The Phantom Tollbooth

We just finished reading The Phantom Tollbooth as a family and I wanted to share a few quotes.

"You must never feel badly about making mistakes as long as you take the trouble to learn from them. For you often learn more by being wrong for the right reasons than you do by being right for the wrong reasons." - Reason

"...it's not just learning things that's important. It's learning what to do with what you learn and learning why you learn things at all that matters." - Rhyme

"...but whatever we learn has a purpose and whatever we do affects everything and everyone else, if even in the tiniest way." - Reason

"...what you can do is often simply a matter of what you will do." - Reason

"...as you've discovered, so many things are possible just as long as you don't know they're impossible." - The Mathemagician and King Azaz

"He waited impatiently for the end of class, and when the time finally came, his feet raced his thoughts all the way back to the house" said of Milo

The last thought reminds me of all the times I was in a hurry to get home from school so I could start learning. Our children frequently make comments that suggests they feel the same way.

Mommy's helpers

Here are some cute pictures taken during the week after Christmas of the big siblings.

Who's the big sister nah-owwahh??

My little brother...don't mess with him.

The big brother.

Goofy girls

Some cute pictures of the girls entertaining Jillian and Quinton.

Pay attention to me-eeeeee! (Disclaimer - not a candid, she held the pose until we took a picture)

Chayce, attempting to be goofy, but really showing of f the missing tooth

Did I do that???

Dual goofies

And the tooth cometh out

Chayce finally, finally, lost a tooth. She has been convinced the one next to the one that came out was loose since she turned five. She is almost six and a half. Never give up, sister, never give up.

The tooth came out while we were medicating Jillian's cabin fever (by shopping at the after Christmas sales) and Chayce went to the restroom and stayed for a long time (Jillian was in another part of the store with the two youngest). I started asking women going in and out of the restroom if there was a little girl in there. Each said "yes, she is just drying her hands." I started to get suspicious after 10 minutes of "drying hands." Finally she came running out exclaiming "it came out!!!" She proceeded to tell every adult in the store on our way to find Jillian, and held us up at the check out line as she spun the epic tale separately to the cashier and the bag boy.

Wiggle fest in the mirror

It is finally out!

Irish Football

I had a shirt on yesterday that said Irish Football to wear during the ND/FSU bowl game. Chayce looks up and reads it:

"Irish Football?? Is that when you play football and do Irish dance at the same time?" She and Zachary recently took an Irish dance class from a very young but competent instructor (the girl doing the talking in the video below):

ND vs. FSU

Notre Dame's Smallest Fan

In celebration of the ND/FSU Champs Bolwl game yesterday. Too bad ND lost...if they would just reduce the game to three quarters, ND would be undefeated.

Touchdown! 

Quinton Jacob Tueller - 21Dec2011

Please welcome our newest arrival, Quinton. He came out 7 lbs 4 ozs, 20 inches, and cute. Jillian says I biased, but that's ok with me - being a biased estimator is good when the variance is minimized, right? Jillian and Quinton are both doing great, and the other three children love helping take care of the baby (even if we can't convince Payge Victoria to use male pronouns when referring to her him). Here are some pictures:

Bath time

Tongue skills demonstration

Leaving the hospital

The contemplative look

Jill survived (thanks to the NICU nurse* who insisted on taking this one for us)

The older siblings Chayce, Payge, and Zachary (thanks aunt Rinny for coming to rescue them)

* The hospital uses a NICU nurse to attend the newborn at every delivery since the NICU was on the same floor of the hospital while  labor and delivery recovery was on a different floor. Quinton is healthy and had no problems.