Things I'm Grateful For

'Tis the season for gratitude, or at least for lists.

But before I get started: I had a gratitude activity in Primary today that was a riot. I invited kids to say what they were thankful for, and listed them on the board. We got things like earth, trees, fun, cars, bodies, family, sun, rocks and minerals, games, primary, music, mom, and piano. Then we strung them together and sang them to "For Health and Strenghth and daily food we praise thy name, O Lord." We ended up with verses like these:
--For bodies, cars and families
--For rocks and fun and mom and games (a Primary boy came up with this set)
--For music, books, and Primary
--For peanut butter sandwiches
Then Senior Primary wanted to sing them all the way through. Good thing I'd mostly grouped words that were close together on the blackboard. I missed one set, but the kids noticed and sang the last verse anyway. Fun times!

And a few from my own list:
--The way Rebecca wrinkles her nose when she smiles
--Good chocolate
--People who have written to tell me how their kids loved candy experiments
--Weather that has allowed me to walk to pick Katherine up from school almost every day (you should see Alex chugging along on his bicycle)
--A HIGHLIGHTS ACCEPTANCE!!! (Sorry, that one just slipped out)
--Writing group members who still read my stuff for me
--A husband who rocks sick kids to sleep (and boy, we've needed some of that here this week)
--Dinner guests who wash the dishes
--My piano, even if it is out of tune
--My calling as ward organist, from which the bishopric hasn't yet had to release me (I've turned them down twice)
--Did I mention Highlights?
--The fun letter I got from a kid in our ward who's on a mission
--Children who help put away silverware, read to each other, look out for their baby sister, love to draw, love experiments, and keep learning and growing
--Peace and plenty

And One Sock On

Katherine likes to sleep with only one sock. She keeps one foot warm with it, and uses her bare foot to feel that the sheet is pulled up.
Diddle, diddle, dumpling.

Kitchen Terminology

Alex, watching me cut fruit:
"I think it's a paring knife and an appling knife. And a peaching knife."

Tips!

Did I wonder if Rebecca understands the words she's learning? Well, a few nights ago at dinner she learned the word "chips" in about 10 seconds, and used it too.

"Tips! Tips!"

Rebecca's Words

Rebecca is picking up new words faster and faster, or at least promptly repeating what she hears:
--"at" (hat)
--"uh me" (from Mommy's impromptu song "Erik looked up gelatin for me, for me...")
--"ed wight" (from Alex singing "Red light, red light, what do you say?")

Mopping

What kind of mother makes her children mop floors at bedtime on Saturday night?

--The kind of mother who fell behind on Veterans Day taking kids to visit friends and setting off Coke/Mentos fountains in the back yard, throwing off the week's chore rotation?
--The kind of mother who meant to do chores on Saturday but went to choir practice, wrote while kids drew computer art, and took kids to the library instead?
--The kind of mother who let the floor get so sticky she couldn't stand it anymore?

Oh, wait. That would be me.

So we mopped tonight, after I put Rebecca to bed. I like to involve the kids with chores, but sometimes this involvement involves me doing a lot of work and issuing a lot of commands while my oblivious kids turn cartwheels. Not tonight. Alex volunteered to mop, and went around the kitchen floor with a mop almost twice as tall as he is. Katherine volunteered to sweep and spot-clean, and she and I traded these jobs back and forth. Katherine even had the brainstorm of cleaning scuff marks off the floor with Magic Eraser. She and Alex had quite an operation going, him rushing with his mop to wet the spot for her, and Katherine scrubbing on her hands and knees as hard as any orphaned Cinderella. I let them stay up an extra half hour, they were working so well. By the end we were all terribly pleased with ourselves, and both the kids thanked me over and over for having the great idea to scrub the floor. Alex even included it in his prayer: "Thank you for letting me scrub the floor. Thank you that Katherine could mop."

What kind of mother makes her children mop floors at bedtime on Saturday night?
The kind of mom who had so much fun she just might make them do it again.

Growing Up

Rebecca can now:

--wipe her mouth with a napkin
--hand me dishes out of the dishwasher
--put a dirty diaper in the diaper pail
--help pick up blocks
--carry her clothes upstairs to put away, if I show her where to put it (after she's scattered everybody else's laundry all over the floor)
--recognize and yell for desserts

Vegetables

We've been wondering whether to sign up again for another year of CSA (where the farm packs us a weekly bag of fruit and vegetables). Is it worth the cost? Should we do it if we plant our own garden? Will we eat all the vegetables? etc.

Tonight I made jambalaya with some of the last of our garden tomatoes and peppers, and served it with CSA mustard greens. Lar thinks this means our garden produce and our CSA produce can co-exist peacefully, and takes it as a sign we should do both again next year.

Anybody who comes to visit next summer should expect lots of salad.

Shoes

Tonight my baby girl brought me my shoes, then threw up in them.

I thought that only happened with dogs.

Not a Fairy Princess

Our knight and our medieval lady (not a fairy princess, a medieval princess, or a queen).

Definitely not a fairy princess's carriage.

The pumpkin on the right is Alex's. Instead of the normal two eyes and a nose, it has one eye and two noses (on the middle and the right).