Random Ramblings

Random Ramble #1
We took in the Magical Nights of Lights last night at Lake Lanier. Thankfully we got there right at dusk because the crowds followed us. Apparently the recession hasn't yet hit the hundreds of thousands of cars that snaked down the road leading to the park entrance. This is tradition for us, and usually we get out at Santa's Village to purchase ornaments. We had a sick one, though, so we figured the 30 degree weather couldn't be good for her. We're trying to get her healed before we arrive at the North Pole.


Random Ramble #2
After lunch I began the Afternoon of Katy. I haven't had my nails done in forever, so I decided to try a new salon in our area. Very nice, but strangely, they had a movie channel movie playing for their clients' enjoyment. Did you hear me right? A movie channel. Which means anything goes...like naked people. At least it wasn't a love scene or something, but rather someone posing for an artist. Who happens to paint naked people. A little disconcerting on a huge plasma screen TV on the wall in a room full of strangers. Thankfully the guy doing my nails was paying attention to my nails and not to the movie. Before I decided on the Afternoon of Katy, I had toyed with the idea of making it a Girls' Afternoon so the girls could get little flowers and stuff painted on their nails. Thankfully, since Alex was sick, it was just me. Note to self: find a more family friendly salon. Or maybe suggest the Game Show Network or HGTV next time.

Random Ramble #3
My in-laws are here to spend the night and tomorrow with us. Today is really our Christmas Eve because tomorrow we are celebrating Christmas. My 80-year-old father-in-law just had a cup of coffee and noted that it was such a good cup of coffee, he felt like getting up and dancing. You don't usually get such a good cup of coffee at our house...neither of us drinks coffee; I don't even know how to work the coffee pot. This coffee was left behind when my brother-in-law was over the other night. I guess that kind of makes every event at our house a BYOC event.

Random Ramble #4
I waited in anticipation for my father-in-law to entertain us with dance, but my husband decided instead to introduce him to the Wii. He actually played a few minutes of Wii tennis the other day, but that was before we had hooked up the Wii Fit. I never thought I would find an electronic device as rude as my husband's GPS, but Rude GPS Woman: meet the Wii. When I play Wii Tennis, I always lose. When you lose, your Mii hangs its head and a gleeful YOU LOSE!! flashes in huge letters above the Mii's head.

That's not the worst part, though. Meet Wii Fit. When you first set your Mii up with Wii Fit, you take a little fitness test. My husband's Mii was quite entertaining to the kids. After the test, the Wii Fit plumped up his Mii character and declared him the Wii Fit age of 55! He has a good sense of humor, though. Much better than mine...about weight anyway. Thankfully, it didn't plump up my Mii, although it did put me at age 36. It said my Wii Fit age is +1. It had me enter my birth date. If the thing is soooo smart, it ought to know that I will be 36 in 2 months!!

The Wii Fit also has balancing and Yoga exercises. Just as I begin one of the stances and am about to relax, up flashes a balance circle on the screen. You are supposed to balance so that the dot in the circle stays IN the circle. Ideally, it should stay in the center of the circle. Inevitably, as I am standing there, my "Trainer" will say, "You're a little shaky!" Well, Wii Fit Trainer, you're a little....

At least it didn't give me the balance comment my husband and father-in-law got. By the way, my father-in-law's Wii age is 75! After they took a balance test, it said, "Balance is not your forte. Do you stumble a lot when you walk?" Surely someone out there will sue Nintendo for this rudeness?

Random Ramble #5
Due to illnesses, a last minute planned trip to the North Pole, and a general non-Christmas-y spirit this year, I had to cheat on Tradition. I never got to making cookies for decorating. So I purchased the Gingerbread People Kit. And the kids decorated them today. Anti-climactic. I'll do better next year, Tradition, I promise.

Random Ramble #6

We're taking my in-laws to a Japanese Steakhouse tonight, the kind with the hibachi where they cook in front of you. My in-laws love it, and my kids love it. Least most of them do. My now 9-year-old daughter is still afraid of the part where they set the grill ablaze. When she sees our personal cook make the preparations for the fire, she politely excuses herself to the bathroom.

Random Ramble #7

My little engineer continues to play non-stop with his Lego truck. He declared today that he found a mistake that Lego made. He's right...one of the little men has his arms on backwards. Who else would notice something like that?

On another note, I was finally made aware today of the incredible depth of Michael's Lego Project when he showed me the 4 instruction books he followed to assemble his truck. Each book is approximately 50 pages long!

Random Ramble #8

In the words of one funny little Princess: Merry Tristmas to all and....dood night!

She has a sheep costume now (such as it is).

My hood turned out beautifully. Turns out I still know how to work the sewing machine. Of course you can't see my handiwork THROUGH ALL OF THE COTTON BALLS. After my prideful How hard can it be?, it was the cotton balls and glue that got me. I ended up getting so involved with the sticky mess, I actually cotton-balled the front of the sleeves too. If you'll remember from the picture of the distressed Halloween-er, the sleeves are left alone. To save myself from having to glue the back, and to save my Little Lamb from standing out in the crowd (in a bad way, like Someone's mom didn't know what she was doing!), I cut the sleeves off and bought the Princess a new, long-sleeved black shirt to wear underneath. Which, turns out, is really how you're supposed to do it in the first place...this for those who actually read the instructions really carefully. In my defense, the instructions are sketchy at best about the detailed parts (like making a hood, for example), so my expectations of the instructions were set low to begin with.

In retrospect, had I actually read all of the instructions carefully, I would have bought a white leotard and gone with the same plan in cutting off the sleeves and putting a black shirt underneath. This would have kept the black from showing through the cotton balls when my Little Lamb stretched out the leotard fabric. I'll remember that next time. Wait! There won't be a next time because I am NEVER doing this again! Never will I glue on a thousand cotton balls to anything, especially with stringy, stinky Fabri-Tac. And if I try to pull off another Halloween Resolution next year, PLEASE, someone kindly remind me about the Great Sheep Debacle of 2008. I want nothing to do with costume making. Unless the costume is made of scrapping paper or cake frosting. Because those are the only two crafting materials with which I can work with some proficiency.

My proficiency with sheep costumes was somewhat dampened by my moral attitude at the time of the costume making. It didn't help that my little audience girl had much to say. After I cut out the black and white ears, she said, "Those are panda ears, Mommy! I'm not a panda!" She said that a few [hundred] times and then...followed up with a suggestion: "Maybe you have Daddy do this." I'm pretty sure she knows now what the expression If looks could kill means.

Back to me NEVER doing this again...that Fabri-Tac is some nasty stuff. Not only am I still floating from the fumes, but it also went all the way through the leotard and through the towel I was working on to leave a mark on my beautiful dining room table. So if you factor in all the materials--leotard, black shirt, tights, 3 bags cotton balls, 3 bottles Fabri-Tac, fleece for hood, black and white flannel for ears--and one dining room table, the cost of this costume my Little Lamb will wear for 5 minutes comes to
$1, 542.00.

If you need me, I'll be in my favorite chair sulking. And picking glue and cotton fibers off my fingers.

Like a Lamb to the Slaughter

I admit it. I was a little cocky. I may or may not have even snickered a little at the expense of other mommies at my church when the Preschool Director arranged a special get-together for those moms who didn't know how to make the sheep costume. I had already given the instructions a cursory glance and saw the list of materials: bodysuit, cotton balls. So I would be gluing 500+ cotton balls to a body suit. How hard can that be? "It's just a craft," I said dramatically. So I missed the special get-together, and several hours after the get-together I decided to take a closer look at the instructions.

Upon such careful examination, I discovered that they want me to make a hood. And this is the pattern they provided me with:

HUH? Is this supposed to fit a cat or my three-year-old daughter? Thankfully, I have wonderfully crafty friends who possess a great amount of common sense. I called Martha, and she suggested I use an already made hood on one of the Princess' jackets as a pattern. Now why didn't I think of that? Instead of thinking of the obvious, I tend to sit and stress in very un-blissful ignorance when it comes to these things.

So now the only problem is that this seems to require sewing. And I do possess a sewing machine, believe it or not. It's a really fancy one--the Disney model--that my husband bought me; he thought I might monogram some towels or something (I think I hear some more snickering). However, I only use it for making (very simple) curtains and for stitching paper for scrapbooking. And since it's been ever so long since I've made curtains or tried to catch up on my babies' books, the sewing table under which the machine itself is stored is stacked with lots and lots of stuff. Then of course there's the manual. I don't usually read instruction manuals, but when you have to wind bobbins and thread thread through a thousand little loops and hooks, instructions are a good idea.

If I ever get this actually completed (and it's due Sunday), the trick will be to get my little Princess to don the costume and wear it for the 5 minutes she will appear on stage because, well...you tell me: does the little girl from the instruction page LOOK happy that she had to go house-to-house asking for candy dressed like that?

So I'm off to give this the ol' college try. I may have to use the jaws of life to extract the sewing machine, but I'll give it a try. If you need me, I'll have my nose in an instruction manual.

Corncobs and Little Life Lessons

Since teaching 4 children, starting a business, and trying to keep the house saleable clean does not keep me busy enough, I decided to throw in some more curriculum. Just to shake things up a bit, and just in case the kids aren't learning enough with the adequate teaching materials I already possess. Truth be told, my aforementioned curriculum addiction is the likely culprit. At any rate, we began working through the Prairie Primer this week, and I absolutely love it! I've always been a fan of Laura and her Little House, and this is a wonderful way to pass a beloved series on to another generation. And so far, so good.

Today we made corncob dolls. Even the boys. And, yes, of course their daddy couldn't be prouder. After the dolls were assembled, I informed my little pioneers that for one hour they would only be permitted to play with their doll. Obviously, this was met with a chorus of "why"s. Life's little lessons dictate that we must learn, like Laura, to be satisfied with what he have and to entertain ourselves with what is available to us.

After my edict, I overheard whispered boy plans: "Let's rip the corncob apart!" In order to save my carpet from corncob guts, I gave another lecture about respect and taking care of what we have. Reluctantly, they began to play with and care for their dolls, although the boys continued to be boys. Michael held his over a cold burner on the stove. "Look," he exclaimed, "I'm burning its head. Can I color its head black where it got burned?" Great idea, Michael.

Although the hour was a long one, they busied themselves with the doll. However, I did allow some non-Olden Days items: markers and construction paper with which they made food for their dolls. The fact that they made bear meat, carrots, and an assortment of berries at least assures me that they've been listening to the story.

Destination: The Final Frontier

When we picked Audrey up after Awana last night, she had a fever (my sincere apologies to anyone who had children in the nursery with the Princess), so even last night I had pretty much written off today as far as academics go. However, yesterday I re-discovered www.learningpage.com, a treasure I had forgotten about until I began my quest to find cursive practice for Alex. Learning Pages offers thematic units...and some wonderful resources on Space. Since we have been studying the Solar System, I made an executive decision this morning to have a day without the 3R's and just participate in whatever academics the Princess would allow us to do.

One of the resources LP offers are murals to go along with each unit. I decided that would be our project this morning, so I put up a black wall using construction paper. I did sneak in a little 'Rithmetic with Alex when I challenged her to figure out how many pieces of paper we'd need if we had 4 rows of 10 across. As I was putting up the black paper, I explained to the kids that I was putting Space on the wall. After it was done, Michael said, "We have the coolest house ever!"

After creating Space on the wall, I began to get the cut-outs prepared for coloring. During my prep time, my little teacher gathered a hallway classroom with the boys, Audrey, and several stuffed animals. I caught the beginning of her lecture: "There is more in space than just the earth and the sun..." She went on to explain all about other heavenly bodies, the planets (and how they got their names from gods and goddesses). Finally, when I told them it was time to color Alex declared, "Workshop!"

The Solar System mural turned out well, and the kids have asked if we can keep it forever. And seeing as how we've only studied Mercury and Venus yet Alex taught the kids and their stuffed animals so much, I may just put her in charge of homeschooling from here on out!