Row Row Row... What?

Zachary made up a new song today. Ok, well, "made up" is a bit of a stretch. He has adapted the words to suit his ... tastes. It is hilarious to listen to, and I can't bring myself to try and correct him.

Row row row your boat Happy Halloween
Merrily merrily merrily merrily Happy Halloween

Early Mornings With the Kids

We've been having early wake ups for a couple of weeks now. Usually it is Zachary getting up around 5:30am. He comes into our bedroom, makes me lift him into bed, and sometimes falls back to sleep with us while pulling my hair. And sometimes it is Avery who wakes up at 5:30 and then he just wants to play. When that happens I have to immediately get up when he wakes up, which stinks.

Zachary has two canines coming in and that is probably contributing to his early mornings. Avery has bad dreams on occasion, he blames the dreams for waking him up early. At least they take naps at the same time during the day, so if I don't get enough sleep I can grab a short snooze.

Visiting Nani and Nene

With a long weekend comes a lot of traveling. Today we visited Nani and Nene and once again all the cousins were there. As the kids get older, less is broken, but more messes are made with toys, blankets, beds, etc and in more rooms.

Picture time for the cousins is always interesting. Zachary is the youngest, so he is frequently the hardest to control for a group photo. Sometimes having an adult sit with the kids helps keep them all on the couch. And sometimes it just turns into a scene from Wild Kingdom.

Like Feeding Candy to Horses

While we were at the Spicher's house for candy making I took the kids outside to see the horses. Barbara's niece Carrie gave the kids peppermints to feed to the horses... yes, peppermints! One of the horses was really slobbery too, but we made sure we washed our hands afterward. ;)

Making Hard Candy

The day after Thanksgiving we went to Hagerstown to make candy with the Spichers. Barbara's family makes hard candy every year and this year we were invited help out. It is an tricky process, and for them, serious business, but with a lot of people helping it goes quickly and can be loads of fun.

While the candy is cooking, large granite slabs are cooled outside on the porch (if the weather does not cooperate, ice is used). Next, the slabs are covered in shortening to help keep the candy from sticking and to make it easier to fold in flavoring and food coloring. Finally the candy is poured out.

After a few minutes the candy is almost cool enough to handle without being burned. It gets chopped into large chunks and tossed into piles of powdered sugar. As it cools, helpers are treated to scorched fingers as they cut it into bite-sized pieces with kitchen scissors. The powdered sugar helps keep it from sticking to the counters, or to other pieces, as it cools down to room temperature.

All told we made 14 good batches and 4 bad batches. It turned out that one of the thermometers was off by 60 degrees and the sugar syrup never hit "cracking" temperature (310). The bad batches stayed too sticky and could almost pull filings out if you tried to eat them.

Thanksgiving 2006

Thanksgiving this year was in West Virginia. We celebrated with Martin, Barbara, and Ashley. Along with the traditional turkey-day fare we had sauerkraut with meat; a tasty addition to the meal.

The day began early and dinner was at 1pm. Afterwards we all went for leisurely walk and then I got a little catnap. At 6pm we had pie... (and more turkey at 10pm) and we finished the evening with Thursday night TV.

To cap off a very pleasant day, Eli and I slept in the guest house while Avery and Zachary slept in the main house. We didn't know until the next morning that they were up a couple of times in the night for various reasons. But I think Martin and Barbara were prepared for it; they were giving us a much appreciated break.

Construction of the Craft Room

As built, our house had a large empty space above the garage. The builder used engineered trusses to hold up the roof. They are inexpensive and strong, but come at a cost: space.

One of our neighbors had the brilliant idea that the engineered trusses could be replaced with conventional roof framing, freeing up the space for a walk-in closet or bonus room connected to one of the upstairs bedrooms. It sounded like such a great idea that several of us decided to have the same modifications done, sharing the cost of revised architectural drawings and building permits.

A couple of days ago our contractor Billy started the demolition process. He removed the ceiling in the garage, built new roof framing, cut out the engineered trusses, and finished by constructing a 2nd story floor.



This morning Billy broke through the wall between the bedroom and the future "craft room"; there is now a six foot hole in the wall. To expand the usable bedroom space he also tore down the two original closets that bracketed the room's window. The space already looks and feels so much bigger.



The footprint of the craft room is also large, but because of the roof line we'll only get to use eight or ten feet in the center of the room. The lowest part of the room will be closed off to make storage spaces, and in front of those will be built-in shelves and drawers for storage. At the front end of the room, opposite the door, is a large circular window that was decorative but will now provide a nice bit of light during the day.

Childhood Milestones

Zachary (21 months) has started to talk back to his brother. When putting them to bed a couple of nights ago, Avery was taking something from Zachary and he says "Avery, be nice." Then, yesterday Avery was singing and Zachary says "Be quiet, Avery." It is hard not to laugh when you hear a baby say that and his face is so serious.

Avery, finally, after several long months of potty training, pooped on the potty. It wasn't his first time, but I'm hoping this will be a big breakthrough for him. I can officially say that potty training is difficult. As we are potty training Avery, Zach likes going on the potty too. The only problem with him is he pees every 30 minutes, so he just asks to go after he has a soiled diaper change.

For those of you who are potty training, or will soon, you may find that you need to offer incentives. For Avery the only thing that worked well was taking away TV and then giving him 15 minutes for every pee and 30 minutes for every poop. He gets an M&M treat too and extra if he tells me he has to go and doesn't make a mess in his pull up all day long. It's a complicated system, but we manage. Also, being naked all day long seems to help too. Good luck fellow potty trainers!

Balloons

Harris Teeter is the best grocery store. Not because of its prices or produce, but because they give the kids helium balloons after the shopping is done (bonus, if you are encumbered with children, they offer to take your groceries out to your car).

Anyhow, when the balloons have just a little life in them, when they just barely hover over the floor, I cut the strings off. The kids love playing with them in this state. They just spent 20 minutes throwing them up, letting them drift slowly back to their hands, and hitting them back up in the air. There was a minor fight over whose color belonged to whom, but other than that it was great entertainment.