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This post is long overdue as the girls cut their hair a few weeks ago, but we waited until Kaitlynw as crawling well so that she could be on the post too. Here are a few more before and after photos of the girls' hair cuts. Kylie and Madalyn donated 9 and 8 inches respectively. Alexis didn't have enough to donate.

Lexi before

Madalyn before

Madalyn after

Kylie before

Kylie after

Here are some more pictures of the girls happy about their hair cuts after going to church and receiving compliments. (Thanks, Anne B. for mentioning them in primary!)

At My Thanksgiving Feast...

Last week for writing I had the children write about their Thanksgiving dinner using alliteration. Here is Kylie's:
At my Thanksgiving feast there will be:
Pumkin colored pickle pumpkin pie.
Crimson colored crumby cranberry sauce.
Those pounded potato pancakes look palatable.
Appatizing apple pie.
Stickey sorrel smacking stuffing.
Tarvashing tasty tan tar colored turkey.

Here is Madalyn's (I was quite impressed):
At my Thanksgiving feast I'm going to have:
A colossal can of crimson colored cranberry sauce,
Pale-painted peppery potatoes,
Savory succulent spicy straw-colored stuffing,
Crumbly carrot-colored cornbread,
Tasty towering tan turkey, and
Green gigantic good-tasting green bean casserole.

Here is what we're really having:

Alexis made peanut clusters (for those of us who don't like pie) and the fruit salad.

Spencer made the stuffing and a pumpkin cheesecake.

Madalyn made peanut butter fudge, green bean casserole, and sweet potato casserole.

Kylie made the rolls and a blueberry pie.

For Thanksgiving the kids all choose what they want to make and take turns cooking in the kitchen with me. Not pictured is Thomas making the mashed potatoes (he's still making them.)

While we're waiting for Nathan to come home from work we went for a walk. He's on call today, but he hasn't had very many admissions, which is a blessing. The kids and I were going to go to Florida but since Nathan's working and we only have one car, we couldn't go. So it's been a little boring and lonely, but we talked to my family on Skype and went for a walk to cheer us up a little. Now Nathan's about to come home so we can finally eat dinner. (The turkey's been done for 3 1/2hours.) Happy Thanksgiving!

Oops. It just deleted my favorite picture of this post and if I put it back on it'll be at the top. This is just how my day is going.

The Best Days

Here are Madalyn and Kylie's books on their great day. Each sentence is a new page with darling pictures.

First, I slept well and got up early. I felt great.

Then we got to open up Lucky Charms and Oatmeal Squares for breakfast!

Right after my favorite excersise: dancing to "Fall That's All," I got right to school and got an A+ on my spelling test!

I quickly did my math, history, and Art, then got a potato with butter, salt, and pepper.

After Lunch I only had read-aloud left, so I quickly did it, then I got snack, and my candy for doing everything.

I didn't have any homework left, so I played outside, then, came inside and played houses, then watched my favorite TV show: fetch.

Then, We ate macaroni and cheese for dinner, and I helped tuck Alexis, and Thomas, in.

Then Kylie, and I, went to bed at 8:15, and we got to read in bed for almost an hour! It was a Marvelous, Wonderful Very good day! The End

Here is Kylie's: (I tried to put her cover here, but it ended up at the top of this post. Sometimes blogger is a pain. I can't cut and paste pictures like I'm used to and it seems to do what it wants to do.)

My Perfectly Wonderful, Marvolus Good Day By Kylie Holladay

For starters on my very good day, I woke up early at 6:53!

I got to read a whole Magic Tree House book before breakfast.

I got to wear my favorite white skirt with Blue-Bell flowers and my blue blouse and favorite sliver locket.

I got an A+ on spelling, A on Math, and 100% on French! I was sure it was going to be a perfect day.

We got done at 12:45!

Kaitlyn took a nice, long nap.

We played wedding...

And war...

And with Jordan...

And dress-up.

[pictures of each of these]

Later we took showers and got haircuts.

[there are cute before and after drawings of each of the 3 girls getting haircuts]

We had waffles for dinner! Yum, Yum!

Then, that night, Mommy took me to Target, Kroger, and Kohles.
[I'm wearing a pretty dress in this picture with her]

I got to get Gum and doughnuts!

THE END

I really enjoyed reading these books and learned a lot from them. Like we really need an English lesson on comma splicing. Also, Madalyn has never once asked for a potato for lunch. I didn't even know she liked baked potatoes; she dutifully eats whatever we have for dinner, but I didn't know that was something she'd like for lunch too. I also didn't know she liked the TV show Fetch. We haven't watched TV in so long that I don't even know what that show is. And I didn't know she liked tucking the little kids in bed. Madalyn is very quiet so it was like opening a window to read about what makes her good or bad days. If you have children I'd suggest you have them make a book about their worst or best day ever would be like. It's very enlightening.

Terrible, Horrible Days

Someone has suggested I post more often, but I think our life is pretty boring. Nothing is really happening. Especially since we still have one car and Nathan takes it to work everyday, so we don't even have any field trips to post about. Our life pretty much consists of school till 2-3:00, play outside (this week it's been at Jordan's house, yeah!), dinner, scripture reading and prayer, bedtime. So I was thinking of what to post about and tried to find something in our school work that might be of interest. Wednesday is our writing class and last week we wrote stories that resemble "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" book. I thought they turned out really funny and cute. All of the spelling and puncuation is how they wrote it. Here is Madalyn's:

Madalyn's Terrible Horrible Very bad day

First I slept in and missed breakfast.

[ I loved this picture of her sleeping upstairs while we were eating downstairs. I wasn't going to scan the pictures, but I just wanted to try it since I've never used our new printer/scanner before. It was easier than I thought, but I won't take the time to do them all. (Besides, now they would be in the wrong order since you have to go last to first on here.)]

For exercise, we had to go on a bike ride. My shoelaces had knots, and my bike tire needed pumping. then, I got home last. I hate bike rides.

[cute picture of her frowning next to a bike with a flat tire]

When I finally had come home and took off my shoes, I had missed running with daddy. I could tell it was going to be a bad day.

For school I got 10 of my math problems wrong and I had hard, long spelling words. And for music, I only got one chime, and everybody else got two.

After school I had lots of homework, and I missed playing and eating candy with everybody else. Then for dinner, we had phaheatas, and I don't like them.

After dinner I had to go to bed early with Alexis, and she chose a book that I don't like. After Mommy read it we didn't have time to read a book that I wanted. I think I'll move to China.

The End

Here is Kylie's:

My Sad, Bad, Day by, Kylie Holladay

I woke up at 7:50! I hate sleeping in.

I didn't have time for Reese's Puffs, only Raison Bran.

I couldn't find my helmet, and I had to skate. And my skates squeeze my toes.

Everyone was already down the road. I was skating too fast to catch up and crashed to the road. Everyone complained that we had to go home.

Mommy was too busy to hug me and put band-aid's on my knee's, so I had to do it myself. What more could go wrong?

It took me an hour to do 8 math problems and 6 of them were wrong.

I had to have left-over enchiladas for lunch. Yuck!

I had to write a long essay for writing. Lots of the spelling and things were wrong, and I had to do the whole thing over again. School was out at 4:23 and I missed snack.

My best dolls head broke off! What a bad day.

Then I had to play Monopoly with Spencer. When I got Boardwalk he threw a fit and hit me.

I got process cheese on my BLT for dinner.

I guess I'll go live in Russia.

THE END

Here is Alexis':

Bad day Book

I wet the bed Kylie wouldn't help me change my sheets.

At breakfast the Lucky Charms were all gone.

When school started I couldn't find my math book.

After school I wanted to hold Kaitlyn but I couldn't.

They turned out really cute in book format with pictures and turning pages and all. This week we wrote about our wonderful day. I'll post those next. Oh, and I didn't post Spencer's because he wrote all about breaking his arm (which has never happened) and never finished his. It wasn't exactly what I had in mind.

Evidence of Children

We have a friend down the street who the children love to play with. Any combination of kids goes down to play at her house: Kylie and Madalyn, Spencer and Alexis, Madalyn and Thomas. Just depends on the day and who's doing what and who wants to go. Sometimes only one or two want to go, sometimes three or four. Occasionally all five want to go. Yesterday all five decided they wanted to go play with Jordan. (Bless that girl and her parents for letting 5 kids come over!) After much noise, excitement, and discussion about what to bring and running around gathering all sorts of gadgets (aka "junk") such as broken necklaces, binoculars, and cool rocks, they all went out the front door, banging it closed behind them. I watched through the window as they walked to the corner, paused to look before crossing the road, and then they skipped down the street and out of sight. I turned away from the window and noticed that the house was quiet. Too quiet. With Kaitlyn sleeping, it appeared that no children live here. Then as I was walking around and straightening up, I realized that there was evidence of our children all over. I had to take pictures of everything because to me it was sweet.

Baby toys, diaper, and paci scattered on the floor

Open bottles of paint, sticky paintbrushes, and a container of dirty water on the table.

Paint splattered on the floor and pictures set on the washing machine to dry.

A pile of clothes on the couch that resembles Ayers Rock.

Duplo houses at the top of the stairs.

A game of Monopoly spread out amongst the library books in the reading spot.

Losing Julianne and having Kaitlyn has changed my perspective a lot. Instead of looking at messes with a sigh and a groan and looking forward to having a meal without spilled milk, I now walk by the pile of wet rags on the washer and think, "Aw. That means we have children here." Such a sweet thought. Instead of being annoyed with their idiosyncrasies and annoying habits I'm trying to laugh about them and appreciate them. I'm taking mental pictures of my children's faces as they laugh when they stir so hard that the batter splats out, or are looking peaceful as they are intently reading a book, lips twitching every so often and unaware of the world around them. Evidence that we have children is all around me and I love it. Ordinarily I can't stand a messy house, but I'm trying to see the good in it. Clothes on the floor mean they aren't wearing their only outfit. A hair tie or ribbon on the floor means we have girls and that our girls have hair. Towels on the floor mean we have hot water and clean kids. Kids fighting mean our children have siblings. Books all over the house mean our kids can read and we have a library with unlimited checkouts. A stinky bathroom garbage full of diapers means we have a baby with healthy bowels. High pitched squeals mean our kids are having fun. Soggy cereal bowls mean our kids have enough food to eat or else they would have gobbled up every last drop. All of the toys we have signify they have plenty of playtime. I'm so glad we live in a time of plenty where the kids and I don't have to go to work or have unending chores on a farm with only two outfits. We're so blessed.

I love being a mother of young children so much that sometimes I think I never want to stop having kids. I always want to have little ones under my feet. I'm not sure how I'll handle them growing up and moving away. Some days I wonder what our house would look like without all of the school work on the walls. Every wall is dedicated to science, writing, art, etc. But I think I'll cry when it all gets taken down and there are no more school children in our home. I'm glad that is a long, long time away. Maybe I'll be ready by then, but I know now that I'm nowhere close. Right now I want to have babies and little children in my home forever. I want to take this moment and hold onto it for a long time and bid time to stand still while I cherish it.

Kaitlyn's Opinions

Kylie is silly

Sitting on the counter is fun and I love animal crackers.

Baths are fun.

Apples are yummy.

Did I mention sitting on the counter is fun?

Rice cereal is not yummy.

No way! Not even with breastmilk in it.

I'm outta here.

Not even on a different spoon. I'm still not going to open for it.

The spoon by itself isn't good either.

Rice cereal with applesauce isn't any better.

Sitting with Daddy while he eats breakfast is fun.