Today was ...

Play dough.

(2 cup each flour and water, 1 cup salt, 2 tablespoons oil, 3 tsp cream of tartar. Cook over low heat until it forms a ball. Knead food coloring in.)

Big hit with the 'everything must be tested for ability to be airborne' set.

And with the bigger kids, too, who had it be everything from snakes to cake to lollipops.

Then movies in a tent.


Collages. I use suitcases from the thrift stores to help in organizing my craft room.

One of these two suitcases holds old magazines - some given to me by my sister, some saved by me for years - and the other holds miscellaneous print materials. Old coloring books, books from thrift stores/library sales with gorgeous pictures but not so good story lines, old, fun playing cards, book slip covers (I don't keep slip covers on any kids books), calenders ... anything with interesting pictures but of no other use goes in there.



I tried to explain the finished product and then told them to cut out pictures that made them happy. Next time we do this, we'll use another theme - animals, colors, jobs, moods - so many possibilities, but for their first time doing this project, I wanted a no-pressure approach.

Hannah got right to work, even coloring some pictures from coloring books to include.

Ainsley had me read most of the books in the suitcase to her before she'd pick any pictures out.

Grayson played beside us.

When the girls had the pictures they wanted, we went upstairs to paste them on. Hannah learned how to plan a collage while Ains tried to eat paste. I told her that she shouldn't eat paste, even if it was homemade. We had had this discussion with the play dough too.

Then the girls worked at pasting their pictures on.

Today we tried out a homemade paste and it was perfect for a project like this. Equal amounts flour and water. A few teaspoons of alum for every 1/2 cup of flour that you use. Add a bit more flour if you need it stiffer, a bit more water if you need it runnier. We applied it with a paintbrush - my hands-on girls loved that.

Gray played beside us.

The finished artwork on our art clips in the dining room.

Then yoga.

Dinner.

Diego Jungle Rescue on the computer.

Hello Kitty on the tv.

And bed.

Well, this isn't working.

Health issues equal blogging issues. Instead of being excited to post every day, I can go days before I realize that I haven't even *thought* of posting.

So many pictures, waiting to be posted. Most of them never will be - catch-up isn't really my style.

I will leave you with these pictures of Halloween - pictures snapped quickly of our little fairies (and a ghost cousin) and a little Peter Pan. Wish I had better pictures of the costumes, but my camera appears to be off-kilter and most pictures come out fuzzy, so we take what we can get.



And these pictures of our favorite Halloween crafts.

Stiff Fabric Ghosts

Crow puppets.

And this - the most important thing. Do you remember my sister? She used to look like this.

Now she looks like this.

And there was much rejoicing. (And no small amount of baby lust.)

In progress.

Three Halloween costumes.

Two straight days of sewing. Two costumes are almost done, one is being cut out.

The girls have been playing their own games around me - and with me when I take much-needed breaks. I went tearing up the stairs yesterday when I heard Ains yelling 'MOTHER!!!' and was told that she was just yelling for her bunny's mother and "You go work on my dress". Nice.

Gray's not at the independent play age, so he's with me.


Yeah, he's right here with me.

Seven hours to go ...

I'm relenting.

Fall is fun again.

Dancing with the stars.

Dance shows are a big part of our lives these days - easily three shows in the evening every week. And three shows means hours and hours of practice, dress rehearsal, costume design ... you get the drift.

It's the highlight of my husband's day, watching these shows - and with good reason. They're hilarious.

The routines consist of the girls singing songs that they're making up on the spot while they dance. They can get very active ...

and very expressive.
I think in that picture Hannah was singing about planting, watering, and harvesting plants but not letting Colorado Potato beetles get them, after which she launched into a medley of ABBA songs. Her shows are usually about seven minutes (of non-stop flow-of-conciousness singing).

Then this one starts in.

She just likes having a captive audience.

On the night I took these pictures, I started timing her performance when I realized it had been going on awhile. Seventeen minutes later, she was still going.

Talk about flow-of-consciousness singing. We got to hear about her kitties, her dog, her brother, her baby dolls ... and fudge chocolate chip cookies. No idea where that came from which is probably why it made her dad laugh so hard when she threw it into her routine. And that made her giggle.

And after that, anytime she needed to liven things up, she'd randomly throw out 'fudge chockut chip cookie' and promptly dissolve into giggles.

Dancing with the stars in our own home.

Movin' right along.

Ainsley woke up yesterday, walked into the bathroom I was cleaning and said "Get eawings today."

I wasn't expecting this girl to want earrings until she was eight years old, so she caught me by surprise. "You want to get your ears pierced today?" I asked. "Yes."

"You're sure? It hurts a bit. A bit worse that this..." and I pinched her ear a bit. That's always stopped her in her tracks on the few other times she's thought about it. "Yes. Eawings today."

"We're going to town today, so we can do that if you want. It hurts though. More like this..." and I used my nail to pinch her ear a tiny bit harder. "OW!!!" She glared at me. "Get eawings today." So we went to the mall.

When we got to the store, I double(triple?)-checked with her and then handed her the box of starter earrings to choose from.

She chose the rainbow flowers.

She sat really still while the dots got marked on her ears.

And really still while the ladies pierced them.

And immediately after they were pierced, she covered both her ears with her chubby little hands and yelled "OWWWW!!!" I could see her fighting back tears, so I said "Do you have a mirror? Quick!" They had a mirror handy.

Then she went back to this.

Then the mirror, then the hands again.

Today we've washed and turned them and she says they don't hurt. It completely changes the look of her.

At least to me.

About that piano ...

My grandma was looking for someone in the family to take her piano and promise to keep it in the family. I've been looking for a piano for around eight years. It was a good match.

My grandma is 92 years old and her mother got this piano, used, right before my grandma was born.

The problem, once the 'who' had been solved, became 'how'. My grandma and grandpa had moved this piano from Wyoming to their house in Idaho while the house was being built. The room it was in had literally been built around the piano and they'd never planned to move the piano.

Matt took the door frame off of the piano room and it barely squeaked through that door, but then this happened.

Yeah. That.

Turns out that he had to take the door frame off of the closet across the hall. That gave us enough room to get it out of the room with 1/8 of an inch of clearance. Once it was in the hall, it was nearly smooth sailing.

To get it out to the truch, the garage door had to be held open by someone standing in the bathroom - which was me.

"Don't worry," my dad said. "You have running water and a toilet." Har de har har.

Some of my dad's neighbors came over to lift the very solidly made piano.

My dad supervised.

That was a heavy piano.



So now it's home, along with some sheet music that my grandmother insisted came with the piano and is nearly as old as it.

I'm so happy to finally have a piano in my home.

I'll never play Flight of the Bumblebee as well as my mom, but I hope my kids will associate music with their childhood nonetheless.

Blog Hopping.

I'm posting at Not Dabbling In Normal today. Come on over!

Jiggety-jig.

We took our visitors back home today. It's been nearly a week of daily tea parties.





My girls will miss those cousins.

But we get to stay a few days with them at their house. And their mom is *fun*. When she was visiting at our house last week before she left some of her kids with us for a few days, she did some experiments with my girls.

She got them to drop mentos into pop bottles,

which was exciting.

She explained acidity to them.

She sent Hannah on a scavenger hunt around the kitchen to find liquids to test for acidity or baseness.

I'm hoping Hannah doesn't drive her crazy here at her house with requests for more experiments. So far she's settled for telling her lots of stories. (She told her tonight that in her dreams she's a Professional. "Of what?" A Professional Thinker of Words.)

The cousins are glad to be home, but they're missing the little things about farm life.

Soaking in our visitors.

My cousin came to visit us last week and when she left a few days later, she let us keep a few of her kids for a few more days. We'll be taking them home tomorrow, but the kids and I are loving having the company.

Yesterday was snowy still. I thought it would melt quickly as most early snowstorms do, but it's stuck around for two days. It should be all gone by tomorrow.

But yesterday there were snow angels to make.

In the first week of October, in case you needed to be reminded.

There were snow pies to be made and cut up.

And pony rides, of course.

Today there was an art project (I'll post about it later), and sewing, and lots of checking on eggs.

There was homemade ice-cream which was a hit. Even with the cool kid.

Who has declared that he shall go by 'Andrew' on this blog. So meet Andrew.

There was lots of dress-up.









Then a four-wheeler ride and lots more cousin play. Long, full days.