Where Are the Munchkins?

I have noticed a disturbing lack of munchkins on this blog lately.  Without the "munchkin" this blog is just "garden," which has nothing to do with anything.  This may be a place where I write about a lot of nothing, but nothing that has anything to do with gardening.  Are you following me?

So back to the munchkins.  Last time I counted, there were still 5 of them hanging out around here.  #1 continues to use reams and reams of paper on a weekly basis.  She constantly has crafts and drawings spread across every inch of countertop.  Some of her recent projects have been drawings of a whole slew of imaginary girls and their wardrobes as well as paper cell phones for the whole family.  She definitely has a strong creative side which can be exasperating because of the paper mess, but it is adorable too so we deal with the mess and try to remember to throw it away in the recycling bin and not the garbage.  We're such a green family I tell you.  I don't think I ever mentioned that Miss Creativity here also won first place for our whole region, in her age division, for her photograph that she entered in the Reflections program.  It went on to State and we're waiting to hear back on that.  Pretty cool eh?

Dallin celebrated the 100th day of school on Friday.  They had a big party and the whole bit.  So Monday morning rolls around and he is completely convinced that school is over and he doesn't have to go anymore.  He really put his foot down about it, but I convinced him that there were several more months to go and that it would be great fun and all.  He gave in once I told him he could bring treats for his upcoming birthday.  Kindergarteners crack me up!  This is how we convince him to take apart his precious architectural structures: we take a picture first.

Lately I consider one of my greatest daily achievements to be getting Mia's hair done in the morning.  She pretty much looks like an orphan most of the time, except I think Mrs. Hannigan probably had better looking orphans.  Sheesh!  This girl makes up for her mother's lack of beautician abilities by having the cutest gosh-darn little personality I ever encountered.  She spends all her time off in fairy land.  The last two days she's had a party going, complete with decorations and streamers (leftover from our school luau) strewn everywhere throughout the house. During sacrament meeting on Sunday she spent her time flipping through Friend magazines and "picking up" all the food in them, stowing it in Brett's suit coat pocket, then bringing portions around for all of us to "eat." 

Jameson (aka "The Banshee") has been perfecting his technique lately.  I swear that kid knows all the "sweet spots" in the house with the most resonance.  That's why I allow him to spend every waking moment (and every sleeping one at that) with a binkey in his mouth.  He really likes choo-choo trains now, so we've converted the guest room into the train room and that is where the Geotrax live.  Sorry guests.  The train thing must spill over into every other aspect of his life because he likes to line up everything he plays with!

After suffering through some really difficult weeks with the littlest munchkin, we have signed her up for sleep-training boot camp.  The poor thing just didn't know how to sleep.  She would only sleep for 20 minute bits during the day and was getting up a lot at night.  As much as I like reinacting zombie movies every day, enough was enough.  So now she has to be put down IN BED when she's sleepy and if she cries, I plug my ears!  The first day or so was a little exhausting, but now she's getting the hang of it and she has taken longer naps and has been sleeping longer at night.  And it's like she's experienced an exorcism!  Talk about personality change.  She's happy and cute and playful and will spend more than 2 minutes being content in her swing/bouncy seat/bumbo, and NOT in my arms!  Now I get to really enjoy my baby.  She really is a sweet little thing!

So there you have it.  The munchkin brigade is still going strong!