happy thanksgiving all!

well, if there has ever been a case for "safe haven" laws for older children (like the one that is being corrected in nebraska), M has sure made her case in the last week...

i think it was monday afternoon... not sure where i went but i was only gone for a short time. hubby was in the same room, but apparently napping on the sofa. it seems that a sharpie was left within reach and M went to work... i arrived home to find a life size (for a 3 year old) family portrait on the hallway wall. she was so proud of her work, she even pointed out who was who in the picture so we would know. thanks M for that. on a bright note, at least she is drawing pictures and not just scribbling... that's progress on her part!

the week seemed to be pretty quiet until friday afternoon. again, i left to get G from school and the two smaller ones were in the basement with the hubby. i came back to find that M decided that the fish were looking a bit starved. well, she fixed that! she managed to pull a chair over to where we keep the fish food and then proceeded to dump all the remaining food into the tank. there was a nice thick layer of food along the entire bottom of the tank. well, i think they are full now! i have done two water and filter changes, and the water is still so cloudy that it is difficult to see the back of the tank. and it is not a big tank.

and then today, i was taking a nap since i work tonight, CJ was sleeping with me, and G was supposed to be cleaning his room. M took this opportunity to ... well, let's say play... in the bathroom. i am sure that if she had not fallen then things would have been much worse. she emptied two tubes of toothpaste onto the mirrors, and if the fish were not happy in their tank, they may have been able to find a nice home in the small pond that made its way to the floor. i realize that i tell G all the time not to tattle... but maybe he could have chosen this time not to listen to that.

i don't know what i am going to do with her... i think there are laws against duct-taping your children to a chair (and at the rate she is going, i'm positive she would escape that anyways...) so i guess i will just have to grow a pair of those "eyes in the back of the head" that i was sure my parents had when i was a child. here's to hoping this week goes a little better than last week did...

what is it about food on a stick that is so appealing to children? is it the fact that their food now has a handle, so as not to further dirty those little fingers? this could be it, as we took the little monsters out to eat the other day and M had a corn dog and ate it right up. CJ had chicken fingers and he barely touched them until my dear hubby used the sticks from his own plate to give the chicken a handle. the chicken was gone shortly after that (even M ate one now that it had a stick in it!).
after some more thought on the food on a stick phenomenon, i actually think that even at their young age they have already figured out that all the good foods come on a stick. here are a few that i thought of:

1. cotton candy
2. lollipops
3. popsicles
4. corn dogs
5. caramel apples
6. candy apples

and for the adults who like to have a handle, the renaissance festival will serve you:

1. steak on a stick &
2. corn on the cob (on a stick)

as it turns out, people all over put all kinds of food on sticks. just a quick look on google and you can find pizza, cookies, fruit, a waffle dog (that looked pretty tasty...) and much more. it seems the fascination with the stick lasts much longer then i previously believed to be a fascination among children alone.

it has been a long week. i am pretty sure i haven't gotten anything done. i know i forgot to take G to his boy scout trip to the police station. i thought it was on thursday - turns out it was on tuesday. oops. i did manage to get to the polls on tuesday and i drug my hubby along. i am dissapointed in the most of the results, but we did have this crazy amendment on out ballot that got shut down! lol. i suppose if you make it out and voice your opinion, that is better then nothing. there are still places in the world that you can't even do that, so i guess we are lucky in that respect. other then that, i got nothing done. i will try to do better next week i guess.
i did make it to G's parent-teacher conference last week though and i got some good and some not so good news. he is in the 79th percentile for math for kids his age and the 98th for reading. that's pretty good considering they seem to have just started doing math this year. he is still being disruptive in class, though not as bad as last year. he's a pretty smart kid, so i'm sure he will bring up that math score soon.
i have finished the third quilt top, just one more and then i will start working on finishing them up. it has been fun to get these together after not doing any for so long. i am just glad that it seems to be a skill that is not easily forgotten. the next one is another "log cabin" variation. it is neat to see how the same pattern can turn out looking so many different ways. and it certainly makes it easy to cut the pieces - other then the middle squares, all i need are strips! i have been doing all the cutting at work, we aren't usually too busy at three in the morning. gotta do something to stay awake!
well, after all that, i guess i got a couple things done...

halloween was actually a lot of fun! i got up just in time for dinner, and then i got to get the kids all dressed up and go out trick or treating. the weather was perfect, we didnt even need coats! for anyone who has ever gone trick or treating in colorado springs, you know that is awesome! G is 6 this year, but every halloween before this we have either had to go to the mall or bundle up because it is always cold, blowy, snowy, or anyother condition that makes walking around outside with small children absolutely miserable. it could be 110 degrees out the day before (not that it has actually ever done that before...) and it will snow on halloween. it seems the curse was broken this year though.

the kids looked so cute in their costumes though. if the tops look familiar, just look at the previous post. :) CJ would not keep his patch on, but he left everything else alone for once. this is a kid that will put on a hat just so he can take it off!

candy-wise, they did pretty good. we were only out for about an hour (despite the good weather, their legs still got tired). we got to see a fox run across a driveway and a buck walking down the sidewalk! strange stuff always seems to happen on halloween... when we got home, they had some candy and read "how i became a pirate" and then watched a movie. i hope next year is this nice.