We made it through Halloween, with ninja zombie, vampire and a princess getting enough scares and treats to hold them for at least a week.  Cotton would like to know when the next day for trick or treating is. She's asking hourly. If anyone would like to rent a 3 year old full of questions, please call.

Friends came over again this year, and it's actually cooled off enough that I used my oven and made lasagna!  It was pretty exciting--having other adults coming to eat meant I could cook food touched other food.

Seph's gotten her first report card, and got all As. This means she's on the honor roll, and gets a coupon to free buffet at CiCi's Pizza. All the kids are very excited about this, as you'd expect. The fun thing is that even though I have a long-standing dislike of buffet with the kids (I do too much walking around, not enough eating), this is an exception because of the macaroni and cheese pizza. Yes! Not an error! Macaroni and Cheese. Pizza.  Cracks me up every time. Because what's not funny about that? You can completely imagine how this happened:

"Hey. Boss? This macaroni and cheese isn't selling very well."

<looks around at the rest of the buffet>

<notices it is ALL pizza>

"Boss, howzabout I put some of this macaroni and cheese on a pizza? Let's see what happens."

What makes it even crazier is that it is those tube noodles shaped like telephone cords, back when phones had cords.

One of the benefits of having Seph up early is that there are a lot more daylight hours to get things done. No fun things, of course, but as the nice policeman pointed out, I was way overdue for renewing my license. He helpfully pointed out several other things wrong with my car, and the quality of the paperwork residing in my dashboard (unsuitable). So we got that done and are now at the library for Rone to play games. Cotton went to preschool this morning, they are doing dinosaurs this month--reading dino stories, stomping their dino feet. She likes it very much. Last week was her first big show, and she reminded us to come hourly. When we got there, the kids were showing off their art first, and Cotton opened her arms as wide as she could and said,"Welcome to my art show!". After that was the play, where the kids acted out while their teacher read a story about rain. It was cute, and now several parents have an excellent couple of minutes of video showing how very, very careful Cotton is when she picks her nose on stage.

It's all about school lately. Cotton started preschool today, at a little arts center.  It's just two days a week, but it will give Rone and I some time to do things besides answer questions every fifteen seconds.  Seph is still doing the public school 5th grade thing, and so far it's been, well, it's a lot of things. It's early, long, interesting, boring, surprising, hard, stupid, strange, and EARLY.  

Seph's dealt much more easily with the change of hours than I have--she gets up, eats, gets some basic hygienic matters attended to, packs up a lunch, squares away her backpack, and then comes to get me up to do the driving to school part.  Sometimes I manage to get up to make her breakfast, but she's really taken charge of the whole thing and been really responsible about it.  She is finding school different than she expected, but they are finally settling into a routine and I think that's making things a bit easier.  There are good days and bad, and dull days mixed in, but overall she's learning quite a bit, if less than I'd thought she would academically.  We'd figured she'd have several subjects, with textbooks, and homework and quizzes, with reading assignments and writing.  Between my memories and her reading of fiction we assembled a picture that has been surprisingly wrong (no textbooks come home, ever!), but still useful (sometimes, people aren't nice, and you still need to sit in a room with them!).  Overall, we're kind of constantly evaluating in a way that isn't dissimilar from how I homeschool.

You keep what's helpful, chuck what isn't working, and hope for the best.

In Rone news, today he read that a roll of toilet paper is usually 114.7 feet long. He read this in a book of bathroom facts--where the flip did that come from? Did I buy him an entire huge book of poop and potty facts? I need to pay more attention.  So he read that, and then what else could we do? We had to test it. It was more complicated than he'd hoped it would be, but he stuck with it. Turns out? Our doublerolls? MORE THAN DOUBLE! Go math!

We're all really enjoying our record streak of 100 degree days. Rone likes it because I've decided to let him start taking anything that doesn't work apart, Cotton because she gets to play Wii (Everybody Dance Now!), and Seph because she gets to play with the curling iron.  None of these things really came up much before getting in the car required a pre-cooling every dang day.

Seph is also plotting her takeover of the local elementary school. She'll be heading into fifth grade this fall, and is very excited.  We're doing things like buying lunchboxes, and our neighbor is going to take her shopping for new clothes for school, since department stores make me panicky.  It will be a big change for all of us (hello 7am!), but I think it's going to work out well.  Tiny will be heading to preschool two mornings a week, as well, which will give Rone and I some time to work on the things he likes to do--unscrew things and catch bugs. 

We were at a friend's house for supper last night, and Cotton tramped into the room to holler, " I found a YEASTER egg! It's a yeaster egg!!!". And true enough, she'd found a candy-filled plastic egg that had been hidden since spring. If there is unattended candy in her vicinity, that kid will find it.

Without warning, at about 4pm today it became Haircut Day.

I've had clippers for a while, and Rone had finally had enough of his hair, so I tried to remember all that my friend had told me while she let me watch her cut her husband's hair. It was unsurprising that the details were hazy, even though she repeated the lesson on my husband.  I plowed on, knowing that he's 7, and really doesn't know from good hair.  He knows that his long hair is cool, though. Even so, the idea of not having to comb it won out. 

So we sat on the deck, and ran an extension cord out. It turned out ok, but I really don't know how to do the finishing bits--the back of the neck and his crazy sideburns, around his ears. So hopefully it doesn't look all that weird, and at least now it's short. Which makes his dad happy.

Cotton and Seph are even less expertly done, since they wanted shortening, but not #2-comb-with-the-clippers-short. So they look like their mom cut their hair straight across the back.  Which is exactly what happened. If this gives some other parents out there a moment of smug when they see the lack of salon quality hair trimming, so be it. I cannot deal with a kid hair salon wait, trying to convince Tiny that we don't need bean bags, hair dye, nail polish, lipstick and candy.  It's tough enough getting through a grocery store!

Seph's arrived home from a weekend trip to Mustang Island with a friend and her family, and the other two and I spent the weekend soaking in water as much as possible. We took a trip to Emma Long, which is a great place for Cotton to swim--there is a big roped off section, and much of it is only waist-deep on her, so she had lots of room to explore.  There were shells to find, and waves from the boats going by, and we got a shady spot for me to supervise from, so it was a pretty successful trip.

We also hit a letterbox on the hiking trail, but it was just the first one of a series.  The trail normally wanders over and around a creek, and without the water, hiking a few miles in the heat was less than appealing. So we got the first one, and headed to the beach.  The kids also got a letterbox while they were at Nanna Camp, which is pretty cool.  Rone was wondering as we drove home from the park, " I wonder how many stamps I'll have when I'm seventeen years old?"

Since July and August are like hot winter here, we have lots of projects. I've been making collages (though it is harder than you'd think to find time to glue), the kids are working on their magazine, and Cotton continues her psychological warfare, making sure anyone else in the house doesn't go stringing thoughts together that don't involve her.  I may have our neighbor run a sewing class here in the house for Seph and a few others, which could be interesting. And Rone and I have grand plans for un-bricking a section of the front yard for raised garden beds.  So far this means piles of brick.

I'm gearing up for school planning, and generally trying to declutter. It seems the faster I move stuff out the door, the more it multiplies, though.  

Here is a shot of the kids at our park, in cooler times.

It's quiet. So quiet that I can sometimes even hear myself think.  It's unusual, and my brain is still trying to adjust.  So far, I've been able to string two thoughts together a few times.

The kids are visiting in Alabama, so I have time to work on the thinking project. I also have a list of other projects, but we'll see. This thinking thing might catch on.

Mom visited and we got a lot seen and done despite the blistering heat.  We visited the Capitol (saw a photo session for a quiceanera!), hit two famous bbq towns, and got the kids' bikes decorated for my neighborhood's first ever Fourth of July Parade.  We also got to see Ghostbusters at the drive-in, get caught in the rain, and see The Last Unicorn. It was a great visit, and the kids and I got to spend lots of time with Mom.

Hopefully this is the start of a brand new era of blogging and thinking up thoughts.

After going for a good long stretch, we were felled by the flu. It was pretty trying, since it hit just as Seph's slumber party was getting underway. She didn't get it until later, but the other two kids and I were a mess. Helpfully, Chance hurt his back in the middle of all our patheticness, so could moan from the floor to set the proper mood.  The kids and I are now onto the coughing phase, and Chance got sick just as his back felt better.  

The upside is that I was sick enough to hate food for several days, and my pants fit better now!

We've been having trouble getting back in the swing of things. Since about February, when we had the roof fixed, our normal schedule has been out the window, so not a lot of seatwork/schoolwork getting done. Seph is working on a book, with very cute pictures that she draws in crayon.  Rone has finally finished his huge lego ship, and is working on robots now.  Seph is signed up for a theater camp, and hopefully Rone will get in off the wait list (I KNOW! what on earth! he's being a good sport about it, though) for the camp he wanted.

Being sick led to a bit of a hiccup on the potty training front, so we are all working on that project with Cotton. Hopefully she'll be back on track soon. 

Here is a random assortment of pictures:

I know! It has been too long. It is possible I can get back to more regular posting, if only because my computer is upstairs and it usually takes the kids a few minutes to find me. Not that I would ever hide from them. Or anything like that.

We are all enjoying spring, bluebonnets up and still cool enough to keep the AC off. Today we went to the library and the fish store--Cotton would very much like to still be there. I am not sure what kind of life she pictured at the fish store, but it involved a lot of,"Come see!!! Come see!" As I am sitting here typing, the first crickets I've heard started chirping!

Spring is easily my favorite Texas season ( of the two). We went to the rodeo, where we really lucked out because Tiny was just big enough to hit the mark for going on the little kid rides by herself. So the big kids could do their rides, and Cotton could do hers, while I did my traditional rodeo thing and got an ugly sunburn on my face. I even had sunscreen in the car, which Chance helpfully pointed out is not the optimal way to use it. And in a rodeo first, I lost the two older ones, each for a brief time. Helpfully, I have drilled it into them to stay put. Which for Seph meant stay the heck put, and for Rone meant wander around kind of trying to stay nearby.

Seph is plotting a slumber party for her birthday, with singing and dancing and her brother and sister in a far off land (movie theater with babysitter). Rone finished his first season of flag football, and learned a lot. Cotton is out of diapers, and is pursuing a rigorous course of psychological warfare on the rest of us. Chance, being Chance, is mostly immune, but the other two and I have had to develop thick skins and deaf ears. Logic and reason have no place in the brain of a three year old, and the big kids find it trying. With luck she will get over this phase soon and stick to being the silly cutie we all love. I will get some pictures up soon, and try to keep posting, along with letting the kids post now and then.