The Last Day of Christmas

I think we're finally done with Christmas. On the way home from our last gathering the other night Elena asked, "How many days are left in Christmas?" We had a wonderful time with everything this year- the food all came out good, everyone was healthy, and I didn't have to leave my house on Christmas day. We're ready for our normal lives back- "normal" being a relative term, of course!

Not a creature was stirring...

It has been very, very busy at the Becker house the past few weeks, hence the lack of updates. Of course, it's usually very, very busy at the Becker house; the getting-ready-for-Christmas busyness has just made it seem even busier than our normal level of busy. Above you see David (not) helping me with some of my cookie baking; in spite of his help, I managed to put out a respectable number of cookies.
Christmas morning dawned (actually, they started well before dawn) with what has become our tradition: the children get up at six a.m. and play Christmas carols on the piano until Matt and I decide getting up out of bed is less painful than listening to another rousing chorus of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" sung by children who don't quite remember all the words. This, plus the two-harmonica version of Jingle Bells that sent the dog running to hide under the bed, was far more energizing than a grande gingerbread latte.
I do most of my shopping online these days. In the little photo caption on Amazon.com, this stuffed tiger looked like a normal-sized stuffed animal. Imagine my surprise when a three-foot-high box was delivered by UPS with this guy inside it. If I had read the product description a little more carefully, I might have noticed the dimensions and realized how big it was. Elena loves him nontheless, and has named him Jacob.
The rest of the kids enjoyed their new stuff too. They got the usual assortment of legos, nerf guns, slippers, pajamas, and board games. Enjoy the little video of David eating wrapping paper!

It all comes out in the wash

This is what a watermelon flavored sucker looks like after it has been washed and dried with a load of whites. I know it was watermelon flavored because as I was posting these pics, the former owner of this sucker came by and said, "Oh, I was looking for that sucker. It was watermelon flavor." D'oh! We now have a large basket of slightly fruity smelling socks and undershirts.
This is a typical representation of the types of things I find in the bottom of the washer and dryer. Coins, nerf darts, guitar picks, legos, pocket knives, the unfortunate crayon or piece of candy, etc. In my old washing machine, I once found a whole cherry tomato, completely intact and probably perfectly edible, that a child put in his pocket while he was out in the garden and then promptly forgot about.
My children seem to be magnets for random objects. This is Joe's school cubby, which is supposed to contain only mother-approved school materials, which has so much other junk stuffed between the books that he can't pull anything out without causing an avalanche of miscellaneous stuff. If you need any nerf darts, or a joker for your deck of cards, or a rifle for a lego action figure, just look behind Joe's math books.

Oh fudge.

I make a lot of cookies- probably 2 or 3 batches in a normal week (just for my own consumption), and dozens upon dozens for Christmas. With the new baby this year and all the work we've been doing on the house, I'm a little behind schedule with my baking. While my cookies always (ahem) come out perfectly, I'm willing to admit that my attempts at candy making are a little hit-or-miss. Up above is my first batch of fudge from last week. Among other mistakes, I over-cooked it and over-cooled it before stirring, so it set up rock hard before I could pour it into the pan. This lack of perfection did not deter the children, who kept sneaking by to snatch chunks of burnt fudge until I got around to dumping it out.
My next batch of fudge came out just fine, as did the double batch of peanut butter fudge. I think my success caused me to become over-confident, because the next batch didn't come out so well. I made another double batch of regular fudge, at the same time I was trying to do several other things, and got distracted and made a rookie mistake that made it set up all grainy and icky. Another batch for the trash! In spite of having help from my girls here, the last (and final) batch of fudge came out great. Tomorrow, I'm going back to making cookies.

Eat it, kid

A few short clips of David not eating his baby food!

Happy Birthday, Dear Doggers

You may remember a post similar to this last year, when we celebrated Fly's first birthday. This year, she got a burger with two candles. Matt pinned down the dog, yelping and flailing (the dog, not Matt) while Paul lit the candles.
After a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday", the kids blew out the candles, and the dog ran off to hide under the bed, where she remained for the next four hours. She ate her burger later that night, alone, under the table.

Brrrr

These two are braver than me. It's been cooooooooold.

Tower of Babel-oney

Sometimes it seems that all my children ever think about is food. From the moment I come downstairs in the morning I hear cries of "when's breakfast?" followed immediately by "what's for lunch?" The big kids can, for the most part, prepare food for themselves if they don't feel like waiting for me to do it for them. Little Renee still needs my help, and today it seems she found a way to amuse herself while she waited.

Jingle all the way!

maybe this is why I get so many headaches....you gotta love the harmonica accompaniment!

Bits 'n' pieces

Most of the horizontal surfaces in our house look something like this- a sort of multi-dimensional clutter heap. Here Paul is messing around with a few of his Star Wars lego sets that are scattered atop a 1000-piece puzzle-in-progress. Why bother putting anything away, when you can just start working up? I think if I didn't demand clean-up every now and then, they'd make their way all the way to the ceiling.
A few days ago, it snowed outside. There was maybe a total of about an inch of accumulation, but it was enough for my girls to scrape together a sorry looking little snowman. He's held up pretty well all things considered; this is what remained of him this afternoon after a few sunny days.
This is a page from Joe's health book. He was supposed to be taking a family medical history, with Matt as his subject. He wrote down his stats like age, height, weight, etc. The questionnaire portion of the page asked if Matt had any chronic problems, to which Joe replied, "Well, he does have to deal with us kids everyday." Hmm, I guess that could affect his health!

C is for cookie

Today I made cookies with the help of six young children. There really ought to be some kind of award or medal of valor for doing that. Anyways, we got them all cut out and baked without anyone getting burned, and then I turned them loose with the frosting.
This is typical of the results you get when you turn a bunch of kids loose with Christmas cut-out cookies and bags of frosting. I think this one looks rather like a fried egg.
They had a great time, so it was well worth the mess. I now have two large trays of very, very brightly colored cookies.
David did not lend a hand in the decorating, but he's just so gosh darn cute, he made the cut into this post anyways!

Gravy, baby.

David celebrated his first Thanksgiving yesterday. It also happened to be his six-month birthday. Half a year already! Coincidentally, it was exactly one year ago on Thanksgiving Day that we made the big announcement the we were going to have a new baby. That's quite a few reasons to be thankful!

Suyyender! You're under ayyest!

How'd ya like to see that comin' at ya down a dark alley? Don't mess with a thirty-pound lisping pixie with hot pink cowboy boots and an itchy trigger finger.
Her sidekick looks a little shifty, too. Maybe I'll just mosey on out of here, real slow-like. I'm not feeling real lucky tonight, it's a good time to get out of Dodge.

A new throne for HRH King David

Once again, David has seemed increasingly bored with his entertainment options. He's the kind of baby that seems to think he's a grown person, just trapped in a tiny little body. His new high chair here provides him with a place to sit that's at regular-people height, so he can give orders, voice complaints, and ponder the great questions of life with a little more dignity.
Here he is, thinking deep thoughts. Like, "Why are these people so noisy?" and "Gosh, I hope I get some teeth in soon so I can eat me up some donuts."

No dunces here!

We've had a very productive week here at the Becker home school. The kids have been enjoying all the extra space we now have to spread out and work, even if it's only a long card table set up in the new "wing" for the time being. More space to work in also means more space to make a mess in. Paul has developed the habit of not putting away his books when he's finished with a subject, and instead just moving down a seat to an empty spot to start his next assignment. Eventually, he runs out of spots to leave his stuff all over; the other kids came to me complaining that there was no where for them to sit because Paul had monopolized nearly all of the twelve available feet of table space.
While we're all busy studying, poor old Doggers here has to find something to do with herself. Usually, that something is sleeping. She has her choice of beds and comfy chairs, and has been making good use of the sunbeam that now falls on the floor in front of the new sliding glass door in the new addition.
David is still a net liability when it come to getting school work (or any work, for that matter) done. He still believes that each and every one of us have been placed here for no other reason than to serve him. Playing with cute, fat little babies is fun; unfortunately, we do have more things to do during the day besides provide baby entertainment. David remains unsympathetic to our pleas, as thus, we have to hustle to get as much done while he is sleeping as possible.

Conflicts of interest

Joe has trouble getting stuff done some days. Today is one of those days. He has been dawdling and poking and whining about having to read eight pages in his science book for the last hour. He's actually gotten a lot better about ploughing through things he doesn't like to do over the years, but some days he just can't seem buckle down.
Apparently, science isn't Joe's only problem this morning. I'm not sure what transpired that prompted the posting of this notice on the girls' bedroom door; when questioned, the girls said simply, "Joe's being a turd.". I guess I'll leave them to work out their own differences for now. Joe does not seem to be the least bit affected by his banishment, and is happily playing with his robots by himself in his own room.
This little guy seems to be getting along just fine this morning. His mother, however, is rather tired after spending a little too much time last night answering his calls for room service.

Mini-Me

One of the nice things about having lots of big kids around when you have a new baby is that you have a lot of extra helpers. Naomi (age 8) loves carrying David around, which has been tremendously helpful, as David pretty much always wants to be carried around, and I, unfortunately, am not always available to provide this service for him. Mind you, I seldom have to ask the big kids to help with the baby; they are usually fighting over who gets to have a turn with him. Paul is my other main helper. Elena begs and begs to be able to pick him up, but I don't quite trust her with him all by her six year old self, so she can only have him when I'm nearby to supervise. Joe is a little more nervous about holding him, so he doesn't volunteer as often. Renee loves David a little too much, so we have to keep a close eye on her as well, lest she hug the stuffing right out of him.
We are certainly enjoying our new wood stove. I can't believe I've gone my whole life so far without one! As the weather has been getting colder, we've been keeping the fire going more and more. The dog, as we expected, is afraid of the fire; she goes and hides upstairs next to Matt's side of the bed, which is the furthest geographical point in the house from the stove. The dog, however, has developed quite a taste for being comfortable and warm, so I'm sure she'll realize that a winter spent curled up in front of the fire is not so bad after all.

The New Normal

After any period of major upheaval or big changes, it can take awhile to get back to normal operations. Having Baby D was a huge upheaval all on its own. It's finally starting to feel like he's always been here. Even with as many babies as I've had, adding another one is always an adjustment.
One of David's primary occupations these days is chewing on his hands. He really goes at it! If he happens to catch the cuff of his shirt, he'll chew up his sleeve all the way to his elbow. He's been working on getting his bottom two teeth in for just about forever now. I check his mouth every day, but I can still only see the two little bumps on his lower gums with no white in sight. It's just as well; if he's anything like the rest of the kids, those teeth will cost us a small fortune in orthodontic work in the future.
Fixing up the house has been another big upheaval for us. We had our wood stove installed last spring just before the baby was born, and the weather is just right now for breaking it in. Boy howdy, that thing is going to be nice to have! Now if we only had some furniture in that room so we could actually sit in front of our nice roaring fire...
Our most recent major upheaval has been the building of the new addition. Here we see Elena enjoying the view out the big back window in the new part of the dining room as she has her breakfast, while Paul is giving me the stinkeye for reasons unknown. That's eleven-year-old boys for ya.
Our quirky little border collie has survived all these changes without having a heart attack or brain aneurysm, though I think she's quite ready for some peace and quiet. When we brought David home from the hospital, the poor dog ran downstairs and hid under the boys' bunk beds, and didn't come out for nearly a week. After a few days of construction workers being here every day, she stopped her constant barking, but has remained "on guard". When we lit the first fire in the stove last week, the dog took one look at it, turned heel, and headed back upstairs. I have a feeling, though, that she'll come to like sleeping in front of the nice warm fire.

I voted today, too!

While he did not get to cast an actual ballot, David did attend his first election today. All the other kids came with me too, of course. I had a chance this morning while I was out to stop off and cast my vote while I was sans children, but I intentionally waited until later this afternoon so I could bring them all with me. As with all things, they were very curious, and as with all things, they all had an opinion on who I should vote for. I received numerous suggestions of varying degrees of helpfulness on who would make a good write-in candidate for different offices. I also seriously, at least for a moment, considered voting for the "My Rent Is 2 Damn High" candidate for governor. Really, how much worse could he possibly do than any of the other guys?
I should subtitle this post, "In Which the Beckers Go Through Two New Roofs In As Many Weeks." Part of the renovations that we had contracted for included a full tear-off roof. Well, the sub-contractors who installed our first new roof last week apparently did not do such a great job, according to our general contractor (because really, what do I know about roofing?) He brought in a different crew this week, who deemed it necessary to tear the whole thing back off and re-do the job. Now, I really do hate to see anybody lose their job, and I'm sorry our general contractor has to take a hit as well, but I certainly do want my roof done right. I'm very glad that our general contractor was honest enough to correct the mistake. It's the kind of thing we wouldn't have seen or known about, at least for quite some time. But golly, for the love of peanut butter and jelly, I am ready to be done with this project!

Milestones

Yesterday Matt and I celebrated thirteen years of marriage. We've survived a lot- six kids, cancer, even hanging curtains together, as Matt can be seen doing here. We're not real big on celebrating events like this (anniversaries, not curtain-hanging), but I didn't want the day to pass completely unacknowledged. On our way home from group classes yesterday, the kids and I drove across the city to the bakery that made our wedding cake all those many years ago. We picked out a box full of Italian cookies (just like we had at our wedding) and some cannolis to surprise Matt with when he got home from work. Matt, also not wanting to let the occasion pass unacknowledged, surprised me by bringing me home a lobster sandwich from a new restaurant we have wanted to try but just don't have time to right now. We finished the evening by showing the kids our wedding album. They thought all the people "looked funny", as we went through and pointed out all the relatives they know. One child even pointed to a picture of me and Matt and asked, "Who's that?" A lot changes in thirteen years!

Yesterday also marked baby David's five-month "birthday". Five months seems to be about the time babies cross over from being a 'brand-new baby' to just 'the baby'. He still will not eat baby food, or drink from a bottle, or sleep much at night.

We bring the fun!

For your enjoyment, some nice pictures of the kids at the playground. We're just getting back to some of our old stomping grounds since baby David has been born. He's getting old enough to enjoy activities other than eating now, so we're gradually venturing out into the world again.