I can't help it.

Sometimes I just have to post here. I can't pretend otherwise.
But I'm going to allow myself to be as inconsistent as I want and need to be.

It may be more random topics, too. I'll write about whatever I've been processing, or find amusing, or whatever. I'm not writing it for anyone specific; just writing.

So today: My Kids.

Here's a collection of things my kids have said over the last week, plus pictures from a photo shoot we did last week!

'"Mommy, can you make this into a weal light sabeh, but not Weally?"

Hudson: "Mommy, this page needs you. There's some weading on it."

Hudson: "Mommy, pick a number between 1 and 66."
Me: "30."
Hudson: "My number was 71. I win!"

Part II:
H: "Pick a numbah between 76 and...76."
B: "76."
H: "76. I won too."

Part III:
"Pick a number between 66 and...67."

Me: "Jasmine, that's not how you spell 'foam.'"
Hudson: "it needs a postwophe!"

Jasmine: "I would like to grab my sweater, in case they *refrigerate* the store."

Jasmine's grammar sentence:
I might see a ______________________ at the zoo.
Her answer: palm tree

Hudson: "Mommy, you can fight the bad guys with this" (plastic sword)
Me: "I don't know any real bad guys!"
Hudson: "Yes you do! I had a dweam..."

Jasmine: "it's me...Bek--Jasmine, I mean."
I no longer feel bad about getting my kids' names mixed up. She doesn't even know her own name!!

Jasmine, during the France show: "finally Paris. It's kind of like the best place in the world. Kind of."
(Asked her what was the actual best: America)

Jedi Training

Yesterday, we left the house nice and early (actually, I'm not sure I'd call it "nice") so we could get the kids signed up for Jedi Training at Disney Hollywood Studios.
They saw it last year and they all wanted to do it, but it's for ages 4-12, and there was no way Hudson would have let the girls do it while he sat and watched.
So between that and the fact that you have to get there when (or before) the park opens to get them signed up, we waited for Hudson's birthday to do it.
Which was, of course, yesterday!

Jasmine said afterwards that she was nervous. Bekah was completely confident, and Hudson was adorable and did a great job. (Jasmine did too, despite being nervous)

Say "FLORIDA!"

And get this from the kids and I:

Hudson.

My kids crack me up.

The conversation that came with this:

Hudson: "Mommy, what are you making?"
Me: "a hat."
Hudson: "it's too small. it must be for David." (his 9-month-old cousin)
Me: "um..."




Bekah: "what's the difference between little and young?"
Me: "you can be little and not be young. Have you heard the phrase, 'a little old lady?'"
Jasmine: "like me. I'm little and old!"
Me: "um, no, Jasmine, you're not old."
Jasmine: "But you are!"
Me: "uh..."
Bekah: "You're a big, old mommy."

Pyooming

(or is it pewming?)
Hudson likes to pyoom. With a pyoom.

Translation: he likes to shoot, with a gun.
Of course, he's never actually used a real one. I would hope that's pretty obvious. But he's very interested.

So when we went to the Wildlife Festival a few weeks ago and saw that they had an air gun to try, he was first in line.

Bekah and Jasmine gave it a try too:

(frame from my store!!)

There was other stuff to do, too...Bekah discovered she's an excellent fisherwoman.

Not only is she the only child (of our three) to catch something, she caught two!

Oh yeah, there was some wildlife at the wildlife festival ;)

Our Week

Monday, we went to Target to check out their clearance costumes.

The pickins was slim.
But the girls came out with a costume each, and Hudson got a pair of gloves whose tips light up. We won't tell him they're aimed at women, because they were substantially cheaper than the costumes he decided he didn't want.
Besides, he'd just gotten the Batman costume at Kohl's.

He likes to protect and defend all the time, but especially when he's a superhero.

He also realizes that superheros need to learn to read.

Jasmine realizes the importance of always looking her best.

Too bad she has yet to carry that philosophy over to her room...but she's starting to make progress there, too. There is hope. (hear that, Josh? There is hope.)

Bekah likes being a peacock and doesn't mind that the costume didn't come with wings.

Yesterday, I told the kids we would do science experiments once they got their basic school done. Hudson fell asleep during their math pages.

The girls and I went to the kitchen and did four simple experiments (two that worked; two that, well, were educational anyways)
After lunch, Hudson asked if we could do science experiments. Poor kid missed the whole thing!

They're outside right now, looking for two pieces of wood to do an experiment that's intrigued Jasmine. I'll be curious to see if they're successful.

The girls finished their spelling book, but I'm giving Bekah more time practicing the rules taught in level 1. She's only 5 1/2, as easy as it is to forget that from time to time. She's bordering on overwhelmed, so we'll spend more time and give her more confidence.
I'm thrilled that both are willing to try to write now, though. Bekah's started writing letters/cards to people she's going to see. they're highly entertaining and nearly readable. She has yet to learn how to put spaces between words yet, thus the "nearly" readable. And Jasmine's letters are suddenly going the right directions almost all the time, so yay for victories! (methinks it was a stubbornness like my refusal to say my "r" until I was good and ready).

Happy weekend!

ABBA

Hudson likes the brunette from ABBA. 

Yesterday, we were playing "You Can Dance," the Wii game with ABBA dances. There's a Karaoke section of the game, showing the original music videos from the band. He saw the brunette in one of the songs, and said, "she's beautiful! I want to have her come to our house. Is she at her house?"

Bekah likes to sing Mama Mia. Here's her version:
Mama Mia
Here we go again
My my
Whining at your sistah

Jasmine likes "Money, Money, Money" best of all of their songs. She's already decided it will be her ring tone for when Grace, her best friend, calls on the phone she's not going to have for many years.

Unrelated to this post, I found some awesome, friendly roots at Rock City:

Cute Kids

Yup, I got 'em.

This one just finished her art book for the year. Last night she asked if she could erase it all and do it a second time. So later today I'm making a trip to the basement to go through all the "school" boxes to find the third copy Josh made of the book so she can do it again.

This one edited her own picture. She told me what style she wanted it to have and then told me to post it on Facebook.

This one's heard Jasmine and I talk about photo editing too much lately. He saw this one and said, "Delete it!" Sure, it might not be perfectly exposed, but I couldn't convince him this one was too cute to get rid of. Spunky monkey.

Sleepover

Last night, Jasmine invited Bekah to a sleepover in her room.
Hudson wanted in on the fun too, and Jasmine kindly obliged.

We had a hard time fitting them all in there, but it worked!

They went to sleep pretty quickly (I wasn't really sure if they would).

When we got up this morning, Hudson was on the couch, which is his usual morning routine. 

Maybe next time Hudson and Bekah will have Jasmine sleep on their floor!

Busy Weekend

We're trying to do all the things around here we should have been doing for the past few years. It makes our weekends full of fun and new experiences, which, of course, means pictures.

Saturday we went to the Lockport Cave. It's a manmade cave by the canal in Lockport, created to use the water to power factories in the 1860s. It was a fascinating outing, and the kids enjoyed it even more than we did!
The old locks:

The only picture I got in the cave; we kept getting "cave kisses," i.e. drops of water on us, and didn't want to risk anything! 

Then over to the little museum to learn a little more (Jasmine requested that we stop there!)

Sunday was to a Fairy Day at one of the parks nearby. Hudson slept through most of it, but the girls loved it!

We saw Mother Goose telling the story of Goldilocks:

Even before she had finished asking for a volunteer to play Goldilocks. my little Goldy had her hand up. She was quite the ham!!

They wrote wishes on butterflies and hung them in the tree, made wands and masks, and got their faces painted.

It was a lot of fun, and the kids requested that we go back. I had to break it to them that we won't be here for it next year, but that we'll find other things that we enjoy in Orlando!!

The jacket

I took the kids out for a little photo shoot. I hadn't realized it until this morning, but we actually have the perfect "grungy" backdrop right on our street!

I can't get over these pictures. I'm melting.

Fun Weekend

1. I updated the look (and title) of my homeschooling blog :) Go see! I'll wait.
http://hideawayinschool.blogspot.com/


2. I like lists. I'm not just copying Pioneer Woman's favorite blog style. It was mine before I knew she existed. So I refuse to feel guilty for doing it too!!

3. Bekah's been perfecting her saute (the ballet step, not the style of cooking veggies). She doesn't know that's what it's called yet, but she's working really hard at getting pointy toes when she's in the air.

4. Hudson likes to jump too, so he had to be in on the action.

(Could he be any cuter?? I didn't think so!!)

5. After taking these pictures, I decided I had to get a shot of the three of them. But my kitchen isn't big enough for that, so outside we went!!

6. Oh, and then a picture of Jasmine in the hat I finished making last night. 

(photobombed by her brother)

7. Bekah wants a hat like that, but hers has to be green. Of course, I don't own green yarn. So a trip to the store is on my list for next week.

8. We dyed eggs. I ran out of ideas on ways to get unique pictures of that, so there aren't any. Maybe their hunt will offer some good pictures, though.

9. It's wayyyyyyy past my bedtime. Night, all!

Spring Sun

I was messing around with lighting and had three very willing models.

cute-isms

I haven't had much success lately posting videos directly on the blog, so I uploaded Bekah's video to YouTube. You can watch her do "Irish Dancing" (you can tell that's what it is by the Irish Dancer Arms) to the song "Personal Penguin" here.

I was showing the kids our seedlings this morning, telling them what each is.

When they saw all the little broccoli seedlings (like the one above), Bekah said, "can we pick it now??" Um, sure, Boo, but I don't think it will fill you up much!

I was chatting with Hudson before we dropped the kids off at the library so we could have our date. I told him he could choose a movie and a book to take home. He thought for a minute, and said, "where's the books?"

At lunch yesterday, I was reading Mary Poppins to the kids (for a tangent thread, read this). We were reading about a star who came down to Christmas shop with Mary Poppins, Jane and Michael, and the description of her didn't outright say "she was a star." So I told the kids that, and Hudson chimed in: "yeah! A ROCK Star!"

St. Patrick's Day dance

Jasmine and Bekah were in a little performance yesterday. They were so cute!!

They haven't been to class since before Christmas, so they were, um, a little lost, buut they picked it up well and had a really good time, and I know this helped motivate them to get back into it, now that Chicken Pox have left the building and we're home from Disney.

(I still like run-ons).

First they sang "Molly Mallone."
"she died of a fever"

"crying, 'Cockles and Mussels!' Alive, alive-o!"

First position...
third position...
fourth position...
um....

After dancing we came home, ate a quick dinner, and went to the Shriners' Circus! I didn't take many pictures but did happen to get one good one of Jasmine's favorite part (she wants to do this!)

During intermission, we let the kids get "Tatoos" (that's what the sign said. They spelled it wrong last year and never fixed it!!!

I noticed after the fact that Bekah's hearts have, um, bullet holes in them. Jasmine saw that and decided it was from Cupid's arrow. Much better than what I thought....