The past few days ...

have been spent reconnecting with cousins over balloon tying (how I missed a picture of the enormous 'pet shop' that resulted from this, I'll never know), reading,

and ornament making.

There was then last trampoline jumping of the season,

and searching in the mountains for the perfect Christmas tree.



We'll have our tree up earlier than usual this year, but I'm ok with that. I'm ready to start listening to Christmas music and watching Love Actually once a day until the season is over. Colin Firth, Bill Nighy, Liam Neeson, Alan Rickman, and Emma Thompson .... it doesn't get *any* better than that.

Dr. Dropo

A few weeks ago, Matt took the girls to a restaurant where a local college student was earning money by folding balloons for kids. Both girls came home with a kitty. Hannah stuck hers on a dresser where it would be safe ...

but talked Ains into letting her 'see how yours works'. Then Ains had a snake and Hannah was hooked.

The next time we went to town, we checked out "Dr. Dropo's Balloon Sculpturing" from the library and bought a big ol' bag of balloons and a pump (I am not signing up to blow up all of those balloons, thank you very much).

When we got home, we went to work.

Hannah wanted to make her daddy a dog. She worked and worked at it, and after seven minutes of frustration - we were still working the kinks out - she told her daddy "I think you get a worm."

But then it clicked, and she had it.

Her first balloon animal.

I was having to hold the twists for her while she made the next twists in the chain, but she was following the pictures herself and doing all of the work.

Then it was a squirrel.

Then a swan.

We got stuck on swans for awhile.

By then, all I was doing was blowing up and tying off the balloons.

Then she made her sister a giraffe - which was well-received the next morning.

And the easiest of all - swords.

These were also *very* well received by her little brother the next morning, but I don't have a picture of that. If a child moves even slightly while I'm taking a picture, it's blurry, and folks, that kid holding a balloon sword was moving more than slightly. He had his sisters on the run.

It's been a week now, and Hannah's used up the first bag of balloons and is working through her second. She's made flowers, fish, planes, lots of swords, variations on different four legged animals, and wants to do a parrot on a swing next. Ainsley made a collar for a cat. We had to have a talk about that one. Cygnus has learned that balloons pop if you bite them - as did Grayson. Mother has learned that a popping balloon isn't the end of the world (my leaning six inches away while she twisted the balloons was a never-ending source of hilarity for Hannah until I learned that). Father has learned to relax about finding balloon creatures everywhere and Hannah has learned to work with a trash can beside her for popped balloons.

And, thankfully, Hannah has Dr. Dropo to learn from - because I couldn't do more than a fish when we started.

All she wants for Christmas.

Hannah's been wanting to lose her 'two front teeth' before Christmas so that she can sing "All I want for Christmas" more authentically.

This meant that she was extra excited this morning when this happened -

It's not one of the top teeth, but it'll do.

She spent thirty minutes with Seymour Skinless learning more about her teeth. We love Seymour.

Then we made a pillow for her tooth to sit in while it waited for the tooth fairy.

She sang "All I want for Christmas" the whole time.

Now she's asleep and the tooth fairy's already come, collected the tooth and the note that she left, and left a note, a bit o' money, and an extra special present (it *is* the first tooth, after all) by her toothbrush.

The tooth fairy's very excited to see how she likes it tomorrow morning.

Thankful.

Today was a long, slow day filled with lots of crafting and giggling. Hannah crafted around me while I cleaned in the craft room. When she was done, she showed me her vases full of flowers.

After she started messing around on the paint shelf and found the face paints that I'd picked up on Halloween clearance, I got no peace until I agreed to make her a butterfly.

Then Ainsley wanted something simpler - a heart and a rose.


Grayson wanted nothing at all, but I was on a roll by then.

Starting in on Thanksgiving week, we did our Thanksgiving tree tonight. Hannah helped me cut the leaves and got them all organized in a bowl with the pens.

During dinner, we wrote what we were thankful for on the leaves.

Hannah put a lot of thought into her 'Thankfuls'. Last year was constellations and books. This year was her dog, crafts, her pony, and balloons (her latest obsession). I made the cut both years. It's nice to see a thankful leaf with 'Mother' on it.

Ainsley picked out her 'Thankfuls' this year like she did last year. "I tankful for..." (looking around) "pizza. And pens. And leaves." And on and on it went. Cats, her horse, and Smurf cartoons made her list also.

After dinner we put the leaves up on a tree I'd put on the wall.

We have a lot of leaves on our Thankful Tree this year.


That seems right.

After Thanksgiving, I'll pick a few leaves to put in their keepsake boxes.

And I thought it was bad when the *kids* got ahold of the scissors.

It's much worse when their father does.

"It can't be that hard to cut boys hair," he said before I went to my book club.

"It's getting long," he added. "Besides, I have guides on the razor."

"Please don't cut his hair." I said.

"It just had to be evened up," he said when I got back. "But then it kept getting shorter and shorter. Cutting hair is harder than it looks."

"Sigh," I sighed.

Collecting craft supplies.

A few days ago we went to the foothills about an hour a way to collect craft supplies. Another fifteen minutes would have gotten us into pine-tree territory, but my sister and I had hungry kids and meltdowns are measured in minutes at that point, so I pulled off at the first likely looking campsite.

After lunch, we started to explore and it turned out to be a beautiful little place. Rocks to climb, logs to look under, a stream to play in.



Lots of craft supplies to be found. Leaves, twigs, seed pods, moss, rocks ...



We had enough time to play until the kids got cold, and they took advantage of it.






It was a beautiful place and now my sister and I have visions of camping trips next summer. Sister camping trips (hint, hint Cindy and Theresa).

And we're also stocked up on nature crafting supplies, though Hannah wants to go to a place with more pine trees for some needles. Who knows what she has in mind for those.

Chess.

It's a contact sport in our house.

Conversations.

Hannah and I were fixing her hair when she looked at me in the mirror and said "Are we drawings? On a tv show?"

You mean like a cartoon? I asked her.

"Yeah."

So is everything we're saying to each other right now part of the cartoon?

Big eyes. "Yeah, I guess so."

So can we say what we want to or only what is written down? Can we decide what we want to do or is it all part of a cartoon?

"I don't know... .... I'll have to think about this." Big pause. "Do you think Homer and Marge know that they're just cartoons?"

----------------------------------------------------------------

We were sitting down for lunch with soup and sandwiches when Ainsley decided to proclaim our family a super-hero team.

Pointing around the table, she said "Gay and Daddy and you and that girl" (pointing to Hannah) "are a Us Team."

Me: "What's the Us Team?"

A: "Supah-hewoes."

Me: "Really? What is your power?" Blank look. "You need a super skill if you're going to be a super hero. What are you going to do? Fly? Walk through walls? Leap buildings in a single bound?"

Ains: "I paint buildings in one bound. With my tummy."

Matt: "You can be the Belly Blaster. What's Gray? The Super Pooper?"

Hannah: "No, that's you Daddy."

Matt: "Then what are you?"

Hannah: "I don't know. What am I good at?"

Matt: "Your super power can be charm. We'll call you Charm Alarm."

Hannah: "What's charm?"

Ains: "I BEWWY BASTTER!" Aims with her tummy.

Hannah: "Dad, you can be Super Worker because you're good at working. And Mother, you can be Super Lover. You're good at loving us."

Me, looking at Matt: "Is that my power? Super Lover?"

Matt: "Yes. But a super-hero costume wouldn't hurt."

Yesterday we took a Snow Day.

It was necessary.

It isn't the snow. The snow is fun.

It's the 50 mph wind that comes along with the snow. You have to dress up really warm, run outside, play for maybe two minutes tops, get the obligatory first bite of snow ...

and then run back inside.

We looked for activities to keep us busy inside. Hannah wanted to do her sewing.

I did some of my own.

Gray played with his cars (natch) while Ains played her Little Mermaid game on the computer.

Gray went down for his nap and we got out the finger paints. When I was putting the plastic on the table, Hannah asked if they could paint on the floor instead. With Gray not around, we went for it.

It took a turn I didn't expect - but should have.

How did I not expect that?


Or this?
All those colors together make brown. I expected *that*. Hannah wanted to add more colors and see if that changed the brown. It was an Experiment.

A Hands-On Experiment.

Or a 'Body-On' experiment.

It's hard to carry a five year old under her arms up to the bathtub without her getting any paint on the walls. But I'm sure you expected that.

Clean-up was amazingly easy. Shower off.

After Gray woke up, and we'd fed our calves, we turned to games. Magical Creatures. In which the genie rode in a tractor. He'd kicked the satyr out.

Bambino Dino.

Old Spider and the Fly.

Which led to singing about a certain Old Woman with a very bad diet.

Then Connect Four and rediscovering Chess.

We made it through the Snow Day.