Avery Hitches a Ride

The Christmas Decor CEO

I suppose every family needs to have one, or nothing would get done. Ours is a spitfire of a little girl named Alayna. She has a natural ability to spearhead projects and "motivate" you to do whatever it is you said you'd do. If I believed in reincarnation, I would believe Alayna to be the lady in the Bible that kept pestering that judge with her request until he finally relented. Her current best subjects in school are persistance and determination!

All these characteristics came together in one big explosion Sunday, the day I said we would get out the Christmas decorations. Now don't get me wrong, this is something I want done each year, unlike Rob who offered me a large some of money for shopping if I would forego it (of course I didn't accept). However, I have to admit I dread trying to untangle and find replacement bulbs for burned out lights, sorting through all that stuff and finding new places for it in a new house. It's just a bit overwhelming. Not for Alayna. As soon as we got home from church she started in on me. "After we all take a nap" was my response. After about an hour of Rob and I napping in peace a little voice in our dreams said, "Mommy, Daddy, I'm so excited, what should I wear?" Huh, what? Oh, it's Alayna and apparently our naps are over. "What should I wear to decorate the tree?" Rob mumbled something to the effect of she could wear whatever she wanted.

About five minutes later she was back in our room. Somehow she had opted for the summer nightgown in a delicate floral print look for the event. "When are we starting? When are we starting?" I was awake by now, but by no means ready to start hauling bins out of our attic. I told her we needed to wait until Avery woke up so that he could be in on it too. I thought I was buying myself more time, but before I could add in, "and don't you wake him up" she had opened his door and now no one was napping.

No sooner were all the decorations down from the attic and staged in the living room, then Alayna was throwing bin lids open and pulling things out. I managed to direct her to the tree for starters and she flew to work not only sorting tree branches by the little colored tags, but actually began delegating work for the rest of us. Still half a sleep and less than motivated, I let her take over and began to realize that hey, in a couple of years she can do the whole thing!

Alton and I let her direct us and we had the tree up in no time. Meanwhile, Avery who knew something exciting was happening, but probably wasn't quite sure what, ran all over the house laughing and wearing a Santa Hat. The Christmas music was blaring and Rob was diligently writing the bulk of his paper.

My Christmas decorations were put up in record time this year, thanks to the determination and incessant hounding of my sweet little girl Alayna. This is not the end, but merely the beginning however as she is already on me to conduct our family traditions of setting up the gumdrop tree and building the gingerbread house. I am tired.

Thanksgiving

We just returned from a 10 hour drive, whirlwind trip to visit the nearest family around for Thanksgiving. We had a great time visiting Great Grandma Mary, who cooked quite the meal for all of us! There were several second cousins for the kids to play with and many moments of complete and total chaos, which is the fun thing about having so many around.

Overshadowing the event was "The Paper" Deadline which is tomorrow. Rob's biggest project while he is here in school is this 40 page paper, 10 pages of which plus a 7-10 page detailed outline are due tomorrow. There have been so many other small things due and tests to study for, that Rob really hasn't had much time to put in on it. So he brought his school issued lap top and worked on it most of his spare time, including during the car ride home. Things are strangely calm today. The paper is only about 50% done and I am waiting for the looming storm as the children and I keep to ourselves and decorate for Christmas. He will no doubt be awake all night tonight. Oh well, my motto in college was always, "You can always sleep some other time," however that was never in regards to school work.

Alton's favorite pasttime on our trip was knocking down dominoes!
Guess what Avery's favorite pasttime was. We had to have some starters out or he wouldn't wait!

Don't adjust the color on your screens, my digital camera is slowly but surely dying.

Arranged Marriage?

Last weekend Rob hosted a cookout for the Bible Study group at the school. One of the families has a little girl one day younger than Avery. She is sooo adorable. Anyway, here they are sitting at a table "decorating" ginger bread cookies her Mom had brought. They were so cute and being so good that we got distracted and walked off from them. About 15 minutes later, I remembered to check on them. At first there were six jars of sprinkles, when I came back, they were all empty. Judging from their mouths, we don't think much of them made it on the cookies. My inclination was to be horrified with all the sugar and colorings, but then I decided one night of binging on sprinkles wouldn't kill him. If they do marry someday, they will have to watch their diet!

Giant Leaf Pile Appreciation Day

Got a rake anyone?

This week in our household we have a Birthday Girl. Alayna will turn 6 years old tomorrow. She has been very excited about it and milking it of course. She has been "The Birthday Girl" for three weeks now. What this means is in her mind is that she is entitled to well...everything!

While all this has been going on, Avery has developed a strange attachment to a particular library book. It's titled, "On Top of Spaghetti". A little background first. I have fond memories of singing this song in my childhood and so I thought nothing of it when at a pizza buffet when Alton was about 5 years old, I broke into a spontaneous rendition of that song as we were putting meatballs on his plate. Having no idea the effect it would produce, I was completely annoyed when he started crying because he felt sorry for the meatball. I remember our entire meal was ruined as a matter of fact.

Wanting to put that memory behind me and give the meatball song a second chance, I checked out the book (I suppose I was somewhat curious to see if it would still set Alton crying at age 8 and 1/2, it didn't). In fact, I was very pleased when I finished reading the book that Avery was begging to have it read again. During the first reading he kept saying in a pitiful voice "B-a-l-l, B-a-l-l. He was empathizing with the meatball how cute. Things went rapidly downhill during the second reading. I noticed he was tearing up a bit as he mourned for the b-a-l-l. Then before I new it he was sobbing passionately! With every page I read he got more upset! I quickly finished it up and went to put it away, but he was chasing after me crying and reaching for the book saying b-a-l-l! He wanted me to read it again. I refused and finally found a food item to distract him while I put the book away. Straight back to the library it went. How was it that I never felt any sympathy for that meatball as a child? I just thought it was funny.

As for Alton, he is doing great. He has more friends than he knows what to do with at his homeschool co-op. The one we attend here (which also happens to be at our church) is huge. They have 5 different classes and everyone has a customized schedule, so they take themselves around to each class, even the kindergartners. I didn't see how the kids would manage, but they had it down after the first week. Alayna didn't get a full schedule because we registered a little late, so I have to take her up there a couple of times each Tuesday. I often see Alton on his way to another class. He doesn't stop to talk to me. Sometimes he waves, but that is okay by me, because he always has two or three other boys with him. We just completed his last round of chelation. Right before we did that we had this fancy test done and sent off to Paris to give us a more accurate account of how much mercury was left in his body. It came back just slightly above normal and that was before chelation. Anyone who tells you that Aspherger's or autism can't be reversed needs to come talk to me!

As for Rob and I well, Rob is deployed...to the dining room table. They always said that the advanced course was supposed to be the best year of your life in the Army because there is so much family time. We aren't seeing that. In fact, Rob finally told me that they said they are not saying that anymore because they're trying to make it tougher to meet some accreditation. I'd say they have definitely succeeded. He has 10 pages of his paper and his 10 page outline due the day after Thanksgiving break. Sometimes he emerges from the dining room table and shows up at dinner or when it's time to put the kids to bed, but for the most part, he's pretty much chained there even on weekends.

So that leaves me with some free time on the weekends to join a running club. Now understand that in this town, if you don't run or write, you just won't get any respect around here. That is not why I'm doing it, even though all my Army spouse friends here are running fanatics. I just love to run. So the Track club runs every Saturday through the winter. There's just over 100 of us split into four groups. Every Sat. you end up running a half mile more than the week before. We're all training for a popular 10 mile race in the Spring. It is so much fun, I just love it! Other than that, I have no free time either. Homeschool keeps us so busy. Especially with Avery all over the place, morning school is somewhat of a challenge.

S-m-i-l-e

"It isn't any trouble just to s-m-i-l-e" are words heard regularly around our house because it's a song on a CD that Avery and Alayna love to listen to while playing trains up in Avery's room. Rob recently added legs to the rolling table he made for Alton when we bought him the train set several years ago. Now that he's added the legs and the kids can actually stand up to play, they use it constantly; Well Alayna and Avery anyway.

I could hear the song playing away through the monitor this morning as I was in the kitchen working on breakfast. "So if your having trouble it will vanish like a bubble if you'll only take a moment just to s-m-i-l-e. Alayna had finished her chore pack early and was delighted to have some free moments. She soon came down though and asked me if it were true. "Is what true?" "That if I smile at you when you're mad at me it will vanish like a bubble?" A mental picture of this immediately flashed in my mind and when I got done laughing, I told her that the song actually just means that if you have a good attitude, then things will go better for you. She seemed disappointed as though I had burst her bubble.

We only did a half day of school today. We'll be hitting two fall fest events. One at Rob's school from three to 5pm and then one at church from 6-8:30. I doubt we'll stay long at the second one. Alton is Batman, Alayna is Sleeping Beauty, and Avery is a hand-me-down Frog.

Tahini Trials

Oh the joys of attempting to swim upstream and feed my children healthy. Our culture just does not cooperate and therefore neither does my family. I am always trying new things in hopes that they will love it, and crave it, and beg for more. This rarely occurs and in fact, sometimes it is a complete disaster. Case in point, just last week, I thought it would be great if my children somehow shared my love for tahini. Admittedly, I am completely addicted to the stuff and go through about 4-6 ribs of celery a day to go with it! I really should start making my own, but as my blender is currently out of commission and I can't go without while waiting for the necessary replacement parts to arrive, it's a jar of tahini a week.

Anyway, back to the kids, so I thought I had come up with a way to get my kids to fall in love with the stuff and so I molded it into little balls and sprinkled Vege-sal on them (my replacement for salt). I was feeling very clever and as Alton was the first to walk into the kitchen, I offered him one. Apparently, it looked okay because he popped it into his mouth without question. Then my troubles began. He started making horrible faces and began drooling it out of his mouth. I was completely annoyed as he went to the kitchen sink and started spitting. Because I chalked this reponse up to over dramatics, I began a lecture about how ridiculous it was and that he should've just politely said he didn't like it. In the meantime, he was still spitting and tears were welling up in his eyes which made me close to irate. Hearing the commotion, Alayna walked in from the back porch and asked what was up. I explained, and of course Alayna wanted to try one anyway and took one back outside for Avery. In a minute or so, while I was still dealing with Alton, she came back in clutching her throat and said it was making her choke. I rolled my eyes thinking she was just saying it because of Alton's reaction. However, Avery came in the door after her smiling, only I don't know why he was because he had the worst reaction of all with tahini puke over his mouth and shirt. My creativity in the kitchen has been squelched for the time being.

Oh yeah, for those who don't know what tahini is, here is a quick lesson: It is sesame seed butter, simple as that. Sesame seeds are the absolute highest source of caclium you could possibly hope to find as long as the hulls haven't been removed. One Tbsp. contains about 35% of the daily recommended allowance. Once the hulls are removed it goes down to about 8%. Every brand of Tahini that I have found at health food stores, have had the seeds hulled. That's why it is best to make your own. Also a very high source of protein of course.