Ginger-board house

So, Will wanted to do a gingerbread house this year. He also wanted to buy one of those kits from Wal-Mart or wherever that are like "Gingerbread House in a box." Well, that just seemed wrong to me. I mean, what's the point if you buy a kit? If you're going to do a gingerbread house, I thought, you should do it for real.

And when I say "for real," I mean using graham crackers instead of gingerbread, buying pre-made frosting, and substituting cardboard for the roof when you can't figure anything else out.

Yes, purist right now are horrified, I know. I really *wanted* to do a real house, but I figured that a cardboard-and-graham-cracker house was better than nothing, which is probably what he would have gotten if I'd been determined to do it "right." I have five stories due in the next two weeks, and I've been slammed doing phone interviews with experts and trying to manage my household at the same time. So right now, this ginger-board house looks pretty darn good.

Just please don't eat the roof.

The coolest park ever...

Wow, for a little town, Hernando sure has some pretty great stuff. I really do love it here -- it has so much character and a real sense of community. There are trees and older homes intersperse with newer developments. And there is seriously the coolest public park I can imagine a city of less than 15,000 people ever having. Conger Park is one of the public parks here, and wow, is it ever awesome. We'd heard about it, but we'd never checked it out before. Today I took the kids and they had a really fantastic time. It has a puppet theatre, a set of chimes (we learned to play ABC/Twinkle Twinkle and Somewhere Over the Rainbow on them), and really imaginative, cool little obstacles. The sets themselves look like castles or trains or other imaginative structures, and there's so much color and detail...well, you can see for yourself!

A little early spookiness

I know I haven't posted much lately, but things have been pretty busy around here. I had an allergic reaction to a medicine I was taking, which sent me to the ER this week. I've never had something like that happen to me, so it was kind of surreal. While it was scary and awful, I have to say that it was so incredible to be able to call my dad, who was in town of course, and get him to meet us at the ER to keep the kids. I just kept thinking that this was so much of what we were here for. My mom and dad stayed in town an extra day and kept the kids all day Wednesday after I got home from the hospital. I'm finally doing better today, but I've been out of action most of the week.

We've been busy since we moved here, though. Will was so excited about the new house, he desperately wanted to decorate for Halloween, which is something we've never done before. (I usually don't even get pumpkins carved until a day or two before!) Anyway, Ben's parents came down to check out the new house, and they helped us get in the spooky spirit.

Our new neighbors brought us cookies, which was super nice. There are kids here in the neighborhood that Will plays with a lot, and he just started two new activities: a homeschool P.E. class and Taekwondo. He made a new friend at Taekwondo this week, and I hit it off with the parents, as well. Turns out they are new here, too, and were originally from Louisiana. They invited us to their son's costume party tonight, so the kids got dressed up and we went over there for a while. It was good fun.

Good Times

Knowing we'll be leaving soon, I took the kids outside this evening to enjoy our "backyard" a little longer. Ben grilled, the kids played, and I chased them and took pictures. The first few on the slideshow, actually, are from Adelaide just being silly last week, but those were worth viewing too, I thought.

Slowly....losing....mind...

I shouldn't be writing this post right now. I have too much to do.

And yet, I must. Both of my kids are in the bathtub right now, and I'm just a demented cry away from them. No danger.

Oh, wait. Actually, I had to run in there for a second. Adelaide took her $50 custom-fitted ear molds out and tried to chew on them like they're hot-pink bubble gum. At least we caught her.

So, as I was saying, I am slowly -- hold on! I'll be right back!

Sorry. Will said it looked like Adelaide was testing out her diaperless power in the pool water. False alarm, but we're careful after she doused all her squishy foam bath letters in poop this weekend as I sat right beside her and played with her. It was diarrhea -- she couldn't help it. But seeing her go from clean bath baby to child-in-a-dangerous-cesspool-of-poop in 0.5 seconds imparts a bit of stress.

So, anyway. I am slowly losing my mi -- what? Oh, hold on. That's the phone ringing. It was an editor asking me for a last-minute assignment. I could say no, but I don't want to. I want to write. I just have to understand that my brain will be stretched to the limits of what God intended as I attempt to melodically string words together as a cacophony of Dora the Explorer and Will's endless streams of questions rattle me back to reality.

At least the house is clean.

No, not really. I can't even pull off that lie in cyberspace. The kitchen is piled with dishes, the laundry room beckons with its Himalayan piles of clothing, and even the master bedroom is a haven for discarded and now hidden boxes of raisins and papers that I really *should* go through.

So what was I saying? Oh, yeah. I'm slowly losing my mind. But no time for that now -- I'm on deadline and my kids are clean.

Indoor Kids (and mommy musings)

Okay, so I realized I hadn't been taking many photos lately. It's interesting -- when I wasn't writing, my camera was always at hand. It kept me sane in some ways, I guess -- I HAD to be creative somehow, and the camera was a stop-gap until I realized there was no reason to quit writing just because you have kids to take care of -- quite the contrary, actually.

Anyway, I've been pretty busy lately, and that is good. I was nervous for a while after I left the editing job at the local parenting publication because I didn't really feel like I knew what I was doing. But I have made some amazing friends who have helped me along the way (Sharon Anne Waldrop and Gina Roberts-Gray, whose bylines you might recognize, have been amazing!) and I'm seeing some very real progress. I don't want to post about the assignments I have right now because they can always get bumped, but I will definitely post when they do run.

But of course, this is titled "Indoor Kids," to match with my previous "Outdoor Kids" post. The kids love being outside, but my creative kids can definitely wreak havoc...I mean, PLAY... inside, as well, especially during March Madness and deadline time! Will loves the new Sumo Lounge we got -- I am going to review it soon for my column that runs in Baton Rouge Parents Magazine, but I'll give you a preview right now -- it's AWESOME! For one thing, both kids can comfortably be on it at once, which is an absolute Godsend for my family since when Adelaide sees Will do something, she MUST do it, as well, which leads to him often reluctantly surrendering his seating preference to avoid shrill-induced hearing loss. But with the huge Sumo Lounge, they completely don't have to -- they just plop down on it together. Anyway, the photo of him at the top is on the big Sumo Lounger, as he is often found.

Adelaide is, of course, into EVERYTHING. You can see the train table behind her -- she loves it, which has induced a bit of a train-lovin' renaissance in Will. (See, the "you have it, I want it" goes both ways here.) Anyway, they both play on it, but his is more construction while hers is, shall we say, deconstruction. For a girl who would wear frilly dresses and patent leather mary janes every day of the week if I'd let her, Adelaide certainly does love crashing cars and trains into each other. Then again, she's surely been watching brother. You can also see her "Pata-pata," as she calls him -- the darn thing plays patty cake every time you touch it's foot. We knew when Will was 1 that he was showing architect/engineer tendencies. Adelaide, if we are again correct, will be a vet. She loves animals, live and pretend, and treats them like baby dolls. Anyway, she's always finding something to do, and I'm hopeful that as she gets older, it will involve more fun playing like this and less hunting for leftover Adelaide snacks on she's left herself, Hansel and Gretel-Style, on floors in nearly every room of the house.

Anyway, that's my musings today on my indoor kids. I had a bit of writer's block before I started this, and now I'm feeling better, so I'm off to do some paying work with my renewed flow of wordiness. :)

Thanksgiving

We had a lovely Thanksgiving holiday. Ben's parents came down bearing bedding...no, seriously, they brought us a scrumptiously somnulent memory foam king bed that is so cuddly and comfy. It was nice for me and Ben to get some "time off" -- we even went to see the new Bond flick, which was actually pretty good! And we made more progress on the bathroom, thanks to Ben and his dad's hard work (pics later). Anyway, here's a little sampling of our weekend. It was nice, and now we can't wait to hit Dallas later this week...and then to Kentucky for Christmas later in December. Yay!

Two pipe cleaners and a MICROPHONE

Okay, this was the laugh of the day at our house. Background to this: At his school, Will's language arts teacher uses a little "helper" called "Mr. Googly-eyes." Mr. Googly-eyes is a tricky little fellow who will jump around while they're reading words and randomly stop and they have to stop...anyway, you get the idea. He's a stick with googly eyes that the teacher uses as a pointer.

Well, we've been doing our fair share of home reno's lately, and when you go to Lowe's and get paint, they give you a stirrer. So Will has taken one of them and decided he wanted to make his OWN Mr. Googly-eyes. So last night, we sat down together with some art supplies to create Mr. Googly-eyes long-lost brother. As Will discovered what all we had craft-wise, Mr. Googly-eyes became Mr. Googly-eyes goes to Bourbon Street -- he's a little wild and crazy looking. So we're laughing about that, and Will's like, okay, we're done gluing, so now I have a few things I want to draw. SO he went with a mouth (which he "x"'d out and redid a couple of times until he was happy with it...) and even some toes, okay, cute. Then...he begins drawing at Mr. G's waist. And it's...somewhat...cylindricle...with a circle on top...WILL! WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DRAWING ON MR. GOOGLY-EYES????

"It's his microphone, Mommy. He has it clipped onto his belt."

Okay...so I'm trying really hard not to roll in the floor laughing. So I call Ben over to see Mr. G's microphone-belt. This did not help the laughing situation. He was trying to hide behind the door, doubled-over, laughing.

So meet ***Porn Star Microphone Mr. Googly-Eyes*** hehehe

Seriously. It's just clipped to his belt. Can't you tell?

I love the innocence of children. It can teach us, it can move us, but it can also make us have semi-asthmatic moments of attempted laughter suppression. Like this one.

I voted!

It wasn't the most exciting vote ever -- I still remember standing in a line that went out the door at my HUGE church in Kentucky during the 2000 Presidential elections. I wore my "I voted" sticker proudly that day -- it was an exercise in patience and perseverance! Anyway, more or less just a bunch of constitutional measures on our local ballot this time, but I wanted to go vote to allow a local area to incorporate their own school district outside of EBR's failing district. Plus I fondly remember going to the polls with my mother every time there was an election. What's funny is that I realize now that she HAD to take us because school was out, but then I just loved going and watching her pull the levers. It really showed me that it was something you don't "think about" doing -- you just do it. So hopefully I can instill that in my munchkins, which started today when Will went into the booth with me, for the first time aware and understanding what was going on. In some ways, I'm even prouder I packed my kids up and voted today than I am of sticking it out in line in 2000. Then it was clear what was on the line, and everyone was getting to the polls. Today, turnout will be light and there will be constitutional measures passed that will make a difference but aren't glamorous enough to inspire passion and mass migration to polling places...and I voted anyway. That's the lesson to teach my kids.

Thanks to my #1 Crafty Girl Tanya Nichols for the super-cute voting illo at the top of the page!

Halloween photos...finally!

Trunk or Treat and Halloween

Yes, finally, some Halloween photos. Click on the image above to see the album.