Spazz

So, it looks like eggs have a negative effect on Heidi too.  I went a week without any dairy at all, and then also happened to take a break from my normal breakfast of eggs.  I ate oatmeal and cereal with coconut milk for a few days, but then returned to eggs.  By that afternoon, she was screaming.  I've been off eggs again for four days now and I've had four days of peace...well, a little more peace.  She still has "normal" fussiness. 

"I'm the cutest little chickie you've ever seen!"

The video below is what Heidi is like when she isn't colicky.  She's spazzy!  She's going to give me a run for my money!

Little Big Girl

Lula is straddling her babyhood:

Sitting in a baby swing, sucking on a pacifier

 And little girl hood:

Sitting ON her highchair, drinking milk out of a regular glass.

She won't sit in her high chair anymore and prefers to sit like the big kids.  She also refuses to wear a diaper.  I can't keep one on her now that she can remove her own clothing.  We are thinking she is ready to potty train since she keeps pulling off her diapers.  I'm so not ready to potty train her.  I have enough to do right now...

Baby gates are useless

Lula has also figured out how to climb over the baby gates.  All she needs is anything that moves that she can stand on. I'm so not ready for this either...

Array

Today I found a new game on a math blog called Got Room? and renamed it Array.

The game is easy.  Roll two dice.  Find the product.  Draw an array on graph paper with that area.  For example, if I roll a 2 and a 6, my product is 12.  I can draw an array that is 3 by 4 or 1 by 12 or 2 by 6.  When you can't fit any more arrays on your graph paper, the game is over. 

The roll that ended the game: 9 and 11!

Daniel played along with us.  He drew his own arrays with his own made up numbers.  We were both winners with ten points for our team!  Shane and I played with 12 and 9 sided dice.

Array Jr.

To make the game easier for younger players, I used 1 inch grid paper, 6-sided dice, and didn't calculate the product of the roll-unless it was already known.  This is way more fun than Saxon math!

Hand-Me-Downens

 This is Ian:

Ian at 18 months - November 2003

This is Lula:

Lula at 19 months - Today

Tonight, I cooked dinner.  What made it special was...I cooked beef.  Normally I let Mark do the beef cooking (unless it is ground and going into burritos or spaghetti) because What if I screw it up?  There really isn't a lot worse than overcooked beef.  Except for overcooked pork (guilty).

So, what do you think?  Did I do alright?  Mark said it was perfect.  PERFECT.  I'm going to keep that compliment tucked inside my heart for a long, long time.

Heidi at Three Months

Cuter than cute. Sweeter than sweet! I have to post all four pictures I took of Heidi today because she turned three months old!!! As you can see from the blurry hands, she likes to MOVE. 

She looks a lot like Ian.  And Shane.  And a lot like her sisters too... It's almost like they're related or something.

Will the Real Baby Please...Bark?

Tutu Cute!

Lula loves her tutu! And she is just too too cute as she goes about her normal routine of destruction.

Wedged behind the (old) TV-on purpose!

Sitting on the window sill

Sitting on the Doberman

Snuggling with Daniel

Queen of the Remote Control

Looking for a few more stitches

A Quick Nap

Boots.  Tutu Cute!

Down for the night

We watched Jurassic Park 2 tonight.  Lula is scared of the dinosaurs, but she has to watch.  I tried to help her cover her eyes or hide under the blanket, but she insisted on watching and holding on to my arm.

The Heidi Rules

To have a happy baby, I must...

1. Never feed her formula

2. Never eat beans, chocolate, or dairy.  NEVER!

3. Change diapers immediately

4. Stay constantly moving while holding her in a face-out position

She also doesn't like sitting in front of the computer, so I guess I'll see ya later!

Cuties at Bedtime

Lula threw the cutest temper tantrum last night.  All I did was change her diaper!  This is a sweet (edited) picture of her screaming in the corner of the kitchen and stamping her feet.  The curls/stamping chubby legs/tutu combination just about killed me with its cuteness.

After I found her pacifier and calmed her down, I went downstairs and found this:

Evie, covered in sleeping siblings, with a sleepy dog at her feet.  Is there really anything cuter?  My heart gets all warm and fuzzy whenever I see a big pile of brothers and sisters doing things together.  Last night they were all piled up on the couch watching Ian play Zelda on the Wii U.

Rainy Daze

For some reason, I couldn't sleep last night.  Today I am a mom-bie (instead of a zombie).

Same blue eyes, same vacant expression, yep, brothers.

The kids have way more energy than I do (or I should say did-I went and took a nice long nap with the two babies this afternoon).

It has been raining and raining and raining and our pasture has filled with giant puddles.  It's great weather...if you're a duck!

Picture courtesy of Evie

Evie took the camera out for awhile, trying to get pictures of the ducks before the dogs chased them off.

Evie

Ian

Fiona

Spring is getting closer and closer.....

Camp Sheppard

Earlier this year, Shane worked really hard selling Cub Scout popcorn.  He earned a few prizes.  One was paying his dues for the year.  Another was a remote control car that was such low quality one of the front wheels wouldn't turn.  And the big prize, for us Downens, was a trip to Camp Sheppard for a winter camp out.

For most of the weekend, the weather was grey, wet, and rainy.  Some of the boys, who have looked forward to sledding all year, went home defeated.  Mark cheered Shane by teaching that although we look forward to certain things in life, many times we are disappointed.  This is when we need to find enjoyment in what we do have.  They enjoyed hiking, photography, and maps and compassing, as well as arts and crafts.  Their perseverance rewarded them with snowfall the last day they were there!

Shane got to go sledding after all!  There were two other boys on the hill that had the exact jacket as Shane, so Mark got some good pictures of other boys too... I could see that many moms shop at Costco for jackets!

Shane also got to participate in a chess tournament! We don't have access to a chess club or tournaments way out where we live, so this was so fun for him.  He made it to the semi-finals! 

This is what Shane says about his weekend:

"I had so much fun". I got to sled down the hill 13 times!"

The Daily Daniel

I've just now decided that I'm going to have to post a "Daily Daniel."  I usually just do a quick post on Facebook, but it will all be lost someday and hopefully this blog won't.  It is one of my dreams to have the blog printed in book format... But anyway, Daniel is very funny and quite smart, so instead of always complaining about how defiant he is, I'll try to include those times where he makes me laugh until my side hurts or makes me shake my head in amazement.

One day last week, he insisted he needed a vitamin.  The container was brand new and I was busy, so I said, "Sure! If you can get it open, you can have one." Because guess what? The container had a childproof lid on it!  Ian laughed and pointed out that this was Daniel we were talking about; he could probably get the lid off.  This was a good time to reminisce about the time in the car when Daniel shouted, "My name is Daniel O'Niall Downen! Call me Daniel!" but what we heard, thanks to his baby talk was, "My name is Daniel! Kneel down and call me Daniel!"  By the time I was done telling the story, Daniel had the lid off the vitamins, much to everyone's amusement.

Thursday, the first thing out of Daniel's mouth was, "Can I play video games? Can I get on the computer with Evie and make a two-player game?" I told him he would have to be a good listener and say "Yes, Mom," all day and THEN he could play tonight during scouts. He then climbed into my lap and started saying, "Yes, Mom. Yes, Mom. Yes, Mom. Yes, Mom." over and over and over in my ear. Then he said, "Now your ears are full of Yes Mom for the day. Can I play now?" 

Yesterday, he was caught filling a water gun with lawn fertilizer and was upset that he was prevented from "killin' spiders on the ceiling." I explained that lawn fertilizer wasn't safe to play with, but he already knew that. That's why he was going to kill the spider on the ceiling with it.  Mark is going to have to make sure the carport is poison free from now on...

Also last week, Daniel was very angry at Shane.  I had to say, "Daniel, let's think of some other words that you can use in the place of butt. Like hindquarters...say, 'I'm going to kick your hindquarters,' instead."  Daniel, glaring at Shane, said, "I'm going to kick your hind...coins!?!"  

I know a handful of people that also have three year old boys and are tearing their hair out about them.  I think there needs to be a special club, just for moms of three year old boys.  They can drop their boys off wearing special vests made out of velcro in a sound proof room that has velcro walls.  The boys can stick to the walls while the moms drink coffee just outside. Yep.

Embroidery

My older sister taught me how to cross stitch when I was Shane's age.   I made many pretty little things with my cross stitching skills, but I quit after Ian was born.  Mark was worried that Ian would swallow a needle and suggested I switch to knitting.  I could make useful things like socks and hats and the needles are too big to swallow.  We all know how that story ends!

Daniel's Project (I told him to frown for the picture)

Nothing makes me happier than cooking up "hands on" projects that correlate with something we are studying in history or science, and I am in desperate need of happy.  Monday, the kids colored a picture of the Bayeux Tapestry while I read about the Battle of Hastings in our history book.  The Bayeux Tapestry, which is actually an embroidered banner, is almost 1000 years old and is 270 feet long!  That's three times as long as a blue whale (according to Shane)!  This was the perfect time to pass my stitchin' skills on down to my children.

"This is boring. Let's go tie knots instead." ~Ian

I know better than to try to teach anything with too much detail.  What works for us is to have an example of embroidery online, show them something I've made, and then hand them the supplies.  If I try to demonstrate first, they all clamor and interrupt and ask too many questions.  They just want to jump into things first and ask questions second.  I also don't make Ian come and join us; I give him the option if he seems interested.  My goal for today was just to get them to thread a needle and do a simple straight stitch to form a letter or their name.  So, is anyone surprised that the girls took to stitching and the boys didn't?  I never once biased their thoughts in any way as to which gender embroidery appeals to or who embroidered the most throughout history.  Ian wanted to go tie knots.  Shane would rather do his math.  Daniel crumpled his project up into a ball (not that I was expecting Daniel to do anything, but I still give him supplies so he feels included).

Fiona made an F and Evie finished her whole name.  Evie, our focused artistic child, is now planning to add colorful decorations.  She is the reason I've made an effort to schedule arts and crafts.  I used to save art for Friday afternoons, but it rarely got done.  Wednesday mornings are much better because we are ready for a break from workbooks (more on that later) and Wednesday afternoons are busy, on-the-road days with Homeschool PE at the YMCA.  Evie has decided to add purple confetti markings around her name.  It looks great!  She'll be doing cross stitch designs in no time!

Microcosmos

Sorry for being such a TV geek.  There.  I apologized in advance.  Most people I know have large flat screen TVs in their house.  We were dreaming of hanging a large flat screen, but we couldn't agree on where it should go and how to protect it from competitive children racing to see who could turn the TV off first... I already posted that we watched Jurassic Park and SpongeBob, but where this TV really gets us is with our nerdy, sciencey documentaries.

Last night we watched Microcosmos, a documentary about insects and other little creepy crawlies. Even if you don't have a giant TV, I highly recommend this movie.  It is French, so instead of winning Academy Awards it had to win Cesars.  It was nominated for eight Cesars and won five.  There is no boring, sleep-inducing commentary, only beautiful music and amazing cinematography.

These little guys are SO HUGE on our new TV. I'm going to call this movie MACROcosmos from now on!

If you are shy about watching insects or gastropods mate in front of your children (we are not), then be ready to shield small eyes.

If you are queasy around spiders...well, you've been warned!  That spider is bigger than our dog!

Can you believe I took pictures of movies on our TV for my blog? How pathetic is that?  But this bugs were SO COOL!