story time

The Clives are master story tellers.  You can just ask our congregation at church, who recently heard Layla tell a story of a princess and a spider from the pulpit during testimony meeting.  (Disclaimer: Spencer and I were on a cruise, and Gramps was with the girls.  He bribed Cadence and Campbell to go up, and then Layla followed).

Recently Uncle Trevor came to stay, and while he was here, he told the girls an exciting and adventurous bedtime saga, that continued every night.  The characters were representations of each girl with names like Sugarbolt, Jungle Punch, and maybe Wild Girl?  Trevor was a horse who had lost his vision. Sugar punch (Cadence's character) at one point was sold a faulty rifle or something that blew up and made her legs not work, so she rode trevor the horse--he was her legs and she was his eyes.  I thought that was adorable.  They were on some mission to save their parents from a pack of Bandits and got caught up in a world of elves, magic, theives, midgets, "magic mushrooms" (I had to raise my eyebrows when I walked past the bedroom and heard that!), and of course, courage. 
 Trevor the horse and Sugarbolt.

When we drove to Chicago we had to take two cars so Spencer could work the rest of the day and get into town later.  So Trevor was my companion.  By the time we got to the hotel, I was so sick and worn down (being in my first trimester), so Trevor got the girls all ready for bed by himself and told more of the bedtime story while I drifted off to sleep.  I never even asked him to do that.
 Trevor the horse and a subdued Jungle Punch.

 Trevor swinging Wild Girl into Jungle Punch.

After the Holidays, the girls longed for more of Trevor's story!  Luckily, Spencer is also a skilled weaver of heroic tales.

One night after singing Layla her lullaby I came to Cadence and Campbell's room to sing to them and got to hear the tail end of that night's bedtime story.  I heard this, and my jaw dropped a little more each sentence:  "And then, Spencer the brave knight rode in on his ton-ton and attacked the ice monster!  But the ice-monster swung at the knight and he fell off his ton-ton into the snow!  The ton-ton's belly was ripped open and the brave knight thought it was over.  Just then, Trevor rode in on his ton-ton!  He found Spencer the knight in the snow and placed him inside the warm guts of the ton-ton, and then slashed the throat of the ice-monster!  Aaaah!!  Slash!  blah!!!"   It was something like that.  You get the basic idea (I'm not exaggerating.  Seriously.  Spencer is going to read this and be like "No no, the ton-ton used it's talons to slice open the ice-monster's throat" or "I didn't say guts, I said 'seething entrails'", but I think I'm getting the point across.)

By the end of the story my face was unmistakably saying, "Are you crazy! You fool!  I'm going to be up all night with kids having nightmares!  What are you trying to..." This is my "I'm very cold and I don't like it and I'm blaming it on YOU" face, but it's probably similar to the look I was making as I listened to the story.

 And just then, as Spencer announced the bloody and gruesome end of the ice-monster, Campbell, who had been lying still and quiet in her bed, jumped right up to her feet with her fist in the air and yelled, "YEAH!!!"

I put my judgy look away and gave that daddy a hug.  We need him.

Layla has picked up on this art of story telling and prefers to practice it in prayers (or testimony meeting).  Her prayers often sound like this, "Dear Heavenly Father, fank you fo' dis day, and da mewmaid didn't want to cwy but da witch wanted to make hew cwy so da faiwy pwincess danced a magicaw dance and den, and DEN....DA WITCH WAS A SPIDA AND DA MEWMAID WOUDN'T CWY!!!..."

I think she's got what it takes.

 You can tell just by looking at this picture of her running, right? This girl's got what it takes.

 

 

The girls ask me sometimes if I'll make up a story at bedtime.  I like to sing sweetly to them.  I like to read books to them.  I like to tell them in new and creative ways how much I love them.  But I DO NOT make up stories.  Unless I'm pressed.  My stories are basically like this:

 

"Once there was a mom who wanted her children to go to bed, because it was late and she knew their bodies needed sleep to grow healthy.  But they wanted a story!  So she told them a story and kissed their heads.  Then they went to bed and slept ALL the way until morning.  The end."

Cool story.

I stick to lullabies.

 

 

And leave the weaving of heroic tales to the real Heroes.

 

These Days

So much fun has been going on these days. Here are some pictures that I finally got from camera to computer. Each set of pictures deserves their own post, but since I'm playing major catch-up just now, it's going to go down this way.  Above: Spencer teaches the girls how to pull a Charlie's Angels pose.  Layla works on it.

Every Saturday Spencer takes his girls on a Daddy-Daughter Date.  These include activities such as swimming, biking, cave exploring, jump-zoning, chuck E Cheesing.  They are always accompanied by donuts (sometimes some other treat, but usually donuts).

These pictures are from a daddy daughter date when they took Abby to the Animal Rescue place and borrowed some dogs to play with.  Fresh air, dogs running around, and a dog playground to climb on, yay!  The girls look forward greatly to these weekly excursions and Spencer never disappoints!

 

Below: Half-birthdays have become a major deal around here.  Somehow the girls have gotten it into their minds that we celebrate big-time (remember my half-birthday surprise rock-band party last year?  That may have had a ripple effect we hadn't planned for...)  Campbell's half-birthday fell upon a Sunday and Cadence busied herself that day making plans and preparations.  We invited the Flemings over for brownies and followed Cadence's itinerary.  At the end of the night, after all her plans were successfully carried out, Cadence threw a fit that her half-birthday wasn't celebrated as much as Campbell's.  Hmmm.

Pillow fight portion of the half-birthday party:

 

Every once in a while, to boost morale, we bust out a tea party:  (this is a paint-your-own tea set they got from Mammaw for Christmas, which they love dearly)

Cadence and Campbell enjoying some tea time:

 

Sometimes a mom gets busy and fills her quiet time with accomplishments.  Then she emerges from her euphoric choring to wonder, "why have the kids let me get so much done?"  The answer is often, "because they are putting lipstick all over themselves and your bathroom."

Like the world's best mugshot:

 

 

"Fun Mom" hit me that same day and I prepared this craft for them.  The letters are stickers and after they paint over it all, you peel off the letters and BAM! The letters are in white against the child's fingerpainting masterpiece.

 

Another "Fun Mom" day: The kids came home and discovered a large box, which a piano bench had been delivered in.  It was perfect for sliding down the stairs!

Above: I love love love this pic of the three most lovely faces in the world.

 

Wait, where's Layla?  Oh, there she is:

 

 

 

I love this next series:

 

And these next two together:

 

Hey guys, have you seen Layla?  Oh, there she is:

 

Glad you two are having fun..

But wheres.... Oh:

 

 

Last Sunday the girls got gussied up. 

 

Cadence put on a "show" for us (it was very artsy, with almost no dialogue, just her eating a pretend breakfast, caring for a doll, and walking around in my heels.  Don't worry, it's all on film.)  Her sisters were being crazies in the back (and sometimes fore-) ground.  This was the end of the show-- the dressing, accessorizing, and hair-styling of the my-size-barbie.  It was actually a wonderous way for me to spend a half-hour of my day-- just watching my girls when they want to be watched.  They are so imaginative at this age.  Glad I don't always miss it.

And last but not least:


I love this one.  With me being unwell and so tired, Spencer has been getting up and reading scriptures to the girls without me in the morning.  I'm so grateful that he has been dedicated to this while I'm a bag of bones.  A good man is worth all the gold in the world, I tell ya.  This picture warms my heart and soul.  Please, please girls, love those scriptures for all your lives!

And now Layla is trying desperately to distract me with her hot-pink-feather-boa-swirling skillz, so I need to go.

The end.

The Tragic Absence from the Blog

The world has combined to stop me from blogging.  But don't worry, I'm picking up the torch again.  I've missed so many wonderful things in the last year.  I've got hundreds, maybe thousands of pictures with stories to go along, that haven't been chronicled at all.  I've failed!

I'd like to make a list of obstacles that I'm overcoming now so that the blog can live on:

1. Kids.  Yes, they are my reason for blogging, but--and this may come as a surprise--they also take a lot of my time.
2.  Hormones.  I have to be in the right mood to write.  If I write when the inspiration isn't there, it comes out sounding cross, negative, snarky and uninspiring.  If you look through, you'll see a post like that every now and then :)  Much of 2012, I was battling some hormonal imbalance that caused spikes in whatever hormones make me mean or depressed, and it was happening more intensely and twice as often as it ought to.  Once I had to leave church because I COULD NOT smile.  Spencer politely suggested I go home.  I went home and ate chocolate and watched General Conference on my DVR from my bed, and the whole world was better off that way.  Anyway, most of last year I was in this uninspired mood.
3.   That hormonal imbalance was miraculously cured! By a pregnancy! Which meant that the remainder of 2012, I was lying on the couch trying not to vomit and having only the energy--physical and mental and emotional--for the absolute necessities.
4.  My computer got knelt upon.  It was my fault.  For Christmas we went to Chicago and I left my laptop in the back pocket of a seat, a seat that was folded down for access to the back seat.  Caitlin innocently knelt on the seat as she climbed out of the van and CRACK! the screen is all messed up.  I tried to keep using it, but it's pretty completely useless.  So all my pictures are waiting to be put on Spencer's comp.
5.  I got a new camera! yay! But that also has been delaying my blogging as I'm still working on how to download them, etc.

Okay, there are all the reasons.  I list them only to remind myself what this time was all about.  What was going on behind the sad lack of posting. 

Just last week I made the first year of my blog into a book, and I'm anxiously awaiting it in the mail.  It was so rewarding to put that book together and I am now very, very grateful that through the years I've kept this blog.  What would I do without those written accounts of what our life was like?  And the ride isn't over yet, and so I continue.

On to the blog-future!

Cadence vs the Tooth

Cadence is 6 1/2.  She has been checking her teeth daily since she was 5 years old for a loose tooth.  She has waited in anguish for her turn.  She has longingly admired cousins and friends who's teeth have gone missing. 
And then one day, it happened.  A loose tooth!  Front bottom left.  She loved it.  She spoke of it often.  She wiggled it endlessly and asked often when it would finally come free.  I tried to help her to be patient but she isn't exactly built that way (and who of us is? :)  ).
A couple of weeks ago I sent her off to practice her piano and then noticed after a few minutes how quiet the house was.  I turned around to investigate and found her near the front door.  Like this:



I was so proud of her drive to get that tooth out at any cost.  After several attempts to slam the door shut and yank the tooth out, which didn't work because the twine was longer than her distance to the door, she got one of those lightbulb ideas.  Her face lit up and she changed her approach.  Instead of slamming the door closed, she would use the twine to pull the door open.  When the door flew open, it would smack her in the face and VIOLA! the tooth would be knocked out. Genius!  Honest, I can't make this stuff up.

Then next day when she got off the bus, I noticed she wouldn't look right at me or smile, and then I noticed the small tooth-sized treasure box in her hand. I looked up and ordered her to show me her smile, which she couldn't help but do, though she tried not to.  And there it was.  WAIT! Let me get the camera!


Later in the day she admitted quietly that her plan was to not tell anybody that her tooth had fallen out, so that she could see for herself if the tooth fairy were real.  Clever little thing!

That night as the tooth fairies were climbing into bed, Mr. Fairy said, "THE TOOTH!"  Phew, they almost totally ruined that magical moment in a child's life.  He went to the room to make the trade and came back a little befuddled.  He handed Mrs. Fairy the note Cadence had left with her tooth:

I can't seem to upload the picture so this is what it said, in adorable six-year-old handwriting:

"Dear, tooth fairy Have fun with
My tooth.  I Hope I get $1.25 for it

Sincely,
cadence"

Well, that was considerably more than the Fairies were planning to pay.  But Mr. Fairy knew just what to do.  They don't pay him the big bucks for nothin'.  He responded that to earn 1.25, she'd need to lose 5 teeth, but that, since this is her first tooth, he would give her the quarter for the tooth, PLUS a Canadian quarter.  Just this once.

In the morning, Spencer went to get the girls up for scriptures and he was able to witness Cadence checking her pillow.

"Dad, this looks like your writing.  Did you write this?"

---Er, uh, what is a parent to do about that? 

Don't worry, Spencer didn't sweat it (that's why I pay him the big bucks).

"Yeah, Cadence.  Do you really think I would dress up like a fairy and fly down the chimney just to put this under your pillow!?!"

"Oh, yeah, you're right, Dad."

Happy Childhood Intact.  Phew.