While discussing deciduous trees with the kids, they were answering some questions. Evelyn was super excited to answer something so I thought I would help her out a bit.


"Evelyn, the leaves FALL off of trees in which season? Winter, Spring, Summer or FALL???"  Quite certain she had the correct answer she quickly stated, "Spring."  We all burst out laughing and she had no clue why! LOL

Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Gearing up for some indoor shop class

It's been a busy couple of months.  We moved amidst a huge amount of snow, thanks to some very dedicated friends. :)  This old house we are temporarily living in is quite drafty and with record lows we have been wearing a LOT of layers.

We got our new school room up and running (Such a big room. I am loving the large, albeit drafty, windows.) and then Todd brought in something I never expected.  A lathe!  This is a current picture of our school table:

Why a lathe?  Well, the kids are participating in their annual pinewood derby race for Awana and thought it would be fun to make the cars into shapes. My husband rocks!

Each of the kids chose a theme (okay Sadie didn't really choose hers.) and Todd helped them pencil the shape onto the wooden block.  Then they each got to be helper while he worked on their car. ie., They ran the shop vac. ;-)

Here's a pic of the cars so far.  Left to right we have:

Ellie:  Hello Kitty

Silas:  Race car

Avrie: Boat

Evelyn: Minion

Sadie: Baby bottle

They will get to sand on them and paint them up at Awana.  I'll post finished pictures.  Evelyn was so excited when I told her we had a googly eye that would be perfect for her one-eyed minion!  Sadie has been carrying her bottle around all over the house.  Avrie has already painted a bit on her boat and Ellie and Silas are ready to begin painting next Awana. I can't wait to see what each of them do to create their vision!


Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Crazy things we never thought we would hear...

The kids were all ready for bed and we were nudging them in that direction. We heard a very quiet 4 year old voice coming from the other room...


Evelyn: Ummmm I have pee running down my back.
Todd: How is pee running down your back?
Evelyn: Well, I peed in my goodnite......and I was upside down.






Really.   She really did say that.    I just tried my best not to laugh!

So Todd helped her clean up while explaining to her (again) that she can't pee in her goodnite on purpose. It's for accidents and is especially not for peeing upside down. 

Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Gators and Monkies and Birds Oh My!

We went to a fun little place called Jungle Gardens.  They had all sorts of animals for us to see.  We tried to grab a quick family picture here. Not the best, but at least it's all of us.

I thought this huge giraffe statue would make a good picture. I've really got to work on my photography skills.

 

They had several different types of birds. Forgive me for not knowing what type. I think they are all some type of parakeet. ??  I was too busy making sure the kids stayed together to listen. They did let us hold a bird on our arm for free though.

Silas was first. Such a strong arm! The bird hopped right on.

Ellie chose a smaller bird. They put a bit of food in her hand to feed it.

 Avrie chose this sweet little thing.  It wouldn't turn around to smile for the camera though.

They gave her some food too and that got its attention!

Now we're ready to smile. :)

"Oooh! That's pinchy!" is what she was saying.

Evelyn was right there with the others and wanted to have a try. Interesting how animals just "know". The volunteer worker said that they won't always step onto the arm of a smaller child because they sense they are not strong enough. They helper asked me to hold Evelyn's hand so maybe the bird would commit but it wouldn't step onto Evelyn's arm. She got to see it up close and was happy with that.

Todd wanted Sadie to have a picture too. :)

Another attempt at a group shot. I tell ya what....group shots are hard.


You try to get five children to look at the camera, at the same time AND smile.  I figured I would just put them all on here. Between the three pictures everyone looks decent at least one time ....... I think.

Ellie and Avrie thought it would be funny to pretend they were being eaten by the crocodile. Goofy girlies.

Young man Silas wearing his hat that matches Daddy's.

I spotted this plant and grabbed Avrie for this shot. The coloring matched her dress so well.

Then of course Ellie wanted a photo shoot for her. :)

This last one I had to grab. Avrie's flip flop broke.  Not a big deal, but it was a bit ironic. On our last little family vacation to a theme park, she lost her flip flop while boarding a log ride. It fell into the water never to be seen again. So this has now become a tradition.....go on vacation and buy Avrie some new shoes!

This concludes Part 7 of our Florida trip.

Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Sparklies in the Chicken

Todd had the day off work today, so he made some of tonight's dinner. It's always a nice change because we have very different cooking styles.

As we were eating Evelyn said, "I don't like sparklies in my chicken." and gave us this lovely pout face.

Sparklies?  I realize Todd and I have different cooking styles.....but I'm pretty sure sparklies aren't in the spice cabinet. Here is a picture of said chicken.

Do you see sparklies?  I don't see sparklies. It is quite lovely, but not at all sparkly. Let's check her plate. Maybe there's some sparklies there.

Nope. Not a bit of sparkle. (Sorry for the fuzzy picture. The camera was in the cold van and the lens was fogging up.)

Evelyn dear, there are no sparklies on your chicken.





She disagreed.

We were able to figure out why she was upset.











Parsley!  She thought the oregano was parsley. All I've got to say is I am thankful that my 3 year old even knows what parsley is.  We'll work on pronouncing it later. ;-)


Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Do you like to drink pink ink?

We don't drink pink ink here. Red dye #40 is not allowed at this house. We found out about the evils of this yucky food dye when Ellie was about 2 years old. We call it The Great Cherry Jello Episode of 2004. That's a whole 'nother post in and of itself. "Why do you mention pink ink?" you ask.  Well.....

I'm not one of those fun moms. Really. I am all about prevention. We, the kids especially, mainly drink water. Currently it's for health reasons, but that wasn't always the case. I have always preferred them to drink water everywhere but the table because I don't want to clean up a huge spill of Coke.

We primarily use crayons and colored pencils for art. Yes we have markers and watercolors (I haven't ventured into other paints yet. That's what co-ops are for!) but those are kept high and out of reach of little hands. The few times the children have gotten a hold of a sharpie are documented on some closet walls.  You can actually catch a glimpse of some sharpie art in this post. It's so funny when they write their name on the wall and try to blame their younger sibling, who by the way can't write yet.

For Christmas Avrie and Evelyn received a cute little gift from someone who shall remain nameless. (You know who you are! LOL)  There were some crayons, stickers, stamps and an ink pad. A PINK ink pad. Your wheels are already turning aren't they?  I bet you are wondering which wall got stamped.

I must admit I had completely forgotten they had received this gift. When they opened it I had made a mental note to keep it in the craft closet and we could get it out for special occasions. Well, they must have thought it was really special too. They put their little stamp set in their treasure drawers in their bedroom. You see where this is going?












Here is what I found this morning.

Lovely isn't it?  No. I don't think the ink is washable. The box did say it washes off of MOST skin. Most skin? So what happens if your skin is not most skin?

Right next to this nice display of pink carpet was a certain little someone. Her initials are.......Evelyn Ann. Yep. That's my girl. Aren't three year olds fun? She had also used the stickers to decorate her face. It was actually pretty cute, but we had to go to piano lessons so I didn't capture that on film...err um memory space.

All I can say is thankfully we didn't put new carpet in recently. This pink stain goes fabulous with the other spots throughout the room.  I'm sure someday I will wish my house was packed full of pink stains and three year olds so I might as well enjoy it while I can.

Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Closet organization

I have been at my wits end dealing with the clutter and unorganized state of our closet. Basically I did the big clothing change over in the Fall and then it didn't really stay cold. The kids ended up dragging out a bunch of short sleeve items and everything got all mixed in together in the closet.

Winter also adds more of a challenge in that clothing is bulkier and there are more layers in general. Things just need stored differently. We also have some up and coming kiddos that need drawer space. ;-)

So we did a revamp of the closet!

I didn't think to take before pictures. I will try to paint a word picture for you. Let's see.......


complete and utter chaos. Yep. That describes it pretty well.


I moved in one set of drawers that I picked up at Goodwill Outlet for cheap. The rest of the drawers were already in there. 

The top rack is for Evelyn and Sadie. I only have some of Evelyn's there right now. I need to get Sadie's put up. The small drawer set on the left is for undies/socks for the three youngest girlies. Silas gets that single drawer for his pajamas. His jeans are folded on top. One stack for play and one for nice jeans. The pans on the shelf are nicer church pants. I just decided to put all empty hangers above the jeans for now.

Notice the lovely sharpie art on the wall here. This is the prime example of why we don't have a lot of markers or other various art items in the house.

This is directly to the right of Silas' jeans. My clothes are hanging. These drawers weren't finished at the time of the picture. They now hold Some items for Avrie and Evelyn and the bottom drawer is for Silas' undies and socks.

The hanging clothes here are Ellie's, Silas' shirts and Avrie's. Two of the pink drawers are Ellie's since she is needing more space now that she is bigger. The bottom pink drawer is for leggings for all the girls. The three larger white drawers are for Avrie, Evelyn and Sadie's pajamas.  Tights are going in a tote on the top shelf. They don't use tights much and Evelyn has been getting 2 or 3 pairs of tights out every day trying them on. Up high they go!

 Ellie made labels for each drawer. She assigned each child a picture and put that next to their name. She came up with that idea herself saying it would help all the non-readers find their drawer. Such a sweetie.You can see a couple of them here on the white drawers.

 Oh and see those clothes sitting on top of the drawers?  That is not supposed to happen. It's been a couple days now and so far things are staying organized. I've just got to stay on top of things.


Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Evelyn's First Haircut

Sweet Evelyn has been having some bad hair days for a while now. There have been some times where we could pass her off as a troll doll.

The back of her hair gets quite fuzzy. We decided it was time for her first haircut! I made a last minute appointment with our favorite hair-stylist and off we went. Evelyn was pretty excited about it until she saw the chair.  At that  point her little smile faded away.  Thankfully she didn't cry and it only took a little coaxing to get her into the chair.

Still not very happy with the chair.

Every once in a while she would say, in her cute little raspy voice, "I don't like haircuts." and stick out her bottom lip.


Once it was all said and done she was pleased.  She looked like a completely different little girl!

Check out the back. No more troll doll hair for this little cutie.

It still gets a little fuzzy in the back but nothing that can't be combed out quickly. One last smile for the camera.

Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

Orange Juice Drinking Contest

We are having an orange juice drinking contest!  Or should I say NON-drinking contest? 

We thought we would teach the children about self control.  Todd found some nice size orange juice bottles on sale. Each child got one.  Sunday night we told them that starting on Monday they could drink as much as they wanted, whenever they wanted, but they would not get anymore until Friday.  Todd marked Evelyn's bottle to help her out a little. Then everyone wanted their's marked.

I didn't think to take a before picture, but here they are on Monday at 12:30 p.m.

L to Rt: Ellie, Silas, Avrie, Evelyn

It looks like Silas is in the lead, but I am pretty sure he got into the large container of juice and added more to his bottle. I know that Evelyn asked for more and Ellie poured some into her little bottle. Of course she already drank that too.  I'm thinking at 3 years old this whole self discipline thing is a bit difficult to understand.  Evelyn is already asking for more orange juice.

This is going to a be a long week. LOL



Have a blessed day! ~Tammy

What happens when.....

What happens when a newly turned 3 year old runs into the path of an almost 11 year old? 





The 3 year old gets a broken clavicle.







Yep. Evelyn broke her collarbone last Saturday. Poor thing.

It happened about 8:00 Saturday evening. We debated on seeing if she would sleep through the night and see how she was Sunday morning but she just didn't seem to act right. She would be fine one minute and then move just a certain way and scream out in pain.

Sooooo glad we opted to take her in. 

The sling we got from the E.R. was quite large for her. Her hand was inside about 3 inches. It would not stay put. We really weren't sure what to do with it though. I tried safety pinning it so the strap would stay tightened but the sling still slipped all around. She could also lift her arm up and climb places, which wasn't good.  Lifting her arm resulted in more screams of pain.

We were able to get her a new sling that was closer to her size. Here is Evelyn in her new sling.

It still did not keep her arm across her belly the way we wanted. See how it's sort of freely hanging to the side? 

So we resorted to the good ol' ace bandage.

Thanks Mom!

Evelyn doesn't like the process of putting the bandage on, but she is much more comfortable once it's in place.

We still have to watch her and make sure she is not climbing but at least this keeps her from getting her arm caught and pulled up too high. She is still in some pain, but not enough pain to keep her from building a blanket tent with her big brother and sisters today. She's a trooper.


What have I learned from this experience?

-Always listen to your gut.
-Three year old's don't like to wear a sling.
-Three year old's don't like to wear an ace bandage over their sling.
-Three year old's don't like to ask for help climbing up and down while wearing a sling.
-Right-handed three year old's do pretty well eating and coloring with their left hand.




Have a blessed day! ~Tammy