Stranger Danger - Epic FAIL

Monday for Family Home Evening we did a lesson on "Stranger Danger" reminding the girls what to do if a stranger approached them or came to the door or called on the phone. After the lesson we did some role playing which re-enforced my suspicions that Lars and I were pretty much talking to ourselves the whole time. The role playing went a little something like this.

Me- Hi little girl. What are you doing?
Naomi- Playing with sidewalk chalk
Me- Oh! That's a very nice picture. Listen, I just lost my puppy.
Could you help me look for it?
Naomi- No. I'm not supposed to talk to strangers.

Strike 1

Me- Hi little girl. I have a piece of gum. Do you want one?
Yaya- Yeah!!
Me- Well, it's in my car. Follow me and I'll get it for you.
Yaya- OK! -and she jumped up and followed me

Strike 2

Lars- (pulling up in a fake car) Quick get in the car, your parents are at the hospital. I'll take you to them. Hurry if you ever want to see them again before they die.
Leah- stood frozen with a look of panic on her face
Lars- What are you going to do?
Leah- I don't know -and she burst into tears

Strike 3

I guess we'll have "Stranger Danger Part 2" next week.

Kindergarten Graduation

Naomi entering with scarf and hat-Naomi with her certificate-Heidi trying to steal Naomi's hat-happy Naomi with friend Jade and Yaya
Tuesday was Naomi's kindergarten graduation. They made cute little hats and came in waving colored scarves to music playing...music about growing up and turning from caterpillars into buterflies...the kind of music that if you were a sap would make you choke back tears...sniffle. Then they all sang the cute little songs that they had been learning all year. After receiving her certificate, we went back to Naomi's classroom to gather all the projects they had worked on and to have cake. It was a sweet day and Naomi was SOOOOOO excited. (My camera bateries died, so I didn't get very many picts...these will have to do.)

Naomi turns 6!!!!!

I can't believe my little Naomi is 6! These last two years have been so fun to watch as Naomi has developed a love for learning. She is so sweet and loves to play with her sisters. Naomi loves loves school and has made lots of great friends there as well. Here are a few pictures from her various celebrations...although not all of them.

a few things I can count on

Well, Lars finished his master's program with STRAIGHT "A's". He would insert here that one of them was an "A-" but I say so what. It's amazing. He managed this while doing his student teaching at the high school, making lessons, correcting papers and being a hubby and father to four girls and having a teaching calling at church and doing his home teaching. It's been crazy, but now we're moving onto the next adventure which is...what is the next adventure? We're trying to find a job and still focus on short term needs as well. It's difficult not having answers for the girls when they ask if we are moving, where we are going, if they'll be at the same school next year etc.

But despite all the things that are uncertain, there are some things that I KNOW I can count on. Every day Heidi will take all of my pots, pans and the cheese grater and pile them neatly on the floor mat in front of the sliding glass door. (I'm still not clear on the "why" here...) I know that every day Naomi will ask me to play a game with her. I know that every day, Yaya smother me with hugs and kisses. I know that every day Leah will put on a very interesting outfit and proudly show if off the me and ask me if I like it. (Lars has suggested on several occassions that I talk to her about fashion and coordinating her clothes. She's too much of a free spirit of really care what I have to say.) I know that every day before bed we will gather as a family and read from the scriptures and pray together. I know that every day and every moment that I pray, God will listen and give me comfort. I am grateful for these few things that I can count on.

BRAVO airport security...BRAVO

Shortly after I flew to Iowa I was digging around in my purse for something and realized that I had flown with a pair of my craft scissors (just like the ones in this picture)in my purse. I had gone through security and my purse had been scanned in the airport x-ray machine. Nobody noticed. That kind of freaked me out because these scissors could do some serious damage to some one's jugular.

Just like the movies

To bring in a few extra bucks each month I have my assortment of odd jobs...piano lessons, cleaning etc. Well, I just added a new one to my collection. I serve papers for a lawyer, as in "You've been served."

Now, you may be thinking to yourself, "How did Miss Non-confrontational agree to a job like this?" It's quite simple really. Money. Up to this point in my life I have never sold my plasma for twenty bucks a puncture or peddled knives door to door and I would like to keep it that way. With this job, all I have to do it track down criminals and risk having them hit me in the face as I verify their identity and hand them an official envelope.

My first "delivery" turned out to be quite an interesting experience. The first time I drove to Tawnya and Mikee's house (and no, that was not a type-o. They really spell their names that way.) I brought my friend with me because I was scared. So we went up to the door and rang the bell. I could hear the T.V. on upstairs but no one answered. I knocked, but still no answer, so we left it at that and went home. The next day I showed up again and this time there was a car in the driveway. I could hear someone coughing through an open window so I knew someone was home. I rang the doorbell but no one answered. While I was standing there I was looking around and noticed a bird house hanging above the door. Fine, except inside the hole there was no bird. There was a camera. That kind of creeped me out and since I was alone this time I just bailed.

I told the lawyer what had happened so we had to move onto Plan B. Apparently these two geniuses were selling some items on Craigslist so we created a fake email account and expressed interest in the items. Unfortunately for me, Mr. Lawyer created the account as Joe Somebody and being as I am not a man, had to enlist my manly husband to be "Joe". A meeting time was arranged and Lars showed up. They asked him if he was Joe and Lars had to say yes. So he asked them if they were Tawnya and Mikee, they confirmed that they were, and he pulled the envelopes out of his coat pocket and said, "You've been served." Lars gave them a sloppy salute and walked away. This is by far my most favorite job.

my brother is a TANK

Picts of Andrew racing, me hugging him after his crash (so I was scared to touch him)our awesome family cheering section, and liz demonstrating how the tacky couch cushions would offer their protection.

Ok. So Monday, we went to my brother Andrew's bike race. It was a street race and they just did the same lap 30 times. There were so many people and they were going so fast. It was intense. Before it started we were laughing that there were old couch cushions tied around the poles of the street signs with twine (notice the picture of my sister Liz crashing into it:))

After the race had started my neice Georgia was getting antsy, so I took her by the hand and told her I had something really funny to show her. We started walking down to the couch cushions and the bikers came around the corner and about ten of them wiped out and were flying all over the place. One of them crashed through the barricade about five feet from where we were standing. If we would have been all the way to the pole, he would have crashed right into us! It was crazy.

Amazingly my brother made it through that crash and several others, but at one point, part of someone else's bike got caught in his spokes and he wiped out skinning his arms, legs, cracking his helmet and giving him a goose egg, and tearing a nice flap on the side of his uniform. It was disappointing since he was doing really well, but he's a good sport and knows it's just part of the game. Thankfully there were no major injuries and it was great to be there to cheer him on. I'm so in awe of his abilities to race like that. It's amazing.

pretty much the best weekend EVER

Last Friday I flew out of Portland to Minneapolis, MN to Waterloo, IA where my Dad and my brothers Joe, Ben and Jacob met me at the airport. On the way home we stopped at 4 Queen Dairy Cream where "Dreams do come true". This ice cream place buries any other. I don't know what makes it so delicious but it is. I made it a point to visit there each day that I was in Cedar Falls. :)

It was a surprise to most of my siblingst that I was coming. It was fun to jump on my sister Amy the next morning and smooch on her cute family (except for Brett. I didn't smooch on him) the next morning when they woke up. Saturday morning we drove to Cedar Rapids to watch my brothers Ben and Jacob play in their H.S. Soccer Sub-State game. They ended up losing 2-1 in overtime (dumb ref.) but it was a good game anyhow. My sister Becca and brother Andrew showed up and then my sister Elizabeth with her family. It was awesome because they didn't know I was coming. And the funniest thing was that my sister Becca and I were both wearing red shirts with our hair in a ponytail and it's the exact same color and length.

After the game we went back to Cedar Falls and met up with my sister Steph and her family. It was amazingly chaotic and I LOVED it! Of course I could enjoy it more because I didn't have my own children there to worry about. I do wish I could have brought my girls so they could play with their cousins, but I'm not going to lie....it was really nice being there alone.

Sunday morning we went to church and Joe spoke in sacrament meeting, his last talk before he leaves on his mission. It was beautiful and he's going to do an amazing job in Spain! Then we all ditched out of church, ate lunch and went to Ben's H.S. Graduation. It was the shortest, least boring graduation I've ever attended. Including my own. Regardless, we all brought books and cards and all the males were either asleep or watching ultimate fighting on their phones.


Monday morning I really felt the time difference when I woke up at 6 to help mom. Iowa is 2 hours ahead of Oregon, so at night I ready to party when everyone else is ready for bed, but man...the mornings killed me. It was like I was waking up at 4 am. So we went to the church and set up all the chairs and tables and decorations and food for Ben's graduation open house. It turned out amazing and Ben is apparently Mr. Popularity because there were tons of people there the whole time. We came up with a great idea for his sign in book. We put out stamp pads and had people stamp their thumb and sign their name. It was pretty clever and alot of people really got a kick out of it.

We bolted from there to the Quad Cities, 2 1/2 hours away. I was riding with my sister and pretty much became delusional and passed out for the whole trip. We got there just before Andrew's bike race started. I think I'll detail those adventures in another post. After the race we ate dinner at this amazing Mexican restaurant.

Tuesday, thankfully, we didn't have any plans. We all just hung out and enjoyed each other until I had to leave at 4pm. There ended up being some weather issues, so my plane didn't actually leave until 6, but I just took a nice little snoozer at the airport. Got back to my mother in law's house at 12:45 and decided I should probably sleep there rather than risking my life driving home. So I got back to my sweet girls at 9am on Wednesday.

It was such a great trip being with all my siblings, parents and grandma! I love them all SO MUCH.

a "consequence" that actually worked!!

One magical day when my older girls were about 4 and 6, they discovered that they could have an opinion about the foods they ate. Since that moment they have become ridiculously picky eaters. Leah, for the most part, has pulled out of that phase and will eat most anything or will at least try it. Naomi, however is a different story. She won't eat 90% of what I cook. Her saving grace is that she WILL eat any fruit or veggie raw, but no cooked veggies, only frozen...and i mean with ice crystals on it. If the ice crystals melt, she won't eat it. Naomi will not eat rice, or potatoes. The only meat she likes is chicken and anything else is "disgusting".

I am used to Naomi's comments about my cooking, but Leah surprised me last week when I served a dinner of chicken and green peppers etc. Leah looked at it and said in a very teenager-ish voice, "This is dinner? Really?"

That didn't sit very well with me. So for a consequence, she got dinner duty for a week. I told her I wanted her to understand how much effort went into cooking a meal so she was in charge of coming up with the menu and cooking it. Of course I helped with running the stove etc. but for the most part, she was on her own.

She did a great job and loved it! We had waffles and pizza and grilled cheese. I don't remember the other meals, but she read the recipes and cooked them up all the while sounding a bit too much like me with comments such as, "Stop eating snacks I'm making dinner." and "I spent a lot of time making this meal and it's rude to say it's disgusting." Well, now she knows how it feels and has been VERY generous with her compliments ever since.

Green Thumb / Black Thumb

It has become apparent to me that Leah has inherited her Grandma Ingrid's amazing ability to make anything grow. Naomi, I fear, has inherited my amazing ability to kill anything green or living.

I mentioned in a previous post that while I was snoozing one afternoon, I apparently gave Leah permission to plant some potatoes. She got baking potatoes out of the cupboard, dug a hole in the back yard and plopped them in. I now have five large, beautiful potato plants growing in my yard. Anything she plants, grows.

Naomi planted a bean seed at school and brought it home barely sprouted. We transplanted it into a small container. It's been warmer lately, so I put it outside to get some sunshine. Naomi came home from school and frantically demanded to know where her bean plant was. I told her I put it outside. "NO!!!!" she panicked, "Don't put it outside! It will rain on it and my plant will die!" I see she has my gardening intuition. Yikes!