A Hop, Skip and a Jump Away: March 2014

I am so grateful for the utterly ridiculous moments in our life because they break up the monotony of my day: let the dog out, make a meal, wash the dishes, change a diaper, nurse the baby, let the dog in, teach a lesson, wash some laundry, mark a few lessons, let the dog out, make another meal, wash some more dishes, change another diaper, nurse the baby, dry some laundry . . . you get the picture. Luckily for me, spending my days with four kids and a dog means there are plenty of ridiculous moments, and I am still laughing about one that happened yesterday:

Leif was sleeping in his crib. Avery was downstairs playing Lego, Zoe was lying on the couch working on her math lesson, and Elliot was sitting at the kitchen table finishing up his grammar exercise for the day. I was standing at the kitchen counter, mixing up a new chicken recipe for supper. As I stared out the window, happy to see the sun shining and all the slushy puddles of ice melting in the driveway, I marveled at how quiet and peaceful the house was, and I thought to myself:

Wow! It is so peaceful. This has to be the best moment of the day.

Then all of a sudden, Elliot jumped out of his seat and screamed:

How is a man supposed to work in these conditions!

and he stormed off into his room.

. . . what!?

Okay, so maybe you had to be here to truly appreciate the hilarity of the situation, or spend your days all by your lonesome with four kids and a dog, but for me, this was priceless and made my Monday just that much more tolerable.

Here are some other notable moments from the past few weeks:

Bowling:

(at first Leif found the lights and sounds too much)

But, then he decided it was all good.

Playing outside:

Waiting in the car for Elliot to finish up his gym class:

Potty training:

Singing a little Guns n' Roses:

Playing dress-up to the tune of "I Like Big Butts"

and channeling our inner nerd and wearing sweater vests to church:

Yep, I really like our kind of monotony.

My poor neglected blog. In spite of all the cool things we have done lately and all the adorable outfits Leif has adorn, I cannot seem to find a half an hour a day to get onto the computer and capture these moments, and that makes me sad. I wish I could bottle every second of our life, even the ugly moments, because right now I have all four of my babies home with me, and, unfortunately, this cannot last forever.

But, here I am: it is March Break so there are no lessons to be taught, the baby is bathed and in his brothers' arms, and my dishes are neatly stacked on the counter ready to be washed . . . I think, just maybe, I can get 'er done. Let"s go!

First of all, Leif is beginning to look more and more like his daddy.

Leif:

Derrick:

Leif has even decided to suck on the exact same two fingers that his daddy did when he was just a wee Webster. How funny is that? Who knew that genetics also determined finger sucking?

Leif is really starting to notice his toys, and he loves playing with them! He also loves being read to, and his favourite book is "Noisy Farm". This is a gigantic board book with close up pics of animals and the sounds they make. We read it every morning, right after his bath and right before he goes down for his first nap.

Leif's favourite toy of the moment:

This face!

The boys still invade our bedroom each and every morning to hang out with Leif before our day starts. Leif loves to sit propped up against a pillow (or his mama's legs) and carry on conversations with Elliot at this time. It is the cutest thing in the world!

Look at me, sitting like a big boy!

Really? Wow! That is fascinating.

Okay, that is downright terrifying!

But, did you hear this one . . .

Last week the big kids at Shenanigans Inc. participated in the Fundy Home Educator's Science Fair. It was a lot of fun, and I was very proud of my munchkins for the cool projects they did.

Avery wanted to find out what kind of music babies like best so he used Leif and his baby cousin, Ava, as lab rats. In the end, he discovered they liked pop music the best and that babies are not the most cooperative lab rats . . . tee hee!

Zoe researched what type of music bacteria like the best. She grew five specimens of bacteria and hooked four of them up to speakers with different types of music playing for an entire week. In the end, she discovered that pop music was the favourite since it increased the bacteria's rate of growth. After Zoe reported her findings, Avery quickly pointed out that babies and bacteria have a lot in common . . . tee hee!

Elliot's project was called "Does Practice Make Perfect?" and he tested to see if physical practice, mental practice or no practice at all would benefit people the mostwhen learning how to shoot a bow and arrow. He invited my family over one evening and put us into three groups. It was a very cold night, Ava was having one of her colicky episodes, and none of us could shoot a bow and arrow, but in the end, we were all laughing, we ate some yummy spaghetti, and we learned that if you do not have much time to learn a skill that mental practice (visualizing) is your best option.

After the science fair and the kids all received their participation certificates, my munchkins looked at me in horror:

What?! There was no first place, second place or third place? What kind of science fair is this? Well, that was a waste of time!

. . . tee hee! My kids are sooooo competitive!

Also, this past week saw . . .

Leif playing with his cousin Ava. Okay, so he cried every time he looked at her for the first hour of their visit . . . he is such a funny kid!

Loving our AppleCheeks! And yes, Ava is a whole month younger than Leif . . . tee hee!

Leif not napping. Thank heavens this ended around the same time his evening marathon nursing sessions ended (about four days) because that was no fun at all!