Happy Birthday, Evan!

I want to post on this blog tonight, but my brain is fried, so I am not bothering to group my photos according to storyline or theme. I threw them up here in chronological order, and I'll do captions. When I have time to craft well-written, coherent entries, I won't have any cute kids to photograph or interesting stories to tell.

Marilla with Tori and Saucy, the bottle-fed lamb at Grandma and Grandpa's farm. (Saucy was the name Orianna chose-- not sure where she got it!)

Saucy was definitely a source of entertainment last weekend!

Mom with a lapful of grandkids. All five kids were sick, so they were more amenable to snuggling.

Evan and Marilla both had cakes. Evan had just a few more candles! (We didn't have enough for 30, so there's only 23 candles on Evan's cake.)

Orianna and Elliott enjoying the "Happy Birthday" song.

Helping blow out candles!

And Daddy helps Marilla.

Evan laughing about something.

Marilla with a smile and a face full of chocolate. I wonder if those two things are related? They usually are, in my case!

Dirty face and hands!

Cody and Owen, my weird brothers. Very nice to have Cody home again. And just as exciting to have Owen visit, of course!

Lily got into the cake, too!

Getting into the spirit of things.

Cheyenne. (Watching something in Aunt Bet's hand? Appealing to a Higher Power for more cake? Not sure...)

"Think I'm done with this cake. Let's see how the fern tastes."

Thoroughly covered.

Dad mixing up lamb replacement for Saucy.

Cheyenne "helping". Not sure how the lamb swallowed with those hands around his neck!

Cheyenne is a Farm Girl!

When I think how scared she was just a year ago around animals, I'm so glad she's made progress!

Slicing lots of onions for spaghetti sauce. Everyone thinks I'm weird because I brought my cool new knife with me. I like it, okay?

Evan brought his "business" laptop with him. Now if he had only actually worked on his business books while he spent a week up north...

Orianna with a shiny purse from Aunt Julia's collection of purses!

Lily and Livvie. (Or Livy, or Livvee, or something. I'm forgetting her preferred spelling. Sorry, Olivia!)

This is a rare sight. Cheyenne is looking at the toys IN the cupboard, instead of stepping over them all after the Evil Twins and their helpers, Lily and Rilla, have strewn them all over the living room.

Evan left early Monday morning to fly to Denver to help Tyler and Julie remodel their new townhouse. Marilyn took him to the airport, so I was spared the 4:30 taxi service! Evan being away is certainly much easier this week, now that I have a Grandma here to help! (Grandpa came Wednesday night, and is already hard at work painting my pantry shelves for me!) Cheyenne's cough and cold was pretty bad the beginning of this week. She missed school Monday, but I thought she could go to school Tuesday. By the time I got her dressed, though, I realized she was still coughing too much to go mingle with 17 other kids. (Good thing, too... When I opened her backpack Wednesday morning, I realized I had never read the papers the teacher sent home Friday! Tuesday was Pajama Day, so she'd have been devastated when her clueless Mommy sent her to school in a jeanskirt and turtleneck.) To mitigate the sadness of not getting to go to school, I promised we could dye some eggs.

Fortified by leftover vinegar cake from Daddy and Marilla's birthdays, of course!

Elliott watching the green egg.

Cheyenne being patient with the pink egg.

Elliott holding the green egg. I was trying not to have the screaming heebie-jeebies over the thought of all the green dye spilling.

Stirring the egg around a bit.

Elliott holding the green egg, thoughtfully decorated with stickers. It was a good experience for Marilyn and I to bite our tongues as the tasteful pastel eggs were decorated with cheesy stickers. Now I want to dye my own eggs all pretty-like!

Funny faced-kiddo.

Holding the egg with "Elliott" on it.

Cheyenne's egg had a "C"-- and a sticker carefully placed in the middle of the "C".

Posing with their efforts.

This is quite the egg-decorating kit that I shelled out $1.44 for at Wal-Mart. (I went with the brand name, which is why it's so pricey.) For that money, I received "96 Easter Stickers, 9 Food Coloring Tablets, 9 Piece Egg Drying Kit, 9 Silly Circles, 8 Egg Stands, 6 Egg-Arounds, 2 Egg Dippers, 1 Magic Crayon and 1 Memory Game." Phew! That's a hardworking buck and a half! I was looking for the egg-drying rack, and Marilyn found it-- you punch the 9 Silly Circles out of the back of the package and plop the eggs in there! You can then take the Silly Circles and "Decorate with crayons and string together to create a necklace or bracelet or fold and flick for tabletop tennis." Whoever managed to make this much hype over a cardboard box definitely needs a promotion! It worked, though, so it was money well-spent on the kids!

These eggs are pretty even when they crack (inevitable with toddlers around). Then the cracks turn a pretty blue color.

All dried and in a blue bowl. (If I wasn't so lazy and busy, I could SO get into tinting eggs and making beautiful little arrangements with my pottery bowls.)

Our backyard/deck as of Wednesday. There's a little less snow now, but it's still a pretty unbroken expanse of snow on that yard. I'm torn between wanting to shovel the deck off so the kids have the opportunity to drive their scooters there on the (all-too-infrequent) warm days, and wanting to leave the snow there so I can say, "Well, WE still have SNOW on our deck" in April.

Our yummy Ginger Steak Salad. Okay, I'm a little obssessed with Pioneer Woman recipes lately-- I've had them three nights in a row now. The ginger steak salad was Tuesday night, Wednesday night was Marlboro Man's Favorite Sandwich and tonight was Crispy Yogurt Chicken. Yummmmm...

Rilla partaking in her favorite activity-- pulling all the mixing bowls and cereal out of the cupboard. (There's lots of colored pencils on the floor on the left there, too. They kept her happy through the last five minutes of supper prep.) This is the one cupboard I cannot keep her out of. She can bypass the lock just by jiggling the door, and I haven't found a lock that will work on a single cabinet door. I have one for under the sink, but it's only for double doors. Ergo, I spend lots of time with my spiffy birthday vacumm vacuuming up Life cereal off the floor.

Happy 30th birthday today, Evan Joe! Your family is missing you, but hope you're enjoying being with another branch of your family!

Marilla's 1st Birthday!

Today was Marilla Jane's 1st birthday. The preparations were extensive. They are pictured above.

We didn't go all out! We're waiting for Daddy to come home for a real cake and some presents. Since Cheyenne and Elliott are firm believers in birthdays, though, we couldn't let today go completely unremarked. I had made banana cupcakes the other day, so I stuck a candle in one and we sang "Happy Birthday!"

Marilla is impressed. (I had positioned her so she wasn't in the direct sun, but Cheyenne must have repositioned her while I was lighting the candle in the kitchen. Ergo, her face is wickedly washed out.)

Fire Safety Warden jumps in to save the day.

Fire blown out (so fast Mommy couldn't photograph it) and disaster averted.


First tentative taste of the frosting.

I am not Miss Manners here, making my child eat her birthday cake with a spoon. That spoon just happened to be the teething implement at the moment, and I couldn't get it out of her grasp.


Elliott, appreciating the humor in a baby eating cake.

Just missed the kiss, here's the return from the dip down to kiss a sister's head.

Good big brother.

Sweet big sister. (She had just got up from her nap-- cheeks still flushed and hair crazy.)

Hmmm...

Investigating all angles.

Good for sucking on.

End result, by the time she got bored. No cake was consumed, but frosting was poked and prodded!

Aftermath-- tired baby that's wiped frosting through her hair.

The new pink shoe is still perky, though! Note the grippy bottoms for ease of navigating treacherous wood floors.

And navigate she does, Little People in hand.

For a little girl who has just started walking everywhere, she sure does it well. She changes direction, pivoting around, stoops down to get toys without holding onto anything, and generally excels! I realized today how much she understands, even if she isn't talking yet. Elliott had fallen or something, so I was hugging him and kissing the injured head. Marilla, who was in my arms, started stroking the top of his head and trying to lean down. I let her down to Elliott, and she put her lips on his cheek. A definite kiss, even if no puckering was evident! She'll kiss me when I ask her now, a real perk of motherhood-- sloppy baby kisses!

We've successfully survived Day #3 without Daddy. Last night was a bit of a terror, with both Elliott and Marilla coughing so much they woke up every 20 minutes or so. Marilla completely rebelled against her crib by midnight, and when Elliott crawled into bed with us not long after, I couldn't leave Marilla to plunk Elliott back in bed. Not the most restful night! Today was another day of appointments and errands. After dropping Cheyenne off at school, Elliott, Marilla and I went to the dump, a WIC appointment, Kinney Drugs (Elliott is on medicine for his cough-- there's "junk" in his chest), the library and the post office. Two and a half hours later, we were back to pick up Cheyenne from school, run home and eat lunch before Elliott's speech therapy. Whew! We didn't make it to meeting tonight, though, since the kids' coughs are pretty drastic. I'm anticipating a rough night, but I'm hoping I'm wrong!

I'd like to nominate my father-in-law for the Dad-in-Law of the Year Award. Around 5:20 this evening, the doorbell rang, and there was a pizza delivery man. As I opened the door, the delicious aroma of pizza wafted in, and I regretfully told him, "Sorry, wrong house-- wish it was me!" After he verified the address, and I insisted I hadn't ordered a pizza, he started to walk away. All the sudden, a lightbulb went on-- "Wait, did my father-in-law order that?" He had! It was such a treat in our little lonely week! One of the most thoughtful men, ever!

Single Mom for a Week

This picture shows why I'm missing Evan-- he's enjoying having three kids bounce all over him! He is definitely a keeper...

Evan is working on a job up near Mom and Dad's this week. I would normally let my daughter play hooky and we'd all go up with him, but this was the week for lots of doctor and dentist appointments, as well as Cheyenne's Special Day at school-- can't miss that! In some ways, I'm a far better housekeeper when Evan's gone. There's no backup plan-- if I don't keep it all together, no one else is there to step into the breach! Even though I am really doing about the same amount of cooking and cleaning as I would normally do, I feel much more tired out from it.

Rilla in her high chair.

Apparently, she's not in her high chair enough-- she had her 12-month checkup today and the doctor says she's not even on the growth charts now. I have to bring her back in a month to see how she's doing, feeding her lots of calories in the meantime. I do like the doctor, but it's extremely frustrating to have to go through this with my full-term baby. I thought Elliott was my only problem baby! I am completely unconcerned about Marilla-- she is active, alert and progressing just fine. Another mother with a tiny kid told me recently that the World Health Organization's growth chart (comprised of more breast-fed babies) was more realistic than the one most doctors use. I looked that up when I got home, and Marilla was almost in the 25% in that one. I think we'll ignore the other growth chart! While I obviously plan on feeding my child, I am NOT going to fall into the obsessing-over-every-calorie trap I fell into with Elliott. As far as I can see, my kids just grow slowly. As long as they are getting a fairly normal diet, I think they'll be fine.

Elliott's weight was a little more exciting today. While he's still nowhere near the growth charts, he was now 25 lbs! (With jeans and a full belly of Cream of Wheat, but, hey!) It has no significance, but 25 just sounds like a nice round number for a little boy.

He's not such a little boy anymore, though. Today, I had to say, "No, Elliott, you are not allowed to download computer games." They are getting computer literate earlier and earlier!

Cheyenne managed to find this game online, download it and install it.

Definitely need to password-protect our computer! She and Elliott are just enthralled with this game. It is possibly the most cringe-inducing game known to man-- I have always loathed Candyland, and this is Dora the Explorer Candyland. Not only do you have the soul-scorching monotony and idiocy of Candyland, you get to have Dora the Explorer's obnoxious little squeaky voice chirping at you the whole time! It does occupy the children for quite some time, however...

Thankfully, the computer time hasn't totally turned Cheyenne's brain to mush. This is her creation, who grows every day. Last week was her 100th Day of School Party. Cheyenne brought home the hat and sunglasses and taped them to the pig she had drawn in Wednesday night meeting! The next day, she made arms and legs for the pig. Then, to entertain him, she made a book (with pages!) and taped that in his arms so he could read. The latest installment is a battery pack taped to his back so he can talk! For the .00001 it cost for the tape and paper, she's certainly having fun!

Cheyenne continues to love school, though Monday was an awful day-- she had to Pull a Stick! All the kids have 5 popsicle sticks in a little pouch with their name on it, and if they misbehave, they have to pull a stick. That phrase has a HUGE weight to it. Alex's mom brought her home Monday, and Cheyenne didn't seem quite as bouncy as normal. When I asked her how school went, she said "I had to pull a stick." I said, "Are you telling a story, or did you really have to Pull a Stick?!" She buried her head in my skirt and started sobbing! Poor little kid was quite undone by it-- cried on the phone to Daddy about it. It sounds like she kicked a girl by accident during calendar time (when they all sit on the rug.) I don't think she meant to kick the girl, but she'd probably been told to sit still or something and she hadn't. Anyway, it was very heartening to see that this bothered her-- no hardened criminal here! She dreaded today, when she had to sit for five minutes of playtime (the consequence of stick-pulling!) but now that we have that behind us, we are resolved to NEVER have to pull a stick again!

Cheyenne has always embodied that little ditty, "There once was a girl who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead. When was good, she was very, very good, but when she was bad she was HORRID!" So it happened that on the day she descended to the depths and had to Pull a Stick, she also totally surprised me with her good behavior! Elliott dumped our whole huge tote of wooden blocks right after supper, so I told him he had to pick them up a little while later. I didn't even ask Cheyenne to help, because it really was all Elliott's mess. Without any prompting, Cheyenne started helping Elliott, encouraging him and saying, "It's okay, it will be quick and we'll have it all nice and clean!" This is the same child who lay down on the floor and HOWLED Saturday night because she had to pick up Little People! I'm hoping it means some of the hours we spend correcting her and trying to get her to do the right thing are actually paying off!

My little standing/walking girl. She has REALLY taken off with her walking the last three days. Now she'll venture off into open spaces, with nary a handhold in sight!

She really likes phones, and standing at Mommy's knee.

It's been unbearably cold the last several days. For once, though, the snow was low enough that Cheyenne could kick her feet and swing! After about five minutes, though, we needed to come in for some "chocolate tea."

And while Evan may be gone in body, he sure lives on in his son. Sitting in the La-Z-Boy, with a laptop computer... The nonchalance with which he sat there!