The Many Moods of Violet Clinger

Up Please?

UP NOW!

That pretty face is all because of Dragon Tales

Not Happy?

What? No, I'm Happy!

Psyche! 

All better!

NOT!

I guess the Denver area made national headlines with our recent snow storm, my mom mentioned it to me.  We didn't get hit as hard in Castle Rock as they did farther west and North, but we got a fair amount of snow!  Its been really fun, the boys have been sliding down the little slope in the yard on their discs that grandma and grandpa bought them.  Joseph, though, went out without gloves on at first, and was out for quite awhile, until his hands hurt so bad he thought they were burning.  He came running in crying like he was dying!  He felt better after I ran warm water over his hands, poor baby, and poor neighbors if they heard his cry, because it was quite awful!  Thank goodness this is their last week off track, they start again on Monday, we're all pretty excited about that!

Nothing too new on the Violet front.  She's as cute and smart as ever.  I've figured out that she won't throw an absolute fit if I ask her nicely before I do things to her, like wipe her nose, or face, or wash her hands.  It used to be this huge ordeal just to wash spaghetti sauce off her face, now all I have to do is ask, "can I wash your face?" and she turns her little face up to me and lets me do it!  When I ask her if I can wipe her nose, she even exhales, half the time out her nose!  It's so cute!  Yesterday she brought me a diaper and laid down right after she'd wet herself, I was very impressed!  She thinks she's so big and smart now because she can push kitchen chairs around and climb up on them herself, so she thinks she can climb out of her bed.  Only problem is, she's a shorty-pants and so all that  happens is her fat little legs get stuck in the rungs and then she cries and cries!  I tried to catch her dancing this morning, which she does ALL THE TIME, but she was cranky and didn't want me video-ing her.  She's still not talking, but we've started limiting her pacifier time to when she's in bed, or in public (to keep her quiet), so hopefully that will help her be more vocal in a productive way!  All in all, she's an absolute joy to behold and she makes my heart swell with pure happiness!

Oh, I just remembered something that happened a little less than a month ago.  We went the infant reading time at our library while the boys were at school.  A cute side note is that Sam was with me and they let him have a big puppet so he could be a "daddy" with his own "baby," and he was the only boy amongst 10-13 month and younger baby girls.  Violet was one of the oldest babies their, but definitely not the biggest, and most definitely the smartest (if I do say so myself).  I found out that day how much of a booger she really is.  We were singing this silly little song to the tune of "Where is Thumb-kin" that goes something like "where is Violet, where is Violet? There she is, there she is.  She is very special..." And when it was each baby's turn, the lady would roll a small beach ball to her and the baby (or her mommy) would roll it back after her turn was over.  Well, there were about three babies before Violet, and about five or more after her, but she noticed what was happening right away and decided she WANTED that BALL NOW!  So at first she was just trying to walk through the circle to go get it from those other babies, but when she realized I wasn't going to let her she hurled herself on the ground to cry.  Then, when it was her turn, she was so freaking ticked off that she immediately THREW the ball away from her with the brattiest of noised possible from a 13 month old.  Then she realized what she'd done and was immediately repentant, but it was too late, her turn had passed.  She was the ONLY baby there that threw a fit during the whole time there.  But you know what?  I chalk it up to her being so intelligent.  She was the only baby really paying attention to anything that was going on.  All the other babies had age typical absent looks on their faces, she was the only one observing, plus she has three very indulgent brothers who's goals in life at this moment are to make her happy, so there!  My justification of why my one year old acts like a brat!

So much to do!

Motherhood for me, up until this point, consisted of a lot of breakfast, lunch and dinner making, and not a whole lot else.  But now, all of a sudden I am BUSY!  Joe and Ben have been doing well in school, but it's half-day kindergarten so I have a little more than 3 hours to get things done while their gone and then on Mon-Wed-Fri Sam has preschool in the afternoon which gives me another three hours without him, but somewhere in there I have to make sure Violet gets her two to three hour nap, which doesn't seem like it should be to hard, but if I'm too busy with housework after I drop the boys off then I have to wait until after I drop off Sam which means she doesn't go down until almost one o'clock which means she's a cranky little beast at that point!   And then, on top of that, we signed the boys ups for different classes at the rec center which added more to and from and coming and goings.  But now, they're off track (year round school) and their classes are over and I feel like I can breathe!  

Everyone is well and healthy (or on their way to being healthy) and happy!  I have just little tid bits of information that I've been meaning to post about but haven't so here it goes.  Ben was in an art class and he did really good.  Every week the teacher uses a different medium and a different piece of his own original art to copy from.

This is the first week, they used water colors to paint and abstract painting.  This is actually a pretty fair likeness to the original.

This is the second week, they used chalk.  It's a cow holding flowers in it's mouth, there are mountains and a fence in the background.  

This is a picture of the original for week four, keep in mind the teacher does the originals before the class, and then shows them how to outline and color in during the class, and it's only and hour long.    They used oil pastels. Next is Ben's rendition: 

Ben said he got tired so he couldn't finish coloring, and I'm not surprised because that day, after we'd got home from running errands a bunch of older boys were outside boxing (friendly boxing) and my boys wanted to go out and watch.  After a little while the bigger boys were taking a break, so my boys ran inside and grabbed their own little boxing gloves and put on a show of their own.  They did pretty well in my opinion, and the older boys really got a kick out of it.  So I don't blame him, he probably was pretty tired!

This is the outline the teacher did during class and samples of coloring techniques.  I think Ben did pretty good for a six year old with no previous lessons or training!

This is my "art wall" downstairs in the basement.  I have a work table set up down there with all my sewing and knitting stuff, and the walls are just bare, unfinished cement, and the boys kept coming home with all this great art from school and stuff, so I figured why not display it all!

This is at the children's museum in Denver.  It's a totally cool place.  Obviously, this is the fire truck they have there, it's full sized and they have really life-like uniforms for the kids to put on and they can climb all over the truck and stuff, and over on a wall near it they have a phone set up where they can practice dialing 9-1-1 and practice giving the answers they would have to give in an emergency.  There's also a monitor set up where they answer quiz questions about what constitutes a real 9-1-1 emergency so that they don't make frivolous calls.  Then, upstairs in the museum they have all these rooms set up where they can dress up like Vets and take care of stuffed animals, or dress up like woodland animals and crawl around in big tunnels and fake trees ands stuff. There's also a child size grocery store with carts and food and cash registers with conveyor belts, and an art room where they can paint and a dance floor with music and mirrors and a puppet show stage...  It's REALLY COOL!  We had a blast!  Even Violet had a good time!

Here's Sam as a Wizard, and Violet is his princess (on the dancefloor).

Here she is on the dance floor still, she thinks she's cute!

This is Violet folding her arms, all ready to pray.  It was so incredibly cute, a couple weeks ago we were all getting ready for bed and it was time for pray so Karl called out for everyone to come kneel down and fold your arms.  He looked down at Violet, who we've always just let do whatever she wants to during prayers so far, and she had knelt down on the floor and folded her little arms, ALL BY HERSELF!  It was the cutest thing I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of cuteness!

She has progressed to bowing her head and closing her eyes now!

So that's about it for now.  I can't really think of anything else, except that my parents and Holly came out for a visit over Valentine's Day and we all had a really good time.  On actual Valentines day we went out to Red Rocks (which is really cool all by itself) but it started snowing, and when we got up to where the ampitheater part is a string quartet was playing Canon in D and couples all around us were getting engaged and stuff.  It was really cool!  So that's it!  I'll try not to let it go as long next time!

Joseph's Dog Sledding Trip

We went dog sledding today. Joseph had a great time. We drove to Breckenridge ski resort and took turns driving and riding on the dog sled with two other groups.

Our dogs were great. The lead dogs (Rasta and Luke), and the rest of the team (Moscow, Dusty, Jetstream, Indigo, Avalanche and Axle) were amazing. The guide said that they run best at about -25 degrees. Today it was in the 30's and the dogs would roll in the snow every chance they got to cool down.

On the way there we say a bunch of people ice fishing. I had to put that on our "To Do" list.

-Karl

Violets Birthday!!!

Happy Birthday Violet!  Yesterday was so wonderful, I can hardly believe that she has been with us for a whole year now, and yet I can not imagine our lives without her!  She is the sweetest, smartest, most beautiful little girl in the whole world and I am so grateful she's mine!  I have absolutely TONS of pictures and videos (I try to keep my video segments down to 30 secs for easy uploading), so enjoy!  I've tried to put them in chronological order, and you can click on the pictures to see full size images.

Grandma and Grandpa Clinger gave her this darling purse.

She new exactly what to do with the bracelet!

First we filled her tummy up with noodles...

 

Busy days!

I haven't written in a long time, and tomorrow is Violet's birthday which means when I post tomorrow, I'm only going to want to talk about her!  I recently took up knitting as a hobby and have been very preoccupied with that.  I had decided when we moved here that I'd have to learn how to crotchet or knit so that I could have as many cute scarves and hats as I want, but at a fraction of the cost.  Well, I am definitely NOT a crotcheter, my skills with one little hook are quite dismal, but, to my surprise, I'm catching on to knitting quite well.  I'm still a beginner, that's for sure, but I've managed several scarves, and stuffed lamb, some booties of different shapes and sizes, and I'm working on a blanket for Holly's baby.  I actually really enjoy it, it's relaxing.  Nothing that's supposed to be relaxing has ever been relaxing to me before.  So with that new hobby I've acquired a lot of yarn that began to take over our living areas which wasn't pretty.  So I built a little working area for myself in our basement (which is unfinished) which took a couple days and is now quite cozy and enjoyable.  Our cats live in the basement (they like it, I don't make them) but they enjoy my company, and it's nice to see them more often as well.  And then, I got this itch to paint some furniture that I've got, two tables, that I got for free, and a desk that was 10 dollars at a yard sale, so I went to home depot and bought some paint (which was surprisingly expensive altogether) and have spent the day painting away.  I don't know if anyone else will like the colors I picked, but I do so that's all that matters!  So as you can see, I've been genuinely busy.  Plus, last week Violet got sick for the first time, and then passed it on to me, and then on to Ben, and now possibly Karl, so that's occupied a lot of my time as well! 

Joe and Ben are both doing really well at school.  When they started at this school they were technically 6 months behind because it's year round school and their track started last July I think, but they're almost completely caught up, in one short month!  They're both making friends and behaving very well consistently, so that is a source of joy in my life.  Ben is sounding out words and reading short books, and Joe is making a really good effort!  Sam is my little chef, and is always in the kitchen when I am helping and truly learning, it's so cute.  I picked up a registration packet for him today, he'll be starting kindergarten in just a few months!  

 So to anyone who checks my blog tonight, check again tomorrow or the next day because I'm going to put pictures of the BIRTHDAY GIRL up!

Violet Walks!

Violet is going to be one on February third, and I was beginning to believe that she would not be walking by that time, even though she's been crawling, and pulling herself to standing since she was less than six months old, but SHE DID IT!  Two days ago I was just talking to my parents on skype and my dad asked if she was walking yet, to which I replied in the negative, but that very same night, while I was reading to the boys, she stood up next to Karl, and then simply turned and walked away!  Four steps in a row, just like that!  Since then, she's taken as many as ten baby steps without support!  She so wonderful!  We are so proud of our sweet babies!

Third First Day of School!

The boys started school here finally, and it went off without a hitch.  The school is really big, so the boys get to be in separate classes and both their teachers are really nice.  The kindergarteners have their own playground and bathrooms in the classrooms, so it's really safe and secluded.  So, all is well!

On a side note, as I was pulling up the internet on my computer just now, to check my blog and stuff, I happened to notice that google was already up and by chance I checked to see what the search was, and Ben googled himself!  We just thought that was pretty funny!