Order In Chaos

Today is…Thursday Oct 28, 2010

Today’s activities were brought to you by:

A mother in a book.

This mother really just wanted to read.

The result: Chaos.

First, dancing. And singing. Repetitive, annoying, but helpfully distracting singing:

Doesn’t look that crazy, you say? Then you must try hard to imagine The Dog singing clips of “Who Let the Dogs Out?” while Giant sang along. And The Dinosaur adding “Please Don’t Stop the Music,” at sudden starts and stops as Ettin pressed the button repetitively. And the fighting over who got which one. And the baby crying.

And the momma trying to read.

Realizing the futility in this endeavor, and that I needed to add some Order to the day somehow, I brought out the Gospel Picture, and we prayed.

The Gospel Picture focused on the prophet Mormon abridging the plates:

Giants first question was, “Why is his foot on the paper mom?”:

Huh.

Good question. I’m still pondering on that one.

(This is an especially cute question since his Daddy has been very insistent lately that no one should ever-under-any-circumstances step on a book. Ever. Apparently this has been processed mentally somewhat by Giant…though not in practice.)

The next comment was, “Oh, that must be Joseph Smith because he has his book.”:

Close Giant, very close.

We talked about how Joseph Smith wouldn’t get that book for a very long time, but because Mormon did such a lot of work we are able to read from the Book of Mormon now.

Then we looked at our Morning Message:

Giant was more interested about tomorrow, Friday, and a party we’ll be going to.

Ettin came over to contribute:

Since my kids were a bit drippy nose-wise, we didn’t go out to Stay and Play.

Instead, I tried to distract them with various activities so that I could read my book some more.

PlayDough:

Lincoln Logs:

Wow, the Chaos I allow for a little reading time!

I finished my book before lunch.

And then spent a long time cleaning.

After lunch and the little ones were napping, I pulled out a craft:

We were getting ready to assemble and glue the skeleton when Galoot woke up cranky and hungry.

So I quickly stuffed most of the skeleton away before he was broken up and used for parts.

I did say most.

Today is…Wednesday Oct 27, 2010

(Haaaaappppppppppyyyyyyyy Haaaallllloooooowwwwweeeeeennnnnn!!!! Very soon.)

We looked at our Gospel Picture:

Enos praying. And we talked about how Heavenly Father hears our prayers and will answer them as we pray in faith.

We prayed. (“Whoops, you forgot, didn’t you mom?” Yes, I did. —We usually pray first to start our learning time on the right note, and then move on to our picture and message)

We looked at our Morning Message (why does capitalizing that make it feel so much more official?):

Note the Hallowe’en bling from our party last night: light stick and slinky.Very precious.

Ettin worked on Galoot’s chair:

And then he worked on our message Message with us:

Then we bundled up and went off to the gym.

But alas:

There was no gym. Another Ward was setting up for their Hallowe’en party, so we went back home. Ettin was not happy to be taken back inside.

I tried to sweeten the deal with stories:

And then…PUMPKIN CARVING!!!

(I may have been more excited about it than the boys.)

Giant got a knife for himself and a spoon for Ettin, so Giant could cut and Ettin could take out the guts:

Thanks Giant.

I’m sure Ettin was honoured:

But not very impressed (that’s Ettin’s finger hesitating at the top of the pumpkin. I think he took a scoop with his spoon and then went for the knife. Which I promptly removed to the kitchen sink until I was ready to use it again).

Giant didn’t really like the guts either:

But he did like colouring the face of his Jack-O-Lantern:

And so did Ettin:

We finished up our pumpkins:

And then got on to the most important part of pumpkin carving, the SEEDS!

Yum!

Then the boys did Independent play (trains!) while I made muffins for lunch (and was reminded that 1 tsp of baking soda really makes a difference in how muffins turn out):

After Ettin and Galoot went down for Naps, Giant declared he wasn’t feeling very good and soon followed:

And I blissfully read my book quietly by myself.

Until Giant threw up.

And Ettin woke up.

And Galoot woke up.

And they all needed to be held.

(quiet alone time is short-lived in the life of a mom. Thankfully, I love being a mom)

Joy

Happiness is….

NEW CHALK

My boy found a fresh piece of chalk in our art cupboard today.

I had been saving it for when our nubs of chalk became totally ungraspable.

But, he was jumping up and down.

And I’m pretty sure he said, “Thank you mommy for buying us new chalk” about three times.

I just couldn’t take it back!

My poor deprived, but weirdly happy child.

I wonder if I should tell him that peice of chalk was only ONE piece of chalk from a BOX of chalk. A box of COLOURED chalk at that!

Naw. It might be too much for his poor, deprived little soul to take.

Today is…Tuesday Oct 26, 2010

(Oh boy Oh boy Oh boy….HALLOWE’EN is coming!!!!!)

Today we…

Prayed.

We looked at a gospel picture:

We talked about Nephi and his family traveling on the boat.

Then I tried to get them ready to go to gymnastics.

We were ON SCHEDULE for getting there ON TIME.

But Giant REALLY wanted to do the message.

“Please mom? What does it say?”

Seriously.

Accepting a little lateness in my life, I looked at the message with Giant:

Which thankfully really only takes a couple of minutes.

Then we bundled up and walked to gymnastics in the light snow fall.

Yes, it was snowing today.

My kids were estatic.

Me, not so much.

After gymnastics, we picked up Giant’s new frames from the optometrist. Hooray! We promised to try and keep them out of Ettin’s hands, and hope to have a longer lived pair of glasses.

After lunch and after Ettin went down for a nap (Galoot hung out for a while in his bouncy chair), Giant and I worked on a Hallowe’en costume.

Daddy’s Hallowe’en costume.

A cyborg.

This entails a delightful amount of circuitry and hardware which Giant and I enjoyed ripping out of dead equipment.

A keyboard:

A projector:

And a laptop:

Giant’s favourite part?

Popping keys off the keyboard (they really go flying!):

(Yes, this is homeschooling. It works with our Hallowe’en theme, and he is learning all sorts of interesting electronic stuff. Like how to delicately dismantle a computer with a mallet.)

Daddy wore his costume with all of our great finds to the Hallowe’en party at the church.

Thankfully my friend took  pictures of us at the Hallowe’en party we went to, since my camera’s batteries died after one picture. I’ll post them when I get them!

Entranced

We went to the library today.

And now my son is stuck in a book:

…on the front steps:

…and won’t come inside:

Have fun, little Ettin. Mommy understands.