All I want for Christmas is.....

He lost one tooth on Christmas Eve and the other on Christmas Day!

Merry Christmas from Sammy

We opened gifts this morning. My favorite was a book from Sam that he made in Kindergarten. Here are some of the pages:

He's right. "We're gonna be late!" is practically our family motto.
That and "Where are my shoes?!"

That is a picture of Sam with a red face from laughing so hard.

This picture is of Sam's cousin, Brooke and her boyfriend, Brendan

Way to dream big, kid.
When Elena read this, she said if she were president for a day, she would make Kinder Eggs legal. It's all about priorities.

Just for the record, I only burned the chicken ONE time and it was about 2 years ago. Apparently it made a big impression.

Ready to be done

Well, our home has had a visit from one very annoying virus. Or several viruses. Or a very persistent virus that keeps circulating...I'm not really sure. All I know is that we haven't gone a day without someone being sick for the last week, and every time we think we've past it, it seems to start again.


Here's what our past week looked like:
Sunday: Elena has a sore throat.
Monday: Elena stays home with a fever, which at one point hits 104.5 (we got it down pretty quickly, though)
Tuesday: Elena is feeling better, but we keep her home an extra day since her fever didn't break until late Monday night. Sam starts to get a sore throat.
That night Sam comes into our room at 11:00 and pukes... and continues to do so regularly until 5:00 a.m.
Wednesday: Sam stays home (obviously) with a fever and feeling much like Elena did on Monday. Charlie and Seth are also home with a fever and feeling crappy. Sam felt better by that evening, but unfortunately had to miss his first Christmas Concert. Elena feels great - does great at her concert.
Thursday: I stay home with Charlie who still has a bit of a fever in the morning, but improves dramatically by lunchtime. Around 1:00 Elena comes home from school with a bad cough and a fever of 101. Seth still doesn't feel great, but does his best to work through it.
Friday: Charlie starts puking around 3:00 am and continues to do so regularly until 9:00 am, but fever is gone and seems to be on the mend as the day progresses. Seth is also feeling much better and works all day while I stay home with the kids. Elena is still home (just in case), but feels much better....until about 7:00 that night, when her fever comes back once again.
Saturday: Seth wakes up with a stomach bug lasting from morning to night, accompanied by a headache and fatigue. The kids are all feeling better....until about 6:00 when Charlie starts a fever AGAIN. Ugh.
Sunday: Well that will be tomorrow - I'm not sure I want to know what it will bring.


The one thing we have most to be thankful for is that I managed not to get too sick with anything (and we're keeping our fingers crossed that it's not my turn next). I can't even imagine what state our house would be in if I had gotten sick on top of it all. I could barely keep up with washing any infected blankets, sheets, towels, pillows, and clothes along with sanitizing doorknobs, lightswitches, etc, and cleaning up any dishes used as quickly as I could in an effort to keep the germs from spreading - as well as tending to the invalids.


Taking 2 days off from work didn't help, considering it takes approximately 3 times more work to plan for a sub than it does to actually go in and teach.  And those 800 Christmas letters I need to address hasn't helped much either (I'm not exaggerating - Seth has a lot of clients). Luckily, Elena and Sam are finally getting old enough to help stuff and stamp envelopes so it's been kind of fun for us to do it together:)


We're also thankful this all hit before Christmas! We're very hopeful that we will all be healthy and able to fully enjoy our coming Christmas break.


So for those in the area, you may want to avoid our house until we've been better for a few days. And if you do stop by in the next month or so, don't be alarmed if it looks like a family of racoons invaded the house and ran around unnoticed for several days wreaking havoc in every nook and cranny possible. It might be awhile before we catch up on cleaning and get back to our normal and slightly less extreme state of chaos.

Update: Once we were done being sick and came out of our quarantine, we heard about the widespread influenza epidemic in our area. It appears that's what we had, which would explain why I was the only one who didn't get very sick: I was the only one who got the vaccine.  Although, I was sicker after getting the flu mist than Seth was from the actual flu (I passed out while teaching the morning after getting the mist and couldn't get off the couch for 3 days). Sometimes you just can't win.

6 years ago...

We welcomed this little guy into our lives. Sammy was born on the first Sunday of Advent, and today he celebrated his 6th birthday on the first day of Advent once again. 

  I've always sort of mentally grouped children as Little Kids (age 2-5), Big Kids (6-9), Pre-Teens (10-12) and Teens. And I remember being mind-blown at the thought of having a "Big Kid" when Elena hit 6 years old. Now I have 2 in that category, but I guess I've gotten used to the idea since Elena and Sam are so close in age. Now I guess the next big shock will come in 2 1/2 years when Elena hits 10. Whoa!!! This just dawned on my as I typed that last sentence. 2 1/2 years???? Hold on for a second while I hyperventilate and then calm myself down....

Ok. I'm better now that I've blocked out any unwelcome thoughts. Anway, to celebrate today Sam had his classmates over for the afternoon. They made Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Xmas ornaments - man! that takes a long time to type. Couldn't they have come up with shorter name for that show? Elena put her Donatello ornament on their little tree upstairs and I was too lazy to go get it for the picture, but you get the idea.

Sam got a soccer ball and net from his cousin, Alex, as one of his gifts. Of course, they all wanted to go out and use it right away despite the fact that it was so cold they probably had trouble seeing one another through their gigantic breath clouds. They lasted an impressive half hour outside before coming in for hot cocoa.

 Too bad it couldn't have been like last year when it was warm enough to play football for 2 hours with no jackets. Apparently Sam considered it cold enough for a ski mask, though....

Happy Birthday, Sammy! Thanks for bringing so much joy into our lives. We love you very much.

Fake Injury Day

A couple of weeks ago they had Fake Injury Day at St. Ed's. Right after school, they had a class to go so Elena washed off as much of her make-up as she could. Sam lost the pencil, but wanted to keep the black eye and we didn't really have the time to wash it off anyway so off we went. 

About an hour into the class, one of the other moms approached me (not in a "Is-this-something-I'm-going-to-have-to-report-to-social-services?" way, but just plain old curious and a bit amused) and said, "I have to ask about what happened to Elena and Sam. I can just about imagine the fight they must have gotten into." It took me a second before I remembered that Sam still had his "black eye" and apparently we hadn't washed Elena's off well enough for the very well-lit classroom. 

When I told her it was just make-up, she burst out laughing and then told me I had better tell all the other moms because they were curious, too. We also had to explain to a few of the nuns whose convent is in the same building as the kids' class. 

Speaking of the nuns, one of the Sisters informed me last year how much Sam makes them laugh. Well he certainly has done his fair share of that the last two weeks. A week after explaining to them about his fake injuries, we were at the church again. I was talking with Father about something and didn't notice Sam hiding next to the door. Just as one of the nuns came through the door, he jumped out and scared her - I'm guessing that's not something they experience too often in the convent :) Luckily, it was one of the sisters who already knew Sam and she thought it was hilarious. Had it been one we hadn't met yet, she might have been a little thrown off.

Fart Elsa

The neighbor girl was over the other day and asked if I would play "Fart Elsa."

Me: Ummm...what?

Her:  Can you play Fart Elsa? You know....on the piano.

Me: I don't think that's a song.

Her: It's the song you always play.

Me: "Oh. You mean Fur Elise?"

Her: "Yeah. That."

Beatboxing Baby

We went to an a capella concert a few weeks ago with the kids. Of course, their favorite part was the Beatboxer. Ever since then, we will occasionally hear Elena or Sam trying out their beatboxing skills.

While we were eating supper a few days ago, Charlie suddenly stood up and started making all these sounds with his mouth. I didn't really think much of it since he is perpetually making noise, but Sam said, "Look! Charlie's beatboxing!!" And he was right; once he pointed that out, it was pretty obvious what Charlie was trying to do.

We all enjoyed watching him for awhile before I ran to grab the camera. As usual, he quit when he saw the camera and started to smile and say "Cheese!" but we got him to do a little bit more for you.

Here we go again:

Time for the My-one-and-a-half-year-old-is-perpetually-making-more-work-than-I-can-keep-up-with post. I believe I had one for both Elena and Sam.


Now Charlie has hit that stage where he requires constant supervision, and trying to get one simple task done while he is awake is next to impossible.


He actually hit that stage several months ago, but he seems to be taking it up a notch to new and much more dangerous levels. It doesn't help that our main floor is divided into small individualized areas so the second he walks from one room to the next in our house, he is out of eyesight. Keeping a constant eye on him would mean never being able to do any project that would require me to be in the same room for more than 35 seconds - that rules out quite a bit, believe it or not.


I think if Seth and I both did absolutely nothing other than follow him around all day, we might be able to keep up with him. One would have to take charge of cleaning up his messes while the other would prevent him from maiming himself.


I made the mistake of trying to read a chapter out of a book I'm supposed to read for work before he went to bed because I knew I would be too tired by the time he went to sleep (did I mention he needs much less sleep than your average 1 1/2 year old?) He was playing quietly on the floor looking at books, until Elena came down to get a drink. He followed her into the kitchen and pretty soon, I heard a crash and then Elena yelling for help and Charlie crying.


One of the kids must have left the bathroom door open after brushing their teeth so Charlie wandered in there. Normally he just puts toilet paper into the toilet and then takes it out and drags it all over the place. Tonight he must have tried to get at something in the drawer of the cabinet and he pulled the whole thing over on himself, wedging his arm between the toilet seat and the fallen cabinet. The only good thing about his arm being stuck was that he wasn't able to walk across all the shattered glass from the vase he had knocked onto the floor. I was also glad to see that no bones were broken. He was smiling again within about 30 seconds and onto his next adventure. We do our best, but child-proofing can only go so far when you have a kid who has figured out  how to open doors and move chairs around the house to reach all the things we try to keep "out of reach."

He's lucky he's so incredibly cute. It makes things like trying to get kefir out of the air ducts and cleaning an entire bowl of tomato soup (followed by a glass of orange juice) out of the carpet more bearable. Along with taping pages back together in a good number of our books. And washing about 25 CDs that he managed to get a hold of and wedged under our dining room carpet, which is much dustier underneath than I'd realized; a few had been scratched beyond repair after being stepped on. I'd include spending an hour scrubbing nail polish out of the carpet, but I can't take credit for that - that was my mom to the rescue (and she successfully got rid of almost an entire bottle of neon yellow polish, I might add).

Here are some samples of his recent handiwork in the bathroom:

My best time to get stuff done is during Charlie's "performance" time. This happens about once a day. He grabs two spatulas and bangs on his kitchen set (or some pots and pans) while singing at the top of his lungs for anywhere from 5-20 minutes. His favorites are the ABCs and "Let It Go." The noise doesn't even phase me anymore - I'm just happy that he's in one place and happy. 





Sam's preschool recital

Sam had his preschool graduation recital back in May. They sang a bunch of the songs they had been learning during the year. Of course, they wanted to finish with Let it Go since all the kids know it.

Unfortunately I didn't have our camera with us and we had to use Seth's phone to video tape it. The microphone doesn't really pick up sound unless it's up close so I had to dub it over with the actual song. I think the kids were singing a little ahead (or behind of) time at parts so it's a little off. It's not ideal, but you'll get the picture. Sam really got into it.

Germany Trip Installment 4: Family Fun

The zoos and lakes were among the highlights of our trip for the kids. We were able to go to two of each. Here are a few pictures.

With Charlotte on a boat ride through the "rainforest."

The rainforest dome in Leipzig

At the zoo in Berlin with Natalie and Steffen

When we were watching the baboons, they suddenly all started running around and around the hill in their area and heading towards the top. I don't know if it was getting close to feeding time or what, but Sam was watching and said, "Look! The baboons are all climbing up to the top of the mountain like in The Lion King. I think they're going to baptize one of their babies!"

Steffen and Sam playing in the water

Sam and Christian playing football

Seth getting ready to go skiing

Bianca and Elena

This is how the little kids swim in Germany. When in Rome...

Germany Trip Installment 3: The 3D Museum

We're a little heavy on the testosterone around here

We are fortunate to live in a neighborhood that is full of kids. Unfortunately for Elena, almost all of them are boys. Yesterday I looked out the window and counted 11 boys in our yard, but we couldn't find even one girl for Elena to play with.


She does her best to join in, but there's only so much kickball, baseball, tennis, badminton and football a girl who pretty much hates playing sports can take.


On the plus side, she got frustrated to the point where she was content to escape for about 2 hours and clean her room without being severely threatened within an inch of her life forced to do so, which only happens about twice a year. So I, personally, am looking forward to seeing her room clean for the next 12 hours or so, which is how long it usually lasts.

Germany Trip Installment 2: The Food

Oh the Food! How we loved the food.

Lunch our first day at a little butcher shop in Grimma.

Breakfast!

Sam's favorite: schnitzel

Dumplings! (Too bad she ended up not liking them)

Berliner Kindle Weiss (I'm not really sure what it was, but it was good) 

Ice cream and coffee on a patio overlooking the beautiful city of Meissen 

Charlie's favorite: Nutella

Fresh blackberries!

Our last dinner in Germany and a wonderful evening spent with Natalie's family and Charlotte.