The Mommy Sister Baby game

Mima and Irene play the Mommy Sister Baby game all the time.  They've played it for months if not over a year.  And still, every time, one of them will say "Mommy!" and I'll say "What?"  And every time they're talking to each other.  You'd think I'd've learned by now.

Halloween

So I kept hoping that I'd have better pictures to post of our Halloween costumes, but it doesn't look like that will happen.  I loved working on getting the costumes just right--they're probably better in person.  I've wanted us to do costumes from The Princess in Black since the book came out.  It was good planning on my part to gift the book to Pamela so that I could call her from Walmart asking her wardrobe questions.

Yee haw

Today was a good day.  It started off with going to a baby shower that had the best food I'd had in a while.  It was way yummy.  The games were good and I got to listen to some people trash talk.  That always makes for a good day.  I said too much at the baby shower, but sometimes once you get me going it's hard to get me to stop.  Maybe some day I'll learn to shut my mouth.

Then I came home to a sleeping baby rather than the screaming baby I was expecting.

So I went and got a movie.  The first movie we've gotten since we moved here.
Then Peter worked on the desk some.

 Then he came up with something brilliant to have for dinner, so I went to the store to get bacon.  I'm going to be so excited for the day I finally have our freezer stocked again and I don't have to go to the store every time I need something.

For dinner we had stuffed mashed potatoes with all (that is, some) of the stuff that my parents brought to us.  SO MUCH PRODUCE!  I've been having tomato sandwiches for lunch every day since they got here and I have a so many tomatoes left to go.  It's a good life.  Anyway, the potatoes were delicious.

Then when we were cleaning up I put on some oldies.  But unfortunately Google Play doesn't think I search well enough, so it put on a country-from-the-50s station rather than the swing-from-the-50s I expected.  Pretty soon I had kids coming up from the basement dressed as cowboys and cowgirls and there was a cowboy/girl station in the living room.  The kids set up a carnival with moose roping, duck riding, egg tossing, and rock sitting.  I got to crack my whip for the first time since moving here (but quietly, since the neighbors were having a party).  We ended the night with a dance party.  Good job, Google--way to pick the right music.

They make me laugh

Irene after coughing: That was just my body coughing.

After an intense session of "actually it's.." trying to convince Irene that the meat we were having for dinner was beef, not chicken:
Benton laughing: Actually it's cow!
Mima, somewhat out of nowhere: Actually it's lemur!
She was so pleased about the joke she made and it was perfect comedic timing.

There were a whole bunch of other funny things said lately, but I don't remember them.  We had a crazy night last night.  I was up until about 4 and Peter was up starting at about 3:30 helping Irene with her stomach bug.  Today is a tired day.

Happy birthday, Benton!

Benton turned six today!  Crazy.  Although I tend to think of my kids as older than they are anyways, so I've been thinking of him as six for a while, but he's officially there now.  Anyways, it was a good day.  

We started off the day by going to the Pumpkin Village at the Leesburg Animal Farm (or something like that).  There were lots of animals to see and touch and feed.  I was so close to feeding a zebu.  It totally made reading the z section of the dictionary as a child worth it.  I got to touch the leg of a 102 year old tortoise and feed the world's cutest little alpaca, too.  The kids did stuff, too.  They had tons of bounce houses and slides and play structures all over the place.  It was really, really fun.  They had pedal carts, too. They were so fun.  There's nothing like pedaling around a little racetrack with your knees up by your ears.  Elias loved it because I held him in front of me and he got to hold onto the steering wheel.  Elias loves steering wheels.  There were a ton of other people we knew there because a couple of homeschool groups went.  And there was practically no one else there because it was overcast and somewhat rainy.  Mima even went down one of the gunnysack slides with me.  The first time was not her choice, but she warmed up to it.  They had a hayride that went past a bunch of dinosaur statues and random stuff from books.  The kids liked it.

Then we came home and played and had mummies for dinner and made Benton a cake.  It was fun.  

The end.

 This picture of Benton's presents cracks me up.

Cousins!

We had cousins come visit us!  Hooray!  Apparently these were the only pictures we got of them, but the kids had SO MUCH fun with them here.  Thanks for coming , guys. 

No room in the inn

I'm amazed at how many times there just isn't room for me on my bed.  How can one little baby take up over half a king-sized bed?  

The littles

As we were driving home from dropping the Brita and Benton off at co-op Mima said something from the back of the car that I couldn't understand.
Me: Mima, what did you say?
Mima: Irene can tell you.
Me: Irene, what did Mima say?
Irene: She said I could tell you.

As we were waiting to turn from Catharpin onto Sudley:
Mima: Mom, which way are w going to turn?
Me: We're going to turn left.
<We successfully turn left.>
Mima: Good eye, Mom.
Thanks, Mima.

Success!

This girl just finished her math book!  (You know, last week.  It took a while to get a picture.)  Congratulations, Mima!

Mima is also learning to read much more quickly than I was planning for.  She's already reading words with two consonants next to each other.  She has no fear (when it comes to trying to read new things in her reading book. ;) 

Another Smurf

So tonight Peter and I were working on the desk we're building.  Technically we've only been building it for less than a day, but the grand plans have been moving forward for lots of months.  Anyways, we needed Elias to be occupied while we glued the top together so I came up with a brilliant plan.  It involved giving my little tiny baby lots of Halloween Oreos.  By the time he was done he reminded me of the "Bring me another smurf" meme.  If you haven't seen it you should look it up.  It's life-changing.  The sheer messiness never shows up quite as well on camera, but here's a very happy Elias tonight:

And here's a very happy Elias from a few days ago:

Peter cleans him up every time.  That's totally why I married him.