Ruthie is learning important life lessons at the tender age of three. Lessons like: if you go shopping with Daddy, you will come home with something pink.

Even at Christmas time, life can be risky.

Jeremy was discussing the topic of gift-wrapping and said, “One of the risks of life is not knowing what’s inside the wrapping! You don’t know if you’re going to get the thing you asked for!”

On any given day at our house, you will likely find Derek gathering paper, tape, markers and scissors to make a board game during his free time.

The board games he creates are always historical and geographical in nature.

I think it’s his way of processing and internalizing what we are currently learning in history.

We are a year and a half into American history, so his games are full of American exploration and settlement themes.

This boy thrives on facts and details, which manifests in how he creates these historical games, with historically accurate rules and objectives.

Move over Mattell, there’s a new game-creator in town!

The kids watched Chariots of Fire for the first time last weekend. They were inspired.

This week they’ve been running time trials in the hallway. Not only was Jeremy inspired to run fast, but also has adopted a new running form, a la Eric Liddell…

Jeremy Liddell from James on Vimeo.

Here’s what you get when your 14 year-old photographer/scientist decides to chronicle the annual Christmas tree rising. Notice the flurry of activity from a certain 3 and 6 year-old! What fun!

Watch it in HD here

Look at what the baker in the family has moved onto…

Cinnamon swirl bread, made from scratch.  It fed our family for breakfast this morning, and it was delicious.

Because he is gaining more and more confidence in the kitchen, he is planning to give gifts from the oven to the kids in his GCK and BSF classes.

He made a list of options this morning for the kids to choose:

After reading in our history curriculum about the origins of the Fannie Farmer cookbook (first written in the 1800s), Peter has been reading our copy during his free time to learn more about cooking.

According to this Genius, in order to fix a computer, one must

“spin around like this and put your bib on like this. Then turn this like this.” Simple enough.

I’m telling the truth when I say there is NEVER a dull moment around here.

Our family went out to eat at a hamburger joint called Five Guys to celebrate the end of a busy week. On the way there, Peter and Jeremy were roughhousing in the way back of the car. Jim called back, “If you two don’t knock it off right now, you are not getting burgers. And I mean it!”

Without skipping a beat, Peter whispered, “It’s okay, Jeremy. I can make something for us later.” Fortunately for them, they stopped the roughhousing and were allowed to eat burgers with the rest of us.

Once we were seated with our food, Jeremy could not stop grooving in his seat to the beat of the 80s music which played in the background. He went from mild jerky movements in the chair to all out dancing by the table. He was oblivious to any onlookers.

I couldn’t help but record some…it’s one of those moments we will laugh about 20 years from now. He of course cranked it up a notch when he saw that I was recording, but you get the gist.

Big family rule #87: When you see a big box of cereal at Costco for $2.97, you stock up.

That blur in the background is Jeremy, who upon seeing the multitude of cereal, began running around in circles and kissing the boxes.

Derek, Peter and Jeremy are learning about birds and insects in science this year. They began an experiment on Friday comparing two different varieties of bird seed, in an attempt to answer the question, “What type of bird seed to the birds in my backyard prefer?”

We followed the directions in the curriculum to a T. And the boys–birdwatching book in hand–observed with excitement from the couch.

Then Jake came home. And he took the birdwatching to a whole new level. First, he hacked into our camera.

Then he raided the miscellaneous wire box for a long wire with which to connect a motion detector. A motion detector that is conveniently housed inside a chinese food box.

When a bird lands on the bird seed, it sets off the motion detector and the camera snaps a picture of the winged creature. The picture is then imported into the computer.

Genius, no?

Now the boys can identify birds up close and not have to worry about them flying away.

It’s the role of a big brother to teach his little sister about life skills, like cooking.

While I made today’s lunch–mac ‘n cheese–Jeremy was my helper. And Ruthie was his helper. They were to oversee the pasta while I made the cheese sauce.

I overheard him tell Ruthie that “Mom is making the cheese…and we’re making the mackin!”

Boys with free time (plus a camera and computer) can come up with some very creative ideas.

Aunt Judi and Uncle Dave took Ruthie shopping on the morning of her birthday (after she finished eating her pink pancakes).

They bought her the most perfect shoes: pink, flowery, colored rhinestones, rainbow shoelaces, glitter, AND lights.

And to go with the shoes, they found a pink sequined hat.

Ah, the wonderful age of three!

Over the past several weeks, whenever someone asked Ruthie what she wanted for her birthday, she would answer, “PINK!”  So in honor of Ruth’s birthday, we are adding the very first pink entry on the family blog.

Just to show how far the boys have come along (and how much they love their sister):  three years ago, they could barely look upon the color pink without cringing. But this morning, you could find:

Derek hanging PINK streamers all around the house,

Jeremy  posing with the pinky girl,

Peter cooking up PINK birthday pancakes,

and all of them eating those pancakes up.

Happy birthday, Ruth Christine! We love all the pink you’ve brought to our family.

Molly turns up the patience when she sees that it’s Ruthie’s turn to feed her dinner.

Dinnertime for Molly

It’s that time of year when Ruthie spends approximately two-thirds of her life watching her brothers play football. As she gets older, she is realizing that she is different from her brothers, as she occasionally will proclaim, I am a girl and my brothers are boys.

Because of this understanding, she observes that while her boy-brothers play football, the cheerleaders at the games are girls.

So out came the pom-poms. And Peter assisted in cheer stunts.

Peter has been busily baking and cooking these days, and the rest of us are benefitting from his work.

The other day, he put together yogurt/granola/fruit parfaits for breakfast:

After Ruthie accepted the fact that she was not allowed to eat out of a glass like everyone else, she could hardly wait to dig in.

This morning’s fare was monkey bread. The creation of it began yesterday, with Peter making the bread from scratch. It was sweet yummy goodness.

Thankfully, he shared it with the rest of the family.

Growing up, I wanted to be a cashier. When I was really young, the cashiers didn’t have fancy computerized scanners; they punched the numbers in by hand. And I thought that would be the most fun job in the world.

Then I grew up some, and stores introduced computers with scanners (with the exception of Hobby Lobby, who still punches prices in by hand), which made it even more appealing. But alas, somewhere along the growing-up timeline, I changed course.

As an adult, many grocery stores are pandering to my never-realized dream of being a cashier by offering a self-checkout option. You mean I can scan items myself? Well, you can imagine my excitement over introducing my little girl to this process.

And I wouldn’t be surprised if she aspires to the same career I once aspired to…

Ever since we brought Molly home, she has lived with the belief that she is more human than canine. One of her favorite things in life is to be included in kid-games as though she was just one of the kids.

Jeremy strongly dislikes tomatoes.

Refuses to touch his mouth to one.

But he has curiously nominated himself with the task of picking the ripe ones from the garden.

Almost every day he pulls out a bowl and goes out to harvest.

I’m convinced that one day he’ll acquire a taste for them.