creating new words

On Monday I picked Andrew up from preschool and took him and Amanda to run errands. He was so excited that Tuesday was the day he was going to play at his friend David's house. He was just overflowing with plans for their time together.

"Mom, I think we are going to play tag. Maybe Freeze Tag or maybe regular tag. I guess we'll play regular tag, since there will only be two of us."

I replied, "Yes, it is hard to be unfrozen when you are only playing with two people. Where did you learn to play freeze tag? Was it at school."

"Yes, we were playing on the playground with a whole junk of kids."

I said, "What is a "junk" of kids? Where did you learn that term?"

"I made it up. I know a junk yard is where there is a big pile of stuff, so a junk of kids is a whole bunch of kids."

I'm a mother of a boy...

One day this week, we met the bus at 3:00 and just stayed outside to play.

[Actually, that's what we did most days this week. It is our afternoon routine to meet the bus at 3:00 and stay outside for an hour or so and then go inside for snacks and homework.]

On this day, I was working on the hand sewing for Amanda's dress (more on that in another post), so we had an extended play time. Scott was digging in the dirt and exploring the yard. Andrew was zooming around on his Razor Scooter. Amanda was playing with her babies - swinging them, going down the slide with them and pushing them in her stroller.

Suddenly, Scott called out, "Mom, I have a Mother's Day present for you!" I smiled...how sweet. He ran up to me and opened his fist to reveal a huge handful of earthworms....wriggly...slimy...earthworms. Yuck. I politely declined. He ran off to continue to explore.

A few minutes later, there was another delighted cry of "Mom, I have another present for you!" This time, he gave me a centipede. Again, I thanked him and politely declined (after giving him the definition of what 'decline' means.)

He ran off again. A few minutes later, "Mom, this one is perfect!" This time he came back dangling a snake skin that he found in the compost pile. Before I could decline he said, "Something dead is much better than something slimy or something with 96 legs. Now, I wonder if I can find something for Father's Day..." And, off he went to search.

Amanda's funny comment

This just cracked me up.

The other day, Amanda was insistent that she wanted "duck-duck" for lunch. The only "duck-duck" I know is a favorite lovey of a good friend of ours. At first, I was surprised she wanted to eat the cute little stuffed animal. But, she insisted, "Duck-duck! Duck-duck!" As the frustration levels rose, scoured the refrigerator looking for anything that was close.

Then, I spied it...she really wanted "goose-goose"...or as the rest of us refer to it..."couscous," something she had enjoyed greatly the night before.

Happy Easter!

Here we are...all dressed up and ready to go to church!


But, before we were dressed, we had lots of activity, beginning with making resurrection cookies on Saturday evening. I went high-tech this year and read the recipe from my i-Touch, rather than printing it. I print it every year and then lose it, even though I try to pack it up in my Easter decorations. Somehow it never seems to make it out again.




The first thing we did on Easter morning was to check to see if Jesus was in the tomb.


Then we checked our baskets.





Scott loved reading his new book...



...but Amanda started directly on chocolate. On what other day of the year do you get to eat sugar before breakfast?





Then we checked the cookies


Yum! They were hollow and tasted great!

Happy Easter!!

Hunting for Eggs

Amanda and her babies

Amanda loves her babies. She has six or seven and treats each as a real baby. She screams when Andrew takes off down the hall with her stroller at top speed. (He loves to irritate her in such a way.)

Another Science Museum

One of the great things about our Fernbank membership is that it allows us to enter other science museums across the county. We took advantage of this over spring break, as we went to visit friends in Charlotte and go to Discovery Place. It is wonderful, especially when visited with great friends.

The rain forest exhibit was our first stop.


Have you ever tried to take seven kids to a museum with just two adults? It was an adventure. Here are the six older kids. We were afraid to pose the baby in this picture.

The aquarium was interesting.



Amanda loved the jellyfish.


This is the chaos that I saw every time I turned around. They are all trying to fit on one stool.

We loved the upstairs physics area.






And a special presentation about native people was an unexpected treat.

These sail boats were kind of cool. You could turn the direction of the wind and move the boats across the table. Once Andrew got the hang of it, loved racing the boats.

He also enjoyed using the pulleys to raise the seat.









This seat used negative air pressure (or something like that) to "pull" the seat up.


The girls were fascinated...all except the sleeping baby.





This was a bed of nails. Scott said it did not even hurt!

We took a break for a picnic lunch and the baby enjoyed some stretching time (and lots of kisses.)


Back inside, the favorite room of the day was the toddler room. All of the kids loved the water play area.




















Amanda stayed long after everyone else had moved on.


I finally convinced Amanda to dance in front of the big fan in hopes that she would dry a bit.


The boys really enjoyed building cars and racing them.


Back at the water table one last time before we leave.


Back at home, we really enjoyed a great visit. Amanda especially loved playing with the baby...a real, live baby!!






With seven children, you are bound to lose track of one at least once. At one point, I went to check on Amanda. She had been brushing the baby's teeth.