Haircut

Nyla has always battled tangles in the back of her head. Her hair has been growing out and the tangles are worse. Because of the rat's nest back there and the fact that she doesn't like things in her hair I decided to make it a bit shorter yesterday. Everything went fine and she lost about an inch of hair. We came upstairs to get dressed for dinner at a friend's house. Nyla was too excited to nap so she went back down to the basement. After about 10 minutes I go downstairs to check on her and she is cutting her hair. It was a bit of the sides and her bangs. It wasn't terrible. We came upstairs and I tried to even it up. She needed to change since she was covered in hair. She went back downstairs in her new clothes while I finished getting ready. Nyla comes back upstairs several minutes later and her hair is cut again. A bit off the left side. There is no time to fix it. When we come back home Nyla goes back down into the basement and proceeds to cut her hair again. Now there is a lot missing on the left and I'm not sure how to fix it. She just woke up and I see the rat's nest in the back of her hair. Maybe she's on to something.

 
 
 
 

Pictures

My mind is blank. Cora was up until 2am Friday which wouldn't have been so bad if Nyla wasn't up at her usual time of around 8am. Here are some pictures from several days ago. Nyla wasn't interested in taking pictures so they're not great.

 
 
 
 

So you think you can dance

Nyla and I watched So You Think You Can Dance this summer. Whenever she heard the music she would start dancing as well. Often she would watch the style of dance and try to copy it. This was the funniest during the hip hop routines. We were watching a rerun of Glee last night and Nyla decided to dance along.

Labor Day

We spent labor day doing lots of labor. All of the peppers from the garden were picked and processed. We made a lot of sofrito and numerous batches of roasted jalapeno and tomato salsa. Everybody pitched in but it still felt like a lot of work. Eventually I just gave up. We still have leftover roasted tomatoes but I may just use it for sauce. There is frozen tomato sauce in the freezer already but we can use more.

Grandma also finished the binding on Nyla's quilt. It looks so good. Unfortunately she won't have time to finish Bohdin's quilt so he may have to wait quite some time. The garden benefited a lot from grandma's presence because now he raspberries aren't choked by weeds. Many wheelbarrow loads of weeds were removed from all over the garden. Buddy and I haven't kept up with it as well as we wanted. Our tomato crop paid the price. Although I couldn't keep up with the processing of the tomatoes we did have.

Buddy says that Cora is stingy with her smiles but that's not quite accurate. She is quite generous with her smiles when she is looking at Nyla. Buddy says they are probably grimaces since Nyla is always kissing and hugging Cora but he's just jealous. Bohdin doesn't get the smiles that Nyla does but Cora pays more attention to him than she does to Buddy or I. We hardly warrant eye contact whereas Bohdin gets eyes glued to him around the room.

When Bohdin plays computer games Nyla likes to watch. Now she is able to play games herself. I don't know why I'm so suprised that she can navigate the laptop and website. Nyla isn't a baby anymore.

 

Puri

There are just not enough hours in a day anymore. It is past eleven and I ought to be asleep but this is my only chance to update the blog. Because I am so tired though I won't remember half of what I wanted to write. Something I forgot to add last week is Bohdin's new fascination with rock, paper, scissors. It originated in Korea so I introduced it to him last week. He loves it. I am tired of it. We've been talking about India recently so I decided to make some Indian food. (I still plan to do the Korean food but haven't yet.) I made some dal, and potato thing with a name I've forgotten and puris which are fried unleavened bread. The puris were the only part of the meal that was a hit. I made them again for a second time tonight.

The Louisville Worldfest was this weekend so the kids, my mom, and me headed downtown on Saturday. The event was near the science museum and when we passed by we saw bouncy structures and lots of people. The kids wanted to do that first. The history museum was celebrating founder's day with a pirate theme. They tried to break the record for most people dressed as pirates in one location. Bohdin spotted a pirate with a leather treasure chest and was intrigued. I stood nearby to ask him about it and overheard him talking to two other pirates. The treasure chest holder had just come back from filming Pirates of the Caribbean 4. That sounded pretty cool. One of the pirates asked about his treasure chest and he said he intended to fill it with 6000 gold dollar coins and do a treasure hunt. I told Bohdin but he didn't hear he eventually part of the plan and was disappointed that we weren't part of it. We saw the end of some sort of pirate reenactment then Bohdin did some bouncy stuff before we headed a few blocks east to Worldfest.

We didn't have a lot of time at Worldfest. It seemed pretty interesting. We did see one Indian dance which tied in to our study of India but Bohdin didn't care. He was more interested in the Native American flutes. We didn't have a chance to really study them but we'll go back next year when we'll give ourselves more time to look around. The weather was gorgeous. It was the coolest day we've had in months with highs in the 70s. Nyla went all out with a long sleeve shirt and hat. She would have worn gloves also if she had found them. It's supposed to be back to 89 tomorrow but we enjoyed it for that brief time. Maybe summer will eventually end.

 
 
 
 

Games

It's been a long week. Monday is Cora's fussy day. Every Monday she is not very fun. Monday is also Buddy's soccer day so that makes for an especially long day. Last Monday was no different with the fussiness. By the time dinnertime came I was not movitated to make dinner and just wanted to get out of the house. I decided to take Bohdin to a Korean restaurant. Buddy didn't play soccer that night so he joined us. Bohdin fell asleep in the car and when we woke him up he was grouchy. He spent the majority of the meal crying or whining. His favorite part of the meal was the free desert at the end. It was some sort of cold drink.

Tuesday was playgroup day. Afterward we ran some errands. When we came home we were met by our friends who came over to play. Wednesday morning we met the same friends at the science museum. Bohdin and Nyla took a nap when we came home but Cora did not. It was brutal. She was up for many many hours.

Grandma arrived on Thursday. The kids have had a good time with her so far. I'm too tired to remember the details. Nyla did choose to sleep with grandma one night.

It's a good thing I titled this because it reminded me what I was actually going to blog about. Bohdin and Nyla were eating breakfast one morning. On the table was a spinning hand thing that is used for choosing who goes first when playing board games. Bohdin came up with a game that made me chuckle. He would spin the hand and whoever it was pointing to needed to take a drink. It kept landing on Nyla so she was chugging down her pink milk. Also this week Bohdin and Nyla played a hiding game. He would hide something and Nyla needed to find it. Bohdin was still wrapped in his towel so he decided to hide it in his hand under the towel. At one point he opened up the towel and yelled, "Suprise!". He thought this was a great hiding spot so he used it repeatedely.

Cora is definitely a third child. I have way fewer pictures of her than the other kids. Bohdin has the most. I took some pictures this morning to prove that she was with us this week. As I was taking pictures of her on her belly she rolled over. I put her on her belly and she eventually rolled over again.

 
 
 
 

I'm in the middle of roasting peppers and tomatoes from the garden. I meant to write more but I'm distracted with thoughts of burning peppers in the oven. Cora could probably eat and Bohdin is hungry.

Smothered

Bohdin and Nyla are completely in love with Cora. They shower her with attention. Right now Bohdin is stroking her head while talking to her. His favorite thing to ask is, "What do you want to do today?". They both like me to make her talk and answer their questions. I don't like it as much as they do. Bohdin likes to explain things to her. Sometimes when we're talking about something he'll go on to explain what the various words mean. I wish I could think of an example right now. Nyla does the physical affection. Cora gets probably 100 hugs and kisses from Nyla every day. She just showers her with them. Cora doesn't mind the kisses and even smiled this morning. The hugs are a different matter. Nyla forgets to be gentle with her hugs so she's often pulling on her neck or smashing her head. Buddy joked that Cora will have a misshapen skull due to Nyla's hugs. She likes to hug around the head.