The goblin Child called me to her room after she had been in bed for a few minutes. Once there she asked me if I remembered Roy G Biv.
I vaguely recalled that it was a memory aid for the colors of the rainbow.
“Well, I have one for the planets!” She informed me.
My Very Excellent Monkey Just Started Unicorn Noodles.
We had to sit down and see what the planets were and in what order but she does seem to have it down.
After I took these pictures he asked if I was going to post them. Would I please and say Construction, well, 8 for this purpose at least but you get the idea.
What could be more fun that a hole filled with icy water and mud?
We spent Christmas eve at Cara’s house. The children ran and played and we all ate. Lots.
Then it was time for the Christmas eve service. 8 played Joseph and The Goblin Child was one of the cows present in the stables. The Christmas story was told from the animals perspective and Joseph didn’t have anything to say. Both children had fallen asleep in the car on the ride over and 8 woke up mad. He scowled his way through the program and not having a speaking part was a very good thing.
I used to love the candle light service and sneak in pictures of the children looking beautiful in the soft light. Lately The Goblin Child refuses to be in any pictures without her tongue stuck out. No more beautiful pictures.
It was the perfect winter day. Warm but snowing. I had picked up a Santa hat the day before and wanted to get some video of Rusty dressed up for Christmas. The kids came out to play and it turned into a family photo shoot. I thought this was much more fun than sitting on a human Santa’s lap!
We went to Missouri for Thanksgiving to see, well, everyone!
Uncle Justin came down with his children and Grammy, uncle Tim and Shelly came down and we all went to see The Greatest Grandma.
It was a full house. The first night the children all ran wild through her house terrorizing her glass baubles. There was only one fatality, a heavy glass bowl of Christmas ornaments that had sat under the dining room table. 8 pushed them off with his foot right onto Grandma’s feet. The cousins loved each other though and were happy to play until we hauled them off to the hotel pool so the adults could talk in peace.
The next day brought more pool time then lunch and an afternoon spent at BassPro shop. We all splintered in different directions with so much to look at. 8 and The Goblin Child liked the escalator best and ran laps, down the stairs, up the escalator, down the stairs, up the escalator until I was exhausted. The we met up with Justin and children again to play with all the toys and the carousel. Finally exhausted we retreated to the hotel, without swimming.
The next day there was more swimming then we collected Grandma and were off to Silver Dollar City. It was a beautiful day and the streets were packed with people. We managed to get a few rides in though. Both kids rode their first real roller coaster. The Goblin Child loved it. 8 not so much. Then it was a mad rush through the park, total sensory overload as they tried to take everything in. I think the favorite ride was the pirate ship that swung back and forth. They both begged to ride it over and over again until grammy and I begged to stop. The Goblin Child loved Fire in the Hole! as much as I did when I was young. 8 loved the swings that went around and around.
I loved Silver Dollar City so much when I was little it was good to see them get to enjoy it too. By the end of the night they were exhausted. Again.
The next day it was time to go already. Everyone was sad for the trip to be over. We had long drives home though and needed to get going. The children had one last chance to wreak havoc on Grandma’s house as we said our good byes. We drove half way home and stayed at Tim and Shelly’s, mom and Justin had to drive the whole way. It was a long trip with tired grouchy children but it was sure good to be home!
We went ice skating the other day.
It was one of those perfect fall days. Warm and sunny. A light jacket would have been good but of course they wouldn’t wear anything like that. We went to check the cows and found the windmill pond still frozen over from the cold days earlier in the week. It was somewhat frozen at least. Jumping on the ice and watching water squirt up through the holes was the best part. It wouldn’t have been disastrous if they had fallen through, it’s a shallow pond.
It was nice to get to ice skate here at home. We’ll have to get back there, play a little more.
Gymnastics are still going very well. It’s so much fun to watch the kids out there doing their thing. They’re very good. They spend lots of time swinging and climbing and walking the balance beam.
This last week they started working on a routine on the balance beam instead of practicing pointing toes and touching them to their knees. It was much harder.
The kids aren’t allowed to watch tv or play on computers when they get home from school. They’ve been sitting most of the day, they need to burn energy. This is the result of that rule now that it’s winter and dark by the time they get home.
Sometimes while working with the horses I end up with videos that I can’t share on Rusty’s facebook page. People on the internets get a little crazy about kids without helmets and well, it just didn’t seem like the best idea to share it publicly. I loved these too much not to share them somewhere though so I’ll put them here. 8 does usually wear a helmet, I think I should mention that. I hadn’t planned on him riding right now. There wasn’t time to run back to the house, he would have gotten ditracted and wandered off. I thought we should take the chance to play while we could.
Teaching Harvey to go around things was this months trick that we added in the Academy. Teaching how to come pick up a rider is our trick for next month. Harvey is doing a great job at it and I think we are ready.
The Academy is doing very well. We just finished our last intake for new members. It was the shortest yet and the most people joined! We have just over five hundred members now from all over the world. Mostly US and Australia but also England, Slavakia (is that right? It’s somewhere in middle Europe), The Netherlands, Greece, It’s so much fun to see where all the people are from.
