Fall 2011

Time for Which is Which? Who is this 3-month-old Chamberlin?

(Answer at end of post)

 

 

I put off blogging through the end of summer because I KNEW that once we started school, I would have lots of quiet time to think and get caught up. What was I thinking? School has really jumped up and smacked me this year, even though Caroline still isn’t school age. We’ve made a lot of changes, mainly trying to establish more consistent routines and better time management habits. I’ve discovered this means I actually USE all the time I’m home to get more stuff done, so I don’t get to goof off as much (i.e. blogging, or reading) as I once did. Whose idea was this anyway?? Oh yeah, mine. On the bright side, this has been the first year I haven’t panicked by November. (We’re NEVER going to finish these books by May!!!) In fact, I’m pretty happy about how things are going, despite the overwhelming block of time it’s consuming. Each kid is at least a quarter of the way through their math book after 2 months, and Rachel is 1/3 of the way. That’s including all the speed drills and quizzes and tests that go with the lessons! We’re also trying to switch over to a system where it becomes THEIR problem if they don’t get their work done, not mine. This involves a certain amount of “tough love,” but seriously folks, taking away the computer for a day at a time does NOT constitute child abuse!  (Same goes for the Nintendo ds!!) The major problem I was having was that I HATE working with Elizabeth and Rachel on their reading. Elizabeth can read, but she’s slow, and Rachel is still learning the “special sounds” and clue words. However, my mom solved that problem by paying Katherine to listen to them read. Woo hoo! I just feel stupid for not thinking of that myself.

Getting caught up with this busy fall:

We are now a family without training wheels. As it was with Daniel and Katherine, Rachel and Caroline learned to ride on two wheels within the same week. (Daniel figured it out about an hour after Katherine did – can you say motivation?)

If the video below doesn’t load, click here to watch it on YouTube. (I’m experimenting here, so let me know if this doesn’t work.)

 

This video of Rachel cracks me up:

Rachel on her bike

And another one:

My speed.

Again, click here if it doesn’t show.

The weekend we were in Arkansas (Labor Day) a big storm system came through MS and dumped a TON of water on most of MS, causing lots of flooding and high rivers. The next weekend, we went tubing on the Bogue Chitto with our friends the Campbells, and the Ritters (minus Mike) and it was wild! The river was WAY high and fast. We got to the rope swing in less than half the time it usually takes us. None of the other kids (besides mine) wanted to go off the rope swing, but all the adults did, even Nikki, who had to think about it for awhile first. ;-) I wish I had a picture of it – it was that great, but the current was just too strong to take the camera out except for a few cases. Rachel didn’t even try the swing, but Caroline jumped off several times, and would’ve gone more if the current hadn’t been almost too strong for us to swim in to “catch” her. That child is growing in fearlessness every day – she’s getting almost as scary as Katherine! Anyway, we had fun, and I think our friends had fun, so maybe next year we’ll have more company when we go tubing. An interesting note, the mudslides had completely washed away.

Elizabeth showing Chris a shell she found…

 

 

Elizabeth’s Daisy trooped “bridged” over to a Brownie troop with a little ceremony. Elizabeth is just about to walk across the bridge here and get her brown vest…

 

 

 

And now they’re Brownies!

 

 

 

 

 

Elizabeth just lost her front top teeth about a month ago, and now Rachel’s have fallen out. So we now have two “vampires” with no top front teeth. Rachel’s jaw seriously needs to grow a little before any more fall out, please! She has NO space at all.

 

 

 

 

 

  Teeth are just falling out everywhere around here. Caroline is just desperate to lose a tooth, but she’s out of luck for a while yet. Does anyone else have a problem getting the tooth fairy to show up on time? We do. Sometimes the tooth has to sit under a pillow for several days before the tooth fairy remembers, um, shows up. I don’t remember her being that lazy, er, busy when I was little. Oh well…

Fall is such a great time to play with friends around the neighborhood. Here’s Elizabeth demonstrating how solid the excellent street in front of our house can be. She managed to scrape her knee, shoulder, hand, forehead, and (rather amazingly) all the skin from the bottom of her nose to her chin.

That was a fairly spectacular fall.

 

 

 

And this next picture just gives me the heebie-jeebies. I can’t decide whether to outlaw this or not, but haven’t yet. I’ve just talked their ears off about the dangers involved, probably mostly imaginary on my part. :-) I found out that Daniel and Katherine have explored most of the neighborhood from the drainage system. They enter it through tunnels coming off the major ditches and they know their way around the entire system! Freaks me out… See Katherine and our friend Calvin looking up out of the gutter?

Look back up at the picture of Katherine after she lost her tooth. See anything unusual? Well, one day I really looked at a picture of her and noticed that small red spot under her left eye. I thought it was an almost-healed mosquito bite, but looked back through our pictures to see how long it had been there. I could NOT believe what I found – that spot first appeared 3 YEARS ago, and I didn’t notice it. How is that even possible?!? I look at her beautiful face all day, every day. Granted, it had gotten a lot darker recently, but still. Well, I started freaking out about what that spot could be, and just being a worry-wart, decided that it might be melanoma. I took her to a dermatologist who specializes in cancer (a friend of Chris’) and he immediately told me it wasn’t melanoma, but instead a minor blemish he can take care of in a few minutes. Yay, I can sleep again… Yeah, I feel a little silly, but also so relieved, I can’t bring myself to care.

Answer: Rachel