Five!

She's five, folks. I'm not quite sure how it happened. Next year she'll be thirty and move out.


But for this year, she's five, and was up at the crack of dawn. And she was remarkably patient about opening her presents.
.

Her birthday cereal was Lucky Charms, same as last year. You just can't beat florescent marshmallows.


Silas enjoyed his first taste of sugary cereal too.


Finally, she got to work playing with some presents.



And then, for the fourth year in a row we headed to "Dancing Mouse." I think that none of you will be surprised by this.
She actually wanted to go somewhere else and we were all set to go and then she changed her mind.


And for the fourth year in a row she still hates this ride and insists on being taken off midway.


Sadie, when asked what kind of cake she wanted, said she wanted to decorate her cake by herself. I want to squeeze those tubes of icing, mama!
Then, she wanted a fairy cake. While looking at fairy cakes online, she spotted one of those barbie cakes with the giant skirts, and she said she wanted a fairy skirt cake.
So I asked her if she'd like a fairy skirt cake that she got to decorate.


And, yeah, she did. Here it is after she went to town on it.


And here it is after the fifteenth time Sadie and Silas ran in to "eat a star sprinkle."
Silas, not known for his delicacy in such manners, grabbed a  handful of cake.


Then the requested dinner of the day, Make Your Own Pizzas, commenced.



They were really good, and made us wonder why we ever buy other pizzas around here. They were tons better than was passes for pizza out of New York City.
Then I remembered why: sheer laziness.

Sadie made her wish.


And then pulled out the doll.


And she said, I love my birthday! I'm having such a good day!
What more could we ask for?
Happy Birthday, Baby Girl!

Things

Things have been pretty hectic around here. Holiday Market has been taking up a lot of time.

I take out my camera to take some pictures of the kids and then 5 hours later I'm putting it away, unused.

But the nerds are great. A few funny things they have said recently:

Sadie touched my nose the other day and I guess it was a little oily. So she yells, Yuck! I have your nose butter on my finger!

I told her it served her right, that's what happens when you grab a person's nose.

Silas calls birds peep peeps and the word big is Wow.

So what does he call Big Bird of Sesame Street fame?

Yep, Wow Peep Peep!

Sadie asked if Santa knows what people are thinking. This conjured up images of some futuristic, creepy, thought-crime fighting Santa. I assured her that, no, he could not.

We went to IHOP. Silas calls it HiHop. He was even dreaming about it, saying HiHop, HiHop in his sleep. So I made him pancakes for breakfast.

Sadie keeps calling it iPod. Which shows you how much she likes the iPod.

In fact, I have taken to hiding the iPods because my children are completely obsessed with them.

Silas gives Sadie a hug and says, My Deedee.

She loves it.

Sadie picks up Silas and carries him around. They both love that.

And seeing how Thanksgiving was the other day, I want to say that I am thankful for:

My two gorgeous, smart children.

My lovely, supportive hubby.

My mangy, old flea-bitten animals.

Enough to eat and a roof over our heads that we love, even though it ain't fancy.

And all of you!

Pumpkin Patch

No October would be complete without a visit to the pumpkin patch.

Even if we did grow three gigantic ones of our own.

Who doesn't like sitting in a field of pumpkins?

Or having your mama tell you to look at her every 3 minutes so she can take a picture?

Or sitting on a real Eee? All machines with wheels are called E. I don't really know how to spell it. You'd have to ask him.

Plus, it's a built-in excuse to drink apple cider and eat apple cider donuts.

Not that you really need one.

Cat and Mouse

Here they are on Halloween.

Sadie said, upon seeing her fancy eyelashes, Mama, I'm the queen of the mousies!

They've just spotted some cheese.

Being the loudest kids in the neighborhood. As usual.

And check out the skirt. You didn't think that Sadie could be an un-fancy mouse, did you?

Here's what happens a couple of days before Halloween when you buy candy corn and decide to give your two year-old, who thinks fruit leather is dessert, a piece. And say,

Only one, YiYi. No more.

Yeah, he follows you around crying, Mo! Mo, Mama!

So you take a picture, because he's cute.

Trick or treating was lots of fun.

Silas learned to say trick or treat, which actually came out as, Keekeekeet!

And then after he got the goodies he'd say, Ankooo! (Thank you!)

It was very cute.

And, yeah, I think we got enough goodies. Don't you?

Au Naturale

I am aware that I am tend to err on the side of not putting clothes on my children in the house. Unless it's outside in the winter, in which case I force them to dress like we're going to the arctic.

But, for painting, I'd just as soon they not wear anything. And they would too. So it works out.

Halfway between taking off the clothes I didn't want to get stained and putting on old t-shirts I thought Why am I making more laundry?

Sadie loves mixing colors.

Silas was really diligent about cleaning his brush. See all his colorful marks? He cleaned the brush between colors.


And here's Sadie's lady:

They love painting, and it's great rainy day thing to do. We have been known to have a couple of rainy days in the winter here in the Pacific Northwest.

I guess I'm going to have to crank up the heat.

Countdown

As we were finishing up dinner tonight Sadie asked to be excused. So she brought her plate to the counter and then came back to the table and hung out next to me while we all talked.

Suddenly she holds up a hand and says:

Wait! Ready?

Then she begins counting, raising her fingers one by one:

1...2...3...

Of course, now she has our attention. Dada, Silas and I are all eagerly awaiting her announcement. What interesting thing could she be counting towards? Is this something new she learned in preschool?

And then, with a huge grin, she farts.

Yep, you read right. Passes some gas. And I have to ask:

When did my child turn into a nine year-old boy?

Suhcrocka

Forgive me, but I had to spell that word phonetically. And it's not actually a word, but what Sadie informed me she is going to name her child when she has one.

And it's a girl's name, obviously.

No Two

Silas has discovered the world of numbers. Or maybe I should say number.

He has one, which is Two.

The other is No Two.

So none or 1 is No Two.

Followed by Two.

Keeps it simple.

I Believe

Sadie and I have been talking a lot about what people believe.

She wants to know why some people believe in God and others don't, why some people believe in fairies but not others, why do some people only believe in what they can see.

I told her that sometimes we hold a belief in our hearts and bodies that we can't prove, that we will never be able to prove is true. It's called faith, that feeling.

Faith is often co-opted by religions. But they don't have a monopoly on faith.

We can believe that there is more to life than just our time on earth, that there is something bigger than us. And we can believe it with every cell of our bodies. We can have absolute faith in it.

And it's not a weaker faith just because we can't name the deity or state with absolute authority what happens when we leave the world.

She loves to think about this stuff. I remember thinking about it all too.

And she has theories.

One is that our spirits go on and love each other forever. I believe that too.

Another is that fairies are 100% real, which I would like to be true, but I'm not so sure.

And here's the latest. She came in from the yard very excited and said:

Mama, want to know what I believe? Let me tell you.

I believe that there are girl giants up in the sky. Only girls, no boys. And they have gardens and when it rains down here is when they are watering their flowers.

But they're nice giants. But they have no idea that we're here because we're just a tiny little ball on their flower. That's how big they are!

So they don't know they're making it rain here, because they can't see us.

And there are no boy giants, just girls.

That's what I believe, mama. And no one else has to believe in it. That's okay.

God (or Goddess, or maybe even Girl Giants), I love this kid.

Wow

Silas is a man of few words. But he does has a way of getting his point across.

Sometimes it's like living in a game of charades, a non-stop party in the '70s.

I will ask him a question, say: Do you want grapes or strawberries?

He will say, Ummm. Huh. Like he's thinking really hard.

So I'll pantomime and do something silly like make a little ball with my hands for grapes and pretend to pick a strawberry for strawberries.

And then he'll pretend to pick a strawberry and say yeah!

And now he says things like Mo! (more) and Ank Ooo (thank you). And he can say Wawa (I'm sure you can guess that one) but still uses the hand sign for water anyway.

But my favorite is the way he differentiates sizes.

He likes big things. Big things are Wow!

Things that aren't so big in comparison are No wow.

No wow is said in a little voice, which makes it seem like he feels bad for the thing, like he's sorry it's not Wow!

And, judging by Sy's growth chart at the doctor last week (follow the line to see the growth):

Um, yeah, I think he's pretty Wow!

Pumpkin Picking

Did I say pumpkin picking?

We do have 3 giant pumpkins in our garden, just waiting for Halloween. But we're not picking them yet.

I really meant nose picking. Is there any child who doesn't find it amusing?

Just try to get some nice pictures of your kids in the pumpkin patch and they do this:

And then the little one thinks: How have I not been doing this for every picture?!

So he joins in the fun.

Then, after taking 15 shots in various stages of nose picking and hysterics, you beg them for a nice pose for the love of all that's holy.

And every once in a while they throw you a bone.

Laddie Turns Twelve

Laddie turned twelve this month and when Sadie found out she was insistent we have a party for him.

Well, I've promised Laddie that I would never make him wear a party hat. Although there is a picture floating around out there of him wearing an afro wig- maybe Aunt Schleck can find it as I lost it when the old computer crashed. Well, I never promised him he wouldn't have to wear an afro.

Turns out, the big draw of a party was to give him treats- they love giving him treats- and to blow out candles and sing. Of course.

So we did.

Doesn't this bowl of chicken scraps and dog treats look delicious?

It was great fun to make.

Then they practiced for the big blow.

Which is on video somewhere on Will's iPod. Which I have no access to at this moment. And rather than putting off a blog post (again!) I just decided you could see it later.

Or never.

And Laddie loved this treat. And the bone from the butcher we gave him as a present.

He deserves them, since he is the world's sweetest doggy.

And then Sadie asked me if we ever had another dog if he would be as good as Laddie.

And I thought, maybe, but probably not.

Happy 12th birthday, Rusty-Old-Lad-Dog.

Paper Bags

Once again our Sesame Street books from the 70s have given us a completely low-tech craft. We all made these growing up and it appears that it is just as thrilling in 2011 as it was in 1977.

Paper bag masks.

Paper bags, yarn, markers, glue, why do these kinds of things make me so happy? Add in a pompom or pipe cleaner and I'm in heaven.

I guess I can still remember how things like pompoms and pipe cleaners only made an appearance every so often, so it always made things more fun.

And you should have seen these two when the pipe cleaners hit the table.

Silas was a robot.

Sadie was a fancy lady with a hat and antennae. All fancy ladies have antennae, don't they?

I got this pose.

Silas's robot eye hole was bothering him, so we cut it bigger.

So then he looked like a television from the 70s, which I found extremely amusing.

All this reminds me to pull out the pipe cleaners more often.

We only have so long that they will the highlight of their day. And mine.

First Day

Sadie had her first day of preschool last Thursday, and her second today.

I tried to take pictures but this is what I got when I tried to get her to pose:

So that went well.

Maybe for her first day of kindergarten I can get a picture of her behind a door or something.

It took her about a half an hour when we first arrived to be comfortable with me leaving. She was so excited to be there but she has been having a bit of separation anxiety in the last few months.

I told her that I was pretty sure that when I returned in a few hours she wouldn't be happy to see me as she would be having so much fun and wouldn't want to leave.

I was right. Although I happened to arrive at the precise moment that she managed to lock herself in the bathroom. Of course the door isn't supposed to be closed all the way but being my child she managed to not only close it but lock it.

We talked her through the unlocking of the lock and she ran into my arms. All I could think was that the fun she had probably had for the past 3 hours was now going to be negated by the bathroom fiasco and she would never want to return.

But no, she hugged me for a minute, stopped crying, blamed ME for the door locking (!), and ran back into the classroom to read a book.

And this is how I found her, happy as a clam on Miss Lindsey.

And while I'm glad that the experience didn't ruin preschool forever, it would be nice not to be the scapegoat on this one. I'm sure I'll get blamed for enough things in the next 18 years or so.

I guess that's what we mothers do, huh?

Take one for the team, smooth over the rough spots, carry the load and all that fun stuff.

But look at her and Miss Lindsey. She's in heaven:

I guess I'll have to take the fall this time, since she now says I wish I could go to preschool EVERY day!

And that's what we mothers want, as many experiences as possible to be filled with joy and fun and laughter. And not traumatizing bathroom lockage and fears.

Glad I could help, Sadiecakes.

Cabin 9

We went camping at Silver Falls the last couple of days. Or maybe I should say "cabinning," although spell-check has informed me that it is not a word. Too bad.

And let me tell you, cabinning is awesome.

Just a little two room cabin. But real-ish beds, heat for the cold mornings and electric lights and outlets really jazz up the camping experience.

Some of you might argue that this is not really a camping experience, and I would probably agree. But then I would ask you why you are groaning in pain and you will tell me about that freaking inescapable ROCK that was under your back all night in your tent.

And I will remember all of my "real" camping nights in my life and go and give my cabin a great, big hug.

See, no frills:

But awesome.

And those waterfalls are pretty cool too.

You even go behind some of them.

And here are our shoes.

Do you hear that? That is the sound of my 16 year-old self screaming in agony that I am wearing Birkenstock sandals with socks.

And to her I say, Woman, but they are just so darn comfortable. You'll forgive me in 21 years.

And Sadie's favorite part. Toasting marshmallows for s'mores.

And, of course, eating them.

Then she would say, Mama, I have a headache and a tummy ache and might throw up. Which is usually the sign of enough s'more. N'more, if you will.

But then 2 minutes later she was back in action. And she was very proud of her toasting technique with this one below.

I have no pictures of when Silas decided to terrify us all by hiding in the bushes and not answering when we were screaming his name.

Turns out, he was pooping. He hides and doesn't like to answer when he's pooping.

Thank god the kid has blond hair and I spotted him standing there watching us all go cracker-cakes. Stinker.

I don't think I can ever go camping again unless he's on a leash. Oh, that's not legal?

OK, maybe we can go when he's 37 years old and won't wander off. My heart can't take that again.

Barring runaway toddlers, it was great to be out-of-doors. Cooking over the fire, washing dishes under cold spigots, going for moonlit walks, sleeping in a real-ish bed, remembering how dirty it is possible to get.

I can't wait to do it again with the kids in 35 years.