I did it! NaBloPoMo rocks!

I really enjoyed the NaBloPoMo challenge: 30 posts in 30 days. There was actually one day that I had to back-date a post, but still, NaBloPoMo really kick-started my blog posting. I'm so into it now that I'm going to do the December NaBloPoMo: 31 posts in 31 days too!

Of course, there were days where I posted totally random things, just to have something to post. But there were also a lot of days where I wouldn't have posted anything at all, and instead I sat down and edited some photos, or thought of something to post about that I otherwise would never have shared with my friends and family. (I just saw someone visiting here from NewSouthWales!). Also, I found that knowing I was going to post each day made me more interested in getting out the camera and capturing my family's daily life.

It's been really fun keeping up with all the blogs that my friends and family are doing or getting started. And someday it will be nice for the girls to be able to come here and see a little snapshot of what their life was like "way back when!" Maybe I'll look into one of those services that publishes a book out of blog entries. It would be kinda fun to do a book each year that collected all my blog entries for posterity.

Now if I could just find the time to go and work on my WordPress blog and figure out how to do all the coding so I can have a more customized blog. I have a picture in my head of what I want, but my first attempt was, well, laughable! It's a pretty big learning curve, I have to say. So I'll hopefully find some time to work on that, and then migrate all of this over to a new blog address.

Stay tuned! And keep posting!

On to December...

My idea of a fun Sunday!

I've been wanting to re-organize the girls' play "house" (really the closet under our stairs that G'Pa Irv finished off for the girls and it houses their play kitchen) for a long time. I'm tired of all the dressups being all over the floor in there so they can't even get to the play kitchen.

So a few weeks ago, I bought a whole bunch of stick-on hooks at Home Depot, thinking I'd use those in the play house to give the girls a place to hang up all their dressups.

After thinking about it for a while, I decided to get the dressups out of the play house altogether. So I commandeered a closet in the exercise room, put 30-odd hooks on the wall inside, and the girls, Daddy-J, and I spent a good part of the morning going through their dressups, moving them to the new closet, hanging them all up, and making a pile of stuff that doesn't fit any more to donate (not sure where to donate used dressups, but that's another issue!).

I haven't taken any pics of the new dressup area as it's still a bit of a mess down there. We ran out of steam around lunch time, and then I went over to G'Pa Larry's to watch the football game. By the time I got home, it was dinner and bed for the kids, hockey for Daddy-J, and I'm thinking I'll just get in my jammies (warm out of the dryer!) and read my book until I fall asleep, which shouldn't take long.

Maybe I'll get motivated and take some pictures of the play house and new dressup closet tomorrow (if I get it all sorted out... let's hope!).

Pictures from the girls' Montessori Thanksgiving Feast

Posted all of these straight-out-of-the-camera, partly because it's late and I don't have time to edit them right now, and partly because I wanted to see what they looked like with no post-production. Other than the light on one of M-Moo's shots being too warm, I think they came out ok!

Some Thanksgiving Day photos.

I think they're pretty self-explanatory. The first three are of the girls at G'pa Larry's motor home, where we were watching the football game. G'pa graciously allowed the girls to eat him out of house and [motor]home!

Obviously these next three are the girls asleep in the car while we drove to Good Thymes to pick up the food!

And then the one and only shot I took of our Thanksgiving meal... it was late, I was tired, I didn't have the right lens... what can I say?

Happy Turkey Day!

I am thankful.

Miss-D: "That Mama's taking care of me."

Daddy-J: "For my happy family, when they're happy!"

Grampa Larry: "Being out of Detroit!"

M-Moo: "That Mama's taking care of me."

K-Wiggles: "Don't hit somebody."

Mama-V: Friends, family, health, and another year of watching my kids grow and change.

Happy Thanksgiving!

A few more b'day photos

Can you stand it?

Yummy frosting!!!

Yep, yummy frosting!!!

No, really! Yummy Frosting ON MY NOSE!!!!

And Daddy-J worked hard on cleaning up after that party! (Can you see the sprinkles in the lower left corner?? Leftovers from the cupcake decorating festivities of the night before!)

At the park...

Some birthday pictures.

I haven't had much time to edit the photos I took on the girls' birthday. Can't say I captured anything completely wonderful, but there were a few shots that, while not artistically great, still managed to capture the spirit of the day.

A lovely morning of sleeping in -- or post-party redux.

After last night's party, the girls were quiet this morning. Although I was vaguely aware they were up, both Daddy-J and I enjoyed a long, leisurely sleep-in. I was impressed that my "big" girls were playing so nicely with their new toys and nobody was screaming or coming to tell me they were poopy or hungry. I didn't get up until the sun was shining bright in the sky and it was a beautifuly, clear-blue morning.

Only to discover that the girls had been keeping themselves quiet by PAINTING MISS-D's ROOM! They started with painting the trim pink and purple and yellow. Then they got out the markers and did some work on the wall above Miss-D's bed. And then they turned to Miss-D's heirloom dollhouse and started making that pink and yellow. Of course, I didn't discover all this immediately. No, upon waking, I discovered Miss-D and K-Wiggles painting K-Wiggles' new wooden barn pink and yellow and M-Moo painting my bedroom door purple.

The most interesting part of the whole thing, however, was that Miss-D decided this would be the day she would graduate to more elaborate lying than she has been experimenting with to date. While Mama-V was busy cleaning up the paint in her room (sorry, no pictures, I was too angry!), Miss-D was telling Daddy-J how sisters had done all the painting while Miss-D was asleep in her bed.

I knew she was lying by the style of painting, but I wasn't sure how I was going to bust her, until I remembered that when I was upstairs, I had seen the boxes the paints came in lying on the floor, cut open with scissors, tiny little scissors. Now I know the littles don't know how to use scissors yet, 'cuz I had just seen them try the other day. They certainly don't know how to cut open a cardboard box.

But here's where it gets really good! When confronted with the evidence of the scissors-opened boxes, she readily admitted that she had done that, but THEN SHE HAD GONE BACK TO BED while sisters did the painting in her room! Um, yeah, NOT!

So we had to have several little talks throughout the day, about how paint only goes on paper, not on walls and not on toys, and how markers only go on paper, not on walls and not on toys, and how telling lies is not good, and how telling lies when you do something wrong is even worse. Etc., etc., etc.

Ah well, as Daddy-J pointed out, we've made it through 4.5 years of having kids without having anything we own get majorly destroyed, so I guess we were due. Looks like G-pa Irv will have some re-painting to do in Denali's room... who knew that purple paint doesn't come off all the way? And Daddy-J is working dilligently to scrape all the paint off the barn and the doll house, and then we will be using some kind of finish on those so that the next painting session comes off easier.

*sigh*

The party was a huge success!

Even if I do say so myself.

I think everyone had fun... the kids were wild... the grownups seemed to be enjoying themselves... no one was seriously injured... the cupcakes were a hit (both those for the littles and those for the bigs)... and the house is only moderately trashed... and the kids are in bed asleep and it's only 9:00.

Here's one photo to tide you over to tomorrow...

The cupcakes that the kids decorated themselves (great party activity, BTW!).

Party prep day.

The girls and I had a busy day, prepping for the littles' birthday party tomorrow. We were up and dressed first thing, off to Costco for some food for the party. After picking up some take-n-bake pizzas, a turkey roll-up tray, a cold-cuts and cheese tray, a veggie tray, and some rolls (plus a few other random things), we were outta there!

As a reward, we took ourselves to lunch at our favorite SLC lunch restaurant -- Noodle Company. The girls must have been hungry, because they devoured their lunches (a bowl of buttered noodles with parmesan for M-Moo and Miss D, and some rigatoni with marinara for K-Wiggles). I had the beef stroganoff... yummy!

Then we headed over to Maggie Moos, but got sidetracked to Jamba Juice and had a really yummy mango smoothie for dessert. Next up was some running around at the park. Mama-V got to play with her camera. No exciting shots to upload, but I did get to play with the Aperture Priority and Shutter Priority modes on the camera, learning about what each of those does and how they work. I was really happy with the crispness of some of the shots I took, especially of the girls on the swings.

So after the park, we came home and put together the goodie bags for tomorrow's shindig. This is a particularly "Park City" thing, where you simply must thank your guests for coming to the party by sending them home with a little treat bag. Ours have silly putty, play dough, a cookie cutter, a blow pop, and some stickers. The girls had a lot of funy, actually, putting them together.

After all that, we had some frozen pizza for dinner (well, it was frozen before I cooked it in the oven!) and it was off to bed. Festivities begin at 4:00, but I think Daddy-J is taking the girls out tomorrow morning so I can get the house ready for the party.

Wish all of our loved ones could be here! I'll be sure to post pictures as soon as I have them.

Take Your Canvas Bags to the Supermarket.

'nuf said.

A Montessori birthday celebration

M-Moo and K-Wiggles both had their birthday celebrations at school today. Two separate classrooms, so M-Moo was first up at 9:15 and then K-Wiggles at 9:45.

I don't know if this is a particularly Montessori-specific thing, but our school has a very specific way of conducting a birthday celebration. It starts with all the kids sitting at the circle rug, singing a little song...

M-Moo, oh M-Moo.
Shall we tell you how we feel?
You have given us your spirit.
We love you very much.

The tune is definitely recongizable, but I can't put my finger on what the song is that originally went with the tune.

Then the teacher puts out the birthday celebration items. First is a candle of some sort, to represent the sun. Then the months of the year are laid out around the "sun." Then a small cup is placed by the month in which the child was born (November for M-Moo and K-Wiggles). Next the birthday child is handed a small globe (representing the earth, duh!) and three small beads (because M-Moo and K-Wiggles are turning three).

Then the child stands by the "sun" and the teacher (with help from mom) tells about when the child was in mama's tummy and the day she was born. The kids talk about newborns, shows pictures of the mama's tummy and the child as a newborn, and talks about what newborns do. The kids all chime in with what newborns do: poop, cry, sleep.

Then we all sing (to the tune of The Farmer in the Dell):

The Earth goes round the Sun.
The Earth goes round the Sun.
The Earth goes round the Sun.
And now she's One.

The child walks around the candle, representing the Earth going around the Sun, which is, obviously, one year (a little astronomy lesson?)! At the end of the trip round the Sun, the child puts one bead in the little cup (a little math lesson?). Then we talk about what the child could do when he/she was one year old (sociology?).

Repeat all of this for Two, and for Three.

Then we ask the child whether they want Happy Birthday in Spanish or English (both of mine chose Spanish!) (a language lesson?). We sing Happy Birthday, and the child gets to choose a book from the birthday box.

It is all so sweet and lovely. The child just adores being the center of all that attention, and all the kids know the routine because we do this for each child's birthday for each of the three years that the kids spend in the Early Childhood classroom.

Oh, and at the end, the birthday child chooses two assistants to bring hand-sanitizer and napkins to each of the children at circle. Then the birthday child brings the treats around the circle, asking "would you care for a muffin?" And the children practice saying "yes, please" (or, "no, thank you"). It's part of the Montessori curriculum called "Grace & Courtesy" and it really is very sweet to see.

I don't have any pictures from today. I thought about bringing my camera, but since "mama" is so involved in the whole birthday celebration, it just wasn't feasible to try taking pictures too.

Anyway, that's what the girls were doing in school today.

Thanksgiving Dinner Menu

Some of you may already know that Daddy-J and Mama-V do not travel for the holidays. What you may not know is that we also rarely cook holiday feasts. We did one year that I recall, when we had an au pair from South Africa, because we wanted to let her experience a "real" Thanksgiving!

But in general, we take advantage of living in a ski-resort town and order up a catered Thanksgiving Dinner. This year is no exception, but we are trying a different place.

And would you believe that the price for a full turkey meal for 6-8 people is less than what I would pay just for the ingredients? Never mind the prep time (and cleanup time) with three little kids under foot? Uh uh, not going to happen.

So we will happily go somewhere to watch the Detroit Lions play football, then perhaps get a few ski turns in (if there's any snow), and then pick up our Thanksgiving Dinner from Good Thymes and bring it home to enjoy.

Hope you all have a happy and peaceful holiday as well.

P.S. In case you can't read the menu pictured above, here's the plan:

Thanksgiving

Take Home

Turkey Feast

Serves 6 – 8 People

Requires 2-3 hour reheating time

Whole Roasted Turkey

Traditional Dressing

Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes

Maple Glazed Sweet Potatoes

Corn Pudding

Broccoli Casserole

Fresh Cranberry Relish

Turkey Giblet Gravy

Choice of Apple, Pumpkin or Pecan Pie

Biscuits with Honey Butter

Nothing but an assortment of pictures taken with my new camera. The first four are of K-Wiggles and/or Miss D, taken at our local Booster Juice, right next to Bobby Lawrence Karate (just found out today that the Booster Juice is out-of-business gone, bummer). The last one is an "almost" shot that I caught of Miss D and K-Wiggles kissing on the kitchen counter. A few minutes later, K-Wiggles was helping me make lunch and did a half-gainer off the counter, landing on her head on the kitchen floor. Thankfully nothing was broken, but it definitely scared the bejeezus out of her (and me)!

Anyway, all these shots are straight out of the camera, no post-production work at all, not even cropping. (Please excuse the red-eye in the first shot of Miss D -- I'm just too tired to do any editing tonight, but I loved her goofy expression in that one). You can see that I've been playing with the white balance settings on the camera to see what settings I like best. I think the warm color on the kissing shot is one of my better attempts.

M-Moo and K-Wiggles are going to turn 3 next week.

How the heck did that happen? Three years cannot possibly have gone by already...

Nevertheless, we're having a celebration next Saturday!

Wish everyone could be here...

Making play dough!

Last year, Miss D's teacher, Alyssa, gave me a recipe for making home-made play dough. The only ingredient it uses that we don't readily have on hand here at Casa Llamedos was Kool-Aid powder. So I bought some a long time ago, and it's been sitting in my pantry for ages.

Today, for some reason, it caught my eye and I decided to make play dough with the girls. We had so much fun, it ought to have been illegal! Of course I had to drag out my new camera to take pictures! (I haven't had time to edit them, so these are straight out of the camera... not too bad... still working on learning how the camera shoots in different light situations... and it's taking me some time to get used to the auto-focus system too).

K-Wiggles was completely enthralled, and spent the better part of the afternoon, at least 2+ hours, rolling the dough into tiny balls and putting them into the bowl. That kid sure can focus, when she wants to!

Finished another book tonight.

Started reading Augusten Burroughs's A Wolf at the Table a few nights ago. Disturbing book. A memoir about a boy with a very disturbed father. Definitely not light reading. But so well-written that I had trouble putting it down. I NEVER fall asleep reading a book, but two or three nights ago, I was so intent on finishing this book that I actually fell asleep while trying to finish it.

Anyway, I got back to it tonight and just had to post about it for anyone who might be interested. I'll add it to my Shelfari list tomorrow.

How to burn your leg with a bag of popcorn!

You don't really want the details, trust me. Suffice it to say that I was in the middle of making microwave popcorn for the girls who had just started watching a movie downstairs when I had to sit and cuddle with Marlee for a minute. Well, she peed all over me... all cuddled up in the chair, head on my shoulder, eyes closed, suddenly my lap is all warm and wet! Ick!

So up I get out of the chair; off goes the jacket; off go the jeans; and then I hear the microwave ding: the popcorn is ready. Go to take the popcorn out of the microwave, and the bag (those things get DARNED hot) brushes against my leg as I take it from microwave to counter.

That, in a nutshell, is how you burn your leg with a bag of microwave popcorn.

Warning: do not try this at home!

A blog to check out...

My apologies to those who already know about this 'blog I'm about to tell you about (Kerry!), but I just had to share this amazing 'blog that I really love following.

It's called The Pioneer Woman. The lady's name is Ree Drummond, and I just adore her 'blog, especially her writing, but also especially her photographs. She takes the most amazing photographs, and she also writes incredibly well, and she's just, well, funny! (How's that for a run-on sentence?).

Anyway, spend some time checking out her 'blog. I have no idea how she finds time to be a wife to her husband (Marlboro Man) and homeschooling mother to four adorable kids as well as keep up a bunch of different sections on her 'blog (Confessions, Cooking, Photography, Home & Garden). I think there must be at least 50 hours in her days!

Not the most exciting post from me today, but I just finished reading the latest installment of Pioneer Woman's novel about her romance with Marlboro Man (it's called Black Heels to Tractor Wheels). It was just about the best chapter ever, so I was inspired to share... 'cuz we all need more stuff that helps us spend time on the web, right?

So what's your favorite 'blog or website? Do share!

First photo shoot with the new camera!

So my new Nikon D40 arrived via UPS truck last night. I spent some time last night (while the battery was charging) going through Ken Rockwell's very handy guide to the D40. I learned a lot about how the camera works and what it's good at (and what it's not!).

After lunch today, the girls decided to get all dolled up in their dressups and have a tea party. Rather than wasting time in front of the computer (like I usually do when they are otherwise engaged), I grabbed my camera and decided to sit, watch, and shoot.

I definitely have a lot to learn, but I think I got a couple of shots today that, with a little post-production work (which I'm also learning at a fast and furious pace) turned out ok.

First up, a shot of Miss D.

Next up, M-Moo.

And K-Wiggles.

And finally, the tea party.

Foggy sunrise for my birthday.

Photos from our trip to Pullman.

For those of you loyal readers who followed our trip to Pullman, here are some photos from the trip. I'll try to do them in the order they were taken, but no guarantees (my memory's not that great these days... mama-brain strikes again!).

First up, a photo of my three beautiful little travelers. Of course, me traveling alone with three small children garnered lots of comments, and, for the most part, lots of help. The girls really were troopers. They entertained themselves for the whole flight, ate their snacks, drank their drinks, and were very pleasant. Thankfully, the flight was not full, so we had two rows to ourselves in the back of the plane, near the bathrooms, and everyone survived!

K-Wiggles had a very good time playing in the lentils (yes, lentils) at the Discovery Science Center in Pullman. While the other two girls went and explored and discovered all sorts of things, K-Wiggles pretty much buried and fed this one t-rex dinosaur over and over and over. We were there about two hours, and that's pretty much all she did. Does this child have focus, or what?

G'ma and the girls and I had a lovely breakfast at The Breakfast Club in Moscow, Idaho. The food really was terrific, and the staff was unbelievably good with the kids. The girls behaved themselves and we managed to get out before anybody seriously melted down!

Can you tell that M-Moo really likes to make cheesy smiles for the camera? And Miss-D is making a funny face too. I suppose all my "posed" shots will look like this for some time to come!

The girls really enjoyed spending time with their G'ma Libby. Miss-D borrowed my camera to take this rather excellent shot!

Our time at G'ma and G'pa's house was, um, chaotic? Well, anytime you have three little girls in a house that's used to two people who enjoy their solitude, it's going to be, um, loud? Ah well, bedtime stories were enjoyed by all. G'pa Irv even "read" some very creative stories from one of the girls' coloring books!