Quotable moments

1. Frankie: (playing out some sort of battle with his toys) You're gonna get dead by death!!!

2. For those who haven't spent much time around Minneota, it is extremely flat. Seth's nickname at his job in the cities was "Flatlander." This became quite obvious when I realized how small of a dip in the road we need to make Frankie notice. Driving home from daycare, Frankie sometimes will get excited as we approach "the mountain." "Ooooh! This is going to be fun! Here it comes. WEEEEEE!!"
If you want to see the it, you can find it by clicking here. Just trust me that the "mountain" looks way bigger in person. And by "way bigger" I mean that you can see a barely discernible shift in elevation if you have a 4-year old in the back seat who points it out to you.

3. I overheard Frankie making rhymes the other day. Dig and big. Box and fox. Stuff like that. So I asked him if he could think of a word to rhyme with Boy. I was expecting Toy or Joy. I was not expecting La Croix, which is what he said.

4. This isn't really a quote, but Charlie brought home a card for me today from school. On the inside was a cute picture of me holding Olivia and a child (presumably Charlie) standing next to me. On the front, it said, "Congratulations MOM! You had Olivia. From: Charlie."
I guess they were making cards for expectant mothers today at school and since he couldn't think of anyone, he decided to make one for me.

5. A discussion arose with our kids clarifying the fact that not all people who are Islamic belong to ISIS. We ended up showing the older ones this little clip. Sam thought it was so funny that he showed Charlie. Half-way through, Charlie said (with some difficulty because he was laughing so hard), "I don't even get it, but it's so funny!!!"

Charlie, not wanting to have to take a bath alone, kept trying to talk Frankie joining him. He tried all sorts of persuasion and begging, hyping up the awesome bath toys, etc.

Frankie stubbornly refused again and again.

Meanwhile, Elena kept trying to help by trying to force Charlie to go take a bath alone.

I finally got the chance to intervene and, pulling Charlie aside, I briefly explained reverse psychology to him.

He walked to the bathroom saying in an excited voice, "Frankie! I'm going to take a bath with No One!!"

The effect was immediate.  Frankie dropped what he was doing and ran after Charlie saying,  "I want to come, too!!!"

I just hope Charlie remembers this next time he really does want a bath alone. It's harder to switch Frankie's mind in the opposite direction.

Jumpy Baby!

Happy 7th Birthday, Charlie!

Charlie's birthday landed during a blizzard this year (same as last year, I believe) and also over MLK Jr. Day, so we got a nice 4-day weekend to celebrate (and recuperate). We threw together a last minute party with some of the neighborhood boys and cousins, which was good because we needed help eating his huge cake.

He decided he wanted the castle cake that Elena had for her 9th birthday. I didn't have the exact right size pans so we had to improvise and it turned out a little lopsided, but he had fun decorating it and everyone enjoyed eating it so it was a success. The main drawback was that between cooling and layering and needing to run to the store for a missing ingredient and the baby and Frank....it took a total of 9 hours from start to finish to make.

Here's a picture of his cake. We had made it the day before and gravity was starting to work a number on the turrets ;)

Myhre Christmas Highlights!

The crew at the DeCock side Xmas. Yes, we all fit and yes, there was enough food. This is around 80 people.

Playing pepper with Daddy

Great Grandma & Grandpa DeCock with all the great-grandkids present (and 1 great-great)

Hayride around the farm pictures!

Seth and siblings with Mom and Dad

Our clan

Papi and the male grandkids

Grandma and the female grandkids

Livi's first Christmas!!

Our Xmas card this year

And the poems the grandkids memorized as Grandma Langer's Christmas gift. Sorry a few are hard to hear:

Quotes and Cuteness

Me: Oh, Frankie! Don't....shoot.
Elena: What?
Me: Frankie just stuck the spoon he was using in the sugar bowl.
Frankie: Don't worry, Mom. I will lick it off....see?

Charlie: Are we going to light the Christmas Loaf?

At bedtime saying prayers...
Seth: And who do you want to pray for Frankie?
Frankie: Mommy and Olivia and....Mommy and Olivia and Daddy and Charlie and Elena.
Seth: And Sammy.
Frankie: No, not Sammy.
Seth: We need to pray for Sam, too!
Frankie: (starting to cry) No, I don't want to pray for Sam....Can we get rid of him?
It seems Sam had been taking his brotherly duty to pick on and irritate his siblings a bit too seriously, and Frankie was ready to be done. Fortunately, Sam was good-natured enough to just laugh and not take it personally. Unfortunately, this means he continues to pick on Frankie just as much as before.

Now for the cuteness:

Tantrum Time

As long as I'm on the kick of catching up, I started this post a year ago.  I have always said 3 is the toughest age. Mainly because they want to do everything they can't do and at the same time they absolutely don't want to do anything they should do. Frankie was the last to potty train, sleep through the night (we're still not there), wean, etc. So it should come as no surprise that he's the last to exit the tantrum phase. The tantrums are still happening, but they are less frequent and over more reasonable issues so less entertaining. Anyway, this is as far as I got last year. I am sure I had great intentions of coming back to share more examples...

Frankie and I have entered into that stage where we have a daily battle of wills. And it looks like I have really met my match with this one. Here are a few recent episodes:

I wouldn't let him have ice cream for breakfast.  I made the mistake of letting him see me go into the freezer for some chicken, and he decided he wanted ice cream. After he quite screaming (for a good 45 minutes), he switched to arguing for awhile, and I felt like Sam-I-Am from Green Eggs and Ham.  To everything I offered, he said, "No, I won't eat cheese on it. No, I won't eat a banana on it. No, I won't eat peanut butter on it. No, I won't eat oatmeal on it." I have no idea why he kept saying "on it" by the way - he must have thought I was suggesting these things in addition to his coveted ice cream. In the end, he refused to eat anything all morning. It was after noon before he finally calmed down and accepted some yogurt and raspberries for lunch.

I wouldn't let him drive the car. (5 minutes)

Daddy drove the car instead of Mom. (The entire car ride)

Costa Rica: Part 4

Well, it's 2020 and I just realized I never finished writing this last post about Costa Rica back in 2018. I uploaded these pictures and then forgot. So here you are. The pictures pretty much say it all. Amazing beach house on Playa Hermosa! Perfect spot for families with kids. 

In no particular order, here are some memorable moments and pictures:

Our host, Isabel, couldn't have been more helpful. She drove us to the grocery store, lent us her GPS when we needed it and offered to babysit all 8 kids (we did not put her through that). 

Grace referred to the place as "Teresa's house" the entire time and for awhile afterwards. If only that were true....

The kids got along amazingly well. Except for that fight over a bag of chips, which you can see in one of the pictures below. And Frankie ruining Toby's sandcastle (also somewhere below).

Each adult brought a special talent to the table - we made a great traveling team. I was the translator, Dan was the super-prepared planner, Seth was in the ocean whenever kids were around keeping them safe and playing hard, Joy was the laundress as no one else could figure out the washing machine.

When Seth and I left a day earlier than the Wambekes. Isabel was confused because she thought we had left one child behind. Turns out Claire looks more like a Myhre than a Wambeke to outsiders. Well, we did discover that Dan is my 4th cousin so there is a minute amount of shared lineage.

Exploring tide pools