And another one bites the dust...

... and another one's down, and another one's down, another one bites the dust...

Guess who got sent home from school early with pinkeye?

Yep! That'd be Care Bear. Two down, Thing Two to go! Hopefully Liam escapes the germ and will get to stay in school and go to bowling and go to Awana and stay too busy to be caught by conjunctivitis. Miss Thing One may report back to school on Thursday.

At least she got her Social Studies test finished before they called me to pick her up.

*sigh*

To Be Continued, I'm sure!

Three of a kind...in a fog.

It's foggy out. Not nearly as bad as it was last night, but enough that Thing One and Thing Two have a two hour delay. Another one. They had one yesterday. They have one today. They have a scheduled one tomorrow, for teacher development hours.

Someone is seeing entirely too much of her children this winter. *wink* Go to school, already! How are we ever going to keep up with China or South Korea or Singapore!? And, perhaps less importantly in the grand scheme of things, but no less relevant to me, how am I ever going to get anything done around here?!

Ups and Downs

I may only have nanoseconds before Damon is up from his nap. Poor guy has a stuffy-then-runny nose, is still coughing, and now has goopy, pink eyes. Looks like tonight we'll skip the Y and tomorrow instead of moms' group we'll be hitting the drive thru pharmacy for some eye drops. Then Wednesday after school he'll get his flu shot, along with Care Bear getting her flu mist. I wish the weather would be a little more cooperative. I think the germs are fluctuating as much as the temperatures! Bleah.

What else is up? Um, Carrie has 3 tests this week: Social Studies tomorrow, Math on Thursday, and Spelling on Friday. As the freezing rain came down last night, we got a 2 hour delay this morning. There's a scheduled 2 hour delay Wednesday, too!

It's down to crunchtime because the big kids will be home any minute from school as well. The Christmas tree is down but the Christmas cards I taped on the Wii cabinet are still up. I left a big string of Christmas lights up, because they make a wonderful downtime nightlight in the evenings before bed.

I filled up all three bird feeders this morning and marveled at the slush outside. It's almost all gone now. I hear tomorrow it'll be up to 52 degrees- positively balmy after last week's single digit temps.

The flowers I got for my birthday (I'm getting up there) from Dada are still perked up. I hauled all the sheets back up and made all the beds- except Carrie's, because she can do it herself.

And now Damon's up! And now you're up to date. ;)

Pictures that make me smile

These are all repeats, but they either make me smile or make me laugh right out loud, so I thought I'd share again.

And speaking of laughing out loud, Damon is playing with Siri on the iPad. He'll say something to her and she responds with, "I don't understand *babblebabblebabble* but I can check the web for you." It's hilarious! Poor Siri. They don't pay her enough for this. ;)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Random weekend photos

I love these feet. And the thumb, I confess. And the cheeks. He's such a great package!

I was playing around with the photo editing stuff, and this one of Carrie is done in "Pencil Sketch" which is why it looks different. I kinda like it! She was completely focused on the video game on the Wii.
 

And here is sweet Betsy. More about her in the next few posts. The picture was just too cute to pass up.
 

 

Visual aids from the quoteboard

Some of the quotes are funniest when seen. This first one describes Carrie's persuasive argument for dessert. She wanted permission to partake in some, and I debated what food groups she'd eaten. The circle represents her stomach and the corresponding room for each food group. We have "frute, veg, carbs, dery, protin, and desert." Notice that "desert" takes up half of her stomach while the other 5 categories have to share the other half of her stomach! You can also click on the photo to open it larger in another window, the same as any of the pictures on this blog.



This next one is from Liam's homework at the end of Kindergarten. The assignment was to write a sentence or two describing what you like about frogs. Here's his response:
 

This one is from this year. It says to write your own sentence for the letter c. Liam wrote: Carit cuts ceoocumbers. I love how his brain works and his art makes me laugh every time!
 

 

Pinewood Derby

While Care Bear has been selling Girl Scout cookies, Liam has been hard at work with Dada on perfecting his Pinewood Derby car. I'm pleased to report that the hard work paid off. Dada announced Liam came in first or second in almost every race. Even uncle Andrew got to go watch, and he took some pictures & videos, too. Well done, Liam and Dada!
 

 

 

 

 

 

Hairy woodpecker

This shy guy finally came around to the front of the tree to show off his pretty plumage. Muggin is our family's bird expert, and she declared him a hairy woodpecker. We haven't seen him since last winter and are glad he's back!
 

 

 

The Mighty Betsy

Most of you will recognize Triskal. The mastiff puppy is our next door buddy, Bo. The tiny dog who is all puffed up and looking as fierce as possible would be Betsy, my brother and sister in law's dog. She was an angel on their 4 hour car ride to come see us. For someone who's not been known to like bigger-than-her dogs, she certainly held her own this weekend!
 

 

Couch potatoes

 

Betsy brought her people to visit us this weekend. She is a first class couch potato, too, as you can see. I love her little sideways smile.
 

 

Betsy's people happen to be my brother, whom we all call Hinrew, and his beautiful wife, whom we all call Muggin. Aren't they so cute? Thanks for coming to play with us!
 

 

It's a harp.

Huh. I didn't know Marilyn Manson sang "Tainted Love." Interesting start to my Wednesday.

Anyway, last night at dinner Carrie announced that she would like to learn to play the harp.

I'll let that soak in for a minute.

The harp.

Then she clarified.

"Not the big one."

"That's probably good," says I, "as you would probably get smashed flat under a big one."

"Yeah," she says. "I want to play the little one. I changed my mind about the guitar." She begins strumming an invisible small harp, like an angel might.

Carrie is, however, not an angel. She does have the long, slender fingers that would make playing the harp a possibility, I suppose. I made the case that once she got good at it and grew some, maybe she could graduate to the full-sized harp.

"Yeah! And then, maybe I could play at like weddings for money and then I could get a job at Wendy's or something like you did!"

That kid's got aspirations.

She skipped off to school today, excited for her music class so that she could pepper her teacher with questions about who teaches harp in our area.

*speechless* 

Phooey. I was hoping for a slideshow. Never mind Mama's year in review. Trying to figure out how to post slideshows to the blog...................