Quick 5

My mother's gravy was delicious.

1.  What does a normal family do during a school break? Why, schedule dentist appointments for the kids of course.  Alaina and Joya had their bi-annual dental cleaning and check-up and they both passed with flying colors.  Even Alaina, whom I've completely abdicated the role of teeth-brushing to.  Joya, of course, wore her princess dress.  She was the best dressed patient there.

Alaina works the suction

Waiting for Dr. Nielsen

2. My big project the past couple of weeks has been beard beanies.  A high school friend made one and posted it on Facebook, to which I asked if she had a pattern.  She said no, but that I could find one on Etsy.  Find one I did.  I wanted to make one for my baby bro, who has a fascination with beards.  Well, I made one and Lee liked it so much that I gave it him.  Then I made one for my brother, my dad and my two brothers-in-law.  Then a couple of Lee's co-workers saw his and decided they wanted to buy some for their menfolk.  So I had orders for four more.  They are fun to make and I laugh every time I see it.  (And if you want one, let me know.  We'll discuss price.)

3.  This year has been Thankgiving With the Marshes.  It's been loud and crazy and full of children and life.  The kids are still pretty small, but they are finally starting to play together.  At one point they all went outside, and Alaina declared herself the Queen.  They all followed her around the yard like dutiful little subjects.  She better cherish these times, because I could possibly see a Younger Cousin Uprising in the future. 

Naomi, Oliver, Zeke, Alaina, Bria, Joya, Tegan & Elisabeth

4.  My little Thanksgiving Turkey:

5.  On Wednesday my sisters left to do errands and I stayed at my parents' house with the resting/napping children.  The older girls (Alaina, Naomi and Joya) went outside to play, and just before Jamie left we heard Oliver talking in his room.  She told me he could go and play, but to wait until she left so there would be no Leaving Mama Drama.  So I did.  What she failed to tell me was that there may or may not be a Toxic Stink in the room with him.  So I opened the door and realized that we had a Situation.  I had three options: 1.) Send him outside to play and pretend I didn't know what the Situation was, 2.) Wake up his napping daddy and make him change his son's diaper, or 3.) Change it myself.  I weighed them all and went with Option 3.  Nick owes me a high five or something.

Happy weekend!  Enjoy listening to Christmas music without being ostracized.

Quick 5

Good news: the anti-lock brake system on our van works just fine!

1.  Sweet baby Bria is nine months old!  She has officially been outside of my belly longer than she was inside.  I always feel like this is a huge accomplishment.  She had her nine month check up this week, which she didn't appreciate as much as she did the ones in the past.  Something about not liking a strange man poking and prodding her, I think.  Anyway, she's just over 18 pounds and still has a huge noggin.  She got three shots.  Joya was surprised by getting two shots herself.  She needed those shots at her three-year check up, but we did that check-up on her actual birthday and neither the doctor nor I felt right about giving her shots on her birthday.  Anyway, Joya was very brave and was rewarded handsomely with a sucker in the car.

I love baby grins with the two teeth showing

2.  Bria is officially crawling forward with purpose.  It's more of a lurch and a crazy army crawl than a hand-and-knees crawl, but she is mobile.  This is such a magical time in a baby's life, when they have all the mobility but none of the common sense.  Who needs to vacuum when Bria will find all the bits and pick them up for me.

Quick 5

Two weeks from today Thanksgiving will be over.  Isn't that sad?

1.  We had our first family homework assignment from Alaina's class this week.  We were supposed to dress up a turkey (paper turkey, of course) in order to help it sail through the Thanksgiving holiday without being eaten.  The assignment said to dress it up like it fits into your family, so to consider hobbies and things like that.  Well, since we are The Most Boring Family On The Planet the only thing we could think of was to dress the turkey like a baby, since we have a baby in our family.  We put an old (unused) size 2 diaper on it and tied a binky around its neck.  Apparently seeing the diaper on the turkey cracked the kids up, according to Alaina.  It's always nice to get a laugh out of the class.

2.  I've always wondered if I might end up having one of Those Kids.  You know, Those Kids who wear costumes out in public.  Well, I've got Joya.  She loves to dress up.  During room time in the morning she'll put on a princess dress, and then lately she's refused to take it off when we leave the house to run errands.  I really don't mind.  I just make her put on her shoes and a jacket and off we go.  The funniest part to me is how she reacts when other grown ups acknowledge her "pretty dress."  She always gives them a dirty look, like she can't understand why on earth they are looking at her dress.  She's not doing it for the attention; she's doing it simply because she wants to.

Joya in Walmart.  She was the best dressed person there.

3.  Then there's Alaina, who never wants to rock the boat, fashion-wise.  Even on a night like Crazy Hair Night at AWANA.  I forced her to participate this year.  She wasn't too happy.

Practically hiding under the table.

Crazy, right?  That's the most she would let me do.  Then she got home and described all the other crazy hair she saw.  I asked if she would let me do some of the crazier things to her hair next year, now that she knows how other kids participate.  "NO!!" she said.  Oh well.  Joya will be in Cubbies next year, and I bet she'll let me go all out.

4.  Bria has been super crabby all week.  Super bummer for us.  Maybe she's teething.  Who knows.  All I know that 3:30 until 5:00 is a nightmare.  Then I put her down for a dinner nap, which I thought we were getting rid of, but not if she's going to be crabby.  I can't remember when they drop that nap, but I'm going to put her in her room if all she wants to do is fuss.  She falls asleep quickly most of the time, so maybe she still needs it.  Hopefully this phase ends soon.

Crabby in the afternoon, but all smiles in Walmart.

5.  For Joya's birthday Aunt Mindy sent a DVD of 270 classic cartoons.  Think early Bugs Bunny era, but not Bugs.  There are some Popeye, Mighty Mouse, Felix the cat and Betty Boop.  The girls love them.  At the beginning of the DVD is a disclaimer about how many people have loved these cartoons, but they may reflect views that the company who produced the DVD does not condone.  My how far our society has come.  But the music is amazing, and there are some good talking points that come up (like, don't pummel your sister if you don't get what you want like the cat did to the mouse and yes that lion did eat the deer because that's what lions do.)  They just don't make them like they used to.

Go Broncos!

Quick 5

It's beginning to feel a lot like...cold weather season.  In the spirit of this Thankful Month, I'm thankful for my electric blanket, which I was introduced to by joining the Kimble family.  See, marriage is awesome.

1.  I used to take gobs and gobs of pictures of Alaina sleeping.  She sleeps so hard and it was so easy.  I rarely catch Joya asleep.  Once she's asleep I leave her be, because she's a light sleeper and a camera flash or the opening of the door to go into her room would surely wake her up.  And then there's Bria.  I suppose she's neither a hard nor a light sleeper.  It might be too soon to tell.  But I finally snapped a sleeping pic of her.  I love sleeping pictures.

P.S. On the Bria front, she's crawling!!  Well, only backwards.  But she can get up on hands and knees and scoot backwards in quite a timely fashion.  I expect forward motion very soon.

2.  Alaina had no school on Monday.  It's fun to have random days off of school.  We poked around at the mall, had McDonald's for lunch, and generally tried to remember what life was like before she had school every day.  During Joya's room time/Bria's nap time Alaina had couch time.  Which she spent in my room, playing on my Kindle.  Joya joined her as soon as she could.  They are modern children for sure.

3.  The falling leaves have provided hours of fun for the girls.  You know the method of hiding toys for a few months, and then bringing them out again and the kids think it's something brand new?  Well, I think the falling leaves are God's version of that.  Who needs toys when you have a big pile of leaves to jump in?

4.  Joya is quite the little backseat driver.  Especially if I'm stopped and she wants to be going.  "Go Mom go!!" is frequently heard.  So I explained the meaning of red and green lights, hoping that information would put her little mind at ease.  Nope, now she's my little stoplight police.  "Don't go, Mom!  It's red!!"  I tried explaining to her that it is acceptable to turn right at a red light once you've yielded to on-coming traffic unless otherwise indicated, but her mind is stuck on Red = Stop, Green = Go.  This is why they don't give drivers licenses to three-year-olds.

5.  It's time to regale you with a tale from The Silly Noob Homeowners.  Prepare to laugh and feel superior in your knowledge of home ownership.  I'm sure you'll figure out our problem way before we did.

A week or two ago we began to hear a chirp from the basement.  I told Lee it was time to change the batteries on the carbon monoxide alarm, which he promptly did.  But the chirp still happened.  It wasn't at regular intervals either.  We'd hear it once every 5 or 10 minutes for a few times, then it would be silent for an hour or two.  I began to get worried.  We read the manual, and the chirps weren't following what the manual said they would do.  I thought the whole thing was just malfunctioning, but it was going to be at least a day before Lee could get to the store to buy a new one.  I slept terribly for a couple of nights, worried that we were going to wake up dead from carbon monoxide poisoning.  How would anyone even know??  I don't call anyone every day.  Our doors are locked, so who could even come in to check on us?  So Lee finally got a new one and installed it.  Lo and behold, it was chirping the same way too.  One more night of bad sleep for me.  So I finally called the company on Wednesday and told them what was happening, fully expecting them to tell me that I should have called the fire department days ago.  Well, the helpful guy on the phone had me test the alarm for him and it worked just fine.  Then he asked if there were any other alarms nearby.  Had we even for one second considered that option?  NO!!  I said thank you and hung up, feeling like an idiot.  Sure enough, there is a smoke alarm in the bedroom in the basement.l  I called Lee so he could feel dumb with me.  But the story is not over.

Lee got home, and went to change the batteries in that smoke alarm.  He pulled it down, and there were no batteries in it to begin with.  Sure enough, we heard the chirp.  Upon further investigation, there is a smoke alarm not ten feet away from the carbon monoxide alarm, on the ceiling. (The carbon monoxide alarm is on the wall.)  He pulled it down, changed the batteries on that one and the chirping stopped.

In our defense, when we moved into the house Lee's parents took charge of putting batteries in all the smoke alarms.  So we didn't even know where they all were.  I mean, we know about all the ones upstairs, but not in the basement.

The lesson here is to look up on your ceilings every once in awhile.

Enjoy your laugh at our expense.

Quick 5 Break

I don't feel like I have five things to say about this week.  So, instead, please enjoy this photo session I had with Joya and Bria.  Bria wears her heart on her sleeve...you can probably guess how she felt about it.

Can you guess what picture is my favorite?