Reed Rugrats

Cruise Day 10

2011-11-15T20:15:00.000-08:00

Cruise Day 9

2011-11-15T20:11:00.000-08:00

Cruise Day 8

2011-11-15T20:08:00.000-08:00

Cruise Day 7

2011-11-15T20:05:00.000-08:00

Cruise Day 6

2011-11-15T20:03:00.000-08:00

Cruise Day 5

2011-11-15T19:59:00.000-08:00

Cruise Day 4

2011-11-15T19:58:00.000-08:00

Cruise Day 3

2011-11-15T19:56:00.000-08:00

Cruise Day 2

2011-11-15T19:54:00.000-08:00

Cruise Day One

2011-11-15T19:49:00.000-08:00

Dear Mark and Christy

2011-07-09T21:38:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for entrusting your only son to us for a week of fun with his cousins. Tim has been a model of good behavior and you don't need to worry about him at all.

We have made sure to feed him healthy, nutritious food like fruits and vegetables. We did not go straight from you to John's Incredible Pizza Company for lunch. Even if we had gone there we would have made sure he ate plenty from the salad bar and did not allow him to stuff himself with cheese pizza and chocolate chip cookies. No, we would not have done that!

Following our nutritious lunch we made sure to cram in many educational activities and did not allow Tim and his cousins to spend the entire afternoon with the Halo Risk board game.

Following our many educational activities we did not allow the children to eat quesadillas and chocolate milk for dinner. No, we do not allow such fare in our home, ever!

Immediately after eating dinner we did not allow all five kids to jump into the pool. We totally understand that time should be allowed for proper digestion before any water activities so we did not allow this about two minutes after dinner.......

Nope, we are NOT that kind of aunt and uncle!

Skating

2011-01-04T12:59:00.001-08:00

Grace skating at the park. Whee!

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Roller Skating Fun

2010-12-23T21:19:00.001-08:00

We went skating at the roller rink today. I took all three boys and Jason kept Grace at home. At first Jonathan was scared and clung to my hand. By the second hour however be was saying "it's okay mommy, you go around by yourself and I will go around by myself." So sweet and brave.

While we were there I met a "friend" that I have been reading her blog for years but had never actually met. It was so cool to meet her in person. Lots of fun at the skating rink today!

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Offering

2010-12-01T09:51:00.001-08:00

Jonathan says:

Hey mommy, we always put money in the offering plate at church. Some people don't have money so they just put an envelope with a cross in the offering plate.

Guess it is time to explain to him about offering envelopes and tell him that they do indeed contain money........usually!

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Our Mother-Daughter Retreat

2010-10-06T13:19:00.000-07:00

Today is the day! I am so happy. After I get the boys picked up from school and take them to the church, Jason will come ant take over with them. Grace and I are headed to the airport to pick up my mom, then dinner and a hotel in Anaheim. Tomorrow and the next day, Disneyland.

We went back and forth on where we wanted to take our mother-daughter retreat this year and Disneyland won because, well, we have passes so we only have to pay for hotel and food. That and a deal on the hotel I found and a restaurant.com certificate that will almost completely pay for one of the dinners made Disneyland the perfect choice. Can't wait to hang out with my mommy and my baby girl!

A Trip to The Fair

2010-10-01T21:26:00.000-07:00

We went on a trip to the LA County Fair with our friend Andrea and her children last week. It just so "happens" that Jonathan is studying farms this month. (Not that I choose his learning topics around what field trips I want to go on or anything).

Grace and Malea playing dress up

They all wanted to be pigs.

Jonathan and Malea playing together.

The highlight of the trip for the kids was getting to make their own ropes.

More silliness

Seven crazy kids

We made it yet another year to fair and saw farm animals, milking demonstrations, honey bees, etc and still haven't tasted any of the odd fried food that everyone always talks about. We looked at deep fried Twinkies and Oreos and just couldn't bring ourselves to try them. Maybe next year....or not!

Poor Sweet Boy

2010-09-30T21:38:00.000-07:00

At Nathanael and Grace's birthday party Jonathan fell from a picnic bench. (He wasn't even standing, jumping or climbing; just sitting!) He hurt his wrist so we got to spend the evening in urgent care.

Poor sweet boy

Getting xrays was kind of cool. His friend "Fuzzy" was scared until Jonathan explained that the xrays were just like taking pictures!

They decided it wasn't broken but it was swollen so they put this hard splint on it and said for him to visit his doctor in a couple of days.

He did visit his doctor and the swelling had mostly gone down but they still wanted him to wear the brace for a couple of weeks just to be sure. He wore it for about a week and then I realized that he kept pushing the splint up higher so he could use his wrist. If he was doing that it obviously wasn't bothering him anymore so we removed the brace. He was happy to get back to normal.

By the way, the picture of him in the car where he was not buckled, I took the picture and THEN buckled him in. Just so you know!

Still Experimenting

2010-09-30T21:35:00.000-07:00

So I got the powerpoint presentation to load and it can be viewed from my blog but it can't be viewed from a reader. You have to actually visit the Reed Rugrats site. At least that is how it worked for me. Let me know if it works for you. Thanks.

Birthday Party

2010-09-30T21:30:00.000-07:00

This is an experiment to see if I can post a powerpoint presentation on my blog. Just click it to change the slides.....I hope.

Hey, I got the birthday party pictures posted during their birthday month, barely!

You Know You Homeschool If

2010-09-29T22:21:00.000-07:00

Your son is studying trains so you print out and help him with cutting, folding and taping 12 paper train cars

And your living room wall looks like this!

Sharing A Birthday

2010-09-29T22:13:00.000-07:00

Our friend Nance shares the same birthday as Grace. Some of the church ladies were throwing a simple party for Nance and they decided to include Grace in their little celebration as well.
The birthday girls!

Nance pretending that she wasn't going to share her birthday pie

Miss Pansy made this doll cake for Grace.

This is how we celebrated Grace's actual birthday. Her big birthday party was the following week. Pictures to come.....

Twins

2010-09-29T22:07:00.000-07:00

We bought Grace some of the Dolly and Me matching outfits for her birthday. I laid out one of them the night before. She didn't know it had a matching doll dress until she opened this.....

She looks like me!

She has brown eyes like me!

And the same clothes as me!

Look, we are twins!

Making Cars

2010-09-29T14:28:00.000-07:00

Nathanael has been wanting to go to the Ride-maker shop for his birthday. It is a shop like build-a-bear that you build cars instead of bears. Very fun. Well we decided it would be too hard to have a birthday party there since we live pretty far from it. (The shop is in Downtown Disney.)

Well, we were at Disneyland for Jonathan's "field trip" and decided we would make cars. Jason even convinced them that since there were six of us they should do a birthday party. They didn't want to agree because they said birthday parties need a deposit paid a week in advance.

Well, what is the deposit for?
In case you don't show up.
But we are already here!
Yeah, so?
Well, then there is no need for a deposit because it isn't possible for us not to show up.
Oh, well then okay.

HA HA! Anyway, Jason convinced them to let us have a party for Nathanael. We built our cars (Nathanael got an extra car signed by all of us since it was his birthday party), then they played a game where all the kids put as many stickers as they could on Nathanael as fast as they could. Finally they took a picture of our family and our new cars. So much fun! Having a party doesn't cost any more than just buying the cars would have, except of course for a tip for the party host.

Jonathan's First Reports

2010-09-29T10:19:00.000-07:00

Jonathan's first reports. He picked what to write and I helped him spell the words.

Disneyland as a Learning Trip?

2010-09-29T10:05:00.000-07:00

As Jonathan's second train field trip we visited Disneyland! Now you may say that Disneyland is just a goof-off day but it is possible to really learn a lot about trains there.

First thing we did was headed to the monorail station in Downtown Disney. We told the engineer that Jonathan was learning about Trains. She let us ride in the engine and spent the trip explaining about how a monorail system works. Jonathan learned a lot there. Then the engineer told us that if we visited the main street train station they would let him ride in a train engine so that was our next learning adventure. It took a long time because we had to wait for the specific engine that had a place for extra people to ride in it. Don't worry, we spent our waiting time exploring the train station itself. Jason, Matthew and Jonathan rode in the train's engine with the engineers. The engineers told them all about how steam trains work, how they blow off steam, etc. Wow! So much learning packed into a brief time.

After learning all about monorails and steam trains we spent the rest of the day visiting Disneyland. Yay!

A Trip to the Train Museum

2010-09-29T09:54:00.000-07:00

For Jonathan's first month of Kindergarten, we studied all about trains. He learned a lot about different types of trains and went on a couple of fun train based field trips. The first was to the Orange Empire Railway Museum. We went on a weekday which is free but there isn't that much open. We didn't care that the trains and trolleys weren't operating. We just came to learn, and play! Here are some pictures of our day.

First Day "Going To School"

2010-09-29T09:41:00.000-07:00

Jonathan with one of his teachers. There was a much better picture of them but it had another child in the picture and I didn't want to post someone else's child online without permission so this will have to do.

Jonathan ready for school. Their school switched to uniforms this year. For the junior high and high school it is polo shirts but for the elementary kids it is these white t-shirts. White on my kindergartner doesn't stay white for long! Oh well, I guess all the other kids have stained shirts also.

Matthew headed to his first day of middle school (Their school has a 5th-8th grade middle school program)

Nathanael agreed to pose for me if I promised not to follow him to class and take pictures. Would I do something like that?

Grace is NOT happy with her brothers leaving for school! She looks like she is sick but she really isn't. She was just throwing a fit and crying that her brothers were gone. Now, a month later, she is finally not crying when we drop them off at school.

First Day Homeschooling

2010-09-29T09:31:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures of our first day of homeschooling, only a month late!

Jonathan- Kindergarten

Matthew- Fifth Grade

Nathanael- Seventh Grade

Jonathan again. Homeschooling means when you get tired of a desk, you do your work on the sofa!

Our kids go to a charter school where they attend "school" a couple of days a week and homeschool the other days. Pictures of their first day "going to school" coming next!

And So It Begins

2010-09-29T09:03:00.000-07:00

This morning on the way to school Matthew says, "Hey Mom, look what was stuck in my backpack!" It was a pink paper wrapped with one of those shaped rubberbands that all the girls collect right now. On the paper it says "Roses are red, violets are blue. I have a huge crush on you!" And so it begins!

Grace Shares

2010-09-10T23:17:00.001-07:00

Grace had money from her great grandma that she got in her birthday card today. I told her that grandma sent it so she could pick out her very own birthday present. Needless to say she needed to make a trip to Target TONIGHT!

Tonight we took her to Target and let her wander the toy aisles. She picked out three Disney fairies (Tinkerbell's friends) and still had some money left. She discovered a mermaid toy and asked if she could get it too. I answered, "Yes, you can get it but then your money will be all gone." She looked panicked and said that two fairies and a mermaid would be enough and she went to put the little yellow fairy back where she got it. I asked why she wasn't getting it and here is her answer....

"If I get all the fairies I wont have enough money to buy my friend Mr. Bob a present!"

No, it is not Bob's birthday. He is the family ministry pastor at our church and a close friend of our family. Grace just loves him and wanted to get him something special. She picked a clear ball filled with glitter that the glitter floats around in when you shake or throw the ball. Grace thought it was the perfect present because Mr. Bob can then use the ball to play with Grace. Aww!

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A New Favorite

2010-08-23T19:28:00.001-07:00

Grace was so happy when we got to Disneyland this morning and realized that she is now forty inches tall. It meant she could now ride all the roller coasters which she had previously been unable to ride. She excitedly rode on Thunder Mountain, holding her hands up and yelling Wheeeee the entire ride. At the end of the ride she glares at me and says "I did NOT want to ride this ride!" Crazy kid!

After her experience there we were Leary of taking her on Space Mountain but she was determined that she wanted to ride the "fast ride with stars." When the ride stopped I asked her if she had fun. She jumps into my arms and yelled, "oh Mommy, I LOVE this one!" She then proceeded to ask to ride again. She was so excited when Daddy agreed. I think we may have created a monster!

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Disneyland Canoes

2010-08-22T22:46:00.000-07:00

JASON FOUND MY CAMERA! I haven't been able to take any pictures except with my phone ever since our Disneyland vacation in June. It has driven me crazy. Jason discovered it had fallen beside my bedside table; just in time for back-to-school. Yeah! Totally unrelated to the rest of this post except that it explains why several posts will be from June.

One fun adventure at Disneyland are the canoes that go around Tom Sawyer's Island. Lots of non-mechanical fun and good exercise too. Grace was happy to try out her oar.....

Nathanael and Matthew love the canoes too. (They just don't appreciate me always snapping their pictures which is why they have these annoyed expressions.)

Jonathan however, did NOT want to ride the canoes. Not that he was afraid or anything, he was just stubborn. He hates it when someone else gets a turn to choose a ride. Since the rest of the family wanted to ride, I forced him on. I didn't think he should win because he was throwing a fit. He was so mad that the ride operator asked if I was sure he would be okay to ride. I think the operator was afraid Jonathan would decide to jump out of the boat or something. I assured him that Jonathan would be fine and was just having a grumpy moment.

He was indeed fine...see! He loved the canoes. Mean ole mommies aren't all bad!

School for my kids doesn't start until Tuesday so we are going to Disneyland tomorrow. I am sure there will be lots of cute picture-taking opportunities with my newly rediscovered camera.

Happiness

2010-08-21T00:43:00.001-07:00

Happiness is always having a pillowpet to cuddle, at least when you are three!

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Te Eat Or Not To Eat, That Is The Question

2010-08-20T11:40:00.001-07:00

My mom and I were out shopping one day and saw this: a limited edition collection of PES dispensers from the Wizard of Oz. I love them! My sweet mommy bought them for me and they have been happily sitting in my bedroom ever since.

There is only one problem with this situation; I actually like Pez. What good is a beautiful collection of Pez dispensers if I can't pop open the tin man's head and eat the crunchy candy found within? So, to eat or not to eat, that is the question! I couldn't possibly mess up my limited edition collectors set.....or could I.......

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Grace's Story

2010-08-19T15:49:00.001-07:00

A king and a princess with a castle with a breathing dragon outside. They had to go to the ice cream truck. They had to go to mommy and daddy's house and they took a ice cream to their mom and dad. They got it from the ice cream truck. The dragon got fire-ice cream.

They had to go fix something and they had to fix a room that their friends needed to have another room because they didn't have a room for their brothers. They had to fix something and help some more people.

They goed back to their castle and they had to get ice cream again. And some for their dragon. They had lots if fun in their castle with their toys. And they lived happy ever after. THE END

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A Blog Post By Jonathan

2010-08-19T15:42:00.001-07:00

Once there was a great Knight named Matthew. He lived in a castle in Santa Fe. Then there was a princess named Karyn. They went to a big party and there was a king named Jonathan. They went to a big birthday for the king and there was music there. There were lots of presents. The Knight gave the king a TV and the princess gave him a remote to control the TV. The king LOVED his presents.

The beautiful princess went to go get lunch on a horse. She was in a cart that the horse was pulling. She found two more knights. Their names were Joseph and Peter. She went to get dessert at Frugos. She shared with the knights and they loved it! There was a big Frugos celebration! They had really fun. There was two kids there named Michael and Mitchell.

They bought a big castle and protected it with a stream and a fire breathing dragon. They were all safe and went to the biggest tower. They lived happy ever after. THE END

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What are the odds?

2010-08-19T15:31:00.001-07:00

When a certain almost-four-year-old girl puts on her own shoes, what are the odds of her getting them on the wrong feet? I would have guessed it should be about 50% even if she had no clue that the pictures go on the outside. Apparantly she doesn't follow the odds. Her shoes are on the wrong feet almost 100% of the time. How can that be comfortable? I just don't understand.

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What Did That Sign Say?

2010-08-18T21:03:00.000-07:00

Tonight we were driving to church and Jonathan, who can't read yet, yells out "What did that sign say?" He was quite indignant about the sign and I must admit I hadn't seen the sign he was talking about. I asked him what the sign looked like. Here was his response:"The sign said NO BLACK PEOPLE ALLOWED! I don't think that was a nice sign!" Hmm.....I honestly hadn't seen it but I certainly couldn't let him think that there was a sign in our town that said that. I drove around the block so we could pass the sign again. "Oh Mommy, there it is! That is the sign that says NO BLACK PEOPLE ALLOWED!" This is the sign he was pointing at:
Well, maybe the people who create the Neighborhood Watch signs should pay more attention to the image that it portrays to non-readers! Needless to say we had to explain to him what the sign really meant and that it certainly wasn't saying people with other skin tones are not welcome.

Magic Uncle Mark

2010-08-06T20:52:00.001-07:00

We are at Jason's sister's house. Uncle Mark gave Grace this little plastic elephant. She was incredibly impressed wih it and ran all around the house with it........until she dropped it. She was so sad. Uncle Mark went into the other room and got another elephant. Without showing it to Grace, he took her elephant, put it in his hand, opened his hand and gave her the new elephant. Talk about an amazed little girl! Magic Uncle Mark is her new best friend!

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Big Kid Time

2010-08-05T09:40:00.000-07:00

Jason and I have started playing card games with Nathanael and Matthew after the little ones go to sleep. It is a great alternative to the hour of TV they were watching after their siblings head to bed. We have been having so much fun with them. Their favorite game is Pitch, which is a four person card game that Jason's family always played. Nathanael is pretty good at it. Matthew isn't brave enough when it comes to the "bidding" and doesn't always play the cards at the right time but he is getting better. Sometimes it is fun for the big kids to have time without their little siblings.

Grace thinks it is quite unfair that her big brothers get to stay up later than her and Jonathan. She finds reason after reason to try to get up. Last night, after she finally was silent, we played games for a while and then sent the big kids off to bed. Heading to our room, I found Grace sleeping peacefully. When I went to get her up she opened her eyes, announced "No Mommy, I sleeping Daddy's bed!" and promptly closed her eyes again. Silly girl got carried by her daddy off to her own room.

Too Big

2010-08-02T17:53:00.001-07:00

Grace lifted her baby doll to her shoulder. With a sigh she announced "ugh, baby, you are getting TOO big!"

Wonder where she heard that saying.....