Christmas Card Quiz

• Guest post from Steve.

Can you guess which kid has a photoshopped head?

Isn't Photoshop great? You have 5 kids that you're trying to get to smile all at the same time without blinking or making rabbit ears (or any other kind of finger gesture, for that matter). If you're lucky, one out of 50 shots will look good. But with Photoshop, you don't need to take 50 pictures. Just a few. Then cut and paste the best head shots into the best overall picture. And voila, a decent picture! And that's what Susan did with our Christmas picture this year. (She hasn't mastered the airbrush and nip/tuck techniques of Photoshop yet, or I would be in the picture too). Can you guess the kid with the head that was cut/paste?

First, place your vote in the poll to the right, then you can check your answer in the comments. Don't peek!

I Learned Something New Today

Did you know that if you get Drano on your hands, it burns? But you won't notice the burn for a few hours because alkaline burns sink in deep before they burn you. So once you do notice the burn, there's not a whole lot you can do about it. If you know you've touched Drano, you should rinse it off well with water and then rinse it in vinegar to neutralize it. You should rinse it for several minutes.

Around noon yesterday, Abby washed her hands in my sink that I'd just poured Drano into. Then around 8:00 last night, she started complaining of this sore spot on her hand. 8 HOURS LATER! I called poison control like the bottle told me to, and they said there's not a whole lot I could do for it besides watch it in case it gets worse. Alkaline burns can keep getting worse for several hours because they penetrate deep and kill tissue. It doesn't look like much now, but last night it was weepy and raw and even looked a little bruised and gray. And it sure caused a ruckus around here. Even little burns hurt a lot, especially to a 6 year old.

The first picture above is about 20 hours after she first got Drano on her hand. The second picture is about 30 hours after, and it's gotten significantly worse. At least it's not hurting her anymore unless you touch it, but it kind of freaks me out!

Tree Decorating

We had fun decorating the Christmas tree last night. The kids were very excited to pull out all of the ornaments and find the ones they had made throughout the past several years of school. It's always a challenge for me to come up with creative ways to tell them to hang one of their handmade ornaments in the back of the tree without hurting their feelings. Sarah finally caught on to what I was doing, so I had to explain to her, "I love all of the ornaments you made, but some of them are prettier than others, so I want those ones in the front!" She seemed to take it okay. They took turns using the ladder to get all of the good ornaments up high so Sam couldn't reach them.

Of course, it didn't take Sam long to figure out how to reach the best, most breakable ornaments.

While decorating the tree was fun, Matthew, pubescent boy that he is, was especially excited to hang up the kissing balls.

Everyone wanted to put the star on the top of the tree, but Matthew was the loudest and most obnoxious about it, so he got to do it.

All of the tree decorators were happy with our beautiful tree even though they had to decorate it almost exclusively on the top half.

Unfortunately, a tree that is decorated only on the top half tends to be very top heavy, so it looked somewhat like this in the morning only with fewer ornaments still on it. Luckily, no one was sleeping under it like we usually do the first night.

Abby was very happy, though. After we re-decorated the tree and strapped it to a bolt in the wall, she got to put the star back on the top.

And now we have fewer breakable ornaments for Sam to target.

Happy Birthday Abby!!!

Abby is 6 today!!! If you don't know Abby, but you do know Liahona, then that's almost like knowing Abby.

Six of My Favorite Abbyisms

6) When she was 2-3 years old, she loved to sing "Shake Your Booty" while she grabbed poor Molly's hind end and shook it back and forth. It was especially sweet when the dog's behind would hit her in the face (anybody want a kiss?).

5) Abby has a very contradictory personality. She is a total bulldozer, very strong-minded and persistent. It can be a difficult quality in a child, but will be awesome in an adult. At the same time, she is also very tender-hearted and nurturing (especially to crickets). It's such a funny combination.

4) She came home from preschool last January with a picture of Martin Luther King and told me, "This is Rosa Parks' friend."

3) She calls Box Elder bugs "Ox Gelder" bugs. It's a strong bug that can geld an ox!

3.5) She is a true princess at heart. For her 4th birthday, she got a bunch of princess paraphernalia: crown, fancy gloves, fancy shoes, a crown, and a Cinderella dress. She also got sick that night. But even though she didn't feel well, she put on all of her princess gear and posed for us over and over until she was throwing up.

2) When I asked her, "How do you help crickets that are missing a leg?" she answered totally straight faced and matter-of-fact, "I kill them." (age 5 5/6 - see posts from September 5 and September 18)

1) Finally, the best Abbyism of all, the one that will haunt her for the rest of her life, "I like the smell of fireworks . . . they're like a really good fart." (age 4)

Happy birthday funny girl.

Halloween

Halloween is over, and we survived. Here's a rundown of the afternoon:

• 4 arguments with kids (3 with the same kid)
• 1 crying child
• 4 blackmail episodes out of which I got clean bedrooms, a clean kitchen and a clean bathroom ("You're not trick-or-treating until your room is clean!")
• several attempts at decent pictures with camera phone because the good cameras are both broken (pictures stink, but I'll post them anyway)
• two hours of FUN and lots of CANDY
• 2 freezing and crying kids
• hot chocolate for everyone
• threats over candy wrappers on the floor
• bed (FINALLY)

All in all, a productive evening.

This is what Sam the pirate looks like without his bottle ("Avast ye scurvy dog! Brin' me me bottle or I'll see ye t' Davy Jones!")

So our only happy Sam picture is with the bottle. ("Arr, me hearty. That be a fine bit o' grog.")

Sarah and Abby, the Cowgirl and Indian. This is the first time since she's had any say in the matter that Sarah hasn't been an animal for Halloween. She still has an animal, but at least she's finally willing to be human.

Matthew as a baby riding on a werewolf's back. He won a couple of prizes at school and at a party. And today at school, they had a "Shout Out" over the PA system to Matthew for having an awesome costume.

He looked especially funny when he was sleeping on a dancing werewolf.

Headless Anna - several people told her that it was the best costume they'd seen all night. She looked awesome! Matthew also heard several times that his was the best costume. Good job guys!

Symbiotic Relationship

Abby came home from kindergarten today talking about her new friend, Megan. Megan taught Abby how to do the monkey bars. In exchange, Abby taught Megan how to spell W-O-M-B-A-T.

Family Road Trip

We just got home from an impromptu trip to Danville, CA. The kids had Thursday, Friday and Monday off of school, so we just jumped in the car and drove all night last Wednesday to get there. That's a long drive, especially with 5 bickering kids!

It gave me flashbacks of my last trip to Missouri which we are planning to repeat next summer. Last time I did that trip (it takes about 18 hours), I drove through the night, too. So the kids did great on the way there - Abby was 7 months old and did not cry a single time! The trip home, though, was a whole different story.

Before coming home, we (Martha, Liz and I) decided to drive to Nauvoo, Illinois, because the temple had just been dedicated. So we ended up spending about 3 days in the car by the time it was all over. The first two days, everyone did pretty well. But by the last day, Anna kicked it off by running non-stop circles around the breakfast table in the hotel we'd stayed in. Liz very sweetly asked me if she'd had her pill. Abby cried on and off the whole day, and for the last few hours of the drive, she puked apple juice. We were getting so close to the end of the trip that we didn't want to stop to nurse her, so we kept pacifying her with apple juice. Her stomach apparently was not happy with that solution. I got in back and held her for a while so she wouldn't choke herself lying on her back in her carseat. She puked all over me several times in about a 20 minute period. Then, when we finally got home, the doors were all locked and I didn't have a key. On top of that, I was supposed to meet with the bishop about 15 minutes after we got home, and I was soaked in apple juice puke.

We finally found an upstairs window that was cracked open. My neighbor climbed up a ladder and pulled the screen off, then had 9 year old Anna climb up in front of him to shimmy through the open window. She's always been a good climber. Hopefully, next summer's big trip will be a little less eventful.

Abby's At It Again

Right now, Abby is outside trying to catch crickets with her butterfly net. A few minutes ago, she came inside and told me she almost had one, but it hopped into a bush. " I shook and shook the bush really hard, but it was really brave and wouldn't come out." She doesn't understand why the crickets run from her. (I'm sure they were watching from the bushes in horror as she and her friend, Andi, tortured Jiminy.) She looks for the ones that are missing legs so she can help them! For information on how she "HELPS" crickets, see my September 5th post.

How do you keep a straight face when you listen to your kids? If you laugh in their faces, they'll quit telling you things!

We Hit The Mother Lode

In the morning, the sun shines on the front of our house and comes through the beveled windows in our front door. So we always have rainbows on our floor in the morning. (If you need a refresher on this, see "How Stuff Works: What Causes A Rainbow.") This has been a major source of excitement for all of the kids at one time or another, most recently for Sarah and Abby.

This morning, Abby asked me why we have so many rainbows on our floor. Then she suddenly gasped and started looking closer at the floor as she asked excitedly, "Is there gold in our floor?!!" After searching her whole life, she thought she'd hit the mother lode!

I started to explain about light bending and different wave lengths, then just said, "Maybe we do!" That's certainly no worse than the Santa Clause lie, right?

"O Cricket From Your Cheery Cry . . . "

"O cricket from your cheery cry, no one would ever guess how quickly you must die." ~ by Basho

Abby used to be really into dress-up and Barbies and all the princessy stuff. But lately, she has become obsessed with bugs.

The other day, Steve came across her and her friend, Andi (the bishops daughter), outside on the driveway torturing a cricket. They had cut it in half. Of course, he was horrified that his sweet little girl was outside torturing bugs. When he told her that wasn't nice, she said, "Its leg was broken so it had to die." The cricket was missing a leg, so they pulled off its other one (I guess to help it walk straight???). Then they cut its head off "to put it out if its misery." See, her intentions were good. At least to begin with. They ended up carrying the cricket's head around inside of an acorn cap, kind of like Jiminy's head on a platter. I'm sure it wasn't her idea; you know what they say about the bishop's kids!

Today, she came inside and told me excitedly that she'd found a whole bunch of worms (it rained last night). She said so innocently, "I put them in a cup with some water and bark, and now they have lots of friends! Except one keeps trying to get out." The nerve of that one for trying to get out! She also fed them some dirt.

A couple of hours later, when we left for school, she said a bit anxiously, "I forgot to say goodbye to my new pets."

"What new pets?"

"My worms!" (duh, Mom)

" . . . oh"

After she thought about it for a minute, she decided, "That's okay. They're probably sleeping anyway."

I guess we're the proud new family to a cup of worms!

When I came home from running errands this afternoon, she was outside digging in the dirt again, probably looking for more worms. She had a couple of leaves stuck to her nose that make her look like she's turning into a katydid - must be her budding X-men persona.

Abby's First Day of Kindergarten

I just dropped Abby off at school for her first day of kindergarten. The rest of the kids started school a week ago, so she has been anxiously counting down the days since then. She is in afternoon kindergarten which doesn't start until 12:40, but she got up this morning and was dressed before anyone else. Of course, she had to get undressed again to get a shower, but she still gets an A+ for effort. After she was re-dressed and had her hair done, she put her backpack on, and she has worn it for the rest of the day. When I got home from taking Sarah to school at 9:00 this morning, Abby came out to the car and said, "I'll just wait in the car" (for 3 1/2 hours). She has pestered me all morning about when it will be time to go, so I finally showed her on the clock: when the short hand is between the 12 and the 1, and the long hand is on the 5, it will be time to go. That helped a lot! Since then, she has complained that the clock moves too slow (if only . . . ) and reminded me every 5 minutes that it is almost time to go.



Abby was a little worried that I was being too slow to get dressed, so I asked her if I should just go in my slip and underwear. She gave it some thought, and decided I'd better put clothes on so I could walk her to the door. After I got my skirt on, I asked her, "Do you like my skirt." (It's new.) She said, "Well . . . " I was beginning to think she must not like my new skirt, but then she said, "I think it will look better with a shirt." Oh, of course. What was I thinking!? On went the shirt, and then she liked my new skirt just fine.

We got there early enough to take her picture in front of the school's sign, and then off she went to her class. And I'm trying not to cry.