Tech Savvy

I figured out how to allow people to comment directly on my blog again rather than only through face book. So comment away!!!

I was on our church website trying to find some games for the girls to play today, when a picture of Jesus Christ came up on the screen. Emilia, who was looking over my shoulder, got so excited and asked me, "Are you typing to Jesus?!?!?!"

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Today was a beautiful, warm-ish, sunny day; so I decided to put Heidi in the double stroller and walk to Emilia's pre-school to pick her up.

When I showed up she had tears in her eyes. Upon inquiry, Emilia revealed that someone else got the Peter Pan book from the book exchange and she wanted it. When she realized I wasn't going to rip it out of the other kid's hands and give it to her, she transitioned into full blown melt down.

I had to pick her up off the floor, kicking and screaming and haul her out the door. Had I driven, I could have locked her in the car and threatened her in the silence of my own vehicle. But instead I had to try and strap her in the stroller while she screamed in my face how much she hated me and this was the worst day ever...while ripping her boots off, throwing her coat on the ground and kicking Heidi in the back so she was crying as well.

Under those working conditions, I couldn't get E strapped in, so I just had to resort to running as fast as I could so she would be too scared to jump out. (I'm really fast by the way...) After about four blocks of this she was still screaming and kicking Heidi. Finally I stopped the stroller and threatened her, "If you don't stop right now, I'm going to stop the next police car that drives by and tell him to take you away." What? It worked. I'll pay for therapy later.

Fast forward two hours. Melt down is over, we made it home and E and I were in the kitchen baking Christmas cookies. I asked Emilia, "What's your favorite thing about Christmas?" She answered, "Getting presents. I'm going to get lots of presents because I'm ALWAYS good." "Really?" "Yeah, Some kids aren't good so they get on the naughty list." "Interesting...what types of things do you do to get on the naughty list?" I probed. "Hitting, yelling, going to time out...stuff like that" she answered. "Huh. What about kicking your sister, or telling your mom you hate her, or screaming and jumping out of strollers?" "No." Emilia reassured me, "None of that stuff. Santa can't see that." "I'm not so sure about that." I replied and burst into song, "You'd better watch out, you'd better not cry, you'd better not pout I'm telling you why. Santa Claus is coming to town. He's sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake. He knows if you've been bad or good so you'd better be good for goodness sake!"

Emilia's expression went from shock, to fear and finally to casual disregard by the time I stopped singing. She just looked at me innocently and said, "Well, I've never heard that before." So clearly in her mind, she was off the hook and still on the "Nice" list.

A Bit of Christmas Baking

Naomi
Naomi, Leah (with a huge bow on her head), Emilia
Emilia
Dipped Pretzels
Stained-glass cookies

A shout out to my little Leah!

Two weeks before the new school year we told the girls we were moving. One day before school started, we moved into a temporary house. For a month we drove the girls 1/2 hour to and from school every day. Finally we got into a place of our own and settled with our own belongings. While this was a challenge for all of us, these transitions were especially hard on Leah.
She was really struggling in school here. After only three weeks, Leah's teachers called Lars and me in to meet with them. They expressed concern about Leah's attentiveness, unwillingness to participate, and especially her reading. They had her tested and she was scoring a full year behind. We set up a system where we could monitor and help her more at school and at home.
Last week Lars received an email from her teachers. They had just received Leah's reading score from the state standardized testing. Average was 204, Excelling was 216. Leah scored a 214! Lars was SO proud of Leah and all her hard work that when he told Leah her score, Lars got all choked up. Of course I did too...but it was quite a tender moment for our little family.
YEAH LEAH!!!!

the double bird

Today I was in the kitchen getting lunch for Emilia and Heidi. From the table, Emilia called to me, "This means all the bad words in the world." I looked over and there she was holding both of her middle fingers up to me. "Where did you learn that?!" I asked, hoping to blame pre-school for this evil influence on my child. "Leah told me" she answered casually.
Busted.

Tooth Fairy Crisis

Last week Naomi lost one of her two front teeth. That night after she had put her tooth under her pillow and went to bed, Leah approached me with a pen and a piece of paper. "I think you should write Naomi a letter from the tooth fairy pretending to be her." I told her I might. About two minutes later Leah was pestering me again to write a letter. So I asked her why this was so important to her. Then came the confession, "Well, maybe I've been telling Naomi that the tooth fairy is really you...but I still want her to believe!"

A whole DECADE!

On December 2nd, Lars and I had our tenth anniversary! It seems impossible that we've been married that long. But then upon prompting from friends on facebook, I took a brief inventory of just what has happened in the last ten years, and here's what I came up with :)

In our ten years together we have
moved 14 times
attended 6 colleges
earned 3 degrees
had four kids
3 cars
5 bikes
3 fish
numerous ugly couches off the side of the road

Shall I continue????

the Sesame Street influence

Today Heidi came up to me crying and holding her elbow. She whimpered, "Ow! My finger." I told her, "That's your elbow." So she whimpered, "Ow! My Elmo."

A couple weeks ago I took Emilia and Heidi on a walk and had the garage door opener in my pocket. When we got back I told Emilia to say the magic words, "Open Sesame" to open the garage door. She did and I pushed the button in my pocket. Both the girls were pretty impressed with my magic skillz. Heidi wanted to try it next, so I told her to say, "Open Sesame." She gave it a good try, but just couldn't manage "Sesame." So Emilia said to Heidi, "It's ok, just say 'Open Elmo' instead." A logical connection for a five year old :)

Things I never expected to hear

Emilia to me- "Birds say 'Ca Ca' and that means poop."

Me-"Heidi please come here."
Heidi-"I NOT Heidi. I She-Ra."

Me-"Naomi, come down stairs it's time for dinner."
Naomi- "Do I HAVE to? I'm reading the dictionary."

Leah-"Want to know what I want for Christmas? To NOT RIDE THE BUS!"

Me-"Did you wash your hands after you went potty?"
Emilia-"Yes. I just told the truth for the first time in my life!!!!!"

Me-"Naomi it's bedtime."
Naomi-"Can I just stay up a little longer? I'm comparing facts about the Beluga whale in my book and in the dictionary."

FORT!

While I was chatting on the phone with a dear friend, the girls set up a fort in the living room. They were so proud of it! We read books in it and then Naomi and Emilia slept in it overnight. I'm not gonna' lie, I was tempted to sleep in the fort with them, but somehow the living room floor isn't quite as comfortable once you weigh more than 50 pounds.

No, No and No again

I had Heidi and Emilia with me at the store today so I could pick up a few boring things like tape and mascara. Of course the girls wanted to look at the toys so I reminded them that I wasn't buying anything, but they could look and play all they wanted.

Emilia asked me for a Barbie. I said No. She asked me for a Zhu Zhu pet. I said No. She asked me for some princess dress up shoes. I said No. Emilia hung her head in defeat and sobbed, "You're ruining my life." I unsympathetically reminded her I've heard that one before.

Emilia asked me for play dough. I said No. She asked me for a baby that wets itself. I said NO! She asked me for a puppy that moves and barks. I said No. Exasperated, Emilia desperately implored, "Can't you be nice? Just for ONE DAY?!?!"

Sweet Sisters

Leah has always been my little tender heart bear. I caught her snuggling with her sister Naomi the other day. And when Naomi painted this nice picture, Leah left her this note. Love those girls. :)

Pansy Snow Day

Monday the girls came home from school with a note announcing that school would be closed Tuesday based on the predicted snow in the forcast. I was excited because I REALLY want to see snow on the beach.

Sure enough this morning when I looked out the window there was some snow on the ground. I started getting my boots and coat on to go take some pictures when all the girls woke up. They saw I was leaving and wanted to come with...but in barefeet and pj's. Being the mean mom that I am, I demanded the girls at least bring coats and boots. I knew we would never get there if we were walking, so I loaded the girls kicking and screaming into the van (remember this was their idea to come along) and drove the three blocks down to the beach.

Much to my dismay, there was NO snow on the beach. In my now grumpy state of mind I was just certain that twenty minutes before (while I was wrestling boots onto small feet) the entire beach must have been blanketed in a downy white covering of snow and it melted just before I got there and it was all my kid's fault! So I decided to ignore the girls while they flopped on the ground and continued their fits in the sand and take some pictures anyway. I'm so nice.

A little bit of snow stuck on the post :)

Some cool clouds over the ocean

Look I found more snow!

Evidence of the sunrise

Heidi pitching her fit

Priorities

Every night before bed we read scriptures and say prayer as a family. Heidi added to the routine by yelling "GROUP HUG!" as soon as the first person said "Amen." So we all pile on each other and she's a happy camper.

Tonight, however, as we were reading Heidi went over and turned on her favorite movie. We finished reading and prayed and then said, "Heidi, group hug!" She peeked her little head around the side of the chair and said, "Just a second. I watching a movie."

A little MJ by NW

This morning Naomi was belting out a little Michael Jackson while she was getting ready for school. Well....it was pretty close to MJ anyway :) Sounded a little something like this.

"I'm talking 'bout a man by the river. I'm asking him to change his ways. If you want to make the world a better place, take a look in the mirror and make a face."

Life Plan

This afternoon Emilia came to me and said, "Mom, there is something I need to tell you." "Someday I am going to fall in love. I will wear a white dress and a boy will look at me like this"... Emilia opened her eyes wide and dropped her jaw... "and then he will kiss me and we will get married."

I hope it's that simple...and I hope it's twenty years from now.

Hair Evolution

So I feel a little bit wierd making a post all about me, but I also though it was rather humorous how many different hair styles I have tried out this year. Really, not trying to be conceited...just amused at my constant need for change :)

Mom Brain

Tonight at bedtime Emilia was looking for her bear that she always sleeps with. She came into the kitchen and asked me if I knew where it was. "Yeah," I answered "It's in the bathroom behind the door."

Now why did I know that?

It seems that since having children my brain hangs on to random, useless pieces of information. When doing the laundry, I know how many times each piece of clothing was worn before it was thrown in there. I can tell you what my kids ate for breakfast everyday for the last three weeks, but if you ask me to balance my checking account, or remember a phone number...forget about it.

I suppose this alteration of brain function may be a defense mechanism, or a survival technique. "Mom Brain" works in our favor when forgetting about childbirth, labor pains, and those wonderful first few months of sleeplessness and confusion that inevitably accompany that little bundle of joy. In fact, it works SO well that we are willing to go through it all again! But beyond that, "Mom brain" seems more of a disservice to humanity. I want to know from my more "mature" mother friends if this phenomenon ever corrects itself or if I should just accept this as a "rite of passage"...like dark hair on the upper lip.

This is why I LOVE my life

While preparing dinner, I pulled a banjo playing sweet potato out of my pantry.

preschool fieldtrip - two words that should NEVER be together

Emilia's preschool announced they were going on a field trip to the pumpkin patch. I thought that sounded like fun and volunteered to go along. Before I could interact with any of the children I had to do a mandatory, three hour, online training about sexual harassment, blood borne pathogens, bla bla bla bla bla...(keep in mind this was during the "Internet only at the library" phase of my life.)

The morning of the field trip, I showed up at the school and parked in the parking lot next to a telephone pole. I got out of the van and had the door open while i was gathering everything i would need for the day. All of a sudden I felt something wet hit my head. As I turned my head to see where it came from two things happened simultaneously. One, I saw a seagull perched on the telephone pole above me and two, the chunk of hair that was now saturated with bird droppings whipped across my face and stuck over my upper lip giving me a poopstache. If I wasn't so busy dry heaving, I may have been laughing. Thankfully, as always, I had wipes in the car and scrubbed my face and hair clean.

Heidi, Emilia and I got into the classroom only to find out that the pumpkin patch the preschool was going to was in Corvallis...53 miles away. They were strapping 23 pre-school children into the special needs bus (so they each had a seat belt) leaving no room for any supervisors except for one teacher. They wanted me to also strap Heidi into the bus with the pre school kids and ride with the other parent volunteers on the second bus with the high school kids. None of this was sounding like a good idea. Not to mention that Emilia gets car sick in the back of our van and I could only imagine what was going to happen on a bus.

Thankfully my friend Sara was also there and we ended up driving (with Heidi) in her van behind the bus. As a precaution, I warned the teacher that Emilia has a tendency to ralf in motor vehicles and I gave her a plastic bag...just in case. The bus was scheduled to leave at 8:30 am. We pulled out of the driveway at 9:40. We had followed the bus for literally one mile when the bus driver pulled over to the side of the road. We could see the teacher running around in the bus and then out the door with barfed on clothing in hand. I jumped out of the van with my trusty wipes and ran to help her out. Amazingly it wasn't Emilia that was barfing...it was some other poor kid.

We finally got there about 11:20, just in time to eat lunch. Emilia was being grumpy the whole time so I only got one picture of her smiling. Heidi thought it was great! They went down the slide and played in the corn bin. They got to ride on the tractor out to the pumpkin patch and choose a pumpkin to bring home. Of course they picked the biggest ones out there which made carrying Heidi and two pumpkins to the car quite the circus act. The greatest moment of the day was going on the cow train. Emilia could have stayed on there all day and been a very happy girl!

Halloween

Heidi, Emilia, Naomi, Leah
Heidi, Naomi
Heidi
Naomi and Leah
Emilia
This year for Halloween we went to our church's fall festival on Saturday. The girls loved getting dressed up and had a great time playing the games and getting their faces painted. Leah went on the cake walk three times that I saw and who knows how many times when I wasn't looking, winning a cupcake each time. I told the girls if they asked me to eat a bunch of sugar I would have to say no, but if I didn't see them, then it's like it never happened. I really try to teach my children practical life skills.

Emilia's 5th Birthday!

Emilia didn't fare much better than Heidi for the birthday celebration this year. But she at least got real presents and some balloons taped to the wall. I was planning on having a party with her friends from preschool, but it just so happened that her school Halloween party was on her birthday so I just told her that party was for her! Don't worry, I checked the parenting manual and it's OK to lie to your kids to get out of doing stuff.

The House

Finally got my pictures off of my camera so here is a picture of the house we are renting. It's just a little bit nicer than our last place ;)

Secret Weapon

About a month ago as I was making one of our daily treks down to Waldport, I noticed a cop car sitting along side the road. As a knee jerk reaction, I stepped on my brakes as I passed him. I continued driving and about two minutes later saw the dreaded red and blue lights flashing in my rear view mirror. I pulled over onto the 28 inches of gravel along the side of the highway. To avoid being smeared across the road, the state trooper came to the passenger's side of the car. May I just note here that our windows don't roll down, so I had to open my door and reveal the shameful interior of my car. He kindly informed me that my driver's side brake light was out. When the state trooper asked to see my driver's license it only took me about twenty minutes to dig through all the garbage that constantly seems to accumulate on the floor of my car, just to get to my purse. I finally found my driver's license and cringed as I handed it over because I still have my license from Iowa. (What? We only have 30 days to switch it over? I thought it was 30 months...) Then that poor, unsuspecting state trooper asked for my car registration and proof of insurance.



Are you familiar with the prank where you offer someone a fake can of peanuts and when the other person opens the can, snakes pop out and scare said person half to death? Well, opening my glove box was a very similar experience except instead of snakes, tampons. I don't know how this came to be, but there were literally tampons falling out of my glove box, onto my seat and out my open car door. I was trying to dig through the tampons for my car registration and remaining shred of dignity while the state trooper was dodging flying feminine hygiene products and turning six shades of red. When I finally found it (my registration...not my dignity) I shoved it at him and mumbled a sorry and he took it and ran back to his car. By the time he came back I had shoved all the tampons back into my glove box back and had frozen my face into a facade of innocence. Mr. State Trooper had returned to his natural coloring and was willing to play along with my "We didn't just share the most embarrassing moment of your career" game. He gave me back my license and registration and let me off with a verbal warning, very happy to send me on my merry little way.

A thought on Halloween

Does it seem odd to anyone else that we spend 364 days of the year cautioning our children NOT to take candy from strangers and then on Halloween we take our children door to door begging for candy from strangers? Just sayin'

Balsamic Bath

A couple weeks ago I was moving the food storage shelves in the garage. Heidi and Emilia were out there "helping" me as well. I took a break to use the little girl's room. About thirty second later Emilia walked into the bathroom carrying the jagged broken off top of a glass bottle of balsamic vinegar. She nonchalantly informed me that Heidi was moving some food and dropped the bottle. I tried to remain calm, but mostly freaked out and ran out to the garage. Sure enough 16 oz of dark balsamic vinegar mixed with glass shards was seeping across my garage floor. Heidi had somehow managed to walk right through the whole mess with her bare little feet and remain unscathed, thankfully.

So I sent the girls inside and cleaned up the mess. Not such a big deal except our garage is finished so my garage floor is white. Who does that? Anyway, I spent the rest of the afternoon with a bottle of bleach (sorry earth) scrubbing my garage floor. I felt a little OCD, to say the least, but it all came off and aside from the lingering blasamic/bleach smell...you would never even know it happened. :)

The Potty Dilemma

I realize Heidi is only two, and just barely two at that, but I KNOW she could use the potty if she wanted to. The key here is that she doesn't WANT to use the potty and for that reason I know it would be a losing battle...for me.

Here's a bit of our daily routine that leads me to this conclusion.
Every morning Heidi wakes up with a dry diaper.
I ask her, "Heidi, do you want to go pee pees in the potty?"
She answers, "No. Pee pees in diapee."
Then she'll stand there, look at me, wet her diaper and announce "All done pee pees!" Heidi will then go get a clean diaper, open it up and lay it down on the floor. Next she will get out a wipe and lay it next to the diaper. Then Heidi will lie down on top of the clean diaper and say, "New diapee please!"

I suppose for now I will just be grateful to Heidi for making the whole diaper changing experience as easy and pleasant as it could be. I'm just going to have to start a coin jar and make her deposit 25 cents for every diaper she uses. Those things are spendy.

Seal Rock

Leah




One amazing blessing we had during our month of driving from Waldport to Newport everyday was passing by Seal Rock. This has got to be my favorite beach on the Oregon Coast (so far). It's actually only accessable at low tide, but if you catch it right, there are amazing tide pools and the view is incredible! These are just a few pictures of the girls and the amazing scenery and sunset. Have I mentioned I love the coast?