Size does matter. Height, that is. Do you know that song by Kimya Dawson (of the "Juno" soundtrack?) about "Little Monster Babies Destroying My Town?" This Keva creation could have been the inspiration for that ditty.



We tied up a bunch of loose ends tonight. We finished _The Other Side of the Mountain_, which I didn't like quite as much as _My Side of the Mountain_, but which still was an exciting adventure story with a lot of information that I hope won't prove to be useful to me any day soon ;)

We finished _Bunnicula_, which Ollie liked more than any of the others did. Walter offered his criticism of the book by choosing to take a shower instead of listening to the exciting conclusion.

We read one chapter in _Mother West Wind's Children_, a book about animal protagonists of the most egregious kind, and I'm tired of animal protagonists. But it's cute. Has some morals to ponder.

I cut Ollie's hair today. I referred to it as making a deal with the devil: if he let me cut his hair, I'd take him out and let him spend the $15 I would have spent with the barber on a video game. So now we have "Assassin's Creed," which I attempted to justify to myself by noting that it kind of sort of seems to be about medieval people. He hasn't played it yet because he, along with the others, was poorly behaved today and lost privileges. I'm quite done with children screaming in the car, making others cry even though they "didn't do anything," and generally antagonizing their siblings when I need to concentrate on something like keeping us alive.

We made "Chocolate Moose" cookies, which have nothing to do with a frothy, pudding-like dessert and were simply chocolate butter cookies in the shape of a moose. It's going to sound like I'm doing a lot of justifying today, but I justified the purchase of the overpriced mix by appreciating the moose-shaped cookie cutter that came with it and the cute box that I can put one of Walter's Christmas presents in (another "Moosie"--this one is two hugging each other, but I think they can be pulled apart).

We finished our unit on cells. I'm glad to see it go. I'm glad to see any science unit go, to be perfectly honest, and it's not because I don't like science but because at some point, some of these things start to feel like beating a dead horse. We did it, did it well, and it's time to forge ahead into plants.

Frances held a photo shoot with Rutledge this morning. Inspired by Friday's gymnastics pictures, she set up a backdrop (full size Hello Kitty comforter) and then had him practice various "poses." Here's the result: [technical difficulties at the moment: the results are above, with a picture of the Keva creation Frances made last night]. She is an artist through and through.