Day One: Back to School

Although we were all a little hesitant to head back, the kids seemed to have a great first day of school, even if I only have sketchy photographic evidence of it.

As always, my children weren't really on board with me getting even one photo of them all together. They don't believe in that. Azia & Zoran were game for anything, Israel was annoyed and ready to walk to school more than an hour before it started and was impatient. He wanted to leave as soon as everyone was waking up. Lex needed a little additional time waking up and wasn't ready to immediately be involved in anything except a few giant plates of huckleberry pancakes. Dev thinks it's silly and annoying if I ever want to take pictures where I need people to cooperate at all, so he just told Israel to leave and Lex was still wrapped up in his blanket.

So, our group picture is a sort of collage:

Israel did some checking of his morning messages before leaving, Zoran enjoyed some pancakes, and Lex continued to sleep while everyone else started their day.

About three hours later Lex did get up and decided to measure himself like all the other kids did in the morning.  When he scooted up to the measuring chart he saw the big "3" right in front of his face and told me he was three inches. I explained to him it was three feet, and he told me that was just silly: "People don't have three feet, Mom! Look I have two, you have two. . . everyone only has two! What are you talking about three feet?"

I suppose he does have a point, though he may tell people for the immediate future that he is three inches tall.

Zoran discovered it was sort of hard to remember how to tie up those new shoes after not wearing any shoes at all for three months!

We stopped at the end of the driveway to take a couple pictures and Zoran turned around and started peeing in the field. Hopefully this socializing  & moving back to civilized days isn't too abrupt.


When I couldn't even get the kids to look at me for a picture I decided to take my favorite new shoes and backpack feet shot. . . and then I realized none of the shoes (except Zoran's) or backpacks are even new. Oh well.

 We found some friends and couple cousins once we arrived at school. Maysa & Paisley were getting there the same time we were.

Zoran and Azia were both really excited to go back this morning. It made the day so much better.

Zoran told me last night his two favorite days of the year were the first and the last. The last was quite a lot better, but the first wasn't too bad because there was always a little bit of discovery and not too much work.

We're going to work on not being so against the work part, but a little bit of discovery is a pretty good thing to hope for every day.

On to day two.

Winter Portraits

 the whole gang

Israel

Azia

Zoran

Lex

Azia trying to make her little brother look presentable

sort of difficult when they both think they're puppies

Duke & Israel

Azia & Yettie

December 11, 2011

Fall. Kids.

 

Leaves.

Someday my kids' kids might enjoy fall leaves in my yard.

Luckily for now they have Yaya & Papa's yard.

 I love feet photos. So much of my kids' personality comes out in what they look like from the knees down.

We had to track down Lex's boots before we were leaving this today. When I told him he'd left them over at Iyezk's and we were going to stop and get them on the way out, he said "Oh, good. I really love those boots."

My three boys. . .  the littlest one is a little hidden. 

And my one beautiful girl. 

I'm pretty fond of my little gang.

Day 21: Halloween Runaways

Whenever I try to take a photo of all my kids together this is what happens: they all run away. And Lex screams and cries (and also runs away). Sort of works for this photo though. I wanted to get a big chain to hook them all together, but we didn't get that organized. So once again, they've all escaped from me.

Pumpkin Carving

Lex was pretty excited about the pumpkin carving. But Lex is pretty excited about most things that involve tools.

 We finally carved pumpkins a few days ago. Well, the kids carved pumpkins. I sort of watched and tried to prevent any major knife injuries. I only carve a pumpkin about every three years it seems. Probably because it usually doesn't seem that fun. I don't even help my kids do theirs. I like them to have ownership over their projects. And again, just not really that fun. The process must have been more interesting than the final product because as I was downloading the photos I realized I don't even have the necessary shot of all the finished pumpkins all lined up with candles in them. Guess I'll have to take that tomorrow.

Lex spent the first part of the time just trying to smuggle all the pumpkins away so he could more easily throw them to the ground and smash them. He was really annoyed I wouldn't just let him smash all the pumpkins. Although now that I think about it smashing them doesn't seem any more crazy than chopping them up with knives. 

He was annoyed about the no-smashing-all-the-pumpkins rule until he realized everyone had knives. Then he spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to get himself some knives. He got really mad when I'd take them away. When he showed up with the pizza cutter I finally just let him go at it. It's probably terribly unsafe, too, but he did not end up bloody. (This evening at least.)

He was quite proud of the work he was doing on the pumpkin.  And I have no idea why it didn't occur to me to give him one of the tiny little pumpkin carving tools we have in the kitchen drawer.

Luckily Lex has a big sister who looks out for him since his mom is a slacker. Azia was disturbed Lex's carving wasn't quite up to her standards so she did a little artist conference and he showed her where to put some eyes and she helped him out.

This is really Azia's type of thing. I can imagine in a few years she might come up with some pretty cool pumpkins.

Israel is a bit obsessed with the Dukes of Hazard this week. So...his pumpkin had a theme.

And no, I didn't do a great job of keeping all the sharp knives away from him. Every time on of the bigger kids would put one down he's grab it. Fooling him like we did the last few years with the butter knife didn't really work. He knows how much better the sharp ones work.

Poor Zoran got a bit of a late start because he had a break down when he realized Azia had the best pumpkin and the one he wanted and no other one would do. (Even though he hadn't said anything to anyone about this earlier and Azia was already carving the pumpkin.) He did eventually get over it and choose another.

This is Azia's pumpkin. She said it's a football player. He's crying (blood) because he doesn't get to play very often. Israel told her if that was some kind of rude joke about him he was going to get her back. She said it wasn't. She might have been lying. Good thing they both have short memories.

They carved so long apparently it became night before they finished.

Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

Day 13: Pumpkin Carving

Day 8: Mastering the Corn Maze

October 4, 2010: Picture Day

Azia can have her room destroyed before 8am.

So today was picture day at school. I wasn't buying any photos so I didn't really think much about it, but I did tell my kids this morning "Brush your hair, it's picture day."  I generally like them to brush their hair everyday, but I can't say we're great at achieving that goal 100% of the time. Too many kids. Too much hair. But I thought it was good to remind them this morning. They will be visible in the yearbook pictures for everyone else after all, and I don't need everyone we know aware of how far we are from that 100% goal. Even when I watch them brush it, sometimes as I'm dropping them off I'll see one of them from a different angle and realize there's a full 25% of bedhead left. Azia's favorite trick is the pretending-its-all-brushed-under-this-hoodie  approach. As I was leaving this morning I went to tell Azia to get in the car and she came out of her room still in her pajamas. She hadn't even started to get ready since I'd last seen her a half hour earlier. I started to yell at her because I thought she'd gone back to sleep or was locked in her room drawing cats the whole time (it has happened before) but then I walked in & saw this scene. She had potential outfits covering most of the area of her room. That's even one hanging from the light in the foreground. She even drug all her bins of clothes from out of her closet. As I looked around she just whined, "I don't know what to wear!!" I think I had caused her some stress with no forewarning about this picture day thing. I just threw her some jeans and a simple shirt and boots and she was fine with that choice, but when she came out a few minutes later and headed for the car she still hadn't brushed her hair. She got some of it calmed down on the way out the door. 

Later in the day when I saw some other facebook posts about middle school photo day I got a little worried. Usually they do it a different day than the elementary so I hadn't even reminded Israel to brush his hair. Or checked to make sure he actually changed out of the sweats he slept in before heading out the door. When he got home this evening I asked if he had pictures taken. 

"Oh. Yes."  

I asked if that's what he wore. (A sleeveless baseball shirt from about 5 years ago which he still had on after football practice and dinner.)  

"Oh. Yes. And it was... awesome." 

He went on to show me his sideways poise, the over-the-shoulder glance and smirk, and how he flexed his giant bicep right as they took the photo. "Oh, yeah," he said, bicep flexing again, nodding at the memory of the awesomeness of this photo he'd had taken earlier in the day. 

As Israel was still flexing in the middle of the kitchen, I looked over his shoulder at Zoran at the counter, with a very messy mop of blue hair, eating his 3rd bowl of Cheerios of the day. "Zoran, did you brush your hair before pictures today?"

"It doesn't matter, Mom. I still looked good." And he was done talking to me and back to the Cheerios.

My kids aren't lacking in the confidence department. Someday, maybe they'll make some progress with the personal hygiene.