Autumn fairy

It has been awhile, or so it seems, that I have put up pictures. Sooooo......
Your Autumn fairy:)

Thankful

Random gibberish warning.

It is so nice when Jack has leave. It really really is. I am incredibly thankful for our relationship. I love that we can talk about everything and anything still. That I am not afraid to look stupid in front of him. That even when we don't agree on things we can still hold an intelligent conversation. That he knows when it is alright to bring something up and when he needs to wait a few days because I am pmsing and it would just be better for him to make me a cup of tea so I don't decide to poison dinner.

I am thankful and glad that we are changing our thoughts about not only how to homeschool, but how to raise our children. Again another yahoo for John Holt, seriously read his books. Today, his last day of leave, we just went out and walked around. Yeah, outside would have been best but we were cold we went to the mall and got hot chocolate and walked around. Natalie lead us to the places she wanted to go. She went to the dance store and told me that she does want to take dance. I found this to be a hard decision as Jack tells me that I may have pushed her to this. I loved dance and miss it greatly. In fact, I would love to dance again. But she does sound serious about it, so we will try. She went to a bunch of places and asked questions. And it reminded me that it isn't too often that we go out just for them. Today we were lucky that we had nothing else planned. I plan to do this with them more often. we already try to take our time in the grocery store. It is important to me that they see how we shop, reading ingredients, looking at prices. Jack always used to get on me about just picking the one that looks pretty:) Or the cheaper one, but not looking to see that it is a smaller box. I find it funny that there is a whole class in school, remember home ec?, that is to teach these things that we are too busy to teach them ourselves. There is one good thing about fall and winter is that it is very slow. Since the rain and cold has started we have slowed down a lot. The only thing I don't like, and I am trying to not remember was that in Hawaii we didn't have a slow fast time, everything flowed. We didn't have to get outside as much as we could, because we could at anytime. Time went there and it was all nice. I do miss that. But I am trying to think of good times here. Curling up with the girls and drinking hot chocolate. I realized recently that I am full of crap. I had gotten myself good, NICE, hot chocolate mix. I had told Natalie it was for me because, and I realized I was about to tell her that she wouldn't enjoy it the way I would. I stopped and realized what an assine thing to say. Bullshit that she wouldn't realize that it was a special treat. Why do we try to treat them like children that can't appreciate anything? It is the same thought that bugs me when people say that their kids don't like, for instance indian food, well that would be too weird for them we will get them mac and cheese. Side story, we went to gandhi a few days ago. And were thanked by both the owners over how well our kids behaved and that they always enjoyed seeing us. They actually talk about us:) It made me feel very good. We almost always get complements on how well behaved they are, but it was something else to have them say something. I am very thankful that my children have the chance to try new things, to learn new things. I admit that I have a hard time still trying new things sometimes. I grew up with mac and cheese, meatloaf and spaghetti. But at a party recently Natalie tried shrimp, no hesitation. Jack and I don't care for it, but Natalie liked it. She wanted us to buy her some. And I hate the comments, like I almost made, of she is just a kid, could she really enjoy things like that? Or eww she won't like that! Why are you putting these ideas in my kids head? Can I please duct tape your mouth now?

And another random thought. We went out for Jack's birthday, Silver City I thought just this once, they always get the fish and chips. You know, I did not realize till that day how different my children had been acting. Natalie was completely insane for two days. Seriously, completely insane. I am pretty sure that it was not a color and flavor issue, she did have a half of a cherry, but I can't see that causing two days of insanity. I had read that wheat, like all allergies, can cause a behavior issue. I didn;t really believe it. It isn't worth it to eat wheat again.

Happy Birthday!!!

We had lots of fun today. We went and saw salmon, okay yes, forgot the camera... we looked at more apartments, that is alway fun, right? The girls and Jack finger painted. These are really cool finger paints we got from Kelly, again, www.thegreenkangaroo.org. Layla's are on the left, Natalie's on right, Jack's on bottom. These are his birthday pictures. He got a nice long email birthday song from my family, including the polish birthday song.

And what birthday wouln't be complete without a wheat free, artifical color and flavor free cake? it is chocolate, and I made the icing too, scary. It actually wasn't bad, kinda brownie like. The last cake I made wasn't done all the way. And Jack is a little freaky about things being done, at least I never have to share licking the bowl...So I baked the cake an extra 10 minutes, it could have been longer. But it was alright with him, I guess.

And you know, you also need a zombie baby for your birthday, right? Gwen has thrush. Gentian violet stains, and really when they say a drop and put it in their mouth, yeah A DROP, drop, that is all a drop. It is going to look like we beat our baby for the next three days.

on leave

Ahhh, the lazy days of leave...
We actually have a very simular picture of Natalie on Jacks shoulders, they both enjoyed pulling out his hair.

We have decided that the girls will now work. The odd thing, they LOVE their chores. They like feeding the animals, vacuuming, clearing the table, emptying the dishwasher and helping me with the laundry. BUT aske them to pick up their toys and yeah, that doesn't work. Natalie really wants to do the cat litter. I am trying to decide what age is alright for that.

Gwen has had a few different foods, but very far from regularly. This is broccoli, she does like it, she also likes giving some funky faces.

Damn I am short

As requested a photo of the girls standing next to me to show how insanely tall Natalie is.

The sugar sprite strikes

I so love the excitement on Layla's face. She was so happy and well words cannot describe.

Natalie handing Layla her dragon. I knew what Natalie was getting. I had no clue for Layla. She has been scared lately. I was really worried about trick or treating. I was hoping that with reassurance from us she would be fine. And for the most part she was. So she got a dragon for her bravery.

Natalie was excited to see her purse. Funny thing, she didn't remember picking it out. I was figuring she would put the night we went to Target and she saw it to the night I went to Target by myself together. But no, just pure happiness from getting a purse.

And their letters. I am thankful to have a book with the fairy alphabet in it. Natalie was proud of her fairy, she writes her letters well. She only messed up a few times. And yeah, well I only messed up a few times:)

The night before

Slighlty out of order. That is the perfect ring that resulted after Natalie redid every mushroom that Layla put out. It was kinda cute. By the way, needed the mushrooms, they were worried that the fairy wouldn't take the candy if there wasn't mushrooms. Must make the sprite comfortable.

Them putting all their candy in the circle. They were really so proud of the candy they collected for the sprite. They each got two pieces, the rest went to the sprite.

The pictures where they are both looking at me and smiling are oh so rare.