Four Eyes

Last year and the year before, Dani failed hearing tests at school. She ended up having tubes put in her ears. Twice. Problem solved. So this year, Dani managed to fail the vision test at school! When we got the letter from the school I had visions of my poor kid, with coke bottle glasses, of course with one of those fancy elastic straps to keep them on her head, braces, that fuzz of red hair on her head and all her funny little behavior quirks, and shuddered at the ridicule that she would have to face.

She nagged and nagged and nagged until finally we took her to the eye doctor. So desperate was the kid to get glasses that she actually told the doc that she couldn't see the big E -- you know, the giant one at the top. I called her on the carpet on that one, and I became fairly skeptical about her NEED for glasses. The doctor had her work cut out for her with Dani, as she has always had issues for keeping her eyes fixed anywhere, especially when someone is right in her face. We have to go back to get her eyes dialated in a few weeks because the doctor couldn't see into her eyes, but the final verdict on the glasses was yes -- she just BARELY needs them, though if I had her 20/30 vision, I'd ditch the glasses and sing Hallelujah!

She's had the suckers for about 90 minutes and I've already found them on the floor. Anyone know where I can find one of those elastic band thingys?

Rude Awakening

Last night, I woke up to the sound of running footsteps through my bedroom. They stopped momentarily, only to be followed by the sounds of retching and vomit splashing all over my bathroom floor.

"GET TO THE TOILET!" I yelled, and I then heard the sounds of vomit splattering all the way across my bathroom to the toilet. I jumped out of bed and flicked on the lights. Oh, what a mess. Oh, what a smell! Maybe 2% of the contents of Dani's stomach made it into the toilet, the rest of splashed all over the floor and walls of my bathroom.

"Dani!" I groaned.

Frantically, Dani defended herself, "I don't know what happened!!!" Sure. At the moment I was so annoyed I couldn't even laugh at that, much less have any sympathy for the poor kid.

So at 2 am, Jason and I mopped the bathroom floor while Dani settled back to sleep on the couch in my room with clean jammies and a barf bowl. I stayed home from church with her today, but what a surprise -- she didn't have anything close to a down day today! She was as demanding, wild and well... as Dani as always, all day long. All it took to cure her stomach bug was bathing the bathroom in puke. Why is the worst possible solution always the best one with her???

Tradition continues

For the 3rd time in the last 5 years, we trek ked 90 minutes up to Sinnissippi Forest in Oregon, IL to cut down a Christmas tree. We have failed to make it up there twice since we moved a to Illinois. Once, out of stupidity (we didn't know what great thing we'd found) and once because terrible weather made traveling so far a very unsafe option. We were so happy to be able to go back this year and perform all our favorite traditions.

Tradition #1: See Santa! This year no one was afraid of the Big Guy. Even Brendan went right up to the him and said hello. When asked what they wanted for Christmas, Emily and Evan both said Webkins, Dani said legos and Bredan requested toys. Santa does not look real happy in the following picture. He must know just how good Dani has been this year.....

Tradition #2: Had our picture taken by the Sinnisippi Forest sign. This year we were lucky. Rather than choosing which parent got to be in the picture, a very nice lady offered to take our picture for us.

Tradition #3: Went on the hayride around the farm

Tradition #4: Meticulously select the perfect Christmas tree, take a family picture in front of it and chop the sucker down! This year the kids were big enough that everyone got a turn with the saw!

We were lucky to have very nice weather -- 42 balmy degrees! Its much more fun to browse and critique trees when you're not freezing your buns off! The kids all had a great time running up and down the rows of trees -- even Brendan, who couldn't manage to stay on his feet for more than 10 or 20 steps at a time!
Tradition #5: Stuffed ourselves with delicious cocoa and freshly made apple cider donuts! Brendan had a rough time with his cocoa. No matter how much I blew on it too cool it down, it was always too hot for him, unless of course, I held it to his lips and helped him EVERY TIME he wanted a sip. The donuts were also too messy for him. I guess licking sugar and cinnamon off your fingers is too much for a 3 year old to handle. More for the rest of us!


Tradition #6: Purchased a new Christmas decoration from the Christmas Shoppe. This year, we couldn't decide between 2 -- a snowman on a sled or a large red sleigh -- so we bought them both (with no objections from Jason, to my surprise!). Pictures will follow once they are on display in the house.



All in all it was a lovely day. I love holiday traditions!

Why we celebrate Thanksgiving...

We had a fun Thanksgiving this year. We actually had company -- a rare occurance! My 7th grade locker partner/BYU college roomate, Katie Steewart and her family came down and spent a couple of days with us. The kids had a blast together and we adults had fun talking and cooking and enjoying the fact that the kids were having so much fun together than they forgot to need us! Friday we went to Chicago and checked out the lights on the Mag Mile, ate delicious pizza at Pizzeria Uno and played in the Lego store. Those Stewarts can come and make us have fun again ANYTIME!

As we were eating dinner on Thanksgiving, Evan turned in his seat to share with me:

Evan: I know what happened on the first Thanksgiving.
Me: Oh yeah? What?
Evan: The Indians brought lots of food and were friends with the Pilgrims becuase they were so sorry.
Me: Sorry? For what?
Evan: Becuase they had messed up America!

On Prayer

We went to a party tonight and I took some apple cobbler as my meager contribution -- which just happens to be my kids favorite. Evan played so hard and so long that by the end of the night, he still hadn't had any cobbler. When we got home, he asked if he could have some before bed and I said no, since it was 9:30 and I needed a break, I mean, he needed his rest. Of course, Evan started to throw a fit, so I suggested it might make a good breakfast. No worse than a donut, right? He seemed pleased with that idea... eager, even. When he said family prayer tonight he made sure to include, "And please help us to remember that we can have cobbler for breakfast tomorrow. Amen."

Faith

Evan came running home from his friends house this morning to find his Webkins elephant, meas it was essential to some game he and Lucas were playing. It was also essential to find it quickly and get back to Lucas' house, as time for kindergarten was drawing very near.

I tried to help him, as best I could, though I had just gotten out of the shower and looked in a place or two in between stages of getting put together. I was looking around in my room between getting dressed and putting on makeup and I heard Evan should, "YES!" from the playroom. "Did you find it?" I called. "No," he replied, "but I know what to do!" Thinking he'd thought of some brilliant place to look, I walked out to the playroom and found him kneeling in the middle of the room, arms folded and head bowed, praying for help to find his missing Webkin. Not wanting to disturb him, I headed into Dani's room for a look around and he opened one eye and said to me, "This is the right thing to do, right, Mom?" "Yep," I replied, suddenly deciding that rather than telling him he was going to have to forget about it and go play without it, I would now HAVE to make sure he found it! The contrast in the placement of our faith was obvious less than 2 minutes later, when he went right to the location of the webkins pulled it out. "I KNEW it would work!" he shouted and took off for Lucas' house.

And now that I think about it, I seem to remember Heavenly Father being especially good with lost library books back in my own childhood.......

Party Day!

Jason has lots of vacation days left this year, so he has decided to take the day off whenever the kids don't have school. Our first family holiday was Columbus Day and we took the kids to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. The kids thought the whole place was completely awesome. We did everything from have cow milking contests, to riding airplanes to splashing in water and driving combines. They can't wait to go back



Dani milking a cow

I was amazed at how big all the farm equipment was. Brendan is sitting in the wheel of a tractor -- and this was the SMALLEST of the farming vehicles there!

Evan might have been in trouble playing in this jet turbine if he'd been a superhero wearing a cape, but luckily, we have watched The Incredibles 4387 times and so we know all about the dangers of combining capes and flying...

For some reason this was Dani and Evan's favorite thing. Everywhere we went in the museum, they wanted to go back to the trolley. We returned to the exhibit after we'd seen everyting else and probably spend 30-45 minutes playing on it. The kids were trolley attendants and I was the customer and they brought me drinks and snacks until the place closed and they kicked us out!

On the way home, we stopped at IHOP for dinner and then, on a whim, passed a pumpkin farm and stopped to pick pumpkins.

After forking over $42 for 4 pumpkins (choke, gag, gasp, screech -- sorry, I still can't believe we spent that much on PUMPKINS). We went home and the kids declared it a successful day and want to bring anyone who comes to visit us to the Museum. Any takers?

Happy Halloween

We survived the day. I got party prep and costume finalization done last night, survived supervising a fifth grade Halloween party without looking like too much of an idiot, got pumpkins carved, handed out candy to a few hundred kids and even fed my family a healthy dinner -- well, healthier than bags full of candy, anyway.


Em just HAD to be a pumpkin this year. Did you know that they don't make pumpkin costumes for 9 year olds? So I had to use my very limited sewing skills to fashion one out of a huge t-shirt and a bag of batting. Its a little frumpy, but she loved it.

Dani really wanted to be Indiana Jones, but I wasn't too hot on the idea spending a zillion dollars on costumes this year and was trying to encourage the kids to come up with more creative, and inexpensive ideas. While walking through Party City, Dani glimpsed someone walking by with a handful of medals and suddenly, she wanted to be an Olympic Athlete. I loved -- we spend absolutely NO money on her costume!!!EEvan, for some reason really wanted to be a knight. His was the only costume I had to give in and buy.
Brendan wore a different outfit every time he got to dress up. For trick or treating, he selected a Power Ranger costume from the stash of superhero costumes we have, which made me happy because it hadn't been used very much up to this point and its one of the nicer dress ups we have

The kids stayed out trick or treating far longer than usual. Jason says that Emily and Brendan were the trailblazers, wanting to go on and on, while Dani and Evan skipped lots of houses and wanted to go home. At least it was a beautiful warm night, so that bitter cold didn't add to the conflict!