Pieces of Us

It's the Friday Five again! Tasty tidbits to recap our week or just snippets of our life at the moment.

-When little kids ask for trail mix, do not get excited that they have embarked on a health food kick.  Chances are they just want to eat the M&M's out of the dish and leave a trail of sad lonely nuts. Maybe that is why it is called "trail"mix. It's the Trail of TrailMix Tears around here.  Sometimes if you have older kids they will end up eating the leftover nuts.  It seems in our house that almonds are shunned as the several tiny bowls I've found lying around can attest.
-Jillian has learned to drink very well from her Klean Kanteen (which incidentally I am finally spelling right, KLEAN not KLEEN- although neither is correct and even if they are going for alliteration, it makes me nuts albeit a different kind of nuts than those mentioned earlier.). Anyway, I digress, she is very adorable sipping from her little pink canteen. (That is canteen and not Kanteen in my house at least).
-We finally watched Wall-E.  I actually thought it was sweet and entertaining, I know people either loved it or hated it but I found it cute and with the little to no talking...there isn't a whole lot of Disney's typical potty-talk for the little kids to emulate at inappropriate moments such as when we are in the checkout line or..I don't know..church maybe.
-Caleb has his first check-up at the dentist tomorrow.  I am very curious to see if Talkative-Energetic-Caleb is going to be going with me or if it will be Cautious-Serious-Caleb.  I am hoping for the former, he is a lot more fun.  But I love him either way and we get some fun bonding time out of it.  Talkative-Energetic-Caleb is fun because he calls boxer briefs "Chonie Pants". and says things like, "Da boy cat is much fiesty!  He fways with dis toy a  yot!"

-The first week of school went swimmingly I must say.  We did a lot of fun things and I am happy that as usual the kids much needed break gave their brains time to cement all the things they have learned so upon returning to lessons they seem much improved from where we left off.  Especially AJ whose reading vastly improved despite struggling with his dyslexia.

Well that is about it for now.  Happy Friday!

It's been awhile since we had a Friday Five

1. Jillian is now trying to scoot.  She has also finally started taking long naps!  She has never been a napper much.  Just snatches of naps for 30 minutes here or there.  It's exhausting.  She mostly wants to be held and is perfectly happy when she is being held but I need to get things done!  So the other day I laid her in her crib, she started to cry.  I left the room to grab something and then go back to her but by the time i got back she had gone to sleep.  I tried it again the next day, same thing! We have had 3 days of 2 hour afternoon nap now and it's wonderful!

2.Tonight I am leaving Jillian with Mike for the first time to take Maddy and Gabby to see Third Day, Switchfoot and Jars of Clay at the Verizon Amphitheatre in Irvine. It will be so fun with the girls but I will MISS my Jilly and I hope i can handle not nursing her all that time!

3. Last night I saw the biggest Black Widow Spider I have ever seen in my outdoor garbage can.  It was terrifying.  I literally had to calm myself down.  I think it was a mama one about to make her egg sac because her body was the size of a garbanzo and the big red hourglass was just staring me in the face. The garbage collector comes today so I am hoping she gets dumped into the truck, but just in case I am going to spray that thing out with bleach later.  {{shudder}}

4.I am still desperately trying to get my house back to being claen and organized.  All the laundry and such from out trip took over my life for a few days.

5.  The girls are joining 4H next month.  They are all very excited. The group we found is nice and small but has a lot to offer.  They want to do dairy goats, poultry, scrapbooking, sewing and cooking.  (I think)  We will see what we end up with.

I had a nice long Friday Five posted and my computer timed out. Grrrrr!

* Thanks to Anissa for picking up a certain Christmas Present and shipping it out our way.  Yeah, I know it's August but I like to be on top of things!

* Jillian ate avocado today.  She liked it.  She has only tried a couple things, she seems so little yet.

* I am trying to think of something special and memorable to do for the girls upcoming 10th birthday.  I remember turning 10! That is scary.  Any ideas are welcome, post in the comments.

* Funny quote from Super Baby Food: "The walls near the feeding chair should not be covered with fine velvet wallpaper, if so, protect them also" I do not know whose house SHE is visiting but I have yet to see any fine velvet wallpaper in the homes around here!

*I am excited for school to begin. I am emotionally ready but still working on the lesson preparedness.  Speaking of that, I have some teacher's guides and such for sale if anyone knows of any interest in 1-3rd grade stuff. This year I have a Kindergartner, 2nd grader and two 5th graders!

1. I can't stop updating my Twitter!  I know, it's a silly thing.  but I like doing it!
2. We're off to the library today.  The kids finished up their required hours for the summer reading program and can get the final prize today. 
3.  It's the last day of swim lessons. It's bittersweet.  We've gotten to know all the college-age instructors really well and the kids look up to them like big brothers and sisters.  They will miss them a lot.
4. Three more weeks until we start school. Wow, summer really flies by the bigger your kids get!  Public schools here are already in session. I like that we can still have all of August off, we really enjoy having a laid back August.
5. Plans are in progress for Miss Genevieve's 5th birthday.  She insists it will be a Flamingo party so I found a bunch of flamingo stuff and we will be taking it all to the beach for her party next month. Ginny is my only kid that I don't get that 'I can't believe she is turning___." feeling.  She just always seems older to me.

  It's the Friday 5, here for the first time. 5 random happenings, thoughts or musings from this past week.

- Jillian is rolling.  I guess the days of leaving her on my bed to sleep are pretty much in the past.

- I ordered tickets for Maddy and Gabby and I to go to see Third Day, Switchfoot adn Jars Of Clay.  These are their favorite bands ever and they are going to have so much fun,  It's their first real concert.

- VBS is over!  it was a great year even though there were not a lot of kids in attendance due to the County Fair going on. The theme was Pilgrim's Progress and all the leaders and helpers did a great job bringing the story to the kids.  I was amazed at how well my older 4 kids did with memorizing their verses.

- Another Jillian thing...she looks like she is Shiloh Pitt's little sister.  I just saw a picture of Shiloh in a magazine and it was scary.  They could seriously be sisters based on looks. I will try to post a side by side later.

- Interesting things we have discovered about Gabby's Diabetes.  Good stress (excitement) makes her blood sugar drop fast.  Bad Stress like anxiety makes it go up fast. At swimming lessons on Wednesday she was high (308, who knows why??) The stress of not getting to swim made it keep going up no matter how much insulin she gave herself.  The next day she was low and she was so excited to swim that it kept going down.  Full story on that will be on her blog.

Coming Soon on Pieces of Us

Five random thoughts from me every Friday!