Mad Skills

The inevitable happened. I took Kate to the urgent care this week to have a little rolled up blue hair elastic removed from her nose. Through Kate, I'm actually honing my extraction skills, and while at the urgent care, made a note of two items I might put on my birthday list:It seemed that the trauma of the experience actually broke Kate of her dirty little habit, but sadly, it only lasted two days. She tried some little tiny Legos up her nose yesterday. The second one was on Ben's watch. He got out a pair of tweezers and laid Kate down. (She knows the routine by now.) The thought crossed his mind, "If I can just get the Lego without touching her nostril...good thing I have MAD Operation skills!"

Funny Kid Quotes

Ian has great hair. He has a lot of it. It looks kind of like Louis's from Meet the Robinsons. The natural thing to do with his hair would be to spike it, but NO! He hates gel.
We have a deal that I do his hair HIS way during the week and MY way on Sundays. That means gel. Last Sunday, we were running short on time and Ian said: "No time for hair creations!"



We went to St. George not too long ago for a baby blessing. We stayed one night in a cheap motel room we reserved over the internet. We checked in and took a look at our rooms before unloading the van. They were okay, at least for one night. Jacob came to help take some things to our room. He started loading up the snacks, food and drinks.

"What are you doing, Jakie?" I asked.
"I have to get some food."

"Why?"
"We need food when we are staying in the jail."



On our way home from St. George we stopped in Vegas for gas and In-N-Out. Jacob got out of the car and took a look at the casinos on the strip. He yelled out:
"What's this cwazy town!?"



Jacob makes the same sound for his L's, R's and W's. He's also learned about words that rhyme. One day he came running up to me and exclaimed, "MOM, WIZard wimes with WIZard!"






We went to our favorite wholesale store on Saturday night and Kate surprised us by pointing and saying, "Cah-co!"

ER, Here I Come

Did you ever, as a kid, stick something up your nose? How about your kids, have they stuck things up their noses? Ha ha, so funny. How about their ears...do they stick things in their ears? My kids never have. That is, my boys never have.

Kate has a real problem. It started with cereal in the morning. Something about those squishy, mushy cold Cheerios felt just right in her ears. We sternly told her "NO!" every time and took her food away immediately. We cleaned out her ears, while she screamed bloody murder and told her again..."No cereal in your ears!" With time other food ended up in those same cute little ears...a shred of lettuce, a macaroni noodle, bread, chocolate, oranges...you get the picture. It got to the point where we couldn't leave her alone with food for fear she'd stuff it all in her ears instead of her mouth!

Then she discovered her nose had holes, too! Oh joy! Remember those fun little foam shapes from my last post...she got one of those up her nose. The entire thing. It was a half-inch circle all folded up nice and neat all the way up her nostril! I managed to remove it myself, but not without a battle.

Now anything she finds is game. When I catch her in this dirty little habit of hers, and call her on it, she changes the subject. Today I noticed that guilty look on her face. She had taken out her pigtails, stuffed one mini elastic up her nostril and the other in her ear. I checked her other ear, just for fun, and found a crumpled piece of candy wrapper in it! It's getting ridiculous. I know I'm destined for a trip to the emergency room with this little girl! What am I supposed to do?!?

The Day we Made the Valentine Box

Ian had to make a box for Valentine's day at school. It was due Friday. Thursday was the last day to get it done! First, I make sure we have supplies to make a box that is cute, yet not too feminine:

old shoe box...check
wrapping paper...check, we've got some red wrapping paper left over from Christmas
tape...check, three rolls!
decorations...we have tons of foam shapes, including hearts!

I do a little celebration dance inside my head for NOT having to go to the store.
"As soon as daddy gets home we will make your box, Ian," I say to my son. He has been bugging me for a week. He hasn't figured out that I am procrastinator yet. I have to wait until the husband gets home so he can take care of Kate. She's in that "seek and destroy" stage.
Husband calls at about 5:53pm.
"Umh, I have a lot to do at work with my project being due and I didn't get it all done...blah...bu-blah...blah...I'm not coming home until later."
I HATE these calls.
"How much later?" I ask.
"Probably after bed time." (The KIDS' bed time...this means I have to get them ready for bed and put them down by myself.)
I start formulating a plan for the BOX. We have to get it done...TONIGHT. Kate had a late nap because we went to Disneyland so she's in no way ready to go to sleep. In fact, she is in SUPER seek and destroy mode.
"Okay," I think, "If I put a show on for Kate, she'll just sit and watch that (Jacob, too) and Ian and I can get started on the box."
I get out the tape, the box, and run upstairs to get the paper and scissors.
I come back and the tape looks like this:



Thank you Kate! Now go and watch your show. However, she's no longer interested in Elmo.
I tell Jacob to play with Kate and keep her out of our way. I go to get more tape. I come back and the boys have unrolled paper across the room AND smashed it up! It's unusable. I trash it.



My blood pressure goes up. I remind myself it's just a Valentine's box. No need to get upset. Exhale... Luckily it's a long roll of paper. We get started on covering the box. We discover the shoe box has a FLIP lid. I failed to notice this little detail while giddily checking off my list of supplies. We don't have another box. I refuse to go to the store to get another box!!! I try numerous configurations before coming up with something that will work. By this point, I'm not letting Ian anywhere near the paper or the box. I put him in charge of the tape. Jacob wants to help with the tape. Jacob pulls off a gigantic piece of tape and of course, he scrunches it. The bright side: we're not out of tape yet tape and Kate is back into Elmo.
We get the thing wrapped, cut a slit in the top without too much ado. It's a pretty ugly box. Martha would cringe at my wrapping job. We begin to decorate. I'm actually letting Ian do it, too! We are glueing foam shapes on the box and monster baby comes back and wants to help.
"Heeya go, heeya go..." (she says things over and over until she gets what she wants) ...she's handing us shapes at an alarming rate. She's smashing them on the box. I try to put her down, she's kicking and screaming and the entire *huge* edition container of foam shapes falls on the floor. I let her play with them because it is keeping her out of my way. She sticks one in her nose. (Wish I had a picture, but I was BUSY!) The shapes are all over the house in a matter of seconds. How do things get messed up so fast! We found these after cleaning up.


In the end, we did it. It was a stressful hour or so...looking back, I could have planned it better, done it differently, but I'm glad to say it's over. The box is not great but it will do! Mission accomplished.

ABC's on ME

A - Attached or Single: Happily Attached
B - Best Friend: Ben. The man. He's patient, kind, open and fun.
C - Cake or Pie: Cake, especially tortes and layered cakes. I could live in a bakery.
D - Day of Choice: Friday. Because I know the weekend is coming and because Ben has every other one off.
E - Essential Item: I can't live without the computer, good face wash and my toothbrush. That's three...
F - Favorite Color: blue, although I don't really like to wear it as much as I like wearing brown or pink or teal. I used to hate pink in my tomboy days, but now I love it!
G - Gummi Bears or Worms: Love Haribo Gummi Bear. I love anything Haribo.
H - Hometown: Irvine, Salt Lake City, Lichfield (England), Bad Vilbel (Germany)
I - Indulgence(s): Mountain Dew, Wii Lego Star Wars
J - January or July: Who likes January?
K - Kids: 3 very busy, very cute, kind of crazy, smart and good kids.
L - Life is Incomplete Without: Family. Even though they sometimes make me insane (mostly my kids) I cannot imagine life without them.
M - Marriage Date: August 21 - 10 years ago.
N - Number of Siblings: 5. I'm the oldest. And the bossiest.
O - Oranges or Apples: Pink Lady Apples.
P - Phobias or Fears: Vampires. Which is why I am doing this tag. I can't have the guy who tagged me (Matt, who has vampire-like teeth) after me. Yikes!
Q - Quote(s): Some favorites off the top of my head because I'm too lazy to look one up...
What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.
Stand a little taller.
You can't give from an empty well.
Einsamkeit traegt sich leichter zu zweit. (Loneliness is easier to bear together.)
R - Reason to Smile: Kate. She is just so darn adorable.
S - Season - love spring...except there is no real spring here in CA. It's better in Utah, after a long winter!
T - Tag Six: Sally, Cami, Anisa, Amy, Leslie, AND Missy- you're it!
U - Unknown Fact About Me: I am a little obsessive about wasting stuff...I can't stand it. Food: I hate it when kids just throw their food on the floor, or take a huge helping of something they know they don't like and then refuse to eat it or when kids take a whole bunch of trail mix and pick out the M&M's and throw them on the floor. I love to recycle, and makes things out of old re-used materials, but I have to force myself to throw useless things away...scraps of paper or ribbon or fabric, buttons, beads and rubber bands, broken toys and worn out shoes. You'd think I'd grown up during the depression or WWII, but no. I'm just a little OCD in this respect.
V - Vegetarian or Oppressor of Animal: There's a little story about me going to a restaurant at a very young age with my family and my German grandparents. I could barely talk. A waiter was passing by with a large platter of meat. I turned and said, "Meeeeeeat!" rather loudly. (It was in German -"Fleiiiisch!",but that should answer the question.) Okay, I'll spell it out: I'm a carnivore.
W - Worst Habit:biting my nails even though it's crude and disgusting and I've quit so many times and started again. Help!
X - X-Rays or Ultrasounds: Broken bones or babies?
Y - Your Favorite Food: Spicy and foreign.
Z - Zoo: Favorite animal: 9I changed this one from zodiac, because I REALLY could care less about zodiacs.) I totally love goats and dolphins. They are quick, fun and lovable.

So, there you have it. Now you know all about me. Tags are fun, but one about me is sufficient. (I also hate being the center of attention.)