Sunday, October 31, 2010

Halloween 2010

I'm too tired to actually write a blog post, but it seemed cruel to keep this image of perfection under wraps for any length of time.

Yup, Elliott and Cheyenne are wearing the same costumes they wore last year-- but that's what they wanted. And I certainly wasn't going to talk them into something that was MORE work for me!

Marilla was really into lollipops tonight, if you couldn't tell.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Lazy Me

I haven't written anything on here for a while. I haven't been on the computer much at all lately. Some of that is because I am busy (do you know HOW much time and energy it takes to switch summer to winter wardrobes for six people, plus keep up with a baby on an insane growth spurt) and some of it is because I am enjoying being lazy (reading lots of books). Right now I am reading Bill Bryson's latest book "At Home" which is utterly fascinating thus far.

The Cotten family is here for the weekend, so we're enjoying lots of cousin time. Mr. Gilbert is a walking fiend these days, so I dusted off the gates for the stairways and the cupboard locks. Evan and Justin are going away to do some mall work, so the gates will be useful to Bethaney and I. We can close the kids in the family room gate and our endless rounds of Wordthief will be much more peaceful.

My kids are all doing cute and amazing things that I should have blogged about when they actually happened instead of waiting until I've forgotten them all and am sort of foggy with sleep. I have been bad about taking pictures, but I do have a few I need to get up on here. I'll get to it eventually... when I finish my really thick book, maybe?

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Toothless Wonder

Actually, my REALLY toothless wonder is four months old-- but we'll get to him in a minute!

Cheyenne has had an extremely loose tooth for about a week, and it finally came out in school today. She's now lacking both her front teeth. Evan has been worried that it's been about three months since she lost the other one, and it still hasn't grown in. Thanks to the wonders of Google, though, I now know that isn't totally crazy. Anyway, guess I'll be cutting her apples up for her for quite a while still.

How cool is it that she got to lose it in school, so she got fussed over at school AND at home?

When I was downloading these pictures, I remembered that I was the tooth fairy tonight! Evan has taken care of it with her other three teeth. I was kind of nervous on my inaugural foray , but it went off without a hitch. :-) And since she was at Aunt Sally's house last time and was spoiled, I had to spring $2!

Here's the truly toothless wonder. He grins like crazy now, but not for this picture, of course. He was very busy trying to grab his hands and examine them.

Rilla likes being in the picture.

She does smile, though, so she is helpful.

Then, she pops in from the other side.

Finally gave in my conscience about Lincoln not having any stimulating play, and set up this playmat. He loved it, especially this noisy little cow that was Elliott's when Elliott was a baby.

Rilla thinks the playmat is great-- and she also like getting in the picture. Notice a pattern here? One picture of Lincoln, followed by twelve pictures of LincolnMarilla.

Proud of her new boots. I promise you, I had already done this girl's hair several times today. I don't know if it's just coinciding with a rebellious hair stage, but her cold seems to have infected her hair. Actually, that's not too far off-- but the effect should be more like a hair gel keeping it in place! :-)

Close up of Rilla's new boots. The old ones were thoroughly worn out. Rilla is a confirmed rubber boots girl. I made sure these had handles on top-- I think half the allure is the ease she can pull them on. I bypassed the Hello, Kitty models, so Lincoln can wear these later.

Miss Grown-Up Girl after school today.

Cheyenne's new shoes. I took her shoe shopping Wednesday-- oh, my word. I can't even fathom how I will go shopping with her when she's a teenager. Every shoe was "ugly" or "ridiculous"-- except for the ones with heels or that were totally inappropriate for little girls. So our deal was that she would get these silvery ballet flats if she picked out a pair of boring, practical, go-with-lots-of-outfits brown shoes. She's quite entranced with these.

Almost done my week of being without Elliott and Evan. We will sure look forward to seeing them tomorrow! I'm not sure if Evan will be able to sleep a bit before he comes out here, I just hope they get home safely. Towing his massive trailer while sleepy seems like a bad combination!

Monday, October 4, 2010

Picture-less Post

I have pictures from our weekend up at Vaughans' that I want to put up sometime, but I don't have the psychic energy to go through them and post them right now. But I did feel like writing mundane details about my life for ten minutes. Lucky you!

Evan is doing night work at a mall over near his parents. Not only is he not here, he sleeps all day so I can't even talk to him on the phone! Elliott went over with him, and Elliott is spending his days with Grandma Marilyn. It sounds like he is having a great time, having Grandma to himself. Cheyenne, as can be expected, is insanely jealous, and is having a hard time dealing with life. We had major homework drama tonight-- after 25 minutes spent in tears over an insignificant part of the homework ("Draw a picture of your favorite clock in the house"), I wrote a note to the teacher saying we would not be finishing the homework. Well, that really set her off. She's finally quieted down, after an evening of sobbing over the dreadfulness of writing a note to the teacher.

Not only do I lack the energy to post pictures, I've been really bad about not taking pictures, too. We had a flood here on Thursday, with water so high on our front porch that it came flooding into the entryway. I didn't take a picture of Evan trying to sandbag the porch, or Elliott joyfully getting completely drenched, or me out in pajama shorts trying to bail water. Okay, maybe it's a good thing I didn't take pictures.

It's been rainy quite a bit here. Today, to make up for the horrible fate of being The Girl Who Stayed Home, I took Cheyenne and the other two kids up to the apple orchard to pick apples. It started to pour as soon as we walked out to the orchard. I didn't feel like driving up there another time, so I picked apples in the rain. It was very wet. And it made my daughter hate apple-picking. The situation wasn't helped by the fact that she is completely missing her one front tooth, and the other is hanging on by a thread, so she can't bite into an apple. It's like the line from the Coleridge poem, "water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink." Cheyenne was surrounded my Empires and Crispins and Cortlands-- and yet hungry.

Lincoln and Marilla are both dealing with colds. Poor little Marilla's normally sparkly eyes are dull and unhappy, and even her hair looks dull. She'll be rather happy to get better. Lincoln stays happy, but wakes himself up about 70 times a night because it's hard to breath with a plugged nose. Thankfully, he's been putting himself back to sleep 69 times a night. He is such a good little guy! Except for this morning, when he woke up at 5:00 a.m. and didn't go back to sleep until after 11:00 this morning.

I'm slowly working through getting the kids' winter clothes out. I was worried today, after I sorted through two Rubbermaid containers and found very little for Marilla to wear. Then, I found another Rubbermaid stashed in the corner of the family room! Voila, Marilla will now be adequately clothed this winter!

Well, I've blabbed long enough. Time to go to bed so I'm not completely overwhelmed if Lincoln pulls his Early Bird Special again!