Safety and Special Time

G asked me not to put her helmet on with the staple. I think she meant the clip?

At the doctors office he asked G what her last name was and she said Goose. Maybe it's time to drop the nickname?

Just using his awesome new helmet to keep him safe while reading:

Coop: they come in all sizes

Dude: that cannot be possible bc then they would have to come as small as molecules!

Coop: right. Thank you Captain Literal.

Dude: there are lots of molecules in your hands!

We just love exploring and biking through the countryside, which fortunately is just a few blocks away in multiple directions. Too bad there aren't shoulders for safety. Or water fountains. Or bigger wheels on Dude's tiny bike!

Wouldn't want to not have enough milk with your cereal...

Incidentally, after I began cleaning it up I noticed the milk carton was on the far side of the table meaning she must've poured, got down and put it on the far side, then returned to her spot. Did she think this way I wouldn't know who'd done it?

Coop to L: we do not give our babies swirlies! Get that baby doll out of the toilet! No swirlies! No swirlies in our house!

G got to spend a special weekend with Nana and Bopa all by herself. She got the kind of attention she has only dreamed of before and loved it.

When hanging out with Aunt Patti at her office, G told people that "my friend L misses me," handed out date stamp artwork that she had signed, and replied that she was so cute "because of my mommy." Awwww. We would skype with her and blow her kisses so she wouldn't forget us amidst all the glamor: 

And she was right! When L first saw her home, she pranced over to her shouting her name again and again. You'll have to trust me, it was darn cute.

Tulip Festival 2016

I'll just throw some pretty pictures (mostly from the Tulip Festival) in between the weirdo things our tinies have said this week:

G keeps drawing dead guys with chalk on the sidewalk (I know they're dead bc they have x's for eyes). Then she stomps on their heads and says, "blah," with her tongue out. Should I be concerned?

Dude: Mom, what if everything was awesome? Then even toots would be awesome.

M just said to me, "well, you're not really the mechanical engineering type." Guess she noticed.

G: I'll be really tippy-tippy quiet, okay mom?

G and I are playing a game that's missing its die. G goes, hmmm...maybe I can smell it and starts crawling around sniffing for the die.

G likes to draw more than one Candy Land card at a time "accidentally." Then she chooses which one she wants. The best part is she doesn't always choose the one that is most advantageous to her.

G just wished on a dandelion that her mom can be bigger and better than she and that when she grows up she can have a baby animal.

I told L to not even think about it. She walked in the room, shook her finger at me and said, "I no tink bout it." If only. If only.

Oh and we spent time at Omsi and at grandma and grandpa's! Here's grandpa with his two Gracies:

Having fun with our Idaho cousins:

L was hysterically terrified of this "magic" floating ball:

G asks me if she can please go potty on THAT toilet. Uh, I think not.

I'm pretty proud of myself for not losing anyone during the 3 hours I was alone with all of them at Omsi. I mean, I didn't always know where they all were but I came home with he same number I arrived with! I usually just followed L and prayed that the rest wouldn't wander too far, but I turned for a second and L was suddenly serenading the whole room with "I am a child of God," as she salivated all over that microphone:

Oh and then the week ended with the Big Three enjoying some sunny fun in Bend:

What a week. Why is it I'm always so tired?

Big week

We finally moved into our new house and it's like a dream!

Coop: Not a bird... Do you know what other kind of animal it could be G? It looks like it has fins. 

G: I know! A waffle!

Coop: uh, what?

G: you know, that swims like this.

Coop: walrus?

G: oh yeah. That's what I meant.

I come in the kitchen and G is pretending to mop. She says, "I'm trying to clean so you can be happy." Aw sweet.

M's undefeated basketball season came to an end. They celebrated with some of the players from the pac-12 women's champion OSU players!

And of course she earned the defensive player award. This girl is a beast. Her shyness is just a ruse. If you have the ball... She. Will. Find. You.

L decided to help out at the last game by distracting the opponents with her pants-down act. I don't know what to do with this girl but I can tell you were never wearing those loose, elastic-waist pants in public again!

G: ok I'll put my coat on but not my lid.

I think she meant hood.

Bopa left early and didn't finish his ice cream. Guess who was only too happy to oblige? And of course if you have two bowls you need to eat with two spoons, right?

I asked L if she loves me. She's now repeating, "I love me," again and again.

We took a picture here on the day we moved into our rental in Corvallis and now on the day we moved out!

G: "how bout I call them honey butts cereal?"

She's a little confused about how to wear sunglasses:

I was getting out a turkey to roast when dude walked up, looked at it and went, "eeeeew that looks like a dead pig!" He was fascinated/horrified and informed G that food had blood in it. G walked up and said, "yuuuuum. That's gonna be good but I'm not going to eat it yet." She was especially excited to help stuff some celery down its neck hole. As I tried to dry it off its wings kept plopping out and I asked dude why. He didn't know except to point out that it was dead. I asked if he thought maybe he didn't think he was dead and was trying to fly away. He replied that he couldn't think because he was dead but he also couldn't try or fly for the same reason. Always logic with that one.

Sunshine!

The girls competed in their first Spelling bee! We only had about a week's notice, but they were way excited. Sadly, M made a mistake, corrected it to get the word right but having said it out loud incorrectly, was eliminated in the word "sonar." J was eliminated in the next round with the never-used word, "shoehorn." But they cheerfully watched until the end and talked excitedly about next time. Proud of their responses to disappointment!

During the competition, I didn't think the littles would be really capable of keeping quiet as requested. Bopa, and Grandma and Grandpa Smith stayed to watch while I took the crazies out to get some rare sunshine at a nearby park. Dude played zombie, G played dead, and L refused to ever get out of the swing.

We actually had more than one day of sun this week so of course we spent more time at the park. It's so nice to be outside.

Love the nervous laughter I can hear just looking at these pictures.

When it isn't sunny enough, we entertain ourselves indoors. Nothing out of the ordinary with this moment except that the cuteness of him spontaneously putting his arm around my neck nearly made my heart explode.

And speaking of random cuteness, G prayed tonight, "thank thee that it is M's birthday, and thank thee that it was L's birthday, and thank thee that it is going to be my birthday really soon. Ha! It's going to be a long month as we wait.

Always something

Sadly this was another week filled with sickness, so there was a lot of this: 

But that doesn't mean it was all bad, I mean, we even saw the sun a few times! And the kids are funny, whether they feel good or not.

G: mom, can I have some more pom-A-damn-it (pomegranate) seeds please?

Meet Mona Hulk-A Lisa, courtesy Jenelle:

Dude (reading Dr Seuss): Camel on the ceiling? What! That would NOT work cause gravity would make him fall right down ... A duck dog? I don't think that's real. There's no such thing... A fiffer-feffer-feff? WHAT is that? ... Zizzer-zazzer-zuz?!! No way! (That whole book is difficult for him to get behind - don't let him read it to you if you're in a hurry! He can't help the side commentary and questions!)

G: do you understand me dude? I: yes G: then you will be my man.

"I just wanted to see where the branches are!" That does not look comfortable.

Apple crisp on the front porch because. We segregate by age. Which speaking of... when I was talking to M earlier today she stopped making eye contact and started staring at my forehead or above. Irritated, I asked what she was doing. She answered, "you're getting a lot more of those grey-white hairs mom." Thaaaaanks.

Thanks to our new game about skeletons, I keep hearing weird comments like, "no thanks, I have enough ribs," and "would you like a pelvis?" Also, "I get to be Doctor Humerus!"

Dude asked today what the air was made of. One of those wish-I'd-done-more-than-short-term-memorization-in-science-class moments. I answered, "molecules!" After describing how they're so small you can't see them, he asked, "aren't molecules made up of atoms?" Why does my 5 year-old know that?

M: we are ready to do the scripture play! Dude: G is going to be a sheep, but the kind of sheep that they kill and then she's a sheep zombie!

I asked dude if he wanted to make bread with me. His response: yes! Then we wouldn't even have to buy it at the stores (which we hardly ever do), which is good because they are probably out.

J had her first strings concert, where s girl with a large head obscured her from view the entire time:

And M had her first basketball game, where she scored three times! And was so effective on defense, even when her player gave up and stood out of bounds.

 She never lets up. In fact, her coach had to tell her to stop stealing the ball!  Highlight was when they were explaining to the girls how to run an inbounds play, and m's girl sprinted from one sideline to the other, with M making sure she's never see the ball. For like 5 minutes. While the ball was still out-of-bounds. 😂😂😂 Gotta love the dedication!

Shenanigans

I was just having a coughing attack. G ran and got me a drink of water and announced, "I'm a hero! I'm a drink hero! (I thought she said Greek hero which would've been hilarious but drink hero is pretty good too!)"

I just caught Baby L and G playing in the laundry room and said, "no guys." L wagged her finger at me and said very seriously, "no! Bad, bad, bad."

Just told G no more bugging Dude. She smirked at me and asked, "how about bugging myself?"

And Dude has learned to read, which opens up a whole new world of funnies. For example, Bopa was drinking Naked Juice. Upon reading it, Dude walked around sniggering and repeating the word, "naked."

G runs on ice skates. Would you expect any less from her?

Nana was at home with the littles while we skied. They were getting ready to go when she ran back to change socks. G decided not to wait and let L out and they walked down the street. A neighbor stopped them and was hanging out with them, not knowing who they belonged to. Poor Nana. Even worse when she finally found them and called for them to come back, G did but L turned and ran the other direction. How I wish that wasn't such a common occurrence.

Oh and we had a pretty fun time in Bend before everyone got sick! I love skiing. The girls do now too!

Love it when the clouds make it look like the mountains are floating!

A perfectly clear view is pretty awesome too.

Second day of skiing for Dude who is so close to ready to ditch the harness (just has to learn to stop without face planting), and the girls have mastered the bunny hill (M no longer yells the whole way down) and are ready to move on since we have achieved our immensely important goal of riding chair lift #1 (Silly me, I thought we were there to ski. You don't want to know how many times they raced the chairlift back down, got in line, tried to wait until #1, but had to go on #38 or even the last one - #40 - because people were waiting behind us. The lift operators caught on and commented on our lack of success every time but I just wouldn't let the girls hold up the line so we could wait for three more lifts to go slowly around. One tragic time, we let the people behind us go and they took too long and ended up on the coveted #1 and we had to settle for #2. Oh the drama.). Oh and Bopa did manage to lose J on the last run of the day. Their definitions of "go to the bottom and wait" are ... different. But Bopa's goal was everyone surviving the day, so success!

Our week

Good thing daddy has such a big lap bc these kids all want a piece.

Ever get that feeling like the couch has sucked you in and you can't get out?

Love that the big girls were including the tinies in their game during lunch at our homeschool school. The group just kept expanding as they played their quiet, structured game - as dude and a bunch of other boys ran mad playing tag.

Is this how you look after eating blueberries?

Our science experiment with walking water. We have so much fun on Fridays!

Look at how that water has "walked" down our rainbow!

And funny things that've been said:

G: Lucy, he's Rudolph and he has a red nose, soooooo he's mine!

M: Tomorrow, we're going to have a booby war! J: booby trap war. She means booby trap war. Dude: There'll be hundreds of booby traps!

We looked at a house awhile back that had the tiniest dining room ever with a tiny table that only fit two chairs. Dude stopped in his tracks when he saw it, said, "wha! We would not fit at that table. We would have to take turns eating!"

I texted Coop: "the girls are rolling with laughter, literally falling off their chairs, because there was really a guy named Sir Francis Bacon.