Home Despot Elly

Ezra finished reading his first 20 books – that we kept track of – yesterday! Now he and his dad are going to go to Exodus Books on Saturday to order his very first Bible. He will be 6 in September. [...]

Judah had an odd stomach ailment, with a tummy-ache Friday and Saturday, and actual vomiting on Saturday. Even at the worst though, he just seemed to feel kind of low, never miserable, but the upshot was that our busy Sunday, including hosting a large church group (Parish) at our house Sunday afternoon, was torpedoed. Instead we [...]

Yesterday we had doctor’s appointments for Ezra and Phinehas, with flu shots for us all (except Phinehas). My mom always likes to know how much the babies weigh, so I figured I’d just post their percentiles here for all to see, in case anyone else is interested as well!

Ezra, 5 year Well-Child Check (Taller [...]

With every one of my babies I have been anxious to have them start moving. “Come on! Roll over! You can do it!” I say. Many of them have teased me, moving to the point of having shifted their gravity over to the side – then changing their minds at the last moment and flopping back [...]

Phinehas looking quizzical:

Phinehas smiling on his heirloom quilt from his Grandma Valerie:

Monica learning to bake. Sometimes I feel that she is going to be a rather mischievious child..

We did the traditional baking soda and vinegar experiment for science last week. I’m afraid Judah was rather let down by what I had described as an “explosion.”

Judah and [...]

Wake up before 7:00 with alert baby, planning on leaving at 8:30 to take KD and Jessie to the bus station in downtown.

At 7:30 KD reads the email from Mom telling her to get to the station by 9:00 – should leave at 8:00. AAhhhh!

Spring into overdrive, finish cooking eggs and toast for breakfast and making [...]

I haven’t been posting much lately, and I blame it on Facebook. It is simply too easy to post all I really have to say in 1-2 sentences on Facebook, thus getting off my chest whatever I feel I need to share with the online world! Plus, as a mother to 4, 6 and under, having recently [...]

Monica is without a doubt our most snuggly child yet. She loves to just sit with us, especially with her dad, and even sometimes with her brothers. But snuggling for her is incomplete without her cozy purple blanky (made by my Aunt Kay). Her “blanky” is more of a security blanket for her than her brother’s special [...]

It’s hard to think of Ezra without describing him largely in contrasts to Judah. Their personality differences are as drastic as their physical differences. Judah is very loud; Ezra not so much. Judah is very intense: Ezra not so much. Judah is easily scolded; Ezra not so much. Judah is inclined to hysterics; Ezra not so much. [...]

Every year at Christmas time I struggle to write a Christmas letter that describes our whole year – generally I have a hard time remembering past the previous month or so, let alone what happened in the last 12. I thought I’d help myself out by writing a mini-Christmas letter NOW in May, so that I will [...]

It’s a season of change around here. Aside from Tax Season being over, a big change and adjustment in and of itself, we’re also seeing lots of little milestones in our kids  lives the past week or so:

Judah  has finished reading the 20 books we set as his goal for him to get his own Bible. (An [...]

I hate to admit it, but I work best toward deadlines. Not to say I generally meet deadlines, just that if I don’t have one, whatever-it-is doesn’t tend to get done for.. well, years. 

Don’t get me wrong – I start making  preparations early enough – back in college I would check out books for my term [...]

It’s the end of March now, so I feel that I can safely say what we “do” for school, without the risk of the pattern changing dramatically in the next week or so. (Probably in the next 10 weeks though – I’m due May 19th!)

Whatwe study is this: Bible Memory, Catechism (Harry VanDyken’s Bible catechism series), [...]

…Batting 1000 today (whatever that means!). Just a little almost-Facebook status update for my non-facebook friends! (This is really for you, Mystie!)

Yes, I have accomplished my two major goals: trim the snowball bush away from the house so as to decrease the above-ground access the ants have to our house, and called Price-Pfister about [...]

We made it home from Tri-Cities today with no (as a gentleman at church put it) “unauthorized stops in Rufus [Oregon].” This is referring of course to the last time I drove home from Tri-Cities all by myself with three small children in the car – when my tire blew just past the John Day Dam. [...]

I read recently on the Femina blog of a just-before-Christmas-party-disaster involving powdered sugar and 3 small children. Today we had one of our own.

I was on the phone with my mom this morning, and one of the boys burst in with, “Mom, I pooped in my pants…” (in itself not a positive thing) “and the honey [...]

*Note: these are movies I saw for the first time in 2009, not that necessarily came out in 2009.

In no particular order:

SlumDog Millionaire – an almost-fairy-tale set in India. The Brother’s Grim kind of fairy tale where eyes are gouged out and innocents are used and abused. Not for children. But uplifting and mind-opening nonetheless.
Up – [...]

A few updates on my kids’ vocabularies.

Monica:  “Gink” for Drink, “Ow!” for Ow. “Why?” for why (isn’t she too young to start that one?!! “Gu-Gah” for Judah, “Mommy” for mommy and/or anything that she wants. She says a very sweet, “Pee?” for please, and an even sweeter, “daa-dyou” for thank you.  Whenever she sees a dog, she growls.

Ezra [...]