We've just got Tiny here, and while she can still be handful on her own, one kid is much more easily dealt with than 3. Given all the excitement lately, potty training false starts, I had to go to the doctor (have medicine now, don't worry, Mom), and chickens needing herding, and Nanna and Papa arriving for the big trip, it was a lot going on, and I'm glad to have the chance to read a book.

Naturally, I don't, of course. I sit and zone out, and think about books I'd read if I had the energy to get my tush to the library. Hopefully with enough cash to cover our extensive subsets of fines--with the kids having their own cards, they crept up on me!

In the videos section, you can check out Seph's singing chicks video. I can get it up over there, but not here.

The joys of the interwebs!

Cotton has discovered that her favorite place in the yard is where the grass is gone under the swings. Because that is where you add water to make fun!

At a petting zoo, angling for more pets

Looking to become a singing sensation

Digging for treasure

The chickens look like chickens now, not molting messes. Which is nice, because the whole time they were in transition I worried I wasn't taking care of them properly. I suppose I'll have about 12 years of that while the kids suffer their own adolescence.

Is there a coop for that?

Seph has made it through her birthday, with a trip to the rodeo, sleepover, and then a cake playtime with friends. Her cake was less elaborate than some, but required quite a bit of planning anyway, since the skull and crossbones had to be JUST RIGHT. The cake was devil's food, in keeping with the theme.

We dyed our eggs last night, hunted them up this morning, and Rone was very excited about the entire process.He dictated a note to Seph for the Easter Bunny, and left cookies and a carrot out. Cotton was entirely mystified, but glad the day started, middled and ended with candy. We visited with friends for ham and an egg hunt this afternoon, and the kids ran around in a candy-seeking pack, which was more relaxing than it reads.

Cotton is talking a lot. It's mystifying to me that I nearly brought her for an evaluation just over a year ago for not really having any words. Now, she'll walk up to anyone and start talking, "I AM A PRINCESS!" (pause for twirl) "I HAVE A DRESS" "IMA NEED CANDY" "RONE HIT ME BONK". And on and on like that. She still sometimes resorts to her tried and true method of communicating, "ahmanaahmana, umanaumana COOKIE!" (I want a cookie!), but mostly we're in a phase of short exclamatory sentences. All. Day. Long. If it's worth saying, say it loud!

Tonight when we got home, the kids let the chickens out and swang a while out back. It was nice, because I was up here working while Cotton got settled, and could hear them. I peeked out, and saw Rone swinging about as high as our swingset will let him. As he came forward he yelled, "THREE!" and jumped. He just flew, landed and rolled. Watching him was so fun--he's been trying to work out how to jump off for a bit now, and the grin when he got up was great to see. Seph got the hang of it shortly after, and it was a good way for them to work out some of the candy rush from the day's odd nutritional standards.

I believe that even more important than healthcare is a national review of what traffic signs mean. Because I appear to be the only one over the age of three or so reading them (S-T-O-P! That says STOP! 3yo's love traffic signs!).

Today I yielded, then went when it was clear. The person on the other side of the road, with the same instructions, paused, evaluated the occupied lane, and decided she was more important. Then, realizing her error, decided to try my lane. Happily, she was driving a Mustang, so I knew to be ready for nonsense.

At this precise moment, Rone made a bizarre noise. So while I'm looking for room to dodge the idiot that doesn't involve a concrete barrier, I'm also trying to sort out what is wrong with him. Turns out he's panicked, not because Mom is swerving around, but because Cotton is throwing up. And throwing up. And then more throwing up. She's much calmer about Rone about it, though, because she's chosen this 90 second segment of time to be as helpful as she can. While throwing up.

So I try to explain to Rone that yelling won't help, while yelling at the idiot in front of me who has now slowed from 50 to 15 to ponder the entrance to the Wal-mart. Decision made, she now speeds off, only to stop short at the Chick-FilA (Cotton is beginning to seem irritated with the stop-and-go) where the Noontime Nugget Rush has taken a strong hold on the entrance, which is 2 cars wide. Which makes the third car, stuck in the middle thinking he's going to pass, very angry and beepy.

We pause a moment to admire the crazy, then move on to the bank parking lot, far away from both the chicken frenzy and the Mustang, to mop up as best we can with some baby wipes. Rone doesn't throw up from the smell, Cotton doesn't cry too much, and we all head carefully home, obeying all the traffic signs.

Yield. The triangle one. It's even for Mustangs, people.

We are having some great weather here for Seph`s birthday extravaganza (there is some sort of problem with the apostrophe, so for the purposes of this blog, this ` is going to have to do), and while I`m typing I can smell the wisteria that just started blooming in the backyard.

Last night I brought Seph and a friend to the rodeo, and the rode rides, assembled dinner from carnival food, then had a sleep over.  It was a lot of fun, they ranranran from ride to ride, and the lines were nowhere near what I had feared.

This morning I brought all the big kids (Cotton isn't a moviegoer quite yet) to see The Dark Crystal for the Kid's Club Movie.  (hey!  my ' is back!) (lookit that!)  It was a lot of fun--we got there early, so had seats without a problem, and because the kids were some of the first 30 they got some authentic straight-from-the-basement-of-a-comic-book-store Dark Crystal trading cards!  Someone had made a statue of a Skesis, and there was a ring toss for prizes--the kid who won the movie poster was the big winner.

Rone is at his first soccer game, with Seph and her friend heading along to play.  This is good, because it will help keep Chance there.  This week was Rone's first practice, and Chance just dropped him off for an hour.  While I do let my kids have as much independence as I can, dropping a kid of for an hour with total stranger to play a sport he's only got a vague collection of rules for seemed crazy.  So I went over there, to stand with all the rest of the parents.  It seems like a good group, and I'm hoping we all enjoy soccer more than Little League.

The chickens are growing, and look like real hens now, and not weird molting fuzzballs.  They have sorted out perching in their coop, and know enough to make a racket and run when they see a cat. A hawk did come in early this week for a look-see, but hasn't come back.  If I can rig a way to keep them off the porch, they'll be the perfect pets!

The bluebonnets popped, the rodeo is in town, the temperature swang 40 degrees in about six hours and Seph is dropping hints about owning swords--it must be SPRING.

As I do every year, I got myself a sunburn at the rodeo. One day, I  will throw some sunscreen in the van, and it will seem like a miracle to my poor forehead. In more entertaining rodeo news, Seph is big enough to do nearly all the rides, and had a giant time of it this year.  Watching her swing around on one of the big kid whirligigs, I felt a little seasick.  It was likely mild heatstroke, but she was up there with a bunch of teenagers, and it seemed for a bit that things go awfully quick.  Rone is tall enough for a lot more than last year, and lucky that his friend we were there with was not bothered at all that some things will have to wait until next year.

Like Fall, Spring brings lots of plans.  Rone is joining soccer, and we are all spending time at the Y--Seph and Rone have classes, and Tiny is getting used to the idea of being on her own from time to time.  They've both got summer camp plans, and I've got a vague hope of taking them camping before it gets too warm.  The chickens are in their coop, and tonight herded themselves in at dusk, which was a welcome change from the kids and I chasing them down.  With the cold spell, we had to delay putting them out overnight, but I think they're safe from critters, and doing fine.  The garden has peas and carrots, and Rone just put some canteloupe seeds in.

The kids have all been, well, let's call it 'enhancing', their personalities lately.  Cotton has learned that volume can work wonders, that she likes salad and broccoli, and that mud is a fine time.  She's a much more outgoing kid that either of the other two, which makes her fun at the grocery store--she yells hello to everyone, and then goodbye.  She'll also yell 'Poopy!' which isn't so good.  Potty training is a work in progress, with not much interest on her part.  She was a little too excited to announce she'd peed on the floor tonight.

Rone has been on what I'm thinking of as an extra-boyish kick.  Having Chance home might be part of it, but he's just super wacky lately.  He's perfected a very odd leprechaun dance, and is reading Garfield comics.  The other day, I walked in on him in the bathroom, and stepped back immediately, the way you do when you walk in on someone.  When my brain had time to process the image, I opened the door again, and said, " Rone, what are you doing with your head in the toilet?" And he turned, turned, mind, not lifted, his head and said, " I like the echo when I talk here." I managed to tell him to get his head out of the toilet before I shut the door and laughed untill I cried.

And Seph is busy wishing she was a vastly more interesting creature than a 8yo blond white girl.  After another disasterous hair-brushing session, I agreed to buy her temporary dye if she would take care of her hair for two weeks. She did, and I did.  She wants black stripes in her hair. Black. So we bought black dye, and she was elated. For her birthday, she wants a cake with a skull on it.  I have an 8 year old goth girl.  The other night at supper, I asked Seph what sort of cake she'd like, and during the pause while she thought Rone said, "Is goth a kind of cake?" From that, we arrive at skull cake.  And the other night while I was working, Seph came up to say goodnight, and ask, " Could I have a sword?  Or....a dagger?" When I asked her why she told me, "To fight people."  So we talked, and she doesn't have anyone specific in mind, but would just like to take fencing lessons. So I'm going to try to get her to them, since she's been asking  for nearly a year now.  And I don't need her throwing daggers.

The kids and I went to see Bugsy Malone last weekend, a movie far stranger than I'd remembered. Which is going some, since I remember watching it on tv when I was about Seph's age and thinking it was weird then. It's a basic gangster movie, entirely acted by people far to young to be in a gangster movie. To adapt to the delicate sensibilities of the viewing public, instead of moonshine, the speakeasy serves sassparilla and lemonade (with a green 'special' kept behind the bar for those in the know, the ammunition for all weaponry is entirely dessert-based, and the getaway cars are pedal powered. Jodie Foster as the tough-talking chorus girl is fairly disturbing, as are the musical numbers which are entirely dubbed by adult singers, as far as I can tell.

The finale of the whole thing was a pie fight in the parking lot, which you can see here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWR1i52tDcs

It's almost rodeo time, and we're getting busier every week, it seems. We went and planted trees with Campfire this morning, while Chance and Rone hit Home Depot for the free project. Seph is off at another sleepover, and tomorrow we've got a birthday party. The kite festival is also tomorrow, but the chicken coop needs finishing off (they're getting bigger, and louder), so we might have to skip that. I took the kids to UT this week for a Star Party, which is when they open their big telescope up on the roof of one of the engineering buildings to the public. We met up with some homeschooling friends and got to see Mars and Orion's Nebula. Seph also got to go to the Wildflower center and see a speaker from McDonald Observatory out in West Texas, and look at even more cool stars with her Campfire friends.

So we've been up to some stuff. I'm hoping to take the older two on an overnight camping trip nearby sometime soon, but we'll have to see. With luck I'll fit it in before they go to Disney with Nanna and Papa, since that trip might be a hard act to follow!

Stuff fell from the sky today. Cotton balls? Pillow fight of the Gods? We're all still confused.

New Year's resolutions work about as well as ever, as you can see. I do have chickens, though!

Gabe and Christine came to visit with their kids last week, and since Gabe has more energy than chance or I put together in a month, he went ahead and got the bulk of coop building done for me. Once he'd done all that work it was only fair that he get to see the chicks, so we headed to the feed store with Seph and Farrah and picked these out. Seph named them Kiki, Gigi and Puff. Right now they're living in the kitchen, and the kids adore them. While they were here we also visited McKinney Falls, went to Doc's (playground for kids+beer for grownups=yay!), and visited the Science Center.

It's been a busy new year so far. Seph is taking a claymation class at the public access studio that she loves, and continuing with Scottish Country dance. Rone is signed up for both soccer and gymnastics at the Y, while Cotton tries to adjust to being left in the nursery to play. Recently we've been to see a Chinese New Year celebration (dragon dancers!), to the big Austin Area Homeschoolers Valentine's Day party, and out to Dripping Springs to spend the day sitting around a campfire. We're all still part of Campfire USA, with both kids earning emblems and working on those projects.

Rone went to a baseball game with Chance yesterday, and came home with a fly ball. It was his first game, and they both seemed to have a good time. Schoolwork-wise, he's working on math and spelling. His reading is improving all the time, but his favorite book is still a Calvin and Hobbes Treasury that he loves to read over and over.

Seph had a sleepover this weekend, and went to see the Percy Jackson movie (again!). She went on opening day with a friend, in Camp Half-Blood t-shirts that we made for them to wear. I thought this would be supremely dorky, but it turned out they weren't the only ones--there were lots of folks with them on! She's still working on being as goth as an 8yo can be, and trying to sneak a face full of make up past me when we're heading out the door. She's also working on math and spelling, and is a big reader.

We've reached the point where I'm wondering if I need to steer her away from some things as too adult for her. And then I remember I read Stephen King at 7 years old,without any real lasting effects, other than being unable to sleep in a room with an open closet door. Or permit my kids to. And I may have been known to close closet doors in rooms other people are sleeping in just in case. But it's for their own protection!

Cotton, after a fairly good spell of several weeks, has moved back to a banshee phase. Everything is met with a scream of indignation. She's giving up her afternoon nap, which the entire family feels is a bad plan. She likes to swing, to laugh at her own jokes, and eating cookies. She also really likes to watch the Lawrence Welk show, and will holler mightily if you change the channel.