Yolks

We are not huge yolk lovers at our house. I figure you were either born liking them or not and there's no learning to like them. Kristen forgot what the yolks were called and while I was peeling two boiled eggs for her lunch asked, "Did you take the puke out?" I looked at her funny thinking she had just insulted the egg by saying how nasty the yolks taste. I realized from her confused face that she wasn't sure she had said the right thing. "Do you mean the yolk?" I asked. "Oh yes, that's what it is called."

Fairly fortuitous however to call a yolk 'puke', since they are pretty disgusting.

Generation Gap

This morning when Misha was asked what cable cars were, Chris and I laughed and laughed and laughed at her response: "They have cable in them?" A true illustration of the huge generation gap that's as wide as a canyon for our children.

Spring Break

I mentioned awhile back that Chris and I were going to surprise our kids for Spring Break by flying somewhere. The girls have had the opportunity over the past weeks to ask questions about where we would be going and had it narrowed down to California. Since we don't have family in SAN FRANCISCO, we decided that now that they have determined the general location, they can get excited about where we are going and do a little research about some of the fun things to do while there. Chris and Kristen are going to research BART and Alcatraz (mostly because Chris wants to get tickets to see it). Amy is going to learned about "the big red bridge" (hopefully she'll remember the name of it by the time she is done), Fisherman's Wharf, and the big fire. Misha gets to learn about the Exploratorium (a pretty cool museum), cable cars, and earthquakes.

They were pretty excited when they figured out the clue: Where does DJ live (Full House)? Now they can have some fun planning and dreaming.

Odyssey of the Mind Round Two

Amy had her Odyssey of the Mind performance this past Saturday. Her team's theme involved finding creative ways to make things fly. All wore togas and were Greek Gods (Amy was Athena). They rode Zeus Express airlines to the North Pole where they proceeded to have a snowball fight and launched snowballs with a variety of student-made machines. It was another long day for the kids, but the end result was exciting. Her team won gold. They, too, will go to the State competition next month. Congratulations sweetheart.

Bungee Buns

I don't know where she comes up with some of the things she says, but this lovely hairdo is called "bungee buns".

Odyssey of the Mind

Amy and Misha have been participating in a world-wide school program this year called Odyssey of the Mind. It challenges the kids to create a sketch and build a small set picking from four or five scenarios. The kids have a coach who is there for guidance, training and practice, but who can't tell them what direction they should take and can't build stuff for them. Really, the kids have to do everything on their own. Both girls are in different groups and Misha had her competition last Saturday in Littleton. There are a lot of rules and time frames to follow and they are judged meticulously. Later in the day, they have another challenge called "Spontaneous" where they are given a problem to solve on the fly.

It was a long day, but longer for their coach who stayed for the awards ceremony. With so many schools participating, we didn't really think Misha's team would place, but when her coach knocked on the door, she held a 2nd place trophy high in the air and her daughter handed Misha her medal (you remember the medal incident from a couple of days ago, I'm sure). We were surprised. Misha's face lit up, and she was obviously thrilled. She wore her medal to school and loved being a "celebrity" for the day. Woohoo Misha.



Amy has her competition this Saturday (luckily a little closer to home). We hope that she does great as well. They have both put in hours and hours of time in practice and preparation.

Hefty Hefty Hefty

You've probably seen the Glad commercial for trash bags. My girls will always chant along, "Hefty Hefty Hefty. Stinky Stinky Stinky." going from a low octave to a high octave.

Kristen was just chanting and then said to me, "You're hefty; I'm stinky." Gee, thanks. But wait, she just changed her mind, "No, you're stinky, and I'm hefty." Really, child, neither is a compliment.

People Notice

Chris and our girls love to eat steak. I don't care much for it; it all just tastes like liver to me. So we frequently eat at Texas Roadhouse (I eat chicken) even though we always comment on how noisy it always is. During our last visit, the noise level was a little higher around us because there was a birthday party seated directly behind us. Their kids were up and down and changing seats along with the parents it seemed. Crazy. There was also an older couple with their adult son seated directly across from us. We didn't really pay much attention to them, but as they stood to leave, the father leaned down and spoke into my ear, "Your children are so well-behaved." I certainly wasn't expecting such a comment and so smiled and thanked him. I then passed the compliment on to Chris and my girls. We noted that people are always ALWAYS watching us.

I remember when they were younger and there were times when Chris or I would leave a restaurant with a child who was misbehaving. It seemed like such a struggle then to make an impact and frankly not worth the effort. But now, I can see that it was. They aren't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but they do know what displaying "restaurant manners" means. Incidentally, restaurant manners aren't any different than home manners, it just means that the consequence for not having them while at a restaurant results in leaving the restaurant versus being sent to your room.

EBay

You know my husband has had a bad day when he bids up an item on Ebay just for the fun of it.

Parenting Humor

So it wasn't really a situation where I thought I would end up laughing. Kristen grabbed something from Misha and started running with it. Misha quickly took up the chase, all the while yelling wildly, "Give it b-aaaaaaaaaa-ck!!!!!" (Involves inflection as well as a few syllables). I gave my usual stern warning, "Kristen!" She responded to Misha with, "You can have it back if you ask for it nicely." Misha didn't want to ask nicely as they were still chasing each other around the living room. However, she finally took a deep breath, faked a sweet tone and said, "May I please have my medal back?" I didn't hear what Kristen said next, but I quickly discerned what it was when I heard Misha indignantly respond, "I'm not saying it in SPANISH!!!!!!" I laughed and then intervened....and then went to share a laugh with Chris.

Guilt

It is amazing the guilt you have the potential to feel as a parent with the mistakes that are made. Truly, if someone had said to me nine years ago, "You should try something different", it would have made a world of difference in our home. Let's just say that milk was the problem, and I wish I had been savvy enough to recognize the signs. Well, I guess I saw the signs, I just didn't put two and two together and do something about it.

After all these years, we have come to realize that Amy's body doesn't tolerate milk well. As a baby, it did quite a number on her little body, but the thought never occurred to me to try something different. Neither did any of our doctors pick up on it. And so we blundered on. After her appendicitis three years ago, Amy's problems increased ten-fold. We visited a Pediatric Gastroenterologist then, who diagnosed Amy's problem, but didn't do much in helping us solve it. And it still hadn't clicked for anyone that milk was partially to blame.

We are finally getting her problems under control. Our Heavenly Father's hand is manifest in many ways, and I believe that visiting a new doctor because our doctor wasn't available was the answer to prayer. It simply required this doctor saying, "You don't have to live with that." This new doctor ordered tests and made an appointment for us at Children's Hospital for this past week. The Physician Assistant, Darcy Solanyk, echoed the sentiment of "You don't have to live with that", and gave us a clear plan to follow and suggested that maybe there were other medical issues involved that we hadn't even considered. Anyway, I heart Children's Hospital, and answers to prayer, and people who care.

Man Up! Four-Year Old Girl

For those of you who have two-year olds and are experiencing the terrible twos, I have a little more "terrible" news for you. That behavior we all love so much, does not disappear magically when said child turns three. I'm just giving you fair warning....

Kristen, who will be five in April, has started a new phase of whining and crying. Maybe it is just hormones kicking in, who knows? Chris' attempt to deal with her behavior is to tell his four-year old daughter to "man up" 'cause he's tired of hearing it.

Velcro

Kristen loves to sit on her dad's lap during church, and as she snuggles in, her hair inevitably touches Chris' face and is caught. They say that the man who invented Velcro, George de Mestral, came up with the idea because of his dog and burrs. I am thinking that he might have also had a daughter with long hair to give him a little inspiration as well.

Sickies

Over the past month, we have had round one of colds and even round two for some, but through it all, Misha has stayed healthy. Until today. She woke up with a sore throat. The same sore throat Chris had last weekend. The good news is it didn't last too long and he didn't have a stuffy nose. The bad news is that it hurt.

Beware the OJ

Kristen just walked in to the office and said, "Mom, my boobs hurt." I'm not so surprised by the comments coming from my girls anymore, so I ask, "How come?" Her response, "From drinking too much orange juice." I'll admit, I laughed out loud. "I don't like it when people laugh at me."

Bracelet

Put my new craft room to good use this afternoon by making a bracelet for Kristen. My first attempt turned out a tad too small. Practice makes perfect. Kristen told me she doesn't EVER want to take her bracelet off...except...at night when she goes to bed and then she wants to put it back on in the morning when she wakes up.

Ta Da

Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas to me! I think Chris cringes when he asks if I have any gift ideas for myself. Have I? When he asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I suggested that I would love to have a closet system in our bedroom or have my sewing/craft room finished. The closet system will just have to wait for another year...

Kudos to my husband for such an amazing job. It took two Saturdays of his time (though he did have a little fun using his power tools). Thanks Sweetheart.

Denver Museum of Nature and Science

We are planning some fun trips for a family this Spring and Summer and happily learned that if we have a family membership to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, we can use that same membership at other affiliated museums around the country. Our next trip over Spring Break is to a surprise location, but because of our previous "surprise" trip last December, our girls have already narrowed down a few key clues. It also helped for Amy to see us on the Southwest Airlines website! So far, they know that we are: 1) flying somewhere, 2) it is out-of-state (obviously), 3) we will have a rented car while we are there, and 4)it is during Spring Break.

For any of you out there who can fill in the blanks to the name of this museum, you'll know where we are going. E_ _lo_ato_ _um. If you do figure it out, don't tell our girls! They have fun piecing together clues.

So, we went to the Denver Museum on Monday--Presidents' Day--along with thousands of our best friends. It was pretty crowded, but I figure we can go back any time now and not feel as though we have to see everything to get our money's worth that day. We spent most of our time in the body, health and fitness exhibit. I think the favorite part for the girls was doing the science experiments:







And yes, Misha does love her hat!

There was also an exhibit there that aged your face to give you an idea what you would look like up to 70. I chose not to do it, because truly, it was not kind to any face. The line was long so only Amy and Chris participated:

It's a Tumor!

I was just experimenting with my bread machine the other day, mostly out of necessity, I suppose, since it has started to smoke when I use it to actually cook the dough. I can mix dough for rolls, bread or pizza no problem, just not cook it. That's fine, though, since I prefer the bread out of the oven instead. So I wanted to try mixing bread dough on the "pizza" selection which takes 45 minutes instead of the "bread dough" selection which takes over two hours. It worked fine for mixing and rising for 45 minutes, I just should have made two loaves. I thought it looked as though it had a tumor; the girls said it looked like a mushroom. Regardless, it tasted yummy.

Valentine's Day

A couple of years ago, Chris and I decided to take turns planning Valentine's Day. Last year we were fortunate to have his mom visiting for the weekend and were able to get away to a Bed and Breakfast. I knew that we weren't lucky enough to have Grandma visit this holiday, so our plans were a little more localized.

We talk about going to a dinner theater regularly, so I decided to make reservations at the Candlelight Dinner Theater in Johnstown. It is fairly new and our only other experience has been at the Boulder Dinner Theater. The theater itself is lovely and most seats offer a fairly descent view. The meal was okay, not stellar, and similar to Boulder Dinner Theater, you are not offered a lot of choices. The play was enjoyable.

I think we had more fun at the Stake Adult Valentine's Dance. This is the second year that we have attended. The planners do an amazing job in decorating and preparing. Chris is not a huge fan of dancing, but we have so much fun with friends and fun music. Plus he knows that I enjoy dancing...he sacrifices for me.

Sweet tooth

Yesterday as I was combing Kristen's hair she asked, "Which tooth is my sweet tooth?" I tried to explain (after laughing a little bit) that she didn't really have a "sweet" tooth per se, all of her teeth loved sweets just the same.

Really?

Kristen was playing with her friend Grace today. They had to clean up so that they could have a snack. I asked, "Is your bedroom clean?"
Kristen: "Yes."
Me again, "Really?"
Kristen: "Yes."
Me, "If I go check....?"
Kristen: "No."

Can you spell....?

The other day Kristen asked me how to spell Misses Hippy.

Defining Moment in My Life

When I was 20, I was living at home, working, and trying to decide what to do with the rest of my life. One morning in December while I was at work, my boss found me and said that my father had been taken by ambulance to the hospital and that I needed to come with her right now. We normally carpooled to work together, so she drove me to the hospital. My father, who was 50 at the time, had had a heart attack. If you saw my dad in a crowd, you'd never pick him out as one who would have a heart attack. He's trim, fit and has worked hard all of his life. It was a defining moment in my life. From that time on, being healthy and fit was a constant goal. More than that, it became a lifestyle. Some are amazed that I get up at 5:20 most days to exercise, but what they don't realize is that I do it to save my life. I encourage those I love to exercise and be healthy. I challenge you to get healthy. Start by adding one more component of a healthy lifestyle in to your life.

PS I commend all those in the area who participate in 'Biggest Loser' competitions and run marathons. It is great to see so many people trying to be healthy.

Proud of Misha

I was going through/unloading Misha's backpack Monday morning in search of papers that might be important for me to have. I came across a birthday invitation. Monday was February 1st and the birthday had been held over the weekend. I held the invitation up for Misha to see and asked, "Did you forget to show me this?" Her reply, "No, it was for Sunday so I already told him at school that I couldn't go." Way to go Misha. I'm proud of you.