A Little Brotherly Advice on Girls...

 

 My motley trio, Jamie, Henry, and Rosie, getting ready to deliver their Valentine roses to their friends and teachers at school this morning. 

Rosie couldn't wait to carry her flowers...

("I need to hooooold them, now!") 

But then used the pretty flowers as a tool to wack her brother in the head as he climbed past her to get to his seat in the van. 

I think that Rosie's roses were the only flowers used as nunchucks on this national day of love. 

Jamie loves Valentines day...for the past two years he has given each of the girls in his class a red rose. 

(He absolutely insists they be red, in his opinion, any other color rose is "kinda lame.")

He puts a lot of energy in building up his flower delivery event before February 14th, reminding all of the 3rd grade ladies...

"I'm going to give you a red rose on Valentines Day."

He very much wanted Henry to follow in his cupid footsteps but Henry isn't quite as comfortable with this open display of affection...

"Maybe I'll just give roses to my teachers, I don't want a girlfriend.

 I might want to be a priest when I grow up." 

(Henry, the young Presbyterian, has been exploring his options in the priesthood lately.) 

"Dude, you don't have to marry anyone, just give the girls ONE FLOWER on this ONE DAY because it makes them so happy."

And that is the very sound big brotherly advice from Jamie (age 9) to Henry (age 7) on this Valentine's morning.

Have a fantastic day- and be sure to extra kind and extra gentle to those you love, on this day especially.    

Who's your Llama?

Our Lily has a love of  llamas. 

She doesn't know any on a personal level, but admires them from afar and thinks of them as very useful creatures with big soulful eyes.

Lil just turned eleven and thought that a llama party would be the best way to celebrate her big day. She decided that she wanted to raise enough money to buy a llama, not for herself (phew!) but for a family in Peru who would be more able to host and appreciate such a beast.

She planned a llama slumber party and asked her friends to make a donation to Heifer International instead of giving her birthday gifts. Her friends agreed that it was a great idea and gave generously to her llama fund. She was able to meet her goal of  $150 to buy an entire llama, (not just a share) and had $20 to spare. 

So she shopped on the Heifer website for the "cheapest livestock" and was able to add some chickens to her birthday llama.

  http://www.heifer.org/

 

 Rosie enjoyed (but was not so skilled at) playing pin the tail on the llama with the cool middle school girls. Please notice behind Rosie, the completely awesome llama by Karl G aka cool dad + creator of mighty fine llama silhouettes.   

These were the little llamas who came to us from Peru to serve as party favors. We found them at Lily's favorite place to shop for cool Peruvian llamas, Ten Thousand Villages.

http://cincinnati.tenthousandvillages.com/

The girls made their own llamas from yarn,  Popsicle sticks and googly eyes... it turns out the googly eyes are really essential in defining the personality of popsicle stick llamas.

A Walk in the Woods.

With a week of extremely mild temps, Karl, and I took three little bears + schnoodle for a walk in the nearby woods.

As the caboose, this was my view for most of the walk.

Except for the times when the two youngest bears, who on each others very last nerve, needed to complain about each other. Then this was my whiny view... you can see how troubled Karl and Lily are by the their stress.   

 

 The setting was beautiful- much like the "autumn" background at the Sears portrait studio- so I did my best to get some photos of the kids experiencing some woodsy fun. 

"No... I don't want to have a nice face- I will show you my sad face instead" said Rosie happily, my least cooperative little bear. 

I tried to take a happier photo of Henry on a mossy log.

"Nope- don't feel like smiling. This is my not happy, not sad face, the best I can do right now" said  my tiny bit more cooperative medium size bear. 

There's the happy face I was searching for!
Thank you Lily, my most agreeable and biggest bear cub of the afternoon.

Somehow, I did manage to get all three cubs plus Papa Bear, looking pleasant at the same time... well, schnoodle-bear is distracted, but the rest of the team looks happy and relaxed in the real life Sears Portrait Studio. 

And so goes our two sister bears on their way home.

Mommy's Mug Shot.

"Mommy" by Rosie age 3

"And so this is YOU!"

Rosie declares, holding up her whiteboard marker sketch.

"You look like a worm- but your grumpy face is really a smile!!!"

young artist at work

Breakfast Date.

Lately, it seems as though each of our kids would really prefer to by only children. 

While that wish must remain a unobtainable fantasy, sometimes I let them pretend that they have no other siblings to compete with. 

A favorite way for us to do this, is to go on a just one kid breakfast date. These dates are great... they give me a chance to focus absolutely on a single kid for a complete thirty minutes. I make it a personal rule to never ever be critical or grumpy during those dates (hey, it's only thirty minutes- I can do that) and this model works well. During our time together, I remind the kid in front of me just how completely fantastic kid they are, and they enjoy every single minute.... what's not to love? 

Most of the time the conversation is pretty routine, but every now and again I learn a little snippet about the sort of people my kids are becoming. 

The other morning Jamie looked up from his pancakes and told me..."I think that music is my thing."

 I asked..."what do you mean by your thing?"

"The thing that I like to do when I'm not doing something I have to do, like school or homework."

I like to play piano and listen to music more then anything else. And also draw... yeah, I'd say that music and art are my thing."

I can pretty much guarantee that this little snippet of sharing was unlikely to happen at any other time or place other than over pancakes at 7:30 in the morning.

So I took a quick photo of my young musician/artist and darned if he doesn't look both musical and artistic. 

I showed him the photo. 

"Ok... now take a picture of me looking like I have sand in my butt so I can send it to Anna."

(the sand in his butt comment is an ongoing joke between him and his oldest sister that never fails to send them both into hysterics) 

 

So here is a picture of my musician/artist son pretending to have a sandy bottom.
Which he thought was a far cooler photo.
Then he asked for my phone so he could text Anna that he had a sandy butt and include this photo as evidence.

Which I had to agree, is very funny in a nine year old guy sort of way.

Don't call me that!

"I'm not BOSSY!
Don't call me that...
I just get so MAD when you DON'T DO what I WANT YOU TO DO!"

Rosie G... age 3 years 9 months.

Happy Birthday Dear Lily!

 Our Lillian happily turns 11 today! 

 

In celebration (and admittedly, a little fit of mom nostalgia) I thought I would share her birth announcement photo from way back in 2001.
Here is the very young Miss Lily during her first few days of life.

And here is the current version of Lily during that little window of early morning following her birthday breakfast, but before she was off to school.

Happy Birthday Dear Lily- you are much loved!