Brenden loves holding Malcolm and has recently learned to TELL me when he's done as opposed to just letting go of him and saying, "I'm done." I forgot to take his five month pictures ON his five month birthday, so I did it the next day and left out the date. I figure it's better than skipping the whole month completely. BTW, check out his drool covered shirt. There's probably a puddle in the tray of that activity center. His four month shot. See how much more hair he has now? His wrists are super bad. They're so chapped and oozy that we put bag balm on them and covered his hands with socks. I thought it was cute. Corey thought it was cute that his belly was poking out. From the kitchen Brenden was calling, "Take my picture, take my picture." You'll see in the videos he always has to be in the shot too.

Trunk or Treat

We did end up going to the Trunk or Treat. He didn't seem that sick and I just love Halloween so much, I couldn't let it go by without doing something. So two hours before TorT started at our church we went to Walmart and got some fabric. So he was a little....

MUMMY!!!!!

And Malcolm got to wear his monkey costume. I think he did end up filling it out better. I can't believe he grew that much in a month.


On the way home from Walmart I decided to dress up too. I was going as a "witch" minus a hat. So when we got home, I took a shower. Afterward, I kept it product free so it would frizz up and look "witchy". I also wore really dark makeup and all black. But I don't know if it really came across that I was in a costume or if people just thought I had bad fashion sense and liked to wear clown makeup.

See? See that frizzy nasty hair? (it's worse in real life). So when you girls with the straight, beautiful hair say, "Oh I wish I had curly hair," I say, "no, you really don't." So there :-p

More pictures of the evening.

















Can you see how much this kid drools?

And another picture that was on the camera but not from tonight:

The back of his hands have been getting dried out and cracked and scaly since he got potty trained and started washing his hands all the time. I've been putting cream on them during the day, but he doesn't like it, so the other night before bed, Corey put bag balm on his hands and put socks over them. It really helped a lot.

Earlier today, Corey wanted to go to the nerd store at the mall and so I decided to take the other two to JCPenny and see if there were any good sales going on. Malcolm has outgrown half his winter wardrobe already and Brenden only has two pairs of pants that fit him (the new ones I got a few weeks ago). Everything else is too small. Long and boring story short, I got Brenden 8 shirts and 3 pants and Malcolm 4 bodysuits and 3 pants (18 items total) for only $68. That's $3.77 each!! We went to the DI and tried to do better, but couldn't find anything worthwhile, so this was our last resort. And it made me happy! Just thought I'd share.

Mary Kay Sale

I know, I know, I still have some inventory lying around. Well, since I want next year to be the last time I have to do Mary Kay taxes, I need to get rid of all of it. So head over to marykayinventory(dot)blogspot(dot)com. Everything is 60% OFF. That's a better discount than a consultant can get. Lots of things would make good Christmas gifts for your friends or even yourself (just tell your husband what you want and have him call me).

The list is updated and will stay updated when things sell. Shipping is a flat $3.

Malcolm has eczema. Does anybody have any experience with this? So far for rash prevention I found out to bathe daily, no washcloths or vigorous rubbing, use a moisturizing cream immediately after, and use the humidifier. Anything else?

Some books I've read, albeit a very long time ago.

The first one is called Honey For a Child's Heart by Gladys Hunt. It is a book about reading with your children. The second half of the book are lists of books to read for certain age groups. She has so many good books, books I can't wait to read with Brenden. I intend to recheck this book out from the library and start going through some of the books with Brenden. For those who don't read my other blog, Brenden is in the "pre-reading" stage, thanks mostly to Starfall.com. He knows all the basic sounds of the alphabet, he can usually tell you what letter a word starts with if it's not a tricky one. For example, when our friends were over, we asked him what "Shiloh" starts with and he said, "s-h", but yesterday he came up to me and said "phone" starts with an "f" and knife starts with an "n". So you can see, he really knows his sounds but not yet used to the fact that English has so many weird rules and exceptions. So I told him he was really lucky to be learning English, because it can be so tricky. Reading is very important to us. I'm working on writing my own curriculum to teach him some more things than Starfall does and it's just amazing to me that I'm giving him a gift so precious and wonderful. To read and write is something that is often taken for granted, but is the basis for all future knowledge.

The next one is called "Home Learning Year by Year" by Rebecca Rupp. This is my new favorite and definitely one I want to buy. It goes through every grade level and tells the approximate order and age for specific skills to be taught. This is a huge blessing to me, because while I've been determined to homeschool, I don't really know the specifics about the sequence of certain skills. I mean I didn't even know where to start teaching Brenden how to read. First you start with letter recognition, then sounds the letters make, then patterns of words like "_ee_", "_a_e", "_ai_", etc. And it works it's way up. That's the kind of thing that this book teaches with science, math, language arts, social studies, art, etc. So you know what foundations to lay before moving on. Even if you aren't homeschooling, this book is good to look at to make sure your kids aren't falling behind or to help them if they are. Lots and lots of additional resources are listed.

And then the next one is "Homeschooling: Take a Deep Breath-You Can Do This" by Terrie Lynn Bitner. Lots of resources listed, lots of tips about organization, and lots of encouragement. When I first considered the option of homeschooling, I thought to myself, "There is no way I could teach my kids, I'm too stupid. I didn't do well in math and always struggled with science." That kind of thinking. She talks about how to create a lesson plan, how to research facts, how to write your own curriculum if you want (something I was convinced I would never do). And she also talks about how you don't need to know everything, you can learn together with your child. This was by far the best book I've read on how to handle the specific day to day things without getting overwhelmed or frustrated. This really helped alleviate my fears about this massive undertaking we are about to begin.

So being the crazy person that I am, I checked out 10 Hannah Swensen Murder Mysteries. This was about a week before we moved. And also being the crazy person that I am, I read 7 of those books and started the 8th before my 3 week deadline was up and the books had to be returned. Le sigh. The are really fun and really fast reads, although you wouldn't know it since it took me three weeks to read 7. I blame the fact that I was unpacking and had a 3 year old and a newborn who require care and attention. There is one thing that drives me crazy about these books though. I don't want to ruin it for anyone, but a certain love interest of Hannah's....well let's just say I despise him. They are pretty predictable, starting with the third one, I've been able to guess who the killers are, but had to wait for more info to come along and Hannah to figure it out.

Also, that Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict=terrible. It might have been ok, but the ending just didn't make sense. AT. ALL. And a bad ending can ruin an otherwise good book.

I have read my fair share of Pride and Prejudice "sequels" and copycats, but I just reread my all time favorite. The third book in Pamela Aidan's Fitzwilliam Darcy, A Gentleman trilogy called "These Three Remain." I highly highly recommend these books to anyone who likes Pride and Prejudice. Pamela Aidan really is a literary genius (a friend of mine once called Stephenie Meyer a literary genius, regardless of the fact that she writes at a 4th grade level and her plots are slower than molasses). The first book is "An Assembly Such As This" and the second one is "Duty and Desire." Gah, Edward Cullen can't hold a candle to Mr. Darcy. It's not even close.

We also watched Ghost Town, with Ricky Gervais, Tea Leoni, and Greg Kinnear. I thought it was a cute movie. Worth watching at least once.

Then we watched XMen Origins: Wolverine. So bad, so terribly bad. So many things don't make sense, from the characters' motivations to plot holes to bad CGI, it was just a huge disappointment.

I have seen Star Trek in the theater three times now! It's like the most I've ever been to the theater for one movie since Titanic. I saw it the first time with Corey. Then I was going to go see it in the dollar theater by myself, but then Matt came back from VA so I went with him. Then when Nicole was out here before we took her up to Idaho I made her go see it too. I really really LOVE that movie. And it looks so much better on the big screen than it ever will on our crappy little TV so I am getting my fix while I can.

Some time this week I want to see the Proposal. I'll probably be going by myself again (I went to Harry Potter by myself, the first time I've EVER gone to the movie theater alone), I doubt Matt will want to go and it wasn't in the dollar theatre while Nicole was here. Now let me just say, I generally abhor chick flicks. Time Traveller's Wife, My Sister's Keeper, Sweet November, I can tell just by the previews that someone is going to die. Never heard anything other than what the previews show, but I bet someone dies in each one. I could be wrong, I've never seen any of them, but really have no desire to anyway. Corey has this theory: if a book or movie makes a woman cry, she automatically thinks it's a good book or movie. Not me. I do like the A&E Pride and Prejudice and the Jane Seymour, Anthony Andrews Scarlet Pimpernel and a few chick flicks. I like Just Like Heaven, Sweet Home Alabama, 27 Dresses and a few others. Sure they are cheesy and of course very predictable and you know how it's going to end, but you just gotta love them anyway. I'm sure that's how The Proposal will be. We'll see.

Redoing this blog. I decided I don't like having two "what's going on in our life" blogs. Mostly because I don't really post to this one. It's so sad, it's the one I just don't really care about.

I was thinking a few days ago that maybe I'd just do one to review books I read. So here's the first one:

Mimi posted about the Hannah Swensen mystery books. The first one was called Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder. So I got it and finished it yesterday. And I liked it. More later because we need to eat dinner.

And earlier in the week I read Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict