car nap

Here's how Turkish kids on a road trip take a nap...no kidding...this isn't the only time we've seen it...just the best picture we could get.

Road trippin

Sometimes we take a road trip. This is what it looks like when we do. Most of us wear pants, shorts, or some kind of clothing on our bottom half. Cort likes to camouflage himself into his carseat so we won't notice how many oreos and twizzlers he's going through. This was a 5 hour drive to Adana so I wanted to have an audio book. There was ONE audio book for kids at the library. It's a Neil Gaiman book, so I picked it up because I thought Bill would like it, then I read the back and put it right back down. Hello, freaky. But when I realize that it's the only kids audio book in the whole place...I get it and I'm the first person on the card to check it out.
So, Coraline was fun to listen to and slightly disturbing but did the trick because the bigs were silent for 95% of the trip. When you stop at the gas station in Turkey they bring you out a fancy little glass cup of chai (tea) with a darling, tiny spoon. Then they might offer to take a picture of your family who's all desperately running around because they've been stuck sitting still for 3 hours. Because everyone wants to have their picture taken when they're feeling like that.

Gross!

Castle

There's so much history in Turkey. Whenever we take a trip we can't decide what to see. Sometimes you're just driving on the highway and you can see a beautiful stone ampitheater from the road with houses built up around it and no signs anywhere- it's just a 2,000 year old site that no one took the time to chart.
There's a lot of incredible things we come across on these journeys. Iwant to stop and take pictures every 3 minutes as we drive. Look at those wonderful mountains, the blue sky, the clouds. How can the highway be this uneven and patched? Look at those slumdog millionaire kids beating eachother up in the park...isn't that beautiful? Look at that brick wall built out in the middle of nowhere and clearly building has stopped and someone has spray painted the turkish word 'for sale' on it. Who would buy it? What was it going to be? Why would anyone build something out there? Look at that truck that's overloaded to double it's size...any small wind will topple that thing over. Look at those men driving, all three of them squished together on the front seat so that the sheep has room in the backseat.
Look at that shepherd talking on his cell phone. It goes on and on like this for me....
The kids only notice when I say "Look! Cows!" because they are too busy reading or listening to the auido book. Sloane says things like "Cows? Where? Are they Turkish? I'm going to shoot them!" (I have no idea where this comes from...the bigs don't say anything like this).

Club Med

Then we went to the beach next to the amazing castle...there's another castle in the middle of the water on a castle-sized island and you can take a boat out to explore it. When we arrived we were fully clothed. Within 30 minutes the bigs were swimming and the littles were covered in sand...only partially wet.

phat lip

Poor little Cort. This was taken just after his forehead/nose/mouth scrape had healed up. I was standing right next to him, he tripped and fell on the floor. I reached down to pluck him up and NO KIDDING there was a spot of blood on the floor- that fast! He wasn't climbing or balancing or doing anything exciting...just walking, just fell on the floor and his lip was THIS big all of a sudden. These pictures were taken after icing and going to the library for storytime. (and before he scratched up his cheek falling off of a picnic table later that day.)

April

Summer school

So, I've been thinking about school some now. Billie had a birthday recently and we (I) have a little cycle I go through as a homeschooler. Here's how it goes: Billie has a birthday, always seems to happen right around March and suddenly I have to think of her in terms of a 'bigger kid'. Then I panic which goes something like this "SIX! Six? A six year old is like a BIG kid...like one of those kids I see in the street or at the playground, with cool clothes and they know about things and they know how to do stuff and everything. Billie is going to be six??! Now I really have to do some school-y stuff. I'm going to get serious. We're going to start writing every day...yeah. And I'll organize a schedule to make sure we do science at least twice a week and not just catching tadpole science. Yeah, that's it...I'm going to get serious." Step two is ordering an insane amount of books and supplies. Then I'm ready to get down to business...for real this time.
Then it's April and I'm making myself crazy trying to make sure we do 'real' school. I usually stick to my schedule for a couple weeks during this month. Then it's May and school kids are getting ready to wrap up their year of learning. Now it's time to give my kid the standardized test to make sure they are meeting the random standards of American kids their age. There is not one question about Ancient Egypt and nothing about Latin. Then I look over the test and I realized both kids have passed that 'grade level' by FAR. Then I think over my two weeks of quizzing them on 'adverbs' 'prefixs', making sure that they know what a molecule is, can they identify a ventricle and what is 7x9?
That's usually when I breathe a sigh of relief and think...that's not what learning is about. We need to be outside more, climbing trees, learning how to share, being honest, dancing, reading, reading, reading good literature. We need to be learning how to cook, writing letters, using manners at the dinner table, playing chess, talking, taking walks, going on vacation, take a good book up in a tree for an hour, roller skating, playing soccer, counting the money in piggy banks, writing poems, putting on our own plays, making birdhouses...
So, that's what we're doing this summer.
It's far from ideal and not exactly what people think of when they think of 'school' but it's fun and I'm stickin to it...until next March.

Fairy Marigold-8 years old

props to Bill

Yesterday Bill ran his first (yes, I do expect another one in the future) marathon. 26 miles without stopping to walk was his goal and he did it. Started running about 9 months ago and made it to marathon already. See how he does things with the making a descision and then going at it full force, purchasing lots of gear that goes with current interest, sticking with it (that's the bit that throws me off track, I can get with the motivation for a day or two...), AND then going until we reach super-human expert levels.
We are all so in awe of him and proud of him. I mean, do you know how far 26 miles is?!!!
Yes, I am inspired and as I'm getting older (but not as old as all my friends with March birthdays-happy birthday) I should really make excercise part of my life, today my girlfriend and I did a stair workout in our stairwell, which felt like it might have been 26 miles and I'm going to yoga tonight so, that's impressive.


We don't have pictures of him at the finish line (yet) so here's a random assortment of kids sledding in our 'backyard'. This is after most of the kids went inside and just the die-hard (all homeschooled) kids are left as it's getting dark. The other day we had a round of flashlight tag for all the neighborhood kids and it turned into a wicked huge snowball fight.

Billie's hair before her haircut.

Billie representing Japan for her Girl Scout world thinking-day and eating Onigiri, our favorite Japanese snack.
Thank you, Yukari-San, for sending us the flavoring mixes!!!

Billie and Sloane making muffins.

never, ever again for at least 2 years

Austria was just as Sound of Music as possible. Our trip, however, involved more than beautiful scenery and that is where the hands-down-worst-road-trip-ever bit comes in.
You know how it is with us- travel isn't always romantic candelight dinners and sipping umbrella drinks on the beach. When we're going somewhere sometimes people ask me "Are you bringing the kids?" and I'm like "Yes, they belong to us...they are ours, so yes, we're bringing them. Duh."
First the flight- when I found it was three hours...well, that's like a whole vacation in itself right there. Is there anything easier than three hours, with no plane changes, no need to de-board and re-board? There is not. It's like going to a movie, easier than church because you don't have to talk in hushed voices or keep reminding everyone that they will have to live without snacks for 50 whole minutes. We made the whole trip with no electronic devices at all. Lovely.
Skiing, I found out, is not so easy.
Here's what you absolutely must be sure that your rental car has when driving from Munich to Austria: snow tires. Here's what you REALLY don't want to hear from the rental car place "We have only one car with snow tires- a two door VW Golf".
And if you do happen to find yourself driving from Munich to the small town of St. Veit, Austria with one toddler in carseat and 3 other people squished in next to that (and that's just in the backseat) well, it's essential to have a GPS system, which we did. It's also essential to have a barf bag, change of clothes and clothespins to hold your nose plugged for the remainer of the puke-smelling trip but we did NOT have those.

Here's what's fun; having tons of snow/Here's what's not fun; having tons of snow gear to put on so that you're not miserable when you go out in tons of snow. It's nice to be warm and bundled up in hats, fleeces, snowpants with suspenders, mittens cinched, thick wool socks but it is heartbreaking to hear that someone has to use the bathroom once they are finally zippered in to their bundling accessories.

It was really fun to hang out with George and Mari, to learn to ski and to watch the kids going down the mountain like pros and we had a good time overall....but here is what you must know about going skiing for 5 days straight with four little kids- Do not go skiing for 5 days straight with four little kids.

even sleeping

This picture is too sweet not to blog...Sloane even sleeps matching Lola. Billie reading Spiderwick book 4. If Sloane is ever able to keep herself awake through reading time we turn out the lights and Billie and Jackson each get flashlights to read under the covers. Seeing them do this is just what you thought growing up and having kids would be like when you were 10. It's a dream come true.

Valentines

Bill actually took a picture. People always ask me how I knit with 4 kids...it's easy...just like this.

We're having a happy valentines day as we pack up to head out on our Austrian ski trip later this afternoon. The kids are so funny and fun to be around these days. Sloane is really into watching these home videos of herself as a baby and it's hilarious to see 2 year old Jackson making up sentences full of big words in the wrong places and cranky faces when someone makes a gesture toward helping him. Billie, in these films, is a happy, dancing girl with clever negotiations. I can't even remember them being like that, it's so sad. And so funny that they are both EXACTLY the same as they were then. At the time I was wondering what their personalities would be like as they grew older but they haven't changed one bit over the years.

The other day when I was looking through Molly's closet I had to admit that she has a much better wardrobe than I do. Lola does as well- her shoe collection alone is worth more than our van.

What my hair looks like

My hair is so much cooler than the rest of me.

Cortopolis

I don't have to remind myself that Cort is just a little boy. He's VERY little boy. He's cuddly and sweet and awful and he eats ALL the time. Cort has a teeny tiny vocabulary because he's perfected the art of pointing and grunting. He's got 5 of us running to do his bidding with that little point and grunt technique. When he's in his little toddler gymnastics class all the little girls his age are so verbal. The girls are all practically "Oh my, isn't this a charming dance around the parachute" and when I ask Cort do you want to dance? He just points and says "Ba!" He has plenty of signs and a few words but he's really made his needs quite clear and we all know the subtle differences between 'Baa'(that!), 'Da' (I want it), 'Na na na' (no no no), Nana (banana), 'Mama' (mommy or daddy), 'Baba' (Billie), and 'BA'(ball). He also has a word for drink but it's the noise we used to play Indians before we knew to call them Native Americans, using your hand to block off part of the sound coming from your mouth during a loud "Ahhhh" so that the sound keeps bobbing up and down. It's very annoying and we get him a drink right away to stop the noise.