A snippet from Spencer

It's the kid's bedtime. Past bedtime actually. I'm tired. It's been a long day, the highlight being that Spencer and Clay broke the door off of Clay's closet (I fixed it), because Clay had pretend arrested Spencer and shut him in the closet only to have Spencer attempt a jail break. This was followed not five minutes later by the realization that Clay had rubbed a Matchbox car on his bed so that the finish came off in one spot. I still need to study for this week's Sunday school lesson (in more ways than one... I desperately need some scripture right about now.)

One kid is showered. Another is doing homework at the last minute because he neglected to tell me he had any when he first got home, and I neglected to check on him because he has me so spoiled by his usual, "Mom, I have homework, but I did it all on the bus ride home."

And the third one, Spencer, was highly resistent to showering a minute ago because How The Grinch Stole Christmas was on. I could hear the song from the kitchen earlier... "You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch. You really are a heel. You're as cuddly as a cactus. You're as charming as an eel. Mr. Grinch, you're a bad banana with a greasy black peel." (Am I the only person who likes this song?!)

Anyway, I called for Spencer, saying it was time for his shower. And his whiniest little voice came back, saying: "But Momma. I really want to watch Mr. Grump."

I couldn't help it. I laughed.

And then I sat down and finished watching "Mr. Grump" with them. Thought I might learn something from the grouch by the end of the show.

Thanksgiving and Before

The Saturday before Thanksgiving, we had semi-professional pictures of the kids made. Bruce works with a guy whose wife is starting out with her own photography business. Nicholle came from Bristol to our house, and she was about eight months pregnant to boot! We kept calling her Jennifer, because she looks a bit like my brother's wife, Aunt Jennifer. Here are a few of my favorite shots that she took.







We're thinking of getting a "real" digital camera for eachother for Christmas; something a bit beefier than our current digital "point and shoot". Bruce and I are tired of paying other people to take pictures of our kids when I have the training and experience and he has such a natural eye for good photos. (As a side note, Nicholle did not charge us a thing. She came for the experience and to build her portfolio.)

Now back to Thanksgiving. We took the camper to a site in Granville, an area that was just beautiful. A valley in between hills full of trees almost free of their fall leaves. The campground was in an itty bitty town right on a lake. The 30 minute drive to grandpa's each morning was so pretty. We spent all day at grandpa's or my older brother's house and only went back to the camper each night to sleep. There was just not enough room at grandpa's inn for our family and my younger brother's family of four. Mom stayed with my older brother and his family. It actually worked out perfectly, I think.

Our kids love Uncle Terry and Aunt Jennifer's boys, Evan and Wyatt. But this visit was even sweeter with Uncle Chris and Aunt Becky there for the first time in three years. Allison had her cousin Emily to play with... and what a difference having another girl around made. It was super sweet to see them play.

And of course, cousin James is as high-powered as Spencer and Evan, so those three together were a sight to behold. We thought the weather wouldn't be good enough to let the kids outside to play, but nothing was holding those kids back... not cold, not rain and not three dogs either. (Chris and Becky brought their dog, Sissy, and Spencer loved her because she would just sit while he rubbed her tummy. No jumping... ahhh... what relief! And Terry or dad or grandpa - whoever decides to feed the critters - have two puppies that were dumped in their area recently.)

Spencer played so hard that he came back home with a black eye... somewhat self inflicted. He was riding Evan's tractor Power Wheel backwards and he was flipped off. I know this surprises no one who knows our boy!

Here's a few pictures from the weekend.

First up... Wyatt.



Next, James and Evan.



And Allison, eating a popcorn ball.



Grandpa and Chris.



Six of the seven Mitchell grandkids. Wyatt's missing.



Ah-ha... there's Wyatt, with his momma. Aunt Jennifer to my kids.



Time between meals for a little snack with Oma serving cereal for James, Evan and Emily.



Terry, Chris and Grandpa Jim.



Emily, looking too cute not to post here!



Me and my Mom.



Wyatt was getting tickled by his daddy for this one.



We tried to get all the kids to sit with Oma for a nice picture. This is the best one I got.



And then Emily and Allison got a little silly.



Which, of course, had to be followed by the four older boys attempting a nice picture of their own.



And, finally, my grandpa gets a picture of all his great-grandkids, sitting with him. And they were a bit more cooperative for him than they were for mom.



It was fun, but never long enough.

I realize that I have no pictures on here of Aunt Becky or my sweet hubby. Becky and I were running around as photographers, and she must have slipped away from me. She's as sneaky as Jennifer that way! And it's a shame, too, because she's beautiful. I must admit, my brothers and Bruce's brothers both have the prettiest wives. Now, I expect to receive some really nice Christmas gifts for my flattery! (You all know I'm kidding. But only about the gifts, not about my sisters-in-law being gorgeous.)

Now, about Bruce. I got a few pictures of him, but nothing noteworthy. Becky, on the other hand, has a masterpiece that I hope she'll e-mail me. I mentioned before that the kids made several potholders with the loom that Emily had. And when they needed help, they went to either Aunt Becky or daddy, not me. Becky caught Bruce on camera... weaving away on that little purple, plastic loom. I think it was relaxing to him in a room full of rambunctious kids. If she sends it, I'll post it.

After mom's visit

Mom's visit with us has come to an end; she's with my older brother and his family for her last week and a half before returning to Germany. We packed in as much as we could while she was here.

First, a fish update. Gone. All of them. Not to be replaced until after the holidays and our trip to Disney. And this time we're going to try tropical fish. After spending over an hour cleaning out the aquarium, I don't want to do any more goldfish, which are almost universally viewed as "yucky", "nasty" or "dirty" when you do research on them on the internet.

Mom played nearly every game we own with the kids while she was here... and even brought a couple with her from Germany - a colors version game of Suduko and Knuller (better known as Yahtzee here in the States). Here's a few pictures of her playing with the kids.





And then she played "free style" pretty often, too. Below, she and Allison played with Polly Pockets and Allison's dollhouse.



Mom, Allison and I went to Christmas Connection at the Civic Center and shopped one day. We all loaded the van and went to Bristol Motor Speedway one night to see Speedway in Lights. We went to our church's annual Thankful Feast another night. We also had lunch at the Moodys one Sunday as well.

Clay also got his report card during mom's visit, and because he did so well, Bruce decided to treat him for something special. I was thinking we'd go to the new ice cream place down town, where robots make your ice cream. However, Clay - being the daddy's boy that he is - picked doughnuts at Krispy Kreme instead.

And then one day mom went up to Clay's school to join him in the cafeteria for lunch. His buddy Nathan was all smiles as usual.



I had my first chance this year to go have lunch with Clay while mom stayed home with Spencer and Allison. I deliberately picked pizza day, because Clay says his school has the best pizza. Obviously we haven't ordered enough Domino's or Pizza Plus recently, because he has forgotten how real pizza tastes. His school's was good, but it was no comparison. Still, he went back for seconds.

I got into the habit of leaving Spencer and Allison with mom while I took Clay to school each morning as well. Today the twins were not too happy to be dragged back into the whole car line thing.

We spent a little time one evening checking out the Moody's new puppy.



And we cooked like crazy. Every day. Sometimes things she wanted to eat that she can't get in Germany, and sometimes things she brought that I can't get here, and sometimes stuff for Thanksgiving to take with us to grandpa's house when the whole Mitchell crew was going to be visiting.

Clay took this picture below, which I do not like, but he's proud of it, and it's not his fault my hair looks stupid. So I post this for my boy! Mom and I were making German potato dumplings, which I love. Of course, nobody else in the family does. Crazy people, these folks I live with.



And a visit from mom would not be complete without Christmas cookies.





I've got to get off here. I'll post more tomorrow or the next day.

And then there were two

Allison must have a touch of ESP, because her statement about naming only one fish is fast becoming a reality. I've flushed two more in the last 24 hours. Only the two largest fish have survived, and I'm not sure they're long for this world. I'll spare you the nasty details, but there is evidence that they are definitely sickly. Bruce cut me off rather quickly when I tried to explain what was up when I called him after lunch today. Can't imagine why.

I'm completely over the fish. This is just gross stuff. Should the last two die, I'm thinking two little green geckos should take their place. There's no water involved and that's a good thing. However, I'm sure I saw little bitty crickets in the aquariums at PetSmart... and I'm positive they weren't there for company.

I just can't let the kids see me freak about any other bugs. Have I mentioned how much I'm loving Dixie right now! Dogs are great.

We're picking mom up at the airport tomorrow. The kids are pretty excited. I think they're already looking forward to making German Christmas cookies with her. I know for a fact that Bruce is looking forward to eating them!

Sweet and funny words from the kids

Spencer has been cracking me up lately with his awareness of girls. This is the son who immediately noticed the cheerleaders last year when Clay played his first Upwards basketball game at church... and then focused on them most of the rest of the game.

Evidently, Spencer has taken a liking to one particular little girl at church named Kristin. A couple weeks ago, after Awanas, on the way home in the van, he said, "Mom, I like Kristin. She's pretty. She's my friend." The next day, more talk about Kristin. "Mom, I was a gentleman to Kristin." I asked what he meant, and he said, "I put her crayons up for her."

Kristin's grandmother is one of the organizers for their group of Awanas kids, and the next Wednesday, I mentioned that Spencer had his eye on her granddaughter. She laughed and said, "Oh, I think we figured that out last week." I asked her later what she meant, and she said he always wants to sit beside Kristin and he puts his arm around her shoulders.

Earlier this week, Kristin's name came up again. He's a very devoted little boy. He said, "Mom, Kristin is the prettiest one at Awanas. Every one else is stupid."

This morning, he's evidently thinking of all the other fish in the sea. He's wearing all hand-me-downs, but it's the first time he's wearing a jacket vest that has Spiderman on it. He came downstairs after getting dressed in his jeans, white turtleneck and that vest and said, "Mom, the girls are going to be all over me."

This is all so funny to me because it's not at all the way Clay is.

I've mentioned one little girl, Skyler, from his school before. She has been attending Awanas at our church this year, too. During the school day, Clay plays with her at recess, but come Awanas time, he won't acknowledge her. Bruce asked him about it, and Clay's response was, "I don't want Tyler and Nick to know that I'm friends with a girl. They might make fun of me."

Now, not to leave our little girl out.

This morning we lost another fish. Another one had just gotten flushed on Monday. When Allison woke up today and I told her another fish had died, she said, "Now we only have four fish. I think I'm going to name only one of them." If that's not the death knell for more fish, I don't know what is.

She said something precious this week, too. I tell the kids often throughout the day that I love them. So often, they pretty much know I'm going to say it before I get it out of my mouth. I'll say, "Guess what?" and where they used to ask "what?" they now say, "We know, we know. You love us."

I started that with Allison and thought I needed to mix it up a bit to keep her on her toes. I said, "Hey girl. I love you." And she said in her best sing-songy voice, "I love you, too." And then I said, "I love you more." And she said, "No, Jesus does."

Halloween

We're just coming off a sugar high like no other, but we'll take the time to sit still long enough to blog.

This year, I carved our pumpkin. Bruce and his dad worked on our deck Wednesday evening, so I took over Bruce's usual honor of Jack O'Lantern Carver. The kids were pretty happy with the outcome, even if we only had him lit up for a few minutes that night. We weren't even home to let him shine for trick-or-treaters.



Last night, we headed to our church. For the first time since we've attended, our church had a Halloween alternative night. I've always wished we'd do one, but after the kids have been so accustomed to trick or treating, I wondered how they'd do without it. After they got dressed in their costumes, we went to one house in our neighborhood, an older couple that goes to our church. We can't walk the neighborhood without stopping by Mr. Mark's house, so it's a tradition we couldn't break. We had to trick or treat there!

Spencer was Batman, Allison was a princess, and Clay was a Transformer.



Our church gym was packed with activities and fun stuff for the kids to do. Pretty impressive for a first endeavor, I must say. Here are the kids trying the limbo.



And Spencer enjoyed a brief visit to the jail. Allison was too nervous to try that particular silliness. She also opted not to stick her hand inside boxes for feeling brains, eyeballs or worms. Smart girl!



Allison decided to undergo a slight change in costume when she saw the face painting area. Nothing like a kitty princess.



I wish I had more pictures of Clay, but that child pretty much was his own man last night. I caught only brief glimpses of him the whole night. He and Spencer were busy bees... both came home with two bags each filled with candy. Allison came home with one that was about 3/4 full.

The biggest prize of the evening... goldfish. One of the game booths gave out ziploc bags of goldfish instead of candy. Several (smart) friends of ours made their kids give the fish back. But not us. We left with seven goldfish.

This morning after dropping Clay off at school, Spencer, Allison and I headed to PetSmart for a fishbowl. We ended up with an aquarium instead because of the number of fish we had. "Had" being the operative word. By the time I had assembled the filter and filled the tank, one was already belly up.

Perfect time for a phone call from Bruce's brother, Brandon, who has fish expertise. He walked me through the flushing... uh, burial, I mean. And then, when I mentioned that another fish was floating sort of sideways, he suggested I take my chances and forego the 24-hour period of waiting before putting the fish in the tank. I'm happy to report that Sideways Floater Number Two seems to have made a recovery and is zipping around the tank. For now.



We'll see how many fish survive.

In any case, coming home from church last night, all three kids said they enjoyed the Halloween alternative at church more than regular trick-or-treating!