A new addition to our family

Nope, sorry, it's not a baby.

Gotcha though, didn't I?

Well, with our track record, I can't blame you for thinking that.

He's actually a full grown male.

A male Betta.

We would like to introduce everyone to Barry the Betta fish.

He is a good little fish, low maintenance and very hardy, which means that he should survive our inexperience. He is our first family pet and we are thoroughly enjoying having him. He is kind of ugly and cute at the same time. Anyway, that's Barry, our fun new fish!

Happy 7th Birthday, Anya!

Anya has been begging for a brown fuzzy teddy bear. She immediately named her Suzie.

Anya went shopping with mommy last night and she found a Little Mermaid cake pan. Karen is really perfecting her cake decorating abilities!

Here is Princess Anya and Princess Elizabeth in matching Princess dresses! :) I'm just a guy...but is that cute or what?!?

Anya was as happy as could be. And her brothers were nice to her today. It's crazy to think how they're all growing up so fast!

Stylish or not?

Honestly how silly does this look, tag notwithstanding? Anya picked some new sunglasses for me while we were out shopping last night. The frames are actually purple with sparkles. I can never tell which sunglasses will look good on me. They sure do make my eyes look big:)

I love homeschooling

This is one of those unexpected and great days for homeschooling.

A few weeks ago David helped out an older gentleman in our ward by taking him to pick up his daughter at the airport for a holiday visit. (The best part of that was Anya's very concerned query as to why the man let his little girl go somewhere alone. We reassured her that his little girl was all grown up and just coming to visit, that was ok with her.) She has since sent David a thank you note and all were well gratified.

Today UPS stopped and dropped off a large styrofoam box. How odd, I thought! I found it was a thank you cheesecake from this sweet sister for David's kindness to them. What I found to be even cooler(excuse the pun) was the dry ice that was used to keep the cheesecake frozen during shipping. Can we say science experiment!

So I pulled out my good old, Backyard Scientist book and located the instructions for experimenting with dry ice. We gathered the supplies and headed out into the garage for some fun. They of course loved it. We got to listen to the metal tongs scream when I picked up the dry ice, we watched water and dry ice sublimate to make, well, fog and we got to see how carbon dioxide gets trapped in soap bubbles when you add liquid detergent to the water with the dry ice. I think they learned something, but I know they had fun.


And if all else fails, we did learn how to spell our last name yesterday, so that's gotta count for something!

Backfire

No this is not about actual fire because of or relating to the previous post about our superhuman 15 month old. This is about the new house rule.

It's backfired on me. I try, I really try to find real life type cause and effect ways to teach my kids. I try to take a problem that they are creating and make it be their problem instead of mine. Hence the new rule. It was going pretty well for awhile, then the holidays came and we slacked off (who wants to be mean on Christmas Eve, and really what kid CAN stay in bed on a night like that?). Now that the holiday season is coming to a close, save for Epiphany in a couple of days, I am trying once again to be more strict. So I am trying to enforce my new rule.

The problem is that they like it.

They like staying up and doing the dishes. Apparently, it's fun for them! They don't even mind cleaning up the house.

Now don't get me wrong, I love, love, love having my little slaves do the dishes for me, but I also want the little beans to get their sleep!

The whole point of the rule was that they would not like doing the dishes (like normal kids) and want to stay in bed more. Even the three year old was happily wheeling the entire high chair over for cleaning tonight! Even after cleaning though, they still have trouble staying in their beds.

How can I motivate them to want to sleep?

Any suggestions?

Attention Negligent Parents

If you feel inadequate as a parent or think you've messed up lately with the eternal development of your child(ren), this is the post for you! I'm about to make you feel GREAT! After reading this, YOU will see yourself as the exemplary parent which everyone else aspires to be.

Luke, 15 months old, has been tearing off outlet covers recently. Three to be exact...maybe four now that I think about it a little more. He's just ripped them off...breaking them off the screw in the center that holds them to the outlets. We're not sure what the fascination is. But it has kept him occupied and been only a minor inconvenience to us.

He's also had "bruises" recently. We've noticed them on his head and on his arms. The first time we saw it, we got somewhat upset with the older kids...thinking they had pushed him down or dragged him along the carpet upstairs. They appeared to be a mix between a bruise and a carpet burn--something we didn't think Luke was capable of doing to himself.

But he was. And Karen finally had an "ah-hah" moment as to the cause of them.

Electrical entry and exit wounds? Yep. This time the one on his arm is a bit bigger than the previous ones. We don't know what position he's in or what he's doing to have the entry wound on the back side of his arm and the exit wound on his forehead. Hopefully we won't ever find out. Karen is shopping this morning and I anticipate her coming home with several more outlet protection plugs. But all those plugs that you insert in the outlet when not in use won't prevent this from happening again. What do you do when the kid just tears the entire outlet cover off the wall?

Fortunately, he's still happy...and functioning. Perhaps he has some electrically-charged super power. I gotta go because he's crying now in the kitchen. Another one of his fascinations is weaving himself through the eight kitchen chairs and over the kitchen table support beam thingy. He gets trapped every time...but always goes back for more.