Spanish Lessons

Occasionally we mention all the other words we know in different languages.  Now, don't get me wrong, we don't know a bazillion languages, but we can count to 10 in at least a few :)

Both hubby and I took Spanish in high school, and I took a semester in college as well.  So we tend to go back to that whenever we start batting around words like uno, and tengo hambre.  Kari, being the ever inquisitive girl that she is asks more and more questions.  In an effort to give her something to do, I mentioned I had an old Spanish textbook from my college days downstairs.

What I thought would be a solution turned out to be an issue in itself.  She continued to ask questions that I, in the midst of making dinner, didn't have the time to answer.  And then I thought "Wait a minute!  I have access to my very own personal tutor!"  Grandpa!  Who served a Spanish speaking mission and who currently works in Chile, speaking Spanish daily.

So, we busted out the technology....

And had our first lesson.  Since then, she has had 3 more!

I have no idea how much longer it will last, how fluent she will be, or how much she will retain as she gets older.  But for now, I enjoy seeing her bond with her grandpa who is thousands of miles away.  Yay for technology!!!

Pick your Battles

Recently, Kelsey has told me that she doesn't like her bed anymore.  That she doesn't want to sleep on it.  So, in a fit of frustration I said "Well, do you want to sleep on the floor?"  To which she surprisingly said yes!

And she has been sleeping on the floor ever since.  And while I will never understand why a person would want to sleep on the floor instead of a nice, soft bed....

There are times when you just have to pick your battles.  And, so long as she is still taking her naps and sleeping at night....  Eh.  This ain't one of 'em.

Our Little Friends

A couple of times a week we have some friends over to play with Kelsey.  And one of them happens to be pretty small, and Kelsey still enjoys playing in her carseat.

This is the little man.  He and Kelsey are approximately 5 months apart (I think) and sometimes it is like raising twins.  Some days, they get along swimmingly.  And some days, they fight over everything.

They are usually still here when the bigger kids get home from school, and they seem to love getting back to the little toys and playing with the little kids.

Some of them enjoy mothering the littlest visitor, but that is understandable, I suppose.  

Check out those dimples!

And our youngest visitor is pretty laid back and easy to deal with too.

Which I suppose is a good thing based on how many people she has bossing her around :)

A Girl and her Dog

Mollie is our dog.  And she is starting to get old.  She can't jump on the couch by herself anymore.  She had grey hair.  And she has extra skin.  She can't see very well.  And occasionally she can be grumpy.  But the toddler bed is low enough that she can still reach it.  And sometimes, she takes a nap with Kelsey.

I found some paperwork just recently, and discovered that their birthdays are 1 week apart.  And 69 doggy years.  Which means that unfortunately, Mollie is going to hold on just long enough for everyone to really miss her when she is gone.  

But, as of last week when I cut her hair, she is still lively enough to hate that, so....  We probably still have a while.  ;)

Also, yesterday was my 13th wedding anniversary!  I've done the math.  And in a short 8 years we will have officially been together more than half our lives.  But, in 8 years, I will also have a child graduating from high school, so....  lets not go down that rabbit hole, shall we?

Awards Day

After the kids went back to school from spring break, it was time for the monthly awards lunch.  They try to recognize the kids to give them a little boost and help them work harder.  This go around, we had two kids getting awards.  Dylan was finally getting the citizen of the month award.  To do this, he doesn't have to get perfect grades, but he does have to be well behaved all month.  For each of Kari's 5 school years, she has been the first citizen of the month chosen.  Kaitlyn is usually around the 2nd or 3rd month.  I was beginning to sweat a bit for little man.  After this, he would have only had one more opportunity, and then he would have been out of luck.

And it worked out nicely that Nana and Pop were in town too!  It was the tail end of Nana's spring break (she had gone down to Pa's house).  They came back up and spent some time with us, and it was super nice.

Daddy happened to be in town too, and we were all super happy for the little guy.  He worked really hard that month!  Kelsey was happy for him too.  At least, I think she was....

Kari had already been citizen of the month, but she was getting an award for having the most Accelerated Reader points for the third nine weeks.  We just had our last awards ceremony, and she won it for the 4th nine weeks as well.  Actually, she won the most AR points in her class for all 9 weeks!!!

Kaitlyn did not get an award during this lunch.  She had already won Citizen of the month, and she was a close second to the most AR points. 

 We still ate lunch with Kaitlyn.

And a good time was had by all.  It is always pretty fun to have everyone together.

Kari's Field Trip

I had the opportunity to go on a field trip with Kari a while back.  I had signed up as a chaperon and arranged for Kelsey to spend some time with a friend.  Problem was, at about 4 o'clock that morning, Kelsey started throwing up.  That seemed like it would be the end of my field tripping days.  Thankfully, hubby was in town that week, and was able to arrange to work from home and keep the sick child so Kari and I could learn it up!  Now, I am not saying I wasn't a bit tired after cleaning up throw up several times that morning, and being up 3 hours earlier than I usually am.  But....  It was an eye opening experience to say the least.  Kari's 4th grade class went to Oxford Meadows Environmental Learning Center.  They started out by learning about the water cycle.

And then the class was given a rain barrel to collect water.  

Kari made sure to sign it for me.

Inside they also had some animals for the kids to visit.  I'm not fond of snakes, but Kari was.

They also spent some time learning about butterflies and Kari was able to get this great capture through the microscope.

We had an hour for lunch sitting on the picnic benches outside.  The weather was pretty nice, and Kari was not embarrassed to sit next to me!  Score!  However, an hour with 4th graders with no structure may have been a bit too long.  I had various girls come sit with us and talk to us.  And one of them even gave me a compliment....  I think.  She asked if  I was the one that does Kari's hair.  I said yes.  She said "You are actually kinda good at it."  Well, um...  Thanks?  I think?  Also, I was appalled to find that more than half the class has cell phones.  They were allowed to take them on the field trip because they were their camera.  And some of the girls were taking pictures down their shirts thinking it was funny.  They have no idea how much trouble they could get in later!

After lunch we went on a nature hike outside.  And Kari was able to get this great capture.  It is hard to see it out there in the middle, but....

There is actually an alligator out there!

They also have a beehive to observe.  They have marked the queen bee with a blue dot (in the lower center of the picture), which Kari thought was pretty cool.  I meant to ask what the dot was made of, but never got the chance.

So we had lots of fun.  And learned lots.  About science stuff, and about ourselves and our interactions.  For instance, Kari really is a decent kid.  And even though or situation isn't always ideal, it could be worse. Also, most pictures in the post were taken by Kari, or at least cropped by her.  And Kari has asked to start her own blog, and her field trip makes 3 appearances!  It is a private blog, so if you want an invitation, just ask me.  

Kaitlyn and the Magazines

Kaitlyn has always been dramatic.  Even from the beginning, when she was a toddler, she would scream for food instead of asking nicely.  So it shouldn't have surprised me when she came downstairs crying.  Now, I am most certainly not the perfect parent.  There are most assuredly times when I don't have patience or presence of mind enough to calmly sit through an explanation or try to walk the children through the proper procedure for dealing with feelings or stolen toys.  But, on that particular night, I pride myself that I had had enough rest, or enough alone time, or enough chocolate to be able to survive that particular conversation.

It seems that Dylan had taken some magazines out of the trash.  Magazines that Kaitlyn had thrown away.  And this bothered her.  Never mind that she had somehow been mailed 2 copies of the exact same magazine.  And never mind that she had already done all the activities in both magazines.  And never mind that she had thrown them away because she was done with them.  This was life altering, problematic for her.  But, to be honest, I couldn't tell if she was more upset that I wasn't mad that Dylan had gone through the trash or that Dylan had something that used to be hers, but wasn't anymore.  And, when I called her on the tattle telling, she just wiped her eyes with her damp tissue and said "You just don't understand!"

It took me back suddenly to my teenage years, when I felt like my world was ending, or the sky was falling.  And my parents did their best to calmly talk me down.  Thank heavens for small blessings :)

Tales of Dylan's Chin

Now that Dylan is old enough, I often let him shower alone.  Sure, there is plenty of "Have you washed your hair yet?" or "With soap?"  But when I tell him to go to get in the shower, he will usually comply.  Sometimes, on the first time even!  This particular night was shower night, and he had been in the shower, playing around.  I told him it was time to get out when I heard a loud thump and a high squeal.  I went upstairs to find him crying and his chin bleeding.  Apparently, he had slipped and fallen and landed on his face.  I helped him dry off, and get out of the shower, put some neosporin and a bandaid on, and then called hubby.

  It wasn't a particularly large or deep cut, but it is on his face, and I knew it would scar.  I looked online into using super glue at home, but even the internet didn't "recommend" it.  So that was out.  So, we my good friend Santa came to sit with the rest of the kids (since it was bed time) and Dylan and I headed to the local afterhours for some medical grade super glue.  For the record, Walgreens or CVS doesn't sell it, but Amazon does.  

He did pretty well.  And enjoyed playing pirates with the bed.

He was nice to all the nurses, and he didn't even say it stung.  

So far, no stitches for anyone, but he is my first superglue.  Kari's skin grafts and staples hardly count ;)

Kelsey's Videos

It's Monday.  And I need a dose of cute.  Who doesn't?

One day while we were driving around and doing errands,  I noticed Kelsey was dancing in her car seat.  The was originally dancing to "All the Single Ladies" by Beyonce.  But, as I was driving, I couldn't exactly capture that.  So, this was on the radio, and seemed to move Kelsey enough :)

And this is from when daddy got a new phone.  In the process of picking out a new ringtone, this particular one spoke to Kelsey.  It makes me think she would be a good belly dancer!

This particular day we were running errands.  And Kelsey was talking up a storm!  Again, once I finally pulled over, I had to prompt her a little bit, but I love her cute little voice!

Last but not least, a month or so ago, Kelsey got a stomach bug.  She was up chucking and not feeling well (hence the ginger ale), and wanted to cuddle.  So, hubby shared his ear phones with Kelsey and they spent an hour or so sharing.  It was pretty sweet.

Happy Monday!

Also, a big birthday shout out to my sister Piko!  Happy Birthday!  I hope it is pretty great!

Kari's New Specs

Back when we went to Utah for a visit, we spent some time at the Hot Pots.  Remember?  Remember how we thought we were being smart, and we gave Kari's glasses to daddy for safe keeping?  Turns out, that didn't work so well in our favor.  Somehow or another, Daddy ended up breaking Kari's glasses (how is still a little bit unclear).  He managed to fix them well enough to get through the rest of the trip, but it was clear we needed to repair them when we got home.  So first, a refresher:  This is her first and second pair of glasses.  Not much difference between the two.

But she sure has a fabulous smile!

Our insurance has recently changed their policy and where they used to pay for an exam AND glasses/lenses every year, now they only pay for every other year.  So, we knew we would have to pay for the frames out of pocket.  But I figured it was worth the $$ to pay for the exam, just to be sure.  I would hate to pay for new frames (and reuse the lenses) if she couldn't see anyway.  Turns out I was right.  (I love saying that! ;) )  Kari needed new lenses as well.  She went from a -2.5 all the way up to a -3.5!  Poor child is now close to what her dad was before he got his eyes fixed (-4 something), but still not particularly close to her mom (who was a -7) or her grandpa (who was a -10!!!!!).  I called hubby and asked if he could take a lunch break and come help pick out some glasses with us.  We were forever complaining that she could/would not keep her glasses up on her nose where they belonged.  We though maybe going with some nose pieces would help.  So...  Here she is!  In all her glory!

When she put on her new glasses she said "Wow!  It's so sharp!"  Poor girl didn't know how blind she was!

 I think the metal is somewhere between copper and rose gold.  And Kari likes that they match her face and hair :)

So, poor child has mom and dad's bad eyesight, and it looks like we will be on the road to braces (which come from daddy's side of the family). Good thing her personality will get her through.  And, good news:  I don't think her awkward phase will be be nearly as ugly as mine!