St. Ed's Concert

The kids had their xmas concert last week, and it was a joy to see all but one of our kids in it. The remaining child (Frankie) was thoroughly entertained throughout the show. I think this was the first year one of us didn't have to chase him around.

Charlie,  by far our loudest child who spends a good 3 hours a day belting out songs at the top of his voice, apparently quiets down in front of a crowd. It also didn't seem to help that the concert was so close to bedtime. He was must have yawned 20 times during his 2 songs.

It was Sam's first time singing in the choir during the nativity story reenactment. He was flanked by his two cousins, Ian and RJ, and the three of them sounded great together!

After a bit of convincing, Elena agreed to sing a solo. She did a beautiful job. She then got to enjoy having Olivia up on stage with her when Olivia played the baby Jesus. She played the part well, and didn't fuss until near the end when Elena was right there to calm her down. Ever the big sister, Elena was also at the ready to make sure her brother was standing in the right place - specifically not right in front of her.

Here are some highlights on video along with a few more pictures.

Charlie the Knight

Last time Elena was sick, she came up with a pretty creative way of getting the boys to be her servants at her beck and call. She decided that her "sick chair" was a throne, and she was the queen. Then she knighted Charlie and Frank and told them that when she had a job for them, she would sound the alarm (a soup pan lid) and they would come running to see what she needed. Charlie in particular took this duty very seriously. His sound effects were my favorite....and the time he said, "Sir, yes sir!....I mean Ma'am!"

Frankie wasn't o easily convinced to help.

Here are a couple of clips:

A glimpse inside the mind of a 4-year-old

Today Seth and I were saying that we should get to the children's museum again soon. I said something to the effect that time was running out and we should go before our membership expires.

Frankie overheard us and, I tell you, what went through his head was pretty different from the reality. I suppose "membership expiration" is a rather abstract thought for a 4-year-old to grasp.

So a few minutes later (after I had completely put this conversation out of my mind), this was our conversation.

Frankie: "Is our house going to start on fire?"

Me: "No, why? Is something on fire?"

Frankie: "No. Will it be on fire when we go to the science museum."

Me: "Why would our house start on fire when we go to the museum?"

Frankie: "Because the timer will go off and then it will explode."

Six Months and Sick

Olivia turned 6 months on Sam's 11th birthday. Unfortunately for her, she was pretty sick and spent the day sleeping in our arms with very goopy eyes that we kept having to wipe. Her super long lashes were not great for this as they captured a lot of goop and kept sticking shut.

The upside was her timing. She started getting sick on Thanksgiving and also at the start of a winter storm. This meant we had 3 full days after Thanksgiving for her to rest and get better. We had to skip a wedding on Saturday (we wouldn't have made it with the storm anyway), but Sam was happy to have us all home to celebrate his birthday with his friends here.And I don't think Seth minded the watching all the football games that were on when while he took his shifts holding the sleeping baby.

No large family birthday picture is complete without an unsuspecting sibling lurking in the background. 

She's still recuperating, but I'm hopeful we're on the tail end of this. In other news, she successfully made her first big mess when we sat her down too close to a bag of pretzels:

Gearing up for Thanksgiving!

"I"m thankful for my mom and dad and my toys. What are you thankful for?"

This is what Frankie said to a few people we came across today in the grocery store and on the sidewalk. My guess is they all shared what they were thankful for at daycare today :)

By the way, The drawers are in and the bunk beds are officially done!

5 months old!

Best assignment ever!

Elena is studying percents and fractions in math class. Her teacher is super creative and often gives unique assignments.

Yesterday's assignment has been my favorite so far. Elena came home and said, "Mom! I have to clean out the fridge." Her homework was to clean the fridge and, in doing so, count every item in the fridge. She then had to count how many items were rotten and throw those out.

I assume they will use this information to calculate what percent of food in the fridge was good...probably finding out in the process which family has the grossest fridge. It took an hour, but she cleaned the whole thing, wiping down shelves and drawers in the process without even complaining! I think our total was somewhere around 120 items with 11 rotten (or past-their-prime) foods.

Normally I dread homework. Homework never bothered me growing up, but it turns out marrying a man who is not academically inclined has resulted in children who likewise hate reading, writing and doing math problems at home.

I have drastically changed the amount and type of homework I assign in my own classes after seeing how much stress one little worksheet can create in a student's (and subsequently his or her entire family's) daily life.

That being said, I will take homework like this again anytime :)

Mr. Bourbon

Frankie tonight as we were driving home:" This is our Mr. Bourbon."

My best guess is that he mistook "Suburban" for "Sir Burban" and later confused the "Sir" for "Mister."  At any rate, our vehicle has an official name now.

Here he is singing a song he learned at daycare.

And a few recent selfies. 

Costume season!

Between trunk-or-treat,  trick-or-treating, and the saints day contest at school, we went through quite a few costumes this last week. Here are some of them.

Sam as St. John the Baptist. He took 1st place in his grade and was given a Gatorade by one of the teachers who said his costume was her favorite of all the years they've had the contest. 

This was Frankie's costume for daycare.  He was a giraffe in the evening,  but not a very happy one. He got tired of trick-or-treating pretty quickly, but kept trucking along anyway. The result was a sobbing giraffe walking up to every door getting extra pieces of candy because people felt bad for him.  Not exactly what this sugar-tooth with no self-control needs!

Charlie was Padre Pio for his saint. Elena was st. Apollonia, but we didn't get a picture of her (once again).

Toothless the dragon for the evening! I dropped the ball and did not get Charlie's dinosaur costume in time. To be fair, he wasn't real clear about what he wanted.  At any rate, we found this for $1 at the local thrift store on Halloween. Just in time!

Fall fun!

In no particular order (because rearranging pictures on this blog is so much more difficult than one would expect):

Olivia's first Halloween costume. She's the only baby to fit into this since Elena. 

The local cousins at trunk-or-treat. Sam was still getting a costume put together - but don't worry. His Saints Day costume will make up for missing this one.  Charlie is the old man on the right. Elena is a turtle. Frankie is wearing a large cat costume of some sort. After deciding against the 2 costumes that he "had to have" this year (they were cheap thrift store buys, just for the record) about 4 other costume changes that morning, he finally landed on an old jaguar (leopard?) costume that we have had for a good 10 years (and also bought at the thrift store, I'm sure).  I suppose it's better than refusing to wear anything. I had to apply his face make-up while nursing Olivia so it's my best work.

Just the girls! 

Finding Great-Grandpa Lawrence's name on the Veterans Memorial in St. Peter.  We also found their Great-great-great-grandpa Dennis O'Brien from the Dakota War.

Hiking at Minneopa State Park with the Korirs and Grandma and Papi. Frankie was not in the mood to cooperate for this picture. Or the hike. He was pretty scared of the rugged terrain and waterfalls. As adventurous and agile as this kid is, he is pretty careful about staying within safe limits and only attempting what he knows he's capable of.

The cousins right next to the waterfall. Notice the look of terror in Frankie's face. 

Charlie and Gabby posing on our hike. Charlie was the most reluctant to go on the hike. "Why do we have to go hiking?? That sounds boring! That's going to be so much work!" He was also the most enthusiastic and excited about the hike once we actually arrived. "This was a great idea!!! This is so much fun!" And then right back to a pessimist as we headed back home. "We never should have gone hiking because my bug-bites are itchy." Once they stopped itching, he was good again and glad we went.  

Visiting friends. One of Seth's co-workers (who the kids all call "Scuba-Steve") and his family came for a visit so we got a double family picture. It turned out so good, we are half-tempted to send it out for our Christmas picture despite the fact that there are 4 extras in the shot.

One happy picture of Frankie on the hike. He agreed to take this picture because "this is safer" - as opposed to the slightly higher rock Charlie was standing on previously.

Quotes of the week

Big surprise: All the quotes are from Charlie. Frank's funny lines all seem to be enhanced so much by his facial expressions, which I can't just describe in words. His most frequent expressions are:  "actually," "plobably," "and also," and "Ummm...yeah, sure!!"

For whatever reason County Road 24 has several signs like the one below instead of the traditional No Passing Zone signs. They might want to reconsider in case someone like Rain Man (or Charlie) ever drives down that road.

As we were driving, I suddenly heard from the back seat, "Mom!! That sign said Do Not Pass. And you drove right past it!"

Charlie: (leaving a voice message on Seth's phone) Hi Daddy, this is Charlie. Um...I mean, your son Charlie. Not....some other Charlie. Anyway..."

Charlie: Thanks for being so mean to us last night, Elena!! Now the house is so nice and clean!
(The kids had been fighting the night before, and Elena's consequence had been to clean the bathroom and library)

Charlie: Daddy! I'm ready to go to school. Give me my blessing!
Seth: Really?? What's going on?
Charlie: What do you mean?
Seth: You're ready to go 25 minutes early. Normally, you're just barely ready 2 minutes before school starts.
Charlie: Well....I guess I became....a fast-poke.

A Trip Down Memory Lane

I've been documenting our kids' lives on her for 12 years now, and one frequent topic has been their dancing. I have a new video of Sam at a wedding dance we went to recently. He's the one in black with the crazy legs.

But before watching it, here is a recap of some of his moves from over the years. 

8 months

Age 1

Age 3

Age 3.5

Age 4

Age 8

Age 8.5

Later that night - at our 2nd wedding dance of the evening - we saw a 20-year-old girl we know trying to get her boyfriend to dance with her. Since Sam saw he wasn't going to oblige, he stepped in and took her out swing dancing. He did his best to dip a girl a foot taller than he was. She was happy for the dance, and I assume her boyfriend - a cousin of Sam's cousin - was happy to be let off the hook.

Sam's getting ready for Halloween!

Baby talk

Not that I would expect anything else,  but it's starting to look like we might have yet another child with the gift of gab.

The latest around here

First, the boys' bunk bed are in! Getting them up the steps was quite the feat. To our good fortune and to Craig's misfortune, moving day landed on a weekend that Seth'as younger brother was home hunting.
5 of the 6 pieces went up our annoyingly twisted staircase without too much trouble. That 6th piece, though, was slightly too big. Slightly too big can be much worse than way too big. "Slightly too big" gives you this hope that you can fit it if you just get the right angle...which is how we got it completely wedged in our staircase...and Craig wedged right along with it. Once he said, "Yeah, I'm completely stuck here," we tried taking it back down, but that was no longer an option either. Luckily there were portions that could be sacrificed to a sawzall, which freed Craig but did not make enough of a dent to get it upstairs.
By 10:00 that night, however, Seth had cut the whole thing into 2 more manageable pieces and put them back together upstairs. I's still awaiting drawers, but the boys are sleeping in it and loving it!
I will try to get better pictures when it's all done.

Secondly, Olivia is almost 4 months old and smiling regularly now. Like the rest of our kids, she is waking up more frequently at night as she gets older. She doesn't keep me up for long, but she's up every 2 hours now instead of every 4-5 hours like the first few months. While I was hoping for a better sleeper, I wasn't holding my breath. Still I can't complain. My work schedule and Seth allow me to get sufficient sleep. The older 3 kids are a big help, too. Seth was gone on business last week, and they got themselves ready and off to school every day without my help - it felt pretty good! 

Lastly, here are a few of Frankie's latest quotes:

Several weeks ago, Frankie found a (dead) pet fly. He named his fly "Fishy" and carried it around for most of the morning, talking to it and asking me if I wanted to pet him. Then Seth hit a fly with the flyswatter one morning recently and Frankie was excited to have a new pet fly (also named Fishy). He quickly realized it wasn't completely dead, though, and said, "Oh! His legs are still moving.....Kill him some more."

As Seth was bringing Frankie into daycare one day, he realized he was low on gas. Seth told this to Frankie and told him that he might have to get out and push the car if the gas ran out. Frankie thought about it for a bit and said, "Well....I think with my superpowers I can do that." Once they arrived to his daycare, he was pretty relieved: "Phew! We made it!"

While Frankie frequently refers to his super speed powers and super strong powers, he informed me the other day when I told him it was time to clean the living room:"I don't have any cleaning up powers."

And this is what occurred in the back seat of the car right after we pulled into the driveway when I had MPR on the radio and Frankie heard a familiar name. I would like to add that no one taught this to him. He saw this person's picture on the front of the newspaper awhile back and said, "Ha! Look at that guy. He's doing like this." We told him who it was and ever since he does this impression every time he hears his name.

The gooseberries are ripe!

All in perspective

They may look like shoes...

but really they are Walkie-talkie holders.

How is this possible?

We have one serious sock monster lurking somewhere around this house. I had a quiet moment today so I decided to sort through and match up the huge pile of the boys' socks. (Mind you, these are just Sam and Charlie's socks - I still have another pile of the other 4 sock-wearers of this house's lonely socks to match.) The experience was not as rewarding as I expected.  

Total matches made: 5

Total single socks still left unmatched: 51

I do not call that a win. 

Also, I have no recollection of buying several of these socks so I'm thinking several of them belong to neighboring children. The question remains, however, of how they managed to leave just one sock behind. But if you recognized any of these as your own, let me know and I will deliver!

As a side note - those of you who have been in our home might recognize a new and exciting development. We now have a rug in our living room! We've tried cheaper & smaller area rugs but have never been happy with the results. I have been wanting one for years, and we've decided not to force Olivia to learn how to roll over and crawl on hardwood as two of her brothers had to do. 

No wonder I'm always behind

Like most moms with multiple children, I am forever falling behind. Today was particularly tough to get anything done as Olivia pretty much made me hold her and walk around for a solid 4 hours (off and on) - and she doesn't allow me to multi-task at all. She does not like to be held one-handed so she cried every time I used one hand to grab a bite of food, make a phone call, open a door, help one of the other kids, blow my nose (stupid allergy season!), etc.

With all that time walking around just comforting the baby, I started thinking about all the other tasks that were calling to me. And it started dawning on me that every day after school, I have a good 10-12 hours worth of work to do between 3:00 and 9:00. The baby & 3-year-old certainly don't help. Although as the kids get older, the baby responsibilities will likely be replaced with running to and from activities for the older kids.

Broken down my evenings look like this on an average school night:

Feed/hold/entertain/change baby = 3-5 hours depending on naps
Miscellaneous cleaning/laundry/dishes/garden harvesting/etc = 2 hours
Put a decent supper together = 1 hour
Eat supper  = 30 minutes
Clean up from supper (including help from kids) = 30 minutes
Various extra tasks (check email, sign papers from school, phone calls, etc) = 30 min - 1 hr
Listen to each child tell me about their day for 15 minutes = 1 hour
Run kids to and from activities practices if necessary = 30 minutes
Fix & clean-up snacks (after school & bedtime) = 30 min
Clean-up/bath/teeth brushing/etc. (my role is to continuously prod the kids to move along) = 30 minutes
Help kids with homework as needed = 20 min - 1 hour
Read stories to the kids = 30 min - 1 hour
Say prayers with kids = 15 minutes

If you add all of that up, it totals about 11 hours of activity that I have to squeeze into 6 hours every day if the kids go to bed at 9:00, which is what we aim for - and that's using the minimums. If you throw anything extra in there like a trip to the store or a long phone call with the phone/insurance/etc. company or a clogged toilet - which pretty much happens daily - that jumps up to about 14 hours of stuff squeezed into 6.

If Seth were home on school nights we could split all of those to-do's in half, making it just barely possible as long as there were no interruptions (which there always are). But since he works weeknights, this is all on my own.

As I haven't figured out how to bi-locate yet, I have no choice but to cut corners daily. Elena and Sam help quite a bit (more than they would like and less than I would like). Some stuff gets pushed off until after bed time, but Frankie is frequently awake until 10:00 or 11:00 and I'm pooped by 9:30 anyways.

Often the whole meal prep thing just gets forgotten about until it's pretty much too late when Seth's not home. So 6:00 rolls around and we either eat late, pushing everything else back. Or I grab kids as they walk into the house and make them eat something that's passable for a meal. And sometimes what they end up with could not fit the definition of "meal" by any stretch of the imagination. Charlie had a big bowl of baked beans for supper tonight. (I did try to make up for it by giving him apples and cheese for his bedtime snack).

And I wish I could say each kid got a full 15 minutes of my undivided attention to tell me about their days, but that's often doubled up with some other task or missed altogether. I often end up having 2 or 3 of them tell me about their day at once so I just get snippets of what everyone wants to tell me.

Cleaning also gets pushed off to "tomorrow's list" quite a bit as well. Thank goodness I have a super understanding husband who doesn't expect the impossible!

Not to leave you with an entirely boring post about how busy my life is, here are some completely unrelated pictures. Below is a baby picture of me and one of Olivia wearing the same outfit. I gave up trying to get her to smile like I was. There were more pressing things for me to get to :)

And here's a video of Charlie doing a magic trick:

And last but not least: here are some creepy pictures we made using an extremely mediocre face swap app!! They are about 2 years old. 

Teresa and Elena

Charlie and Sam

Seth and Elena

Frankie and Elena

Want some fat with your fat?

At the Lyon County Fair,  Frankie made French fries a high priority when ordering supper. He wasted no time digging in once they came.

Once everyone was settled and all food had been distributed,  I looked over to see this:

In case you can't see what's going on here, I'll explain.  Frankie was dipping his fries into ketchup like a normal person. But then, unlike most people,  he was following that up with a dip in butter before eating each of his fries. I suppose the butter dish looked like it was made for dipping.

I guess it's a good thing he has room to grow....

Officer Charles was making the rounds again today. Our front doorbell rang, and I opened it to find Charlie standing there with a badge and utility belt.
"Hello, I'm Officer Charles and I just wanted to check and see if you have any problems I can help you with."
Followed with, "Oooooh. Is that your baby? What a cute baby you have! Hi there, cutie!!"

To which I replied, "Sure, my boys' bedroom is a big mess. You could help clean it."

To which he responded,"Umm...that's not the type of problem I help fix. Have a nice day!" And he was off again to find more important things to do.

And here's one my mom recently reminded me of from about 2 years ago. My mom was over helping us clean and she was tackling the back porch which ends up being a catch all for shoes, coats, outdoor toys, clothes that belong to no one in our family, and all sorts of stuff that is destined for the Thrift Store but hasn't made it to the car yet.

In our house, the kids often have to do extra chores as a consequence when they misbehave. So when Sam came through and saw her cleaning, he said, "Grandma! What did you do that you have to clean the porch???"

As long as I'm just sharing miscellaneous anecdotes, here's a clip of the kids helping one of our local friends lead music at the farmers market. This was taken between songs, but see if you can guess which kid is Charlie.

First week of School

We survived the first week of school! I failed to get a first day pic, which is nothing new. I rarely seem to have all 5 kids within earshot at once other than suppertime and bedtime, both of which are pretty hectic!

Olivia has been doing fantastic (so far!). She won't take a bottle, but she is good about sleeping in until 9:00 and then eating right before I head out and waiting until I get back at noon. Seth ended up having a crazy busy week on top of it all. Just to give you and idea, he put about 1500 miles on his car in one week. Although he's taken on some extra responsibilities at work so that won't be incredibly unusual moving forward.

I don't think I have ever felt quite so far behind on my to-do lists, but I probably have been and have blocked it out. At school I'm just barely keeping one day ahead in terms of planning, but I have a very fun and enthusiastic group this year who are excited and ready to learn so that helps tremendously :)

My schedule is also perfect. I have 2 hours to get my act together after the older 3 kids head out before I start teaching and about 3 hours after I am done. A lot of that time consists of feeding, dressing, delivering and picking up the littler ones still at home.

In the midst of it all, Seth took the older two up to the state fair. Elena is growing up and stepping right into the role of making sure everyone is prepared so she had a bag ready with water bottles for everyone. Unfortunately they forgot the bag, but it was a nice thought. When they realized it, Sam said, "That's ok. I'm sure we can buy some deep fat fried water at the fair." If someone can figure out how to do that, I wouldn't put it past them....

Let me clarify

If you saw me at the Lyon County Fair on Thursday and noticed a suspicious stain on my pants, I just want to set the record straight:

I sat on a heavily frosted chocolate cupcake. 

 And then my friend Joy graciously took a picture of it - with some difficulty, I might add, because she was laughing so hard. I don't think it could have landed more perfectly if I tried.

Luckily for me, after frequenting public with 5 children I'm not too easily phased or embarrassed. 

Me: You run pretty fast, Frankie.

Frankie: Yep. And ALSO....cheese makes me have super powers.  And olives make me super fast!!

Huh. Interesting.

Baby smiles!

Wardrobe choices

Much like our other children, Frankie has his own particular sense of style. Today for example he was wearing underwear and cowboy boots. And that's it. He was in the front yard ready to go to the park. I did manage to convince him to put on some shorts. A shirt was apparently stretching it though. 

Very often he can be seen in public wearing something like this because frankly (no pun intended), I just don't care that much. You can only get away with it when you are young, and it's not really worth the fight. 

He also takes no consideration of the weather. On the 4th of July, as we headed for the beach for a day with temps in the mid to upper 90s and full sun, Charlie wore this:

Olivia wore this:

And Frankie wore - I kid you not - this:

And so this is why we showed up at the beach with him in footie pajamas and black rubber boots. A quick change into his swim trunks took care of things, and I was able to hide this outfit and get him into this for the rest of the day.