Sound Effects and Cutie Bots

Reed has been doing cute, imaginative things for a couple months now.  He will fly Cason's toy dragons around, while making sounds-sometimes dragon sounds and sometimes just kind of a "vvvvv" sound like it's a plane or something.  Or he'll take two dragons or action figures and smash them together while making explosion sounds.  Such a good boy.

Neely has come up with her own little creation:  "Cutie bots".  She takes the little cube shaped lego pieces, and puts two little "eyes" on them, and calls them cutie bots.  It's the best.  She makes SO MANY of them.  She'll give them each a name, and will remember their names for quite a while.  My favorite was a green one that she named "Green to be seen".  Seriously.  Oh my gosh.

One day while they all cleaned up the playroom, Jess brought me this lego vehicle that she'd turned into a ride for her cutie bots.  It's just covered in them.  She just sticks them on anywhere there's room and they all go cruising together.

Summertime So Far

It may not be officially summer, but it's hot enough now to feel like it.  We've been spending more time outside when it's not TOO hot, and the kids entertain themselves either in the playhouse, out front catching snails...
 
or being wizards, or kings and queens, or whatever they feel like..

...or "swimming" in the baby pool we got for Reed (Bigger one for the other three coming soon)...

...or playing baseball...

(don't worry about the little ones-it's a soft, squishy ball)

Their new thing is entertaining us with "rock shows".  Basically we sit on the porch swing and the kids set up their show in front of us.  The rocks are always in a cup of water for some reason, probably because they look glossier and more vibrant when wet, and they pick them up and display them while we "oooh" and "aaaah". 

They've been drawing a lot lately too.  Cason likes drawing people surfing.

Neely's drawings have been changing a lot.  She's definitely doing pupils in her eyes now, and very recently started adding hands and feet, complete with fingers and toes.

 We definitely have some lazy time on the couch too.

The littler lady has been hilarious.
  

They've been playing really well together for the most part, but there's the occasional fight too.  Usually it's between the girls.

Misty needed me to watch the girls most of last week, so there was a lot of time hanging out with cousins.

 A lot of braiding...and then anger from Cason because the girls want to spend their time braiding.  Ha.

We also had a spontaneous hike with the Cassons last weekend, which was a lot of fun.  Sarah already wrote about it, so here are a few pictures.

 

 I'll leave you with this picture that cracks me up.  We were leaving Arby's one night a week or so ago, and there was the NICEST cool breeze.  Jess made them all stop and soak it in.

(Reed is 8 months old TODAY, so I'll be back to post about him soon)

28 Weeks and a Countdown

On Sunday I was 28 weeks.  The baby is now the size of a head of cabbage, according to the app I have on my phone.  

 

We spent some of the day packing.  I was feeling really lazy, but in the afternoon and evening I suddenly had a rush of energy and motivation, so I packed up some of our clothes, and everything in the closet by the front door.  It was mostly full of winter stuff, still, coats, hats, scarves, and gloves.  The kids stole them from the piles I was making and made up a weird, random game/skit Paige called "Cats Lost In The Atlantic".  Haha!  Such weird ones.  

 

Then one cat passed out.

 

 There's been more Lego creating around here too.  Cason suddenly got inspired and started making his favorite heroes.  They're really cute, he puts a lot of thought into the colors and includes details, like Captain America's shield.

From left to right, he made Iron Man, Captain America, The Incredible Hulk, and Spider-Man.

Neely made her first "racecar", which I find really impressive.  Jess loves the wheel placement.  It is pretty cute.

Paige has been asking for a baby doll carrier for a couple of weeks.  I looked up tutorials, but got overwhelmed, and kept putting it off.  Then we went to this baby store in town and they sold them for 30 dollars a piece.  She wanted to use her own money to buy one, but she's also been saving for an American Girl doll, so I felt bad and decided to just try making one.  I just took it one step at a time so the full set of instructions wouldn't overwhelm me.  It ended up going fine. Over the next couple of hours she kept running up to hug me randomly, and thank me for making it. 

 I figured Neely would want one, so I made one for her too.  She was really happy, and said "For ME?!"  But lost interest in hers pretty quickly. 

I asked if Cason wanted one, and he said "No thanks."  Ha.  Speaking of Cason, I had my last appointment here today, and he looked handsome for it.   

 We did the glucose test, and the usual stuff, like listening to the heart and all.  The kids play with toys on the ground and don't even look up for it anymore.  The first few times they were so excited to hear it, now it's old news.  Paige only got excited because she got to help take my blood pressure and turn on the doppler.  Ha.

I, for one, still love to hear the heart.  It's not AS exciting as it used to be, since now he regularly makes it known that he's in there and real.  Haha.  We think this boy kicks and moves the craziest of all our babies.  It took longer to feel him, because I have an anterior placenta, but once we started feeling him we REALLY started feeling him.  He squirms and rolls and kicks and punches.  I feel like he's going to kick his way out sometimes. 

Now then, we move in 11 days!  The countdown begins!

Harry Potter Nerds

I was 23 weeks on Sunday.  This pregnancy is flying by. 

 Our nerdy children are so into Harry Potter, even Neely.  They play HP all the time.  Paige is always Hermione, and Neely and Cason trade off between being Harry and Ron.  They run around on their brooms(whatever toy they find that's a similar enough shape) and make me pretend to be Aunt Petunia or Professor McGonagall.  Then they play quidditch, and usually Neely gets injured, tells me "somefing happen to my bones" and has to stay in the hospital wing(my bed), while the other two feed her swigs out of a water bottle(or Skelegrow, as they call it) until she has regrown her bones and can return to normal life.

 She's so into it, today she came up to me and asked out of nowhere, "Mama, how you spell Hogwarts?"  Haha. 

Speaking of Harry Potter, at bedtime, we've been reading "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban".  Paige likes to email family members lately, and she and Jess will email while he's at work.  She left her email open, and I check it often to make sure she's not getting spam or something.  She'd left it open to an email exchange between her and Jess.  It made me laugh pretty hard.  She comes up with some funny ways to say things sometimes.  (Sorry for the weird cropping, I didn't want her email address to show up)

Dottie, Circus Girl

One recent morning Paige was telling Neely what to do and Neely said "I don' haff to wisten...to you." 

Look at this guy:

This morning Neely woke up and immediately said "Mama, wook at me!" and did a headstand.  Then she said "tada!" and took a bow, much like this:

She must have been dreaming she's in the circus.  She and Paige have been playing circus games lately.  Gia is their circus dog, and they walk around with her on a leash, teaching her tricks.  I think they might be orphans, because they're sisters, and they have a baby doll who is their baby sister that they take care of.  The last time they played, Neely's name was "Dottie".  :)

A Day in the Life of a Dinosaur

I usually sew when there's a certain thing I want, but either can't find it or can't afford it.  It's not so much the ACT of sewing I like, but the feeling of HAVING MADE it myself.  In other words, it's the result, not the process I like.  At least when it comes to things I sew using the machine.  I do actually like to sew by hand.  Too bad I don't know how.  Not really.   So I've decided to try and learn, finally.  Ha.  Like I said, most things I sew because it's something I want or need, OR could sell, like nursing covers.  The one thing I really love to MAKE (not just after I'm finished, but I actually like the process) is little stuffed creatures.  If I was to open an Etsy shop, that's what I would like to sell.  So I'm going to try and do it, finally.  I started trying to make a pattern for a snail yesterday.  I made those little ones for the kids a couple of years ago, but wanted to make these in more natural colors and more three dimensional so they'd stand up on their own.  So I started making a new pattern, and got to work.  Neely sat in front of me, with her post-nap hair and her Buzz Lightyear wings, watching a movie while I was sewing.

 

 I tried to use the sewing machine once, for the shell.  Something was wrong with my machine, it will only sew backyards.  So this is as far as I got.  But I like how his body is turning out.

The other two kids played so well all day.  They told me once that they were making the dollhouse into a house for a dinosaur.  When Jess came home he told me to come see what they'd been doing.  The dollhouse is in the playroom, but they had set up a workspace in the living room for the little skeleton to go to work during the day.  It's so cute.

Then he'd head home for a bath...

...and dinner.

Tunnel of Terror

Today and all evening Paige and Cason were playing especially well together.  They ran around the house together, being really cute and creative.  The last thing they did together tonight was make an "amusement park".  It was really just one ride, a scary one.  The only scary rides they've been on are the ones at Disney Land, so I was seriously impressed by the one they made.  They built a long narrow fort, by putting a quilt over two rows of chairs.  We didn't know what they were doing until it was all ready for us to take the ride, so they did it all completely on their own.

The first time through blew my mind.  They set themselves up kind of inside the blanket, but behind the chairs, Paige on the left side, Cason on the right.  There was a "spider attack"(a black toy on a string, that they dropped near us along with a scary sound), a "scissor attack"(Cason stuck his hand through one of the chairs, scaring you with "scissors" and making a really good sound effect to go along with that), a "ghost attack" (a pillow case on a string that Paige dropped down near me), and at the end, a "dinosaur attack", which was just the head of the Rock'n'Roar Dinosaur being rolled toward me.  Cason also had a little flashlight he flashed on and off at the perfect moments. They both were seriously SO good with the sound effects, it was almost actually kind of scary. 

I wish it had been in the day time, so I'd have been able to get decent pictures or video of it, but the audio is pretty entertaining on it's own.  It was my second time through though, and they knew I was filming, so it wasn't quite the same, and Caso left out the "scissor attack", but oh well, still fun to listen to.  Paige accidentally drops her ghost at the end and is obviously disappointed.  Ha.


I love our creative, hilarious kids.

Best Quote Today...

...so far.

Paige and Cason are playing in the playroom, Paige has her dollhouse dolls and Cason has some robots. I heard Cason in a robotic voice saying: "We are sorry we put your kids in the lava. WE are sorry, we put your kids in the lava." Then Paige in a casual voice, goes "Could you get them out?" Haha.

Laser Bean

I got in trouble again today, so here I am. :)

I babysat Jenni's girls for her last week so she could go to Vegas with her dad. (Speaking of which, keep the prayers coming for John please, they met with a specialist in Vegas, and got some hopeful news.)

So I had 5 kids 5 and under all day! It was actually not nearly as tough as you'd think. The only tough moments were when both babies wanted to nap at the same time, and were tired and sad. I had to just decide which baby to get to sleep first, and let the other cry while I did that. I went with Neely first, since I have the most experience getting her to sleep and knew I could do it faster. I got her to sleep in about 5 minutes, and then fed Payton and got her to sleep. Jess came home to help me with lunches for everyone, and other than that, it was smooth sailing.

The big kids were all really good and helpful. Paige played this funny game:
She was a mechanic, working under the chair, with a can of pencils as her tools. I didn't realize at first, but she pointed out to me that she was using a lid from a plastic bin as that thing that mechanics use to roll under cars. Pretty much a board on wheels, you know? She's clever.

I worked on Valentine's Day gifts for the kids this weekend. Well, really just Cason's so far. I bought fabric FOREVER ago to make him another robot, since the last one got destroyed in the washer. So I finally got around to making it. I worked on it yesterday, and while I was sewing one part of his body Cason came over. I wasn't hiding it because it was just a cube shape, I figured that if he asked I'd just tell him I was sewing a "box shape" or something vague like that, without telling him what it was for. Well when he walked over he goes "Whatcha doin' mama?" I smiled and said "Sewing." He smiled back and asked "Is it a 'prise?(surprise)" I said "Don't worry about it." and he goes "I'm not supposed to know it's a robot?" Haha.

Well, I finished him today, and even though he figured it out he's not getting it until Valentine's Day. And I at least kept what's inside the door on his chest a secret for now. :)
Speaking of his door, maybe I should have ironed the fabric before sewing him together, eh?

And speaking of ROBOTS, Paige did another "Robot Love" drawing the other day. So cute.
This was one of those times she wasn't really taking her time for lots of detail, like buttons and all that, she just sort of scribbled it down and handed it to me. I always notice that even when she doesn't include obvious detail, there's always something special she included. Like in this case, the boy robot just handed the girl robot some flowers, so he's holding his hands together in a shy pose, and he's blushing too. She pointed that last part out to me, she made him blush with a pen, so I didn't realize that was what it was at first.

Since Paige likes doing those drawings, I did a Robot Love picture for HER the other night, and gave it to her in the morning. She was SO grateful and happy, and kept telling me she loved me. Ha. The simplest things.

She also played "Adventure Girl and Adventure Dog" out front today, with Gia. They pretty much just explored the yard and bushes together. :)
While she did that, Cason explored. He found a rock that looked kind of like a bean. He showed me and said "LOOK! It's a laser bean." Haha.

Neely didn't feel great today, but the other day she had lots of fun out front, "riding" Paige's scooter. She kept putting her Little People in the basket, checking that they were in there properly, and then taking them out.

Kiki's Delivery Service

Cason's slowly becoming more interested in drawing and writing. The other night he drew us this "Spider robot and regular robot":
Don't mind the shadow, just my photography skills at work.

He also did a drawing of Plex, the robot from Yo Gabba Gabba, and it was so cute, he included the little antenna on his head with a ball at the end of it. I'll have to have Jess dig it out of Cason's art box so I can get a picture.

Speaking of Yo Gabba Gabba, look at how cute Neely is while watching it.
This morning the ice cream truck drove by. They've never bought ice cream from the truck before, and Paige thinks it's the coolest ever, so Jess finally made her dream come true. They were so excited, and Cason even got an Iron Man ice cream.
But my favorite thing lately is that for several days now Paige has spent the majority of each day pretending to be Kiki from Kiki's Delivery Service. That's one of our VERY favorite movies, JUST below My Neighbor Totoro. And Up of course. Kiki is a witch (but a cute nice one who doesn't do any magic other than fly around on her broom with her talking cat) who moves to a new city to do her year of training to become a full fledged witch. She starts a delivery service to support herself. So Paige has been "flying" all over the house on her broom with her stuffed cat, making deliveries for us. She also has business cards she had me make for her, and a little notebook and pen so we can sign the receipt every time. I must have signed my name 100 times in the last few days.
Here she is experimenting with different ways to attach her basket. :)