Monday, March 31, 2008

Tennille just called...

***this post won't make sense unless you read the one below it***

they just finished the Letterman show for tonight. They didn't do any audience contests so they didn't get to do that (which they were sad about!) But they had fun, she said she thinks we will be able to see them when they pan the audience after the second commercial break after the first guest (Helen Miran). They are in the 3rd row in the middle. She said be warned that the show is a big racy, but maybe they will edit some of that. They are going to see Chicago on Broadway tonight at 8 (they got half price tickets by buying them the day of the performance). Wish I was there!

Stay up late tonight, or get up early (not really early) tomorrow

Tennille and Nathan (my sister and brother-in-law) are in New York City (they are who we visited in MN last week) for a kid-free vacation. They got tickets to go to David Letterman tonight! So stay up and watch it. If you know Tennille at all you know that if anyone in the audience makes it on TV it will be Tennille! If you don't stay up, you have a second chance because Tuesday morning they are going to get up and go stand outside with all the people at the Today show. This morning they went to Trump tower, "got fired" and rode away in a taxi. Tonight they are going to a musical on Broadway (the Letterman show tapes at 2:00 in the afternoon). Talk about a New York experience!

Friday, March 28, 2008

Big indoor spaces

A suburb of Minneapolis is where they build the first indoor mall ever. That was an indication of things to come. When the weather is as cold as it is here they need lots of big indoor spaces. We visited a few of them. Here we are at Mall of America. There is a amusement park in the middle of the mall. The kids had so much fun doing the rides. One of the roller coasters was almost more than I could handle. I certainly could never do it again. Ainsley did it twice. After torturing me with it, she convinced Nathan to do it with her. Crazy girl.

We also went to the world's largest indoor water park. This place was amazing. It has a play structure in the middle of a pool. There was a surfing simulator, a huge wave pool, the longest indoor river in the country, and so many tubes it was mind boggling. The biggest slide, called the Family Raft Ride, is 10 stories high and you ride a raft that they pull up for you on a chain elevator. It was amazing.

We also went to an indoor play park that is so fun. It has a pool, two gyms, track, and a play structure to end all play structures. Think of the biggest fast food play area you have ever seen, then stack about 4 of them together.


I know it is colder here, but it rains enough in Oregon I don't understand why we don't have this sort of indoor stuff!
For our last night we went to Famous Dave's BBQ for dinner. It was so fun. They have bands that play there every night. The food was great. Their slogan is, "We love vegetarians, they make us laugh."
We have had such a fun Spring Break. Ainsley said to me, "If I decide to move to Minnesota will you come and visit me, like for my wedding?" I think that that is a pretty good indication that she is enjoying herself. And yes Ainsley, I will come visit you wherever you live. Especially for your wedding.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

School and Bridges

Thursday morning we went to visit Nathan at his school. He teaches at Hope Acadamy, a private christian school. It is not what you think of when you think of private- it is an inner city school that's students are 65% poverty and 90% minority. Every child's family must pay a little to send them there, but most of them have sponsors that pay for their tuition and are involved in their education. It is really amazing to see, the kids take Latin and Bible along with regular core classes. They wear uniforms and the High School that opens in the fall will be seperated by gender. I would send my kids to school there in a heartbeat. When you walk in they have classical music playing in the halls and the kids were better behaved than in ANY school I have been in before.

John Piper's daughter is in his class. I didn't get to meet her which is probably for the best because I would have probably treated her like a rock star- not really appropriate. You have to wonder, how does it feel to be the daughter of one of the greatest theological minds of our time?


We also went for a walk across the Mississippi river to see where they are building the new bridge to replace the 35W that crashed in August. It is amazing to see the construction. They are working 24/7 on it to have it opened by December 24th.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Frozen Eggs

Our little native Oregonian children have and will experience many rainy Easters. So Easter Egg hunting in Minnesota was a bit different than anything we have experienced before. Looking for eggs in the snow presents new challenges!
Camden was a little unsure about the whole thing.

Eleison and Zech, a little more used to this weather, were much tougher about being outside in the cold hunting for eggs. Hudson wanted to go inside after a little while, but wanted everyone else to go inside also so they didn't get more eggs than him! Eleison is very happy with her bag of eggs!

Here are the kids after church-before going sledding.

And this was the post-church, pre-Easter brunch sledding trip.
Happy little kids!

A snowy Easter wasn't the craziest thing about today. You are never going to believe what I'm doing in this picture. Or actually where I am in this picture:

I get nervous just looking at it. We are out PLAYING ON A LAKE! Despite assurances about the thickness of the ice, it just doesn't seem right to walk off a dock onto a snow covered lake, hoping the ice underneath is thick enough to hold you, and your children that are crazily running around on it.
I don't think the kids really understood how nervous they should be about WALKING ON A LAKE! Come on, we are not Jesus, or even Peter people! This is just wrong. They tell me that the ice is 40 inches thick and that you can drive cars on it. But still...

Chasing Grandpa with snow was great fun. Again, ON THE LAKE. Still I'm freaked out about it. It would have scared me less if it hadn't been bright and sunny.
It was such a fun day- and a great way to celebrate our Risen Lord! Happy Easter everyone!

Romans 6:8-11 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
1 Peter 1:3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead...

Evidently I didn't go to my world religions class much...

Andrew just informed me that it is people who are Hindu that believe in re-incarnation not Buddhists. (see previous post) Sorry- I don't know much about fake religions! Either way we have explained to Hudson that he used to be a baby- but never a dog.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

When did you become Buddhist?

Between rain showers we went for a walk tonight. Daddy won't be home tonight until after bedtime (parent conferences) and for some reason on nights when he is not home if there is something for the kids to fight over, they will. Picking out a leash for the dog was what they found to fight over tonight. Ainsley got the one she picked on the dog first, and Hudson chased her around with the one he wanted. When he realized he wasn't going to win, he yells to me (I was in the front putting the baby in the stroller-they were in the back getting the dog, but I could hear them), "Mom, would you tell Ainsley to use this one because this was my leash when I was a dog!"

Monday, March 17, 2008

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Anybody else have a big bowl of green mashed potatoes for dinner? It made me laugh as I was adding the green food coloring because, you know, there aren't enough actual green vegetables I could feed my children for dinner. Instead I will take a fake vegetable, boil out any tiny amount of nutrition they had, add some fat, then lace it with chemicals to turn it green. My children will gobble it down. And yes, there are cookies sprinkled with food coloring colored sugar in the background also. What? You've heard research about kids getting too much sugar and dye in their diets? We don't worry about that- because our kids are just so calm. Oh...you've met my darlings? Another example of quality parenting people.

We mixed holidays and colored Easter Eggs today. We will be in Minnesota on Easter so the Easter Bunny is coming to our house a day early. Perfect timing to bring some treats for the drive to Seattle then the flight to Minneapolis. (yes-we are driving to Seattle and flying out of SeaTac rather than Portland because the tickets were $250 LESS per ticket! Although with the price of gas...)

(before you call the nutrition police on me-despite the green mashed potatoes I actually am careful about what my kids eat:) )

Friday, March 14, 2008

3 for 3

This morning at about 1:15 am Ainsley got us to 100% as far as the percentage of our kids coming down with the plague. It is a real fun one, it comes with a variety of symptoms that children have trouble articulating. Rather than focusing on the fact that they have gotten sick one at a time so that by the time she is healthy I will have had sick kids for three weeks, I'm going to be happy that I have only had one really sick kid at a time. The other positive is that it started with Camden who was the neediest, and so at least I was fresh with energy for him. Ainsley is pretty easy sick, that is, once we made it through the, "wahh wahh but I want to go to school" drama.

Camden had fun today with Ainsley's sick paraphernalia. When you hate Kleenex like I do, your children are forced to have a roll of toilet paper by them to blow their noses on. That makes for a fun toy.



The other fun adventure he had was putting the bowl she had out in case she had to throw-up in on his head. The second picture is blurry, but he was actually walking into the table. Too funny. And no, she hasn't thrown up so the bowl that my child is putting on his head is clean.



But speaking of bowls and kids getting sick. You know, there are lots of things we celebrate kids learning how to do; walking, riding a bike, holding their own cups (oh maybe that is just us, since Camden STILL wont hold his own cup, but that is probably could be a post all by itself) but the skill that seriously deserves a party or something is when a child learns how to direct their puke into a bowl or toilet. In my humble opinion, that is a major life skill to aquire. If you don't think that is something to celebrate, it has been way too long since you have a child throw up, say, in your car. I had that pleasure just last Friday. And then we got to continue driving home, for twenty minutes, with the throw up. Good times. So as bad as I feel for Ainsley today, I am rejoicing in the fact that she has graduated to the class of humans that recognize the "I think I'm going to be sick" feeling and can take appropriate action in light of that knowledge. That is, unless her baby brother is currently using the bowl as a hat.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Hudson the Renaissance Man, and poor hide-and-seek player

Hudson spent the morning building and then having wars with the boys. He spent the afternoon playing Pollies with Emory. I guess he got his aggressiveness out in the morning so he could be in touch with his feminine side in the afternoon. I'm pretty sure if his daddy reads this (there is a very slim chance of that happening, occasionally people will verbally comment to him about this blog and he has no idea what they are talking about because he never checks it) he will make me delete that last sentence about Hudson's feminine side and the picture of him with the Pollies!


4-year-olds that don't quite get hide and seek. They hid from me 10 times in a row under the bed. Each time they said, "we're not hiding under the bed again so don't look there again."

Make yourself comfortable Camden


Monday, March 10, 2008

Is that a good work ethic or indecisiveness?

As we were driving home from school today Ainsley asked, "How will I pick a career when I am grown-up?"

I told her that she wold take classes, maybe watch people who did things, and pray about it, then pick something.

She said, "I already have a plan."

"Great, what are you going to do?"

"Well, I want to be a nurse and a teacher. So I'm going to work in a hospital in the morning, then teach afternoon kindergarten in the afternoon."

I said, "Wow."

"Then I want to be a dentist also, so I will do that on the weekends. Then maybe some other things also."

Good luck honey-that should keep you busy.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Favorite moments from the last couple of weeks

Ainsley's last day at Kelly Creek- they wrote her a book- it was so cute. Mrs. Taylor was the best!














Moving day-that is me driving that HUGE truck! And here was the shed moving- that was an adventure. Look at the color of the sky- we moved in February for crying out loud- could we have had a better day?

And here is the girl at the Deep Creek music program. She had been there for a total of 4 days, she didn't know all the words but faked it really well. She loved it and had a great time. We went out to Dairy Queen after the program and she sat at a table with two new friends from her class. We are still just amazed at how well she has done with moving. She loves her new school and new friends. I guess we can spend the money we had put away for therapy on something else! :)

And if you read the previous post about Camden being sick, here is the update: Monday morning I called the doctor to make an appointment to bring him in because (and this is a direct quote I said to Heather on the phone) "I know there is nothing they will do, he will send him home and tell me call back if he still has a fever in 3 days, but I would be a bad mom if I don't take him in because he is lethargic and has had a fever for 3 days." Well, Camden is going to join Ainsley and Hudson in the ongoing quest to make their mother look like a liar and an idiot often by always proving me wrong. Turns out he was actually pretty sick. We barely made it out of the doctor's office without being admitted to the hospital. He had a chest x-ray and blood test and eventually (after 2 1/2 long hours with Hudson with me) a couple of antibiotic shots. We went back today and got cleared. The nice thing about the shots is that they take care of everything, no 10 day, 3 times a day antibiotic to forget and feel guilty about. Our doctor is the best (Kevin Carpender) would you believe that he called on this morning before he had even gotten to the office to check and see how he was even though I was going in with him at 11 this morning? Anyway-the little punkin' is back up and running today. But this was definitely not a favorite moment.

Saturday, March 1, 2008

Forced to slow down

Don't get me wrong, I would never want my kids to be sick. However,yesterday was a good day. The baby had a fever and was pretty much only happy if he was laying on my sleeping. With the frantic pace we have been going ever since this whole move thing became a reality it was nice to have an excuse to go much slower. It was also nice to have him content to just lay on me. There is nothing like a little person melting into your body sleeping. Since about August when he became mobile he has been awfully busy, so I soaked up the snuggles yesterday. Tennille's (my sister) little girl Eleison will snuggle all the time. My kids seem to require a drug induced state to snuggle for more than about 2 minutes. As great as yesterday was, this morning as I wait for him to wake up, I'm hoping he is better. I have lots to do.