CD player deeply enveloped in the Harry Potter series. I just got this zoned out gaze in my direction. I guess we'll catch him in another few days. Yesterday he told me he was in Harry's fourth year at Hogwartz and it is all going too fast. He lamented that he didn't know what he would do when it was over. 

I'll be happy to see his pretty face again!

Holy Ghost- Check!

Well, we can check the Holy Ghost off the list of religious topics for LC to understand.

After a lesson on the topic he told me, "I can feel the Holy Ghost." I nodded approvingly. It was his first spiritual insight. He went on to explain, "The Holy Ghost is at church. He is not here on the couch. He is upstairs stealing all of our clothes." I texted his primary teacher to congratulate her on a lesson well taught and told her she still had a few details to iron out. She told me that during the lesson he kept saying, "The Holy Ghost is stealing all of my toys!"

Little Chief has since continued to ponder the Holy Ghost and his presence in our home. Once at the top of the stairs he paused before coming down and said, "Oh there you are Holy Ghost!" Another time he asked me to blindfold him so he could feel the Holy Ghost. I did and then like a little evangelist he wandered through the kitchen yelling, "I can feel the Holy Ghost! I can feel the Holy Ghost! You are so fast! Mom I just feeled him!"

Perfect.

FHE Double Trouble

Abz's number one complaint about family home evening is that unless she is in charge of the lesson, she doesn't get to contribute to her fullest potential. Last week her scripture sermon extended well past our collective tolerance to sit still. When she started handing out questions we had to re-emphasis the brevity of the scripture portion of FHE.

This week was Abizella's bliss. I promised her that the next time I had the treat assignment she could do it because I made the mistake of buying a cake on her week. It was her great fortune to also have the lesson assignment. The theme for both was the magnificent horse (you know because the 2000 Stripling Warrior story is all about the horses- at least in her version). She baked the cake and frosted herself... actually not by herself, she had the assistance of her young apprentice that is strikingly similar to her.

After delivering a chalk board sermon on the 2000 Stripling Warriors and quizzing us on the attributes of the story, her little shadow LC jumped up and delivered an equally impressive sermon on fish lost in the city and Goldilocks. He finished by drilling us on the finer aspects of the story, pronouncing, "Correct!"after our responses.

I have a feeling the horse head cake mold will be rearing his head again really soon. And Abz (and co.) is now officially in charge of all further cake decorating!

Bilingual

I asked Tadpole to go into the TV room and grab Little Chief for me. He came back and reported that LC wasn't coming. I asked why not and Tad shrugged and said, "I don't know. I don't speak Joeish."

If You Can't Beat 'em

Jaws has become a little Houdini when it comes to child restraints. 

He can't stand them. 

It was nice to see him go with the flow on our recent trip to Target.

He's Officially In!

The big boys let Jaws play too. I'm melting.

School Projects

Abizella decided she wanted a little extra credit so she created a diorama of the solar system and a report on Venus. For the report she asked Pops to print off some information about Venus. Pops handed her a stack of papers to read. Later he found that she had added a title page to the stack (shown below) that said, "Venus by Abizella". Pops realized that instead of writing her own report she had just tagged the title page to the stack of paper he had given her.
He explained that this was plagiarism. 

She shrugged and scratched out her name and wrote, "by somebody".

Superkid has to memorize all of the States, State capitols and abbreviations. He enlisted us all to help!

He also had to do a report on the book A Bridge to Terabithia. 

He decided to illustrate a summary of the book which he named, "Abridged to Terabithia". As part of the report he needed to give the book a rating, which he gave 4 and 1/2 stars. We usually snuggle up together to read books for his class. He pulled ahead of me and got to the end of the book before me. I asked him what was going on in the book and he swallowed hard and said he didn't want to talk about it. I gave him a hug. I was relieved we didn't read it aloud, I cried like a baby on the train when I read the last two chapters. I give it 5 stars, this girl likes a little drama.

Caveman School

Abizella is easily reading a book every day. It is difficult to keep her flush with fresh reading material even with a trip to the school library and the town library every week. Last week she brought home a new series from one of her favorite authors, Dav Pilkey. The books are about the adventures of Ook and Gluk, two cavemen. She had the whole family in stitches reading out loud in cave man talk. So funny that she opened her own school to teach us this hilarious language. 

She even incorporated rug time. 

Her valiant pupils enthusiastically repeated every silly phrase she grunted.

Abz has all the best ideas!

The Secret Is Out

Pops owed Tadpole. He started making chocolate chip cookies for dessert when it was Tadpole's turn to pick dessert. In Pop's defense, we all choose his chocolate chip cookies. So we promised Tadpole that the next time Pops turn came around, he could pick. It was a long time coming. By the time the big day came, Tad's sites were set high. Only cinnamon rolls would right this wrong. Tadpole dropped the bomb during Sunday School and Pops was his teacher. Pops agreed. Silly Pops, don't you know we only have cinnamon rolls on conference Sunday? 

Much to his credit, Pops took the lead in the preparation. 

Now the secret is out. It is possible to make cinnamon rolls without spending the whole day at home. The good thing is that I've allowed 2 more Toads into the circle of trust so I am no longer the sole person who knows how to prepare the delectable treat!

Pops' Favorite Shirt

Little Chief is growing like a weed. He is nipping at Tadpole's heels for height and may have him beat on girth. This week I pulled out the size 5 clothes bucket because his pants were painfully small. The happy news is that Pops' favorite shirt is back in circulation!

Re-Count

Spring is in the air. It reached 40 degrees today. 

This morning when Tadpole jumped into bed with us he and I were chatting about all the great things we were going to do when the weather warms up. 

I said, "Tadpole, this will be the year that you learn how to ride a bike without training wheels, after all you are now 6 yrs. old!" 

Tad scrunched up his face dubiously and said, "I demand a re-count."

Show Pony

This kid puts on a good show. Every week at church, I hear the people behind us snickering as Jaws runs through his portfolio of tricks. He engages his audience by making eye contact and then tipping his head to the side as if to say, "I am the most angelic creature on the planet." Then he rolls into clicking his tongue, clapping his hands, waving and my personal favorite (and absolutely impossible to photograph) he squeezes his fists, raises his eye brows and flashes the goofiest grin you have ever seen. This is where the snickering becomes audible. This week he added kissing to his bag of tricks. It is actually a hybrid of an open mouth kiss and a click, but irresistible.

We just couldn't have a family without Jaws.

The Bear Went Over the Mountain

This kid's desire to climb simply can't be satiated. It started the minute he began to crawl. He wanted nothing more than to climb up the stairs over and over and over again. By the time he started to walk it was a full time job to keep him from cracking his skull in two. It was shortly after Halloween, so the Halloween buckets stayed past their normal rotation to be road blocks to the stair case. The funny thing is while our skilled climber could scale objects as big as the Halloween bins, he never tried to climb the bins, a bit of the baby elephant syndrome.

He did however did bridge to the bins!

Even if Mom and Dad did block off the best climbing areas, 

it makes a kid feel civil to be able to climb up in his own chair to relax.

But most of his climbing is fueled by curiosity and and results in a sizable mess.

Those previous pics were taken in the beginning of January. While Jaws has progressed into safely and capably climbing up and down the stairs, his motives once he reaches a precipice are the same. Here Pops caught him yesterday emptying the contents of his drawer shortly after Pops lovingly folded and stored it safely in his drawer.

Well done Jaws.