Samisms

I love when kids are learning a language and they say things that only those who know them best would understand. Here are a few of Sam's:

If he asks for macaroni and cheese, don't make it before checking to make sure he isn't really talking about cottage cheese.

If he wants a "valentine," he means a clementine.

When he says he saw someone riding a popcicle, he is talking about a motorcycle.

"Ice squishing" means ice fishing.

This one only happened once, but it cracked me up: Sam was getting ready for Church and he said he was going to tuck in his shirt "so I'll look sharp." Once his shirt was tucked in he said, "There - now I'm sharpened."

Elena has taken to turning nouns into verbs. Here are 2 recent examples:

Pointing out a No Smoking sign, she said, "There's no cigaretting allowed here."

And her friend, Matthew, got back from a trip to Oklahoma a few days before the tornados hit this past week, causing Elena to remark, "I'm glad Matthew is home from Oklahoma so he doesn't get tornadoed."

"Sister"

I failed to mention earlier that we have a new addition to our family this spring: our exchange student from Germany, Natalie. She joined us in February, and we have thoroughly enjoyed having her here with us.

At Easter, Elena mentioned to my cousin's wife, Anne, that "my sister is sleeping." Anne had a brief panic attack thinking that we had had another child and she had somehow managed to miss it entirely. It was then that I realized that I hadn't gotten around to writing about her on here.

As you can see from the picture, the kids love her! Sam had a little trouble remembering her name for the first couple of weeks. He knows it now, but continues to just call her "Sister". She does not have any younger siblings and comes from a big city so living with small children in a small town is a big adjustment for her. After a couple of weeks, she said that she will miss the small town life when she goes back home (not that she would want to live here permanently :) We sure will miss her when she goes home in June.

Thanks for the help, Mom and Ricky!

I have never been so thankful to be in a town full of relatives that I can call on at a moment’s notice as I was today.

While I was watching our 2-year-old nephew this afternoon, he managed to lock himself into our bathroom. He had already gone to the bathroom 3 times that day without evenshutting the door, so I have no idea what made him decide to shut and lock the door this time.

Since all of our doors have knobs from the early 20th century, our only options for locking them are hook latches or bolts. This door had a sliding bolt a few inches above the doorknob, which makes it impossible to get at from the outside. The hinges on the door were on the inside so removing the door that way was not an option. And the window was locked from the inside so the only way through that was to bust it open, which I didn't really care to do.

Of course, he did it about 10 seconds after Seth left to go running so I was home alone – and getting through locked doors and windows is not my forte. I spent about 5 minutes explaining to RJ how to unlock the door. After trying to reach it once or twice, he just sat down and started
yelling for his Mom, refusing to try again. Fortunately, my brother-in-law, Ricky was working next door and came over to help. The 2 of us (and Sam) spent another 5 minutes trying to get him to move the stool across the room so he could reach the lock, to which he repeatedly responded, “NO! I want my mommy!!” Even having his mom talk to him over the loudspeaker on my phone didn’t help. (His older sister later told me that he’s going through a period
of really not liking people to tell him what to do. Lovely.)

We could see him through the window trying to reach the lock, and his fingers couldn’t reach it well enough to move it. I’m still not sure how he managed to lock it in the first place. After about 20 minutes, I was starting to think that if he didn’t agree to move the stool soon and unlock the door, we were going to have to take an axe to it. Luckily, Ricky’s mind is much better at mechanical problem-solving than my own.

He figured out that he could pry part of the trim away from the door enough to stick a knife through and slide the lock over with that. Then he just pounded the trim back in place and you couldn’t even tell it had been disturbed.

So the door was finally unlocked, and we were able to get to RJ, who was happy and unharmed – hooray!! – and covered in poop. Double hooray. Seth came back from his run about this time,
so he ran RJ upstairs for a bath while I cleaned poop off (and sanitized) the stool, sink, door and floor.

Oh, and did I mention that this all happened at the same time I was supposed to be picking Elena up from preschool? It’s a good thing Seth’s parents live 2 blocks away from the school and his mom was able to run over to get her.

#87 on our to-do list: move locks out of the reach of small children.

Hawaii says hello

Seth and I just got back from our trip with the Knights of Columbus to Hawaii (the big island). It was our first time together away from both kids for longer than one night, and it was wonderful. Of course I missed the kids - especially when we saw something they would have really enjoyed, like all the places to swim at the resort. However, I'm not going to deny that I loved having a week to do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted without much interruption - I especially enjoyed the slow, lazy mornings.

The kids also had a blast staying with all of their grandmas and grandpas. Elena put it well the night before we left. I told her, "I'm really going to miss you while I'm gone, and I hope you have fun." To which she replied, "Well...I'm not going to miss you. And you'll have less fun than me." It probably sounds terrible written out, but she wasn't being snotty - just very honest :) She was absolutely thrilled to have an entire week of grandparents. (I hope that they were able to enjoy it a little as well).

Sam's biggest worry while we were gone was apparently that we would get too close to a volcano. The first time we called home, he asked if we would see hot lava. I said I didn't know, but that we had seen lots of cold lava. He then said, in a very concerned voice, "If you see the hot lava, will you be sure to stay far away so it doesn't burn you?" I figured I would be the one worrying about the kids on this trip - I wasn't expecting it to be the other way around!

We did see a volcano, but we were not able to get close enough to see the hot lava...

One of the highlights of the trip was when we went snorkeling in the lagoon pictured below. We came across a large sea turtle and were able to swim along side it for about 5 minutes. We were close enough that we could have laid our hand on its back (but they are an endangered species so we're not supposed to touch them).

While we had a wonderful time, it is always good to be home. And we have been fortunate to return to weather almost as nice as it was in Hawaii. I would dare say this afternoon was nicer than what we had in Hawaii - although it might just seem that way because I'm comparing it to what we've had in previous years at this time. I love the warm weather, but I think I love it so much because of the winter. There are not many things sweeter than watching everything come to life outside after a long winter.

The weather was so nice at our friend Toby's 3rd birthday party we had to play some games outside. We decided to have a 3-legged race followed by one of those baseball races where the kids spin around with their foreheads on a bat and then try to run.
Frankly, the kids were boring. They were too didn't get that dizzy, and even when they did, they still were coordinated enough to run in a straight line. And we didn't want to make them spin so much that they would puke or hurt themselves.
Enter the Dads. They were much more entertaining.

To really appreciate this video, I think you have to watch it 3 times: first for the overall effect, and then to watch Jason (gray shirt) and Dan (light green) each individually.

And then probably a few more times just to laugh at them. According to Dan, there was a brief moment just after he saw Jason go down where he thought to himself, "Yes! I have a chance!" before dropping himself. If you're wondering what Jason is doing, he is attempting to hold himself up by wrapping his arms around the tree. Seth won the race, but wasn't nearly as entertaining.

Happy St. Paddy's Day!

Minnesota Weather

This picture was taken the first week of January. The kids were outside. In shorts. And it was comfortable. As most of you probably know, we enjoyed an unusually warm start to the year here in MN.

One drawback to this was that Sam refused to switch back to pants and long-sleeved shirts for several weeks afterwards - even when the cold weather returned, which is what led to Sam's latest unique fashion trends.

I recall my mom telling me that we girls would change our clothes several times a day, and that my brother was on the opposite end of the spectrum, insisting on wearing the same clothes day after day (along with a belt that he always wore much too tight).

Sam is a mixture of the two. While he frequently decides to change clothes during the day (pulling out every article of clothing he owns in the process), he recently discovered what we like to call his "winter muscle shirt." His new favorite top is a green sweater vest with no shirt underneath. For quite awhile he wore it almost daily along with shorts and cowboy boots. I didn't get a pictures of that snazzy combo, but I do have a shot of the sweater vest.

Fortunately, we have had enough real winter weather since then that we have been able to talk him back into wearing pants.

Speaking of winter, I just want to say how extremely happy I am to have family right next door who are willing to play with the kids outside. A special shout-out to Austin and Madison (even though they don't read this) who pulled Elena and Sam around in sleds for almost 2 hours while I got supper ready.

Here are a couple of shots of our latest snowfall, which has already melted.

Here is Brooke, RJ, Elena and Sam. Those tree branches on the ground behind them are normally about 10 feet higher up.

Our street.

Ice skating

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

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

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)