After I got out of the shower this morning I heard Jonah exclaiming “I caught it! I caught it!”  He did tell me a few times yesterday that there was a big, cool spider by his window, but I didn’t think much about it.  He caught it this morning and he and Logan did all they could to learn who exactly their bedroom visitor was.  This is what I found on the table when I sat down for breakfast:

They used their field guide searching skills and discovered they had a Daring Jumping Spider.  Jonah made him a habitat in a jar.  Logan drew a picture.  All the boys went out in the rain in search of small insects to feed him.

I love it when stuff like this happens with absolutely no input (or interference) from me.  I hadn’t even eaten breakfast yet and I could count it as a good school day.

taken by Jonah

I am playing catch up here…

We got a lot of snow on March 25th.  Over a foot.

Which gave the kids the opportunity to try out Jonah’s invention– the Rocket Chair.  It’s made from a broken dining chair and a pair of old cross country skis.  Oh, and a rope to pull it back up the hill with, of course.

Now for photos.  I think I’m done with the words for this post.

My Jonah had a birthday nearly a month ago.  We had a fun party.  I took 3 of his friends swimming with us at the nearby rec center, then we came home for pizza, cake, and presents.

This wasn’t just any birthday, it was his EIGHTH birthday!

The Saturday morning after his birthday he was baptized.  My parents and grandma came for a visit.  My dad gave a sweet talk about baptism, and Barry did the baptism and confirmation.

It is so fun to watch my sweet boy grow up.  From the instant he came into this world he has been determined and persistent in getting what he wants and doing what he thinks is right.  I have said many prayers that we can help channel his strong will toward good, and he seems to have a innate sense of what is right and fair.

And he’s super cute.

I love you Jonah!

When Brenna was  tiny I was very idealistic about Halloween.  I saw it as a little microcosm of life– that she could be anything she wanted, and I would help her get there.  Silly, I know, but the dressing up and making was so much fun.  As each new child has entered our family that whole idealism has, well, gone out the window.  Now it is a last minute scramble to get the costumes decided on and all the stuff gathered up.  Halloween ranks right up there with Christmas on my kids’ list of favorite holidays.  At least once a day, ALL YEAR LONG, Logan tells me what he’s going to be for the next Halloween.  I guess there is some magic in the thought that he really can transform himself into anything he wants.  This year he settled on being a pirate:

Jonah was an alien:

Brenna was leopard:

Then there was Buzz– which has been Ian’s everyday uniform on most days lately:

And for the third time we had a little dinosaur.  I made this hood and tail when Jonah was a baby.  Logan was only 3 months old his first Halloween, so he was too little to wear it, but Ian did, and now Hunter:

(Barry took these pictures in the church parking lot during our Trunk-or-Treat.)

The only sewing I did this year was make Brenna a tail and ears to pin on to her sweats– the rest was just paint and hairspray and a good dig through the dress-up and recycling bins.

We lit our Jack-0-Lanterns and did a little Trick-or Treating around the neighborhood too.

I’ve really needed updated photos of my kids for my mantle since, well, I think the last time I had pictures taken was 2 years ago.  I’ve got lots of snapshots of course, but I needed portraits.  The thought of making an appointment, getting everyone clean and dressed and somewhere on time has been giving me hives.

 I have big windows and lots of natural light in our family room, so yesterday I hung a big brown sheet at one end of the room and snapped away.   Most of the pictures I took turned out like this:

Out of focus, fake smiles, silly faces, or Ian in the Buzz Lightyear costume he found in the dress-up bin about a month ago and hasn’t taken off since (I had to bribe him with chocolate chips). Click here to see the out takes bigger, if you’d really like.

But the beauty of digital photography is that I could take LOTS of pictures.  I decided to go with black and white pictures so it didn’t matter what color the background or clothes were.  A few clicks in iPhoto, the Costco photo printing center, and $8 later, I’ve got these lined up on my mantle:

Not bad for a day’s work.

Barry’s aunt is a sock monkey making aunt.  Every new baby gets one, and they are well loved.  Even though they’re made from the same brown, white, and red socks, each one is unique– and they’ve got the kid’s names embroidered on them just in case.  The thing that amazes me is that Ian can look at the letters and figure out whose is whose!

 We’ve definitely got the 5 cutest monkeys ever.

The sock monkeys are pretty cute too.

Did a week and a half really just go by since my last post?  How did that happen?  I better get on the ball and finish posting about our handmade Christmas gifts before it is way too far past Christmas.

For weeks and weeks before Christmas Logan would say, “When I get the teddy bear you make me for Christmas then… (fill in the blank with things like “I’ll always wrap him up in my mimi.” or “you can make him a little dresser and fill it up with jammies and a swimming suit.”)   So, I had to oblige.  Brenna has been totally attached to Buttercup for 2 years now, but the boys had no mama-made toys to snuggle.  I haven’t got that swimming suit made, or any clothes for that matter, let alone the dresser, but they are the perfect night time snuggle companions.  Here’s where I found them this morning:

Jonah’s Teddy

Logan’s Chubby Wubby

So, I’m not doing very good at posting every day.  And here’s another schoolish post, because, well, that’s what I do lately.

Jonah figured out that he is exactly 2510 days old today.  I made my Montessori math bead materials last summer.  Traditionally they’re the “Golden Beads” but we opted for ruby.  After I made the thousand cube (Can you see Logan holding it?) I was pretty much burnt out on stringing beads on wires, but we still needed more 10s, 100s, and 1000s to really do all the math we wanted, so I made some beads I could print out.  If you’d like to print them yourselves, here they are in a PDF:

Math Bead Materials

They’re totally no frills.  You’ll have to figure out your own little fold-over tabs to hook the sides of your cubes together, but they do the job and get A LOT of use around here.  To make your 100s, just cut the squares apart, obviously.  The last page is 10s, in case you couldn’t tell.  If you’re really going to use these and need some units, leave a comment and I’ll make a page of those too.  I’m really just posting this on here to have something to post!!

I’m still hoping to get to some thing-making soon– like this weekend.  My batteries need some recharging and I’m realizing (once again) that my sanity and ability to cope directly corelates to the amount of creating I do.  What keeps you sane?

Verily I say… the fulness of the earth is yours, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and that which climbeth upon the trees and walketh upon the earth;

Yea, all things which come of the earth, in the season thereof, are made for the benefit and the use of man, both to please the eye and to gladden the heart;

(D&C 59:16, 18)