Too Much "Together Time"

With Christmas break and the whole week off before that, we've been experiencing an increase in the amount of sibling rivalry that goes on around here. Fighting and a messy house (which is a lot more unaviodable with everyone home all the time) are the things that drive me crazy faster than anything else. So in an effort to curb the hostilities and restore peace between the children, we came up with a contract about 10 days before Christmas. Every time the kids fought, I would hold on to one of their gifts until they earned it back. Every day they went without fighting they could earn one back. When they get to 21 days in a row - the supposed amount of time it takes to break a habit - they can have everything they lost back. Not counting gifts from Grandma or Santa, just me, I took one away every time a disagreement turned into a fight. By Christmas day, Sophie was down 0 (she's smart enough to keep herself in check), Janelle was down 2, and Brooke was down 16. Sixteen! I didn't even have that many gifts to confiscate, so we agreed that she'd make up the difference with stocking stuff. After Christmas, we still seemed to have a little problem with two of the kids (bet you can't guess which two). So mean mom took control and dictated that all toys be taken away, one group at a time (as in baby dolls as a set, Barbies as a set, etc.) until they can go the entire 21 days in a row, starting over every time they fight.

This may turn out to be a smashing disciplining success story, or my kids may grow up to tell therapists stories about their cruel mother. It's a risk I'm willing to take.

So what do they do when I take all their stuff away? Somehow Sophie convinced Janelle to play her slave and push her around in a laundry basket while she reads and Janelle does her chore for her. Told you that girl's smart.

As of right now, Brooke and Janelle have lost all toys and privileges except books (I won't take those away because it's good for them and they don't fight when they read), and have not fought for one hour and 23 minutes. Only 20 days, 22 hours and 37 minutes to go!

Claire With Santa

All week, since Claire has discovered Santa, she's been asking to see him. So Todd dressed up and came in the front door to surprise her Christmas Eve (one of the advantages of having a chubby hubby - by next Christmas he's going to be back to hotty Toddy, so it won't ever be the same again). The other girls were all in on it -I'm pretty sure we couldn't have fooled them, although it worked on Sophie when she was 3 or 4- and we got a kick out of her obvious excitement/cluelessness. We used her farsightedness to our advantage and took off her glasses during the experience :)

Also, this year for the girls, I attempted a project that actually turned out like I had envisioned it. I'm very proud of myself :) It's part Barbie dream house and part Alli dream house:

Cute, right!?

(Compliments are encouraged)

Mean With A Capital M

The translation:

Dear Janelle, I wish I didn't do your room job sometime that you will remember. You're not doing anything back. You're mean and mean with a capital M.

From,

Brooke

The explanation:

The twins each have a part of their room they're supposed to be responsible for cleaning every morning before breakfast. When they're feeling generous, they will sometimes do the other person's job to be nice. Apparently Brooke's acts of service come with strings attached. She fully expected a return favor and when Janelle didn't deliver, she wished she hadn't done it in the first place (though her wording isn't clear, I'm certain that's what she meant). That's the spirit, Brooke!

Santa's Watching

He sees you when you're sleeping.

He knows when you're awake.

He knows you licked the gingerbread house

When your mom said, "Stay away!"

(She's just lucky she's cute)

Ice Storm

We had quite the ice storm Monday night/Sunday morning. There was an inch of ice on every tree branch, and they were breaking left and right from the weight. It was a very treacherous beauty. We didn't have anything ruin our property significantly, but we know people who did. We also went without power for a good part of Sunday early morning and early evening. We felt very pioneer-ish lighting candles, building a fire to keep warm, and trying to figure out what to eat. (Janelle took the picture of the icicles - I thought it turned out pretty good for a 7 year old!)

Winter Funderland

With the whole past week off of school, the kids have enjoyed the blustery weather:

Amanda, being a more thoughful person than I am, suggested we do a Kids' Christmas party. So we had the kids get together for some cookie decorating, a white elephant gift exchange, and a baby Jesus in a manger craft.

With Twin Toothless Wonders this year, I had to have them sing "All I Want For Christmas" (I remember when I was 7 at Christmastime, my mom wanted me to sing it and I think I refused. Sorry mom, I was very uncooperative - this is for you.) (Also, we don't really live in a dark cave, it just always looks like that in pictures)

Why I Don't Often Have Dinner Guests

For a person who loves good food, I have a strong dislike for preparing it. As a result, dinners at my house are often sub-par. Take today for instance. I planned on trying to copy my friend's delicious shepherd's pie, so I went out to the freezer to get some ground beef to defrost. Hours later, when I was ready to cook the meat and assemble it all, I find out it wasn't ground beef I'd defrosted after all. It was strawberries. So we had waffles instead.

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I blame my mother somewhat. She is a good woman, but her freezer organization skills did not prepare me to be an upstanding culinary genius. We used to joke about my mom's "freezer stew". Whenever it came time to clean out the freezer, she'd throw a bunch of odd vegetables and stuff together and call it dinner.

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Her excessive resourcefulness is another trait I picked up. It has many benefits, of course. I'm not wasteful and I can manage money well. If I grab something and defrost it, we're eating it for dinner darn it, I don't care what it is. There were many instances growing up that were painfully embarrassing for me as a child that I know I would totally do to my kids even so. One that made me want to sink into the floor as a middle-schooler was my homemade trumpet case. My old case was cracked and pretty cheap, so my mom being the creative woman she was found a sturdy wooden white suitcase at a flea market and cleverly combined the innards of my old trumpet case with the outards of the sensible, dreaded suitcase. It was about 150% bigger than any other trumpet case, and looked distinctly like what it was. It didn't help that every time I walked down the hall in the morning the wood shop teacher would holler, "Hey, you goin' on a trip somewhere?"

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But my kids don't complain. They think I'm a great cook. I guess I've successfully trained them to be happy with anything that won't kill them. I shouldn't pick on my mother so either. I can't say I starved as a child, and she's not quite the most creative cook I've ever met. I have a friend who told me her mother-in-law once substituted pork and beans for refried beans, italian sausage for ground beef, cottage cheese for sour cream, and mozzerella for cheddar all in the same meal. That was the worst excuse for a taco I've ever heard of!