March and April...Say What?

Silas (age 2) had a taste of Daddy's beer, and then walked around all proud of himself, saying, "Daddy--gave 'em--BAER." -March 1

Silas is obsessed with motorcycles, and has several small play ones. For some reason he has taken to calling them "Mr. Motorcycle." The other day he lost one, and said to me, "Mr. MO-cycle is GONE." Then he walked around the house, calling softly, "Where AH you, yellow mo-cycle, where AH you?" -March 1st

Golden (age 4): "There's not only one children in the world. ...There's HUNDREDS." -March 1st

I was trying to put Silas down for a nap, and as he snuggled in, he said, "Sing Daddy's song."
me: "How does it go?"
Silas: "Daddy Daddy Daddy song, Daddy Daddy Daddy--I can't!"
me: Singing "Daddy Daddy" to the tune of "twinkle twinkle little star." When I finish, Silas, without missing a beat, says,
"Sing Go-den song." -March 2

Silas: "I'm munster" (monster)
me: "Munster cheese."
Sparrow: "Monster cheese, or cheese monster?"
Silas: "Monster hot dog." -March 5


Sparrow (age 6): "Bulls are addicted to red." -March 12

Talking about different creation theories, I told Sparrow that some people believe God made the world in millions of years. She says,
"Do some people believe God is only as big as this house, and that's why it took Him a long time to make a tree?" -March 12

Golden: "I know what 'blending in' is. If you're pink, and something else is pink, you can blend in." -March 13

Sp: "I can't find the tooth rinser." (cup) -March 16

It was the night of our move, and Silas had skipped his nap and it was late, and he was obviously overtired and feeling a little crazy with all the moving action. I put him to bed, and he was crying.
Silas: "I wanna go home."
me: "We are home."
Si: "Oh WHY?"
me: "Because God gave us a new home."
Si: "Oh WHY?"
me: "Because He loves us."
Si: "Oh WHY?"
He cried a bit more, then remembered something very important, "Oh wha- 'bout our CAR?" booohooohooo! me: "It's right outside, Silas. It's really OK." -Apr. 16 (LOL, so sensitive and cute!)

Si: "Mommy, guess what?"
me: "What?"
Si: "Car." -March 18

Me, working on computer.
Si: "Mommy, weee--going---to--beach."
Me: "We are?"
Si: "Mommy, turn 'puter off." -March 18 (Awwww! Single tear!)

Silas, mad about something, puts hands on his hips and says, "Who's--kidding--me!" -March 21

I was listing off the 5 love languages. Golden adds, "AND the YMCA!" -March 21

Si: "I LOVE Deutsch!" -March 21

Sp: "It'd be cool to have a cooker thing, cause you can make corn bread and you can wash dishes in it."
me: "What, you can make corn bread AND wash dishes in it?"
Sp: "Yeah."
me: "What the heck are you talking about?"
Sp: "A thing!" -March 24

Silas calls pancakes "Bake-bakes and flip-flops "foot-lops." Heeeheeeheee! -March 24

Si: "Mom, I'm coloring a snail AND a big, scary boy." -March 26

Sp: "I don't like going to sleep. I just don't like laying there, not knowing that I'm alive." April 8

G: "Mom, remember that 'yogurt' monster... uh... I mean, ogre." -Apr. 12

We went to Trader Joe's for the first time after moving out to Gloucester. When we entered the parking lot, Silas, said, "OH! We're HOME!" -Apr. 19

Si: "I wanna watch the um-cuter (computer) and I wanna watch dump trucks." -Apr. 21

Silas, to Golden: "We're to-lly best friends." -Apr. 25

Silas, to Daddy: "Guess what? ...You love me." -Apr. 25

Si: "Was trying to get a peanut butter sandwich, and then I want it." -Apr. 28 (and all the time!)

January and February Funny Thoughts

While I was getting everyone buckled into the car, Sparrow said,
"This would be a lot quicker if we had ONE child with four heads." -Jan. 6

Sp: "Oh my goodness! You're almost a hundred! ...I mean, I know you're only 30, but that really IS close to 99!" -Jan. 15

Golden and Sparrow singing,
"Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet, eating her courage awaaaaayyyyyy...." (Oh dear.) -Jan. 18

Sp: "Mom, if we call Silas 'I, I' a lot, and then a pirate comes and says 'aye, aye, captain,' Silas will go RUNNING over, with a naked booty." (She wanted to name him II, because he's 2 years old. She was learning about Roman numerals.) -Jan. 19

me: "So the word 'erbse,' guess what it means? it means 'pea.'"
Sp: "Well I'm going erbse." (Runs off to the bathroom.) -Jan 19

Golden, very sick and wailing
me: "What's bothering you the most?"
G: "The crying."
me: "Oh! Good! Cause that's what's bothering me the most too." -Jan. 22

G: "Mom, God isn't afraid when He's by himself in the night. He always gives himself light. ...And to us." -Jan. 25 (age 4)

G: "Mom, I don't WANT to grow up and move away and make you wipe the table by yourself!" (crying) -Jan. 28

Sp: "Pippa is the champion of toothbrush-taking." -Jan. 29

G: "God has even more powers than Goliath." -Jan. 29

I am taking Golden to the bathroom at church and she sees a lady in the kitchen area setting out cookies. When I have to tell her that they are not for us, she responds, "Are they for the people who are hungry?" LOL--the connection: the congregation is singing, "we are hungry, we are hungry, we are hungry for more of you..." -Feb. 2nd

me: "Silas, you're such a pleasure."
Si: "No. I not eshr."
me: "No? What are you, then?"
Si: "I'm cuckoo bird." -Feb. 10

Sp: "Mom, I bet Ivy would be a very common name in Roman." (still learning about Roman numerals... IV. Haha.) -Feb. 15

G: "Mom, if I blow away with the wind all day, I would really miss you." -Feb. 20

G: "We don't want to become rich."
me: "Yes, we do."
G: "But then you will become a fatty."
Sp: "No, we won't... Only if we ATE all the money."
G: "Ew, but we can't crunch it."
Sp: "We wouldn't have to crunch it, only swallow it. ...But that would be fairly gross." -Feb. 23

Jeannie (Alias of one of our dear little Alzheimers ladies) says about Pippa, "She's so beautiful."
Silas, irritated: "No, he not! He's PIPPA!" -Feb. 23

I was telling the children that Daddy and I were going on a date the next day. Silas says,
"Yeah! Go Daddy on date! I LOVE Daddy on date!" -Feb. 24 (You should hear how he talks too. It's very halting, but he tries so hard to be sure to pronounce everything correctly. There should almost be dashes in between all the words. SO proud of him for suddenly saying just about everything!)

Sp: "Mom, in Felicity's time... Was it... unnecessary for a man to kiss a woman who wasn't married to him?"
me: "What do you mean by 'unnecessary'?"
Sp: "Not...polite."
me: "Yes. It was not polite."
Sp: "Is it still not polite?"
me: "...YES." -Feb. 28

Silas the color king

I feel like my life is so crazy, busy, and disorganized right now that I don't have time to post nearly as much as I would like. Here is a sweet snippet from my yesterday. Silas is suddenly saying everything. He was saying not very much at all, and what he was saying was pretty badly mispronounced (only the last syllable of a word, usually--leaving out beginning and middle consonants). I knew he's get it eventually. And he did! He is so adorable now because he tries so hard to perfectly pronounce every sound. One day I was in the pantry with him and He was looking at the cans. Suddenly, he said very slowly and deliberately, "Beeeeeeeaaaaaaannnnnnns." Well it has just taken off from there!

One of my other favorite things he says right now? "Okay, Mom." He is just so sweet!

Recently in the East

Sparrow informed me she wants to marry Zeke (Mahnken) and live next door to Golden when she grows up (after I explained to her that she can't, in fact, marry Golden. Or Silas. Or Daddy.) O.o.

The girls started swimming lessons at the YMCA (one of their Christmas presents) and they are both loving it! They are in separate classes due to different ages, but the time coincides, so they are usually in adjoining lanes! LOL. I even managed to work out during their 2nd week, for like a whole 20 minutes, in the GYM! I don't remember the last time I was in a gym. Probably when I was pregnant with Sparrow. Or before I was married. It was short-lived, however. That evening I slipped on our den stairs, and broke my coccyx! OW! ...OK, it's not really broken. I was trying to quote Napoleon Dynamite. Anyways, my tailbone hit the other stair right on the corner. I lay there and wailed like a bebe. And then I just lay there some more. I had spilled a cup of milk all over and Sparrow had to run and get a cloth to get it off the carpet. And go find the arnica gel. She was very worried about me, and Silas cried to see that happen to his mama! Cried! Then I got a bit grumpy, I hate to admit, and made them clean the floor since I couldn't move (awful, but the mess was adding to my stress.) Finally Thomas arrived home from work and life went on. Slowly. Golden had fallen asleep on the couch after swimming and had missed the whole thing and my husband was so helpful, even washing the food processor of his own initiative! Now there is a good man for you! It was painful even sleeping that night, but several days and several prayers later, it is feeling soooooooooo much better.

This morning, in fact, based on what we "caught" at church last night from Kevin Dedmon, the girls both laid hands on me and said the sweetest prayers! Sparrow prayed for no more pain and for the presence of God to come--such sincere, big words, and Golden prayed in the Holy name of Jesus, it made me so glad. And I DID feel a little better, I told them I felt about 20% better, and Sparrow was SO excited, she cheered! Now THAT is the kind of enthusiasm we need for healing!

Silas knows all his colors (or almost all)--finally! He may have known them for a long time, but the gift of language is finally coming to him, so now we know it. =) He says "uhp-ul." for "purple. So cute. He still usually leaves out the beginning consonants and puts glottal stops in between syllables, but we can understand him, and it's adorable! It's finally taking off. He is at this point like the girls were around 18 months. Every day I catch him saying something new. He says "Addy" and "Ammy" without the middle stop, as well as "Angy," which, as everyone knows, means "daddy," "mommy," and "monkey." =) He LOVES books and I enjoy my special time with him before his nap every day, when we read some "boy" books together.

Pippa sprouted her first tooth on New Years' Day, after I'd been singing this to her over and over the day before:

On the last day of the year you were born
On the last day of the year you were born
Are you gonna get a tooth?
Are you gonna get a tooth,
On the last day of the year you were born?

The 2nd tooth also quickly followed. WOW. 9 months. AND with it came more of an interest in eating. No baby food for this one, though, she prefers cheese sandwiches! Loves 'em. Can't stand baby cereal. Though she does appreciate butternut squash, avocado, banana. Round about the 9th of January she also learned to clap her hands! I absolutely LOVE this baby stage. Every time she hears anyone say "Yay!" she claps her hands! Toothy, clappy, and chappy-cheeky.

Golden can write her own name! It seemed s huge different after just a few weeks! Now she knows all the letters and is even doing them curly-style, like her sister. O.o. She signed her name in all the Christmas thank-you cards! I guess my work here is done. =)


On the evening of the coccyx event, it snowed. Our first East Coast Snow!!! Of course, the children missed it cause they were sleeping in bed, and I missed it cause I was staring at a computer screen doing work for my contractor job with MDB Media--which I love. Nonetheless, the way we find out things in our own backyards nowadays is via the internet (alas, modern world!) and I realized it had snowed when I read someone's post on Facebook that night! Doh!!! I looked out the window, and sure enough! Hahahahahaha! I had a magical window moment all by myself at about 12:30 a.m. There were about 2 inches of snow on the grass. The snow was heavily preceded by rain (days worth) and also followed by rain, so the girls informed me the next day that it was "crunchy," but hey. It was SNOW! And their excitement the next morning was beautiful. "I KNEW it would snow!" Sparrow gushed. She said she had kept trying to wake Golden to tell her in the morning, but Golden kept mumbling that it was only "jackfrost," and didn't want to get up. Finally she was convinced to look, and then you can bet she was WIDE awake! I love those little snow fairies. Now let's have a foot or so! I want to see it come down and I want to say, as in "Despicable Me," *IT'S SO FLUFFY!* ...Though in that movie, she was referring to a unicorn. =) My magic will be snow.

November and December Quotes

 Sp: "If someone tried to buy God, He'd cost more than the highest number anyone could count to!" -Nov. 14

G: "Mom, Jesus died on a tree. But not the kind with leaves." -Nov. 15

Sp: "It would be horrible to not be alive. You can't even think when you're dead. The only thing I would know is that I was not alive." -Nov. 17

Sp: "Mom, I know the devil's not my dad, but if he were somebody's dad, he would be the most horrible dad ever, to his child." -Nov. 17

me: "Goodnight, Silas."
Silas: "'Ight, Mom."
me: "I love you."
Silas: "No." -Nov. 17
(I thought this was soooooo funny, because he barely talks at all. His dry "no." I wonder what he really meant. LOL.)


G: "Mom, there's more than one dad in the world."
me: "Oh yeah?"
Sp: "Yeah--there's more than 100!"
G: "Even there's one hundred and 99." -November 19

Sp: "Ugh, I feel car sick and I don't want to go over the really bumpely part."
me: "Well, it's only really bumpely if Dad's not looking at the road."
G: "Dad, please don't look at the road." -Nov. 23

G: "Daddy a little bit doesn't fit in the car with his hat on." -Nov. 25

G: "Not the food kind of chicken. The animal kind." -Nov. 27

S: "Mom, are the cells in my body waterproof?" -Nov. 27

me: "...So 'green' is just a way to say 'good for the earth.'"
Sp: "Worms are definitely very green." -Nov. 27

Sp, pretending to be reading a newspaper: "Golden! This is so sad! It says here that a police officer was killing a caterpillar, just because he was fuzzy. Says here, in this section. That's the caterpillar. Going to heaven." -Nov. 27

G: "She's being in the hidey-est place she can find, Mom!" -Nov. 28

G: "I can't walk over there, cause my feet might get pikely."(she meat "poked by pine needles." LOL!) -Nov. 29

G: "Mom, I want a pegasus named Vanilla." -Nov. 29

G: "I want that dress, remember?"
me: "What dress?"
G: " Remember? It was ugly, but I didn't think so, but you put it on me." -Nov. 29

Sp: "Mom, there have been *some* moments when I've forgotten all about my troubles. Until I remember that I've forgotten about them." -December 1

me: "Pippa is so cute! We are so lucky to have more babies than you can shake a stick at."
Sp: "Mom, if we had a MILLION twins at the same time, I would shake a rattle at one of them, and they would ALL try to attack me." -Dec. 2

Golden's poem, early December:
I will as I won't
I will as I will
I will as I won't as I will

"Mom, my favorite present in all the world, would be a dog and a cat. with mothers and brothers and sisters and babies." O.o. -Golden, Dec. 22

Sp: "When I was little I used to think that hell was like a gray room in a basement, and you went down the hall and then turned left and then went straight and turned right and turned left and turned right and went through a door, and there was the devil, sitting on a pile of trash." -Dec. 22

Sp: "My favorite present in all the world would be to be healthy."
me: "You ARE healthy. Let's praise God for your health. Thank you Lord that this girl is healthy!"
Sp: "I'm glad that's an early Christmas present." -Dec. 22

Sp: "Mom, winter is the time when things cost the most money, because the store workers need to buy presents, so they need high prices. –Dec. 23

G: "Daddy, when you grow up, are you going to be a great artist?" -Dec. 26

(I was sick and Silas was grumpy.)

Sp: "Mom, this life wasn't supposed to turn out like this, with our mama sick and our little brother screaming." -Nov. 26

"G: "Mom, I'm gonna tell everyone in the whole world what an idiot is. I mean, not everyone, but all our friends who don't know what idiots are." -Dec. 28

Sp: “Isn’t it amazing that there are millions of tiny cells in my body? And God is so big, his cells are THIS BIG." (holds up fingers to indicate the size of an olive) –Dec. 29

 

 

Silas: Silas is almost 2 1/2 and doesn't seem to feel the need to speak very much. His mind is mystifying me, cause he normally pronounces the ends of words instead of the beginnings. He is a cuddle BUG and usually wakes up with a huge smile, and comes in trailing his blankie in the morning. He loves to eat carbs and to follow his sisters around in their games. He loves reading, pointing out and saying the names of colors (the ends of them, anyways), and gets excited about all kinds of machines and trucks, of course. He is very conscientious about cleaning messes, always running for a towel when he spills something. He even empties his own potty and rinses it out!!! When we finally get him to go #2 in it, we'll have to discourage that, I suppose! Here he is on New Years' Eve, enjoying his bubble water.

Pippa: Pippa is 9 months old and just got her 1st tooth. She is a superfast crawler, sometimes stands up without holding on to anything, and has learned about CLIFFS of the stairs and beds variety--what a relief! Now she just perches patiently on the landing, if she's crawled up the 3 stairs in our living room--I don't have to emergency-dash to catch her so much anymore! She is a good sleeper and takes several long naps per day. Her cheeks are very round and rosy (or irritated, but it makes them red!) and we are all forever kissing her. She does some pretty good imitations already and loves to play  "flip" on our bed. It's fun to see her sense of humor come out. She definitely has her "mama" word down but also says "dada" and "baba" (for pippa). She frequently eats paper, and I have to do the heimlich on her like twice a day, man! Here she is eating my dress, trying to get me to stop making snowflakes of a Sunday morning.

Hello December

Yesterday we did the unthinkable: we got our family picture taken at a generic JC Penney studio! Yeah! All my photographer friends, please don't hate me. Hah. Hah. Hah. I can live with myself anyway. We got all 6 of us looking at the camera at the same time AND with good lighting on us, now that is something! And it was free. Yeah! Just say we did it for grandma. (But it was really for me.)

Today i took the children to a gingerbread house decorating event at the circuit. The gingerbread houses were gorgeously put together and we had been planning this for months. Then Sparrow met a girl named Wren who was her same age! Then we found out Wren didn't have her own gingerbread house and we gave her Silas's since that boy was only in it for the candy. Then Silas cried. Then I got him a baggie of leftover Halloween candy out of the car and then he sat there happily eating it for an hour. Until it made him not so happy anymore. Then he was grumpy and cried about everything. Well to tell the truth, Golden was kind of eating most of her candy as well and I was having a hard time trying to get her to put any on her house! LOL. Then we went home and Silas was a crying wreck and then I put him down for a nap without brushing his teeth. Eeek! Then I read to the girls outside while they ate all the candy off their gingerbread houses (yes, we did have lunch first. at least.) And then they took a bath while I took the other two children outside for a bit--since it was not at all rainy and maybe even a little warm in the sun. Then the big girls gave themselves a bath and even washed each other's hair! Yes, yes yes! My work here is done! I am now entering the easy (er) phase of motherhood! SO what that they washed it with bubble bath instead of shampoo! They dried themselves off, dressed themselves, and came outside again, only to start digging in the garden and pulling up any extra carrots that were still in the ground from the summer. There were a lot! And despite being tiny and not very orange, they were sweet, and really good!!! Then we ate a bunch of salad and soup and chips and corn and beans and then I took the children to church by myself. Cause I am supermom. I was calling very loudly to my son to come follow me when I opened the door to go in, and realized they were in the middle of praying! Ooooooooooops! *Sheepish look.* I much enjoyed worship despite taking people to the bathroom and kissing a bunch of booboos and making sure the children dancing with flags were not stabbing each other or scraping the mural off the wall the whole time. I even had to take one little one outside for a lecture after having to chase her down in the sanctuary because she was crying and screaming and running away! (She did not WANT her shoes on!) Aaaack! The sermon was a little more mellow, with only the baby nursing and bouncing on me and bumping her head several times over. I still took so many notes. Then I bought them generic Cheetos at the Family Dollar and gave them this terrible snack on the way home despite the girls not listening when it was time to leave! What have I become!?! And the craziness of bedtime ensued at home, and I STILL never brushed Silas' teeth! God love 'im. I am falling asleep now. Now. Now. That was my day. I should be so lucky. Good night.

Virginia in November...and Cookies

People said I would love Fall here, and they were right. Every time the children saw a leaf float down in October they would shout, "the leaves are falling, the leaves are falling! That means Christmas is coming! And snow!" Yet the leaves didn't really seem to be turning colors until after "Superstorm Sandy" (Which didn't affect us that much, by the way. Just a lot of rain). Then all of a sudden it was cold, and the trees got out their colorful coats!  We have been collecting and pressing the things like crazy. Sparrow got a leaf press from our friend Judy a few months back, and that is a COOL thing to have right now! The other day I found myself wildly shaking this poor little tree at the park, because seriously, it had the most vibrant, perfect leaves I've ever seen. It was just a spindly little thing with not very many leaves, but the leaves it did have, it did right! Afterward I felt a little bad because I stripped it of its glory. But we made a fine leaf garland and some Thanksgiving cards out of them, sooo.... it's ok, right? We went to the park again today and it took a lot of self-control for me not to shake that thing down again--it had MORE perfect leaves on it! But I swore I had done enough damage. I am learning to respect the environment and not be so greedy... sigh.

We spent the afternoon making fall and winter-themed ginger cookies--from a low sugar recipe I made up. Here it is, for all of you fans of baking. They were a big hit. Sparrow told me they are her favorite thing to eat ever--even better than chocolate chip cookies, and that's saying something!

Low-Sugar Ginger Cookies

Group 1:
1 c. whole wheat flour
1 c. white flour (or use 2 c. whole wheat or whatever flour you want, really!)
1 1/2 c. oat flour (I made my own by griding oats in the blender)
1 teaspoon BS (guess that BS word!)*
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon salt
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Group 2:
1 cup butter, room temp
1/4 c. BS (guess that BS word!)**
1/4 c. (scant) stevia (use 2 Tablespoons if unsure)
1/4 c. molasses
1/4 c. maple syrup
1 large egg

Combine all ingredients in group 1.
Beat butter and BS together til light and fluffy. Add stevia. Beat. Add molasses. Beat. Add maple syrup. Beat. Add egg. Beat. Check flavor. =) Mix in group 1 to make a stiff dough. Refrigerate in plastic or an airtight container for 3 hours or up to 2 days.
When ready to bake, heat oven to 350 degrees.
Roll out your dough, cut out shapes, and bake 12-14 minutes (or to the tune your oven demands).

You could ice this or drizzle melted chocolate on top. I am thinking maple icing with that fake maple extract in it (gasp!). But honestly, really really seriously, these cookies so delicious just plain. Thanks to all that butter. I didn't ice ours because the children are technically on a no-sugar fast right now. And no one who ate these at our house said they could tell there was stevia in them. I personally did notice the stevia aftertaste, but it doesn't really bother me. (I buy my stevia from Trader Joe's. Maybe there is a brand you know of that has no aftertaste. Use whatever floats your boat. I'd love to try these with xylitol next time.)

*Baking Soda
**Brown Sugar

=) Enjoy your guilt-free ginger cookies. And remember that butter is good for you. Yes it is.