Look who's riding bike!

It took him about 30 seconds to get the hang of it. To celebrate, we biked to the Dairy Queen where Grandma treated us to ice cream.

One of the benefits of having a Grandma who volunteers at a thrift store is that she has gotten great deals on all sorts of bikes, scooter and trikes so there are always enough to go around. Here's Sammy giving Frankie and Gabby a ride on one of Grandma's trikes.

Charlie and Debbie

This last year, we watched a little girl, Debbie, a couple of days a week. Being the youngest of 8 kids, she was always cracking us up with the things she would say. She talked like a teenager trapped in a tiny little body.  And Charlie isn't short on comical quips himself so the two of them together were pretty entertaining. After about 7 months, I finally had the bright idea to set up a camera while they were eating lunch every day.

I picked out the best of their conversations and put them together for you all to enjoy. My only regret is that I didn't catch some of their earlier conversations, like the time Debbie said, "Ugh! I just need to get some peace!" and Charlie, trying to help, opened the freezer door and said, "We don't have any peas, but we have ice." (I actually had the camera out on that one, but Frankie was throwing a tantrum so I couldn't hold it. I'm pretty sure you'll get to hear him crying in several parts of the video; lunch time is usually Cranky Frankie time.)

I hope you can understand it all - I didn't have time to put subtitles on all the parts that were hard to hear. There's also a brief appearance of our nephew, Reed. The video is unlisted so let me know if it doesn't work on here:

Finger Shapes

This morning Charlie held up his fingers, attempting to shape them into a heart (it was more like a rectangle) and said, "Look, Mom! It's a heart."

"Oh! That's so sweet!" I said. Then he shifted his fingers and said, "Now it's poop." I'm pretty sure that's supposed to be the shape of a poop emoji. Unfortunately the poop is much more accurate.

Flash vs. Superman

We have some friends staying with us while they are in transition between houses. The dad is a fan of Marvel superheros just like Charlie so when Charlie was zooming around the house like Flash, Nathan thought he would quiz Charlie. Here's how that went.

Nathan: If Flash and Superman were in a race, who would win?

Charlie: Me!

Nathan: That's a great answer.

I, of course, asked what the real answer was. Apparently there's no way to tell because (aside from the fact that they are fictional characters) they are both able to reach a speed enabling them to travel through time or something....

My favorite superhero is one of Charlie's invention. Seth's Grandma gave Elena an old flowy nightgown/robe thing, which Charlie quickly confiscated for his cape. Then he ran around and around the island at top speed as "Bat Grandma"!

It's become pretty tough to get stuff done around here (like posting on the blog, for example!), mainly because Frankie all by himself is a full time job. Plus I have keeping up with the home and the other 3 kids so some days feel like I have 3 or 4 full times jobs. We keep saying Frankie is our most challenging toddler (but honestly we're probably just suffering from a bit of mental amnesia).

Basically if I'm not holding him -which he wants me to do about 7 hours a day - he's getting into something. This morning's first example: I caught him trying to put one of the kittens in the oven. Luckily, he can't turn it on!

At least he's nice to them when he sleeps.

It's All in the Presentation

The same smoothie these kids rejected in the morning because they "didn't like it" was eagerly gobbled up that afternoon after I froze it into popsicles.

I've found the importance of presentation to be especially true when dealing with children. After I tried sneaking kale and spinach into some of our smoothies, our kids have become wary of the term "smoothie." They will eat them sometimes, but they don't jump at the chance as quickly or consistently as I would like. Half the time, they don't like it and I end up drinking everyone's smoothies myself (this is usually when I try to sneak in a little extra nutrients by adding flax seed or something). The other half, they love it and I don't have enough to go around.

The younger they are, though, the easier it is to persuade them to like something. For Charlie, I call my berry smoothies a "banana-berry milkshake," and he will drink it down much more willingly than if I just call it a smoothie.

Frankie loves them every time. The only problem with him is that he really likes to play with his food. Half the time, he dumps his smoothie into his lap and starts rubbing it into his legs so he ends up with red legs covered in stuck-on raspberry seeds.

A trip to the cities

We had tickets to a children's theater in the cities so we decided to make a weekend of it with the kids. We went to the play - "Stone Soup" - which all the kids loved. Even Frankie sat through the whole performance. We also went to the MN Zoo and the Science Museum.

A few days before we left, Sam asked if we could have "that stuff" we had in Germany again. After a bit of explaining, I figured out that he was referring to shawarma that we bought from a street vendor. We decided to take the kids to the Mediterranean Café, a Greek restaurant that we used to go to when we lived up there. Knowing they sometimes have belly dancers, we decided to go at lunch, thinking the wouldn't have belly dancers on a weekday at noon. Not that we have anything against belly dancers, we just didn't know if we wanted to intentionally bring our young children to watch a woman gyrating around a stage.

Turns out we were wrong about them not having belly dancers at lunch. Not only did they have one, she came over and invited the kids to come up for a belly dancing lesson, which was very entertaining. Charlie was a little unsure so he didn't go up, and Frankie just stared and stared. Sam and Elena had a lot of fun, though.

"Fish!!" (or as Frankie says it, "Shish! Shish!") Frankie loves fish and is constantly asking to go over to his cousins' house next door where they have a mounted fish he can see or to re-watch an episode of Mr. Rogers where he goes snorkeling again and again. So he was pretty excited at the giant aquarium. I think he would have stayed there all day if we let him.

with one of the cast members of the play

Conversations in the car

Charlie: Debbie, sing along with this song.

Debbie: I can't.

Me: She probably doesn't know it because it's a song from the 80's.

Sam: They had songs in the 80's???!!!

6 girls playing in Elena's room with 4 kittens.

4 boys playing "Roblox" in Sam's room. I don't know what that is but it involved a lot of jumping, yelling and testosterone-inspired-noises.

1 boy crying, screaming and arguing for 1/2 and hour because I wouldn't let him drink a can of Mountain Dew he somehow got his hands on at the neighbor's or somewhere.

And 1 toddler downstairs with me who is only happy if he is making me mad - he's at that developmental stage where he misbehaves on purpose and watches for my reaction.....He has spent the entire morning going back and forth between yanking on the cats fur/hair/tail as hard as he can (she's too kind to bite him although I wish she would), climbing on the dining room table to take a swing at our 130 year old chandelier, trying to spread yogurt and other foods on my laptop keyboard, unfolding the laundry I'm trying to fold, then laughing in my face when I tell him to stop any of the above, and crying miserably when I make him stop.

This has not been the most productive day.

It's Here!

The winters here may be long and cold, but boy do we enjoy our summers! And here's the proof.