Scary

Yesterday Neely had the hiccups.  I heard Paige and Cason whispering conspiratorially about how they should scare her so the hiccups would go away.  So they worked on some scary stuff.  Paige made a mask and Cason drew a giant horrible robot capturing tiny Neely.  I heard them talking about it and trying to use them to scare Neely, who smiled and fake screamed.  I took a closer look at these creations today and they ARE pretty terrifying actually.

The Bad Apple

Our boy is an author this week.  He was coloring on Monday, and then told me that he wanted to write a story.  He's never mentioned anything like that, and I happened to have my sewing machine out for a couple projects I'd been working on, so I grabbed some paper and sewed him some books. 

He got started right away, and took quite a while to write a really cute story about apples.(This pic is actually from today, when he was working on a different story, but I didn't think to take pictures the first time he wrote one, so this gets the point across)
 
The first page I wrote for him and then realized by the second page that I could just tell him how to spell things so he would practice writing himself.  I didn't realize until well into the book that he wasn't putting the letters in any certain order, just all over the page.  :)  I remember when Paige thought it worked that way too, just as long as all the letters are there somewhere, it must spell what you were planning on writing.

He has since written 2 more books, but I was playing with Paige and Neely during these, so I wasn't able to follow along as closely to what they're about.  I do know one is about Mario and Luigi.
 
This drawing of them in the book, with their "M" and "L" hats makes me so happy.
 
 I still know the apple story though, since I was helping him the whole way.  It's the cutest.  There is a group of apples, all different colors.  I'll narrate it for you.

Front cover:
 ;
Apple Family (and below, that's right-BFF)

Pages 1 and 2:

Red apple:  "I have an idea!"

Build, build, build (the apples are building a rainbow bridge)

Pages 3 and 4:



The "Bad Apple"(he really called him that) shows up and zaps their bridge with his lightning power while laughing his evil laugh.  One of the apples trips and yells "WOAH!"

Pages 5 and 6(this is where the story goes a little off track, but it's adorable):

snowflakes fall(on the right) and the apples all say "AMAZING!" except the green apple who says "Well, this is boring."  Also, one of them trips again.  :)

Pages 7 and 8:

The apples decide to go after the bad apple.  They begin their trek, and one trips again, and another says "Well, this is pretty easy."  The red apple, who is the leader, says "Keep going!  As long as we work together!" This page just about makes me cry when I think about Cason writing and illustrating it.  This is TOTAL Cason stuff.

Pages 9 and 10:

They all team up, shoot colorful lasers at the bad apple...

...and defeat him, no problem.  See the screams of "NOOOOOO!" and the "X"s for eyes?  Page 9 includes the "BFF" again(appropriate, since 9 is the page of teamwork), and we finish off with "THE END" on page 10. 

Oh, wait, nope.  We finish off curtains on the back of the book.

 People needed to see this book, and I needed to write down the story before I forgot it all.  So, two birds, one stone. 

Treaure Hunters

Things have been good here.  Paige is lucky enough to have two 6 year old girls next door who she has befriended.  She went over to jump on the trampoline and have a snack on Sunday.

Homeschooling is still going really well. 

 

 

  Neely gave this monkey magnet eyes one day while we worked.  Ha.

Sometimes we do yoga together.

 Neely calls it "oga".

When Paige and Cason take breaks from school they snuggle with Neely...

 ...watch a show, play with toys, or make up cute games.  They all have been playing really well together.  Last week they were into treasure hunts.  I had to draw a map and hide a treasure.  This one day I hid a bowl of chips.  Ha.  We don't have chips very often.  For one we're trying to eat better but I'm also not a huge chip person.  This particular day we happened to have some barbecue chips Jess bought, because he IS a chip person.  So I put some in a bowl and hid it.  They checked out their map...

...and began the search.  I waited in the living room, listening to them discuss where to go.  I knew exactly when they found it because they got all excited.  Cason goes "NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL TREASURE!"

 

Haha!

Later that night Paige made a treasure map for ME.  I've never been so confused.

First Visitors

Last week my mom and Mike drove through here on their way home (North Dakota) from Texas.  So we had our first visitors.  They got here around lunch time, and mom and I took the kids to Target while Mike got the car serviced.

We had coffee (chocolate milk or peppermint hot cocoa if you're one of the people who was 6 or under) 

 

and looked around some.  I'm always so surprised at how Neely picks up right where she left off with "Grannybob".  She had just turned a year old when mom moved.  Then mom visited 6 months later, and again that one night before we moved here.  We do skype fairly often though, and I guess that's enough for her to remember her.

We went home and pretty soon Jess got home from work.  Mom and Mike took us to dinner.  We tried Mexican food again, this one was called Ted's Escondido Cafe or something, and it was REALLY good.  Paige invented the chip taco, and says she'll sell them from a chip taco stand.

 

We got an air mattress for them to sleep on, since Cassie and Alex will be here in a month, and Dad, Trudi, Grama, and Colton a month after that, and the Cassons a month after THAT!  We even have other visits being talked about, just haven't heard dates yet.

The kids got in their pajamas and had a "snowman factory" with Grannybob.  

 

They kept trying to sell us their clay snowmen.  Most were "selling" for free though.  Ha.

There was quite a variety of colors. 

 

Turns out Grannybob is pretty handy with clay.

 

Just Chubby

Forgot to blog about this special little conversation I had with Paige and Cason a few days ago.  Cason was feeling lovey and came up to hug me.  While he hugged me he kind of rubbed my tummy and said "I love you cuz you have a fat belly."  Paige goes "Why would you say that?  She's chubby but NOT FAT!!"

Jess and I have been working to eat healthier anyway, I guess I have even more incentive now.

He's Mobile

A week and a half ago we took Cason to find out about getting his cast off.  The girls were big fans of the skeleton-painted bison out in front of the office.

The office in Kingman apparently forgot to send his x-rays, so we waited...

...got him in a pair of blue paper shorts and got new x-rays....

 

...waited a little more...

 ...and finally got to meet a very nice doctor, who told us his leg was healing perfectly, but needed about 3 more weeks.  He DID say though, that it was ready for a smaller cast, that stopped below the knee.  So not only did Cason get to get a new smaller cast AND get to pick the color this time, but he could also have a walking boot and start trying to walk again.  He was so good and brave when they cut the cast off.  I was ITCHING to clean his leg really good before putting the second cast on, but nope, they just popped him into it.  :)

 The girls were excited to see it.  Neely asked again, like she does a few times a day, every day, in her sad voice, "What happened Cason's leeeeg?"  like she doesn't already know. 

He was REALLY nervous to put weight on it, (I would be too), and after a couple days would sort of stand on it, but didn't really walk for several days.  Even then he wouldn't for more than a few steps a day.  

Then he would try walking on the carpet, but he didn't want to try the boot on hard ground at first, so he'd scoot around on his bottom whenever he was on the tile.  I bet his upper body has gotten strong.  He was lifting and propelling himself on his arms all fast, and reminded me of a chimp.  Ha.

Suddenly this weekend, a week later, he was all over the place.  I noticed today he was walking totally normally for the first time, not even a limp.

11 more days and he should be free!

Psst...

Paige handed me this in the car several days ago.