Dumb ways to light your kitchen on fire...

I'm not sure where I saw this brilliant idea first.

I haven't been on Pintrest in ages—it's like browsing through the internet instead of pointedly researching and I just don't have the time for that so instead I let my friends curate for me and they will occasionally share ideas on their Facebook feeds or whatever. I've seen the idea resurface time and again in multiple places. Suffice it to say that this is an idea that has been floating around in my brain for a while. I was the Sunbeams (3–4 year olds) teacher in our last ward for half a year (and then I taught the ten year olds for a year (and then I taught Sunbeams again for half a year (and then I had Benjamin))) and the children were always frustrated by the ridiculously pitiful scraps of crayons we'd offer them to scribble with. I thought it would be a fulfilling activity for the Young Women to get together, sort the crayons into colours, peel off their papers, and melt them down into new and improved "fun" crayons instead of the decade-old, partially-chewed, snapped-into-fifths Crayola crud they'd been using.

I suggested it to the Young Women presidency but so far as I know my suggestion was politely cast aside and now I know why....

Melting crayons is a terribly dangerous, fear-inducing, fire-filled activity!

I figured this would be an excellent way to get rid of all our broken crayons, which is mostly what our crayon box is filled with. I thought the girls would enjoy them, both to have and to give away as gifts. It's like recycling, big time. Besides, it looked like fun!

So I went ahead and ordered a mould from Amazon. It arrived this morning and we went ahead and made up our first batch of crayons.

Thanksgiving Eve at the Life and Science Museum

Wednesday afternoon, no school—where do you think we headed? To "free day" at the Life and Science Museum, of course. Or, as Rachel says, the Life and Science Muserium! This was Rachel's second time going and she was thrilled.

Unbeknownst to me, Andrew had made a deal with the girls that if they were kind to Mommy and went to bed nicely every night while he was in Indiana that when he came home they'd watch Star Wars together. He made good on that promise this morning. Rachel was excited to get to go to the space exhibit so soon after watching Star Wars.

Ramblings of an overtired housewife

I just wrote an entire blog post and then deleted it. It was too melancholy. I think I'm just worn out today. Probably because my children rarely let me sleep—I was up every two hours last night, switching off between Benjamin (who is usually up every four hours) and Miriam (who was apparently also having a rough night). It didn't help matters that the kids were barely going to bed at 10:00 last night. They just would not stay put!

Rachel and Miriam were fighting about everything so eventually I took Miriam out and told her she could colour at the kitchen table while Rachel fell asleep. This was clearly an injustice to Rachel and so she pouted in her room, forcing herself to stay awake until Andrew came home so that she could complain about it to him. He explained the same thing that I had explained: Miriam took a long nap and wasn't tired enough to fall asleep so we were giving Rachel the opportunity to fall asleep alone before putting Miriam to bed. That way they wouldn't bug each other and everyone would live happily ever after.

I'm not sure Rachel was ever entirely convinced this was true, but fifteen minutes later she was out like a light. I spent those fifteen minutes colouring with Miriam in the Rudolph colouring book (we've been sneaking Christmas in where we can, right from under Andrew's nose).

Corner the market

When I moved to Alberta, my cousins introduced me to the game Pit! I remember playing it in my grandparents' basement, all crowded around the ping-pong table and yelling our guts out. My grandpa, who was a sugar beet farmer back in the day, and my uncle, who has grown wheat and canola and other things throughout his farming career, played with us. My grandpa didn't play many games by the time I came along—but he still had enough umph left in him to swing a trade with the shrewdest trader in a game of Pit!

My grandma would come downstairs to flutter around him every so often, putting blanket on his lap, wiping the Grandpa Glue off his chin, and telling us all to be quiet.

She preferred quiet, thoughtful games like Boggle and Scrabble—I like those games, too, but my grandpa didn't often play them with us because he was too shaky to manage a pen and paper or tiny alphabet tiles. Pit! is thoughtful in its own right, I suppose, because it's strategic, but that exclamation mark at the end of its name is no mistake—it's also rather frenetic.

When you've won the game by collecting enough of any good to "corner the market" you have to yell above the melee, "CORNER ON WHEAT!" or "CORNER ON FLAX!" or whatever.

It's best to corner on wheat because wheat was worth the most points (100, I believe). That said, it was probably wiser to corner on flax quickly and end the round before anyone else collected enough wheat (or anything else) to beat you (I think flax was worth the least; I don't remember). Andrew would probably say that's like the prisoner's dilemma...kinda...or some sort of game theory. I dunno. I'm editing an important paper for him right now; obviously.

Anyway...

She's a dancing star! She loves to twirl all day!

Yesterday morning the girls got all decked out to play Angelina Ballerina; it was Rachel's idea and I was thrilled about that because this one time I praised Miriam as being "a natural" dancer and Rachel overheard me. She assumed that I meant that Miriam was a good dancer and Rachel was not. For the past few months whenever anyone's mentioned dancing Rachel has answered with something like, "Oh, I'm not a very good dancer, but Miriam is!"

It hasn't seemed to matter how many times I've told her since then that she's a fine dancer, she's refused to dance. So you can imagine my relief when it was she who suggested that they play Angelina Ballerina.

Jacob and Shayla

We were a little bummed when Jacob asked Shayla to marry him—in August after Andrew and the girls left for North Carolina but before Benjamin and I had headed out—but only because we knew we wouldn't be able to go to the wedding. Not three months after moving all the way out here. Still, we were thrilled for them because we were on Team Jacob/Shayla from the very beginning.

So, this weekend, while Andrew went to a conference in Indiana (and stayed with our friends the Slades—thanks, guys!) the rest of our family gathered in Utah for Jacob and Shayla's wedding and I...sat at home with three whiny children all by myself.

I jest. We actually had a pretty fun day and we even got to pop in (with a little help from Grandma and her iPhone) at the family lunch and later at the wedding reception.

The first evidence we saw of the happy couple was a picture that Shayla's mom posted on facebook:

An Afternoon Off

Today Rachel's school had an award ceremony to celebrate their first nine-weeks of school so after lunch, Benjamin, Miriam, and I drove over to the school to watch Rachel get her awards. She said she was pretty sure we should come because she was pretty sure she was going to get an award because she always does her best work.

"Do you know what Ms. Reeves said to me the other day when I showed her my work?" she asked me.

"What did she say?" I asked.

"She said, 'Are you going to college next week?' So, you'd really better come to my award ceremony because I'm not even sure I'm going to be in kindergarten anymore after this."

Don't worry; I (gently) set her straight. "Ms. Reeves just meant that you did well," I told her, "Not that she'd be sending you to college; you're not quite ready for college yet."

"When will I be ready for college?"

"Oh, sometime after you get your b's and d's straight," I remarked casually.

The Hostess with the mostest

Dear Americans,

Relax—junk food will prevail. Hostess may have gone out of business—you might Wonder where you'll find your next loaf of bread (that was a real Zinger, wasn't it?) or if you'll ever eat another Twinkie but I assure you the world has not ended. How do I know this? Because Hostess has gone out of business before...and the world didn't end then. Why should it end now?

I'm about to tell you some lame facts that I read on Wikipedia so sit right back, grab some munchies and your favourite doll (which is, perhaps, also a munchy) and relax.

'Cuz when you've got the munchies, nothing else will do!

Bath time for Benjamin

Look at how chubby my baby is! Who'd have thunk he'd ever get all roly-poly on us—because remember when his arm was as skinny as Andrew's finger? But here he is, in the flesh, in more pictures than you ever hoped to see of him sitting in a sink.

He's taken baths in the sink before but I'm not sure we've ever had the tap running while he was in there. You can see he's a little unsure about that.

Some things

Look at me, blogging all first(ish) thing in the morning! The truth is that my visiting teachers are coming and I should be tidying the living room (which desperately needs to be tidied) but why do that when I can sit here and avoid it, right? Besides, I have an obligation to the grandparents—they must see pictures!

Here are the kids ready for bed on Wednesday night, which happens to be the same night Miriam munched on Benjamin's hand, which is still so surprising because she adores Benjamin. She told me later that he was pulling her hair (so I told her, once again, that if she was in hair-pulling range (and she usually is because she snuggles this boy al the time) that she's just as much to blame for the hair-pulling as Benjamin is).

More often than not I have to tell her to give that boy some room to breathe.

Here's Rachel writing in her journal. Her writing is really blossoming; I couldn't be more proud. I love journals!

Seriously folks, Miriam can most often be found loving on her brother.

For the most part he seems to enjoy it.

Thing One:



Thing Two:

Thing Three:

Three Things together:

Three Things together again:

What a sweet Thing: