Quick Update

I found out last night that my buddy, Connor, WON the city wide writing contest for the first-graders! Good Job Connor!

Check Out The Cheeks!

Here she is! Carlotta has a lotta cheek! Or she's trying to master whistling.

Before and After

BEFORE...

and AFTER!

Yesterday was HAIRCUT DAY!

I brought them to Family Affair where they were given royal treatment!

The boys got the "tousled, surfer dude" look while the princess got a trim.

Since their previous haircut had been done in a "haircutting" franchise, yesterdays cut was trying to repair the bad job. It will look better next time.

The boys say they love the new look.

Kaya loved the attention she was given.

Why Can't I Fall Asleep?

I had a very busy, active day. Came home exhausted. Have to be up in less than 3 hours to get C to the airport. Went to bed early. Yet here I am at 1:10 am still awake! Argh!

Americas Stonehenge

I GOT HER IN A REAL DRESS!

The boys couldn't believe her "pose"!

She keeps doing "chicken wing" poses!

Leaving a really cool small cave.

They were almost too big for this cave.

Our haul from the gem dig.

My 2 dwarves looking for diamonds! Dig dig dig!

Notice how hard they are trying to stay clean.

THE RULES!

NO, I do not believe that what we walked through today was a "Stonehenge". It was kinda cool anyway!

The kids had fun, the weather was nice and took about an hour to go on the self guided, 1/2 mile tour hike. Would've been longer, but the boys thought it was a race. The admission price is rather high for what was there to see and do. Oh well.

In My Pretty Garden...

Got to have the "FUNNY FACE" picture!

"Wait. You mean we have to WORK in the garden this summer?"

Only the peas are in the ground. The tomatoes, beans and cucumbers are nice and warm inside the house.

OK, I've tried gardening with the kids before. Other than a few tomatoes from a container on the deck, it has never been a successful venture!

Why hasn't it worked in the previous 3 summers?

• First, they don't like to get dirty.
• Next, bugs! Doesn't matter whether it's a biting bug or not, they run away & shriek like banshees!
• Then, they are not very fond of veggies. Fruit? They love lots of fruits! I just don't know how to grow their favorite fruit in a single season.
• Lastly, caring for the plants means having them water as well as weed and such. These are viewed by the kids as "chores". They don't do chores.

So I persevere.

Spwing Time with Carlotta

Picture of Carlotta in her spring Easter dress and a short sideways video in her musical swing. It's SPWINGTIME!

The Roof

Krista's roof was damaged during the bad weather back in February. Her insurance is paying for the replacement roof. Nice. It needed to be replaced anyway.

What I don't get is the roofer dude. To me, his work is "suspect". I know he's just the roofer, but if you see rotting boards behind the gutters, would you ignore it or what? He didn't take much of the old shingles off the roof. I know the minimum code allows 2 layers of shingles on a roof, but he removed some of them, left some of them on, so wouldn't the new roof be un-level?

I'm glad it's not my problem. Though I will be using my metal detector after he's gone. With 3 barefooted kids in the yard this summer, who needs a roofing nail getting stuck in their foot? I found about a dozen nails when they did over the garage 3 weeks ago.

UPDATE (4/20) The roofers came back and replaced the rotten wood. My faith has been restored! Except I have found over a pound of nails, screws and rivets all over the place and that's WITHOUT a metal detector!

One More Day, One Hour in a Dress

Yes, Kaya wore a pretty YELLOW sundress today, for an hour. I've decided to approach this dress thing like I did with her toilet training. A few minutes daily = longer time in day clothes = a whole day w/o nightgown = a special toy (she's chosen to work towards a toy walking puppy with a red leash). I'll be making a chart tonight to map her progress.

C helped run a Small Business Expo at her school. I attended the first 30 minutes and was impressed by how many people were impressed with C!

"Very professional", "enjoy having her in class", "nice kid", "smart", "polite" and her favorite... "She looks just like you!"

X~D

She also ran into her Early Intervention preschool teacher, Miss Heidi! (Kristofferson, for those who may remember her maiden name. Nancy's friend from school. Her Mom was also Joel and Carols 6th grade teacher) Actually, the former teacher recognized C and reminded her of the growing pumpkin episode in preschool. You'll have to ask C about it one day. It's funny! Nice too, that the teacher remembered her after 13+ years.

I have sold enough Gogos to pay for T's train ticket in June! We can now look forward to seeing T and Carlotta for about a week in June while we celebrate C's high school graduation!

A Historic Event

Kaya, every day, since August 2009, has worn a pink Sleeping Beauty nightgown. This nightgown is simple. No lace, elastics or other uncomfortable decorations. Easy on, easy off, no fuss. She unhappily allows her parents to launder it every other day and on occasion, will wear a different dress for holiday pictures or playing dress-up. She wears a leotard for her dance class. But then it's right back into the nightgown.

I've tried logic. A nightgown is for nighttime. I don't believe it's my place to force her to wear day clothes. I try daily to get her in clothes though usually without success. She has many clothes. No junk. It's good quality, with lots of PINK. She loves that she has so many clothes. She just likes her nightgown even more!

She, ON HER OWN ACCORD, came to tell me today that she would like to wear a summer dress. She chose a red dress with daisies along the bottom hemline. The straps were thin with no annoying, pinchy things. She was proud. Sadly, when we went to the Post Office, bank and gas station, she thought people were looking and laughing at her because she wasn't wearing her nightgown. She insisted on wearing her jacket, zipped up.

She fell asleep waiting for her brother to get out of school. When she woke and realized she was NOT wearing her regular nightgown, she lost her temper! Once the comfortable nightgown was put back on... she calmed down as if nothing was wrong. I asked her if she would try to wear another dress tomorrow. She said she would think about it.

History was made today. For over 2 hours, Kaya had on REAL CLOTHES during the day!

My Creation! if following directions counts as a creation!

Today I pulled out my small collection of K'nex building toys. I built this Ferris Wheel for Kaya to use with her princess polly pocket dolls. It worked great!

Of course I used the directions! I'm not THAT good!

The Promise

Girls LOVE playing "dress-up"!

Kaya, only wears her Sleeping Beauty satin nightgown, yet loves to play dress-up. Today, her dance class received 2 costumes for their recital. How excited they were! They got to try them on, perform their routine while wearing them and twirl around in them.

Then came the "promise".

Miss Paula called all her 8 ballerinas together.

"Repeat after me. I promise."

"I PROMISE!" repeat 8 girls (age 3 & 4)

"not to play with."

"NOT TO PLAY WITH!" repeat same 8

"my costume."

silence

"my costume."

"my costume." only repeated by 2 or 3

"until AFTER the recital."

"until after" began the repeat by 2 or 3 girls....

followed by more silence

"But why?" yelled all 8 girls!

Girls LOVE their dress-up!

A Comparision

T on June 5, 1988 and Carlotta on April 11, 2010

Carlottas Blessing Day

April 11, 2010.

She looks so beautiful in her blessing dress.

I wish I could have been there.

I wanted to put T's blessing pictures up from 1988, but when I went to get them (from my chronologically, organized photo albums for each daughter) , I discovered that not only are my albums no longer organized, but about 10 years of T's life in photos are no longer there! No baby pictures at all! Large amounts of my wedding day photos are gone! I have the albums but they are no longer specifically made for each daughter, the pictures are no longer in chronological order and so many are missing!

UPDATE: I went into B's office. I began searching everywhere, moving stuff... lots of stuff to move. But I discovered T's missing years of photos under a bunch of junk on his spare desk. Very happy I found them!

I am not looking forward to the day when I begin to reorganize the photos back into their original albums. There's a lot of photos! I hope I remembered to date the photos on the back of them.

Another "Why Didn't I Think Of That" Moment!

So, I went out this morning looking for a nice gift to send T for her 22nd birthday next week. I entered the local Hallmark Gold Crown store and was drawn to the collectibles like Precious Moments and Willow Tree. Of course, the lights went out so I got kicked out of the store.

Not one to admit defeat, I traveled to Hampstead and entered the Gold Crown store there.

BTW, this store has a HUGE selection of EVERYTHING and that's where I'll be shopping for my gifts from now on.

I looked at their collectibles. Nothing sang out to me, "Buy me! I'm perfect for T!" so I decided to just browse.

That's when I found my newest "Why didn't I think of that" item.

FUNDANAS !

It's a simple bandanna printed with a Scavenger Hunt Game on it. Bug Bingo, Beach Quest, Winter Bingo and Star Quest were some of their other games. What a great idea to have one or more of these in your glove box for trips with the kids! And no tiny pieces to lose or choke on! I purchased the Nature Quest bandanna for only $7.99 and I can't wait to try it out next week!

I'll have to keep looking for a nice gift for Ts birthday. Maybe I'll just do a gift card. BORING!

Thanks T...

...for letting me be the first to see this picture, I think.

This is Carlotta.

Her mother is having her model the dress that she will be blessed in on Sunday. T says she hated having it put on!

I understand that this dress was handmade by a wonderful woman from the Radford Ward. She also made one in February for Evergreen. The dresses were made using the bridal dress we bought for T to wear on her wedding day!

I wish we could be there to witness the blessing, but we're working (B is taking all the overtime he can, Thanks dear!) and doing our best to save up enough $$ to bring T and Carlotta (and M, if he can get time off) to NH for C's graduation in June.

YEAH FOR C!!!

STAY TUNED FOR THEIR TRAVEL PLANS AS THEY BECOME AVAILABLE.

There Was a Crooked Man...

I have a crooked mouth. I know this because my siblings received much enjoyment in making me cry as a child just so they could see my crooked mouth. Apparently, when I cried, it became very obvious that my mouth was crooked. Perhaps this is why I try my best not to cry, especially in public?

T was a baby that loved her binky. She would suck on it at an odd angle, making her mouth look crooked. We would straighten the binky. She would always adjust it back to the side. I never purposely made her cry to check if her mouth really was crooked. Watching her suck on a crooked binky was funny enough.

Now it appears that little Carlotta has a tendency to have a crooked mouth! In this photo, T tells me Carlotta is, ahem... "expressing herself" and that's when her mouth really shows the crookedness. Whatever the case, she's still beautiful. Doncha think?

I Can Deal!

"Don't worry. I will deal."

That's what the kids have been taught to say if the going gets tough for them. By "tough" I mean... waiting a few more minutes for your brother to get out of the bathroom so you can use it. Or dunking your hands into a water bucket to rinse off the sand and getting your sleeves wet. "Don't worry, I can deal."

Today was rather warm outside. The sun was shining hard in the backyard as the recent weather has made a few of their shade trees fall down. Outside by 10am, we were doing well playing with chalk and playing with toys. Then around noon, the whining started.

"It's sooo hot today, Miss Jen. Even my feet are sweaty. My whole body is so hot! We NEED to go back inside!"

I was about to tell them that they could just "deal" when the baby girl said, "And NO! Miss Jen. I can't deal with this one!"

She said it so emphatically and with such a sweet voice... I buckled. Inside we went until dance class time. They were very well behaved while indoors and allowed me to have the windows and doors open for fresh air.

Don't worry. I could deal.

I Want to Be Outdoors, but...

Today & tomorrow is perfect weather to be outdoors doing yard work.

• There's sticks and branches to be picked up.
• The lawn needs a good raking.
• A few bushes and shrubs are asking to be pruned.
• The driveway should be blown clear of road sand and pebbles.
• The hose needs to be hung up for the summer.
• I'd LOVE the piles of brush to be burned down, but can't get a permit until 5pm tonight.
• The wet rug needs to be placed over another area of pricker bushes that we'd like to see gone.
• Underneath the deck needs some organizational attention.
• B told me he'd be straightening out & organizing the shed. I wonder if that will happen this year?
• Caulking the bulkhead entryway needs to be done but it can put off until the area is really dry.
• Can't afford new mulch this year so we need to rake the old stuff to make it look pretty.

So, if you don't see a new blog entry for a while, I'm either busy doing yard work or too sore to move from doing yard work!

HAPPY EASTER!

I Don't Know What You Mean!

"When can we play panano?"

"I don't know. What is panano?"

"You know. It has princess stuff."

"Hmm. Sorry. I don't know what a panano is, honey."

"Miss Jen! You know it. I really want to play panano."

"You want to play the piano?"

"NO!! I want to play with your pananos!

"I wish we could play pananos but I still don't know WHAT panano is!"

"Come here and I will show you."

(pause... as we walk into the room of toy collections)

"This is a panano, Miss Jen!

"OH! You mean Mr. POTATO HEAD! We can play that right now!"

"Good. I love playing panano head."

My Mr. Potato Head collection will now be forever known as:

PANANO HEAD!!

(Try saying "Nonie's panano's" 5x fast!)

April Fools!

April 1st has been T's favorite day (until 2/14/10, that is) next to her birthday and Christmas of course! But she's too far away from me to share this day with her unless I plan months in advance and who has time for that?

Of course, Mother Nature played a trick on me today. With all the water that has poured down on us, it was inevitable some places would lose power due to the flooding. A school in Haverhill, MA lost power which in turn meant ALL schools in Haverhill were closed today!

Yeah! Connor got another day off! AND... the 2 neighbor kids didn't have sitter so it was Miss Jen to the rescue! Good trick huh!

ANY WAY...

I could not get through the day w/o trying a prank on someone. The boys were afraid I would do something scary.

What was my prank?

I told them that a scientist had discovered a new way to make heat. On a dinner plate, he placed a tablespoon of salt. He added a tablespoon of very soft butter. He held his hand just over the salt and butter. After a moment or two, he said it felt like his hand was being burnt.

The boys were enthralled at this point. "Really?", they asked.

I told them they could try it for themselves.

They gingerly held their hands above the plate.

"Nothing is happening, Miss Jen."

"April Fools!", I said as I smashed their hands down on top of the soft butter!

GOTCHA!!