Ch-ch-ch-changes

The house is officially on the market. We will lose a boatload of cash, but happily, Mitch still has a really good job and we don't owe more than it's worth, so we'll probably be okay. I always wanted to live in a van, down by the river, anyways. Keeping it immaculate has been a challenge, but the kids have been so good about helping, and they love it, because it means they get to watch tv/play video games on school days. Everybody wins, at our house.

We're all really excited to be heading back to the mainland. Living here has been wonderful, and I wouldn't trade it for anything, but I'm thrilled to be putting the kids into a good school district (hopefully). Our plan had been to build our dream house this time, but with the market the way it is, it's looking like we'll be moving into one more fixer-upper before we do that *whimper*. I'm sure I'll be blogging about our adventures on that end. The most important thing is to get the kids into good schools.

Grace and Henry are laid-back and don't really care about the changes afoot, as long as we're together. Olivia has a hard time with change (and just about everything else), so she's been having a bit of separation anxiety at school, but mostly adjusting beautifully. Grace is just pissed that she can't be here for showings, because she wants to meet new people and show them where she leaves notes for the fairies and whatnot. Henry has been getting a little mouthy. He smart-mouthed me for the first time, like, ever the other night. Now, Jack came out of the womb with a smart mouth, but Henry has never been sarcastic. I couldn't help but feel proud! He also won't let me hug him on school grounds anymore (sad face here). All three of the youngest are playing soccer, which means I am at the field Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. Wednesdays and Sundays I save for drinking. Well, I would, if I wasn't so busy cleaning.

Jack is doing track, and he looks a little less like Gollum in his track tank and shorts than he did last year. He is beyond happy to be going back to Seattle. He never really fit in here, and the kids didn't really get his sarcasm, although he has made some good friends. He's so like Mitch in so many ways, especially the cheapness. His one pair of shoes are basically held together with duct tape and I finally told him if he didn't sit down and order some with me, that I would pick some "really handsome shoes" out for him. He couldn't decide between two pairs, and since they were a good deal I bought them both. You would have thought I'd bought some magic beans the way he carried on about what a waste of money it was to buy to pairs of shoes, and it wasn't even his money! I can't believe anyone could come from my body and not want extra shoes.

Happy Birthday, Lady Gaga

Gracie's latest obsession: Lady Gaga

So long, Coupeville

We're going back to the Seattle area, and pretty much all six of us are excited, for different reasons, of course. House goes on the market next month.

We could stay, and Mitch could commute, but the school system here just hasn't been working for the boys, and Jack is starting HS next fall, so we want to be settled before that. I don't think I was ever meant to be a small town girl, but we have loved living here, and will probably pop back up to visit pretty often.

I won't miss the people at the post office that hold up signs of Barack Obama with Hitler mustaches painted on, though.

Cock with wine

Grace with her "trophy" feather

We had a rooster named Bloody Lucky (because he got stuck in a fence and henpecked until Olivia rescued him). Anyway, he was MEAN and jerky. He was so mean he had to live by himself until one day a few days ago when he woke me up at the crack of dawn for the last bloody time.

The girls helped Mitch pluck him after the deed was done, while shrieking and gagging and laughing. No one really wanted to eat him, but in the interest of teaching the kids where their food actually comes from, I made Coq au vin out of Miss Julia Child's cookbook. I pretended to eat it, Jack didn't even have any on his plate, but the other four family members loved it. It was a little disconcerting when Olivia kept shouting out, "More Bloody Lucky, please! He tastes so good."

Pets! They're What's For Dinner.

In the pink

First Grade Homework Fail

Those of you on Facebook probably already saw this, but here is Olivia's homework from last week.

Sugar and sleep

This is what the kids had for dinner on Friday, to celebrate Jack's near-perfect report card. It looks yummy, especially to someone who has eliminated sugar and processed food from her diet. But, I'm not above putting this garbage into my kids' bodies, as you can clearly see. Unfortunately, I'm not sure the positive reward system worked. Yesterday, Jack came home, took out his homework, and said, "woops". He had forgotten to turn in his test in Algebra. It was an open book test, which is hilarious, because when the teacher emailed him back, he told Jack he could retake it after school. The hilarious part is that I am looking at the book right now, sitting right where Jack left it before going to school. It's next to his lunch. Sigh.

Olivia has been having a very had time going to sleep lately. I consider myself somewhat of a sleep Nazi when it comes to the kids. By that, I mean they go to bed at the same time every night after books, and that is the last time I see or hear from them until morning, unless vomiting is involved, or the occasional nightmare. But even then, after I console them or attend to their needs, I hustle them back to their own beds. So, this thing with Olivia has me pretty stressed out. She cries and carries on (stomachache! too scared! Grace is snoring! I can hear Seamus scratching downstairs!) until about 10 or 11. Her bedtime is 7:30. This morning we had a long talk, and she said she was scared to be separated from us. This is a valid concern, since I've been with her nearly every waking moment that she has been alive, apart from school. We talked about ways she can cope at night, and we're going to try yoga before bed. About this point, I'm feeling pretty cocky, like a good mom, because she was all excited to try these new tricks.

She asked if she could get some gloves out of the closet under the stairs, and then I told the kids to get into the car for school. I had to go shut the gate on the chicken coop and noticed that Olivia had left the closet door open. I shut it and went out to the coop, and around to the front of the house. Henry and Grace were at the car, but no Olivia. That's when I heard her wails from inside the house. I had shut her in the closet and she thought we'd left without her! Yep, I pretty much solved those abandonment fears today.

Absent

Hello? Is this thing on? So, my last post was over a month ago, and I promise I haven't quit, I've just been busy. The kids' school cut their art funding in half, so me and a few other moms started an after school art program, culminating in a big art show. I was so busy with it that my own kids didn't get any time to work on their projects, but we do art all the time at home, and they were happy enough with what they churned out in the 40 minutes I gave them. Here's Olivia at the art show with her painting of a horse. Surprise! And Grace with her painting of a unicorn with a princess on it riding a rainbow. Surprise again!

Henry entered in the photography category, and I really loved the picture he chose to display. It's a little stream of ice on the concrete and pretty cool looking.

Now that the art show is over, I am somehow organizing an all-island chicken coop tour. I threw the idea out at one of Jack's 4H meetings, and the next thing I knew, I was in charge of it. Beyond that, everyone is cruising along pretty peacefully here in Coupeville. Jack just finished finals, and will get to keep his xbox. I may have mentioned before that we don't let the kids have screen time on school days (video games, tv, computer), but Jack has the freedom to self-monitor in that department, as long as he maintains a 3.75 GPA. It was a little hairy at the end, but he did very well, as usual, despite his cries that we were the cruelest parents of all his friends.

Henry is doing a Young Authors program at school that he's really excited about. Only one kid from each class gets to do it, so he thinks he's super cool. At the end he will have a published book! Henry's allergies have virtually disappeared since the cats have been relocated, and Seamus has never been happier.

Grace is into the first grade drama of who "loves" who in the class. Ugh. Olivia could care less. We went to the school sock hop the other night and Olivia said she didn't want to go. I told her to try it and if she didn't like it, Daddy would come pick her up. She didn't like it. But! Grace won a cake in the cake walk and since the Dj was our next door neighbor, he played ABBA for her, so she had the time of her life (a side note, Grace has won every cake walk she's ever been in).

Both girls are reading like crazy, but Olivia is struggling a little bit with math. It comes so easily to Grace, who tells Olivia "the numbers just pop up in your head, just write them down, silly!" Unfortunately, the numbers don't just pop up in Olivia's head. Nor mine, sadly. Also, Olivia has a phobia of losing teeth. These two were barely hanging on when I finally flossed them out. She was relieved, but had nightmares of dying for two nights after that. So that's been fun!

This gap in her teeth has increased her spitting skills exponentially. See what I did there? Exponentially is a math term. I am excellent with math vocabulary. At least.

Welcome, 2010

A few days ago we drove up to a sno-park on Mt. Baker to take another crack at snowshoeing. See any snow? No? Me neither. That was about the longest drive we've ever taken for a cup of hot chocolate. We had a quiet, lovely Christmas this year. On Christmas Eve, we (Mitch) even ironed napkins and a tablecloth and got out of our pjs and gussied up for a fancy five course dinner. Well, except for Jack, who slung a necktie around his "Dwight Schrute is my homeboy" t-shirt. But good for him for trying!

Here is our tree before the carnage of Christmas morning. Notice the paper angel at the top?

Here is my tree topper:

Several years ago I saw it in a magazine and made Mitch drive me to the mall on the Saturday before Christmas so I could run into the Pottery Barn and buy it, because I loved it so, and it has graced the top of our tree ever since. Mitch loves to reminisce about that day in the parking lot, because he loved it so. Anyway, Grace made me an angel because she's crafty like that, and insisted I put it at the top of the tree:

Who needs that dumb Pottery Barn ornament anyway. *sniff*

The only really awful thing to happen over the holiday was that we had to say goodbye to Charlie and Lola, or shoot Henry and Grace up with drugs to combat their allergies. It took us a long time to find them a home that we thought was suitable for them, but I think they'll be happy enough. I miss my daily dead rodent offerings, however.

This little girl cried all day. Fortunately, Christmas Eve was the next day, which helped take her mind off it. We also wrapped Jack up in plastic wrap to keep ourselves amused. Sorry, environment!

The beautiful and talented Nora spent a day making cookies with us.

Wishing you a very Happy 2010!

W-w-w-winter F-f-f-fun

We took the kids out of school and headed to the Wenatchee national forest for some snowshoeing and winter fun. We've been reading the Little House on the Prairie books with the girls and were billing this as "Pioneer Weekend". Mitch rented a forest service cabin right on the river. Unfortunately, it was only 9 degrees when we got there and the only heat source was a little wood stove. Look, you can actually see the kids' breath while they waited for the stove to heat up! You can also see how anxious Seamus was for one of the kids to get up so he could take their spot.

When they saw the um, facilities, and realized that they had to unfreeze the toilet lid from the seat in the outhouse, the girls cried foul at the boys' luck in having penises that they could shoot off the porch. Did I mention we're a classy family? To cheer them up, I handed out some treats.

Finally, Olivia could stand it no longer and had her daddy take her to the outhouse and Seamus wasted no time in keeping her spot warm.

About this time, the river, which was completely frozen over, had an ice break or something and trees and water began flooding right up to the house, Mitch coolly collected dog and children into the car while I began tidying up. Yes. I'm extremely competent in an emergency situation. The ice finally broke and the water was able to flow again, so we ended up staying. It was actually a pretty fun evening. The kids made their own tv shows and if Mitch and I didn't like them, we would click the pretend remote and they changed their story. And we had plenty of wine.

The next day there was still not enough snow for snowshoeing or sledding, but the kids played with ice. Henry exclaimed that he hadn't felt his feet for two days and Seamus was shivering uncontrollably, so we left a day early. I know! We're totally awesome at being pioneers.

Shopping

We have a tradition of sending each kid into the Dollar Store with their own money and one parent to buy a gift for each family member. It's usually pretty hilarious what they pick, and since everything is only a buck, they get free reign to pick anything they think the receiver would like. Their styles are vastly different, though.

Jack goes in by himself and comes out 3.5 minutes later, mourning the loss of his dollars but not his time. He's a busy middle schooler, for crying out loud, and has texts to make and his ipod to mess with.

Henry is thoughtful, but doesn't buy the cats anything. He also gets Jack the worst gift he can find him. He is embarrassed picking out girl stuff, but he usually gets the girls something along they're lines of interest.

Olivia is like a mini Jack, throwing stuff randomly into her basket so she can be done. The exception is when picking out gifts for the pets. She spends a long time pondering what she thinks they might like, and usually ends up getting them each two things.

Grace is the worst. She wants everyone to have the perfect gift, and at the Dollar Store, that's pretty much impossible. It takes at least an hour of putting stuff back and contemplating each selection's value to the recipient. For her dad, she really wanted something special and it was kind of driving me crazy, because, hello, the Dollar Store? Ick. Anyway, to hurry things along I suggested a daily calendar of trivia. "No, Dad doesn't need that. He already knows everything." This went on and on until she settled on two things, but obsessed all the way home that he wouldn't like them.

Then they pick out their own wrapping paper and wrap all their gifts with no help. Let's just say it's a good thing I buy scotch tape by the case from Costco.

December already

Yin and Yang. Jack and Anthony before the big Thansgiving feast. Gerry kept calling Olivia "Stephanie", and she was getting ticked off, so I believe it was Grandpa that told her she wouldn't get in trouble if she gave him the Curtin Salute the next time he did it. The opportunity presented itself right in the middle of dinner. I think Gerry was more delighted than anybody that a six year-old in ringlets flipped him off. Here are some of the cousins showing Grandpa his favorite hand gesture:

Just keepin' it classy. The kids know that being with Grandpa, anything goes, but once we're back home, you know, there's rules and stuff.

And now it's December and we've started our holiday traditions. My least favorite is making the annual gingerbread house. I spend half the day making and rolling out dough and melting little candies into stained glass for the windows. This year wasn't too bad, though. It's supposed to be Rapunzel's Tower, but her hair got eaten or something.

While the kids were busy decorating, Mitch set up the Christmas tree. This year, he and Henry just brought one home, rather than all of us going up to the mountains and picking out a spindly, crappy tree and getting in fights and freezing our nuts off. Yay for new traditions!

And isn't it a beauty?

While I was off refilling my wine getting a glass of water, Jack took my spot on the couch where Mitch and I like to relax and watch the kids do all the work. Ha. Ha. So. Funny.

Saturday was the annual picture with Santa, and Jack was beyond thrilled to be a part of it.

I'm sorry I haven't written more. I've got carpal tunnel and basically have to type everything with my left hand right now. And I'm lazy.

You'd better be good for goodness sake

Henry no longer believes in Santa. The past few weeks, he's brought it up several times, questioning the logistics of such a far-fetched story. I didn't want his doubts to creep into the girls' imaginations, so I sent Mitch to have the talk with Henry last night. Mitch is way better at stuff like that, because I'm all, "boohooI'mlosingmybabygoodbyechildhoodblahblahblah". They were in Henry's room for quite some time talking about the "magic of Santa" vs. the reality, and keeping the magic alive for the girls. After it was over, Henry came and snuggled under my arm with a grin on his face.

"I feel so much better, now," he said. "I didn't like the idea of Santa spying on me all the time".

Grrrrrrrrreat.

Nine

Henry turned nine yesterday. Usually in these birthday posts, I add photos of the kids when they were little, but I couldn't find any of Henry that didn't have a bruise, stitches, broken limb, or giant bandage, and it made me look like a bad mom, so here's Henry at 9. Oh, look! He's holding the Swiss Army Knife we got him for his birthday. It seems some people never learn.

Birthday pie with a pipe cleaner crown made by Grace, with the words "YADHTRIB YPPAH" spelled out. Mitch and I took him out of school for lunch at the local pizza place, and you can see by the look on his face that the pizza was absolutely delicious.

He still lets me hug and kiss him in front of his friends. He's funny and sensitive and is delighted when others misbehave. He still doesn't like sleepovers or boxed mac n' cheese or chickens. He loves eggs, Chipotle Tobasco sauce, homemade mac n'cheese, homemade pizza, and steel cut oatmeal.

Woo hoo! Secret club. Be on the lookout for naked pics coming soon! Or not. Whatever. Riveted, yet?

Countdown

Getting ready to go march in the Coupeville Halloween Parade.

How hilarious is my little Sad Clown Oil Painting boy? Here he is a few days after recovering from the probable Swine Flu. Can you guess his costume? No? He's Rambozo, duh.

Below is my beautiful little vampire. She's hundreds of years old, but forever stuck in a child's body. How do you like what we've done with the front yard?

And finally, Little Red Riding Hood and The Big Bad Sucker Wolf:

Jack and I aren't dressed up. Jack's way too cool for that kind of tomfoolery now, and I had no time to get a costume together after two weeks taking care of sick kids. We're having a little Halloween shindig tonight, and my costumes of Clorox Wipes or Purell didn't come together in time, so I'll probably be a lame-ass witch (insert hi-larious joke here about how I won't need a costume at all).

Milestones

My boy is on the verge of turning 9. Which, to me is no longer a little boy. Soon, he'll start talking back and wanting privacy, but for now he's still 8, and still kisses and hugs me goodbye in front of his classroom. And when I settle down in a chair and yell out, "I'm open for a snuggle!", he's usually the first to come running (the girls come running a little later, if they're not too busy playing Polly Pockets, and Jack usually just snorts like I've just told a joke). On school days, I don't allow tv or video games, so Henry is learning to knit, and he's getting really good at it. Pants apparently aren't required to make a scarf.

My youngest baby lost her first tooth. This is our last "first tooth". Excuse me, I need to go console myself with a piece of Halloween candy now.

Nov. 1 will be the last day before I make the blog private. Nothing happened, the kids are just not wanting me to put everything out there any more*, and there's so much I want to post about (for me, the blog is more a journal than anything else). This way, I can post what I want. I'm hoping to write more often. Thanks for sending me your email addresses.

*Except for Grace. She wants own blog and her name in lights.

It's the end of the blog as we know it, and I feel fine

I'm quitting publishing this blog publicly. I will probably update now and then, so if you would like to continue to check in, please leave me a message with your email address so you can access. It's been fun!

Toodles...

Edit: Send your email address to: coupevillechronicles@yahoo.com (I will keep it private) if you want to continue to access Coupeville Chronicles. Thanks.

Fancy

I was never one to go for ostentatious accoutrements when it comes to home decorating. Once, while driving through a little town near the Grand Coulee dam, I saw a trailer that had some giant stone lions such as these outside the front door. I giggled about it all day. I couldn't tell if it was ironic or sincere, but I didn't really want to know, either.


Anyway, I hope you like our version of lions guarding the entry: