tooth.treasures

Claire lost her first tooth on Sunday evening. We were celebrating birthdays with Josh's family, and her tooth was extremely loose. It had been loose for several days, but it had become very wiggly over the weekend. It was just barely hanging on, and Josh said, "Just pull it out." And she did.



Instead of the whole tooth fairy deal, I decided to Google alternatives to the tooth fairy. We've come up with "Tooth Treasures". Instead of giving her money or candy or whatever, she gets a special activity that she gets to help plan. We wrote her a nice little letter telling her congrats and that we're excited for her. This time, she gets to have a tea party and plan the menu.



I printed out the little note and attached it to a piece of construction paper. She still put the tooth under her pillow, and she found her tooth treasure when she woke up in the morning. She was pretty excited :) She loves tea parties!

first.day.of.kindergarten

Monday was Claire's first day of kindergarten! As I write this, we've finished our third day of school. So far, we've done the following:

-3 lessons in Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons (After our first lesson, Claire replied, "But I still don't know how to read!" Cute.).

-We've plotted Germany on our world map (where Martin Luther lived...he was our first history guy).

-We've made designs using pattern blocks for math (Saxon Math). Meredith really enjoys our math lessons.

-We're reading The Boxcar Children for our read-aloud (Sonlight Curriculum). Everyone enjoys this as well!

-We've made some crafts to do our Olympic events. And today we did a special "Pet Shop Olympics" in which we set up all of our animals and did animal-oriented Olympics...very fun for the girls.

So far, things seem to be going smoothly. This morning, Claire was up a little early and Meredith was still in bed. I took the opportunity to get through our History lesson before Meredith awoke. It worked rather well, and we may take this approach more often! I am really looking forward to her reading her first word. I know she'll be so excited about it. It will come this coming Monday during Lesson 6. She'll read the word "me". She's currently learning the sounds (mmmmm, sssss, aaaaa, eeeee, nnnnnn). So far, so good.

Here are some pictures from our first day:

faces.of.teething

Amelia got her first tooth last week...only 4 months old. My other girls didn't get theirs until 6 and 7 months. I think this is pretty fast, but what can I say? She's advanced. She was pretty fussy a couple of days last week. Here is a small sampling of what we saw on a few different occasions (these are in real-time order by the way!)...

Face #1: "My Gums Really, Really Hurt!"

Face #2: "Ok, I Think I Might Survive"

Face #3: "You're Looking At Me Like I've Got Drool All Over My Face"

Face #4: "Chewing On Fingers"

Face #5 "For the Love of All That is Good, Will You Please Put That Camera Down and Comfort Me?!!"

seriously.august 17

I'm going to be posting like mad...if I have time this week. Here's why:

Amelia got her first tooth.

Claire lost her first tooth.

The big, big bonfire rocked!

Claire starts kindgergarten tomorrow. *sniff*

We're homeschooling, and I'm still emotional about it! *sniff* (again)

Seriously.

winners.all.around

I totally just won the drawing for Darcy's recipe book! I am p-u-m-p-e-d to say the least. Thanks Darcy :)

And, I must say that I was a bit disappointed with the lack of guesses on Amelia's 4 month appointment. I mean, my mom didn't even guess...what's up with that? I think people must be on vacation :) That being said, everyone who did participate is getting a prize. Although, the closest guess goes to...SARAH! I'll track down your address soon and get a lovely piece of artwork out to you.

Amelia's 4 month stats:
11 lb. 9 oz.
23 1/2 inches
cry time: 1 min. 30 seconds

She did a great job! Unfortunately, she had to share her appointment day with Meredith who had to get a monster splinter removed. She kept crying, "Owie, owie, ooowwwiiiieee!" She's not a fighter, though. She pretty much just laid there and cried. Great job Meredith! Grandma gave her M&Ms when she was done (and the nurses gave her a popsicle). I think I want a splinter.


Oh, and my kids rock. They are doing crafts (which keeps them incredibly busy for like an hour at a time) with construction paper, glue, and little styrofoam trays. AND, they washed all of my non-dishwasher (and non-dangerous) dishes. They love to do dishes, and I love that I don't have to do them. Totally a win/win for everyone.

seriously.august 8

I love the questions that my kids ask...

Meredith: Mom, are strawberries made from ladybugs?

Seriously :)

toilet.on.the.porch

So, the girls and I (and nanny Aunt Jill) went to the lake over the weekend. Josh was staying home to install the new windows in the kitchen and to work on the siding on the front of the house. Great. We drive into the driveway and see this:

This is what it looked like a month ago:

This is what it looked like a year ago:

We decided that all looked good...that is until we pulled right up to the house to see this:

As good as the house looked, we decided that the toilet on the porch kind of ruined the whole look. I had to take pictures. The funny part was when Josh responds, "You know, I've worked really hard to get the siding done on the house, and all you can take pictures of is the TOILET!" Well, it makes for a better blog post, don't ya think?


Anyway, the toilet in the main bath needed replaced because the base was cracked. We put in a cool new "greener" toilet. We're not really that green overall, but it was pretty nemo...ahem neat-o...and I just couldn't resist a flush that cleaned out my toilet better. You know me, always one to not feel like she has to clean as much. (My mom is shaking her head right now.)

For all of you that come to visit, it has a nifty gadget to flush it (the 1/2 flush and the full flush). You can view the instruction video of the new toilet if you click on the link. It's almost amusing (and then you'll know which button to push to flush). Who knew that the 1.6 gallon flush would be as "equally impressive" as the .8 gallon flush? Who knew that this was something to blog about? I am certain everyone will sleep better tonight because of this new-found information.



And in honor of my hubby's hard (and great!) work, here are a couple more pics of the siding. Big improvement.