well, it is the day before Halloween and Dad decided that we had to carve at least one pumpkin. I'm not a stick in the mud about doing things like that, but in such chaos I would rather not add to the mess. So, we did one pumpkin, I knew the girls would loose patience if we tried to tackle two. then mom and dad would end up carving pumpkins, since we usually don't let our children handle sharp objects such as knives. so the girls decided to make a "fancy, girly" jack-o-lantern. with eyelashes and pretty lips. so micah starts carving and makes silly eyes, he had forgotten all about the pretty request. so we ended up having a silly and pretty pumpkin. they didn't want to stick their hands inside the pumpkin, even with gloves on their hands. too, icky! they did get to pull out some of the pieces as micah cut them. we lit the pumpkin and took pictures. maybe next year they will be more into the whole festivities of pumpkin carving.

we have a new play kitchen at our house. the girls are loving it (who knows what makes it so much better in their eyes than their old one?). B is serving poison tea while she hides under the stairs for the person who is going to drink it. they will "fall asleep". Don't worry she gave me the key to the poison- an actual key, by the way. so, no one will be permanently sleeping, too bad 8*). C just told me that the kitchen looks like a real kitchen- apparently a painted wood kitchen looks much more like a real kitchen than a plastic one. the only thing that wasn't "real" about it was that the clock doesn't have pointed hands, they are square ends.

Yesterday I went in to get B from her nap- or I guess I should say what was supposed to be her nap- I was helping her clean up and found a barbie doll. she had colored on this barbie doll... in two spots (literally spots) on her chest. I asked "why did you color on barbie?". Her answer began with her lifting her shirt and pointing "she didn't have these". the crayon wiped right off, but of course I had to tell Micah later. When C heard about it she ran to go look at the doll and was very disappointed that the dots were gone. I told her I didn't try to get them off, they just didn't stick. she felt so left out for not being able to see the doll.

The day before when I was getting ready for bed I found one of my bracelets- correction: what was once one of my bracelets- piled on a pillow and covered by another pillow. So I went upstairs to ask B what had happened to my bracelet and let her know that she is welcome to tell me when she accidentally breaks something. she was zonked out already. the next morning I showed her the bracelet remains. she lowered her head, so I inquired "where did mommy find this?". Her answer "on your bed. I did this". I of course asked why she didn't tell me, if she thought she'd get in trouble. She did think she'd be in trouble, so of course I let her know she wasn't in trouble for accidentally breaking something and to tell me next time. Of course it was one of my favorite bracelets- but also one of my favorite daughters 8*)

the other day we were sitting having lunch and talking to Nana, our usual noon-time habit. Nana asked how everyone was doing and I was telling her how I wasn't sleeping very well, that Emery was keeping me awake. Claire said "why is she awake so much at night? What is she nocturnal?" what a gooof ball.

Last night the girls were being silly in the car on the ride home from Grandma and Grandpa's house. Bella asked "what's your name?" her sister answers "Claire". Bella says "what's your next name", meaning middle name, Claire instinctively says "Bear" then corrects herself and says "AnnElliese". Bella replied "no, Bear". They argued for a minute about it.
On the subjects of names...
whenever Bella prints her name on a school paper she points to it as if reading and says her whole name- first middle and last. I keep telling her that it just says Bella. Oh, well, we're working on it.

who's idea was this?

Well, about two weeks ago we had some beautiful weather so we decided to have a picnic at the park. Shortly after arriving at the park I sat down on a bench with Jacob in the stroller next to me. The girls went to the play equipment and the fun began. The park wasn't too busy, just about four other kids, all boys under the age of 4 and their parents. I was starving and started in on the picnic, Bella headed to the tall swirly slide. One of us made a mistake, and it wasn't the one on the park bench. All the beautiful blond did was wait in line for the slide... there was a mom, whom I thought was a grandma, and her little boy who had been going down the slide repetitively. She would go down first and the boy would follow and use her as a road block at the end of the slide. Personally, I thought he was too young to be going down by himself, at only around 2.5 yrs old, but like I'm gonna say something. So, in the front of the line is the mom, then the boy, then Bella bringing up the rear. The mom went down as usual (sorry, this is the boring portion of the story, but hang on a bit longer, gotta give you the background), then her son not as usual. He spun around and ended up head first. He must have been scared, but I don't see how he could have been hurt. The mom stands up and says "Someone must have pushed you. (feeding the child a line) Did someone push you?". Sitting quietly on the park bench I think to myself "She couldn't possibly think Bella pushed him?". The boys mom (we'll call her Mrs. OR, short for Over-Reactor) then says "Did you see what happened?". Thinking she must be talking to one of the other parents at the park, maybe they knew each other, I ignored this question. I wondered why she was making such a big deal. Mrs OR repeats herself "Did you see what happened?". So, this time I glance up and realize she is speaking to me. What do I say? "Oh, I didn't realize you were talking to me. Yes, I saw what happened. He went down the slide and spun around. No one pushed him." Mrs. OR- "Well, he's never gone down that way before, someone must have pushed him". Apparently she has never heard the saying "A first time for everything", or "It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt". Either of these widely popular, tried and true sayings would have explained the entire situation. I wanted to bring to her attention that a boy his size shouldn't have been going down by himself, but rather he should have been in someone's lap. I decided to re-emphasize the fact that "she didn't push him". Mrs. OR was too busy to even hear what I was saying, she was ranting up a storm. she was also getting a little to close for comfort and quite irate, so I grabbed my cell phone and held it within reach of dialing 911. I was hoping I wouldn't have to report a crazy lady beating up a pregnant lady at the park. Mrs. OR says "You need to make your children behave". At this point I really am in amazement. Seriously??? I let the psycho know that my kids are very well behaved and I've never seen them push anyone (except maybe each other or cousin Grady and that then it was probably in a wrestling match). These statements made while I'm half laughing in unbelief. Mrs. OR goes on to say "You just wait until it happens to your kid". I told her of course I'd be "upset if someone pushed my kid, but no one pushed him. If you are unhappy playing at the park with us, you are free to leave". Of course I'm being nice this whole time, but had to put it clearly. She let me know she would leave, and she continued in her rage, while putting the boy in the stroller. Of course, he has been fine for the last several minutes, but Bella has been just sitting at the top of the slide with a concerned look on her face. I told her to go down, reassuring her that she'd done nothing wrong. Mrs. OR walked away repeating the rant she had been on. One of the other moms came over after OR was out of the picture and asked what was going on. we laughed about it and she, too, couldn't believe the whole thing. She was in agreement that Bella hadn't pushed the boy. In the meantime her son was sitting in Claire's way on the stairs and I observed that Claire waited patiently, not pushing, not trying to go around, just being patient. Claire didn't want to confront this young stranger she would rather just wait. My kids are too shy. There's no way Bella would have pushed this kid. Let's give Mrs. OR a round of applause for setting such a good example for her son. I'm sure he'll never come home from school because of fighting. Who's idea was it to go to the park anyway?