Naomi's 5th Birthday!

So I just realized I never posted anything from Naomi's birthday. She turned 5 on June 3rd.

A new bike helmet!
Leg warmer from Aunt Amy and a cute Heidi baby.

L to R: Yaya, Lilli, Jocie, Leah, Maya, Gretchen and Ellie

Naomi requested a pumpkin pie instead of a cake. After two bites, she pushed it aside and said she didn't like the taste. Alrighty then.

Can I get a witness

In the past week, I have been approached two different times by Jehovah's Witnesses. Now, I am not opposed to people wanting to share their love of Christ, bring it on. My only request is observe first before you approach someone.

The first encounter was at my home. Naomi was throwing one of her grandiose fits. My front window was open so I'm sure this woman and all my neighbors could hear her. If it were me going to different people's houses, I probably would have done an about face and left the poor mother alone. But this woman didn't. She knocked and I answered the door. I literally couldn't even hear what she was saying. All I got from it was something in Salem, real costumes and hope to see you there. Right. Can I bring my kids?

The second encounter was as I was loading my four children and one of their friends in my van as we were leaving the park. Of course I don't expect them to know this, but the only reason we leave the park is because someone has to go to the bathroom...right now!! So I had everyone in the car and was attempting to strap Heidi in when three women walked up. The youngest gal handed me a tract (which Heidi promptly ripped out of my hand and shoved into her mouth) and asked if she could read me a verse from the bible. Um, Ok. So one of the gals read me some verse about finding joy in life and in Christ as Heidi was struggling to escape her seat belt, Yaya was doing the potty dance and the other girls were debating over who should buckle their seat belt first. I thanked her and then another woman piped in, "You sure have your hands full. You must be a child care provider, or an educator...." I interrupted, "Or a mother." Shock masked with delight, "Really?! Are they all yours?" "Mostly." I responded, shut my van door, waved good bye and left.

Now, if roles were reversed, I would have left me alone in both instances, but perhaps they really thought I could use some peace in my life and were just trying to help. Thanks, but next time just hand out tranquilizers and read me the instructions.

from the mouths of babes

Emilia picked my keys up and asked, "The next time we go to the library, can I drive?"

Leah, referring to Joseph and the coat of many colors asked, "Who's the guy in the rainbow shirt?"

Emilia has been coloring on herself a lot lately with markers and pens. Today I caught her with marker poised ready to strike and I told her legs were not for coloring on. Upset she asked, "Why can I never EVER color on myself?"

Emilia called Naomi a name, and Naomi responded by saying, "Don't call me names. That's not one of God's commandments!"

Leah told Yaya she could wear one of her skirts, so Yaya picked a long yellow skirt to borrow. She pulled it up to her armpits and tied the string around her neck. Of course Yaya was not wearing a shirt and somewhere she found some lipstick and had smeared it all over her mouth like a scary clown. She came waltzing out into the living room, posed and said, "Don't I look GORGEOUS?!"

We were on a walk and passed a bunch of pansies. I started singing a little song about little purple pansies. One line says, "We are only little, but we try try try..." Naomi interrupted and asked, "Why did you just sing 'little butt'?"

At dinner tonight Leah was trying to take some green beans with her hands instead of a spoon. I asked her when was the last time she washed her hands, she answered, "I don't remember." Then that's too long I told her, and please go wash your hands before you eat dinner. So then Yaya tried the same thing...digging around in the green beans with her grubby little paws. So I asked her when the last time was that she washed her hands. After a moment of thought she said firmly, "Saturday."

Leah's artwork

marker and chalk

there was an old lady who swallowed a fly

a picture of Daddy climbing a ladder to get the moon for Leah

Here are some of the projects Leah did and brought home from school.

schenanegins

Heidi helping Lars with the dishes
Heidi and Yaya in yet another fabulous outfit

Heidi and a roll of paper towels

the aftermath

what NOT to wear

a dress with another dress layered on top inside out and backwards...and rain boots

orange goggles

ferocious bed head

leah's plaid shirt as a dress and stripped tights

floral shirt and plaid skirt

If you even need some fashion advice, just take a look at Yaya and don't wear anything she is.

swim adventures

Naomi jumping to her teacher

kicking with her class

Naomi-pool side

she never actually put the goggles over her eyes :)

Naomi completed her first round of swimming lessons. She is repeating level 1 again next time because she won't put her head under water...a basic requirement. On everything else she did great and was very brave.

1st grade

From the beginning of the school year to the end, my status as a mother went from "awesome" to "embarrassing". I used to get several hugs and a kisses each morning before Leah walked into her classroom. By the end of the school year, I maybe got half of a side hug before she went running off to play with her friends. Well I made a giant, embarrassing mistake on the last week of school. Each day was a different theme, pajama day, twin day, crazy dress day and crazy hair day. Crazy hair day was on Thursday, but i thought it was on Wednesday. So we did Leah's hair in little piggies all over her head. Usually I walk her all the way to her classroom door, but that day we were late so I drove her and just told her to get out and run. she was the last one into her classroom and when she walked in, everyone started yelling, "It's not crazy hair day!" Poor Leah was so embarrassed that she hid in the coat closet and started bawling. thankfully her sweet teacher helped her take them all out and fixed her hair so it looked nice.

The next day we got to try again :)

Leah

the wrong crazy hair day

take two

every girl's dream in 1984

Leah and teachers, last day of school

Woo Hoo!

Congratulations lucky reader of Post number 100! Due to your devoted reading of this blog the generous author has offered a prize to the 11th person to comment on this post. You can win an adorable nine month old baby. She's cute, she's sweet and she has never slept through the night. She will want to nurse every few hours and and occasionally throws screaming tantrums. This little beauty has been teething for six weeks straight accompanied by sore and bleeding gums and occasional diarrhea. She generates a load of laundry a week on her own and can pull everything out of your cupboards and drawers before you can say "Stop!!" Normally this little gem would sell for $60,000 but you can win her for free! *

*Prices and participation may vary. Unfortunately there are no batteries included, or an off switch or a mute button. Diapers, wipes, clothes, toys, bedding and college tuition sold separately.

positive reinforcement

Yaya is such a little stinker at bed time. She will go to bed willingly, but she rarely stays there. She will wait until her sisters are asleep and then come out and want to party. Last night I was making some cards and didn't want to stop to put her back to bed, so I just let her stay with me. After a while I got up and got a peppermint patty. I got one for her too. When I gave it to her, Yaya looked at me and asked, "So the next time I get out of bed at night, will you give me another mint patty?!"

These are a few of my scariest things

Last night I was sitting on the couch folding laundry when Naomi came and sat down beside me. She took a deep breath and let out a dramatic sigh. "I'm just so scared of so many things." she said. "Like what?" I asked. Naomi held out her hand and started counting on her fingers.
"1-Lions and tigers.
2-Skunks.
3-Mosquito hawks.
4-Moths.
5- Bees.
6- I'm just too scared to be alone."
"Anything else?" I asked. "Nope. That's all." And she hopped up and walked away.

At the park

This past weekend we went up to Grandma Ingrid's house to celebrate her 70th birthday. We had a great time and spent several hours at this great park in Hillsboro. Here are some picts.

heidi and yaya

yaya

leah

naomi

miss heidi

A new reason for bath toys

Woman Survives 3 Days in Bathtub

(June 8) -- A 90-year-old woman spent three days trapped in her bathtub after becoming too weak to pull herself out, the San Jose Mercury News reported Thursday.
Shirley Madsen, of Walnut Creek, Calif., survived her ordeal by drinking water from a rubber duck with a hole in the bottom.
Madsen survived for three days stuck in the bathtub by continually replacing the cooling bath water with fresh water from the tap to stay warm. She also used one of her collection of rubber ducks as a drinking cup to keep hydrated during her confinement...


Now, i've seen my kids use rubber ducks as drinking cups before, but it's usually with the soapy, scummy bath water. I hope dear Shirley at least had the sense to drink fresh water. :)

Part II-Road Trip

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I'll let them do the talking. Mostly :)

Heidi making herself at home at "The Bunk House"

Leah

Naomi, Leah and Yaya at the Astoria Column

Naomi and Yaya dressed up at the Flavel House Museum

Playing in the shadow of a shipwreck at Fort Stevens

the daily buzzzzz

I've been putting off filling out some paperwork from our Emergency Room visit, but I finally buckled down this morning and started doing it. About three minutes into it, the requests started. Once Yaya gets an idea in her head, she won't let it go. So after asking me about a hundred times for a drink of water, I put my pen down and growled through my teeth, "I'm doing something very important right now!" Yaya's eyes lit up and she excitedly said, "Bees are important! Are you drawing bees?"

Road Trip!

Lars, being a mostly predictable but sometimes VERY random soul suggested last Wednesday that we should go buy a tent and take a little family trip to Astoria, Oregon, three hours north. Oh, did I mention right now? Great idea, except that Leah has school on Thursday and I'm teaching the last day of preschool and we don't have a tent and a million other reasons going on a totally spontaneous road trip wouldn't work. So I convinced him to just keep his shorts on for two weeks until school was out and then we could take whatever random road trips popped into his brain.

But after a few minutes I thought...what the heck. Leah can miss a day of school, I can change preschool to Friday...why not? So Lars got on-line and found three places along the coast on the way to Astoria that we could stop and camp or rent a Yurt for the night. A what?! It sounded like a Dr. Seuss creation. Apparently anyone who grew up in Oregon knows what a Yurt is. Personally I had never heard of one before, so after being flabbergasted at my ignorance, Lars found a picture on-line of these fabulous creations. It's like a Tee Pee, except a dome instead of a pointy top. (You can even purchase one off the Internet!) He called to reserve one but they had already closed their reservations for the day but informed us there were still five available on a first come first serve basis.

So we raced around and packed. I found a backpack for the girls that still had clothes in it from the last time we visited Grandma, so I figured that would do. I ran to the store and bought hot dogs and s'mores stuff and good camping food. I called all the preschool moms and told them I was changing it to Friday and we were ready to go. One of the moms offered to lend us their tent as a plan B, in case the Yurt didn't pan out. I thanked her and said we would probably pick it up on our way out of town. I told Lars about the tent and he said not to worry, there were two other places along the coast to get one. OK, so we left. Plan A-yurt Plan B-tent Plan C-hotel :)

We headed west until we hit Highway 101, then headed north enjoying a beautiful scenic drive up the Oregon coast line. It is quite a lovely drive...unless you suffer from motion sickness. We all did pretty well for the first hour and a half and then Yaya started complaining that her tummy hurt. A few minutes later, her throat hurt. Two seconds later she shouted a panicked, "I'm gonna barf!" and erupted. With lightning speed I dumped out the contents of the nearest plastic bag and dove over Heidi to the back seat miraculously catching most of the, er...contents in the bag. Meanwhile, Lars stomped on the brakes and whipped off the road as I balanced between the two middle seats with both hands cupped beneath Yaya's mouth. Lars jumped out of the car and I yelled, "Open the door!" He did and I threw the bag-o-barf outside. By this time Naomi, who was sharing the back seat with Yaya, is clutching her throat and yelling "I'm gonna barf! I'm gonna barf!" So Lars got Naomi out of the car and thankfully once she was out of smelling range regained a calm stomach. We got Yaya out of her seat and while I had the pleasure of scrubbing barf out of car seat straps (I'm dry heaving here) Lars undressed Yaya and went searching for clean clothes. Well, apparently the bag of clothes from the trip to Grandma's house was the dirty laundry bag. So we redressed Yaya in some pink polka dot pants and a white thermal shirt with a giant chocolate milk stain down the front of it. I put her barf clothes in a bag and tied it to the bike rack on the roof and we all piled back in the car and kept on going.

Not too much later we entered Cape Lookout. After ten minutes down another very windy road we got to the Ranger Station and asked to rent a yurt. All taken. They suggested another camp site 20 miles south. No thank you. So we just headed north again. "Well, I guess hind site is 20/20" Lars laments. "What do you mean?" I asked. "We should have got a tent before we left." "I thought you said there were two places along the way to get one." I countered. "No. I meant there were two places other places to get a yurt." Right. Well, there went Plan A AND Plan B. On to Plan C. Driving up the coastline, EVERY hotel has an ocean view which gives them reason to charge double what they would otherwise. Finally after we had pulled in and out of fifteen different places asking their rates, someone tipped us off to a lovely little place called The Bunk House. We got a room with three beds and a kitchenette for $55. Sweet. The girls were thrilled and asked if we could move in permanently.

Since this has officially turned into the longest posting ever...I'll end here and continue with a part II.