Splash - January 2018

The January splash was supposed to be full of confetti.  I had each of them holding a handful of confetti and I took a bunch of shots with them blowing it out of their hands right at me.  I thought it ws a great idea, and I'd seen examples that looked really good, but, nope.  Their mouths were all weird or some were blowing so much it obscured a siblings face, either way, I liked this shot - sitting on our stairs - all smiles.

As a side note, do you see Charlotte's hand?  It's covered in doodles.  Charlotte has had some issues with self harm.  She's seeing a counselor and she's medicated, but, she gets episodes where the world is horrible, we are horrible, life is horrible.  One way her counselor told her to deal with it is by drawing on herself (and NOT cutting herself).  So, if in pictures you ever see our beautiful, smiling, amazing Charlotte with doodles - you will know she's healing, and she's following the instructions she's been given - to move on, chin up, and if you feel like hurting yourself, then draw on yourself instead.  Good advice for us all.  Happy New Year - chin up!

Chess, Potions and Tree Boyfriends?

January is a bleak time to be outside - both in Maryland and in Arkansas.  Inside, we spend a lot of time together watching football, cleaning house and our favorite - games.  Of the eight of us in the house right now, we have a mixed bag.  Some like board games, some like card games, some like chess.  We play together, laugh together and argue over answers together.  The point is - together.  I truly hope my kids remember their childhoods fondly, full of family and healthy competition.

One game that the ladies just told me about does not involve any of those games I just mentioned.  It involves a trampoline and a hearty imagination.  Both the big ladies and the little ladies played this game, they said.  It goes like this - all four of them (JMichael was little) are on the trampoline.  One jumps as high as she can and turns to the outside of the trampoline at the height of her jump.  She will then "lift" a potion from the "shelf".  She drinks the potion on the way down.  Once she bounces, the potion takes effect and she has to act out the result of the potion.  This game is called, Potions.  The ladies were telling me how they would spend hours on the trampoline in Arkansas, bouncing and drinking potions.  They were on fire, turned into a dinosaur or a ballerina.  What a game.

Another game they played was Tree Boyfriend.  Yes, you read Tree Boyfriend.  This is a game from the little ladies.  In our backyard in Arkansas, we had a bunch of mature trees.  The little ladies would discuss who got which tree boyfriend and they would stand with the tree boyfriend and talk about what they thought (in their 4 - 7 year old minds) girlfriends talked about with their boyfriends.  Charlotte even said they would kiss the tree bark.  Hahaha.  I had no idea.  I just knew they all loved to play together in the back yard.