Election Party

I have a hunch that tomorrow after the kids are in bed and Andrew's home from class we'll be having an election party. I don't know how I got so wound up in politics. I remember watching the results for one Canadian election. And I think I remember my parents going out to vote once. My family's simply not that political—my parents have opinions, I know, but we never really talked politics at my house growing up.

Andrew's getting a PhD in Public Policy. We talk politics all the time. We snuggled up together to watch the presidential debates. I did a lot of yawning and eyeball rolling. Andrew, though, was riveted.

Rachel doesn't have school tomorrow. All the public schools in Durham county are closed for election day. I'm not exactly sure why but as far as my friends and I figured at book club it was because some elementary schools are polling locations and since they're super strict about visitors at schools here (you have to have a photograph taken every time you come to the school to do anything) we guessed they didn't want hordes of strange adults wandering around elementary school campuses while the children were in school. It was easier to tack an extra day on at the end of the year than it would be to patrol everyone coming to vote.

We only figured that because having a day off from school certainly doesn't make it easier for parents to vote...

So, the girls and I had an election party tonight. We stayed up late playing games and eating cookies while Benjamin hung out with his turtle, a fork, and a burp cloth.

As testimony fills my heart

Last week the girls wrote down their testimonies while I was at choir practice. I didn't make it to choir practice this week because of our blasted van but hopefully I'll make it next week!

Here's Rachel's sweet testimony:

It says: I know the Book of Mormon is true because I know Joseph Smith is the living prophet.

Life is what happens when you're making other plans

Last year we didn't take portraits of our children. This year it's already November (for real!?) and we haven't taken portraits of our children (Emily Pilmer did, but we're greedy and need four shots for a specific frame we have). And so, I decided that this weekend was the weekend. We were going to get all fancied up, we were going to head out to some place pretty, and we were going to take decent pictures of our children, or so help me!

I told the children of our plans while they were still in their pyjamas.

"...and then in the afternoon we're going to go take pictures at the Duke Gardens!"

The girls rushed off to their bedroom to pick out their outfits:

Interesting choices.

Tummy Time

The other day Miriam informed me that her tummy was big because she was going to have a baby. That poor girl was so pregnant that the baby's feet were not only in her ribs...they were all the way to her chin!

More about Benjamin (5 months)

There's always more to say about Benjamin. He's  had a pretty busy life, and just this week he's made some major changes around here.

Last Sunday Andrew took away the little infant headrest from Benjamin's car seat. *sniffle*

Artwork Extravaganza

We'll begin today's artwork extravaganza by paying tribute to Disney's acquisition of the rights to Star Wars. In truth most of these picture were taken before Disney's announcement but rest assured that our girls are always excited about Star Wars so they were certainly excited to hear there will be more.

Rachel drew this picture for Andrew while he was at a scout leader training meeting one Saturday last month:

She brought it to me and apologized for not writing my name on the paper—it just wasn't something she thought I'd enjoy.

"I just can't remember what it's called. It's like a bunch of planets up in space and...oh, why am I asking you? You wouldn't understand; it's a Star Wars thing. Trust me, you don't know this word."

Galaxy. The word she was looking for was galaxy. I might not get all hopped up on Star Wars but I do know what a galaxy is.

Benjamin at five months

I suppose I'll hop on the bandwagon and formally declare myself as a participant of NaBloPoMo 2012. After my world fell apart in June I've been having trouble keeping up with the blog. The kids keep doing funny things that go unrecorded and we've done so many things that have gone unmentioned. We're certainly keeping busy; the record's just shoddy. As Andrew said, this will get me "back on the horse." While there's always something to write about everyday the challenge is in finding the time to write everyday, but here we go! My friends Bridget and Crystal, and my mom are all doing it—are you?

Tomorrow Benjamin will be five months old. I won't even tell you how difficult that is for me to believe because you can probably guess. I remember time just dragging when Rachel was a baby. Now time is rushing by. I can hardly keep up with the days of the week, let alone remember how old my children are.

I remember asking a friend once how many weeks her baby was, back when I had one sweet baby who was around seven weeks old. My friend looked at me and said, "I have no clue!"

Not knowing was not something I could fathom until I was talking to a friend at book club (last week? or the week before that? who knows?). She has a sweet little girl right around Benjamin's age and she asked me, "So, wait—how many weeks is he now?" I looked at her and smiled.

"I have no clue!" I laughed.

Hair pulling

Benjamin loves hair. He's constantly catching fistfuls of it.

Part of this might be happenstance because (Hair + Hand = Hair Pulling). But he also seems to enjoy it (though I can't tell if it's because of the tactile sensation or because of the screams he elicits from his sisters).

Here is our little hair-puller in action:

Miriam was hugging him and he was rebuffing her advances (he was obviously much more interested in the cute photographer).

Christmas Creep

Our jack-o-lantern is well on its way to being made into pumpkin pie; the seeds have been roasted; Andrew's already anxious to get (all three of) our Halloween decorations put away; we're cruising toward Thanksgiving break; is it possible that we've had a bit of Christmas creep in our house?

It's no secret that Andrew is not in favour of Christmas creep—you know, when Christmas creeps into Thanksgiving's territory. This is a thing I didn't know existed until moving down to the States because in Canada Thanksgiving is in October and coexists peacefully with Halloween. Singing Christmas songs at the beginning of November was never a crime in my household until I married Andrew. He frowns upon such activities, which means he's usually frowning at me about them because I am the most common perpetrator.

But last week we went to the library so that I could vote and so that we could check some books out. We figured the most productive/less insanity-inducing way to get both of those errands done would be to have me take Benjamin to the polls while Andrew and the girls hit the stacks. We split up at the parking lot after making plans to reunite in the children's section.

So off to the polling booths I went with Benjamin while Andrew herded the girls into the library.

Voting was fairly easy. I stood in line, got my form, filled out a few bubbles, fed my form into the scantron machine, got my sticker and was out of there before you could say "democracy."

Halloweening

On Monday night the girls and I played around a bit. I turned on some "spooky" music while we were doing our chores—The Monster Mash and things like that (gotta love Spotify)—but while Rachel was helping me with dinner a ghost story track came on. She listened for a while as she stirred but soon she drifted over to the speakers where she sat, listening intently to the story unfold.

It wasn't a very scary story, just a ten-minute version of The Ghost with a Black Eye (if you're dying to listen to it I'm sure you can find it on Spotify, too, if you search for Halloween + kids), but she was scared stiff. I sat down beside her and finished listening to it with her to make sure she got through it alright. When it was over she said, "I don't get it."

So I walked her through the punch line and she burst out laughing.

Later that night we played "I'm an old woman with a broom and a staff," which the girls caught onto surprisingly quick and enjoyed every minute of it. Our costume consisted of a Micky Mouse Sorcerer's Apprentice hat, a pink shawl, and a broom. The words varied significantly from round to round.

Rachel thought it was silly to say both broom and staff since we only had a broom, so she'd say that she had a broom for a staff. She's very particular about language lately.