Adult-ing for the win

I'd been at my mother's house with the kids for five days while Jonathan and Jason drove the cars cross-country.  There are lots of little fix-it projects in this house that need to be done.  I had the time: I figured, why wait for him, why not tackle them myself?

After unscrewing the broken tracks on the silverware drawer, and jury-rigging it to work in the meantime, I gave my mom the part that she needs to replace at Lowe's.  Turning off the flashlight and removing the tools from the area, I actually said out loud... wait for it...

"This would be so much easier with the electric drill!"

(And for those of you saying, "So?" remember that I grew up in a house where we hired someone to hang pictures on the wall. I've come a long way.)

Ahh, In n'Out

ANIMAL FRIES!!!

Ignore my sister's expression; Connor had just thrown something on the floor.  (I love that she lives an hour away!  Which is far for driving, not so far compared to across the country.)

Bliss

I love the small moments in life.

58 degrees outside.

I'm drinking chai.

The kids are drinking hot chocolate.

There's a crackling fire in the fireplace.

The Adventures of Milo and Otis on the TV.  (Which is hugely educational, by the way, as it's all shot with real animals, including the animal births.  I read that it took 4 years to film).

Peace.

At my mother's

We have arrived safe and sound!

The house is colder than Florida, but man it is still a struggle to put clothes on my youngest boy.  Here he is, deciding that having finished his chicken nuggets, the only reasonable thing to do with the ketchup is to use it as dip for the apple slices.

Entranced by the tablet of joy and glory.

Taking a walk, we had a wagon and a car.  The three of them took turns being in the wagon, pulling the wagon, and driving the car.  But surprisingly this was by far the most popular variation: Ari rode the fast car and my two-year old pulled his eldest brother halfway down the block.

Murphy's law

Murphy's law, as far as I understand, is something like, "everything that can go wrong, will go wrong."

This is kind of what happened when we moved.  With a lot of little things.

The most intense thing?  Was utterly, completely my own fault.  I was clearing out the fridge at 10pm the night before we left, I was moving fast and not thinking, I was emptying tupperware in the disposal, and stupidly added in some taco meat.

Yeah.

Don't do that.

Did you know that taco meat is greasy and sticks to pipes and causes all drains to back up?

Jonathan taking out the U-bends under the sink and trying to flush the pipes.

He did his best.  It didn't work.  The blockage was in the part of the pipe behind the wall.  Nothing like calling a plumber out with a drain snake at 11pm, have him come out at 8am on moving day, then having to ask him to move his vehicle because it was blocking the moving truck.

Thankfully, it got fixed.  

But oy, what a morning!

Day in the life - by various children

Me on the armchair in our living room, with the kid area/world maps directly behind.

X in the kid bathroom

Area behind the couches/TV space

Couch/TV space where the parents sack out while the kids play

Right inside the front door - C lined up his cars and A dumped the contents of his school backpack

Other side of the TV/couch area, with the kitchen behind

A on the armchair

C self-portrait on the couch

While his brothers were crystal making...

Connor was all about the cars.

Making crystals

We made the crystal solution with baking soda.  Then put in a pipe cleaner shape and left it overnight.

Examining the finished product.

Yay for crystals!  It would have been better with boric acid, but eh, we had the baking soda in the house already.

Starbucks with Brianna

Rare couples photo

Taken by Connor, and completely unedited.  The kid has a good eye for framing.

Aftermath of an evening playdate

On Saturday night we went to our friends Don and Allison's house to roast s'mores in their firepit.  Their eldest played Minecraft with our two older ones, and their youngest had fun with Connor.  It was Daylight Savings time, so we figured keeping everyone up a little later would help us in the long run.  We left there at 10pm, meaning it would be 9pm, which is still two hours past bedtime.

This is what we saw when we pulled into our driveway:

At first we thought they were faking it, they were asleep so soundly.

Not this one, however.  Allison had given him a digger that her sons didn't play with, and he was SO EXCITED it took a full half hour after we got in until his eyes finally closed.

How was Trump elected?!

The world has gone insane.  This must have been what it felt like in Germany in the 1930's.

This morning I was looking at the New York Times' image of the electoral map.  Connor looks over my shoulder and says, "Blue is good, red is bad."

Yes, Connor, exactly.

Then I put on the movie Finding Nemo to entertain him.

"I'm afraid from the shark," he says.

I was still reading about Trump.

I'm afraid from the shark too, son.  And the state of the whole ocean.

5 year olds in office

Kindergarten is obviously discussing the election in its own way.

 "IF I WERE PRESIDENT"

by Ari

"I would play video games all day and watch Minecraft videos on my brother's tablet."

Influenced by his older brother just a bit, methinks!

Halloween

We went trick-or-treating with A's best friend E and his little cousin.  They were both Ninja Turtles.

Best buds.

Pepa Pig, me as gypsy, Connor the fire fighter

Xander was Batman.

Trick or treat.

After we hit up three full blocks, we came back to the house Jonathan and I traded, so he went with them and I gave out the candy.  They did another four blocks, came back with overflowing buckets... and then we let them pig out.  

Connor was hilarious, every time he opened up a wrapper he said "CHOCOLATE!"  "SKITTLES!"  "LOLLIPOP!"  It was his first Halloween and we never give the kiddos candy, so he didn't recognize any wrapper brands and was so enthusiastic about every new piece.

We then watched The Addams Family (which I have to say is even funnier as an adult than it was as a kid, I love their parenting) - and then we had our sugar-infused children brush their teeth longer than usual, and put them to bed.  They were tired the next morning, but it was so worth it.

Visiting with Nicole and Joe

We drove over to the west coast of Florida last Sunday afternoon and had a wonderful time!  Connor and Zara are roughly the same age, and had a grand adventure playing and being preschoolers together.

Giggling on the park bench.  Look at those punims (faces).

Three out of four children saying "cheese."

For context on why only three out of four said cheese: we had a hard time with Ari at a few points.

Walking home from lunch.  "Chugga chugga chugga, chugga chugga chugga, choo choo!"

The kids made the train completely spontaneously.  My favorite is that Zara's doll is part of the line-up. :)

So proud

Xander keeps an Avengers calendar hanging by his bed, and every night he crosses an "X" through the square of the day that just ended.  Many days have something written in them: every Saturday is "Video games!"  (because we relax our reading-for-TV-time rule on Shabbat, and he gets to play without the books), some days are "Bubby gets here," or "No school" or some such.

I just noticed that for this coming Tuesday, he's written

"Hilary Clinton wins, we hope"

Rainbow art

Making bookmarks.  There's a kit, "Rainbow science," and Ari put in the appropriate amount of food coloring in each little section of a palette til he had a full rainbow.  Add in a dropper and we were set.

Connor watching him with love.

White board writing

Ari with his creation: "I (heart) U DADDY!"  (I helped him with the spelling)

Xander wrote this one for Ari.

"You are a very good studend!  You are a fun and sometimes a little annoying to, but you are still an awesome brother!  love you Ari!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"