Anna answers the phone

I just got off of the phone with a very confused and (thankfully) amused woman who was calling our house to talk to Margaret about the homeschool drama group the kids are doing...

I saw Anna walking around with the phone and talking like she was having a conversation with someone, and I just thought she was playing with the phone like she often does. I did notice she seemed to be talking a lot more than usual, and saying things like "Need Fofie? (Sophie)" and "Sure" and "Hello" over and over again. I was commenting to Margaret that it's too bad that she won't actually talk like that when there's someone on the line, and something clicked in my head so I decided to get the phone and see if anyone was there. And there was! Hee hee.

I think Anna heard the phone ringing and picked up and started talking, because it wasn't a number we have programmed in for her to accidently call.

So that's one more thing for me to keep an eye on around here.

Sophia's Squirrel Bag

Here's a crafty project we did this week, I just finished it last night. This is a felt squirrel made (by me) from a picture drawn by Sophia. She insisted it needed to be sewn onto her bag.



We are doing lots of little crafty stuff, typical of this time of year when we're starting to feel the cabin fever. I'll try to post more as things get finished...

edited to add:
Yes, that is the same dress she was wearing on Thursday...;)

Thursday Update, Maggie Update

Today it was unseasonably warm, and the girls played outside a bit. I took some pictures of them on the swings and captured Maggie the dog-bear doing pretty much the only thing she does these days that isn't sleeping or eating, which is barking at the girls while they swing.

This is the primary reason why we aren't able to put her to sleep, even though she stumbles all of the time, she can't hear, she increasingly can't see, and she seems to be in a fair amount of pain from her arthritis. She is a border collie which means that when she was younger she would chase pretty much anything that moved, including the broom and vacuum cleaner, any shovels, the water spray from the hose, cars, balls, frisbees, and of course the kids. Now that she doesn't get around so much (she's 15 years old now) she can't really do any of those things, but she still gets up and goes to the door anytime she's awake enough to notice the kids going out and goes out to bark at them (I think because she can't chase them).

I believe that as long as she feels up to the job of barking at the kids we'll keep trying to make her comfortable and postpone the inevitable. We really do enjoy having her around, even with all of her issues.







I should also add that since Maggie is an honorary chicken, the chickens are going to miss her greatly when she's gone!

What I got done today

I haven't been getting very much done lately. I'm still recovering from sickness and I'm definitely not on top of things yet. I just cant seem to organize my thoughts and figure out what needs to be done.
Earlier this afternoon I was trying to decide what to do with the day and the little girls were fighting and whining and everything was going downhill fast. So I sent everyone to bed. They all cried for about 30 minutes and then it got suspiciously quiet. I wasn't feeling like doing housework so I decided to do something that would make me feel a little bit domestic. So the little girls all got a nap and Margaret and I made cupcakes. They are all still asleep, and I'm hoping that when they wake up we'll all have a cupcake and a much less whiny evening.






Update:
Margaret's working on a friendship bracelet

and Sophie and Anna woke up happy and are enjoying the cupcakes:


:)

Has it been a week already?

I realized this afternoon that it was Thursday again, and I'm not really sure what we did all week. The girls and I have been passing around a cold, it was pretty mild as colds go, but we're all a bit out-of-sorts and out-of-routine because of it.

A few sleepy pictures of the girls that I took this morning...
Anna fell asleep with blue marker on her hand, and apparently rubbed her eye a bit in the night, because she woke up with a blue eye:

Ellie:

Sophie:

Almost a dozen eggs from our own backyard:


I can't think straight right now since Anna's screaming, so I'll update more later...

Thursday Update

Well, we've been finding an egg a day in the hutch, and a few days ago we found two so I'm sure there is more than one chicken laying, but we still haven't figured out who it is (besides Hyacinth). The girls are having a lot of fun going out there to check for eggs!

With the holidays behind us we are getting back to routine around here, getting lots of school done, and the middle girls started up gymnastics again this week. Sophia got a ribbon for her vaults on her first day back!

Here are some funny shots of Anna, taken this morning, with her new, ummm....Fun toy purse thing that sings and will soon have no batteries. ;) She was making it play this little tune over and over and dancing along, with her tutu around her ankles. She will only wear the tutu around her ankles for some reason, and sadly by the time she's old enough to explain this to me she won't remember it. Good thing we got pictures I guess.

A New Year, Keri's simple resolution

I'm posting my new year's resolution here, to remind myself to keep it, and to keep myself accountable. It's actually nothing grand and shouldn't be hard to do, but I have a little addiction that is doing me no good and I'm going to stop it. Here it is:

I hereby resolve to stop reading doomsday predictions on the internet. There is one blog in particular (I won't name it but my family knows it) that I won't read anymore. That's it.

I am not going to go into this year afraid of the impending Zombie apocalypse, or even another Great Depression, but rather I will believe that we Americans are smart and resourceful and will face the coming challenges and overcome them. I have no faith that our new president or my local and state governments will save us, but I'm also going to be optimistic that they won't do us in either. Very optimistic, I know, but optimism is the central core of my resolution.

It will definitely be interesting to see what this year brings.

Happy New Year

Slideshow of 2008 Highlights, it's only 4 minutes long this time. :)