My Little Monkey

So, Maira really likes to look at books. And for the past few months, whenever I go into her room in the morning or after she was supposed to be taking a nap, I usually find her sitting in her bed, surrounded by books. So many books that it must have taken her numerous trips from her bed to her bookshelf and back. Often I can tell she didn't sleep at all because she was too busy hauling books into her bed and then sitting there looking at them. She often tells me that she's playing school with her books when I ask her about it.
This is what her bed usually looks like in the morning: she was sitting on her pillow, surrounded by books.

Well, I'm really happy she loves her books but I'm not happy with her lack of sleep. I do read her several bedtime stories, it's not like she's book deprived. I keep telling her, please go to sleep, don't look at books. And she agrees and then proceeds to climb out of bed as soon as I leave. Well, the other day, I went into her room and found the entire contents of her lowest shelf spread all over her floor, you literally couldn't see her floor. And that was the last straw. I pulled all of the books from her lowest three shelves out of her room, figuring that she couldn't reach the top two shelves. Then I took the stool and the laundry basket that I've seen her turn upside and use as a stool, out of her room so she wouldn't be able to reach those upper two shelves. Thinking I had outsmarted her.

Well, I went into her room the next morning and here is what I saw:


Those are the books from her 2nd highest shelf, the one I didn't think she could reach, in a pile on the floor, with a yellow bag of doll clothes added to the pile, in an effort to make a tower high enough that she could reach the very highest shelf on her bookshelf! I was mystified - how did she reach those books to build the tower in the first place?? A few hours later, I heard her crying from her room because she was stuck in her doll crib: The doll crib that is right beside her bookshelf:

So, I moved the doll crib and a few minutes later, I heard a crash from her room: She had taken her flimsy plastic Barbie airplane and placed it on top of her little book tower and tried climbing her tower. Of course, the whole tower had come tumbling down. So, the airplane is gone too and I think maybe, just maybe, she'll stay in bed tonight.

Snowy Halloween?

Our neighboorhood has a few houses that go all out when it's time to decorate for Halloween. Here are a couple of my favourites that are on the same street as us:



Unfortunately, the snow kind of takes away from the Halloween effect! But the weather forecast is for the snow to melt by tomorrow and be fairly warm in the afternoon so it sounds like it will be nice trick-or-treating weather after all.

But, in the attitude of making lemonade when life throws you lemons, I took Maira outside this morning and we decided to make a snowman/snowghost to add to our own Halloween decorations. I told Maira to pretend she was scared of the snowghost when I took this picture but she thought I was crazy.

"School" Pictures

So, every year, I send Shae off to school dressed her best for school picture day, and every time, she brings home the proof of the shot they got and I wonder why the photographer took a picture of her half-smiling or with a bunch of hair out of place, etc.

So, I decided this year that instead of ordering school pictures for Shae and Connor, I would take all 4 kids to WalMart and get matching portraits of each of them while I'm there to make sure I get the shot I want (OK, so I have control issues...). Turns out that even though it's $10 for 50+ pictures of the first kid, getting portraits of the other kids at the same time brings the total cost closer to $80. I thought that with all of Jess' fancy lighting and photography equipment, we should try doing our own pictures at home. That way, besides saving money, I could photoshop the pictures to my heart's content, which I enjoy doing. I had a hard time narrowing down all of Jess's pictures down to just one of each kid so here's what I ended up doing:


...and wouldn't you know it, this is the one year that Shae's school pictures turned out really cute and I didn't order any! Oh, well.

Soggy Ghosts

So, I saw the idea to use cheesecloth soaked in watered down glue and then draped over a mold to make really cool ghosts on the Martha Stewart website. And I made them and they looked great:And then I never got around to moving them further under the roof overhang to protect them from the rain...and then it rained:
My poor soggy ghosts...

Halloween Quilt

Here's my latest project, a Halloween wall hanging:

I bought the pattern at Earthly Goods and the fabric at the Fabric Addict. It was fun to make a quilt that impressed Connor! I've got a few more Halloween decorating ideas in mind, we'll see if I have time to make them or not...

And some random cute pictures of the kids:
You have to click on the picture of Maira to see it bigger and see how funny she looks!

Back to School and Other Stuff

Shae started her first day of Grade Six. She had a good start to the year: her best friend is in her class, she got the "nice" teacher and she gets to be in the oldest grade at her school. Personally, I have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that this is her last year before Junior High (a time in my life that I am so glad to be done and am not looking forward to for her). At least I'm learning to really savour and enjoy every minute with the younger kids because time passes so quickly...
Jess walked her to school like he always does but this year, as they got to school, she saw her friends and asked him, very nicely, if he could please go now, she would rather go on her own. Sure, no problem, (sniff, sniff).

She's a crossing guard this year and she's taking art classes where she's learning to paint with water colours and she is absolutely loving it.

Connor had a rockier start to his school year. I expected kindergarten to be easy since he did playschool the last two years in the same building, just a different room and teacher. And he knew 4 or 5 of the kids in his class already. But I forgot that he doesn't like transition. He was very nervous the first day but went happily enough...until it was time to say goodbye and follow his teacher into class - his lower lip started to quiver and he tried really hard to be brave but he did cry a little as he turned away (it broke my heart!). But then the next day, he woke up and started crying, saying he hates school and didn't want to go. And it was the same every day that week. The next week, he protested more and more mildly each day and once he got there, he happily went to play with his friends so I think the transition is almost done. I just hope he doesn't get stuck in the mindset that he "hates" school...
And Maira and I have been playing school in the basement each morning after the older two go to school. She gets her backpack, packs her snack, and then sits in a chair in front of the chalkboard in the basement. She absolutely loves that and it has helped her transition to being more alone in the mornings now.

Here's a picture of Hudson, just because:
I think my kids look the most alike when they smile. This picture could be any one of my babies, he looks so much like the others at this age.

And here's a picture from this morning: Maira and Connor watching Veggie Tales while pretending they are robots.

Maira's New Twirly Dress

I bought the pattern for this dress a year ago and I finally got it out and gave it a go. It was even more complicated than I expected but all the details were worth it - it was so fun to make something different than the usual little girl's dress. The pattern is the Analise by Sandi Henderson, a fabric designer. I forget the name of the fabric line I used but of course I bought it at The Fabric Addict!

Here's Maira modelling her new outfit:

And then Connor and Hudson joined in the photo shoot as well:
Until Hudson had enough and crawled away...