2000 Mile Pictionary Game

Ingrid and Edin have developed quite the relationship over FaceTime.  These two cousins can spend endless time chatting with each other and playing dolls and toys over the "phone".  Once we discovered how cute they were together, it seems to have taken off.  Each girl now has a mini iPad and many days I come home to work to hear eight children's voices in my house.  Four of my own and the four Williams kiddos.

Friday and Saturday turned into long sessions on FaceTime because the girls decided to play Pictionary together.  It was rather fun for both of them.  We have an original Pictionary game board and cards.  Ingrid would roll the dice for both girls and I would show Edin her card to draw the picture.  Edin won the game Friday night - the luck of the great roll of the dice more than anything.  Both girls suspended the time limits to guess and only went as far as each one wanted to guessing the others drawings.  So much fun.  They repeated the game on Saturday which then turned into playing Polly Pocket dolls.  How quickly two hours go by.

It's so Hard

So it's already the end of January.  In the year 2015.  Eight years after I started our family blog and the last two years have seen very dismal effort on my part.  This is so unfair to not keep our family records going.  Today, Woody's birthday, we were crowded around the Mac in the library looking at past pictures from the blog.  Even the kids were like, " awwww, we need to read our stories."  And they're right.  We need to keep up our stories: the good, the bad, the funny, and everything in between.  So I am going to try.  Really.  Try real hard to tell our story.  As many nights as I can.  And keep going.  Hopefully we can look back and enjoy all this when we're older.

So it's Woody's birthday today.  The day was packed with normal activities which now infiltrate our daily lives.  Take today - we worked on getting outfits out, teeth brushed, hair combed.  And for outfits, Ingrid had a mini meltdown because she couldn't put together the PERFECT outfit.  Finally I sent her to school with the Lorax tshirt, Lorax skirt, jean jacket, necklace, white Doc Marten boots and black leggings.  She was satisfied.

I ran off to work to a full day of activities.  I already knew I had to return in the evening to help hand out cookies and coffee to staff on the night shift.  It's someting the hospital does every month and it rotates among the hospital directors.  Great job picking Woody's birthday for a evening to spend at work.

Annika had an audition with the Chandler elementary school all city honors band.  We took the entire family for her four pm audition.  Annika said it went OK after they called her to a back room.  She said her reed was bothering her, not placed perfectly to her liking.  She didn't have the perfect smile of hers when she came out.

We then went out to the cookie mom's place and picked up more Girl Scout cookies for Ingrid to sell.  We've got several orders in the pipe so it should be pretty easy for her to sell the 80 total boxes we have.

Finally, it started raining pretty good this evening.  The rest of the family went out to dinner to celebrate and I went back to the hospital to hand out cookies.

So there, we're back in the game of blogging.

Tonight's Reading

Erik loves having stories read to him.  it doesn't always look like it the way he wiggles around when you read out loud.  But ask him a comprehension question, and he's right there with the story line.  For some reason a month ago, I picked up the book, Henry Huggins, by Beverly Cleary and Erik was immediately drawn in to the story.  This quickly followed with the second book, Henry and Ribsy.  When Erik hears about salmon, he immediately reminds me that Henry Huggins went salmon fishing and caught a 30 pound salmon in the story with his dog.  Do you remember mom, do you?  Erik does.   He asked if there were any more books to the series and I told him the three more titles that I knew.  The one called Henry and Beezus stuck in his mind.  And finally yesterday, when his kindergarten class was in the school library to check out little reading books, Erik went up to Mrs Cooper and asked if he could check out a book from the big kid section because he liked Henry Huggins books by Beverly Cleary.  And sure enough, Erik brought home Henry and Beezus for us to read together.  Erik one page, me one page.

I see a voracious reader in our future.

  

Are You Wondering How Big They're Getting?

Tonight we decided it was a dessert type night.  Infrequent addition to our meals, but sometimes that sweetness is just right.  And Woody was the one who suggested a quick stop for a family meeting at Coldstone Creamery.  Ice cream with mix ins.  And a quick kid picture.  They're getting so old!!!

Girl Scout Cookies Anyone?

Both Ingrid and Annika are in GIrl Scouts this year.  Ingrid is in her last year of Brownies and Annika is a cadet.  Annika's troop is flush with cash, they say, from past years and decided to skip the annual cookies sales hulabaloo.  Ingrid's troop is newly created and is participating in the Girl Scout ubiquitous event.  Cookie sales.

Different from years past, even just two years ago, the cookies arrive first.  They're are no door to door order forms only to return in one month with your order.  You pre buy the cookies from the local council and you sell them - all - or pay for them.  

Cookie sales officially start on Monday, January 26, but we got our initial stash on Sunday.  I took the opportunity to take a few pictures of Ingrid to post on social media to drum up some sales.  Ingrid also posted on her Instagram feed.  She's soooo photogenic and a natural model for such a thing.  Just look.