Pics and a movie

Here's Leah taking a few tenative steps. She surprised me this morning by taking four wobbly steps in the kitchen while holding a cookie. Way to multi-task!! These are the first steps we've seen since I announced her first steps a couple of weeks ago. She's doing her best to meet her 15 month deadline (when the other two started walking... I don't count it until they can take more than a few steps without falling).


Leah is modeling the hat I made for Elijah. He picked out the yarn from my stash, and watched me make it (on the knitting loom, so it was pretty quick). He wore it for one second before screaming, "IT'S HOT!!!" and throwing it to the ground. Leah, on the other hand adores it!




Peek a boo!


Elijah requested that I take this picture. He was racing around the house on the push bike while wearing his helmet and "goggles"

cute movie

Arts and Crafts

We took a trip to Michael's yesterday... and as you might imagine, we came home with stuff to make. Hannah said, "I wish I owned this WHOLE store!" She is in love with all things artsy and craftsy.

We bought a learn to cross stitch kit (ages 8+) for each kid and a Knifty Knitter (or is it Nifty Knitter, I'm not sure). I figured Hannah could do the cross stitch pretty well even though she's not quite 6. Elijah, well I didn't think he could follow the pattern, but I figured he could make stitches.

Elijah really did enjoy stitching, and he sat for long periods of time to do so! I did have to "rescue" his work every 5-10 minutes, but I still think he did a fabulous job for a 3 year old.


Hannah really enjoyed it as well, and spent the whole day learning to say "embroidery".




Here's Hannah's finished product. You'll notice that she never got the hang of crossing the stitches, but her backstitching to outline the dolphin is pretty amazing. Next time I'm going to get the kind on plastic canvas (needle point, not cross stitch) and I think she'll do really well.


This morning Hannah insisted on learning how to do the Knifty Knitter. She still needs to be rescued occassionally when the yarn gets wound around the loom, but she's pretty good at it. She knit about two inches this morning before getting tired of it.

I finally got around to one of my two year old (maybe 3 years!) projects. I'm making legwarmers for Hannah. I finished one, lol, and I need to get started on the second one before she outgrows them :) I think I prefer projects that can be compleated in a couple of evenings... though once I buckled down and started knitting for more than five minutes at a time the legwarmer happend much faster! I think it was probably only 4-5 hours of knitting total.

First Steps!!

Last night Leah took her first steps, and today I was able to capture her standing for a few seconds. I also wanted to snap some full length pics of the CUTE overalls she's wearing.

We Have Electricity!

After 40 hours of no electricity the power came back on around 12:30am, but we didn't realize it for about three hours since we were fast asleep. I woke up and happily noted that the light was on in the toy room, then I went down stairs and turned off all the lights and looked at the one battery powered clock to see what time it really was.

Here are a few pictures we took during our adventure.


Some slats on our fence blew down (the fence was already falling down before the storm).


This is our neighbors' tree.


A large branch and more fence slats


Another fair sized branch in the front.

We really faired quite well. There were several houses on our street with MAJOR limbs and sections of trees down, though I didn't see any structural damage to any houses which is pretty amazing.


Here are Elijah and Hannah working on scrapbooks in the dark


Leah found a pacifier in with some toys, and she decided she needed to start using it (she never did before!)


Elijah and Leah in the dark.


Hannah did not start out sleeping by Elijah, but this is how we found them when we went to bed. Hannah is quite afraid of the dark, so I'm glad she found someone to snuggle with.


Here they are captivated by the TV this morning. They were VERY happy to have the electricity back on!!!


Here's Leah watching the TV as well.

We've been Ike-ed!!

Hurricane Ike (tropical storm, I suppose) blew through Indiana yesterday morning. We had 70 mph winds, but NO rain!! We lost our power at 10:30 am Sunday morning, and it has yet to be restored. Our power company has 2 million customers without power. The best news? They sent all of their extra people down to Houston to help TX recover from Ike... We should have electricity by Thursday, but I sure hope it's sooner! Last night Pete and I cleaned out the refrigerator and freezer which was depressing. We sent each kid to bed with a flashlight because they are scared of the dark. It was an interesting night to say the least.

Thankfully the kids' school has power, so at least they don't have to sit around a dark house with me today.

Hannah's dying to play her Webkinz at Pete's office, so that's all for now

Last Week's Montessori Pictures

Hannah works on the bow-tying frame


Tracing an oval


Hannah and Walker work on the 'hundred board' with several onlookers


Walker and Hannah putting away the hundred board. Hannah says this takes longer than doing the work!


Walker appears to be DONE for the day


Elijah counting spindles


and more spindle counting on another day, I guess he really enjoys this work!

It's nothin' but a party y'all

Hannah had what was possibly the most perfect day that a kindergartener could ever have. She was invited to TWO birthday parties. The first was for her classmate, Walker, who has professed his love for Hannah and has decided he will marry her.

Here's a picture of the happy couple.


Here's Hannah talking to her friend, Sloane.


A wave and a smile.


Hannah and her best friend, Daniela


Nadia, Hannah, and Angela


Nadia and Hannah eat their cake in a "secret spot".


The second party that Hannah was invited to was for her good friend, Kate (their dad's work together). Kate's dad recently visited China, so they had a Chinese themed party. Here's a picture of Hannah in her new Chinese dress (I found it at China Sprout). I was pretty excited when the dress arrived and I realized that Hannah already owned a purse that matched (I got that about 4 years ago in the Target $1 section).


Here's Kelly (Kate's big sis), Kate, and Hannah


Here is the table, neatly laid out for dinner.


The birthday cake was decorated to look like the Chinese flag!


Here's Hannah, Ty (Kate's big brother), and Kate

And Now He's Sick

On Tuesday night and all day Wednesday, I had a nasty little 24 hour stomach virus. I went from feeling fine (and spending the afternoon with a friend who I probably infected) to thinking I was hungry at 8pm and eating a PB&J to feeling nauseated to eventually being sick sometime during the night. My joints ached and my head hurt and I could barely get out of bed all day Wednesday... not a good thing for a mom of three!! Pete managed to transport Hannah and Elijah to and from school (drop off at 8:30, pick-ups at 11:45 and 2:45) and get dinner for them (they enjoyed Sonic while I said "no thank you" to anything but crackers and Sprite).

I've been cautiously watching the kids for signs of impending illness, but things have seemed mostly normal. Elijah has been sleeping poorly, and I've kept the bed ready for middle of the night clean-ups. Elijah's outburst at school yesterday made me wonder, but he really seemed to be fine and had no complaints even when asked specifically "How does your tummy/head/nose/etc feel?" Well, he did complain about his nose since he is suffering from seasonal allergies right now.

But today at 10:15 the call came. "Elijah has a fever of 101 and says his tummy hurts, please come pick him up from school". Sure enough, he is one sick little guy! After a nap and some watered down apple juice he seems a tiny bit better. He still feverish and laying on the couch, but he has his sense of humor back!

Oooh, he just went from feeling cold to hot, and I think his fever might even be breaking! He's actually up, off the couch and eating a cracker. Woo hoo!! Hurray for minor miracles!!!!!

Another First

This is the note I got from school today. In fact it was handed to me by the administrator (think principal) as she brought a screaming Elijah out to my car. *Sigh* Is this what having a boy in school means? I've never had a note sent home before...

9/12/08 - update
I talked to Elijah's teacher this morning, and the note makes the situation sound much worse than it was (thank goodness). Miss Sarah isn't exactly sure what happend, but it is quite likely that Elijah accidentally hit Mrs. Bunner with his rug (rolled up fabric mat). However, his emotions escalated quickly, and it was the end of his school day so she wasn't able to fully deal with it at the time.

Tackle It Tuesday - Sept 9, 2008

This week we have THE CLOSET TACKLE. According to the dates on the pictures, I've been working on this since the end of June! Now, it's possible that I just took the messy closet picture on that date, and didn't do any work on it until late July... I'm really not sure anymore.

Anyway, this is the before picture. It's actually hard to see just how stuffed this closet really is. It is about four feet deep, and it is literally jam-packed at this point.


Oh, isn't that cute. Here is an intermediate state where I'm trying to show how much work I've done... only, it's STILL really full.


Ahh, now that's quite a bit better! I can actually see the floor.


Today, the shelving arrived, so here it is. I plan on using these shelves to store bulk food items.


Here's another view where you can see how much shelf space there is a bit better. Oh, and look my sewing machine is now at the FRONT of the closet... just in case I decide I want to use it :)

Montessori pictures of Hannah

Hannah's teacher set up a blog as well, so I copied the pictures of Hannah to share.


Hannah is tracing a map of the world.


After learning about Helen Keller, Hannah attempts to do a set of knobbed cylinders while blindfolded.


Singing a song with the class


Hannah and her best friend drawing pictures. If you look closely, you'll notice that Hannah's picture is of the logo on her friend's shirt.


Best friends