Happy Thanksgiving! We had ours tonight (Wednesday)
as is our usual custom, and then our van went kablooie on the way home,
which has also been our usual custom as of late. Blurg! Our half an
hour return trip became an hour and a half return trip requiring a mere
two stops to the side of the road to let the car cool down. We are now
in the process of making up a new “I hate cars” song.

Thanksgiving was great. My BIL deep fried a turkey, as is his usual custom, and this year it was butterbeer and garlic (he was apparently feeling Harry Potter-ish). Sounds weird; tastes awesome. Deep fried turkey is extremely moist, and it is definitely the best way to cook a bird.

So I got home tonight (finally) and checked my
inbox to discover an email from Gymboree. Apparently calendar-reading
is not one of their strong suits over there. They have started their
Black Friday sale already! Since this is technically Wednesday night or
Thursday morning depending on where you live, I don’t know what they’re
doing, but I’m going to go buy coats for my kids for next year as soon
as I’m done with this . $14 each! Plus I got a 20% off coupon in
the mail the other day, which makes these coats closer to $11 instead of say, $40. Yay!!!

Then I shall sleep because tomorrow I have to
conquer the stupid couch o’ clean clothes before I trek to the outlet
mall at midnight (or 11:00 since that’s when our crazy outlet opens)
for the $4.50 gymmies. I love Black Friday! I should just save up all
my money and only buy clothes on that day. Happy Thanksgiving (again)!

Rachel

This post has nothing whatsoever to do with vampirism. I just like the title and I’m reeeeally tired so the ol’ brain isn’t working too swiftly. Actually, that doesn’t even makes sense. How would vampirism bite you back? Vampires are the ones that bit you in the first place. “People bite back” just sounds silly.

Have you seen the trailers for the new Twilight movie? Is it just me or does that just look stupid? And another thing, why in the world would some vampire guy who is hundreds of years old be interested in a teenage girl? I remember being a teenage girl. I remember the teenage girls around me at the time. I have eyeballs and see teenage girls around me.

Teenage girls as a group are quite possibly the silliest creatures on the planet outside of say, baby kangaroos, which have the advantage of being small and adorable. Wouldn’t a several hundred year old man be interested in someone with a modicum of wisdom floating around the skull cavity?

Even Buffy, which is one of my all time favorite TV shows, has two hundreds of years old vampires dating her at various points in the series. Oh wait, she’s a slayer and has all the responsibility that that entails helping her mature quickly. Phew! Rationalization complete. Now I can enjoy my show without stupid niggling questions. Plus, how can you complain when the two vamps in question are these guys?

I mean really, who has cheekbones like Spike there at the top? Ridiculous! And if you are a big Bones fan, you should go watch the first season of Buffy before David Boreanaz’s face matured. Looks totally different.

Hmmmm, so apparently this post is actually all about vampires. Did I mention I am tired and have nothing to say. This is pretty representative on Rachel’s brain on not much sleep. So sad.

Rachel

Hey, guess what? Only six weeks left until Christmas. The panicking all at once may commence now. But not for me! I have got my Christmas gifts spreadsheet all up to date and am working on gift ideas and things, organized my calendar, and am hoping to sit down and write up a December meal plan so I don’t have to think about food next month. Yay! Feel free to hate me (or email me and I’ll send you copies of my spreadsheet, calendar, and meal plan once I get them finished off).

Every year at this time, my card group buddies and I head off to the beach for a weekend of Dutch Blitz, Christmas (or otherwise) shopping at the Outlet Mall down there, and general hanging around with no non-nursing children or Hubbies, who get to stay home and watch assorted children. I love coming home and hearing how their weekend has gone. George does such a good job with them.

We’ve gone I think four years in a row now and I have yet to make it without being either pregnant or bringing a baby. Oh well. Henry’s pretty nice, so he should be fine except for the whole getting teeth in and being extra fussy lately. Oh the joy!

The girls and I have been playing Dutch Blitz for six years or so now, I think. So nice to have a group of women over every other week to eat lots of junk food with, listen to Beatles music or Abba if somehow my SIL Masha manages to get control over the CD player, and yell at other people when they win. Nice stress reliever.

Hey, you know that would make a good stocking stuffer or present. Hang on while I go put that on my spreadsheet for Trinity (my kids better not be surreptitiously reading this). Here’s a picture of it on Amazon (wonder of the modern world) and a link to it:

The game is a speed game sort of like multi-player solitare. I grew up playing double sol with my parents and always rather liked that. Think that’s about it around here. Been busy thinking about Christmas prep and doing things like chopping up and freezing bell peppers (18 of them!), pressure canning soup and chili, and jarring up dry ingredients for pancakes, baked oatmeal, bran pan, corn bread, and other breakfasty stuff. I’ve been feeling rather productive lately, I must say. Might as well make good use of that before it goes away.

Rachel

Friday night for Halloween we went to our church’s annual Reformation Night party (did you know that Martin Luther nailed the 95 theses on the door of the Wittenburg Castle Church on October 31, 1517? This, of course, was the spark for the Protestant Reformation). The party always involves booths with games and things that involve a rather large amount of candy being transferred to my childrens’ bags. This year they seemed to come home with sort of an extra lot of loot.

Saturday morning my son greeted me with a smile and a piece of paper that he had “forgotten” to give me on Friday which explained how he and the girls (older two) were planning to stay up all night eating candy on Reformation Day 2008 (as opposed any other visiting ones that might not be in 2008 I guess). Apparently he and Trinity had actually done this. Anika, being somewhat wiser, did not eat candy all night and instead spent her wee hours actually sleeping.

Yes, I would have preferred to have received this information on Friday; but alas, by Saturday our only options were let them run around like maniacs on horrific sugar highs all day or lull them into a stupor by letting them watch TV all day and hoping they got tummyaches (such good parenting). By the time you have six children, the answer to any question is “whichever one makes less noise.” We opted for the latter choice.

George told them in the morning that they should quit eating candy, which of course they declined to do. Normally we would have straightened that out, but eating disgusting amounts of candy at once tends to be a self-correcting problem and this way hopefully they would remember the lesson next year.

By Sunday morning Trinity was complaining that her stomach hurt. Off and on all morning she didn’t feel well and by the time we got to church she was starting to cry in that “I’m going to throw up within five seconds” kind of way. George grabbed the closest thing he could for her to barf into, which turned out to be….. the box of remaining candy Georgie was bringing over to his friend’s house. I’m just glad it wasn’t my purse.

So Trinity will probably not make this mistake next year. Somehow I don’t think we’ve seen the end of this from Georgie though. Maybe he’ll be like my brother who once ate twelve roasted marshmallows in a row and promptly returned them on the other side of our grandparents’ Winnebago. He didn’t eat marshmallows again for years. Actually, I’m not sure he eats them now. Hehe.

Hope you had a lovely Halloween that did not involve unidentifiable stomach contents hurling your way!

Rachel

So I don’t know whether it’s just because Georgie is getting to be a bigger boy now and not a littler boy, but he seems to be stepping up his domination quotient a bit lately. As fun as that may sound, it usually results in lots of loud “Georgie, stop that!” from the girls and/or his Dad or me. Oh the joy!

I’ve been pondering this thoughtfully, trying to come up with responses appropriate to bigger boys. Yesterday he and I had a talk about being a benevolent ruler. I don’t have a problem really with him trying to rule. I’m fairly sure that just naturally comes with that spiffy ‘y’ chromosome. God made men for dominion, and this 10-year old stuff is training for the grown-up version (that’s what I tell myself anyway). He does need to be kind in his leadership though and not just obnoxious in all the various ways he can come up with to do so.

That was the subject of our conversation this morning. I told him that every time he gets into it with one of the girls, I was going to call him over and have him go think up and do two kind, useful things for whoever he offended and then come back and tell me what he did so that he can practice leading through serving. The idea sort of has a restitutionary quality to it as well except that it’s behavioral instead of with physical items that you’ve stolen.

Anyway, he agreed that this sounded like a good idea and was very relieved to discover that this new response was not charging him a quarter every time he’s yucky to his sisters. Ha ha! Now I know your Achilles Heel, Georgie. I’ll just have to file that one away for future evil reference….

So this morning the kids were out cleaning up the mess they made in the garage, and when they were finished Georgie and the older two girls bounded up to me all excited to tell me their new plan.

Trinity: Guess what? I get to be Georgie’s slave for a week!

Anika: Yeah, and then after that it’s my turn and I get to be Georgie’s slave for a week!

Me: Oh really. And when does Georgie get to be your slave?

Georgie: What??

Me: You weren’t planning to be their slave at all? Oh, well then you get to be the slave first.

Georgie: Well that’s not happening.

Me: You shouldn’t ask them to do something you aren’t willing to do first. That’s what we were talking about this morning. Remember? Servant leadership?

Georgie: Okay, we won’t do slaves then.

Ridiculous children! Apparently it was Georgie’s idea for the girls to be slaves (which I assumed), but he was just going to have it be for a day. They opted for the extension. Ridiculous children! At least the garage is cleaner.

RAchel

After five+ years without being seen by a dental professional, I finally made it in for an appointment last Thursday. Since my teeth had been a bit sensitive for awhile and I had heard some crazy rumor that the rule of thumb is you lose one tooth for every child, I figured this visit was not going to go well. Since for the first time in our married life we have dental insurance and the exam, X-rays, and teeth cleaning are covered at 100%, I could actually make it in without being pre-empted by husband’s teeth falling out of his head or children needing to be seen. Yay!

Guess what? No cavities! Moowahahahahahaha! I feel like I’m eight and got a good report from the dentist. Five years and no cavities! Some of my teeth were rubbing together and chipping off the enamel, which was why they were a bit tender but there was no decay at all and the enamel got fixed yesterday.

Tomorrow I’m taking all four of the girls. The younger two have never even been to the dentist. I have this feeling that their reports are not going to go as well as mine… Probably good that they’re going in though.

In other news, the kids are off school this week (remember we are now on a year round school schedule so their off weeks are all wacky) so Georgie is spending the week at Bunya’s house (Bunya=George’s Mom) for his birthday. Our house has been extremely quiet. The girls play trains and computer and dolls and other quiet things. It’s weird. It’s very nice, but very weird. I’m starting to miss Mr. Rambunctious.

On the other hand, Trinity and I went out with Grandma (my Mom) last week and today Anika and I went out with her. Both of the girls seemed to really enjoy having a little bit of special time with just Mommy and Grandma (well, and Henry but they like that too). We went to Hanna Andersson and they each got a hat and mittens set that was on clearance for $4 and they bought it with their own money!

I didn’t even realize Trinity had brought her money with her until she came up and said, I have this much money and I’m buying this and this. Ummm, ok. Knock yourself out! She seemed pretty proud of herself. So was I.

Georgie sounds like he’s having a ball. He’s been going swimming with Babunya (Hubby’s Grandmother) and to the Dollar Store with Bunya. And Bunya, being the genious that she is, has apparently found that a good way to keep him busy is to hire him for $1.50 an hour. I don’t know what he’s doing, but he’s a diligent worker and loves having a mission so I’m sure she’s getting her money’s worth. He told me he’s decided he wants to always keep $10 in reserve in case a new Bionicle comes out so he’ll have money to buy it right away if he wants it. Good plan!

Guess that’s it for around here. Starting to think about Christmas. Yikes!

Rachel

Georgie is ten! His birthday was Sunday, and somehow he has made it to ten years old. I gotta tell you, every day from the time he was eighteen months to four and a half, I wondered how in the world he was going to make it to the next day without me strangling him. Now here he is, all big and ten. He’s gotten to be quite the charming boy too.

Georgie’s favorite show has been Mythbusters for a couple of years now. He talks about it all the time, records every episode that airs even if he’s seen it twelve times, watches it as often as possible, and talks about Adam and Jamie (the leads) as if they are his friends.

Well, Adam and Jamie apparently have a live show that they are doing in a whole four cities, and Portland is one of them. Of course we had to take him to that. He was so excited and told us over and over that this was the best birthday present ever. The show was at the Schnitz, which is a beautiful concert hall from the ’20’s that was designed in the Italian rococo style with sort of filigree all over the walls and ceiling.

Georgie obviously listened to the entire show, but spent most of the time looking all around the building at the lovely architecture. Here he is in front of the Schnitz (the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall to you non-Portlanders who have never heard of it anyway and don’t care at all) with his Mythbusters tee shirt on:

Such a happy boy! That’s the camera strap he’s trying to strangle himself with there. Really adds to the picture, don’t you think? After we got home, I was making dinner and decided that since it was his birthday I would make him a quesadilla with no meat for dinner which apparently is a big deal in the Georgie-verse (usually they have ground turkey and jalapeno and onion in them, to which he loudly objects).

When I called him in to hand him his plate (kind of an informal night) and tell him it was plain cheese, he got a huge smile on his face and said “Oh no. You didn’t” and started laughing. Yes, the Mommy-ogre who normally forces him to eat meat can occasionally be generous. Who knew it would be that easy to make him feel special? Anyway, Happy Birthday, happy boy. May you grow in grace and the wisdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. I love you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In other news, here is a picture from today of Anika’s major event. When she came in to smile at me and tell me that look! she could turn her tooth all the way around backwards, I told her she had to pull it out or I would (I told her this after I was done grossing out). This was the result:

Nice tooth in her hand. Pretty funny listening to her talk. And if you have thirty seconds that you don’t know what to do with, you can watch this lovely video of Anika and Kyra showing off their mad kung fu skills. Such talent.

Monday night as we were all loaded into the van trundling down the Babunya’s (a.k.a. “Hubby’s Mom”)  house for dinner, I could have sworn I heard the word “damn” ushering from my darling eight-year old daughter’s lips. Not only that, but it was being pronounced in the same way you would hear it from a sitcom tartlet proclaiming, “damn, that is one fiiiiine looking piece of man-meat there” or some such stupidity designed to elicit an undeserving laugh.

Since no fiiiiiine looking men were around other than her Dad and brothers, she’s all of eight, and this is not a common vocabulary word at our house for people who are under twenty and have not just smashed their thumb with a hammer, I thought I’d just double check to see if I heard correctly.

Me: Trinity, what did you just say?

Trintity: Oh, was that a bad word? I wasn’t sure.

Me: Yes, please delete that from your vocabulary. Do you hear me or Dad saying that?

Trinity: No. {pause…. pause…. pause….} Mom, is “fish paste” a bad word?

Fish paste? Fish paste??? Well, technically she does have a point. Her Dad and I don’t usually say that either, so if you’re a kid I suppose you could make a case that it does fall under the test for swear words. Fish paste! As usual, we have SpongeBob to thank for that.

Actually, all of my favorite expletives come from SpongeBob, and usually I hear them first from Trinity using them in normal conversation. “Oh Barnacles! I can’t find my other shoe!” or “Faithy ate my sucker. Tartar sauce!” Last week I was in the room when the kids were watching that goofy show. I looked up just in time to hear SpongeBob exclaim “Holy Shrimp!” in regards to something or other. Hmm, come to think of it, I wouldn’t really like to hear that coming out of my kids’ mouths; but I thought it was pretty funny. Barnacles!

In other news, my children have discovered a new obsession. Since it doesn’t involve inane television shows, destroying property, making enormous messes, my having to drive them all over creation, or anything expensive, naturally I’m delighted!

Our friend was selling an air soft gun and some ammo at her garage sale this weekend, and the kids wanted to buy it but didn’t have the $10 they needed to do so. So they decided to hold a little fundraiser of their own.

After hiding out in their rooms all morning with a “Keep Out” sign posted on the door, they emerged with their new creation: a box that they had cut to open up into a display case for all the bead necklaced, bracelets, and rings that they had spent the morning stringing. These, they announced, they were going to sell to passersby from a card table in the driveway.

Remembering my own lemonade stand days which involved lots of sitting in the hot sun making no money, I was skeptical. However, they had clearly spent considerable effort on this endeavor and I try not to discourage them from things that would keep them occupied outside for awhile.

Ten minutes later, they had made three dollars! Some guy had bought three bracelets for his three daughters. By the end of the 45 minutes they were out there, they had made six bucks. I was shocked! Now they’re hooked and have been going out every day to do this. They bought the air soft gun (the pellets had sold), and are now saving up “just because.”

Since this year we are doing school in the afternoon instead of morning (which I like wayyyyy better), they have been doing all their homework and chores in the morning diligently and quickly without being reminded so that they can run back out and sell some more. They’ve already figured out what their best sellers are (bracelets), had to change materials a little bit to make them fit better, and figured out that if they post signs on either end of the street or stand out there with a sign they get more customers.

Guess I’m going to have to get them going on alternate selling venues. What a bunch of goofballs!

Rachel

Ahhh, I love fall. Have I mentioned that? Okay, so the weather
outside has been ninety degrees, but I don’t care. As of last week, my fall
decorations are up and I’m ready. My Mother told me today that I needed to take
them down. Dream on! I haven’t gotten sweaters out yet, at least.

George’s 37th birthday was Monday. In honor of that, yesterday
morning we woke up to discover that our charming children had gotten up early
and made a special breakfast for Daddy. They had put on the tablecloth, set the
table, lit a candle, and made….. French toast and hard boiled eggs! Not like
toaster French toast either.

We have one of those Jenn Aire ranges where two of the burners
are removable and can be replaced with a griddle. They had changed that out,
made the batter, dipped in the bread, and fried up the toast. All by themselves
and all without burning anything including themselves or each other!

From what I gather, this was Georgie’s idea and mostly his
project (he’s almost ten) while Trinity (8yrs) and Anika (6yrs) helped.
Everything was delicious! Apparently they couldn’t figure out what temperature
to put the griddle on so they were scrambling around looking in all the
cookbooks and trying to find it on Google (!!). None of that worked, so Georgie
guessed and actually got it right. Miraculous!

Other than the fact that George’s birthday was the day before
the breakfast, George likes neither French toast nor hard boiled eggs (which we
didn’t point out to the children, of course), and we were out of syrup, we had
quite the lovely birthday breakfast. What a bunch of sweeties!

Rachel

George’s youngest brother Jon got married on Saturday. Four of the kids plus George were in the wedding, and George’s brother David and his family were up from Arizona. Their kids are around the same ages as ours, so they had a wonderful time playing together. They regularly ask to go visit or when the cousins are coming up here to visit them.

Skyler and Georgie are six weeks apart and Anika and Olivia were born three months apart. Plus, David and Erica adopted a new little guy, Silas, from Ethiopia in February and this is the first time we’ve met him (if you missed this at the beginning of the year, go back and check the January/February archives). He’s three and a half, and wow is he a cutie!

George said the first thing Silas said to him was, “Hey there, Buddy!” with a big smile on his face. He spoke no English when he got here and now it’s perfect. Well, as perfect as three year old English ever is. He’s so completely charming that you just love him right away. Yep, new nephew. Pretty darn cute!

So the wedding was Saturday and Sunday we went over to one of George’s other brother’s place for one last family get together before David and Erica had to go back home. We had so much fun that we didn’t get home until 11:30. George signed up several months ago to go be a slave driver counselor at our church’s Future Men’s Camp from Monday morning until Wednesday night, so he got home and packed real quick before collapsing into bed. Then he was up at church by 8:45 the next morning to head out to camp.

I don’t sleep too well while he’s gone, but other than that all machinery seems to be functioning normally. The kids cleaned up with me Monday morning and then spent the rest of the day recuperating (i.e. “vegging in front of the idiot box”) and taking naps. I told the big kids they all had to take naps too and not only did they not complain, but they looked rather relieved and all of them slept.

Since George was gone, I decided to make my favorite foods that he hates so I don’t make when he’s here. This involves breakfast for dinner, also known as HURRAY FOR FRENCH TOAST, which was Monday’s dinner, and pasta alfredo with a bunch of chicken and veggies in it with some Artisan bread on Tuesday. Both of these seemed to go over well with the children. Hehe. Anika thinks that French toast would be a good dinner to have every night.

Masha was over for cards Monday night and then dropped some stuff off and hung around for dinner and the evening on Tuesday. My Mom watched the kids while I ran errands on Tuesday and my Dad came over Tuesday night. I conquered Mount Laundry. Enough has been going on that the time has gone by fast. I’m glad George gets home tomorrow.

Oh! I almost gave my poor Hubby a heart attack last week, I think. We’re switching insurance companies and the new one wanted me to go to the doctor for a pregnancy test and then send them a copy of the results so they know for sure that I’m not pregnant. Hello! I’m five months post-partem and nursing full time. Not exactly high risk here. Now if it were two weeks after I had quit nursing, then yes that could possibly be considered the danger zone.

Anyway, last week we sat down to dinner and started discussing our day. I started with, “Well, I have to go take a pregnancy test next week.” This was perhaps not the best phrasing. George bellows, “WHAT!!! Not again! You can’t be pregnant!” Immediately I start backtracking and telling him that it’s for the insurance. He told me that would be grounds for divorce and glared at me for about ten minutes after that. In case you somehow lost track, we now have six kids. Our house is very loud,
everything we own is stained or broken within ten minutes of arriving
on the premises, and 1998 was the last time we talked to each other without it sounding like
this:

Me: HI HONEY, HOW ARE YOU? {we have to yell to hear each
other over the din}. Georgie stop telling your sister that the bee
is on the inside of the window instead of outside.

George: I’M TIRED. HOW WAS YOUR DAY? Kyra, why are you crying?
You smooshed your toe jumping off the couch? Hey. Anika? ANIKA! STOP
JUMPING OFF THE COUCH! What Kyra? Oh yeah, I forgot to kiss you. Sorry.
There. All better.

Me: BUSY. ARE YOU HUNGRY? What Faithy? You have to go potty? Well, come on let’s go.

George: YES. WHAT’S FOR DINNER?

Me: DO YOU SEE A CLEAN SHIRT IN THE LAUNDRY PILE ON THE COUCH FOR FAITH? IT LOOKS LIKE SHE DUMPED MILK ALL OVER THIS ONE. Hey!! Faithy, that is wayyyy too much toilet paper.

George: I DON’T KNOW WHICH SHIRTS ARE HERS. THEY ALL LOOK THE
SAME. WHAT SIZE IS SHE? No Georgie, you can’t play Guitar Hero. Is your
room clean?

Me: I’LL GET IT. Trinity, is that Henry crying upstairs?
George: Hi, Honey. How are you?

Me: I’m tired. Are you hungry?

The weird thing is the kids are all pretty well-behaved kids. They’re just all under ten and outnumber us three to one.

We called Henry “Oops Shubin” for the first several months he was in utero, and when I told George I was pregnant that time, his response was “Oh NO! Not again!” Actually, that was more or less my response as well. We should probably do something about that soon…. At least Henry is a big sweetie-pie now, and he thinks George is pretty hot stuff, which none of the other kids did until they were a year old. At that point they all decided I was completely passe and George was SuperDad. At least I get to be WonderMommy for awhile.

Rachel