Things you don't want to hear from your 3-year-old son

while baking with your children:

"Vanilla tastes like wine!"

Yeah. Turn your back for just a minute.

People who come to work at our house

have some interesting experiences, thanks to our kids.  And we often find things out about them that we wouldn’t know if we didn’t have the kids.

Right now, we have an architect, Rob, who’s working on measuring our house in preparation to make plans for some work we’re hoping to do in the next few years.  The kids couldn’t be more excited about it.

Mr. Rob is a good sport.  The kids all descend on him when he arrives.  Sim alternates between calling him Uncle Rob – since he does have an Uncle Rob – and “that man,” I presume because he can’t remember Rob’s name.   Hannah is trying to convince him to put a secret passage into the plans.  Naomi likes to show him her drawings.  Sim likes to follow him around, telling him about anything that pops into his little mind. 

We found out that Rob plays the banjo.  Naturally, this wasn’t in our questions as we talked to him about house plans.  Sim wanted Professor Banjo for his quiet time music, and Rob heard it and asked about it, saying he plays the banjo.  We also know that Rob is reading Redwall to his son, who is Hannah’s age.  

The thing I think is pretty cute in all of this is that the kids just assume that people who come to our house will be interested in them and will be interesting to them.  Nobody is exempted.

Valentine’s Day

I was feeling creative this morning, so everyone got a cute little Valentine in their oatmeal:

They appreciated it.

Valentine’s hairdos are back!  There was a new one this year, and we tested it out.

I didn’t come up with this myself.  We use a website that has videos.  It makes it much easier.

The outfits, including the vest for Simeon, are thanks to Grandma Ellie.

Sim wanted to wear his vest without a shirt underneath.  We talked him out of it.

The sad face on Hannah is thanks to Mama letting Naomi hold Tess.

Happily, she didn’t let it get her down for long.

Sim likes holding Tess, too.

She likes smacking him.

And clawing his cheeks.

He responds with kisses – what a good big brother.

The girls insisted that I take this picture of them with their matching heart hairdos. 

When they stop wanting to dress alike and have their hair done alike, I’m going to cry.

It doesn’t look like that’s going to be anytime soon, though, so I think I’m safe.

Happy St. Valentine’s Day!

If you give a kid a camera…

The children have been taking turns borrowing Michael’s camera recently.  They have a ton of fun with it.  We end up deleting a whole lot of pictures, but some of them we keep for our own amusement.  Some of them are actually good. 

Tess.  She’s in focus, fairly well in the frame, and cute.  Perhaps a bit apprehensive, but definitely cute.

Naomi’s dolls.  They’re not necessarily the most interesting subjects, at least for some of us, but again, the photo is focused and we can tell what the photo is about.  (There are LOTS of pictures of Naomi’s dolls.)

Sim, with background of fire.  Pretty good.

We often get shots that we wouldn’t have taken ourselves, but they’re not terrible in themselves. 

St. Nicholas crafts, manger to fill with straw as we do good works, wedding picture of my parents, and weather meter.

Christmas gifts.  Granted, an exciting thing for kids.

Mary, from the Nativity set we have.  Somewhat overexposed, but a fair shot.

Children after their father’s heart.  They love fire.

Baby eating Mama’s face.  Always a winner.

Somebody’s game of SET.

Gingerbread house, placed on high shelf so as not to be eaten by younger siblings.  Taking photos of things is one way I’ve convinced Hannah she doesn’t have to keep everything.  Thank God.  I’m willing to put up with some disc space taken up by random photos in order to not have to KEEP the gingerbread house forever.

We then get the requisite shots with the subject just barely hanging on to the edge of the photo – or being cropped fairly severely.

Aaaaaand the self portraits.

Note the closed eyes because of the flash.

Naomi has figured out how to get herself in the frame.

Sim has not.  But isn’t there something mischievous about that particular cropping job?

Now the concentration begins…

…and we get the whole face!

Whoops.  But we can see that he has on his dragon costume.

Okay, we’ll get there.

Ha!  The lips emerge!  The camera angle makes him look quite a bit more jowly than he is in real life.

But we still have no chin.

The last one in this series, which managed to actually focus…on Sim!

My personal favorites are the ones Naomi took of herself looking…well, I don’t really know how to describe it.  Somewhat like Galadriel in The Fellowship of the Ring?  Remember the part where she gets all crazy and her hair flies all over?

I’m still not sure how she achieved that effect.  It’s pretty cool, though, you must admit.

Thank goodness we live in the digital age and all the pictures they took aren’t on film!

Hey, Girl

There’s a fun new meme out there.  Hey, Girl. 

And one of my favorite bloggers is hosting a Hey, Girl linkup. 

Go see Ginny for more of these.

Discovery!

Tess has found her toes.  She likes to suck on them, particularly the big toe. 

Rebuked

The other day, Michael was told by Naomi that it wasn’t appropriate to talk about cleaning up bunny pee at the table. 

A new take

on a book:

Michael:  “The Chief tells his men what to do.”  And they contradict and don’t obey and the building burns down.  The End.

Gee, what are we having difficulty with at our house these days?