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.