Our Little Conductor

All of our kids have shown and interest in music, as most kids do. Ours seem to prefer singing and dancing to really taking the time to learn an instrument (probably because singing and dancing don't automatically require as much diligence and practice as an instrument).

Elena has always enjoyed singing. I've often caught Sam dancing his heart out when no one is looking. But I think Charlie has taken the cake on this one. Every day (at least once a day, if not more) Charlie grabs a stick and "conducts" while singing at the top of his lungs. Throughout the summer, I'd say he averaged an hour a day on this activity alone. It does make having normal conversations difficult for the rest of us as he is extremely loud, but it's quite entertaining.

In June and July, the community band  in Marshall has a concert in the park every Wednesday night that we went to. Usually the little kids play on the playground most of the time, but Charlie spent a better portion of his time watching the band play. I put together a little compilation of a few of his "concerts" that I caught on tape. The conductor of the community band would always talk for a bit between songs, and you can see Charlie doing the same a few times in the video.

 

The little stinker strikes again

Only this time he dumped out 13 puzzles. I'm hoping to talk the kids into a "family fun night" of assembling puzzles...

New on my To Do list: find another spot to store our puzzles and/or get rid of them.

Fish Boil

Our neighbor from down South suggested we all have a fish boil this summer, so Seth decided to throw one on Friday as an end of the summer bash. Unfortunately the neighbor who came up with the idea in the first place wasn't feeling well and couldn't make it so it ended up being mostly family. We all had a great time, though.

Seth did all of the cooking, and it was delicious. There was pretty much nothing left (except the broth, which he used the next day to make Gumbo - yum!) I was pretty tired by the time everyone left so Seth ended up doing all the clean-up as well.  I sure is nice having such a great husband. And thanks to our neighbor for the great idea!

Before:

 After:

 We had two bottomless pits teenage boys in attendance, who made sure no craw fish were missed:

First Day of School (Tired Mom Style)

The kids were more excited than I ever remember being for their first day of school. They wanted me to set their alarm clocks for 6:00; we compromised with 6:30. They really don't need to leave until 8:00, but they wanted to get there as early as possible so they could play outside.

I planned to get up at 7:30 to fix Elena's hair and see them off. Of course, I woke up at 6:30 when I heard them getting ready and didn't completely fall back asleep until about 10 minutes before my alarm went off.

So I got up groggily to find Elena dressed in a bright pink shirt (no problem there) paired with Xmas socks (a bit of a clash) and pants that were about 3 inches too short, accentuating the socks (lovely). I guess she grew a bit over the summer. So I tried talking her into new pants, but she said she didn't care, and I let it go. And I didn't fix her hair either (it was brushed, but she has the kind of hair that looks like it hasn't been brushed within 20 minutes if you don't put it up).

I told myself it was because I'm glad she doesn't obsess over her looks like so many girls do, and I'd rather see her have her own sense of style than stress out about being just like everyone else. And that's true. But if I'm going to be completely honest, it was really just because I was tired and wanted to go back to bed. Which I did.

I'll try harder tomorrow to make sure my kids don't go to school with the "My mom is pregnant and exhausted" look. Wish me luck!

I did manage to get a picture, though. Yay, me!

In the same boat

Well, almost. I still have 2 months to go and this expectant sow delivered her piglets the next day. We went to the fair one day too early, I guess. It would have been fun to watch the delivery. At least I know I'll be present for the birth of our own child, which should be more exciting (although less comfortable).

 I haven't done such a great job keeping up on belly photos, and this is the latest so it will have to do for now.

Today's excuse

I'm perpetually behind in everything that should be done around here. I think most parents are the same, and the most days the general excuse is the same: the number of people requiring me to help them, feed them and clean up after them far out-numbers me (especially in the summer when we average about 4 extra kids at our house per day).

Anyway, today Charlie created a very time-consuming extra project for me to do by dumping out 7 puzzles into one pile. Luckily 4 of them were little kids puzzles with bigger pieces which the kids could help with, but 3 of them were 100 - 200 piece puzzles. To make matters worse, two of them were Looney Toons puzzles and both included Bugs Bunny in the picture so I got to try to figure out which Bugs Bunny elbow, stomach, etc. went with which puzzle.

I'm trying not to think too hard about all the mischief he's going to get into when the new baby arrives. I guess on the bright side, it gives us something to laugh about (a few years) later.

How a 2-year-old eats popcorn

 Charlie imitates everything he sees, and how he eats popcorn is no exception; everyone else eat it by the handful so he does the same. Unfortunately with the coordination of a toddler, that doesn't work so well. Throw in the fact that he's also at the age where he usually does the opposite of whatever anyone requests of him and convincing him to eat it delicately is not so easy.

Needless to say, we don't make popcorn as often as we used to.

I can be a little forgetful...

About 50% of the time, when I load all the kids into the van to go somewhere, I have to run back into the house at least once to grab something I forgot (phone, keys, diapers, sunglasses, etc).

You know it's bad, though, when you are walking out of the house with your 2-year-old and he says, "Mom! Keys!"

And to top it off, he was right. They were still hanging on the key hook.

Our First First Communion

Elena celebrated her first communion on April 19th, which also landed on my parents' 40th wedding anniversary. I was still dealing with morning sickness at the time and didn't get around to put anything on the blog at the time.  

 This last picture was actually taken on the feast of Corpus Christi. We had a big procession around town after Mass. All the girls who made their first communion this year were invited to come wearing their dresses and to throw flower petals during the procession. We were expecting a whole pew full of girls in white dresses, but Elena was the only one who showed up in her dress. I was very thankful she doesn't get overly self-conscious.

Something Borrowed, Blue, Old and Cute

Seth's little bigger brother got married last month! I'm sure we'll have more pictures to come, but for now here's one of Charlie's outfit for the big day. His was my favorite (after the beautiful bride's, of course).

It was my brother's outfit when he was the same age, so it's almost 40 years old. I was so glad it still fit, and Charlie loved it.