scenes from the circus: fall fun

Kathleen recently completed her first book.  Granted, it was only a few pages long, but she titled it, signed it, illustrated it, and dictated the text.  I was impressed!

She called it, "Day Story." (I don't know why. But she seemed very confident about it.)

Obviously, she wrote it.

The first page:

Once upon a time, there was a ladybug who lived in a kitchen.  One day Kathleen found that ladybug.  Her mommy put it in a jar for her.

And then the last page (which was also the second page, in case you were wondering):

Sometimes Kathleen's mommy let Kathleen take the ladybug out and let it crawl on Kathleen's hand.  

It was just a baby ladybug.

Okay, so it might be a bit lacking in plot or character development, but I'm pretty much in love with the illustrations. The ladybug! The hand!

And just when I had grand plans of saving the "book" somewhere for posterity, Kathleen announced it was for Rosie.  Rosie, the lady who cuts Jim's hair (and gives the girls each a lollypop when they go).   I'm not sure that Rosie appreciated the book for the great piece of children's literature I believe it to be, but she received it, nonetheless.  Maybe I'll get the first published book.

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In case you were wondering about that forehead scrape that John David was sporting in the faux-summer post, it's almost gone now.  (It's a miracle how quickly children heal!)  He'd gotten it the day before while playing in the backyard.  I hadn't actually seen him fall -- I think I was cooking dinner.  But John David wandered over to me with a big scrape on his head, and I exclaimed, "Oh, no!  What happened to you, little man?"

And Madeline filled me in.  With all the nonchalance of a three-year-old big sister, she explained, "He was just trying to get in the playhouse.  Through the window."

I honestly couldn't keep from laughing.  Because, yeah, that sounds about right.

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So, this wasn't my idea at all, but something I saw on Ohdeedoh recently -- glow in the dark bathwater!  Actually, the bathwater doesn't glow (that probably wouldn't be particularly healthy for our littles!).  The post just suggested playing with a glowstick or two at bathtime.  When I spied glowsticks at the dollar spot at Target (two for a dollar!), I figured it was worth a try.

It was a rousing success, although I'm not sure that the photos communicate that perfectly...

We've tried it with green, orange, yellow, and purple glowsticks now.  And though the girls most enjoy the "girly" purple color, they're happy to take any glowstick in the water at bathtime.  And to bed afterwards, too.  That makes it a double win!

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Though the weather has kept us from enjoying most of the warm, cozy, typically fall foods (until now -- the weather's finally turning cooler), we haven't been able to resist the urge to add some pumpkin to our diet.  We've braved the kitchen in the morning, before it has gotten too warm, and we've found two new breakfast treats we thought worth sharing:  pumpkin pancakes and pumpkin granola.

The pumpkin pancake batter was a bit thick and therefore difficult to work with, though that could be because we made the batter with whole wheat flour.  I threw in an extra egg and more milk to thin them out, but the batter was still thick.  Thick batter notwithstanding, my children wolfed them down.  And I have to admit, they're pretty tasty with all those spices and some maple syrup.

I was a bit more nervous about the pumpkin granola recipe.  As it turns out, it was easily as popular as pancakes.  (And I realize that's quite a claim!)  I foolishly left the pan of granola to cool on the counter top while I showered and dressed one morning, and came downstairs to find that my little monsters had snacked on at least a quarter of it before I'd even stirred in the cranberries!

Incidentally, Kathleen has her heart set on hosting her best friend for dinner on Halloween (we did that last year -- and anything we do once is practically a tradition for her) and is convinced we should serve pumpkin granola for supper and pumpkin pie or cake for dessert.  At first I tried to explain that granola's not a typical dinner meal.  She didn't really buy that.  And then I tried to explain about how we don't know when Flash is coming, and how if we're able to host guests we might be limited to something like pizza, but I suppose granola's a pretty low-effort meal, too.  Maybe she'll get her way after all!

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My sweet cousin Katherine and her husband Rob recently traveled to the Bay Area for a bit of a getaway.  And because they're wonderful and generous, even though they were traveling without their own children (who are each six months older than Kathleen and Madeline), Katherine and Rob spent a morning with us -- along with Nan and Grandpa and my siblings and their littles -- at the Bay Area Discovery Museum in Sausalito.  Predictably, I do not have a single photo of my cousin or her husband.  Aargh!  I do, however, have lots of photos of little people frolicking at a great museum.

John David, Madeline, and cousin Emily running and playing on the "Golden Gate Bridge" with Nan.

After they'd been playing a life sized nest, Madeline decided she should lift John David out of it.  They both wound up rolling on the ground, laughing.

John David needed no help climbing in here.  Unfortunately for me, he's a natural.

Four cute cousins in a canoe.  (Or something.)

Our children refer to the Bay Area Discovery Museum as "the museum with the trains," which distinguishes it from the Children's Discovery Museum in San Jose ("the museum with the bubbles").   This was the first time John David was aware of the trains, and he was completely enamored of them.  He didn't quite have the fine motor skills to keep the little train on the little track, but with some help from Grandpa he was happy, nonetheless!

what month is it, again?

When I heard that we'd be expecting our fourth child at the end of October, one of the things I thought was, "Well, at least that means I'll avoid being enormously pregnant when it's really hot out."  I figured by the time that Flash was due to arrive, we'd be eating soup and pulling out snuggly blankets and making applesauce.

Once again, I was wrong.

This week has been really warm.  The temperatures have been in the mid-80's.  Not at all like fall.  More like mid-summer.

So a few days ago we did the only thing we could.  We went ahead and pretended it was mid-summer.

It started innocently enough, with an empty storage bin that I filled with water, thinking the girls could "wash dishes" or play tea or something.  But of course, soon people asked about swimsuits, and I said, "Why not?"  And then swimsuits led to splashing.

And splashing back.

And then someone had to climb in...

At that point we decided we weren't fooling anyone -- we might as well fill the wading pool.

No one protested.

We spent most of the morning and all of after-naps outside.

We found that a turkey baster makes a fascinating toy, particularly when it's way too hot to even think about basting something in an oven.

Daisy chains are well worth the effort...

And popsicles are just as tasty in October as they are in July.

At least here in Mountain View. (Oh, what a change we'll have next year!)

the (belated) butterfly birthday party

So, here at last are the highlights from Madeline's third birthday party.  I love planning parties for our littles!  When we talked about her party, Madeline decided that her party needed to be pink and that there should be butterflies.  It worked out to be the perfect theme.

One of the reason the littles' birthday parties are fun (for me, at least!) is that they're just little parties for little people.  Though I love to work with a theme, our birthday parties are pretty low-key affairs.  We invite a couple friends and cousins, and we aim to keep the number of invitees right around the birthday child's age. (Your siblings are a freebee.  So are cousins, so far.  Madeline got to invite about three friends beyond that.  Small is key!)  Our parties last about two hours; there are some games, some food, and some cake.  And so far, that's been more than enough.

We decorated with a bunch of balloons (they're a requirement for a party, according to the girls), a birthday banner, and a host of butterflies cut out of scrapbook paper.

As our guests arrived, we worked on a butterfly craft ("stained glass butterflies" -- tissue paper on contact paper) before we moved on to play pin the butterfly on the flower.

The beanbag toss was probably the most popular game, but that's probably because we didn't much worry about rules.  Everyone can land the beanbag in the basket when it doesn't matter where you stand!

Daddy read The Very Hungry Caterpillar...

And then we snacked on some of Madeline's favorite foods -- blueberries and raspberries, golden raisins, and butterfly-shaped cheese and crackers.  (I wasn't kidding about low-key, people!)

After snacks, Madeline's friends helped her open her gifts.

We finished off the party with Madeline's special request: "pink cupcakes" with butterflies and "pink ice cream."  (Incidentally, we found a great strawberry cupcake recipe here, and the instructions for the chocolate candy butterflies here.  I was really glad for the small party when making those butterflies!)

We somehow missed getting a photo of Madeline with her cupcake and candle, but I'll show you again that she was pretty happy anyway we did manage a video!

Shortly after stuffing our small guests full of pink cupcakes and strawberry ice cream, we sent them on their way.  While we were seeing our friends to the door, though, John David saw fit to help himself to not one, but two more cupcakes.  (We'd given him one already when everyone else ate!)  Leaving the platter on the table and leaving John David momentarily unsupervised were clearly oversights on my part.  I don't know how I didn't see this classic John David moment coming a mile away.  His face was too funny for me to even be upset.  (And he did, after all, use a spoon.  If it weren't so gluttonous, it would practically be civilized.  Okay, maybe not.)

Madeline loved her birthday party, and has already begun planning next year's fete.  (She currently wants a fairy party.  Kathleen, who has much less time to wait, has wavered between a superhero party and a winter-princess party.  Birthday party themes are a favorite topic of conversation of late.)  We loved the chance to shower our sweet Maddie Beth with love and attention.  We hope she felt as special as we think she is.... though we're not quite sure that's possible!

scenes from the circus: (perpetually) playing catch-up

Our sweet Madeline turned three! (A month ago, but who's counting?) She celebrated her birthday with her cousins and a few friends at a butterfly-themed party. (That event warrants its own post, which I will get around to. One day.) She felt like a princess.

Two highlights from the non-party portion of her birthday:

We don't eat a lot of boxed breakfast cereal at the circus. We've got a box of cheerios on hand for snack/bribery purposes, but we generally start our mornings with eggs or steel cut oats or yogurt or granola. (Or the occasional splurge of pancakes.) On your birthday, though, you're permitted to select your own box of cereal. Any cereal. Even the cereal that you've only ever eaten on vacation, but ask for constantly. Madeline might have been more excited about her "sparkly" fruit loops than any other aspect of her birthday.

She did love her new scooter, though. She spent all morning scooting it around the house. (And in fact, her sister loved it so much that after a few weeks she decided to use her piggy bank money to get one, too!)

Our sweet, sweet girl had a sweet, sweet day. We love you, Madeline!

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Unfortunately, the two days after Madeline's birthday weren't as sweet. Daddy left for a business trip the next morning. And then, just after dinner on Labor Day, poor Madeline fell backwards into the coffee table. (If you ask her, she'll tell you John David pushed her. I was putting dishes in the dishwasher at the time, so I can't verify that claim.) I managed to load the three kids into the van and take them all to the ER, where the nurse doing initial assessments looked appalled.

"Um, these are all yours?" he asked, "Is there anyone else? Somebody parking the car?" When I told him that it was just the four of us, he seemed a bit panicked. "Do you want to call somebody? A friend? A neighbor? Somebody?"

Um, no thanks.

We did just fine at the ER. Madeline was an absolute angel -- she didn't even cry when they stapled her wound. (John David, on the other hand, wailed like a banshee when he wasn't allowed to leave the exam room.) With some ibuprofen for her poor head and some strawberry ice cream as a treat when we got home, we were able to finish out our night with our usual routine (only a few hours late). The next day everything seemed back to normal.

Kathleen, however, made sure we hadn't forgotten our Labor Day adventure. As we were getting out of the van to go to bible study a few days later, Kathleen pointed out, "Hey, Madeline! Remember that your head's stapled together?"

You know, just in case she forgot.

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Like countless moms before me, I have discovered that the car is a great place for conversation. As we cruise around town running errands, the kids and I are able to talk about a lot. And sometimes I'm able to listen -- and that's even better.

A few weeks ago the girls were discussing Christmas.  That discussion came about, I believe, because we were running through the order in which things will happen -- Baby Flash arrives, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Kathleen's birthday, Mama's birthday, Christmas... We talked about Santa (trying to downplay his importance) and about Baby Jesus. Kathleen concluded our conversation with this observation:

Santa Claus and Jesus. They're the best guys in the whole world.

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Madeline's the only one who has needed to visit the ER lately, but we're not exactly sure why that is. John David is constantly pushing the limits of safety and sanity. I was correcting someone's behavior when I turned around to find him here.

He'd used a chair to climb onto the counter so he could play with the faucet. Running water is one of his current fascinations. Another?  Door knobs.  He has completely mastered them. I hadn't fully processed this (though I had been deadbolting the front door, just in case) until I found our extremely independent boy munching on mac and cheese in the living room.

He'd opened the pantry, helped himself to the box, torn the box open, and chewed on some uncooked pasta shells -- all while I made beds. And he's so pleased with himself. Me? Not so much.

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Can we blame this look on a head injury? Sadly, I think not. This is actually pretty typical around here.

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I'm 37 weeks along with Flash and have been in the midst of some pretty serious nesting instincts. We've cleaned and reorganized closets and cleaned some more and taken an embarrassing amount of unwanted stuff for donation. We've even rearranged furniture.

Even the girls haven't been exempt from this flurry of activity. I recently found some new quilts on super clearance at Target and -- once everyone's head was healed -- we decided to bunk the girls' beds. Grandpa came down for the day and painted the room a lovely pink ("poetic princess", to be precise, which is just about perfect). So, voila! The girls have a brand new room.  And they love it.

Here they are, getting settled for their first night in their "bump beds."

Kathleen had been really excited about bunk beds, got a little nervous about the prospect of falling out, and then got excited all over again when she realized that the railings would keep her safe.  She was giddy at the prospect of sleeping on the top "bump." 

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Madeline helped me bake a Texas sheet cake for our community group a few weeks ago.  Kathleen was at preschool and John David was napping and Maddie Beth soaked up her solo status.  Can you tell?

(I promise -- none of that licking went back into the batter.  We kept all germs to ourselves.)

a reunion, at last!

We were more than thrilled when we learned that our dear friends, the Scotts, would be traveling through California in early September. We were hoping that we'd get a chance to see them. When their itinerary permitted them to actually stay with us, we felt like we'd won the lottery!

We hadn't seen Rick, Paula, and Emma since fall 2005, when Paula and I were both pregnant -- she with Ethan and I with Kathleen. Our children had never met, though they felt like they'd known each other because we've followed one another's blogs. (Praise God for blogs!) Our children were practically as excited about our visitors as Jim and I were!

Lest anyone accuse us of not being real here at the circus, I'll let you in on the last ten minutes before the Scotts arrived. They came in the early evening, after supper. We'd managed to clean our house respectably, Jim made it home from school, and our little people had been bathed and pajama-ed. Jim was on the phone giving last second directions to Rick when Madeline had an accident in the front, guest bathroom. When she called to me, John David went running to her. He entered the bathroom, slipped in the giant puddle (of pee), soaking his pajamas. At that point, I started to cry, depressed at the idea of mopping yet another floor and cleaning yet another child. Mercifully, Jim stepped in and, with his help, we managed to pull it together before our friends arrived... but barely!

After the pre-arrival chaos, things went really smoothly. Our reunion was so sweet! It was like no time had passed at all. Once the kids were all in bed, we grown-ups talked and talked. And even though we said we wouldn't (and we really meant it!), we did the same thing. Every night. (Praise God for coffee -- we needed it!)

I didn't take nearly enough photographs. For example, I don't have one of Paula and I together, and that makes me sad. But I did capture some of the fun -- just not enough.

Headed for the park across the street. The dads took the CalTrain up to San Francisco to see some baseball, but our littles were happy to play at the park!

We spent an evening touring around Stanford. I was amused at our little parade -- there are a lot more of us than there were in Germany!

Poor Ethan had just woken from a nap and was still so tired! He'd already had a full day playing with the Starlings in Monterey and visiting the beach...  And Kathleen wasn't upset; she was just taking her role as tour guide very seriously.

The grown-ups walked and the little people ran around campus.

I proved, yet again, that I am utterly incapable of taking good photographs of more than one child.

Predictably, Rick and Jim were absorbed in serious conversation while I ran around taking photographs.

John David really resents being confined to the stroller...

Our girls loved being able to show off their favorite spots at Daddy's school.  Consequently, the tour was fountain-heavy.  No one seemed to complain.

Racing (no, literally -- Jim's calling out, "Ready, set, gorilla!" and "Ready, set, golf!" in this photo) to the next fountain.

Ethan and his sweet mama.

Jim clowning around with Emma.  Poor Ethan didn't understand the "clowning around" part and was ready to defend his sister, standing right up to Jim.  He's a good, brave brother!

This, John David, is why we don't let you out of the stroller more often.  I pulled him away from the water more times than I can count.  (And his shoes are around.  Somewhere.)

We were so sad to see the Scotts leave.  (Though they were probably happy to move onto a house where the hot water heater didn't spontaneously, well, quit.  Sorry, guys!)  The girls kept calling Emma and Ethan their cousins and have asked repeatedly about when they'll be back.  Though we'd love to see them again soon, it seems unlikely that we'll manage that before they head to Italy (where they'll be missionaries, running a Hospitality House for Cadence, just as they were when we met them in Germany).  Perhaps the next time we'll meet up with them in Italy!

kathleen's first day of school

A mere two weeks after we returned from Illinois (a good four weeks ago now!), Kathleen started her very first day of preschool.  She's been anticipating school all summer long, frequently asking, "Is it fall yet?  No?  When?"  One day we were running errands in the minivan and Kathleen piped up, "Mama, I'm so excited to start school in the fall.  I hope they know about Jesus there."

She couldn't have been more excited when the first day actually arrived.

After a lot of thought and prayer, we enrolled Kathleen in a nearby Christian preschool, two mornings a week.  This is a huge, huge step for us because, aside from the church nursery, we've never left Kathleen in any sort of organized childcare.  Ever.  I went ahead and registered her for the CDC when we lived in Hawaii, but even when Jim was deployed and I could really have used a break, I just couldn't bring myself to leave her with strangers, even for a few hours.  (There's not a CDC here in California, since we're not on a real post, so it never came up again.)  Occasionally Kathleen (along with Madeline and John David, of course) spends an afternoon or an evening with grandparents or the Illinois cousins, and there have been a handful of times (literally, fewer than five) when we've actually hired a sitter to stay with the children.  But mostly, she's been with us.  And that's largely because of me.  (I'm the first to admit that that's not necessarily the healthiest approach -- for one, it makes date night, well, rare.)

However, although I've had all this anxiety about letting my little girl go, she had none.  She was simply excited to begin school, excited to meet her teacher, excited to do new things.  As Jim and I drove her to school that first morning, I turned around in the car and asked, "How are you feeling, honey?" and she responded, "GREAT!  I'm so excited!"  I asked more than once.  And I got the same answer each time.

Posing with Daddy, but itching to go inside!

We'd visited the preschool with Kathleen last spring, so she'd seen the classrooms and playground, but this was her first opportunity to experience it all for herself.  She was a teensy bit tentative at first, but warmed up by playing with some play food with her best friend (who's conveniently enrolled in the same school, the same two days a week!), and then dove into her first craft project.

Kathleen works on making her "doll" look like her.

By the time we left for the parents' meeting in the church sanctuary, Kathleen seemed as though she'd been going to "school" forever.  She and her classmates played on the playground while the parents, teachers (except those supervising the playground), and administrators convened.  Between the large sandbox, the playhouse (complete with loft), the slide and the teeter-totter, Kathleen was completely and happily occupied.  In fact, when we returned and informed her that it was time to go, she was in no hurry to leave.

Best friends make the best travel companions.

We had to reassure her that she'd come back in two days for more fun.  Still, only when reminded of our plans for a special "first day of school" lunch celebration with Nan and Grandpa did Kathleen finally seem interested in leaving. 

Our school year got off to a strong start!