Where to start?

Each day I write blog posts in my head - while driving, taking a shower, watching the kids do something funny - and each day they never materialize on this site b/c I never get around to putting them down. So tonight may be random, but it's a snapshot in our lives.

Today was absolutely gorgeous. 65 degrees and sunny enough that we played outside at Ava's school recess (I had 35 kids playing duck, duck, goose) and even walked up to the bus stop to get her. Cinnamon followed us the whole way, avoiding Lias's advances with his stick sword and Nathan didn't have to cover his ears at the highway. Ava was so excited to see Cinnamon when she got off the bus and kept telling me that "this is kinda like the movie Milo and Otis, Mama!" Eli rediscovered the fun of throwing rocks into the creek and we all got very excited for spring.

The 2 boys and I actually made it to story time today and turned out to be the only ones. It was fun and Nathan read me a whole Bob book by himself with hardly any prompting. He's taken off with reading and is leaps and bounds above where Ava was at this age. I think it's cause he's self motivated and also cause he's been so exposed to it from Ava's schooling. Any which way, it's exciting to see him excited and to really think that he'll read well before kindergarten, if I give him the tools. He's using the Headsprout website and jumped ahead and read the story for the lesson 30, even though he's only made it through 10 lessons. His favorite thing to tell us right now is "I know that" - as in "Nathan, don't tease Lias" - "I know that" or "Nope, the letter M doesn't say www" - "I already know that, Mama". It's funny cause he obviously doesn't know that but he's so full of himself that he just blurts it out. He's changed tremendously over the past 3 months and someday's I wonder where my twerpy Natey went. Today while I showered he practiced "random acts of kindness" (his preschool is big on this) and made my bed, his bed, Lias' bed and matched a bunch of socks. He's actually fun and it's fun to watch the transformation.

And speaking of readers - Ava is full speed ahead! We've had a set of Fancy Nancy books from the library since Christmas and she just decided the other day that she could read them. She read 3 in one day and amazed me with her perseverance and patience. Today she spearheaded our Groundhog Day celebration and got the boys and I together to listen to her poem. Here it is in all it's 1st grade glory:

"groundhog groundhog cum (come) out will you plays (please). I hope you downt (don't) see your shadow plays (please) dowt (don't) see your shadow plays (please)."

It is accompanied by an awesome picture of her and Cassia looking down into the groundhogs hole while he was still asleep.

Last night we had a whole saga when her fable she made and illustrated got accidentally thrown away with the leftovers at IHOP. It was recovered, but not without grease stains all over but someday soon I hope I'll get it up here for posterity's sake. I feel sad and glad at the same time, but she's definitely moved into the school kid years and mostly left her baby stages behind. Her main excitement right now is waiting for the postman to bring her Kaya American Girl doll that she bought with her Christmas $ from Papa. Her cousin Abby gave her all the books and we're already on the last one, book 6, and it's been very fun to spend nights reading with Ava until way to late on a school night. She's way into her apperance lately and is begging me for bangs, cause she thinks mine are cool.

I keep trying to tell her they're kinda annoying but we'll see where we end up. Sorry for the lack of quality pictures but they are the biggest hamper to my blogging so they may have to take a back seat for awhile.

Elias - he's the baby and still lives the role. He's such a lovey dovey little thing wrapped up in a naughty baby too. We are trying to get him to sleep in his own bed but somehow one of us ends up with him draped around us each night. He's actually growing taller (I thought he'd be our shrimp for ever) and losing his baby fat, which just makes me downright sad. He's a tyrant, yelling at Nathan in the car that he's not allowed to sing I'm getting Nuttin for Christmas or Follow the Prophet but then turning around and decreeing that it's ok if Ava does. Sometimes we humor him but lately we've been telling him to hush. We've found a new technique for disciplining and it involves pulling ears and when he's naughty he'll come into us looking sad covering his ears. The funny thing is that we've never even pulled them hard, but just the threat scares him into sadness. He's got a nervous habit of biting his nails down to stubs and uses that as his soothing method, to the point of he's falling asleep with his hands in his mouth. He's an incredible talker, but super shy too - today he actually talked at lunch in Ava's school and the kids looked at him amazed. He claims to like preschool and willingly hangs up his jacket and waves goodbye. He can pick out his letter "E" all over and the other day he actually wrote it. Crazy. He's a doll and still so yummy to kiss.

As for me, I just took a test that I thought would take 30 minutes and it took the whole stinking 2 hours and I still feel like I failed. School is my sanity, gives me a little break from the house when John's gone for weekends on end. I love what I'm learning but still feel torn between being gone and ruining Lias and Nathan's childhoods. But then we have a snow week where we're stranded home for 4 days straight and I think I'll go insane so I decide it's good to be in school. We have the "should I quit" conversation about once every 3 weeks and it gets to the point where I don't even study for 5 days since I'm sure I'm not going back, then I regret that when I have 1 day to get ready for the test. We're in the hard stretch of it but we can see the end in sight and that's where we keep pushing for. We're surviving but I don't think we'd do this again if you gave us thousands of dollars.

As for John, I just have one word. Russia. I'll leave that you your imagination. Adios and goodnight.