of course I've heard of cows...really??

Today was dance dress rehearsal. The boys, the girl and I headed to town for her to give a go at her dance under the big bright lights of the arena.
While we're driving it's not uncommon for Nadine and Ryan to get into debates. Debates as in how to pronounce Deere... But today we were discussing the name of our school as we left.
Nadine: We go to Valhalla Community School
Ryan: No no that's not it. It's Valhalla Calamity School!
Nadine: No Ryan it's community!!
Ryan: It's not community it's calamity.
volume rises and exchange becomes less congenial.
Me: Guys lets just drop it.

We got to the dance recital and Ryan was thrilled. He thought the performance was great, and he thought it was wonderful.
Ryan: Oh mom I wish backhoes could dance.
Me: Backhoes can't. Boys could but there's no dances for backhoes.
Ryan: Oh that's too bad

After the rehearsal we went to the grocery store. We're a bit of a spectacle at the best of times at the grocery store. For some reason my daughter doesn't think I'm able to hear, thereby she yells every single thing at me. All thoughts, all inquiries are at top volume while she clings to the side of the cart.
Ryan backhoes his way through the grocery store. One loader bucket on the cart (per the rule) and his backhoe bucket digging a trench in front of us while we go.
Today, Braeden's post was in the cart's kid seat. New to today was the backup horn sound he made each time I backed up and as we moved forward through the isles there was wild arm waving while he yelled...
Braeden: Look out! Mom coming!! Coming through!! LOOK OUT!!!

hmmm oh the faith he has in my ability to navigate a cart

Thou shalt not take your children's commentary personally!

On the way home we drove past a fairly common site in our area. That being a pasture full of cows.
Nadine: Mom look a flock of cows
Me: A herd of cows
Nadine: Well of course I've heard of cows
Me: No that's what a group of cows is called
Nadine: That's ridiculous.
Me: It really is...

It's like living in a kids joke book.

Revisiting blogging

It's been a really long time since I've posted on here it seems. Every time I post something on my blog I think, 'I'm going to be better about posting more often' but the long story short is, I'm not. But here I am now and as most of  you know about me...well you get what you get when you get it.

I think I may have been blessed with the 3 most fabulous kids on the planet. They're really truly the bomb. They have really grown and changed a lot in the last few months and it's really noticeable to me how they're getting older. It almost tugs at my nearly absent mushy gene, but mostly I just think it's really humorous and fascinating! just fascinating!!

Nadine's wrapping up her first year of ballet this week. Recital performances of absolute cuteness are this week. It's been a strange year having her off at school all week. I'm so so so looking forward to summer holidays!
She was showing her brothers and I a bit about dance this week. Then her Ryan decided to get in on it.
Ryan: Hey look Nadine I can dance too *insert some sort of clompy clog dancing type thumping about here*
Nadine: Ryan that's not how you do it! You do it like this *insert ballet moves here* Can you do this Ryan?
Ryan: No, I can do this *back to clog dancing*
Nadine: Ryan that's NOT dancing. That's, that's...well I don't know what that is but it's NOT dancing.

She's always willing to lend her brothers a helping hand in the learning department.
Ryan was reading the DEERE on the side of his excavator as though it said "Dearie". Honest mistake really when you're 5. I'm just thoroughly impressed about how much he can read but Nadine thought we should now learn the concept of a silent E.

Ryan: Look here Nadine my excavator is named Dearie
Nadine: No Ryan it' just Deer like an animal deer. Not Dearie
Ryan: No Nadine is says Deeeeearrriiiiieeeeeee
Nadine: It's a silent E Ryan
Ryan: hahaha no no no no it's not silent, it's right there! DEEEEAAARRRRIIEEEEEE
Me: thanks for trying to help him read it Nadine, it's all good though.
Nadine: (mutters) well it IS deer.


Ryan's love of equipment and construction is as part of his life as ever. He's taught Braeden how to pretend to be a loader, a backhoe, and any other machine Braeden is willing to try his hydraulics at.
At Playschool Ryan's class had a magician come to their class for a party. Part of his shtick was to make balloon animals for the kids. I heard about this third hand but the paraphrased version goes something like this
Magician: what kind of animal would you like me to make you?
Ryan: I want a backhoe
Magician: can you pick an animal?
Ryan: I'd like a backhoe
after everyone else had chosen an animal Ryan chooses a cat.
magician makes a cat
Ryan is confused by it's lack of a dozer blade...
Ryan gave the balloon "cat" to Braeden after the party...

Oh Ryan

Ryan LOVES playschool. I'm not sure he's going to be OK with it being over at the end of the month. Good thing he's building some kind of highway overpass in our side yard with his equipment so he can be distracted from missing playschool and his "best teacher"
Ryan: Hey mom check out how I make my A's for my name at school *insert wild arm motion that resembles an A here*
Me: that's fantastic, did your teacher help you with that?
Ryan: No, I mean yes she likes to help me so I let her.
Me: Aw that's sweet of you.

Braeden is evolving into quite a little dude. He's very 2 now. Very 2. But in a strangely good natured kind of way. Maybe it's my mellowed 3rd child approach to parenting but he's really pretty easy to have around.
He's become a big fan of playing "goof ball" aka golf over at Grandpa Lobergs, and he's actually pretty good at connecting with the ball. He works very hard to keep up with his older siblings. He's still not for a moment daunted by his lack of size.

I have about a zillion plans for the yard this year. We accomplished one the other day when we built on to the chicken run of our yard. More to keep the dogs out than the chickens in but they're thrilled with the extra space.
The kids really like to go into the pen and herd the chickens. Chicken herding is harder than it sounds, or at least it can be. As we put the fence up (well Tim put the fence up and I stood by with awe and moral support) I repeatedly asked the kids to stop harassing the chickens. Be with the chickens, enjoy the chickens but stop scaring the crap out of the chickens.
Repeatedly we had that conversation.
Moments later
Nadine: Mom Ryan's scaring the chickens
Me: Ya, I give up
Ryan: Oh no mom don't give up!
Me: sigh.

Me and my camera continue to see what we can see.
I haven't photo bombed you all for a long time. So.... :)

 

what to expect

I was cleaning off my bookshelf, ok truthfully the boys cleaned off my bookshelf because stacked up books made a great support for their beam bridge, and when I was cleaning the pile back up I found an old book I'd forgot I had. It's a book about what you might expect for the first years of your children's life. A potential timeline of milestones. Sometimes I think I should write a book, something to the effect of, "No Really THIS is What to Expect"

Expect to be tired and expect to become dependent on caffeine.

Expect to have food and some other things smeared on your clothes at all times.

Expect to, at least once, have your child barf or pee all over your bed in the middle of the night and be ok with just throwing a towel over it until you can deal with it in the morning.

Expect to catch some kind of bodily fluid in your hand at some point

Expect to pour a lot of cups of coffee and expect to find them half drunk all over the house in places you left them and walked away from them.

Expect then to learn to hang onto your coffee cup better.

Expect to dance around with a colicky baby trying to make their belly stop hurting

Expect to dance around like a moron when they grow up to try and entertain them in the kitchen while you're trying to make dinner and all the wheels are coming off every ones attitude but you just need a few more minutes.

Expect to some day be awoken by either a book being slammed into your face, or a car being driven up the side of your head

Expect to have the crap scared out of you when you open your eyes and your child is all of a sudden standing beside your bed in the middle of the night with their face just inches from yours and you hear a quiet little "mom"

Expect your heart to triple in size and then melt when your little tiny person learns to say "I yubbo too"

Expect to pick up things a lot, either pick them up or step on them

Expect to feel like a pack mule on occasion

Expect stepping on little tiny toys to hurt a lot

Expect to turn on your treadmill sometime to blow all the Thomas the Train tracks and engines off the back of it so you can get on

Expect to do the same thing with animals tea parties that have been set up because the treadmill is just the perfect shape and size.

Expect people to tell you to make sure you enjoy it

Expect to wonder why people choose the most unenjoyable days to tell you that

Expect to wonder how it is that time is passing so quickly

Expect to forget what you were trying to do or say

Expect to have really irritating songs stuck in your head for days on end.

Expect to look for things a lot

Expect to find them in the laundry, the toilet, or the garbage

Expect to be interrupted a lot

Expect to wonder if your children are deaf or you've become mute

Expect to have nothing on the lower shelves or the lower cabinets...nothing you like anyway.

Expect to think the world is going to crap

Expect to doll out a lot of band aids

Expect to clean melted crayon, melted chocolate, and melted other unidentified things off your car
floor or seats

Expect to be ridiculously proud of your kids as they conquer the milestones in the other books

Expect to be fascinated by how their brains work.

Expect to google things a lot

Expect to realize that you should have paid far closer attention to your vocabulary a while ago as you hear it coming out of your children's mouths.

Expect to laugh a lot if  you choose to see the laughable-ness of it all, it really is hysterical.

Expect to try not to laugh sometimes as you know laughing at what they just said or did is not what they were going for.

and Expect to enjoy it, or at least most of it, but you have to choose to sometimes.

There's more...but I really don't have time to write a book... :)

scalene triangles

Often, my mornings get away from me and I'm left having lunch time sneak up on me with no real great plan. Dang it no leftovers, and crap I've been working so hard at the gluten free-ness but yet sandwiches are so easy.
Enter nachos, the kids new favorite mom-doesn't-have-her-act-together lunch.
Now nachos aren't just tasty..no no they're very educational, for me.

Ryan: Hey Mom this one is a scalene triangle.
Me: Oh wow ya look at that (heads to google to try and remember which one's scalene again)
Ryan: And mom look this one's a trapezoid, haha that's funny Trapezoid
Me: heh heh ya...funny. (again thanks google...)

I really have some remedial shape recognition to work on.

Nadine and Ryan, well and Braeden too but it's a bit trickier for him, really like to Wii sport. Ryan is the Wii bowling champion. Nadine believes he's cheating because he always wins. Braeden likes to Wii sword fight anyone who is willing to suffer his wrath and you must also be willing to set up his Mii as the point at the screen and hit A is tricky.

Ryan has recently taken up Wii tennis. Now one thing I love about Wii is the Wii Mii's look a lot like the actual living character they're supposed to represent. I love Ryan's Mii. I wish I knew how to post a picture of it here.

Ryan has taken up Tennis and being the smarty-pants that he is he creates a 4 player game and makes all 4 characters the Ryan Mii.
Ryan: Oh man I'm going to lose
Nadine: No Ryan you're everyone so you're going to win for sure!
when the game ends there's a winner standing in the foreground with a big YOU WIN across the screen, and a loser who is in the background hanging their Mii head in shame. With all 4 characters being Ryan...well
Nadine: You win some, you lose some.

Oh man what a group.

So that's how it is here. We patiently wait for real spring, the opportunity to go running outside with the kids while they drive the gator. The new chickens, the garden...even the mud :) We've got a new excavator and we're quite excited to excavate. Well some of us are a bit scared of the excavating potential but that's generally overshadowed by the keen anticipation of impending excavation...Woot woot!

The love of stuff.

There's a elated feeling that goes along with watching the snow melt. Here's how that played out yesterday.
Nadine (just getting off the bus): Look at all these rocks. There's a MILLION BILLION to choose from for my collection!!
Tim: Man one day maybe you'll be a geologist.
Nadine: What's a geologist?
Tim: Someone who studies rocks.
Nadine: I don't want to study them, I just want to collect them. I'm going to collect kitties, puppies, horses, and rocks because I like to have lots of stuff. Then one day I'll wake up and be a farmer!

Which really I'm sure you can glean from that description how one would leap to a career in farming when travelling down that path.

Now a bit contrary to a bit of that exchange was the exchange I had with my eldest when leaving for work the other day.
Nadine:  Why did you say you would go there when they phoned? You should have said no.
Me: Well your dad and I work so we can have money to buy food, and do fun stuff, and buy you guys the things you  need.
Nadine: I don't need anything.
Me: Really?
Nadine: and I don't need any food either. We have chickens mom and the chickens make eggs and we can eat the eggs and that's food.
Me: Well yes it is but what about yogurt?
Nadine: I don't like yogurt
Me: Oh? What about bananas?
Nadine: I don't like bananas
Me: What about candy???
Nadine (knowing this is a trick question as I don't buy candy): I don't like candy *grin*
Me: Well I told them I'd come so I have to go.

I wish I'd known at that time that she wanted to collect so many things and was going to wake up one morning and be a farmer. Tim and I better start saving up for that.

Things of spring.

Yesterday I noticed something interesting on my way to feed the chickens. Well it was one of those moments where you don't notice that something is interesting until a long while later when you have all the pieces available for doing the math.
When I opened the door to leave to go out to feed the chickens and get the eggs I noticed my box of sprouted potatoes outside the basement door. How odd, but maybe it's been there for ages. I thought we were going to plant it this spring but maybe it got put out a while ago? I dunno.
Then on the way  back from the coop with my dozen eggs feeling pretty darn good about life I wondered for a moment where Cleo was. She's almost always hangin around waiting for the egg collecting. Oh well, probably out and about.
Then, Oh look, the kids bike is out on the lawn. Hmmm.
So when I got inside
Me: Ryan did you go into the basement and get the bike?
Ryan: Yes
Me: Oh..

Then later, even later, talking to Tim on the phone.
Me: Have we had those potatoes outside for a while? did you move them out?
Tim: Nope
Me: Hmmm

So I head downstairs to bring the potato box back into the basement, marvelling a bit that Ryan was able to carry it outside and wondering why he did... and who should I find at the bottom of the stairs but Cleo. Yes Cleo, she's been in the basement for about 4+ hours (or that's how long it had been since Ryan had been outside playing)...How on earth did I not hear her?!
Oh Ryan.
So the fact is I've never directly told the kids they shouldn't let the dog in the basement. So I figured it's time to discuss that now.
Me: Ryan, if it ever happens again that the dog ends up in the basement you need to tell me that.
Ryan (looking into my eyes sincerely): Mom...Cleo is in the basement.
Me: ya, thanks buddy


Nadine really likes math, a lot. That's really cool and I enjoy that. She's been quizzing me on a lot of math. Sometimes it's complicated to do sort of impromptu 'mad minutes' while I make dinner. I have to get them right too as the leapster explorer game WILL let her know if I've botched 7X8. phew, so far so good. Although a couple times I've had to pretend I don't hear her right away so I can have a minute to finger...I mean figure it out. :)
While in town today I realized how much she thinks about math. She quizzed Ryan with some math. He actually did pretty good with some of them and a bit of help.
Then while we were in the Wal-Mart parking lot she asked me
Nadine: Mom why is it Wal take away Mart?
We later found the Home Depot, Pick take away Up zone.
Ya she really likes math.
So on the way home we did some more "math sentences"
Nadine: what's 100 kids take away 100 kids
Tim and I in unison: A good night sleep
Nadine: Daaaaaad, mom dad's being a turd right?

Um ya, so last week there was a boy in Nadine's class trying to throw her shoe in the garbage. Totally benign to those of us who are no longer in grade 1 but it can be hard to be the recipient of such attention. So my brilliant maternal advice...
Me: Nadine young boys can act like real turds but that's just how they are, and we just do our best to ignore them.
Nadine: Oh, ok
and she willingly went back the next day. We'll see if that explanation backfires on me somehow later.
Anyway we made the trek to town to stock up on rubber boots and crocs while they are still sold as spring seems to be about to sproing :)
Woot!!

February...

February is a remarkably busy month, and one I've never liked. February is long...for a short month...it's really really long.
We have a few fun things in February though, thankfully or I'd be right miserable for 28-29 days.
Today Braeden turns 2. Yes 2. Sometimes I forget he's not 3 and sometimes I think 'he just showed up how is he 2' but he is. Today.
We're fairly low key birthday celebrators. The boys had their party (as Ryan turned 5 on Sunday. FIVE. WHAT!) on Monday family day, we had cake, treats, visitors, and a few gifts. Fun was had by all.

Earlier in the month Nadine got the opportunity to recite "Old Mother Hubbard" at the 4H speech night at the school. She and a few of the other kids who are too young yet to be part of the 4H multiclub were asked to recite nursery rhymes or short speeches they'd prepared during the event.
When I asked Nadine if she'd be willing to do it she was quite keen.

Me: Your teacher said you did so well in class reciting your nursery rhyme she was wondering if you'd mind to recite it at the speech night at the school
Nadine (with a bit of thought): I'd LOVE to do that! So would I get up to the microphone and say "Hello I'm Nadine and I'm going to recite for you the nursery rhyme Old Mother Hubbard"?
Me: Um maybe.
Nadine: Hmm that'd be great!

So we went to speech night. The kids speeches and presentations were terrific. Nadine was the second to the last "speaker" which left her a bit of time to be restless and perhaps a bit nervous. But when her name was called up she went to the table that was a bit higher than her and with the help of her principal getting her a stool to stand on she loudly and with a big smile recited the sad tale of Old Mother Hubbard and her poor dog hungry dog. Then there was several minutes of post recitation giggling...

Ryan turned 5. He has had quite a birthday including the Gator that he and his siblings now share with which he can deliver loads of laundry, drive into the kitchen to ask for a snack...I'm looking forward to it heading outside in the spring.

Adam got to know our bird at the party, they became good buddies.

although I realized that I think sweetie (the bird) was eyeing up the cake on Adam's cheek

Incidentally the best gluten free cake to date :)

Today...

Ryan: Mom can you help me turn the gator into a flying car.

Me: Not very likely, what do you mean?
Ryan: I mean like the 'thing-a-ma-jigger'
Me: Ya I don't know how to do that. I think we should probably not strive for it to fly anyway.
Ryan: Could you help me get it up the stairs.
Me: no

Here's what he was going for.

Today there was an excavator delivery for Ryan, he was beyond thrilled and now has plans to dig all my potato holes for the garden this spring as well as....well holes absolutely everywhere are in this summers sights. The greatest Brandt Tractor guy ever couldn't have made these boys any happier. :)

What a week!

Yes so Nadine becoming a public speaker, Ryan becoming 5, Braeden becoming 2 and me delving into a few extra things FOR example drooling over photography workshops such as this... http://www.canwildphototours.com/, learning more about my camera, making a ridiculous list of things I'd like to get for said camera, learning all the ins and outs of being gluten free, working more than I like to sometimes and less than I like to others....etc, etc, etc has left February whizzing by. So onward toward March.

I've been hoping to win the lottery but given I don't buy tickets my chances remain slim to none...