A Resolution

A few weeks ago, my good friend B-dawg (who names everyone cryptically on her blog, so I will not name her openly here) had a thought provoking post about New Year’s resolutions – and making them before the New Year begins!  B-dawg has upheavals in her life that make planning a little less specific than she likes.  I can relate.  We’ve had a little disruption in our status quo as well.  A very little one, but it won’t be little for long.  So here is my New Year’s resolution:

I resolve to be a bigger mother in 2014 than I was in 2013 – at least until the end of July – after that time I sincerely hope to be a smaller mother again.

Happy New Year!  From a woman who knows better than to take tying her own shoes for granted!

There and Back Again...

Or maybe I should call this post The Hobbit - we did travel with a band of small people and went under a mountain (in the van), although we didn't fight a dragon...unless you count stomach viruses as dragons.  Hmm...ok, so The Hobbit.

We had a wonderful Christmas with Rob's parents who spoiled us all rotten and gave me a break that I have both needed and wanted.   We got just enough snow too.  Very much worth the drive!

Oh the drive...

First and foremost - this trip established for me how much I dislike traveling by Interstate highways - and especially traveling by them around holidays.  The number of cars on the road...oh my...and it was especially bad coming back into Florida.  Evidently most of Ontario moves to Florida just after Christmas.  We saw so many Canadian RVs!

Taking the "alternate route" is not as simple when we are traveling to Ohio, the drive by interstate is about 18 hours, the alternate route was going to be about 27 - not including potty stops.  I guess there is no easy way to get over a mountain.

Natalie is probably the best tiny traveler we have.  The big kids are much improved, but she has never had too much trouble staying in her carseat for extended amounts of time.  She can amuse herself saying funny words or playing pretend with the barest of toys.  Plus she loves to stay in hotels...

THREE Natalies!

And she loves to eat in restaurants!

Actually she enjoys stopping at restaurants.  She very rarely eats anything at them.

You can't see Annalise in this picture, but she's there.  I'm thinking this is the last trip where they can all sleep in one bed.  We put the pillows along the long side and they can all fit, but Caleb is getting taller and had to sleep diagonally to fit.  Usually we get to the hotel so late that they are just zombies and would sleep standing up if we needed them to.

Ah, I love pictures of sleeping children!

I was not able to prepare for the road part of our trip as much as I have in the past and did not come up with any clever crafts to do on the road, packed all the wrong movies, didn't bring any books - except for some sticker books the girls got as wedding favors and a puzzle book for Caleb, and forgot to get the personal audio books from the library.  And here is what I found out - yes, they got bored, but kids can't do nothing for long, so they made their own entertainment.  They muted the mini dvd player and made up new audio for the unfavorite movies I'd packed, they said words in funny voices, they practiced whistling, they looked out the window - marveled how the rain made rivers on the glass, got excited about passing each state line. They even got excited about playing the License Plate Game with me:

Not bad!  And we did see Alabama after I took this picture.  Can you believe we saw Alaska!  We also saw 3 Canadian provinces.

When we got home, Mako forgave us again :)  He had to forgive Rob a second time because he gave him a bath tonight.

The Nativity through Annalise's Eyes

The holy family.

Singing Angel - I didn't know Annalise knew how to draw music notes.

The laughing angel!

I think she captioned this one nicely!

Christmas Tunes

A teenage girl sang this song in church on Sunday - it was the first time in a long time I'd heard it and it was very refreshing.



This song came on Call FM as we were driving home from the Keys tonight.  It's by KJ52 - a hip hop artist from Ft. Myers.  I like hip hop and break dancing (in certain doses) and I think the lyrics of this song are pretty meaningful.  Having Christmas without winter is just something you get used to down here:

Down here its hot all year, let me make it plain and clear, ‘Ain't got no reindeer, all it does is rain here
So if you wanna stay here, you betta bring the rain gear, Snow ain't ever came here, all we get is hurricanes yeah
But don’t hate on me if I’m down at the beach on Christmas eve, You lookin at strange to me , I got a grape fruit put it on a Christmas tree

 The last part is a reminder that Christmas is about Jesus, not frosty weather or presents.  And I think for this transplant, that is a message I need every year.

Annalise Earns a Scar Story

Wednesday afternoon, Annalise had a little accident...

Annalise didn't want to pose for Daddy, so Natalie stepped into the role.  She's pointing out where the cut is.

I totally thought I had an iron constitution for these things, but I felt kind of woozy watching the stitches go in.

Seven stitches!!  She's not asleep, the light in her eyes was really bright.

Her doctor was very good about showing her everything that went on.

Annalise told Caleb, "If you ever need stitches, you should go to the same doctor I went to!"  She was great!

Caleb had to show steps in one of his assignments today - it wasn't really supposed to be this sort of thing, but I guess it was on his mind!

What happened is this - the kids on our street (5 I think - Natalie was not participating) were playing a chasing game and they looped around the mailboxes and back to the houses I don't know how many times!  But - what ended up being the last time - the little girl behind Annalise fell and when she fell it pushed Annalise into the mailboxes.  She had blood all over - I mean ALL OVER - the kids were freaking out.  I knew that head wounds bleed a lot, so I thought it was not that bad, she was conscious and coherent, but I didn't want her to see all the blood.  So I set her on a chair on the porch and got something to wipe her off - when I saw the gash I said, "Oh you need stitches!"  That did it for Annalise!  She did not want stitches!!!  She begged me and the admitting nurse at "agent care" (urgent care) to do something else, but it was not to be.  Once they were in, she was pleased with her wound and has made sure that no one we've seen since then had been ignorant about all these happenings!

He's Dreaming of a White Christmas...

I knew there was a reason why we usually only put the tree skirt on the night before we celebrate Christmas!  I did very little tree decorating this year.  Rob put it up and put on the lights.  The kids put ornaments as high as they could reach and I placed a few breakable ones as high as I could reach.  Then the tree fell over and some of them broke.  Then Caleb found a bunch of Mardi Gras beads that I thought were hidden and put them on the tree as well.  It is really, well, kind of motley.

Snakes

On Thanksgiving, after we had lunch, we headed over to Ft. Myers by way of US 41.  We had just passed the Miccosukee Casino and saw some flashing lights on the road that runs opposite the canal.  There was a strange police vehicle, and since I wasn't driving, I did the rubber necking.  I saw a man lift the end of something that looked like a black hose and I knew...It was a Burmese Python!

Now, I am the sort of person who, if I see flashing lights, I will look, but to me that says "keep away" and would never in a million years think it would be ok to go up and ask questions!  But Rob turned the van around and went back!  He asked if we could see and, it turned out, the police were doing something else and the python was being handled by a group licensed to remove invasive reptiles.  They also happened to be the winners of the Python Challenge.  So they were thrilled we wanted to stop and take pictures!

14 feet!

The python had actually been shot by a park ranger inside Everglades National Park. 

They also caught this smaller Burmese Python, but they let it live.

And if you are curious - the police were out there investigating a possible bomb - we did not hear the outcome of that though!

A Little Dessert...

Pumpkin Bars, Pecan Tassies, and Apple Pie Cookies.

Are You Hungry Yet?

A Day of Dioramas

This week was too busy to do our normal school load, so on our one free day (Monday) I decided we'd use the extra time to do some neglected art projects. Both of the bigs wanted to make dioramas. 

Annalise's

Annalise drew out her design, which was to have a wintery house with Santa halfway down the chimney.  The red under his head is the chimney and the red streaks on the roof are his boots (she never explained why he had to take them off.)  Note the snow angel on the front lawn!

Caleb's

Caleb picked up a new Titanic book at a garage sale last weekend.  Although the wreck of the Titanic has not been a recent interest, it has been a recurrent one.  He loves to make paper boats and he made several tiny paper boats before he was happy with the size of the lifeboat.  Mercifully, he did not want to make little people!  You can see the tip of the iceberg in the back.

You can see the underwater part of the iceberg in this picture:

Natalie expressed interest in making a diorama (of an American Flag), but she got distracted by something and didn't press me for it! I was kind of diorama'd out, so I didn't remind her.   Another time, another time...

New Frog in Town

Here we go again!

 We are frog owners again.  Caleb beg beg beg beg begged to keep it and I was *this close* to insisting he let it go when inspiration struck -I told him that he could keep it if he wrote a story about it every day and when he was tired of writing stories about it, he had to let it go.

Folks, this is going to make a writer out of this kid.

Really it's kind of cute :)

 So we pulled out the old acrylic aquarium and set it up - this time with an island and some philodendron to make it more homey.  The little thing really likes the plants.  I didn't realize with our last frog that during the day, frogs want to hide.

Frog keeping has a bit of a learning curve.  We were replacing the screen on the lid and I knew we wanted a trap door to toss crickets in.  I cut up a plastic bottle to make strips to reinforce the hole when I realized the perfect solution was to make the bottle neck and lid our trap door. 

Crickets like to hide in tubes (being a frog raiser means you are a cricket raiser too) and they make these cricket containers that have tubes built in that can slide out to just shake out in your cricket-eater's home.  I think they look flimsy and I want to try to make one, but my first attempt resulted in crickets loose in the house.  I may have to break down and buy this thing.

In short, Caleb is happy with this arrangement, I'm happier with it than I thought I would be, and we think little Froggy is happy too - at least he hasn't complained about his new situation.

Quoteable Natalie

N:  Mommy, when were you born?
Me: 1976
N:  Wow!  That is sooooooo cute!

Somebunny Loves You

Bugs All Around

We found a lot bugs while we were in Arkansas.  I'm ok with most bugs.  I don't like cockroaches or palmetto bugs and I can't get past the slime factor of snails and slugs, but unless they sting, try to move in, or eat something I was hoping to eat myself, I can usually tolerate them.

Stick Bug at the diamond mine.  I think stick bugs look creepy.

Crickets in the Mist at Mount Magazine

Just like Momma - this is just the shell of a cicada, I liked to collect them when I was a kid - mostly because they crushed in a very pleasing way.

Wheel Bug again!  I'd never seen a wheel bug before our trip, but I found two in my parents' yard.  This one was laying eggs - and lots of them!

Some Wheel Bug trivia - they are assassin bugs, so they eat other insects, particularly insects that are considered pests.  They aren't bad to have around, but you should not try to pick them up (I don't know why you'd want to, they are big and do not look friendly at all!) their bite is comparable with a bee sting, but takes much longer to heal.

Digging for Diamonds

We stayed an extra day in Arkansas just to go to Crater of Diamonds State Park.  The weather was drippy most of the days we were there and Friday - the day we planned to leave - it was all supposed to clear up and be beautiful.  I grew up thinking Arkansas was the only place in North America where diamonds were found, but this is not true.  It is however, the only diamond mine open to the public, apparently, in the world.

Natalie isn't sure she wants to sit next to the scarecrow.

Today's Trivia Tidbit.

Look!  I found a diamond!

On the hunt.

Caleb got bored of digging after a while and made dams in the water draining from the shoe cleaning area.  This kid loves to build dams and divert water.

They've definitely found something!

We spent quite a while digging, sifting, and washing out dirt and rocks.  And in the end we did not find a diamond, but we did find...

A DIME!

Trunk or Treat

Trash Skeleton!  My kind of decoration!!

For Halloween this year, I was very excited to be in Arkansas.  Like Christmas (and New Years and Valentine's Day) there is something weird about it still feeling and looking like summer for these holidays!  My mom had already made plans to participate in a trunk or treat.  She had to pick a theme and dress up to match the theme, so we decided that we would all dress up to match the theme.  Annalise wanted to be a mermaid and Caleb wanted to be "something scary", so we decided on Under the Sea. 

My mom is a Jellyfish!  I wish I had a night picture - she put colored lights under the umbrella and the effect was really cool.  I am a School of Fish.  My fish were duct taped to my shirt and they fell off everywhere!  I kept finding one on the bottom of my shoe.  I know there were people walking around with fish on their feet!

The shark!  From the side, he looked very dinosaur-ish.  The kids really liked helping glue in all the teeth!

Mermaid!  This was a really easy costume, I used an old skirt, but it would be easy to do with a flat sheet.  I ended up cutting the back out completely and fastening it with velcro. 

Rainbow Fish!  Natalie loved wearing this around the house!  I learned a lot from making Thomas a few years ago.  This costume was much more balanced (Thomas was very front heavy) and lighter.

Everyone's favorite!  The Angler Fish!  Rob got soooo many compliments on his hat :)  Again, the tricky part was the center of balance - but it worked out in the end.

In the dark - creepy!!!

Candy Treasure Box!

Trunk or Treating makes you thirsty!

The next night (neither night was actually Halloween) we went to another church's event and they had cotton candy, snow cones, brownies AND candy!  Talk about a sugar high!  Now that was scary!

There was another hay ride (the first night) in the dark, so the kids have been thoroughly introduced to hay rides.  Both events gave the kids tickets to exchange for candy.  Is this a new thing?