Lacy's birthday interview

My name is: Lacy
I am 8 years old.
I am_____ inches tall and I weigh _____ pounds.  
My favorite color is red.
My favorite book is Ella Enchanted.
My favorite show Good Luck Charlie.
My favorite food is cabbage.
I want to be a fashion designer when I grow up.
The music I like best violin music.
My favorite thing I did last year was starting the minuets.
This year I hope I will go to the water park.
My favorite place to go is Utah.
My favorite thing to do is design clothes.
My favorite animal is horses.
My favorite thing to do with Uriah is tickle him.
My favorite thing to do with Rose is tickle her.
My favorite thing to do with daddy is rub his back.
My favorite thing to do with mommy is going to the hair salon.

Knitting projects... again!

Here's the pattern I'm going to be working on while I'm on vacation!  For Lacy <3
http://www.abc-knitting-patterns.com/1118.html

Summer... so far!

We've been on summer break for a whole week now, and we're having a great time.  We're busy all the time!

Here's how our days go.

We wake up around 7:30 or 8 and start off with breakfast.  As soon as breakfast is done, we do our school work.  When that's done, we go on to chores, and lastly we get to the music practice.  We're usually done with that around 10:30, and at 10:45 we have to leave for swimming lessons (just this week and next).  After swimming lessons are over, we go to my mom's, who lives down the street, to visit for a few minutes and have some lunch. Then the rest of the day may or may not be free.  Tuesdays we stick around because we have hula lessons for the girls in the same town as my mom's house, and with gas being what it is, I don't like to drive back and forth from my house to her town.

We haven't had time for a lot of fun yet, but we did get to the zoo last weekend.  It was raining, but it was still fun!  Speaking of rain, we keep trying to have a garage sale, but every Saturday's forecast calls for rain!  Once again, it has been pushed out another week.  We're trying to make money for our family vacation, and we're hoping we have the garage sale before we actually have to leave.

Some pictures of our summer so far...

Here are Rose and Uriah looking at the clouded leopard cubs.  They were so cute and playful!

 Hipster Lacy and the Budgie Buddies.

 Rose at the Rose Gardens at Point Defiance park.

 First day of swimming lessons!

A popsicle Summer

We have a great method that I've been using for a couple years now that works really well for my disorganized self.  I write down different chores or other things that are necessary on popsicle sticks and have the kids draw from the jar instead of simply assigning chores.  I just went through last year's popsicle stick chore chart and made a few more and took out some of them (like dusting, which they really shouldn't do, unfortunately, due to their dust allergies, which all 3 kids have), and I created new ones for school subjects.  This year, I also put school subjects on colored popsicle sticks and they're going to pull probably 3 of those every day, maybe 4. School's not out yet, so I haven't yet decided!  For chores and subjects already done that week, I'll reserve the popsicle sticks and put back in the next week.  Some school subjects and chores I'll put back in every day.  This is a fun way for them to do chores and I'm hoping it works for our summer school program as well.  Plus I add in things like jumping jacks, go down both slides, sing a song, call grandma, etc to make it fun!  And I have fun school subjects in there too- knitting school, cooking school, science experiments, etc.  I'm using one color for all the school subjects so that they can tell them apart from chores, but not remember their favorite subjects and always go for those colors!

I'm actually revising as I'm writing this blog post.  I'm putting weekly subjects on red popsicle sticks, and multiple times a week on yellow.  They'll draw 3 yellows and 1 red each day.

Yellows- 2 workbook pages, do a math worksheet, story of the world lesson, First Language Lessons, Brainquest time!, Read to Mom, and Listen to read alouds (these are educational read alouds, such as The Golden Goblet, and not the books I read to them at bedtime).

Reds- music appreciation, knitting lessons, arts & crafts, cooking class, science experiment

We're going to have pretty strict TV rules as well- no TV unless all chores, music practice and school work is done, and no TV at all on "T" days.   This keeps a good balance in the home during the summer. I'm considering being even more strict than I usually am- I'm thinking about TV hours (maybe just for a few hours in the afternoons) or having a totally TV-free summer (which my husband suggested).  If we decide to do that, in order to keep them motivated to do their chores, we won't be allowed to go to the pool to go swimming unless all chores, music and school work is completed.  Since the pool is 2 blocks away, it's really convenient to go and we can go many times in a week, possibly every day.  It's not a backyard pool, but it's still handy, and as long as I have my dinners planned well in advance, I might just take them every day.  It's too soon to tell- summer vacation begins on Friday, so we may still adjust all this to suit our needs as the summer progresses.

Back to the popsicle sticks- I first started using this method when Lacy was a new violin player 2 years ago. It was hard to get her to do everything she needed to do to practice, so I started writing down all of them on popsicle sticks.  We no longer do that now that she's in the minuets, but Rose will be starting violin lessons this fall or late summer so we'll start that up again for her.  It worked really, really well, so I decided to incorporate it into summer chores.  And now I'm expanding it even further!  I  noticed last summer that other people were using similar methods, but I didn't get my idea from those blogs.  I don't do any fancy printouts to glue to craft sticks, I just write on them with pen and stick them in a jar.  That way I can add and subtract at will.

Allergies and Us

We have all the allergies.  Food.  Hayfever.  Dust and mold.  Pet.  Medication.  I did everything I could and researched up a storm to do the best I could to keep our kids from having allergies. I was very careful.  Despite my best efforts, all three of the kids have allergies.  According to the allergy doctor that we see, with Dave and my allergies combined, we have an 80% chance of passing those allergies on.  I guess genetics are a lot stronger than the other factors such as infant feeding method, introduction of solids, allowing your kids to play in the dirt, ect.

So now we have to learn to deal with it and now I'm on a mission to keep their allergies at bay using the least invasive methods possible.

In the meantime, at least the food and pet allergies are easier to avoid.  It's the hayfever and the dust and mold allergies that are difficult.  All three kids have dust allergies of varying degrees.  All three children also have food allergies.  Each child is allergic to egg whites.  That is Uriah's only diagnosed food allergy.  Lacy is also allergic to milk.  Rose is also allergic to banana, yeast, pecans and almonds.  And, because there is a child in her class with a severe peanut allergy, that means I have to rethink her lunches.  Fortunately, the food allergies are mostly mild to moderate.  Rose might have asthma. All three have eczema. And I'm afraid Uriah has the worst allergies of all three.  Because he's so little, there wasn't as much room to do tests on his back, and blood tests for two year olds are notoriously inaccurate.

So, we need to make a lot of changes.  I'm on a mission to keep my family healthy while staying away from as many medications as possible.

Rose's birthday interview

My name is: Rose
I am 6 years old.
I am 43 1/2 inches tall and I weigh 44 pounds.  
My favorite color is blue
My favorite book is Dora
My favorite show Dora
My favorite food is spaghetti
I want to be a veterinarian when I grow up
The music I like best singing music
My favorite thing I did last year was going swimming
This year I hope I will go to my family reunion
My favorite place to go is the water park
My favorite thing to do is play with friends
My favorite animal is horses
My favorite thing to do with Uriah is play games
My favorite thing to do with Lacy is play games
My favorite thing to do with daddy is  play games
My favorite thing to do with mommy is play games

A few of my toddler's favorite books

Ri all of a sudden started loving to have me read to him!  I've been reading to him or at least *near* him since he was a baby.  Sometimes I didn't read specifically to him, though. Now that he's turning into a big boy, he has his preferences and lets me know them!

His current favorite book is Dinosaur Roar by Paul Strickland.  He always gets into this one!  There is a slimy dinosaur in it, and he always says, "What the snow?  What the wawee?"  I started saying what the snow when we had a really big snow storm here.  He hasn't stopped saying it as an expression of surprise.  He also always says gobble gobble when we get to the part about the dinosaurs eating!

 He also loves classics such as Goodnight Moon and The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  Another of his favorite books is Counting Kisses by Karen Katz.  And, because he has a sister obsessed with Dora the Explorer, he frequently requests me to read her "Backpack" books.  We will check out Dora books by the dozen for that girl!

I've always found it a challenge to find books that my toddlers love, but since we found Dinosaur Roar, Uriah has found a love of reading books.

Uriah's (late) birthday interview, by mom since Ri can't talk

My name is: Uriah
I am 2 years old.
I am 36 1/2 inches tall and I weigh 32 pounds.  
My favorite color is green (according to his sisters)
My favorite book is my book about animals
My favorite show is nothing because I don't watch TV
My favorite food is lentils
I want to be a big boy when I grow up
The music I like best is all music!
My favorite thing I did last year was playing with duplos.
This year I hope I will play with duplos
My favorite place to go is Grandma's house
My favorite thing to do is play with duplos (can you sense a pattern?)
My favorite animal is doggies
My favorite thing to do with Rose play in the mud
My favorite thing to do with Lacy is play dress-up
My favorite thing to do with daddy is build stuff
My favorite thing to do with mommy is nurse

Toddler nursing funny

I'm going to get better at blogging again.  I'm determined.  In fact, I have a few ideas up my sleeve that I'm going to address in future blog posts.  But for now, here is a toddler nursing funny that happened last night.  Little one just turned 2 at the end of January.   Yes, he's still nursing.  A lot.  No intentions of stopping anytime in the immediate future, though my girls were both weaned a little after they turned 3, so the same will probably apply with him as well.

I was feeling very touched out last night and needed a break from my busy little guy.  He just wanted to nurse all evening but I was super busy and my nipples were getting a little bit overworked and a little sore.  Nothing I tried dissuaded him from wanting to nurse.  So I held up a package of these and told him

 and told him, "I don't have these.  So you're going to wait until later to nurse."  He said, "Okay!" and went off and played for about 45 minutes without asking to nurse again.  Apparently this was an excellent visual aid for a nursing toddler boy.  

Lacy's Birthday Interview

My name is: Lacy
I am 7 years old.
I am 51 1/4 inches tall and I weigh 58 pounds. 
My favorite color is black.
My favorite book is one with the main character of Lacy (we can't remember the book name)
My favorite show is Wild Kratts
My favorite food is cake
I want to be a scientist when I grow up.
My favorite subject at school is reading.
The music I like best is the music I learn at school.
My favorite thing I did last year was meeting my teacher
This year I hope I will watch TV at lunch again.
My favorite place to go is school.
My favorite thing to do is draw.
My favorite animal is every animal.
My favorite thing to do with Rose is play on my bed.
My favorite thing to do with Uriah is help him climb up my ladder.
My favorite thing to do with daddy is go to the little store and eat candy.
My favorite thing to do with mommy is go to the fair and sit in the ferris wheel.

Rose's Birthday Interview

My name is:  Rose
I am 5 years old.
I am 43 1/4 inches tall and I weigh 40 pounds.
My favorite color is purple and blue.
My favorite book is Pink Pajamas
My favorite show is Dora
My favorite food is spaghetti.
I want to be a doctor when I grow up.
My favorite subject at school is bringing muffins and cupcakes too.
The music I like best is violin.
My favorite thing I did last year was play soccer.
This year I hope I will make necklaces.
My favorite place to go is school.
My favorite thing to do is get balloons.
My favorite animal is horses.
My favorite thing to do with Lacy is play school and house.
My favorite thing to do with Uriah is snuggle with him.
My favorite thing to do with daddy is go to the little store.
My favorite thing to do with mommy is go the doctors and get a shot.

So how's the nightweaning going?

Well, it's going great!  Uriah was very unhappy at the idea of nightweaning.  At first.  The first several days were very, very hard, especially once I stopped nursing him at night altogether (night 4 and later).  I almost threw in the towel at one point.  Almost.  I think I was on night 5 or 6, and my lovely friends and family convinced me to keep on trying.  Guess what?  It got easier after that!  Uriah still wakes up at about 12:30 every night, but it takes about 2 minutes to get him back to sleep now, and I don't have to get out of bed or even hold him.  I just shush him (he likes the white noise), push down on the bed a little so he jiggles a bit, and maybe say a few soft gentle words while patting him, and he falls back asleep.  This would not have been possible a few weeks ago!  I am so happy that the nightweaning has worked!  I didn't follow Dr. Gordon's plan to a T this time, as I did with Rose, because Uriah was about 6 months younger than Rose when I nightweaned her.  I stayed on phase 2 for a couple of additional days, and we naturally and easily transitioned to phase 3 a few days later.

Nightweaning part 2

So I noticed a little bit of discoloration on Uriah's teeth recently.  I'm so frustrated.  I've been doing everything "right" this time- little sugar, hardly ever any juice (maybe 1-2x a month), teeth get brushed very well daily with no-fluoride toothpaste, but he also gets fluoride supplements every day. The theory is, if teeth are brushed well, breastmilk on the teeth does not cause cavities.  There is actually a dentist who has done extensive research on this matter and has come to that conclusion.  I'm starting to doubt that now because all 3 of my kids have had some amount of decay on their front top teeth. It may be somewhat genetic though, since I know plenty of other people who have much worse oral hygiene habits that have kids with perfectly beautiful and healthy teeth. I guess I have to be extra careful with my children to prevent this from happening.

So I decided that nightweaning is necessary to stop some of the decay.  I have a very fast letdown, and we cosleep, so I think some of the milk actually is pooling up in his mouth causing the decay.  I didn't nightwean Rose until she was older, and Lacy nightweaned out of necessity because I was pregnant with Rose, so her damage was less severe .  Uriah is 14 months now and perfectly capable of nightweaning.  It's a hard process though.  I decided to start it last night.

The first night is really hard because they've never had to be forced to do without nursing at night before.  You do allow them some nursing (2-3 minutes) but not to where they fall asleep again.  And this really upset Uriah.  REALLY upset him.  He woke up at 11:45 last night and cried and screamed and fought until 1:15 when I finally was able to lay down with him.  He woke up again maybe twice more, but it was easier to get him back to sleep then.  He woke up happy and smiling this morning, so no harm done!  We've just got to get through 9 more days of this.

Quack Quack by Louise Rupnik

I thought it would be fun to review Uriah's favorite book!  Quack Quack is a touch and feel book for babies, and Uriah absolutely loves it!

There are photographs of various animals in this book with little patches for baby to feel.  Uriah doesn't just feel these patches.  He bites them.  I guess this book is Uriah approved!  This is the only book that he'll sit all the way through.  He loves it!  He's not quite 14 months and I try to read a few books to him every day, but he usually gets bored halfway through the book.  

This is a good one for little babies because it's not too long and they like patting (or biting!) the animals in the book.

Sick

For the last week and a half.  Hoo boy this is fun.  Everyone else has already gone through it (and still have lingering symptoms- thank goodness the boy is still nursing because he can't keep anything down but mama milk) and finally today I notice a little drip from the nose.  Perfect.  Well, maybe hubby can pamper me for a couple of days while I recover.  Lacy has already missed 4 full days and 2 half days of school AND two violin lessons.  We are managing to get practice in most of the time, though.  Hopefully by this Thursday she will be 100% better and ready to fiddle again!

And I always start getting smug in late February that we didn't get sick this winter.  And then we get sick in March.  Never fails.  I'll stop being smug about our health next year.  If I remember.

The Monster Princess

Tonight we tried something the girls picked out from the library yesterday.  The Monster Princess, by D.J. MacHale, ended up in my bag from the new picture book section.  

Did you ever wish to be a princess?  Lala, the Rugabee, did.  A Rugabee is a type of monster that lives underground and collects a special kind of nut.  But Lala, a very talented and popular Rugabee, wanted to be a princess and live above ground and dance!

One day, she ventures into the castle and finds the princesses' room, where she tries on their dresses.  At first they are afraid, but they end up ridiculing her in public, which really hurts Lala's feelings.

When I opened this book and realized it was a rhyming book, I silently groaned to myself.  I am not a fan of rhyming books.  I've never really liked poetry (sorry, Mom, it's true, but I'll still recite poetry for your birthday) so rhyming books usually have a groan-inducing eyeball-rolling effect on me.  But The Monster Princess was actually not obnoxious rhyming, so it's one I could read again!  Most rhyming books aren't very cleaver and they try too hard.  I didn't feel like that with The Monster Princess.  The girls enjoyed reading it with me, so I officially declare that The Monster Princess will be renewed 3 weeks from now!  Unless, of course, somebody has a hold on it already.

All boy!

They say that boys and girls are equal and that we teach them to be boy-ish or girl-ish based on our own biases and expectations.  Well, I don't believe that for a second.  I didn't believe it when my first child was born and she gravitated toward girly things to do.  I did buy the gender neutral toys, and they have a box of dinosaurs and trains (Rose requested the trains, actually!).  Of course, the dinosaur gets dressed up in fancy dresses and Lacy parades the beautiful T. Rex around the house singing, "This is the dinosaur of the queeeeeen!"

Now I have a boy.  He turned 1 about a month ago.  I love him more than life itself and I would do anything for my little man.  I'm so glad I got him!  Of course, being a mom to a boy is a new thing for me, so I treated him exactly as I have treated my girls.  And the girls have put bows in his head more than once.  I may or may not have encouraged that.  Once I put a girly diaper on him and Dave wasn't too thrilled about that, but all my diapers were dirty and I only had a pink flower one handy.  What's a mom to do?

We're in the midst of a large amount of remodeling at our house, due to some unfortunate wind, ice and rain damage that occurred.  Because Dave is handy with this type of thing, he is doing the majority of the work himself.  My dad comes over and helps Dave often with the work that needs done, as he's pretty handy as well.  Uriah of course wants to be around all the action.  He loves hanging with the guys and is always picking up tools and trying to "help" any way he can! It's adorable!  At least, until he finds the razor knives and carries them around.

Twig

Looking for a sweet little book for your sweet little one?  Twig by Elizabeth Orton Jones is a good choice.

Twig was published in 1942, but even though it's going on 70, children today are the same as children 70 years ago, no matter how different we think they are.  They're full of imagination and can turn the simplest thing into a magical wonderland.  I know my own children will play with paper, cardboard boxes and fabric scraps for hours, coming up with all sorts of uses for them.  Twig is no different- she turns an old, empty tomato can into a fairy house!  It is just so amazing!

Your child will love listening to a book about a little child who has an imagination as big as her own.  You will love reading it to your child because the chapters are short!  Short chapters are a wonderful thing.  If you don't have much time to read because you've been busily running around all evenings, you can choose to read one chapter. If you have more time, you can read as many as you wish!

The language is simple and the characters are cute.  This is a good book to read aloud to kids who haven't had many chapter books read to them yet.

My favorite part about this book?  Twig looks a lot like my little Rosie!  I'll have to read Twig to Rose soon... I've only read it so far to Lacy.  Rose will be 5 in May and maybe she'll be ready to listen to it then.  I already call her Little Missy a lot, just like Mrs. Sparrow calls Twig Little Missy in the book!  Don't you see the resemblance?

The BFG

Oh, Big Friendly Giant, I am so grateful to you forever.  You finally got my Lacy interested in reading chapter books with me.  This was not the first chapter book Lacy listened to.  But this is the first one that Lacy actually actively listened to, enjoyed, and begged for more.  If you haven't read The BFG by Roald Dahl, you must go read this book.  Today, if possible.  It's worth it.

How did I get Lacy interested in reading a book about giants?  I told her there was a queen in the book.  And she was immediately interested.  This is such a great book for all kids, boys and girls alike, and I really wanted Lacy to hear this one and love it, so I used whatever I could to get her to want to hear it.  I'm glad I did- she loved it!

The two main characters in the BFG are Sophie and The Big Friendly Giant, or BFG.  He is the only giant who doesn't eat human beans.  Instead, he collects dreams and gives them to the little childlers at night while they sleep.  One night Sophie awakens during the witching hour and observes The BFG blowing dreams to boys and girls.  In order to protect his identity, he kidnaps her and takes her to his cave, where they eventually come up with a plan (this is where the queen comes in!) to rid the world of the disgusting, flithsome giants forevermore.

This book is interesting and fast paced.  This is an excellent choice for a first read-aloud chapter book.  Even if you don't have a child at home to listen to you read this aloud, you should still read this book if you haven't already. It is one of my favorite children's novels of all-time.

I just realized that I need to read more Roald Dahl to Lacy.  I've got to figure out my angle in order to convince Lacy that it's worthwhile to listen to... if it's not about princesses or little girls, she's really not interested.  We've read Matilda and she loved it, but I tried to read The Witches and she was not having it.

The Very Fairy Princess

Another picture book that we've recently checked out and read together as a family is The Very Fairy Princess by Julie Andrews and Emma Walton Hamilton.

Honestly?  Not my favorite.  It was pretty cute, but a little boring, to me anyway.  BUT the kids really enjoyed it, and that's who I'm reading for, right?  Well, to be totally honest, when I read to the kids, I want something that I enjoy and my kids enjoy.  I'm glad this was a library book because I was looking forward to not having to read it anymore!

The book is all about being a fairy princess, and how you need to "let your sparkle out."  She goes over all the qualities of a fairy princess ("Fairy princesses are very supportive" for example, when she gives encouragement to her friend).  It's a good message.

But the fact of it is, I read books to be entertaining and not to teach my kids life lessons.  As the mom, I teach them life lessons while they're living their life, not while they're reading a book for entertainment.  If there are morals in the story, I want them to not be detrimental to the plot of the book. There really was not much of a plot, which was why this book was so boring.

But, because my own daughters want to be fairy princesses themselves, I ended up reading it over and over (and over and over...).