Into Everything

I can barely turn my back for a minute these days, for fear of what I'll find when I turn around again. You never know what this little sweetie will be into! Monday, Lauren was making a Perler bead dolphin. I was vacuuming, and the family room was next. That was when I spotted this:


Caroline had to go in her exersaucer while I cleaned it up! When she saw me in the doorway, she immediately grabbed fistfuls of beads, running them to the bucket, spilling beads along the way, saying, "Bucket! Bucket!" Like she was going to pick them all up right then and there on her own.

She loves to explore outside. Tuesday, the Perler beads were still out. Lauren was still working on the dolphin, when I walked in the dining room from doing laundry. Lauren was sitting right there at the table and didn't even notice Caroline climbing up! On the table! Again, very interested in those beads!

Also Tuesday. Where's Caroline? This time I found her playing with the computer. Using the mouse and typing.

Wednesday. I think I was putting clothes away. Lauren calls from the dining room where she's making sticker pictures: "Moooooooooommyyyyy! Caroline is absolutely not allowed to do this! Come here Mommy!! Look at her tummy!!" And yes, look at her tummy indeed! Lauren wanted her picture taken too, in all her bedhead glory. ;)

Lauren: "Look at her feet! She is absolutely not allowed to do this!!"

"And even the floor! Look at the floor, Mommy!!"

This is why we have washable markers...

Week with Grandpa and Grandma

So. Monday after Easter Brian went to work, and the kids rode bikes outside with my mom and dad watching them. No pictures b/c I was up on the kitchen counters taking knick-knacks off the top of the kitchen cupboards, to clean. Those things were dusty! I haven't washed/dusted those um, decorations?, since before Caroline was born, I know, and I really don't remember the last time... I was thinking to myself maybe all that decor should come down permanently. It's a little cluttery for my taste, yet I think the cabinets look a little bare, when they're well, bare, and some of the things I don't want to get rid of. So there you go. When I was done with that little task, we all went to Little Jocko's for lunch.

Tuesday, Brian worked again. The rest of us went down to La Purisima Mission for the day. We picked up lunch at Burger King and ate it at the Mission picnic area. Julia had just been to the same mission the week before on a field trip, as they're studying the missions for CA state history this year.

My dad went through the grounds and buildings at his own pace, ahead of the rest of us. I think he was on his own mission. Maybe a mission to leave the mission. The kids did great, had fun exploring the place. They'd run ahead with Grandpa and run back to my mom and me. Caroline of course did not want to stay in her stroller, and wore herself out climbing, running, crawling. Got pretty filthy too. My mom wanted to tour the gardens, but my dad was done and way ahead, and sat with the kids outside the gift shop. Caroline fell asleep while waiting for my mom and me to finish. A volunteer working in the garden gave us geranium starts and a thyme plant. Isn't that fun? To have Mission plants growing in my yard? Of course they are not as old as the mission, but I still like the idea. :)



Brian took vacation days Weds. - Fri. Wednesday we went to Moonstone Beach in Cambria. It was a beautiful day! You never know what the beach will be like, but it was warm! We ate snacks before heading down the hill to the beach.

Caroline was content digging in the sand (actually coarse, tiny rocks).

Brian made a castle.

Austin made a castle. Lauren helped. Then Austin declared war on his dad...

Brian and I took the little girls in the water--they loved it!! Austin went in just a bit, but the water was too cold for him.

He was more interested in destroying Daddy's castle! Julia also loved the waves. Most of the time she was searching for pretty rocks by my mom and dad, on the other side of some boulders from where we were. But she always likes running in the waves, and this day was no exception!

We ate lunch at the Old Stone Station in Cambria before heading back home.

Thursday my mom and I packed a picnic lunch for our outing. We all headed down to Los Olivos, then east to Figueroa Mountain. The three big kids rode in my mom and dad's car once again, just like the day before. Grandpa and Grandma were the lucky ones to hear, "I'm bo-ored!", "Are we there yet?", "I'm hungry!", "Are we there yet?", "He's moving my se-eat!", "Are we there yet?".... Driving up the mountain to see wildflowers was not the kids' idea of fun! Brian and I just had Caroline, who nicely fell asleep for much of the drive. ;)

We stopped near the top to eat our picnic lunch. The kids' favorite part of the day was playing in the trees at the picnic area--which besides trees and a view, there was only one picnic table and an outhouse!

We saw lots and lots of wildflowers. It was the perfect time to go see them!

More wildflowers. It was interesting that there were sometimes different flowers growing on each side of the mountain. And some were the same. Poppies and lupines were everywhere!

At the end of our Figueroa Mountain drive, we stopped in Los Olivos to get ice cream. The girl started scooping our ice cream when Brian noticed a sign that said "Cash Only". My mom and I had left our purses at home, and Brian only had a few dollars on him. My dad happened to be in the restroom, and we had to wait till he got out (Brian refused to call through the door to ask. Ha!) to see what money he had. And Grandpa saved the day. We'd have had some pretty disappointed kids, otherwise. First they had to suffer through that long, long drive, and then no ice cream! LOL

That night we went to Red Lobster for dinner. And my mom and dad left the next morning.

Other things we did while they were here:

*We played Dutch Blitz one night. My dad played Chinese Checkers with Julia. Maybe Austin too? I don't remember!

*Lauren did her speech homework with Grandma.

*My dad helped Julia a ton with her mission project (turned in today!) He cut lots of cardboard for her mission church. My mom helped too, especially with the figuring.

*After the kids went to bed, we watched my dad's old black and white Perry Mason DVDs he'd brought along.

*Caroline would wake up in the morning, and ask, "Bampa? Bampa?" She was ready to play!

*Lauren would sit outside the bathroom door while my mom or dad were in there, and sing a song she made up a couple visits ago: "Get close to the door and you can get it!" Over and over again. Caroline quickly learned this ritual and sat right next to Lauren outside the door chanting along, "Cose a door a ya a det it!" Or something like that.

*The big kids drank their "brown" coffee while Grandpa and Grandma drank their own black coffee. In Christmas mugs they got from Grandpa and Grandma.

*My dad would "whisker" all the kids with his beard. And they'd laugh!

Easter

My mom and dad arrived on Good Friday to spend Easter and most of Spring Break with us. They left the following Friday morning. Saturday before Easter we dyed eggs. My mom had boiled 18, but they were Extra Large eggs from Costco and too big to put the plastic egg wraps on. You know--the little plastic things you put on the cooked egg and then dip into hot water to wrap it. We sent my dad to Vons to get a dozen regular Large eggs. :) Plus, since it's so much fun to color eggs, and we had all that dye, and so many people doing it, we dyed all the raw eggs we had in the house too!


54 altogether. We've never had an egg break, either! Though Austin did knock over a glass of dye this year...


Sunday we went to church at 9:30. Then took pictures at home.

Lauren was being *so* uncooperative! Most of the pictures she was balking or pouting (see below) or hanging on Austin or glaring... And Caroline was being her typical toddler self--trying to escape the whole stand-still scene.

The Easter bunny Grandpa and Daddy hid the eggs while the rest of us stayed inside watching The Ten Commandments and eating snacks. Lauren had to sit in her room for awhile for being such a stinker! When the kids discovered eggs had been left in the backyard, they were ready to hunt! We let Caroline go first, by herself for a few minutes. She was so cute! She really didn't care about collecting a ton of eggs--was just happy with a few in her basket. She'd open them--amazingly didn't try to eat the candy--then try to shut them again. Lauren went next, and gathered quite a few.

We let Austin go a few minutes ahead of Julia, but not many, because he is almost as fast as she is. And I think he did end up with a few more eggs.

Our kids are chips off the old blocks, that's for sure. Austin, Julia, and Lauren right away opened their eggs, took the candy out, then put it in their candy buckets. The buckets hold all the candy they get: from Halloween, Christmas, parties, etc. Lauren took Caroline's candy and put it in Caroline's own little stash! Organized!

We had an easy lunch, and our ham dinner that night. I made a peach cake for dessert that was really yummy.

March Randomness

Lauren will often "read" to Caroline. Lauren has many stories memorized, and if she doesn't, she makes up her own. :)



Looking at books is much more interesting than looking at that silly camera, Mom.


Lauren is loving her speech therapy classes! She gets so excited on speech days. The teacher (speech-language pathologist) is so sweet; her name is Jennifer. Lauren is getting better saying "f". She *almost* always says "f" at the beginning of words, and is working on final "f". I have to remind her about them more often, though. We are not even working on "f" in the middle of words yet, because Jennifer says that is the hardest one to say. I guess Lauren has to get a good grasp on initial/final "f" first. So she still says a word like "fluffy", as "fussy". Not working on "fl" yet either.

Lauren has started practicing "v", though, and for some reason, that seems to come quickly. Jennifer says it's because you say "v" the same as "f", just different vocals. Some of Lauren's recent homework has been a game, and she has to say, "Move over, Rover!" Another exercise was "Make a _____ Face!" In the picture, she's making a face, then had to say, "I make a silly face!"

One of Julia's Sunday School teachers (and Awana listener) was so proud of her for winning 2nd place in the Sight Read Aloud contest, that she made her a cake and brought it to our house! She said Julia is one of her favorite little friends, and she's just a doll. :D Awwwww.....

Togetherness: many mornings Lauren wants to watch Max and Ruby on TV, and Caroline climbs right up in the chair to join her. Max and Ruby is Lauren's favorite show.

Every Monday Austin's teacher sends a book home that he has to read every afternoon for homework. He's been reading Magic School Bus books the last few weeks. Lauren likes to listen to the stories! Austin's in the top reading group; kids in other reading groups read decodable books and for Tuesday's homework, write sentences using the week's sight words (1st and 2nd trimesters), now spelling words. The kids in Austin's reading group have to write sentences about the book they read at home, and have to try to use the spelling words in those sentences. It's more challenging and makes for some interesting sentences, because often the spelling words are unrelated to the story!

Caroline our shoe girl. Oh how she loves shoes! She has a thing for them, and puts on and clomps around the house in her siblings' big shoes. Or, as in the second picture, my big shoes. I was the one who left them laying around that time. She also comes toddling to me wearing shoes on her hands, and says, "Me! Me!" or, " 'Ookame! Me!", telling me to look at her. Ha! Sometimes the big kids can't find their shoes in the morning when it's time to go. And are often correct when they say, "Caroline hauled off with them!" It's true; shoes get misplaced all the time in the house!

Lauren has the Polly stuff all nicely set up. Carolin is a sneak and gets into it when Lauren is away. Lauren gets mad about it! Don't let that smile fool you. She was upset before I took the picture. Only cheered up when I told her I wouldn't let Caroline wreck the set-up. In picture #2, Caroline is scratching Lauren's pants, to be a little ornery. Caroline wasn't happy about coming off the chair, and would scratch Lauren's pants and then look up at her with a look of defiance, kind of like she was thinking, "I can't play with your stuff, but I can scratch your pants!" Like Lauren cared; it just made Lauren laugh!

Julia's 2nd Trimester awards assembly was March 22. She got awards for honor roll and for winning the school writing contest for 4th grade, with her imaginative story. Didn't win at the district level though. This is the honor roll group.

Austin's awards assembly was March 26. He got lots of awards! For: Perfect Attendance, Math Whiz (passing his benchmarks), turning in his monthly reading calendar, homework, and moving up 4 levels in reading. He started 1st grade at Level F; was at Level J at the end of the 1st trimester, and now is at Level N! WTG Austin! His teacher said once they are at "N", they can read pretty much anything--I think meaning they know how to sound out words and will usually be able to figure them out.

For about a week Lauren was playing with Bitty Baby a lot! Bitty, aka Emily, would go with us, wherever we went. Lauren dressed her in the mornings, put jammies on her at night, and slept with her. Lauren made her meals when we ate, and a snack when she had a snack. Lauren washed Bitty's hands when Lauren had to wash her own hands; On and on, being a good mommy. :) In the picture: Lauren fixed Bitty a waffle and a drink for her breakfast, to eat while Lauren ate her own breakfast.

Julia is studying California State History this year. The 4th graders got to experience Walk Through California on March 29. It sounded like a really neat activity! Parents could go, but younger siblings were discouraged, as they might be distracting. So we stayed home. The students could dress as a character from CA history, like a gold miner, Indian, Spanish explorer/conquistador, etc. Julia became our own blonde-haired, blue-eyed Spanish Senorita. ;) She used Josefina as her model. I thought that was a good idea, since Josefina is her favorite American Girl character. Julia did get chosen to participate in front of her classmates, too, which she liked.

Austin's been busy building with Legos. Some of his creations: A person, and a crane.

More creations: an airplane, boat, and surfer. Love that surfer! How cute is he, with his leg in the air like that?!