Winter Fun....

This week we had a small winter time adventure visiting friends. Since the snow had come down in mass quantity, I decided was too lazy to dig out the car, so we would walk to the train and take it to downtown Evanston to visit....

Along the way they were able to play in the snow and it was quite an adventure! Kaidin's plan was that we were all Otzi (s) the Iceman and we were hunting and trying not to freeze. I told him that I was not to pervy to mumification by freezing but I would be the scientist that found him. He said that was not fair ; ) and that we all had to be Otzi!

So off we went. What is a .8 mile hike to the train took us well over an hour to accomplish, but fortunately out of sheere fun not misery! ; )

Along the way we had polar bears chasing us, searched for food to eat... and just tried to stay alive. Kaidin dug many burrows along the way, though none quite big enough for us to crawl into. ; ) Dahlia found us food; blueberries, pizza and "salok" (your guess is as good as mine!). After many different aversions along the way, finding good nourishment, some friendly polar bears assisted us in finding the train. We were saved! Great job staying alive guys!

Once in downtown area, we grabbed a snack and went to visit friends for the afternoon. It was a lovely day. Since the bitter cold was setting in, we taxi'd it home. These pics are from when we finally reached back home again.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Dahlia tells me today that she would like to be the person that helps the people ride Silver (the pony she fell in love with this Fall.... aka, horse trainer!

Kaidin says that he is going to open a store called "Everything Bionicle". This store will have every single Bionicle known to many, thousands of different parts, masks, comic books, chapter books, movies and games all about Bionicles.

I teased, "I'll be your spokes person, I could do your commercials!" And I spit out a few lines about "coming on out to Everything Bionicle where we service all of your Bionicle needs!".... to which he says, "mommy you'll be way too old to do that commercial for me by that time"!!!

Musings....

So during the morning today, or maybe it was early afternoon as we were sitting munchin' on something together at the table. Kaidin and Dahlia were telling jokes to each other.... At first everyone was in stitches and truly enjoying.... minutes later Kaidin tries to get a bit serious and says, "I'm going to teach you that Dahlia". And she looks at him totally confused. He says, "I'm going to teach you how not to laugh at someone's funny joke." I pipe in, "Why?" He says, "because that is what the big kids do. They try to pretend your joke is not funny to them, so I am practicing not laughing just like the big kids do."

Just hours later Dahlia, Shea and I are cruisin' back home from G'ma's after dropping Kaidin off for a special afternoon. Music is on, it's kind of quiet, and Dahlia says, "Mommy guess what?" "What is it?" I ask. She says, "I can sing with my eyes closed! Whatch me." Of course, driving (ugh the things we should not do while driving!!!), I glance back and she has her eyes closed and she's singing. I revert my view to the rearview mirror and every other second she just slightly opens one eye a slit to look to 'see' if she is singing correctly. The most hilarious thing I could ever imagine!

Precious moments.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays!

Here is this year's ornament that went out earlier this week! Wishing everyone a happy holidays and hope everyone received in one piece!

We've had nice couple of days. The kids convinced me to celebrate xmas all month long so they opened a xmas present yesterday. I thought I was picking out a good one to give.... but ended up being a nightmare (for me, not them!). It was this huge blow up jumping thing. Like an inflatable trampoline with walls. The inflation was what just about killed me in the process. We were going between a battery operated inflater that did not have the right spout to adjust to the nozzle, so it would be blowing a LOT of air, and only inflate 1/100000 of the darn thing. And then while we were out yesterday I decided to get a foot pump that had all of these adjustabl nozzles. Thought I was being smart and clever about this purchase only to figure out that the *%#*! nozzle did not *hold* on so I was not physically inept to hold the nozzle AND push the foot pedal with a foot. Instead, I had to hold the nozzle and pump with my ARMS. AAAUUUGGGHHH....

Ok... SO over my whinning about it they did absolutely LOVE it. They bounced around in it all evening/nite and again today. Even Shea totally loves to climb in a get thrown around like a tumbleweed. So it was well worth the agony on my end! ; )

AND....

We've lost another tooth!

I don't have a head shot yet b/c this happened just after we had returned from seeing the Nutcracker on Ice this evening. Great performance, by the way. I had heard that Robert Crown does a great job with the ice shows, and those reviews did not fail. We really enjoyed the show. But, yea, when we got I was trying hard to get that tooth out for him. It was just dangling there and really I was wondering if it'd fall out and get swallowed while sleeping! (OK, maybe a little mama paranoia, but really... I was worried!). I was not doing such a great job, so I recruited Seringe to do it who simply said, "oh, it's just attached right here, " and took the floss-thinga-ma-jigger and pop that tiny little thing went flying about a foot in the air and landed on the backside of my hand. Pretty hilarious. Kaidin was like, "what just happened?" We all had a great chuckle out of that one.

Ah.... which reminds me. The tooth fairy is expected this evening!

Tooth count!

We have lost tooth number 4! Thanks to lil' sis' taking an arm to the face, we had a very bloody lost tooth episode this evening! She was so proud of "helping" that she wrote a note to the tooth fairy to let her know that she was responsible for Kaidin's tooth falling out. She drew a picture of lot's a little fairies, wrapped it in an envelope and put it under her pillow. Kaidin was kinda annoyed.... maybe feeling like she was stealing the thunder. But he is quite happy that danglin' little thing is finally out! He is sure that he's going to get an early xmas present b/c of it! I, frankly think that an early present would be quite fun. The anticipation of waiting till the "big" day.... it's killin' us all! And, frankly, why shouldn't the holiday be celebrated more than just ONE day in the year! There is just too much fun around the holiday to have it all bundled into a single day!

Anyhoo.... here is the newest 'mouth' pic:

And other pic's..... Shea is truly cruisin' now. He's crawling everywhere and pulling up on things to practice that upright position. He loves when Dahlia or Kaidin help him "walk". It's quite cute. Other pics are from our visit to the Field Museum this week. Even Shea had a blast crusin' around with big brother and sister!

Random Thoughts

So, as usual, I can report that life has been very full and busy at the Jarjusey home. We just wrapped up the Christmas ornament/cards that we send out each year. It was quite unusual this year having to do an ornament with 3 photos!! I found myself reflecting on the last 7 months and realizing, "wow we really do have three children"! It's funny.... not that you don't really know this as a reality.... but there are times you get very accustom to him hanging on, worn and just taggin' along that he's just a part of me, the action and family life. But then the other afternoon, he's sitting on the floor playing with random things (it's funny that at this age 'baby toys' are not the item of interest! They need things like the 'big kids' have!).... So he's sitting there, about 2-3 feet close and I am SEEING him. Dahlia was attempting to trade one item for another and he was not having anything to do with this trading business. His personality is showing, growing and just filling the home with fun. He's going to be a real spitfire that lil' one. He's got quite a spark and you can see those wheel churnin' as he intently watches Dahlia jump from the highest point off the couch!

So the ornaments went off in the mail today, so can't quite post the pic of the design this year, but I think they were fun and sparkly. I hope everyone enjoys. My intent project got Dahlia engaged in making her xmas presents as well. However, today was a bit of a catastrophe. I was sure I would assist her with the hot glue gun.... but that did not really stop the contact of the glue to skin on her thumb, and we had howlin' and whalin' I have never ever heard from this child! Yipers! I am shocked that the mirrors did not shatter or an EMT end up on our doorstep! She's doing quite fine after the fact, but that incident definitely nipped her interest in working on presents today. She's postponed till the shock from hot glue wears off.... (probably some time tomorrow! ; )

Kaidin is a bit under the weather. We had a great weekend with him and his ever-growing projects. He has started his own blog which is quite cute. He is learning the logistics of it, and has ideas each day of what he wants to add on it. We currently have a new bionicle that needs to make the protocol list online, but this was deterred today b/c he's not feeling so hot. He's got a chest-thing, sore throat-thing. Hope he's on the mend tomorrow... I can quite honestly say that he's not the easiest sick person. Each time I hear even a little sniffle from him I wince. ; ) He's the type that feels that if he downs some motrin and drinks a cup of water he should be "POOF" ~ all better. UH.... I really can't explain more with out being mean so I'm going to forgo the explanations and descriptions. Bless his heart. I feel horrible when he's sick and I wish him healthy vibes QUICKLY! ; )

The hermits have become an ever-growing disappointment in our home. We seem to have initiated a daily 'dead check' in which we dig them all out of their little burrow and put them on or near the food and water dishes. Then we wait..... "Who will get up and walk back to the burrow?" We constantly ask each other each day. We wait and wait and no one moves. So we decide that if we move away, they may be brave enough to run for the hole! Sure enough, I'll be cooking (or some desperate act of "house cleaning") and someone will run shouting, "Spiderman is NOT dead yet!" Whoahoo! We all are thrilled that at least one is alive.... then low and behold, we have one more! And yet another....

But that's where it stops. We are sad to announce the passing of Patrick today. It was a very slow and traumatizing death. He progressively was falling out of his shell and attempted to pull himself back in time and time again. It looked as though he lost a couple limbs as well. UGH, so sad and depressing. Dahlia finally announced that we had to put him out of his misery. We 'buried' him (in the trash can). So we are down to only three. I really have no idea what is going on, however I can only suspect it has something to do with this youtube video that shows how these poor creatures are yanked, pulled out of and put (not gently) back into different "prettier" shells to probably sell better. It's a very sad thing to think about, and had I known this before hand, we would have not purchased them in the first place.....

So xmas stuff is nearly all gathered and collected from all corners of the earth. I am very very proud of myself b/c I have found lots of kiddos favorites for super duper cheap. Great deals on craigslist and ebay, and even found some really fun stuff on freecycle. I have more than doubled my savings this year and grown ups in the family gatherings have all agreed not to purchase for each other. What a miracle.... I've been asking for this kinda deal ever since our day of children dawned us. It's relieving to have so much complete this early on. I know each year before I had said I'd wanted to be this prepared but it would be 3am the night before and I would still be trying to figure out how to get every last thing wrapped, and dinner for several cooked!

I was reading through several other random blogs the last few nights. As I have started Nakita Baby, I have been looking for inspiration and thriving on creativity of others in attempt to drive more traffic to my site. I'd love for things to take off, but it's been feeling quite daunting as of late trying to poor creative juices into this project each and every night committing to some portion of 'business development' when I'm just plain POOPED....

I have been exploring not only how to generate new avenues for myself, but also as a way to gain some advertising on both my business side of life, but also the 'job' side of life. Work has been pushing lots of self-generated advertising and inquiry lists that scoping out the WWW has become a life-consuming project! If I'm not on developing business, I'm on looking for was to advertise CCAP.... and somewhere in there, I need time to just play online as well!

No, but it's been fun, exciting and really I've come across some amazing blogs out there! It' quite incredible to see how much is out there and how interesting it is to read about people going through similar life-stuffs....

I just need to find a little balance. I'm finding it hard to figure out how to fit sleep into the picture! ; ) Afterall there is way too much to enjoy out there, how can one sleep? Waking at 6-7am after just a couple of hours a sleep, assuring myself that I'll get a nap in that afternoon with the baby. Yea sure.... in between each added project to the list of projects, added on to the other list of projects! How DO homeschoolers get it all in? I am so curious about this?

And speaking of homeschoolers, I read this incredible blog entry of a friend about finding a Tribe. It was quite beautiful and I never did write to her or tell her how it affected me.... really got me thinking about life, friends, family.... the people we have in our lives and reflecting on how vitally important a Tribe truly is. It was a lovely entry Nancy and I thank you for taking the time on that one! I will certainly chat with you about that at some point in time!

I am finding myself a bit lost in the unschooling-homeschooling life. I had one revelation that certainly helped me unwind and feel SO much better about life, our family, our current 'stage' and everything. I ran into another fantastic mama at a homeschool gym who filled me in on a little secret about 7(-ish) year olds. OH, this was a conversation that was SO needed that particular day at THAT particular time. I have no idea how she knew I needed to even discuss this, b/c the topic came up pretty fatefully. But yes, this conversation helped me 10-fold in my current 'status' as a home-mama, but I feel like even having that enlightenment has not assisted me with my feeling a bit lost with out a tribe. Or maybe I have not identified people as such.... just yet....

I have noticed just how unschooly we really are lately. I suppose I never was (maybe never will be) brave enough to use 'radical' unschooling to describe our home and our family, but it is something I aspire too, most definitely. I feel like I have too many hang ups from my upbringing that I still desperately try on a daily basis to deschool myself of and move on to greener pastures. I suppose one day you come to a resolution with in yourself that you have done better or aspire to do better and pride yourself in how great your family's relationships are because of it. Afterall, you do totally love to spend each waking moment together and pride yourself on the relationships ever-growing, right?

OK, so really, the unschooling topic came to mind due to the Tribe-topic previously mentioned, and I have realized just how radical unschooly we tend to be in many senses of the description, and how what I thought was balanced in relationships we have, just really may not be. I don't know if I'm getting that out clearly. But I suppose the deep sole-searching question in finding a Tribe that helps you feel connected to a community is, "How (very) much do you need to have in common with your Tribe for them to be just that (your Tribe)?"

I suppose I could delve deeper into explanation of myself by giving one single example in our lives.... saying, Kaidin is a reader, but he's certainly not fluent. He, in fact, would term himself as a non-reader b/c he needs to be perfect in something before he will claim otherwise. So the fact that he has to sound things out and can not just fluently pick up a book and read a full page of text as quickly as mommy can, deems himself a non-reader. But for 6 years, I think he's fantastic. So.... of course we spend a great deal of time with other homeschoolers, all of whom are of various philosophies, and definitely not all unschoolers, and I worry and question as to whether this affects him. To hear his friends read something out loud in a group of people? I suppose he'd say something to me if it did bother him? I often wonder if I should ever bring it up in a manner that delves into his feelings on the topic, but he tells me when other things bother him, so I'm really not all that concerned.

Ok, so if neither of us are concerned about it, then what's my problem, right? Well.... simply, I wonder if it affects friendships or relationships b/c I don't 'force' him to read, or force him into much of anything other like reading, writing or math (many aspects of our lives for that matter). Does following this type of lifestyle in our family affect the relationships we have outside of our family? Would we feel more connected to an outer community if people we spent time with followed much of the same?

Oh... the "what if's" in life.... you could go on and on. You could worry yourself into oblivion with those. So really having blurted this all out, I've come full circle to remind myself that 'yes' all of our family and friendships are so very special to us.... and what's even more special is that we (our immediate little clan) feel that we are doing just great as we are. I suppose outside relationships could or would grow deeper with these very core and heartfelt ideas about life, but then again.... our's are ever-growing and changing... every day! What is now, may not be a few months from now.... or even years..... oh I could go on and on at this point.

It's most important that everyone here is at peace with who they are and what they love, their passions they follow and their creativity they indulge in endlessly. There are no limits to stopping your passions to sit in front of a book to "learn how to read".... or to add numbers together. It's all a part of life, a life which we are very very at peace with. It's lovely to have that feeling because many people struggle constantly, and it's not an easy thing to shake. I still work on it from time to time. But man the strides I have taken in the last 5 years.... It's all a blessing. Who would have thought.... but yet here we are!

It's done!

The first ever family trivia adventure game is ready! It's been in the works for several weeks now. The kids and I have had this on-going project for quite some time, but it is finally complete and ready for our first test run! Grandpa has the priviledge of coming over tomorrow to give it the unveiling with us! We are all so excited about this project and only look to grow and develop it further. It's such a fantastic family fun kinda thing to do! It's occupied MANY hours in our home! ; )

Updates to come soon!

Dahlia funnies...

You just gotta love his girl.....

I'm buring the midnight oil.... trying to do 'some' work on the computer, and she comes out of the bedroom to find me.....

She comes up and sits down and I say, "hey Dahlia, what's up???"

She sits and stares off.... no answer....

Me - "What's happening?"
D- no response
Me - " Dahlia?"
D- "I forgot what I was going to say"
Me- "Are you awake or are you still sleeping?"
D- ............. "I'm not sure"
Me- "Well......... maybe you could crawl back into bed and see if you're still sleeping or not?"
D- "OK" .....


and off to bed she went ; )

Good tidings....

So Thanksgiving was quite lovely. We visited mom and it was just us and she cooked a wonderful feast for us. Sat and chatted the day/evening away and truly enjoyed a wonderful day. The kids were thrilled to be a Grandma's for so long. Kaidin has this funny thing.... when he's had a really awesome time, he'll rant and rave about how great 'that' (activity) was and then ask, "How long was that??". When I told him we were at Grandma's for about 6 hours he was so flabber-gasted he just literally could not grasp it. Quite cute.



As we get ready for the holidays this year, I am so thrilled that everyone had finally decided to only buy for the kids and not the grown ups. It's only been 6 years (since having Kaidin) that we (Seringe and I) have asked for this type of tradition. We feel so funny receiving so many gifts when we really are not in need of anything. It's just so much more fun for the kids to receive and enjoy in their magic. Tis the season to revel in their sheer joy of the holiday magic. (And I have to say, opening my gifts the last several years has taken away from this for me as a mommy... it's very hard to even enjoy what they have received when so much chaos is occurring.)



Anyway.... thanks to economic crunch, family is finally taking note that their spending is way out of control, and this year is a HUGE relief on us as a family. I am so thrilled at the change and hope that this continues as a year tradition.



That said, I have started snooping around for the kids gifts and finding some great finds on Craigslist, Ebay and even the thrift store and freecycle. So it will be a very nice xmas despite the penny pinching. I am so excited to enjoy this thoroughly with the kids this year.



Other... well Nakita Baby is finally up and running. Expansion is little by little each day. And thrilled to be on the worldwide web with it. Hope that all will continue to move onward and upward. I made my official announcement that my email has changed and linked my new site. Figured putting my butt on the line will keep me moving forward and really commits me to growth! It is quite cool, the amount of new things I am learning getting this going! Never stops!


The hermies have had a few sad passings. We lost Mr. Turkey the night before Thanksgiving.... go figure, right? And then Tweetie was next to follow... the day after Thanksgiving. Yesterday, I thought that Mr. Shark was looking a little slow (a.k.a.... totally still and death-like), so I moved him to the food bowl and he was cruising around that evening. But then we woke up today, apparently Kaidin was checking him out and he just plopped, dropped out of his shell lifeless. Ugh.... we are down to 5 live one's now. And with luck we can keep these guys going. I think a tank cleaning is necessary. Maybe we need to move their location in the home? Needless to say, the hermit crab thing is getting a bit disappointing. Kaidin is really really concerned that they keep kicking the bucket one-by-one. Last night he was hypothesizing why and what might be going on in the cage. Dahlia is sure we should just get a hamster. ; )

We had the first two dead one's in a plastic bag b/c they had fallen from the shell in the night, I put them in a bag for them to see when they woke up. They are strange looking, intriguing, cool... and figured they'd want to see what happened (what lifeless really is). The last day or so, Dahlia was more interested in the dead ones than the live ones! She was running to get the bag saying, "you wanna see the crab hospital??" Pretty funny. But those guys really get smelly, so they have moved on to crab heaven..... aka. the garbage dump.

It's been a really great and mellow weekend. I love this time of the year b/c holidays are coming, winter is not so horrendous yet, and laying low at home is kinda fun. It's after the new year that you get sick and tired of being home but its so stinkin' cold you don't want to go anywhere.... and it starts to get old and tired..... Enjoy this and every moment.

Deck the Halls!

So the kids have not even gotten to Thanksgiving yet and they have been begging me to set up the Christmas decorations already! They wanted to enjoy them starting a week ago! We have finally done so today. It was quite fun actually.... this year Dahlia was quite in to doing all of the decorating *with* me! (I usually seem to man that process alone!) So it was quite fun that she was at that point that she really wanted to help and was really in the spirit. She was quite excited as things came out of the storage boxes.... all the while Kaidin was on YouTube checking out Bionicles videos directing us at what was right and wrong and what should go where. When we'd sit to rest for a minute, he'd say "is that it? You did not do 'x' task yet!" (As if we did not figure this out already! ; )

Shea was quite thrilled to play with the fake tree and pull himself up on stuff. I think the excitment was just overwhelming b/c he totally refused to let himself nap this morning. It was well into the early afternoon before he crashed from it all.

So our home is quite decorative already! I am eager to buy just a couple more light strands. If its one thing that bugs me more than anything.... those light strands that you put safely in a storage box, only to not work just one year later... Like I'm going to sit down and check out all 100 lights on the strand to figure out which one it is not working!

In other news....
Hermies have been very very interesting so we decided to add 4 more to the clan. Making them 8 in all. We have "Mr. Turkey", and "Bruce", "Spiderman" and one teeny tiny little guy in a pretty unpainted shell.... let's call him "PeeWee" as the kids have not yet deemed him a name of their own yet.

Makes for a lot more action in the tank, and I think we will soon witness someone's changing of shells! Very cool! (Hopefully we get to witness this.... I guess I should add, as I think they mostly do this at night.)

And....
We have a new handcrafted game in the works! It is a sort of trivia adventure game and it's been SO much fun to put together. It is still in the works though, so I guess details will have to be relinguished much later.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

The Hermies Have Landed

Today was the BIG day! We are official "pet owners" as of this afternoon appx. 4pm central time! ; )

We had been discussing this for weeks.... well maybe even months! (The kids wanted a cat when I was pregnant with Shea, and I kept putting it off saying "when the baby is here, we will discuss 'A' pet option".... hinting strongly that it may not be a CAT!)

So Baby came and time has rolled on and it's been an even heavier discussion "what kind of pet"??

We had scanned many a pet stores and read many a books from the library.... surfed many a websites, and my first announcement was, "if we get a free aquarium/tank of sorts, on freecycle, then we can see what type of pet would suit us".

WELL.... we ended up getting FOUR tanks on freecycle and now have limitless options to house various types of reptiles, amphibians and other creatures. After reading, "Hermit Crabs for Dummies" from the library I finally gave into the notion that we would own and care for a creature. And today was the big day!

Actually, yesterday and today. The tanks have been sitting here a while now (since Halloween actually) and I could not muster to clean them up and get moving. But Dahlia was pushing more and more and getting more and more excited, so she eventually motivated me on this project.

Yesterday we went out and got the "home stuff" to be able to set up the tank for the Hermit Crabs.... OH yes, I guess I should have mentioned, the consensus was that we would do Hermit Crabs because they were very super duper low-maintenance, and we'd probably not kill them. ; )

So, this AM we spent cleaning out one of the tanks and getting it all ready. I told them we could swing by the pet store after gym today. I had thought we'd leave with 2-3 and we left with FOUR! But I do have to say, having them home and seeing how pretty cool they are, we could easily add a few more in the tank! They are pretty facinating little guys.

The kids had picked out 3 names for the hermies before we went out today, but when we got to the store, the only one's Dahlia wanted to select had characters painted on their shells! So they gave up on the names b/c they say "they already have names"!!!

"Welcome to the family, Patrick, Nemo, Plankton and Tweetie!!"

Exciting week!!!

Where to start?!

Well... first of all we had a very exciting Sci-fi workshop happening the last two weekends, and Seringe and Kaidin actively participated. Not only had a fantastical time learning cool Jedi moves, but what an amazing/special time for them as well! There was a very very cool performance/recital of sorts the last evening of the workshop, of which I have some very fun video coverage. This is just a new camera, so I have to figure out how to upload the video footage and get it on our site to share! Stay tuned for that one (I promise it's coming)!!!

And then.... had a very exciting order for my slings this week! I usually have been doing them per order (1) basis, and someone who had been given one of my slings as a gift loved it so much she wants to sell them in her float/massage spa in New Mexico! I am so thrilled about that! I have started a new outpost for all new updates on that facet of life, so do check things out there: http://nakitababy.blogspot.com/

Let's see, I can think of two other very fun things....

Dahlia wrote her name all by herself this week. She's been working pretty hard on this since the beginning of the summer. I have been getting regular 'love' notes on my desk each day that have her practicing on there. She often would ask me "what it says"?? And I would try my best to sound it out. She often would ask how to spell her name and would do it herself. She's also copied my writing when she's asked me to write it out for her. So this week, while makin' the routine waffle breakfast, she came in with a picture of the HUGEMUNGOUS millipede (or whatever the heck those god-awful bugs are called that transpire from the depths of the drain!!! We had a 2.5 INCHER cross our wall this week! Man, I still shake from the thought of it!!) Anyhow.... the pic is a beautiful momento of this creature that cruised our wall, and at the bottom, her name, so perfectly written, and she had *not* asked me once how to spell it!!

Pretty cool stuff! So I just had to take a pic of that one.... I think the pic speaks for itself!

(Funny.... I am just noticing the bugs face.... he looks a lot happier than all 4 of us when it crawled across the room!!! ; )

And in other Jarjusey news.... Mr. Boober has started nibbling on food. It's just ever-so-random, and I'm not really confident I could say anything is going down, but he just wants to be part of the gang. So he's maulled on banana, chomped on a single cherrio, and today..... rice cereal! ; )

He gets these funny looks, and most of it comes back out..... and after 1-2 bites he's already done. But he's just so proud that he can do what the 'big people do'.... it's pretty cute. See for yourself:

That's about it on this end. We have open gym tomorrow and day after I think we are going to check out a show at Old Town. The weekend.... well, Kaidin and Dahlia really want to see the new Madagascar movie that just came out. And I have a CCAP au pair event on Sunday. But as always, anything can change and anything can happen in Jarjusey Kunda!

History made

It's been an exciting week in the world... I just have to say it was a HUGE relief!

http://obama2008.s3.amazonaws.com/headlines.html

Enjoying the last of Fall

So we headed up to River Trail Nature Center, and aside for being reemed out for trying to have a picnic at the center, we had an amazing time! The center itself is truly remarkable. The kids and I thoroughly enjoyed. And the walk we took deep into the forest was just stunning. The "golden sea" was what we called it. Of course we were under attack by characters from Star Wars ; )

The color was shimmering in the sunlight. It was 70-something (in November no less!!) and it was just amazing. What a blast.... great memories...

Cool shades

Halloween!

Everyone here has hit their halloween low.... We thoroughly enjoy the holiday in this house. Probably more than any other holiday. Each year adding more and more decorations, and had them up in late Sept. no less! Even had them in our car windows this year!

This year we trick-or-treated in Grandma's neighborhood.... that was a bit sereal. One neighbor had about 50 pizzas set out on a table and cases and cases of water... serving the whole neighborhood! Can't even count the number of full size candy bars the kids raked in! Such is Kenilworth I guess... (when we left for home that same neighbor had a live band playing.... no telling what they were serving at that point b/c earlier in the evening each adult we saw was carryin' somethin' for happy hour!!)

Pic's are hilarious b/c we could not get Shea to peel his eyes off of Kaidin's mask ; )

Jedi moves ; )
Ranger power!

By the way.... Shea is 6 months old now!!!

Save our planet!

We had done an early morning grocery run since everyone was up at 6:30a, and I was in the kitchen frantically trying to unload the bags before little boober woke up (wanting to nurse) and little Ms. D was sitting at the table munching on some chips she picked out at the grocery store.

I noticed her intently savoring each and every bite, and occassionally coming back to 'real life' to catch a glimpse my unloading our bags. We had just recently purchased some cloth bags to cut down on the plastic in our house, and our contribution to the earth. Of course, when I purchased the bags we had lot's of discussions about trying to help save our planet even if little by little.

Anyhow.... she's munchin' on the chips and in her own little world. Occassionally I see her connect to what I am doing and then all of a sudden silence is broken....

D - Mommy, don't you think we should go out and help clean up the whole planet?
M - (smiling of course) I think that is a wonderful idea. It sounds like a really really big job. Do you think we could all of it?
D- How big is it?
M - Well, there are hundreds of countries out there on the entire planet so it could take us a really long time. Countries can be really big and some can be smaller....

Silence.... contemplating.... and little chip munching....

D - Mommy, I have an idea.
M - Hmm.......
D - We could do one country in one day and then the next country in the next day and then we would do all of the countries!

More fun with G'pa

A short time back we invited G'pa over to our house to 'play' all day long and feed him a yummy lunch (thanks to Nancy and her chicken salad recipe ; ) !!

While G'pa was here, Dahlia and he painted this beautiful mural we have hanging in our office/playroom. I desperately want to find a frame big enough for it as it was such an amazing project they enjoyed together.

Week before that we met G'pa at Wagner Farm and enjoyed a lazily-amazing rock in those great ol' rockers in front of the main barn, just after checking out the inside gallery, the outside farm animals, and contemplating buying pumpkins.... AND just before heading off to the local forest preserve for an awesome picnic lunch and a stroll through the Fall trees!

It's been quite nice to see G'pa as much as we have lately! Cherrished moments!

Our first Full Moon Jam!

We had a blast! I invited Grandpa to join us, and he brought along his drum to join the circle... the invite encouraged us to 'do' halloween-ish if desired and we all did a little something. We have a fabulous time down at Foster St. beach celebrating the full moon. The drumming was transing and the fire-throwing a blast to watch. The kids and I stopped off at the dollar tree to pick up some glow sticks for them and their friends as well, so they did a little 'fire-throwing' themselves! Everyone thoroughly enjoyed!

Gapping Hole!

Have you noticed the big hole! Yes! We have lost tooth #3, with #4-6 also very loose! ; )

Fun things!!!

Well... for starters, Friday the kids and I had one of those amazing days where just absolutely everything went better than we could have anticipated. The day was a total relaxed one... b/c of this amazing weather we've been having, coupled with the fact that we had not been in a very long while.... we headed down to the zoo for the day.

We had no major agenda that day except just 'be' at the zoo, so we did not leave super early. We left when we were ready to go, and not racing out the door to get somewhere. We found a free parking spot right in front of the north entrance. All of the animals were out and about, and we got to see some feedings, and even pet a few critters. Had several picnics throughout the day.... visited each and every exhibit, including the farm.... and everyone was just happy as clams at the end of the day.

Pic's as the sun was setting before we left to head home:

Then.... Saturday we visited a Medieval Homeschool Demo at UIC this weekend and we all had a really nice time! Several booths set up for us to learn a ton of stuff about the era, and even a courtyard where we witness some bafa fitting. Kaidin was able to grasp a few fencing swords, Dahlia tried on a heavy armor helmet.... and I learned a ton about a herdy gerty (if I am even spelling that right!).

Pic's from this adventure:

And then, as it often is, Kaidin did not want to venture to far on Sunday, so Dahlia and I went a crusin' before her ice skating in the afternoon. Our main errand was to get to the grocery store, but she had been talking about horses for some time and how she'd like to ride one. I took her over to the most local stables I know, for what I thought would just be looking around... and we had a blast. Got to walk through the stables and pet some really huge horses... observe some riding and jumping lessons.... and low and behold, she truly wanted to do the pony rides!

"High -ho Silver!!" (literally... her pony's name was Silver!) She wants her to move in with us... and tells me several times a day that she missed Silver SO much.

After riding Silver: