File this one under miscellaneous...or maybe under "long-winded updates"...

I've started to post an entry more then a few times recently and each time I lose steam or get distracted or am needed by a smaller member of the family for one reason or another. I probably should not even get this post started because I know that I will soon be sheparding two of those smaller family members off to school soon. I guess I just need to use the "save as draft" button when the time comes and hope to actually finish this entry at some point today.

Part of the reason for my absence from my blog is laziness and part of it is just that there really isn't all that much to report. We did have a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration with Rick's parents last week, though. And we were happy to not be traveling on such a gray and rainy day. All we had to do was load up the kids' wagon with our stuff and walk two doors down. We brought the potatoes, the cranberry sauce, and the apple pie and ice cream and my mother-in-law took care of the rest. It was a very nice day and the girls enjoyed playing with all the toys in the spare bedroom at grandma and grandad's house. We I missed the hubbub associated with the larger festivities that is part and parcel of a celebration with my family due to the largeness of our numbers - but only a little bit. It was a nice change to have a small gathering this year. I'm sure my kids would've enjoyed seeing their cousins, but I think they still enjoyed the day. And we did visit my sister and her kids on the 18th to help my sister celebrate her birthday so they did get some cousin time recently. In my mind I had been thinking about the possibility of a pre-Christmas vist with my family but the month of December is already filling up so much that I think we are just going to do the usual post-Christmas visit in late December. My oldest sister is going to host a party on the New Year's weekend when we are planning on visiting my family.

R and A joined the youth choir at church this year and this month had their first two performances during service. R did well considering how fast the choir director expects them to learn the songs (she and A are just about the youngest two in the whole group). A doesn't sing much but looks very cute standing up there in her choir robe and waving to people she knows. Everyone commented after the first performance how very cute she was up there waving away and how it made them smile. The older men and women at church always comment on my girls and how pretty they look (they love getting dressed up for church so I let them pick their own clothes and they usually pick their fanciest dresses for the occasion) and how they love watching them grow. And they have more than a few doting "aunties" among the women in the Crafty Ladies - a group that makes homemade items for the church bazaar in November and of which I have been a part of since I first started to attend that church. I started going when I was 8 months pregnant with R and she was actually baptized at church a couple of months before I officially became a member. So, the church members have known all my girls since birth (and their births were announced at church the Sunday following their birth - or in the case of A, the Sunday of her birth because I called my neighbor to tell her the good news before she left for church that morning). I love having a 'church home' and that sense of community, sharing, love, and acceptance that comes along with it. I love that my girls will have that wider community to accept and love and nurture them as they grow and I especially love that our church youth group is currently in a stage of rebirth and growth that is wonderful to watch and I look forward to the time when my girls are old enough to join in (the Reepicheep League/Jr. Youth Group is for 5th-8th grade and Youth Group is 9th-12th). Last year we hired a Youth Group Coordinator and he and his (now) fiancee have been a huge part of the rebirth of the Youth Group and have been doing a great job. They are enthusiastic and have lots of youthful energy seeing as they are not that far out of high school themselves.

The girls are also taking part in the annual Christmas Pageant at church this year. They will both play the part of barnyard animals of one kind or another (an appropriate casting when you consider the number of times I've had to say "Close that door! Do you think we live in a barn?"). This will again be a first for both girls - it was not something that R showed any interest in until this year and because R is interested, so is A. A tends to be the more out-going of the two so it makes sense that she would be starting early and be right in step with her big sister when it comes to this kind of thing. So, between choir practice and pageant rehearsal, I think we'll be spending a good deal of time at church in the next few weeks!

R is continuing to enjoy her 1st grade experience in the combined 1st/2nd grade classroom. She is pretty much keeping up with the 2nd graders in the classroom in both reading and math. Her homework every night is to read to us from either a book that is sent home in her Home Reading Program folder or from a book of her choosing if there is no book in her backpack that day. She has been reading some of the Magic Treehouse series books to us - 2 chapters at a go - and I'm amazed at how quickly her reading has progressed just since August which was when it really clicked for her. Her favorite subject at school is still art and I think she is really enjoying the curriculum unit on dinosaurs that they are currently working on in the classroom.

A loves preschool. She is so at home in that environment because she was there for every pick-up and drop-off for two years when R attended that school. She knew most of the teachers well and the new teacher this year has actually become her favorite. Her teachers have nothing but positive things to say about A - she is kind and thoughtful and very loving. One day when I went to pick her up her teacher pulled me aside and asked if we could just clone A because she wished that all the kids were as sweet and well-mannered as A. I know I'm bragging here but it's a mother's perogative, it's MY blog (heh) and it really is such a wonderful thing for a mom to hear about her offspring. So, just bear with me.

E is funny and opinionated and a full-fledged walker now. She lumbers about the room exploring this and that and getting her hands on everything within her reach that she is not supposed to have - from tiny stickers left on the floor by older siblings to pencils left too close to the edge of the desk to the baby monitor which she actually got her hands on and chewed a hole right into the antenna! She's a rascal - but she's also a keeper. In the last week or two her receptive language skills have really taken off. A great example happened last night when I look at the back of her head and noticed all manner of small bits of who knows what stuck in her hair - most likely pieces of pasta, tomato sauce, and dried up yogurt - and said more to myself than to her "would you like to have a tubbie tomorrow?" I didn't really expect that she understood yet she dropped the unopened bottle of water that she had been intently playing with and gave me a look as if to say "well, c'mon then!" and headed straight for the hall that leads to the bathroom. I followed her into the kitchen and she proceeded to whine and shake the gate until I opened it for her, at which point she made her way into the bathroom and shrieked happily in front of the tub. At that point I figured I'd better give in or I'd be in big trouble for even mentioned the 't-u-b word' that she loves so much (I shoulda known that she would soon enter the phase where "spell-speak" would become necessary...little did I know that she would enter that phase just as it became a moot exercise when talking around the eldest daughter who can now figure out what we are saying when we use the formerly cryptic "spell-speak"!). So, E splashed contentedly in the tub for a while and then shrieked unhappily when I took her out to get her dressed. It will be nice when there is a little less shrieking and a few more words coming out of her mouth. But, she's my third - so I know better than to think that the shrieking will cease or even decrease dramatically once the words are there. I'm in for a lot more years of shrieking, I'm afraid.

CMAD update. Part of my 'busy-ness' of late can, of course, be attributed to my incurable CMAD. I have been working diligently on my mutli-colored socks. So diligently, in fact, that I finished the first sock only to decide that it was acutally a little too loose for my liking. So, I started the second sock, not once but three times before I got a good gauge and stitch count that I thought would make a comfortable fitting sock. Then I ripped apart the first sock - yes, I'm nuts - so that I could re-knit that one to match it's better-fitting counterpart. They really do stitch up quickly and I wanted to end up with socks that were actually comfortable to wear so it was something I felt the need to do. Call me crazy. But, after a few weeks of starts and restarts I now have one completed (and comfortably fitting) sock and a second one that is nearly half-way to completion. And now that I know what I need to do to make comfy socks the next pair I make will be that much quicker! And you betcha I have more yarn to make those additional pairs - I bought them a while back and they are just sitting in my oversized pile of yet to be started projects just waiting for this first pair of socks to be done! However, I had a thought just the other day that may delay the use of that other yarn. I looked at the little ball of yarn left over from the first sock (it takes one ball per sock and there's a bit of extra left over) and I wondered, as I stared at my sock pattern which includes sizes from infant through XL adult-sized socks, whether I could use up that last bit of yarn from each ball to make a matching pair of socks for little E! Wouldn't that be so cute?! I am going to give it a shot once I get my second one finished. If the socks for my big ole feet (size 9) take not that long to knit up I should be able to finish socks for E's little feet in an evening or maybe two! I'll be sure to update and take pics of us in our matching socks if it all works out the way I hope.

Ok, although I felt like I didn't have much to say, I said a whole heck of a lot. I'll stop here for tonight and try to be better about updating on the mundane and perhaps not-so-mundane on a more regular basis!