Day three - Enjoying the sun.

A few days ago, the kids were playing in this.

Now it's sunshine and lollipops.

Playgrounds in February.

Rides on alligators.

And luckily for me, indefatigable cousins.





It was a good way to start my 33rd year.

And on the second day ...

we drove six more hours. We filled up the car at this gas station ...

which caused Ainsley to become very sad when she realized that they sold gasoline and not pegasuses. (Pegasii? What's the plural of pegasus?) She wanted one.

We got to Phoenix. The kids discovered cousins, a trampoline, a balance board, a keyboard, and dolls.

And it was good.

And I rested. I may have snored. I know Ainsley did.

We're on the road.

So the next few days are going to have a definite keeping-Daddy-updated flavor.

We're travelling to see my sister, and the sun. I miss the sun. I've heard it lives in Arizona for the winter, so we're going to find it. Yesterday we travelled all the way across the state of Utah - that's a long trip at any age, but at five (almost six!) and 1 (almost two!) and three (nowhere near four), it's a very long trip. They did amazingly well. Gray stayed dry until we got to where he could go on the toilet. He got cranky a few times, but a steady dose of Strawberry Shortcake kept him entertained. Five hours of Strawberry Shortcake. It was ... it kept Hannah and him content and that's what matters.

Right when they had all had about as much sitting in a seat belt as they could take, we found a restaurant with a play place. Fantastic. I had planned to stay there for thirty minutes, but it stretched to an hour. I was not about to put them back in the car until they had their energy all out. I was 'the best mom ever' because I got them kiddie ice cream cones - that was easy.

And life's always better when you find a table just your size.

I also got to haul my adult-sized body through the kiddie place equipment to get Gray who had followed his sisters into the big kids section of the play place, was too scared to come out on his own, and wouldn't let his sister help him. Luckily we were the only ones there right then. Screaming really echoes in those tunnels.

The girls were beyond excited to stay at a hotel for the first time that they could remember. There's something magical about hotels when you're a kid. That's straight from Hannah's mouth. "This is so magical!" So magical that she fell asleep ten minutes before we got to the hotel and slept right through me carrying her in and her sister and brother having a hard night. Grayson cried himself to sleep in my arms after a record hour long I-am-so-tired-and-I-sat-in-the-car-for-nine-hours meltdown. Luckily there was no-one in the room next to us. Ainsley had nightmares, I couldn't figure out what they were about. I had to wake her up three times to break her out of the scary place she was in.

This morning, Hannah woke up, looked around her, and smiled really big. We had to get up earlier than Ainsley would have liked so that we could get to breakfast in time. I had to remind Hannah five times to please.get.dressed. because she kept getting distracted exploring and telling me how fantastic hotels are and we really had to get going to get to breakfast. They were thrilled with the range of choices for breakfast. Ains got a danish ("I feel like Homer!" - thanks, Matt) and a *lot* of juice - you can see how tired she is in the picture below. Gray had about five tiny muffins, Hannah had a little bit of everything in Hannah style ("I feel like a princess!" - it helped that she was wearing her cape).

Then we came back to the room so that they could watch cartoons.

Now they're all in the bathtub. I can hear them talking in there.

H: "Wouldn't it be fantastic if we could live like this all the time, Ains? We could have enough money that we could pay people to do our cleaning and fix us fancy breakfasts and make us fancy clothes..."

A: "And we could drink watuh!!"

H: "Well, yes, we could drink water, but that's not so fancy. We could drink any kind of juice any time we wanted without waiting for mom to fix it. We could go to balls and meet princes and get fancy soaps beside our bathtubs."

A: "And we could drink watuh!!"

H: "Ains, I don't think you understand the importance of fancy."

Then they'll watch some cartoons (on TV - so much fancier than on dvds like at home) while I pack up for us to do our last -shorter - stretch of the trip. Hopefully it goes as well today as it did yesterday.

Right this minute.

Games we play - Animal Yatzi

Thought I'd share a game recommendation with you.

We got this game during the holidays and it's been such a huge hit. Animal Yatzi by Haba.


It is played exactly the same as your regular yahtzee game, but with animals in place of the numbers on the dice. The score sheets are custom made to go with the unusual dice and show kids as young as three (Ainsley) what their options are in a very clear way.

This has been a huge hit with Hannah, who loves debating the merits of the different choices she can make, and with Ainsley, who picks one animal each game and sticks with that animal throughout the game, ignoring the fact that she's collected giraffes for the last seven turns.

Definitely glad to have this one on our game shelves.

That red-headed child.

Ainsley's been on a tear the last few days. I can't keep up with her goofy statements anymore.

Yesterday, after sitting in some powdered sugar that spilled on her chair - "Wook! I have a white bum!" Yes, you do. You look like a snowman. "No. When a kid gets powder on her bum, she looks like a snow tiger." Of course.

After me asking her if she wanted to pour the powdered sugar into the mixer (always good for a poofy mess) "I ahways DEAMED of doing that! You making my deams come twoo!" *looking at me askance* "Are you a faiwy godmother?"

She ran up and slapped me on the butt, which resulted in me chasing her around the room and her screaming in fake terror, "Don't get me, I am your kid!!!!!"

After getting powdered sugar above her lip, "Wook! It is MUSTACHE powder!! I a daddy now." *looking down at herself* "No, I still a girl."

Walks by smacking a wooden spoon against her hand. Whatcha doing, Ains? "Wooking fo my sisser." Oh, dear. Luckily, it was a game of hide-and-seek.

"You know how I go (grow) bigger?" How? "I exshacise." *does a surprisingly good Arnold Schwarzenneger impersonation*

Now for some from Hannah -

Hannah and Ainsley came tearing down the stairs, very involved in one of their X-Men missions. Ainsley thought she was talking to Rogue, who corrected her loudly - very loudly - and forcefully. She was, in fact, Storm. A few minutes later, they went tearing past again and Ainsley warned Rogue about Juggernaut. "I AM STOOORRRRMM!!" Twice more this happened. Then they came into the kitchen looking for a snack. "What would you like, Storm?" I asked. She looked at me in disbelief. "How did you know I was Storm?" I'm a mom. We know these things.

The other day, Hannah came dancing into the room where I was working and shouted "MOTHER, CHIHUAHUAS ARE SO CUTE!!! I LOVE CHIHUAHUAS! THEY HAVE THE CUTEST EARS AND CURLY TAILS AND THEY NEVER GROW BIG!" I asked her to please take out her ipod earbuds before she 'talked' to me. I was nearly deaf from her joyous exclamation. She just grinned and went dancing off singing 'Mamma Mia'.

Cookies and such.

Yesterday, the girls and I made cookies. Gray didn't help. He was doing a lot of this.

Thank the heavens. Teething children need that.

That picture seemed familiar to me, so I went sifting through old pictures and found this...

Gray at 3 months old. We have had many white kittens.

Back in the present, though, there were cookies to cut out,

bake, and decorate.

Ainsley's were predictably top heavy.

Hannah was decorating this one with a toothpick.

I said "Oh, that looks cool. It looks like a spotted tulip." She said "No, Mother, it's termites. They're eating it." Happy Valentine's Day.

Since Gray was asleep, I even got to get in on the decorating. When we were all done, we left the cookies on the table.

That was a mistake. Gray woke up and found them. We don't have any cookies to give away now. But we did have a 10-high cookie tower.

The last few weeks have been...

Meal inventions.


Dancing.

Singing.

Sending off the last of the Christmas presents. (I blush.)

Doing crafts sent as Christmas presents by friends.

Oh, yeah. Tattoos.

Discovering 'clicker training' for dogs. Consider saying that it doesn't work on tiny dogs just to head off the inevitable chihuahua talk. But I don't. My honesty is rewarded by thirty minutes of chihuahua talk.

Painting.

(Please note how many pictures she's wearing that fairy dress in.)

Dollhouse play. Constantly.

Throwing puzzle pieces. Putting puzzles together. Hiding puzzles.

Making marshmallow crackles for sore throats.

On a completely unrelated note, lots and lots and LOTS of reading.

X-Men Evolution. Scooby-doo. Musketeers. Smurfs. TV does not affect my kid's imaginations, no sirree.

Crafts. Glue on the carpet. Exercises in patience.

Experimenting.

Doctor visits for Mother. Again. Hannah sharing results of said visit in a random conversation. Luckily it was with my sister. Hannah is banned from future doctor visits. Just kidding - she's the one the secretaries want to see, I don't think they'd let me come without her.

Making a Gargamel trap.

Studying.

Organizing. Discovering 'new' toys, games, and dress-up clothes in said organizing.

Chocolate chip banana bread. Heaven.

Chess for some.

Throwing chess pieces for others.

ABBA. As loud as we can get it. Same for George Strait.

Gymnastics. Cousins. Library. No craft store - Mother's practicing self-control.

Elaborate tea parties to which *everyone* is invited.

Mice mysteries - mystified. (That's the first post - it's an ongoing mystery.) Babies born - thrilled. Babies born dead - so much sadness. Babies still in utero - hope.

Hannah lost another tooth. She is beyond excited because now she can say "Sister Susie sitting on a thistle" with an authentic lisp. It's beyond adorable.

Sleep overs.

Chasing Grayson around the house to make him giggle.

Looking at fossils. I'm vindicated for making Matt move "a big box of rocks" from house to house for years.


(Vindication deserves two photos, don't you think?)

Berry picking.And - most exciting of all - Gray up and decided he was done with diapers one day. So we're done. At home he's completely reliable during the day and is reliable at night as long as I wake up when he tries to wake me up to get his diaper off and get him on his little potty. When we're out, he's completely reliable as long as I watch for his 'need to pee' signals and put him on the toilet anytime we're in there for anyone else. So that's fun.

When my illness catches up to me, blogging falls by the wayside and what you see above is pretty much what I concentrate on, so I disappear for awhile. Thanks for sticking around until I get my head above water again.

Of peat moss and oil.

And salt and water.

Today was water play day, apparently.

Seeking to contain it somewhat, I remembered some Steph's water experiments from a (long) while back.

First we did the hot water/cold water experiment which was 'awesome' for them when the two colors combined and made purple, and so cool for me when we switched hot to the top and the colors wouldn't mix. At their age, the girls were not so impressed. "So the colors stay separate. That's not exciting, they were already separate. It's only awesome when they join together and make purple."

Then we did salt volcanoes. Water and oil and salt make magic. And mini lava lamps.

Very, very cool. Had to do that one many times. The water gets saturated with salt pretty fast when you have three kids playing.

Then they played with the food dye. "Look, we made roots!"

They made brown water. Which Ainsley had to study.

That magnifying glass is an extension of her hand.

Because we were on a roll, we moved on to our experiment package from The Young Scientists Club.

My father got us this once-a-month subscription as a Christmas present this year. Best. Present. Ever. (Except for that little tool set he made for Hannah when she was three years old that had real tools and wood. That girl didn't go anywhere without her hammer and screwdriver for months.) He asked me what I wanted, saying that he'd prefer it to be an 'educational' gift. I'd been looking into this program for awhile because it reminded me of one that he was subscribed to when *I* was a kid. We used to get these packages in the mail and they'd have the best experiments in them - I still think of them every time I see a manila envelope. Those experiments (if I remember right) were aimed towards teenagers (I only ever got to watch them being done - that's what happens when you're #8) and these are aimed towards younger kids, though I think a bit older than my girls.

Last week we got our first kit. As the first kit, it included a little magnifying glass, ruler, notepad, and even ... a sand dollar. Random. But very welcome.

This first kit was filled with recycling experiments.

First we expanded peat moss pellets in water. This was surprisingly (or not, when you think about it) exciting for the girls, to watch these solid, thin circles become large, squishy, dirt-filled nets.

To one of these we added carrot peels and to the other we added a small piece of plastic bag. Actually, a piece of one of the plastic bags that the peat moss came in. Hannah has predicted that at the end of the week, when we check on them, the carrot peels will still be there and the plastic bag will be decomposing. This should be interesting.

Next we made paper. From paper. The irony of this was not lost on my five-year-old. "Why are we making new brown paper from a brown paper bag? Why not just write on the bag?"

Quit thinking and do the experiment.

The pulp was fun to play in. We had to use the next batch for paper.

So after blending and shaping ...

we had two 'new' sheets of paper drying.

Included in the package were four pieces of brand new colored paper that they said you could use to make new colored paper. That did not go unnoticed by my daughter either. "I thought they were teaching us how *not* to waste." Bear in mind, this is the girl that drives her daddy crazy because she doesn't want him to throw anything away. "I might be able to use it for an art project."

It didn't escape my attention either that included in this 'recycle/take care of the earth' package there were no less than four plastic envelopes.

They recommended using the new paper that you made as labels on recycling boxes. Problem is, we don't buy pop (so no aluminum or plastic there), we save our large yogurt containers for potting veggie starts in the spring, we save most other plastic buckets (like ice cream buckets) to organize stuff in the craft room or the shed... We buy very little prepackaged food, so all of that wrapping is nonexistent. Any paper goes to the fireplace. Any organic matter goes to the compost pile. We're still looking for something to recycle.

Now I'm going to sift through the links on the company's 'Kit 1' page and see if there are any other cool experiments to do.

It was a fun experiment package, but I expect the next ones to be much more exciting. And we have a sand dollar.

The dolls are back in town.

We got some cute dolls to go with our dollhouse. Not fancy, but cute. But not princesses. The princesses have taken over the doll house.
Ainsley's favorite dolls are these rubber Disney princesses that we got when they went on clearance. Not what I pictured my daughter playing with a few years ago when visions of wooden, handmade, or cloth toys danced in my head - before my daughter's own desires got in the way. As of right now, the brand means nothing to her - just princesses.

The dolls we got her, they're polite. They're good tenants. They don't make a lot of noise. Family people.

The princesses are a whole 'nother story. They party. They look all sweet when they show up at the house - look at how proper they are -
but they party hard.

I walked in on a hot tub party once.

And Disney princesses party differently than us. Instead of lampshades on their heads, they have birds. You don't even want to know how drunk she was when I took this picture.

When I go to clean up, I find three of them crashed on the couches while the woodland creatures they invited are making a mess, crowding out my cute wooden family dolls.

Belle's in the shower - fully clothed. That must be a heck of a hangover. Unicorn juice'll do that to you.

Snow White's on the toilet - at least her head's not in it. Maybe she didn't party as hard as the others.

I was laughing about how at least these are Disney princesses, so there wouldn't be bras hanging from the chandelier. I'd forgotten that somebody invited Ariel.

It's really not surprising that Ains has to be doing repairs already.

This isn't the dollhouse play I pictured. It's better. As Steph says, it's nice starting the day with a free smile.