All About Elena...and Sammy!

Ice skating

2012-03-05T12:20:00.003-06:00

We almost went into the ditch today. I hit an slushy patch in the road and swerved back and forth between the 2 lanes for awhile before regaining control of the car. Fortunately it was a county road with no other cars in sight.

Elena's response? "That was fun, Mom! We were ice skating with the car."

The Power of Advertising II

2012-02-24T22:08:00.000-06:00

I was browsing through my old blog posts and came across this one when Elena wanted to get a dog so we could buy a fancy dog brush. I forgot to mention that she topped that about a week later when we drove by the Ford dealership. There must have been a sale going on so they had balloons tied to the cars.

You've probably already guessed it. From the back seat, I heard Elena's voice say, "Mom! If we buy a car, we can get a balloon!!!"

We watched E.T. tonight

2012-02-22T21:38:00.000-06:00

I figured if I skipped the "scary" parts with the scientists chasing and capturing E.T., the kids would really enjoy it. And they did; they especially liked the scene where he gets drunk and falls over.

The only problem was the ending. I knew it had a bittersweet ending, but I figured I could emphasize that E.T. got to go hom with his family and all would be well. Elena did pretty well: as she put it, she "almost cried" but was fine by the time the credits were rolling. Sam, on the other hand took the 'bitter' part of that ending a little hard.

When E.T. says "Come" to Elliot, and Elliot replies, "Stay," Sam's little lip started to quiver. After the movie ended, Sam was so heartbroken for poor E.T. that he sobbed for 5 minutes. Every time I tried to console him, he would cry, "But why did E.T. say 'come' and why did the boy say he couldn't go??"

In the end, though, it was nothing a couple of Curious George stories couldn't fix. In the future, however, I will be making sure to pick movies with very happy endings :)

(And I apologize, 12-year-old Sam, if this story embarrasses you 9 years from now, but I think it's sweet)

Happy Birthday to me

2012-02-19T14:17:00.003-06:00

I turned 29 last month. I am now too old to audition for American Idol. Fortunately I've never had any desire to do so...

I was gone most of the day on my birthday and I came home to a mini-surprise party with Seth and the kids. The surprise mainly being that they baked a cake for me while I was gone. It was Seth's first time ever baking a cake. He even made the frosting from scratch since he knows I don't like the stuff from a can.

I don't think he realized that a bundt cake is one of the more difficult to make since they fall apart easily, but they managed to correct any damage and the cake turned out very well. I was quite impressed:

One of those moments...

2012-02-12T10:49:00.002-06:00

You know those moments when you have little kids who are a bit too honest? I had one of those with Sam the other day.

We were at the doctor's office, and she noticed something on the floor under her desk. After she bent down to pick it up, Sam said to her very innocently, "Your butt-crack was showing." Lovely.

Fortunately, she just laughed and said, "I guess that's what I get for not wearing a belt today."

Let's Go, Boys!

2012-02-03T21:37:00.003-06:00

This video is several months old, but I haven't had the time to upload anything more recent from my camera. Here's a glimpse of one of those activities that Seth came up with to play with the kids - one that I never would have come up with myself (and wouldn't have the strength to do for long). Gotta love those Dads!

2012-01-25T09:53:00.002-06:00

Some friends of ours were kind enough to pass their keyboard onto us. Sam has figured out how to work all the special features and sound effects better than I have.

I managed to video tape him dancing to the new keyboard without him noticing.

Sibling Education

2012-01-17T19:25:00.002-06:00

Me: This is called a triceratops.

Sam: Sara-tops?

Me: A triceratops.

Sam: A sara-tops.

Elena: No, Sam. A TRIceratops. It's a kind of dinasaur that tries stuff.

Christmas 2011 Highlights

2012-01-03T17:06:00.001-06:00

Happy 10th day of Christmas!!

I didn't get too many pictures this Christmas. I'll share the best of what we got. We had a wonderful Christmas - 3 days in a row of family parties with time every morning to spend at home with the kiddos.

The best line of Christmas was by Sam when he opened his first present from Santa: "It's a box!!!!"

Matching aprons made by Grandma Langer

The Myhre cousins

Cuddling with Grandma Corky

A Tractor!

Making Christmas cookies with the cousins

Just Like You

2011-12-31T14:27:00.004-06:00

At lunch, Elena was telling us how many kids she wanted to have. She's not quite decided on the number - first it was 2 girls; then, realizing she had left out a boy, she wanted 2 girls and 1 boy... only to change her mind to 3 girls and 3 boys. Fortunately, she has a lot of time to figure that one out.

One thing she was definitely decided on though is that she wants kids. Here's how the rest of the conversation went.

Elena: "I want to be a mommy. A mommy like you."

Me: "That's so sweet. Thank you, honey."

Elena: "I want to be a mommy like you. Not the kind that's all wrapped around."

Me: "Huh?"

Elena: (Illustrating being wrapped up with her hands) "You know the mommies that have wrapping all around then."

Me: "I think you mean mummies."

I wasn't quite so flattered when I realized that "a mommy like you" really meant "not like a 3,000-year-old dead guy."

A Lesson Learned

2011-12-22T23:34:00.004-06:00

Well, Sammy now knows not to play with electrical outlets.

Let me start this story by saying: no one got hurt. Thankfully.

This morning, I was helping Elena get ready in her bedroom when I heard a pop and saw a flash out of the corner of my eye. Then I heard Sam burst into tears and I ran out into the hallway to see what happened.

Sam was sitting by the outlet in the hall that we keep a night light in. I looked at the night light and noticed that the back of the night light and the outlet were charred black. I immediately asked Sam if he was hurt. He said he wasn't hurt, but he had scared himself pretty good and took awhile to calm down. I couldn't figure out why it had blown - Sammy said he just turned on the night light. When I pulled it out of the outlet, two coins fell to the floor.

Apparently, Sam had been playing "grocery store," which entailed sticking a few coins behind the night light and turning it on. So I talked with Sam again about the dangers of playing with - or even touching - electrical outlets (which I think he had figured out pretty well by then).

To which he replied: "Mom, can you put all of the outlets up high on the wall so I can't reach them anymore?" Sorry, Sammy. You're just going to have to learn to leave some things alone - as fun as they may look.

No wonder nature gives us slightly more boys than girls.

The scene of the crime

2011-12-09T07:45:00.000-06:00

Last night, I took the kids to a Phil Baker concert at the school. Phil Baker is a children's singer from the area (kind of like Raffi). The kids had a great time dancing the night away.

Before the concert, Elena was asking about who was going to be putting on the concert. We have been to see him before, so I said, "You've seen him before. Remember the guy who sings? He's tall with black, curly hair."

To which Elena replied, "We're going to see Ray Charles???!!!"

Look who's 3!

2011-12-04T10:53:00.005-06:00

Sam turned 3 on Nov 30th. A few times he complained that he didn't want to be three. "I still want to be 2! I don't want to be a big boy." I don't even want to know what he's going to be like when he hits 40 if he's having trouble coping with 3.

His favorite gift was his toy coffee maker. Sam loves to help me make coffee and tries to do it himself much more often than I would like. I'm shocked our coffee pot hasn't been broken yet. I hope this one will help keep him away from ours a little more!

Sammy continues to be as cute as ever and he makes us laugh on a daily basis. He also keeps us on our toes - if we take our eyes off of him for a second, he is guaranteed to get into some mischief. A friend of ours calls him Calvin because Sam reminds him so much of Calvin and Hobbes. Before he had even mentioned it, that similarity had struck me on several occasions.

For example, we took the kids out to eat at a restaurant last night and told them that if they were good they could get a treat at the end. The restaurant had some of those little vending machines that you stick a quarter in for a handful of candy. They did well and got their treat, but as we were heading out, Seth and I stopped to talk with some friends. When we turned around, Sam was putting another quarter in the machine and getting a new handful. We asked Sam where he got the quarter, and he said he found it. Figuring he had found it on the floor, we started to leave. Then he pulled another quarter out of his pocket and started heading for the machines. We asked again where he got the quarters, and Elena pointed to a table nearby with some tip money lying on it. After we returned the money, we had a nice little discussion about stealing on the ride home.

We also went to story hour with Santa at the library yesterday, and while Santa provided entertainment for the kids, Sam provided entertainment for the adults.

At one point, Sam got up and gave the girl sitting next to him a kiss on the top of her head. Then he proceeded to go around the room and kiss every little girl there on the head. Once he had handed out kisses to all the girls, he looked around the room and started walking over to a little boy (about the same age as Sam). I don't know if he was planning to give him a kiss or not, but this little guy was not about to take any chances. As soon as Sam got near him, he immediately stiff-armed Sam. I wish I could have caught that on camera - we all got a pretty good laugh watching them.

Later, the librarian was reading about Santa, and she came to a picture with Santa holding his list of Good Boys and Girls. She asked, "Do you think you're on this list?" To which Sam yelled out, "Not me!"

We love you, Sammy! Thanks for brightening our days.

How do they know?

2011-12-02T09:06:00.002-06:00

4 days out of the week, we have to be up and out of the house by 8 - 8:30. Somehow our kids almost always manage to pick these mornings to sleep in to the point where we have to wake them up at the last minute, throw some clothes on them and grab breakfast to go. And we're usually late.

The other 3 mornings of the week, we are generally able to sleep in as late as we want. On these mornings, without fail, the kids always seem to wake up an hour or so earlier than on the other days. Whether we keep them up late or put them down early, whether we tell them it's a sleep-in day or not, they almost never sleep in on Monday, Thursday or Saturday.

If Seth and I happen to stay up extra late the night before, they bump it up even earlier.

From the sounds of it, this is a pretty universal occurrence among kids, and I want to know why so I can fix it. But I guess this will just remain one of life's great mysteries.

Fortunately, they're so lovable, it's hard to stay annoyed for long.

"Look, Mom! I'm a Y."

2011-11-28T11:03:00.001-06:00

That's what Elena said to me the other day after making this pose:

Jophes

2011-11-24T20:32:00.000-06:00

That's what Elena called the play we went to this weekend. Marshall High School put on Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and we brought Elena and her friend, Ana to the show. There was a row right in front with just 2 seats so they were able to sit all on their own to watch the show. We sat 2 rows back, and watching them was almost as much fun as watching the show. The kids did a great job - as a bonus, our next door neighbor was the narrator and a friend who I used to babysit was Joseph. That actually made me feel a little old, but then I ran into my old babysitter and my kindergarden teacher, and them mentioned how I made them feel old, which made me feel a little younger :)
Here are the girls before the show:

And about 3 minutes after the show (we hadn't even gotten out of town when I took this picture):

Updates

2011-11-20T19:17:00.003-06:00

We've had an eventful last month. Here are a few of the highlights:

First the kids both had the chicken pox. Elena had them first, and Sam came down with them 2 weeks later. We really only had one rough night with Sam; other than that they hardly complained and rarely itched. My most memorable moment was when Sam was up in the middle of the night because his pox were bothering him - especially all the spots on his bottom. At one point he, whimpered to me in the most pitiful voice imaginable, "Mommy, my booty-butt hurts." I couldn't help but laugh.

Here's a picture of Elena reading a book to Sam about chicken pox when he came down with them.

In other news, Sam potty trained himself in pretty much one day. We hadn't really been pushing him because that hadn't helped at all with Elena. I was planning to hit it hard once he hit 3, but he beat us to it. Ironically, he trained himself at exactly the same age I did (1 month shy of 3) and he did it the same way - just decided on his own he was done with diapers. Yay! This is the first time in 4 1/2 years I haven't had to bring a diaper and wipes with me everywhere I go.

Around the same time, Seth's dad had a triple bypass surgery. We were able to take the kids down to Sioux Falls to visit him while he was in the hospital. I'm happy to say the surgery went well and he is recovering nicely - although I know it's hard to him to suddenly go from a such a busy life to a full stop.

Lastly, we welcomed our new nephew, Noah Thomas, into the world on Nov 17th. Seth's brother Jason and his wife, Tina, had their 5th baby - we now have 10 cousins living within one block of our house! Sorry I don't have a picture of the wee one - you can click on Tina's link on the side bar of my blog to see him (her's is the Stay Salty blog).

Drummer Boy

2011-11-07T14:46:00.000-06:00

As promised last month, here is a shot of Sam joining the band on the drums:

Halloween Fun

2011-11-03T11:13:00.003-05:00

The kids had a great time on Halloween, including the weeks leading up to it. Elena was set on being a skunk, but Sam was undecided until the day of Halloween so they had a lot of fun going through all of our costumes in the meantime.

Here they are Halloween morning, sporting a few pirate accessories.

These were taken a few weeks before Halloween when they discovered a bag full of wigs and some old glasses:

Ready to go trick-or-treating with friends, Ana and Toby. We have a train, a fairy, a leopard and a skunk.

The girls were having so much fun, we decided not to seperate them, and they had their very first sleep-over. Ana changed her mind momentarily around 9:30, but then realized she could have Life cereal for breakfast if she stayed. I don't think Ana slept too much being in an unfamiliar bed, but they made it through the night and had a great time!

The things you learn at storytime

2011-10-12T19:07:00.000-05:00

I love the way kids will surprise you with both the things they know and the things they don't know.

Something Elena didn't know:
Tonight while we were reading books, one of the stories had a character tell his sister to stand on her head. As she was listening, Elena started to stretch her leg up, trying to put her foot on her head. I didn't think much of it since she's always moving, but soon she asked, "Why did he tell her to stand on her head?......You can't stand on your head." I realized that what she had been doing with her feet before was her trying to literally "stand on her head."

And something she did know:
The next story was about Jonah, and Elena asked why the fish was rainbow colored. I told her that the guy who drew the pictures probably wanted to make the story look really pretty so he made the fish lots of colors. To which she replied: "The illustrator did that?" Yup. And thanks to my 4-year-old for the reminder that "illustrator" is so much easier to say that "the guy who drew the pictures."

1:39:09

2011-10-07T13:49:00.006-05:00

That's how long it took Seth to run his 10-mile last weekend at the Twin Cities Marathon. He was hoping to run it in under a 1 hr 40 min, which would have been 10 minutes a mile, and he just made it. Being someone who only runs when being chased or when chasing others (I do a lot more of the latter), I was pretty impressed.

I was really impressed, however, when we were able to watch the 1st 8 marathon runners finish their race just 34 minutes later. Did I mention they started at the same time as the 10-mile runners? We watched 4 guys cross the finish line at 2 hours, 13 minutes. Unbelievable. Honestly though, I think the most impressive runners of the day are the people who can't run as fast, but kept going for 7-8 hours to finish the run. Ouch.

We had a great weekend in the cities, staying with Seth's brother, Craig. The kids loved having Uncle Craig come along with us to the children's museum and eating out at a couple of wonderful restaurants - that's one thing we're a little short of here in Minneota :)

Saturday night, we especially had fun visiting some of our more musically talented friends who had a get-together with several of their musician friends. In one living room, there were several guitars, a banjo, a bass, a fiddle, a mandolin, an autoharps, a piano, a harmonica, an accordian, tin whistles and a bongo drum. It was so great to be able to listen to such talented musicians. Sam even got a chance to play the drum for awhile - after that, he decided he wanted to be a drummer for halloween.

Above is a shot of Seth and Turtle Sam at the science museum. Below is Elena making a music video at the museum; stand back, Beyonce! (Whenever we watch this Elena asks me, "Why were you laughing, Mom?")

I'll put up a video of Sam playing the drums later - it's not working today.

Dragons

2011-09-21T08:19:00.006-05:00

All children become more difficult when they are tired, and mine are no exception. But lately, Elena has been getting far beyond unreasonable when she's short of sleep. When she's well rested, she's an absolute delight. When she's short on sleep, she has the ability to turn herself into a fire-breathing dragon.

This morning whe woke up at 7:00, so I was bracing myself for at least a few tantrums. The trigger? Seth asked Elena, "What do you want for breakfast? Do you want oatmeal?"

At this Elena flung herself onto the floor in tears. Completely mystified, we asked her what was wrong. She was finally able to get out between sobs, "Daddy stole my words!!!!"

That's a new one. Let's hope she gets more reasonable before she's a teenager.

Fortunately it only took a few minutes for her to turn back to being sweet.

There's no place like home

2011-09-14T13:52:00.003-05:00

I finally took a picture of our new house. It is starting to feel more and more like "our home."

Here is a sample of the inside. The dining room is one of the few rooms that is mostly unpacked and was clean enough to take a picture. As you can see the house is full of beautiful woodwork, and we get lots of sunlight throughout the house.

In other news, this past weekend was Boxelder Bug Days in Minneota. The weather was absolutely perfect, and the kids had a great time. There were lots of friends and family in town so we gave about 8 tours of the house over the weekend.
Here are the kids in their costumes for the kiddie parade:

Brainstorming

2011-09-08T22:05:00.003-05:00

Elena has been going through ideas of what she wants to be for Halloween this year since last Halloween. At the top of the list are: a skunk, and elephant and Dora (with Sam dressed as Swiper).

As we were driving in the car, I was trying to come up with ideas that we could easily make with what we already have on hand. We have a gray-haired wig so I asked her if she wanted to be an old lady for Halloween. She wasn't a big fan of that idea; she promptly rejected it and started to make new suggestions.

Pretty soon, Sam (who I had forgotten was listening) piped up from the back and said, "Mom, I want to be a lady for Halloween."

I guess we'll just wait and see....

Changes

2011-09-04T22:16:00.009-05:00

We've been keeping busier than usual these past couple of weeks. During the week that we sold our old house, bought our new and moved everything over, we also went to my cousin's wedding in which Elena was the flower girl, Elena started her first day of preschool and our newest nephew, Reed Riley, was born.

The move went well. We had many, many helpers for which we are extremely grateful. Our parents were a huge help, and we even had a couple of high school boys that we know call up and volunteer to help out when they saw we were moving. It still kind of feels like we are living in someone else's house, though. I'm looking forward to when we're all settled and it will feel more like our home.
Elena has loved living in the new house - there are lots of kids in the neighborhood for her to play with. Sam has had a little harder time - he still tells me he "wants to go home" on a daily basis. He loves playing with all the neighborhood kids, but he's missing the comfort and security of the home he knows.

Ben (my cousin) and Becky's wedding was a blast and Elena absolutely loved being a flower girl. She's the perfect age for it - old enough to be aware of what's going on and really enjoy it but young enough not to be self-conscious about it. They had planned to have her come and sit by us for the ceremony after walking down the aisle, but Elena wanted to be a part of the whole thing so she stood up with the bridesmaids until the end.

Dancing with the bride...

...and with the groom.
Sam also put on a little show during the ceremony. He and his cousin, Alex (same age) made a dash for the center aisle right in the middle of the wedding just before the vows. I was able to catch the back of their shirts and yank them back, but not without almost everyone noticing. Fortunately they are cute enough to get away with that kind of thing without anyone getting annoyed :)

Elena, Sam and Alex.

Elena has started 1/2 days at preschool twice a week. She would like to go full days I'm sure, but she wouldn't see Seth much with his schedule. We'll also be starting a Montessori based preschool at our chuch called Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. I will be one of the catechists (teachers) and Elena will be in the class. Add to that dance classes for Elena and the high school religious ed classes I will teach in the evenings, and we are going to be pretty busy this school year!

First day of preschool (we have to be up a bit earlier than normal - thus the tired faces)

Anyway - that's what's going on in our neck of the woods. Pictures of the new house to come.

The difference between boys and girls

2011-08-10T22:58:00.006-05:00

I wouldn't consider Elena a girly-girl. Her favorite color is green (pink and purple are much farther down the list); she hates having her hair done; and currently dresses are only worn on very special occasions. Still, I would say she's far from being a tomboy. Sam is pretty much your stereotypical boy, but he has no problem throwing on a dress if that's all he can find in the dress-up box.

We don't really designate much in our house as "just for boys" or "just for girls." Elena has just as many bats, balls and golf clubs as Sam (although hers are rarely touched and Sam would play ball for hours on end).
Sam plays dolls with Elena (although he usually gets quickly distracted with figuring out how the buckles work on the doll's carrier).
If Elena gets toe-nail polish and Sam wants some, I'll put it on him (Seth's not a huge fan of this, but he tolerates it :)
I've read books about trucks to Elena since she was little, but she rarely asks for them again, and I had never heard a real "truck sound" in our house until we had Sam (if I did, it came from Seth).

I recently bought a box of antique cowboys and Indians for the kids at a garage sale. The only reason I got it was because it included a horse and detachable rider that I knew Sam would love to play with (he loves horses). Anyway, they haven't played with them much - Sam will occasionally have the people on horses run around, but that's about it.

The other day, Elena pulled out the box and decided to play with them. And what does a little girl do with a set of cowboys and Indians?

Well...they do make a great rainbow.

Moving!

2011-08-05T15:11:00.004-05:00

The reason I haven't updated this in so long is because the last 2 months have been tied up with putting our house on the market and getting a new home. We're just waiting on the appraisals, but as long as they go well, we should be moving at the end of the month.

Fortunately our house was only on the market for about 6 weeks before we got an offer, and our offer was accepted on the house that Seth has had his eye on since he was a kid. It's quite a bit bigger than our current home. While I will miss the coziness of this house, we could really use the extra space to accommodate for Seth's in-home office. Not to mention we hope to have more kids and are seriously considering homeschooling.

At one point this summer I started to have second thoughts about getting a bigger house, the minimalist in me thinking we could just cram all of our kids in one room for awhile longer. Afterall, we have a great back yard with tons of room for running, playing and gardening throughout the summer.

And then I remembered about winter. It's funny how quickly one can forget in the summer about those 6 months of the year we Minnesotans spend cooped up inside. All day. With excessively energetic children. Some extra running space would be nice. The next 4 weeks will be filled with packing, followed by who-knows-how-many weeks of unpacking - so my blog posts may be few and far between but I'll do my best to keep everyone posted.

2011-06-27T16:19:00.003-05:00

I overheard the following conversation today:

Elena: You are a jellyfish, Sam!

Sam: And you are a peanut butter fish, Elena!

It took me a couple of seconds to catch the connection.

This is completely unrelated, but here's a picture of the kids in front of Grandma Mary's irises.

Learning to "Read"

2011-06-16T22:05:00.001-05:00

It seems one of the kids says something every day now that just cracks me up. Elena had another one the other night. We met for our marriage enrichment group, which happened to land on our 7th anniversary. One of the other couples was nice enough to bring a cake for us that said, "Happy 7th Anniversary."

Elena saw the cake, and when I told her it was for our anniversary she asked, "Does it say 'Happy Anniversary' on it?"

"Yes, it does." I replied.

Then she said, in a somewhat shocked voice, "I'm learning how to read from a cake???"

Ice Age

2011-06-14T09:12:00.001-05:00

I love how kids say things that are close to what they mean, but not quite right. Elena is getting to an age where that doesn't happen as often, but they still pop up once in awhile. Here are some recent examples:
- Yesterday, she asked me to get her a "place mattress" to go under her plate.

- She calls our back yard the "back yarden."

- Skunks are "stunks" (I'm not sure whether the pun is intended or not)

- And my favorite was when she recently said she wanted to play with Ice Age. I didn't know what she meant and asked her who or what was Ice Age. She said it was the neighbor's dog.
The dog's name is Sage.

7 Years!

2011-06-12T08:42:00.001-05:00

As of today, we've officially made it through the "7 year itch" with hardly a scratch. Happy Anniversary, Seth!

The Power of Advertising

2011-06-10T09:00:00.002-05:00

“Advertising may be described as the science of arresting human intelligence long enough to get money from it.”

We make an effort to limit the amount of TV our kids watch. We are especially careful to keep them from watching commercials since watching them is a complete waste of brain power.

This morning, however, I turned the TV on to see something and Elena saw one commercial. It was for a dog hair brush that was basically a mini-vacuum which sucks the loose hair off a dog. After watching the commercial, Elena said:

"Mom, we should get one of those for our dog." After thinking this statement over for a few seconds, it apparently dawned on Elena that we don't have a dog. Then she said, "We should get a dog so we can get one of those brushes."

And that's why we don't watch commercials.

Singing Sammy

2011-05-19T08:02:00.002-05:00

For those of you who haven't seen Sam in awhile, I thought I'd share with you some of his singing talents:

That's one I haven't heard before

2011-05-13T15:10:00.000-05:00

Elena and Sam had strawberries and cream today as a treat. Elena finished hers before Sam had gotten his and was trying to talk Sam into sharing his with her. Here is how their conversation went:

Elena: Sam, can I have some of your strawberries and cream?
Sam: No.
Elena: Please?
Sam: No.
Elena: Pretty please?
Sam: No.
Elena: Handsome please?
Sam: No.

(In Sam's defense, the only reason he kept saying "no" was because he didn't have the strawberries yet - and for a 2-year-old, the only logical response was "no" since he had nothing to share. Once he had his strawberries, he gladly shared them with Elena...not the cream at the bottom of the bowl, however.)

Three

2011-05-10T14:57:00.002-05:00

That's how many times I've slept through the night in the last 4 1/2 years - twice I was out of town without the kids.

I'm not a fan of the cry-it-out method so Sam still comes in to sleep with us sometime between 3:00 and 5:30 in the morning every night. Since we don't have nightlights, he usually can't find his way on his own which means I have to get up and help him. Elena sneaks in with us occasionally, too, but she's quiet about it and we usually don't notice.

It's not so bad really, and not sleeping through the night is a sacrifice I'm willing to make for my children - I love having them cuddle with us in the morning. But still, a solid 8 hours sleep would be nice once in awhile. Last night I came so close.

About once every month or two, Sam will sleep straight through the night in his own bed. Also about once every month or two, Elena will wake up crying for me from a bad dream or she'll urgently need to go to the bathroom and want help. In such cases, I usually have to be up for a little while to calm her down and get her a drink. Seth can help her, too, but I still lie there awake until she's back asleep....plus, he takes a lot longer to respond.

Unfortunately, those occasional nights when Sam sleeps perfectly and the few nights that Elena wakes us up always, without fail, land on the same night. I think they plan it ahead of time when I'm not listening. Last night was one of those nights. Fortunately, I have a loving husband who lets me sleep in until 9:30 when that happens so I really can't complain.

The joys of carpeted steps

2011-05-06T09:29:00.002-05:00

Now that the weather has finally warmed up enough to play outside, here's a glimpse of what the kids have been doing to burn energy in the winter:

(I've tried joining them, but this is extremely painful as an adult)

Time for Pretzels!

2011-04-16T22:46:00.000-05:00

Lent is upon us once again. Did you know that if it weren't for lent, we wouldn't have pretzels? In the very early Church, it was common for Christians to abstain from all animal products throughout the season of lent, and so the need for very simple meals and snacks arose. The story goes that in the early 7th century, a monk made Lenten bread of water, flour and salt, then rolled it into a pretzel shape to look like the prayer position of folding one's arms across the chest.
Growing up, I loved making pretzels during lent with my family. Unfortunately, the last time I made them was over 4 years ago. It's a time-consuming project that requires undivided attention at times....I can't imagine why that might have been difficult for me during the last few years :) This year, I was finally able to make them during Sam's nap with Elena's help. She did a very good job of folding all the pretzels - I was impressed with how quickly she was able to make them into the correct shape.

Here she is, showing off the goods. And then we quickly gobbled them all up.

Costa Rica

2011-04-12T10:14:00.001-05:00

I just realize that I started this post awhile back and never finished it.

We had a full day in Costa Rica, and we all had a great time. I lived there for a summer in high school, and it was good to be back. the kids spent the morning at a local playground and played with a little girl from town while I talked with her Grandpa. He recommended we see an animal rescue center just outside of town (and even escorted us to the bus stop down the street to make sure we knew how to get there), so after lunch we headed there with the kids.

The kids had a lot of fun at the rescue center. It was kind of like a zoo only all the animals there had been abused, injured or orphaned. The center nursed them back to help and released them back into the wild when possible. A few of the monkeys, after spending their entire lives on leashes, would not allow their leashes to be removed. They would frantically try to put the leash back on if it was taken off.

The kids enjoyed seeing the animals and petting the monkeys. My favorite part was being able to walk through the rainforest.

At one point I asked Sam if he wanted to hold my hand. He said, "No!" and ran ahead to the girl giving us the tour and grabbed her hand.

It was especially nice for me to be back in Costa Rica - even if it was only half a day. I studied there for a summer when I was 17, and I remember how friendly everyone was. Our visit was no exception - we had several people go out of their way to help us. The telephone line was down at the animal rescue center and they weren't able to take our credit card. We didn't have enough cash on us to cover the tour, and they let us go through for less than half price.
We tried to get cash later and weren't able to get money from an ATM. A local woman walking down the street saw we were having trouble, walked us into the bank and asked around at several desks until they were able to tell her the problem (they only accepted VISA, which we didn't have). She then gave found out the closest bank that would accept our card and gave us directions there.
I'm thinking I would like to return to Costa Rica for a longer trip in the future....

Look who's 4!

2011-04-02T14:43:00.003-05:00

"Is it my birthday today?" Those were the first words out of Elena's mouth yesterday morning. She was pretty excited when I said yes. We spent the day preparing for her birthday party - just our 2 local families total 30 people so our birthday parties are big even without inviting friends. It was a very full house, but we all had a great time. Plus, it was warm enough that the kids could play outside for awhile.

In the evening, after most of the guests had gone, Sam played his first April Fool's joke on Seth (Elena was too tired to pitch in). I went into the bathroom with Sam and told him to yell out "Daddy, I pooped on the floor!!" I was holding Sam to make sure he wouldn't run out, so when Seth came toward the bathroom and saw Sam's head up about 2 feet higher than it should be, he thought Sam was covered in poop and had also climbed up the door. He came in and looked at us with a very confused face until Sam yelled, "April Fools!" Good job, Sam.

The Ship

2011-03-27T16:23:00.005-05:00

For the last installment of our trip, I have a few pictures of our adventures on the ship. The biggest highlights were the dancing, the food and the pools. They had ballroom dance classes available - although we only made 2 because they kept landing during naptime or breakfast - and plenty of opportunities to dance.

One night, the kids were the only ones on the dance floor, and the band played this special song just for them. The kids went up and requested it with another band later, who also managed to play enough bars to keep the kids happy.

Sam, once again, was famous on the ship by the end of the trip. It seemed at least 50% of the crew members and guests knew him by name. Not only was he well-known for his high-fives and hugs, he was also widely recognized for his limitless energy. One man suggested to me that I rent Sam out to people who want to burn off some of the weight they gained on the trip: not a bad idea....

The ship had a few nice areas for the kids. There was a small play area and a splash pool that they could play in (as long as the boat wasn't rocking too hard). There was also a room for 3-7 year-olds where we could drop Elena off. She loved playing there with the other kids and she brought home a lot of crafts! Sam could go as long as we stayed with him, but he was pretty jealous that he couldn't be left there with Elena. Here she is with the babysitters our last night on the ship.

I don't know what we would have done without Seth's parents along. They were a huge help with the kids, and it was a lot of fun having them along for our vacation. The kids loved having Grandma and Grandpa along, too!

Next stops: Columbia & Panama Canal

2011-03-11T14:27:00.006-06:00

After Aruba, we spent a day touring Cartagena, Columbia. Highlights were touring an old Spanish fortress and the former home of St. Pedro Claver, who fought for the rights of the African slaves in the 17th century. He baptized over 300,00 slaves in his lifetime. Adjacent to the house was a chapel built in his honor where we could view his remains.
Then we ran back to our cab as quickly as we could so we wouldn't miss the ship (they don't wait for anyone) - we were the last group on. Phew!

Next we were able to witness the workings of the Panama Canal. Our cruise ship is the only one narrow enough to fit through the canal. It was really interesting to see how the locks worked. Basically, the ship needs to go from sea level up 85 feet to the elevation of Gatun Lake so it can pass through to the other side, where it is then lowered. We went through 3 locks, where the ship is enclosed and then gradually raised with water until it is high enough to move onto the next lock. It's hard to describe here, but here are a couple of pictures of the neighboring ship before and after the water in the last lock has been raised. (You'll notice that our ship is also higher in the 2nd picture)

Beaches

2011-03-02T16:22:00.005-06:00

I'll put up pictures from our trip in small doses. Our first day we spent in Florida, waiting to board the ship. Within about 5 minutes of landing, Elena turned to me and said, "Mom, where's all the snow?"
Needless to say the kids thoroughly enjoyed the sunny weather from the start. Here they are sunning themselves after a swim.

We were able to visit with Stacy, a high school classmate of mine who lives in the area. Later the owners of our hotel gave us a bag of bread and pointed us toward a pond where we could feed ducks and turtles. The kids had a good time, but the ducks were a little too friendly - if we took too long to throw more food, they would just come and grab it from our hands. Sam spent much of the time holding onto my leg and yelling "Go away!" at the ducks.
Our first and last stops on the cruise were Aruba and Jamaica. On both islands, we spent the day at the beach, which I think was the kids' favorite part of the trip. These were all taken in Jamaica - I didn't come away with many good Aruba photos, but they look pretty much the same.

You can pretty well measure how much fun the kids had swimming based on how much they sleep and eat afterward.

Sam, napping after swimming.

Elena, scarfing down a hamburger after swimming.

And....We're Back!

2011-03-01T12:28:00.004-06:00

I know I didn't mention anything about this before leaving, but we've just returned from a 10-day cruise to the Caribbean. We stopped in Aruba, Columbia, Panama, Costa Rica and Jamaica. I just thought I'd check in for those of you who were wondering where we've been - I'll write more later once the unpacking is done.

Why?

2011-02-01T21:18:00.002-06:00

Tonight I read 4 bedtime stories. Take that times about 25 pages per book. Factor in a question from Elena every time I turn the page.

And you have approximately 50 questions in under 30 minutes beginning with "Mommy! Mommy! Why....?"

I think I need a drink.

(By the way, here's a tip for other parents going through the "Why?" phase: around question #45, I realized that it became slightly more bearable to endure the endless onslaught of Why?s by coming up with ridiculous responses. At least it became somewhat entertaining for me - even if the kids didn't get it.....)

There's no way this was an accident.

2011-01-18T10:40:00.004-06:00

In case you can't tell, that's a box of Kix, spreading the entire length (and width) of the living room and half way through the dining room. Thanks, Sam. I hope you had fun.

Did I mention we found him a few days ago with half a jar of lotion smeared all over his head? We didn't think to take a picture until after we had wiped most of it away.

I keep trying to figure out a way I can stop doing everything that requires me to take my eyes off of him for more than 5 seconds - like preparing meals and going to the bathroom. But so far the only solutions I can come up with are ordering out for every meal, hiring a maid to clean up afterwards, and wearing adult diapers. Not very practical (or comfortable).

Wedding Plans

2011-01-14T18:37:00.002-06:00

We have a few weddings to attend this upcoming summer, and Elena informed us today that she wants to be a plant for the wedding.

Trying to figure out what would promp this idea, we asked why she wanted to be a plant for a wedding.

"Because Julia [our neighbor] is going to be a flower girl. So I want to be a plant."

Pants On My Head

2011-01-12T10:39:00.000-06:00

This is the latest rave in our house. The kids will find a pair of pants, put them on their heads and then they ask me to play polka music while they run in circles around the dining room table.

Can you tell it's the middle of winter?

When the kids dress themselves....

2011-01-09T10:11:00.003-06:00

Highlights from Christmas 2010!

2011-01-03T16:41:00.004-06:00

trying out the new sit 'n' spin

Sam and cousin, RJ

Opening gifts!

Asleep amid the celebrations

Bedtime Stories

2010-12-27T21:32:00.001-06:00

While Seth was reading Elena her books before bed, I overheard Elena ask, "Daddy, why is his name Quarter and then Roy?"

Look Who's 2!

2010-12-17T19:14:00.003-06:00

My sister happened to have the week of Sam's birthday off, so we brought our kids to the new Science Museum in Brookings to celebrate. The museum was fantastic! The kids got to change the tire on a little car, experiment with water, make lots of noise in the music room, climb up into the clouds, go grocery shopping, report the weather, and harvest vegetables on a farm. I wish I would have gotten better pictures, but the kids were always very eager to check out the next thing. I was, too, actually!

100 years!

2010-12-09T21:59:00.003-06:00

That's how old my grandma Marso turned on Nov 27th - and she's still kickin'! We had a big party for her the day after Thanksgiving and she smiled the whole way through. Her 96 year old sister was there to enjoy the day, as well. It's too bad grandpa had to miss it: he passed away at the young age of 92. She had another sister who died at 99.

With genes like these, it can be hard to convince myself that I should eat healthy and exercise...

Happy Birthday, Grandma!!! We love you!

Happy Hallowe...err...Thanksgiving!

2010-12-03T13:29:00.003-06:00

We decided during our most recent Thanksgiving celebration that the get-togethers on Seth's side of the family may be twice as big, but on my side they are twice as loud. And gatherings on both sides are equally fun! This Thanksgiving, as always, we were reminded of how fortunate we are to have such joy-filled and loving families.

One of the highlights of the day was when the kids discovered my Aunt Mary's attic, which was full of old costume clothes. Some of us big kids decided to join in the fun, and we came down to do a little fashion show for everyone else. Seth's costume in particular was a big hit!

This was also the first time in many years that all of the cousins on my mom's side were all together. It was also the first time ever that Elena and Sam have been together with all of their cousins on my side. They had a great time playing together. Here they are (Hoku, Alex, Mahina, Sam, Elena):

The kids were pretty tired by the time we took our family photo, but at least they sat still!

I hope everyone else had a wonderful Thanksgiving, too!

Blood Bank

2010-12-01T20:35:00.004-06:00

Seth gave blood today - Yay, Seth! - which is doubly great since he is a universal donor. (Actually we both are, but I'm small enough that if I gave a pint of blood I would probably pass out and require a blood transfusion which would sort of defeat the purpose.)

The volunteer who was checking Seth in looked at him and said, "I'm going to ask you a question that may sound a little weird."

"Ok..." replied Seth.

"Have you always been male?"

Of course Seth replied in the affirmative. Fortunately, she wasn't just asking that because Seth is such a pretty boy. Apparently, the last time Seth gave blood, he was mistakenly entered into the database as a female. Oops!

(By the way, Thanksgiving and Birthday photos are coming - Seth's computer monitor is not working so he has mine so I've lost access to my pictures for the time being.)

Creative Writing

2010-11-20T09:30:00.001-06:00

Yesterday as I was folding laundry, Elena and I were making up stories. The start of this particular story was my favorite:

Me: Once upon a time, there was...

Elena: a little cow. And her name was Angela.

Me: This cow was very special. She could do something no other cow could do....

Elena: She could grow flowers out her udders.
(She actually said “gutters,” but I knew what she meant)

Birthdays

2010-11-15T20:18:00.000-06:00

A few weeks ago (I'm worried most of my blog posts are going to start like this...), we had a party for both my dad's birthday and Seth's Aunt Amy's 50th birthday. As you can see, Papi had no shortage of help blowing out his candles!

Amy has down's syndrome, and at her party, I was once again reminded of how much we can learn from people with this disability (among most others). When we all sang "Happy Birthday" to her, she burst into tears of gratitude, and then, not wanting to leave anyone out, she requested that we sing "Happy Birthday" to everyone.

Seth's cousin, Pete, is a DJ so he provided entertainment. Unlike the rest of us who sat and watched, only coming out occassionally to timidly dance for the Macarena or the Chicken Dance before running back to the comfort of our seats, Amy and her friends (and the little kids, of course) danced the afternoon away completely uninhibited, with ear-to-ear grins on their faces. It was a joy to watch. Why is it so hard for most of us to give ourselves over completely to enjoying the moment, letting our emotions flow to the fullest, without fear or embarrassment that someone is watching?

I have a video of Amy busting out her moves to her favorite musician, Michael Jackson, but it's a little long. If I can cut it down, I'll try to put it up later. For now, here are Sam and Ian showing off their dance moves...of course, Ian stopped dance right when I started taping, but you can see a little. Ian's got some fancy footwork and Sam's all hips (he's been learning to dance from his sister).

Minnesota Kids

2010-11-13T08:09:00.005-06:00

I took the kids outside to play yesterday, making sure to get them bundled up since it was (at most) 40 degrees outside.

Within seconds, they had both ripped off their jackets. And their shoes. And their socks.

I'm just waiting to see how cold it has to get before our kids will notice it. It just started to snow as I was typing this message - maybe that'll do the trick!

Father-Daughter Talk

2010-11-11T17:42:00.003-06:00

Elena: I want to go hunt deer with you, Daddy.

Seth: OK - when you're older, you can come hunting with me if you want.

Elena: Yay!.....I want to get a Barbie shooter!

Seth: I'm pretty sure they don't make Barbie guns....

It's a good thing we're not Buddhists...

2010-11-02T10:25:00.004-05:00

Doesn't this look like fun?

2010-10-30T17:03:00.004-05:00

Makes me wish I were small enough to join in!

Why do I even bother?

2010-10-16T09:24:00.005-05:00

I don't know about you other moms, but I ask myself this at least once a day. Here's a little sampling of what trying to get things done looks like around here:

A few weeks ago, I folded a load of laundry after the kids went to bed (because if I do it while Sam is awake, he will join me saying those 2 endearing words that he loves so much: "I help." And then he unfolds more quickly than I can fold.) I wasn't able to put the laundry away because the kids were sleeping upstairs.

The next morning, after breakfast, Sam spotted a bag of doritos and asked for some. I gave him a small bowl and decided to take the opportunity to read the paper and drink my tea. Within a few minutes, I looked up to see that Sam had not only dumped out my folded laundry, but had also fingered them up with his Dorito-hands. (Did I mention they were whites?)

So I sorted out the Doritoed clothes and threw them back in the wash and refolded the rest. While I was doing this, Sam went upstairs to play. When I came up a few minutes later, he was sitting on our bed surrounded by shards of glass. He had managed to get a hold of a glass insert to a candle holder and was somehow able to break it while sitting in the middle of our king-sized bed.

I removed him from the room, vacuumed up all the glass and removed the bedding so I could wash it. I left the room for a minute to grab a new set of sheets. In the time it took me to return, Sam snuck back into our room, removed the dust bin (now full of glass) from the vacuum cleaner and proceeded to dump it out all over the floor and also inside the vacuum in the empty space where the dust bin had come out. Now I had to get another vacuum so I could vacuum out the vacuum, put the dust bin back in and revacuum our room.

After that, I just gave up and played with the kids.

Oh, well. That's what I get for trying to read the paper. I hope you'll understand if respond with a blank stare if you ever try to discuss current events with me.

As Seth likes to say to me occassionally, "Well, at least our kids aren't boring." How true :)

Hello, Godmother!

2010-10-09T14:27:00.002-05:00

Sam was finally able to meet his godmother for the first time a few weeks ago. Rachana was my roommate in college freshman year, and we have remained good friends ever since. Since she now lives in Abu Dhabi, we decided to ask her to be Sam's godmother when he was born. That way, even though she lives half-way across the world, our familywill always have a close connection with her. As you can see - Sam just loved her!

Here we are in our Abu Dhabi shirts that Rachana brought over for us:

We were also able to spend a day at the Renaissance festival that weekend. Some of Seth's family happened to be going the same day too, which was great because when I woke up in Bloomington at 2:00 a.m. and realized that our tickets were still on our kitchen counter back home (which was 3 hours away), I was able to call my sister-in-law to pick them up and bring them along! This is at the end of our day there. We all had fun, and as you can probably tell from the picture, the kids completely wore themselves out.

You know you live in a small town when...

2010-10-06T19:21:00.004-05:00

One of the benefits of living in a small town:
When you forget your keys at the library, the librarian not only knows they are yours but also calls you at home to get directions so she can drop them off at your house on her way home from work.

First Leaf Pile of the Season!

2010-10-02T14:18:00.002-05:00

Storytime

2010-09-29T15:46:00.002-05:00

It's fall festival season at all the churches around here. As I was making a cake for the cake walk this year, I was reminded of my mom's cousin, Patty, who passed away about 5 years ago. Since I was living in the cities when she died, I attended her funeral at St. Paul's Cathedral. I never really knew Patty, but after hearing about her life at the funeral, I wished I had. One of her sons told a story about her that stuck with me and I'd like to share it with you:

Every year at the fall festival, all the women of the church would bake a cake for the cake walk. Many of these women, unfortunately suffering from the sin of pride, made beautiful and elaborate cakes in hopes that theirs would be the first cake chosen. When the cake walk began, they would all stand around to see whose cake would claim the much envied "first pick." (We obviously don't suffer from that down here at St. Edward's parish where many women simply donate a cake pan with an unmade box of cake mix and frosting :)

One year, Patty came up with a creative idea for her cake. It was just a simple white cake with white frosting. For decoration, she placed on top a plastic rat (or rabbit, I can't remember which) with a trail of raisins behind it.

Come the big day, much to the disappointment of several onlooking women, guess whose cake was the first one chosen? Well, what kid wouldn't want the rat cake? I would have taken it first, too.

I didn't have the guts to replicate her cake for our fall festival this year, but I haven't ruled it out for future years. Maybe next year.

Boxelder Bug Days

2010-09-27T09:48:00.003-05:00

Minneota's Boxelder Bug Days was a few weekends ago. It seems to get more fun each year as the kids grow older and are able to participate more. Here are a few highlights:

Sam sliding with his cousin, Kaden.

Getting ready for the kiddie parade with a few neighbors. Elena was a fairy with a pig (her idea). Sam was a super hero. I threw his costume together about 10 minutes before the parade started, pinning one of my red shirts to his back over a pair of superman pajamas. He wasn't thrilled about the whole costume thing.

Like last year, Elena was one of the few brave kids to go up and dance with the cloggers. She was actually the only one who did the dance (the other girl suffered a little stage fright) so for the clogger's sake, I'm glad we were there!

Push-ups at great-grandma and grandpa's house with the cousins

As usual, Elena finished hers first and started to eye up the next kid's push-up.

Milestones for Sammy

2010-09-15T13:56:00.002-05:00

Last night, Sam put himself to sleep for the first time since he was in the womb. (Even then I was technically rocking him to sleep.) I just laid by him in bed for a little while, then I said, "I'll be back in a bit. I need to get a few things done downstairs." I went downstairs and 10 minutes later when I went to check on him, he was asleep! Hallelujah!
Then, this morning Elena was going to go to the bathroom and she decided to help Sam go, too. She took off his diaper, sat him on his potty seat, and he went! I was still laying in bed and I jumped up when Elena said he went to see if it was for real (also to make sure he wasn't peeing on the floor).
As Elena puts it: "Sammy's big now."

I know I can't expect either of his new accomplishments to be set in stone, but I'm still thrilled at this minor progress.

Misunderstandings

2010-09-13T12:27:00.000-05:00

We were looking for a place to pick up a pizza last weekend while visiting friends. As we were driving, I pointed out the window and said, "Look! There's a Pizza Hut."

Then we heard Elena from the back say: "Mom, why did you say Pizza Butt?"

I can't help myself...

2010-09-10T22:25:00.002-05:00

As much as I dread the passage of summer and wonder what the heck I'm going to do being cooped up with 2 extremely energetic children for months on end once it get cold, I just love it when the seasons change.

I love watching the leaves turn color and flutter to the ground.

I love feeling the crisp cool air made comfortable by the warmth of the late summer sun.

I love watching our sedum turn rose-colored and the fields turn to gold as harvest approaches.

I love curling up in the evening with a blanket and a warm cup of tea.

And I love going to bed in cuddling weather.

So remind myself: I will enjoy it. I will not think about the goodbye to summer; and I will soak in the beauty of the present.

Then I repeat this as often as necessary to maintain my sanity.

Our beautiful sedum!

After 6:00 I just don't bother.

2010-09-08T22:34:00.000-05:00

Why stop them when they're having so much fun?

That's why we have a bathtub.

Jam-Packed

2010-09-06T20:09:00.004-05:00

Our labor day weekend was full to the brim with friends and fun. We made a trip up to the cities to visit some of our friends, and we were able to spend time with 6 different families - all of whom had plenty of children for our kids to play with. Wherever we went, the kids made immediate friends. After hopping from place to place, Elena was quite disappointed to learn that we were going back to our house on Monday. She has already planned sleep-overs with two of the little girls she played with this weekend.

At the playground with Nate and Jude. I didn't realize Elena had her mouth on the bridge until I looked at these pictures. Just boosting the ol' immune system. (Their mom, Erica, took the above picture of our family). We had a great time staying with their family - especially since Erica's sister's family was also staying there with their 7 children, which made for 6 adults and 11 kids staying at the house. There was never a dull moment!

We went to visit the other friends who just bought a new house and happened to be having a house-warming party, so we were again able to visit with several families. The kids had a great time on the tire swing. Elena is swinging with Joshua . His mom and I were pregnant with them at the same time, so it was fun to see them old enough to play together.

Elena with her fast friends, Maria (in white) and Stephanie. Maria was one of the slumber-party planners :)

The next day was onto a park to visit with our friends who have moved to Texas. It was great to see them again and to meet their 4th and newest child. Here is Sam playing with Siena (just 2 weeks older than him). Elena, Jerome and Elliot were too fast to get a good picture!

That evening brought us to the home of one of Seth's co-workers. I will be sponsering their daughter for her upcoming confirmation so we stopped there for some confirmation preperation and a delicious supper. Our kids were once again in 7th heaven in a home with 8 children (ranging from 18 to 5 months) and 9 puppies! Our visit lead into a spur of the moment sleep-over with a big morning breakfast. Here is Sam, playing cars with Paul.

These puppies, by the way, are available for anyone who wants one. They are 3/4 labrador and 1/4 golden retriever. They would make good hunting dogs and are great with children - they're also very cute! Let me know if you're interested.

Beef Salad, for real this time...

2010-08-28T15:16:00.001-05:00

It does exist!

Seth's mom recently found a recipe in one of her cooking magazines for a beef salad. Having heard of Seth's beef salad incident 2 years back, which our family still occasionally gets a laugh out of, she had to make it for him. So she had us over for supper (the dish was kept a secret from Seth until he got there) for a delicious Thai Beef Salad. It was scrumptious!

That's never going to happen

2010-08-26T15:23:00.000-05:00

Some parents like to tell their kids that they can be anything they want to be. I have never fallen into this category, always keeping in mind the story of my good friends, Mandy and Alissa, who were once asked by their grandma what they wanted to be when they grew up. Grandma, of course, sweetly added that "you can be anything you want to be."
Mandy said she wanted to be a veterinarian. Alissa said she wanted to be a tree.

On that note, we ran into Father Jeremy last night, and as we were leaving he rattled something off to Elena in Italian. Elena asked me what he said, to which I replied, "I don't know...something about a princess."
So she hollered after him, "Hey, Father! What you said?"
"I said, 'See you later, princess!'" he yelled back.

So on the way home, we had this little conversation:
"Why did Father Jeremy call me a princess?"

"Because he thinks you're like a little princess."

"I don't want to be a princess."

"Well, good...because that's probably never going to happen."

"I want to be a king."

Oh boy.

Family: one of God's masterpieces

2010-08-24T23:25:00.001-05:00

It's true that we do not have access to a wide variety of restaurants and stores out here in rural MN. And some would say there's "nothing to do" around here; although I'd say that's debatable. There is very little that Seth and I did living in the cities that we can't do here...plus, with 2 kids we wouldn't have time to do anything else anyway. Not to mention, the savings we make on the cost of living make it easily possible to take a weekend and go to the Cities whenever we do decide we want to do something different. Add up all the driving time we used to waste in traffic on a daily basis and we've stored up several 3-hour trips to and from the metro area.

When it comes down to it, there are pluses and minuses wherever one choses to live. But we've got one major advantage here that makes any minuses more than worth the minuscule sacrifice of living in a small town: we are surrounded by family who loves us. At the end of my life, I'm not going to care about where I ate or what I wore (I guess I hardly care about that now) but who I was with.

Boy, talking about family trees, I sound like I'm turning into the sap. Enough of that - here are some pictures.

Elena and cousin, Austin, at the lake home

Sam and Great-Grandma Corky listening to music at the Summer Sizzler.

Seth with his dad and brothers during the alumni baseball game - Seth hit a home run that night!

Sam swimming with cousin, Alex, at Grandma and Papi's house.

Sam and cousin, Ian. They had a blast throwing rocks on this bush.

Elena, acting goofy with her 2nd cousins at the DeCock annual camping trip.

Tunnel Vision

2010-08-22T23:19:00.000-05:00

Summer Fun!

2010-08-20T22:51:00.007-05:00

Since I haven't been updating much, here are a few pictures from our summer.

Here is Sam watching the fireworks with Papi - he loved them! Elena didn't care for the noise this year, but she still had fun playing with all of her friends in the park for the 4th of July.

Of course the past few months have been full of water and ice cream - especially with the heat and humidity we've had!

We brought the kids to the Lyon County Fair to watch the rodeo and go on a few rides - Elena was a big fan of the rides.

Sam especially liked the tractors - Elena was happy to just sit on one, but Sam went right to work trying to drive it.

There's nothing like a good swim to exhaust the kids. I was washing the dishes after we got back from the pool and saw Elena on the floor like this. I think she couldn't decide whether she was too tired to eat or too hungry to sleep.

Let's hope common sense improves with age and experience

2010-08-13T15:38:00.007-05:00

Last night, Elena went to the bathroom and came out a few minutes later, looking very calm and normal. Normal, except for the fact that her chin was covered in blood. "Mom, something happened."

Seth and I immediately made "Oh-my-gosh-what-on-earth-happened??!!" faces, and I'm sure something similar came out of my mouth. Seeing our faces, Elena started to look scared, so we had to quickly switch back to our "everything's-fine" faces. She obviously wasn't in pain at all so we weren't too worried.

So I asked as calmly and cheerily as I could, "Why are you covered in blood, sweetie?'

We went into the bathroom to investigate, while Elena explained that she had noticed some chocolate on her face when she looked in the mirror. When she was trying to clean it off, she started to bleed and came out to find us.

Looking down at the counter, I asked, "Did you use this to clean off your face?"

"Yes."

Then Seth informed her, "You know, using my razor to clean your face probably wasn't the best idea, honey."

Fortunately, it was a small cut on her lip - it just bled a lot! We're lucky that Elena is not squeamish at the sight of blood.

Top on our "to do" list: find a less accessible place to store Seth's razor.

I have 2 toddlers.

2010-07-27T21:46:00.003-05:00

That's my excuse for not writing on here more often lately.

Two toddlers with loads and loads of energy. And minds that seem permanently set on "destruct." On the upside, my children are never, ever boring:)

Also, it's summer so we are outside as much as possible, limiting computer time. Life continues to be beautiful here, but a small piece of me is perpetually mourning the passage of summer. I have no idea how we are going to survive the winter.

The long, Minnesota winter.

Inside.

With 2 toddlers.

I think I will just need to get used to bundling my kids up on a daily basis (that should only take an hour or two) so I can go out in the frigid weather watching them burn off some energy.

Enough talk of that! It was in the upper 90s here today so here are some pictures of the kids trying to stay cool!

Too Much

2010-07-16T08:54:00.000-05:00

Elena was lucky enough to get a Sprite at the baseball game we attended the other night. Not wanting her to drink the entire can, I drank some and told her she had to share with Sam, who was desperately trying to get at the pop. Her response?

"Don't give Sam too much; just give him a little....The too much is for me."

Fighting over girls already

2010-07-12T22:08:00.007-05:00

We spent a weekend at the lake house with Seth's family. The three little boys (Sam, Ian and RJ) all had fun playing together. At one point, Sam and RJ were fighting over a Barbie doll. I caught a picture just as Sam won the battle. In RJ's defense, Sam does have a 7-month advantage....

...but it wasn't long before RJ found his own doll to play with.

Here's a video of "the three amigos" - as we like to call them - doing a slightly more masculine activity.

Oh Dear

2010-06-30T23:25:00.002-05:00

The other day we were driving over to see Elena's friend, Ana, who was not feeling well due to allergies. We had something that I thought might help so we brought it over for them to try. I had hard time explaining allergies so Elena would understand so I just told her we were bringing Ana something to make her feel better.

Quickly forgetting what I had just told Elena, I stopped at the discount liquor store, which is on the way to Ana's house, since we were almost out of beer. When Elena found out what we were stopping for, she said:

"Oh! We're going to bring Ana beer to help her feel better?"

"Ummm...she might be a little young for that particular treatment."

Celtic Fest 2010

2010-06-24T14:35:00.004-05:00

Friends of ours from Lakeville started an annual Celtic Fest last year, which we attended on June 12th (a great way to spend our 6th anniversary!) It's basically a big barn dance with various musicians playing (mostly Celtic music) along with food and games.

Seth got 2nd place in the caber toss. He and his friend, Adam, had to toss the caber 3 times each before Adam finally won. It's just as well - Adam is Scottish; he wore a kilt and everything. It wouldn't have been right for a Norwegian in jeans to win the caber toss. Here's Seth's first toss:

They also had a tug of war tournament - maximum weight for teams was 1,000 pounds so I got to join Seth's team since they had just enough room for a little person. We were a very close 2nd. Seth's brother Craig was on the winning team, so at least 1 Myhre won.

We stayed the weekend with our friends Adam and Melissa. Their youngest daughter, Adrianna, and Elena were born just 27 days apart; and the two became fast friends. (Sam apparently liked her quite a bit, too). Coincidentally, we dressed them in matching dresses for the Celtic Fest. The kids had a great time watching the caber toss, dancing and catching fireflies in the evening. Let me just say, fireflies don't look quite so magical once you bring them into the light.

Photo Shoot

2010-06-21T22:06:00.002-05:00

We decided we couldn't let Elena's toddler-hood pass without at least a few professional photos, considering how cute she is :) I really just wanted an 8x10 for the wall and some smaller pictures to pass out to family. Even though I wanted to buy every pose, I managed to limit myself to 3 poses and we walked out of the studio for under $18 total! I was very proud of myself.
Check out Elena's 3 year pictures here.

Say Cheese!

2010-06-14T14:15:00.007-05:00

I'm happy to announce that Sam's camera smile is gradually improving. Here is a sampling of his progression:

"Adaptations" by Elena

2010-06-01T22:19:00.003-05:00

Elena shares Seth's knack for inserting her own lyrics into songs and nursery rhymes when she doesn't quite know the words. Here are a few:

1) The sun'll come out/tomorrow/bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow/happy sun

2) Brrr, brrr, brrr - oh let us have some pie! (she says this when she's really cold)

3) Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way/ oh my farm it is to ride....

4) The fridge is falling down, falling down....My fair lady!

5) Row, row, row your boat /gently down the stream /merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily / life's a butter stream

Am I Really that Old?

2010-06-01T09:39:00.000-05:00

While visiting friends the other night, they brought out their old records for Seth to look through. Their 18-year old son and his girlfriend came in; and the girlfriend, looking at the records, says:

"What are those?"

Come on! Really????

Don't you just love a good rainbow?

2010-05-27T21:02:00.003-05:00

This was taken in our back yard. It was actually a double rainbow, but top one was fading before I took the picture. You can barely see it if you look closely.

Oh Boy!

2010-05-25T18:25:00.003-05:00

It looks like Sam has inherited Seth's farm-boy work ethic. When he decides something needs to be done, he works single-mindedly on that task until it's done. At Seth's cousin's graduation Sam saw someone add some water bottles to the cooler. I guess he decided he'd better help out because he spent the next 10 minutes or so filling the cooler (only stopping to take out a drink and hand it to someone if they wanted one).

When he's not "working" Sam is mastering the art of being a boy. Every activity he does during the day, no matter how mundane, he manages to make extremely loud, unbelievably messy or extraordinarily dangerous. It's interesting to note that most of the people I know who make the claim that there's no fundamental difference between boys and girls have not raised a boy of their own. Of course there are exceptions to the rule, but Sam is not one of those exceptions.

Spunky Sam

2010-05-20T17:48:00.002-05:00

As Sam gets older, we are starting to see quite a little personality come through. Much like his older sister, he's got a lot of spunk. I managed to catch a glimpse of it on camera and thought I would share. There are moments when I wouldn't mind a slightly more mellow child, but ours sure are a lot of fun.

And in case you're wondering, that face he's making at the beginning is his camera smile. Looks like modeling is out for a career.

Riley

2010-05-11T21:50:00.004-05:00

I'm sure most of you have heard by now, that our 3-year-old nephew, Riley, passed away last Tuesday. You may remember my earlier post about him. I want to thank everyone for their prayers and support - I can hardly believe the difference it has made. A link to the newspaper story can be found here and the obituary can be read here.

We spent pretty much every waking moment last week with Seth's family, moving from utter shock and disbelief on Tuesday into overwhelming grief on Wednesday. What has been most surprising to me has been how quickly the family was able to move into acceptance and a celebration of this little boy's life. Even as we mourned our loss, the house was still filled with sounds of joy and laughter as we remembered Riley.

Seeing the faith of Riley's parents has been inspirational to me - and their faith has brought strength, peace and grace to all those around them. Of course, there are still many moments of tears and sadness whenever the ache of his absence is felt, but I'm impressed with how well the family has been able to grab onto all the goodness of Riley's short life and the goodness that continues to come from it. I pray that we will continue to do so.

Now onto some of my philosophical ramblings....

The human reaction to death has always been a strong source of evidence to me that God exists and that we are meant to live with God eternally. Death is the one experience on earth that is universal - everyone faces it sooner or later. And yet, our reaction to death is always to question it - as though it shouldn't happen. I heard over and over that first night the phrase "It's not right." And that's true - it's not right. Fortunately, that's not the end of the story.

Some would say that humans came up with the concept of an eternal life after death to comfort ourselves when we are grieving the death of a loved one. I think the opposite is true: we grieve the death of a loved one because know deep down that we were not made to die. God did not create us to die; we brought death upon ourselves when we turned from God, who is the source of all life. That is why death feels so wrong: because it is.

That's what the first few chapters of Genesis are expressing. They're not meant to be a scientific or historical account of how God made the Earth; it's a story (much like the parables) written to reveal fundamental truths about God and our relationship with him. This Truth is not contained in the details of the story, rather in the message that they express. Father did a beautiful job of expressing these truths at the funeral mass; I'll try to do a little of the same. (Some of) the truths are these:

1. God created us in his image, meaning we were capable of love. In order to be capable of love, we must have the freedom to choose love or to reject it - otherwise we would just be robots.

2. We screwed up. We ate from the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil." In other words, we tried to take it upon ourselves to decide what was good and what was bad rather than trusting God, the creator and source of all good.

3. The consequence of our actions was suffering and death - not part of the original plan, but again the only way to avoid it would have been to make us into robots incapable of choosing for ourselves.

4. God loves us enough, that he promised to fix it (or "fik it"as Riley would say) by sending a savior. And he did. God became man and took the consequence of our sin upon Himself so that we would not have to suffer it eternally. So while we still experience an earthly death, through the grace of Jesus, it becomes instead a new birth to the life we were created for.

I think I've taken enough of your time for today; so to close, here's a video of Riley reading with Elena. He was her closest cousin (just 11 months older) and they loved playing together. We love you and miss you very much, Riley. We look forward to seeing you again!

Riley Richard Sorensen May 18, 2006 - May 4, 2010

I love garage sales

2010-04-26T17:22:00.006-05:00

So far this year, I got Elena's entire summer wardrobe for about $10 plus a large wok for $2 and a tent for the kids to play in for $2.

Last fall we got a trampoline for $25 - I mainly wanted it as a way for Elena to burn enough energy so I can get her down for a nap at a decent time. Otherwise, she doesn't get tired until 5:00, at which point she is either cranky the rest of the evening or she naps and stays up and can't fall asleep at night.

It's great excercise for the grown-ups, too. Shortly after we got it, our neighbor came outside and caught Seth and me jumping on the trampoline like a couple of kids while Sam and Elena were napping.

Easter Egg Hunting

2010-04-19T15:36:00.002-05:00

I just realized I never put up any pictures from Easter. Here are the kids hunting for eggs.

Perfect!

2010-04-16T16:31:00.002-05:00

In case you're wondering what has happened to us, the weather has been absolutely perfect here for the past couple of weeks. So all of our free time has been spent outside. I'll try to do a blog update on the next cool day.

Just to tie all of my avid readers over, here's something I overheard the other day that made me laugh. Seth was trying to comb Elena's hair, which she absolutely hates, but which we need to do daily lest she end up with a permanent wad of hair knotted up in the back of her head.

Elena: No! No! No! No!
Seth: Elena, Hold still.
Elena: Nooooooo!
Seth: We can do this the easy way or the hard way.
Elena: Hmmm......the hard way.

(the hard way, by the way, just means Seth pretty much puts her in a headlock while he combs her hair)

Drowning

2010-04-08T22:00:00.001-05:00

Sometimes I feel like I am drowning in venison. Not only do we have a large box in our freezer full of venison from this past fall, we also have a slightly smaller box in our freezer full of venison from the previous fall.

Half of my freezer is venison.

And I don't like venison. I really wish I did, but I just don't.

I eat it because it is there and I would feel guilty letting it go to waste, not to mention wasting all the money and time put into killing the deer and processing the meat. But I use it sparingly and I'm not keeping up with the incoming meat.

Seth likes it, but I don't think he would be thrilled with me making him eat venison egg bake for breakfast, venison lasagna for lunch and venison hot-dish for supper every day for the next 6 months, which is about how long it would take one person to finish it all off.

Sometimes when November rolls around, I am tempted to pray that no one in Seth's family will get a deer. I say tempted because I would never actually do that. I love them too much. I will admit, though, that I don't pray for them to get anything, either - only for their safety. And that's as far as I'll go, boys. Sorry.

But in the end, I guess it doesn't really bother me to be drowning in unappetizing, inescapable meat. For one, so much of the world has such a small quantity and variety of food that I should be happy to have food at all. And if that's the price I have to pay for a happy husband who loves me as much as Seth does, I will do so with a smile on my face.

Even if it looks more like a grimace while I choke down yet another bite of venison.

By the way, if anyone wants some venison......

It's hard to believe I'm now the mother of a 3-year-old

2010-04-01T21:34:00.003-05:00

Words can't describe how wonderful it has been to watch Elena grow these past 3 years. She's just an amazing child (as all children are, of course), and we hope to enjoy many, many more years with her. As her personality emerges more with time, it has been especially fun to see so much of us in her.

From Seth: she gets her social skills and an ability to remember a face anywhere.

From me: I see a joy for learning, extreme talkativeness and strong-mindedness. I'm unfortunately getting a good taste of my own medicine.

Like both of us: she enjoys dancing and is stubborn as a mule when it comes to potty-training. (Seth and I were both the most difficult of our families to potty-train)

Happy Birthday, Elena!

Our Trip to the Tropics

2010-03-14T15:16:00.006-05:00

I don't think I mentioned this on here before we left, but Seth met his quota for last year with the Knights of Columbus, which means they sent us on a trip to the Virgin Islands. Every year, all the agents who meet their quota are sent on a trip, which means we may get to do quite a bit of traveling in the future if Seth keeps up the good work! Then I won't have to resort to using tactics like this in the future:

We had a great time soaking up the sun and meeting some of the other families - there was a total of about 400-500 people there with the group, and they treated us well. We had a huge buffet every morning for breakfast and several dinners during the week with unimaginable amounts of food, drinks and live music. I think the staff at our resort was secretly happy to see us go :)

We brought Sam and left Elena with my parents. Elena had a great time with Grandma and Papi; half the time she was too busy to even talk with us when we called. Sam did extremely well through the entire trip. We were nervous about the long plane rides (about 8 hours on planes there and back), but he napped a little on each flight and kept himself entertained playing peek-a-boo with other passengers, reading books and playing pat-a-cake.

During the week, he was one of the most popular people at the resort. By the end of our stay, we would walk through the halls and people we didn't even know would stop and say "It's Sammy! Hi, Sam!!" Everywhere we went he would go up to as many people as he could to say "Hi." And he loved the dances - if he wasnt' tearing around the dance floor with other kids, he would pick and adult and hold up his arms to be picked up and danced with.

We spent a lot of time enjoying the sunny beach. The water was warm and the waves were big enough to be fun, but small enough to be pretty safe. Sam loved the sand and the water. Seth and I got a little sun-burned, of course. I shouldn't have brought the spray-on sunblock: it's much harder to put it on evenly when it's windy. We were a little splotchy.

Sam's first plane ride.

Sam, sleeping with this nice couple from Canada, who generously offered to babysit him one evening so we could go out alone. (Seth had been to training with Jeff last year) He had a great time!

Meeting Tom Smith (KC Vice President) and Supreme Knight Carl Anderson (basically the KC president) - For any KC this is a big deal!

Look closely and you'll see these rocks are covered with iguanas.

Sam's fan club

The hotel had towels just Sammy's size!

We're Back!

2010-03-13T09:44:00.002-06:00

We just returned from the Virgin Islands. I'll write more later. Unpacking takes much more time when you have 2 little ones "helping."

I think Sam's going to need some brothers....

2010-03-01T13:41:00.000-06:00

This is what happens when you let your 12-year-old niece watch your little boy: vfc

Don't clean teeth feel great....(even if they do cost $100)?

2010-02-27T13:24:00.006-06:00

Elena had her first visit to the dentist last week, and she absolutely loved it! She didn't want to leave. Everyone there was very impressed, saying she was the best 2-year old they've ever had. She let them do a full check-up and cleaning.

Polishing her teeth

No cavities!!

I also went to the dentist this week, and though I personally think I was also very well behaved, they didn't seem as impressed with me as they were with Elena. As a child I hated the dentist and I never thought I'd see the day when I'd enjoy it; but now that I spend my days caring non-stop for 2 little kids, I was just happy to have an opportunity to lie down for 45 minutes straight without interruption.

Happy St. Valentine's Day

2010-02-14T16:20:00.005-06:00

It's Saint Valentine's day - the feast day of the 3rd century priest who secretly married Christian couples and is therefore considered the patron saint of lovers. Interestingly enough, he's also the patron saint of bee-keepers and epilepsy. He was beheaded on Feb. 14th after beating him with clubs proved ineffective. Sure makes me glad we live in a country that respects our freedom of religion!

Anyway, to celebrate Seth and I went to the annual Chocolate Affair here in town - a fund-raiser for the library with a catered meal, live jazz band, dancing and unlimited chocolate. Mmmmm.

We so rarely get a chance to dance so we took full advantage of the opportunity - apparent by the fact that several inches of my skirt and part of my shirt had torn from dancing by the end of the night. Fortunately, none of the tears were severe enough to be considered indecent. My hair also came out (my hair-do I should say - I still have a full head of hair) and my shoes flew off all in one move. The shoes managed to avoid inflicting damage on any bystanders. Next year I'll have to remember to dress for mobility over style! A few band-members blamed us for messing up the song, though, since they stopped playing so they could watch. Needless to say, we had a great time. The only problem is we get winded a little sooner than we did when we were 18!

And even though it has nothing to do with Valentine's, here's a picture of the kids in their latest favorite hang out.