Indoor Campout

I'm not really a fan of camping. As in, I don't do it. I don't like sleeping outside. I don't like bugs. I don't like being cold. I like being home in my snuggly bed, with my own bathroom, coffee, couch, etc. I realize this makes me sound like a pansy, but I'm ok with that. The only kind of camping I like doing involves a hotel. But, as a mom of littles I realize I may have to participate in occasional *choke* camping.

So I had an idea...I'll "camp" in our living room. Me and Billy planned a surprise indoor campout with the hooligans, and they were so excited. We packed them little backpacks, and went to Walmart to get "supplies" (stuff to make s'mores in the fireplace) Merrick even claims to have spotted a bear, who was trying to steal his granola bar.

Tirzah had one small meltdown, involving a wayward sleeping bag, and had to be sent away from the campsite to her bed...but she came back, ate some s'mores and got a much better attitude. Merrick always  manages to turn every activity into a full contact sport, so he had to be asked to stop jumping off the furniture and get back to camping. But all in all, everyone behaved and there were no incidents. Jericho watched from his saucer in the corner, and even had a few bites of graham cracker.

I think if this is how camping goes, I can totally handle it. But I think eventually, it may require me going out of the house.

Fall Craftiness

Just a little snippet of some fall craftiness we did the other day. I didn't have the right kind of paint, or probably the right kind of leaves...but we did the best we could with what I could scrounge up.

The kiddos (well, mostly Tirzah) loved it. Merrick only crafts anything for so long before he has to answer the call of his inner Spiderman. He was there one minute, and the next I look up and he's wandered off and is perched on the railing like a gargoyle. Typical.

We had a few issues with paint in the hair, paint on the pants, and paint everywhere but the paper...but I think in the end we got a few good masterpieces for the mantle. When Billy saw it his response was, "So how many of those did they actually make? And how many did YOU make?" In their defense, I only made about half of them. ;) The ones the hooligans made came out looking more like paint spills than leaves...but when it comes to art, just slap the old "abstract" label on it and you're good to go.

Efficient Cheesing

I always say it's a good thing that people can't see the behind-the-scenes of me taking pictures of my kids. But this time it actually wasn't too bad. I'm getting really efficient at arranging the 3 of them somewhere they don't really want to be for a few minutes and yelling "LOOK AT ME!" ;)

Now that Jericho is sitting up well on his own it's gotten even easier. Well, except for Tirzah grimacing  because she is part vampire and melts in the sun (only when a camera is involved. odd.) and Merrick (God bless his little ADHD behind) forgetting there is even a camera to be looking at. Before you know it I might not even break a sweat when I want a few pictures of the 3 stooges.

The Red Store

Billy was working late last night, so me and the kiddos did one of our favorite things: we went to Target. They call it "the red store"...even though I've told them what it's called. Walmart is "the blue store". They love going in and browsing the dollar aisle...and they especially love the holiday section at the back because it's always big and flashy and usually involves candy. They are their mother's children. I always get especially excited at the Halloween and Valentines Day setups. (Two of my favorite holidays...obviously I like odd color schemes and candy.)

They had set up the Halloween section when we were in there yesterday. I try not to get the kiddos too into Halloween, because well ya know, even though I love it. (I love all the fun stuff going on, the not-too-cold Fall chill in the air, the candy, and kiddos dressed up as all kinds of ridiculous cute-ness.) I do like to dress them up and do something fun with them, though. (I so wanted to buy the football player costume for J-Hawk because, he IS a linebacker. They only had a 3T, but that might fit him, however.) The kiddos loved looking around, but Merrick decided he was going to be safe and keep an eye on the "ghost making soup".

I also picked up a few 12 month sized outfits for the still 8 month old Jericho. He's a hoss. But he is equally sweet as he is big. Everyone was pretty well behaved, but that might have been because they were busy sucking down slushies from Sonic's happy hour. Best invention ever. Well, except no slushy for J-Hawk. He just spent most of the time I was shopping grinning (with all 5 of his teeth...yes 5. 3 on the bottom and 2 on the top. I suppose a 4th will show up on the bottom eventually.) at all the random strangers commenting on the biggest happiest baby even to shop in "the red store".

Homeschooligan

Started a little unofficial preschool with my Wild this week. So far he's loving it. We actually didn't get to do any "school" today, and he was a little annoyed about it. (I'm sure the fun will wear off eventually, but so far he's really enjoyed it.) We are planning to try to homeschool, and he's a little young for Kindergarten this year...so I decided to ease him (well, ok...ME) into it. It's a big job and I'm kind of terrified I'll raise illiterate people who can't name their presidents or states.

I'm not doing any official curriculum at this point. Kind of just doing a letter a week-ish, and adding in a number/color to go with it. He already knows his letters/numbers/colors pretty well, but we need to work on sounds and all that stuff. Obviously we need to work on this, since he argued with me that "monkey" begins with "A" when I was naming things that start with "A". He is a persistent type of individual, so it took some convincing before he would believe me. I can see blood pressure meds in my homeschooling future.

I think Merrick is also ADHD, even though he hasn't been officially diagnosed. So we will have that to factor in as well. I think in that sense homeschooling will be great for him. He can run around the yard while I read to him, jump off random objects while we do spelling words, take tests dressed as Spiderman...ya know. Nothing too crazy. I decided in thinking about this that "Homeschooligan" was a good title for what is going on over here. Here goes nothing!

Hooligan Theology

Recently our church has moved to a different building. We are a relatively small, new church, and have been using the building of another church until we could find our "home". Well, yesterday was officially our first service in our new building. The hooligans were extremely excited about this new building. I think they mostly love that there is a big loop of hallway around the inside and they can run like crazy fools.

They love going to church, they love seeing their friends and playing and learning. They have awesome teachers, but sometimes they come home with their Bible stories a little twisted around because, well, they are hooligans. Yesterday they learned about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and how they survived a fire with God's protection. Somehow, though, in the retelling of the story, the names ended up more along the lines of "Hexagon, Meshach, and Bendigo". Close enough. These men survived a fire, too, but the hooligans credited it to the fact that "God was wearing long shorts". Moral of the story, firemen have been wearing the wrong uniforms all this time.

Speaking of church, Merrick often likes to pray for our meals before we eat. Usually his prayers are long, and all over the map, and have nothing to do with blessing food. Tonight was no exception. He prayed a long detailed prayer for "Hexagon, Meshach, and Bendigo", and thoughtfully in closing he said, "...and God? You be careful." Good to know that someone is looking out for God's personal safety.

Learning is...Yum.

I've been gearing up to start a little bit of unofficial preschool with Merrick this fall. He isn't quite old enough to start Kindergarten this year, and I'm not quite sure he would be ready even if he was old enough. We want to homeschool (as long as Merrick and I don't drive each other completely mad) so I think easing our way into it is a good way to start. He has mentioned friends who are in school and seemed a little interested in "school" (even though I don't think he has any idea what that really is) so here goes nothing.

My sister's mother-in-law is a teacher, and has often graciously given us supplies, games, and toys that she isn't using anymore. It is always much appreciated, and ends up being the kiddos favorite stuff. She recently gave us an alphabake set, and so we put it to use making some letter-shaped cookies. They had to spell out their names (well, Merrick did...Tizzy kind of just picked up letters, although she did pick out a "T" when I asked her what her name started with) and then we made cookies that were in the shape of the first letters of their name.

I think my main goal as a "homeschool mom" (although I shiver a bit at that term. Homeschooling is fantastic, but let's face it...homeschoolers are, ya know, kinda weird. Hey...I was one. I can totally say that) will be to make sure that learning is never "a chore" and that we do the best we can to keep the wonder of learning a part of the program. I know I say that now, and I know there will be days I don't want to go to school anymore than they do, but I think if cookie dough keeps being involved it's a goal we can handle.

#amomslife

Recently I've started using the hashtag #amomslife for when something truly ridiculous happens in a day in the life over here. Perfect example: The other day, Jericho needed a prescription refill for his nebulizer. (Ever since he had RSV as an infant every time he gets a cold he gets all wheezy, and the doctor said to hook a kiddo up when that happens.) So we all ran to Walmart on the way home from the gym. As we were getting out of the van I smelled the very distinct smell of dirty diaper. No biggie, we'll just change it.

I realized, however, as I'm getting J out of his seat that the dirty diaper wasn't just in the diaper. It was all over his clothes and his car seat. Awesome. So I scrounged around in the diaper bag for a change of clothes. All I could find was one of Tirzah's outfits, of course it was a ruffled pink shirt and shorts. I decided he needed to get his meds, so we were going for it. Pink ruffles and all.

We get all cleaned up and go into Walmart, that only took 15 minutes. Get in there, wait in line, hand over the papers, and they tell me they don't have that medicine in stock. That's about when I started twitching. So we  packed it back up, pink shirt and all, and headed to another store. Thankfully they had it, we just had to wait 20 minutes while they filled it. Plenty of time for the kiddos to run over my ankles 3,582 with the mini carts they found.

It is safe to say, by the time we finally got home and get the kiddos down for naps, I needed one myself. At least it makes for a good story. Next time we need a prescription filled I'll be sure to find a babysitter.

Breakfast Picnic

Sunday night, after a particularly long weekend run, I was seriously craving donuts. I'm no health freak, but I try to watch what I eat. I regularly (ok, every night) eat dessert, but figure with all the running I do it all balances itself out. So I don't buy things like donuts. I am weak when it comes to things like that...so if it's sitting in my house I will put it in my mouth. And then I'd have to share it with the kids. ;) But I had run long and hard, and Billy was all too happy to go grab half a dozen donuts from the Krispy Kreme that is conveniently open at all hours of the night.

That next morning, knowing the kiddos would spot the leftovers, I preemptively decided to plan a little morning fun for them. It was a beautiful day, so I decided we'd have a "breakfast picnic" with donuts out on the back deck. We have picnics a lot out there, but never for breakfast...and never with donuts. I got serious awesome points with the hooligans for this one. It was even better than the time I bought Swiss Cake Rolls I think, and that was epic.

As you can see, Merrick even dressed up for the event with his clip-on tie. Kidding...he wears those ties all the time now. So the picnic had nothing to do with it. He even tried to make me wear one to Walmart the other day. I somehow barely managed to escape without one, but I'm afraid that might not be the case next time. ;)

Weekenders

It was a pretty chill weekend. We just worked, hung out with Billy's parents (who so graciously drove all the way here to see us and treat us to dinner at Olive Garden), took naps in a pile on Sunday and went to church at our Church's first service in our new building. As far as weekends go, it was pretty good.

I think the most eventful occurrence was dinner at Olive Garden. It was the first time the hooligans had graced it doors, and they were pretty stinking excited first of all 1) to see Nannie and Pop, 2) second of all - breadsticks. They seriously ingested some breadsticks. They also dumped sugar in my pasta, spent a lot of time crying under the table, and/or sleeping on me and Billy. It's kind of hard to eat pasta with one hand, but ya know. We got the job done, and it was great to catch up with Billy's parents.

The weather this weekend was pretty fantastic also. It wasn't too hot, wasn't too cold (cuz we all know that would make me grumpy) and kinda sorta made me glad that Fall is on its way. Sorta. Oh, I also broke out the Pumpkin Patch oil for the oil burner this weekend. Merrick was totally confused as to why there was a smell in the house besides the occasional dirty diaper and Lysol. ;)

Hint, Hint

The other day the hooligans and I were at Walmart picking up some important items such as cookie dough (my staple food), when we came across a hint that fall is surely right around the corner. I'm no huge fan of chillier weather approaching as anyone who's known me for .5 seconds knows...but...this stuff is one of my favorite fall items. I tried to not buy it, but the hooligans are like sharks with blood in the water. They noticed my tiny reaction to seeing candy and were all "CAN WE PLEASE GET IT?!" even though they didn't know exactly what it was.

Since we were in the fall spirit, I decided to ask the hooligans if they knew exactly what Fall was. Merrick said": "Yeah. It's when nothing can stay up the trees. They just...fall." Profound as always. ;) Tirzah's contribution was the typical loud, "YEAH." in agreement. They kill me. So we marched around the yard and found a few specimens of things that can't stay up the trees. Pickings are still a bit slim, which is ok by me. But I'm sure now that I've made note of it, the hooligans will be sure to point out any and all things falling from trees.