Breaking news: Elizabeth looks happy in pictures!

No,wait. Not yet...





Almost there:


And there we go:

Adventures in shopping

I had promised the girls I would take them shopping for some more clothes for school since we didn't find that much when we shopped initially. My goal was to take them to a place that did not offer character clothes as I have seen enough Jonas Brothers and Selena Gomez attire to last me a lifetime. We started out at Marshalls. Have you been to the girls section of Marshalls lately? Oh my eyes... The glitter! The sequins! The sparkles! Annika found a shirt that had a black sequins sewn on it to look like a vest. I nixed that. They did find a few acceptable things and then we went to Old Navy and The Children's Place where they got a few shirts. Why is everything for girls either covered in spangles, popstars or writing of some kind? Alexandria opted mostly for the t-shirts with the cutesy sayings, Annika was all about the hippie t-shirts (peace and love, man.) They were happy and I am happy that at least they are not wearing head-to-toe iCarly or Wizards of Waverly Place.

The air show

I suspect this post would look very different if Karl were writing it. I picked out the pictures that had people in them and that is what you get. There were about 100 more pictures of airplanes on the ground, airplanes flying, closeups of the airplanes, etc. which he no doubt would have included. He probably also would have been able to tell you about the different planes and their history and whatnot. But since this is my blog and I don't know anything about airplanes you can just look at some pictures of the kids instead.

Grandma Sharon and the kids:


Ian:



Alexandria:

Ian again:

Annika:

Can I just have a standing order for antibiotics at Walgreens?

After four kids and countless illnesses I have figured out that runny nose + fever + crabbiness + night waking + gunky eyes = ear infection 99.99% of the time. Elizabeth indeed had an ear infection and we are waiting to go pick up her antibiotics. I am eager for her to feel better and get back to being the happy girl she normally is.

Happiness is...

Getting home from school and discovering Aunt Natalie is waiting for you at the bus stop...



when you didn't even know she was in town...





The girls were thrilled to find out that Aunt Natalie had made a surprise visit from Texas. We went over to Karl's parents for dinner and had fun spending time with Aunt Natalie and Grandma and GopGop. We left Ian there to spend the night and the girls and I came home and had a Skip-Bo party. Then I forced them to listen to me read Little Women. Annika and I loved it (well I loved it, maybe Annika just tolerated it)...Alexandria not so much. Poor Elizabeth was up half the night with a fever and what I suspect is an ear infection so she and I will be staying home today while the rest of the Dains crew heads to the air show (Grandma, GopGop and Aunt Natalie included.) The kids are super excited and I know it will be a fun day for them.

Potty success!

I know most people probably don't want to read about pottying, but in our little world this is big news...Elizabeth has gone potty twice today in her potty chair! I have been changing diapers for nearly 10 years and the thought that there may be an end in sight is exciting!

One more picture

Here is Annika at around the same time frame (as the picture of Alexandria below.)Doesn't she look like Elizabeth here?

Hmmm...

We are trying to figure out the activity schedule for this year. Both girls will be doing Girl Scouts so I figured it would be best if the kids took turns with other activities so we are not gone every night of the week. So I was looking at the Y's website to see what sports they offer for Ian. I asked him if he would like to play soccer and he said no. I asked if he would like to do karate and he said "Well, I already know how to punch people, so...no." He was intrigued by the idea of Bitty Basketball. I also saw they have Bitty Football- it is flag football. He would probably like it better if it was tackle though, knowing him.

And just for good measure...

Here is Alexandria on her first day of preschool. Sniff sniff.

First day of school pictures

Oh my goodness Alexandria looks so grownup in these!

Sometimes it takes me a minute...

to figure out what the kids are talking about. Today on the way home from church we drove by a cemetery. Ian said "Look Mommy, checkers! Isn't that awesome?"
I was baffled for a minute then I realized he meant chess. The headstones in the cemetery looked like giant chess pieces. Awesome indeed.

I don't like it

I only have one more day left with my girls before they start school. It makes me sad. I hate that they are gone for 8 hours every day and I hate that they don't get home until 4:30. Can't they just stay home with me forever? They don't really need school do they?

It's just a piece of paper!

Tonight was meet your teacher night for Alexandria and Annika. The good: Their teachers seem very nice and some of Alexandria's Girl Scouts friends were in her class. We went to Alexandria's class for a short presentation from her teacher, then on to Annika's class.
The bad: Ian and Elizabeth nearly got into fisticuffs (tm Grandma Goody) over a piece of paper which was ridiculous and a little embarrassing. Ian had rolled up a piece of paper that had a map of the school and was playing with it. He got super mad when Elizabeth took it away from him. Yeah, well, when you stick something a 1/2 inch away from someone's face and then whack them on the head with it their natural response is to take it away from you. So he was fussing and squirming and carrying on trying to grab it away from her while I was hissing threats at him while trying to listen to the teacher. What, I ask you, do you do in an instance like this? If Karl would have been with me I could have whisked Ian away for an impromptu CTJM (come to Jesus meeting)but I was by myself. I didn't want to leave because it didn't seem fair to make Alexandria miss out on hearing about her class. Next time I will have some sort of plan in place beforehand so we can nip that kind of foolishness in the bud.

P.S. He wasn't being loud or I would have taken him right out so other people wouldn't be disturbed.

Fun in the car

Car trips are becoming very trying for me. Not long car trips, I am talking drives to the grocery store or the grandparents or something. The children seem to be under the impression that I am able/willing to take care of any need that they might have while I am driving. They shout demands at me from the backseat such as:

Turn the air off.

Turn the air on.

Turn the radio to Radio Disney.

Can we listen to that song again?

Can you turn it up?

Can you pick up that book I dropped?

Now can you pick up that toy car that I dropped?



As if I am not busy enough driving. Elizabeth has gotten really bossy about the music in the car. She gets angry if we skip past a song on a cd. She gets angry if we turn the radio down too low. She sometimes gets angry when a song ends. Ian for his part spends the entire car ride muttering questions to me that I can't hear. So I turn down the radio so I can hear him. Then Elizabeth starts crying because I turned down the radio so I can't hear him anyway. I haven taken to just murmuring vague responses to his questions..."MmmHmm, oh really?, Hmmm!" and the like. Who knows what all I have agreed to in the interest of keeping everyone happy (and quiet.)

We spent the weekend doing back to school shopping and I think we got almost everything we need. I let Ian pick out his own clothes (while gently steering him away from the things I couldn't stand.) He really liked the shirts with robots or drums/'rock tar' stuff on them so that is what we ended up getting a lot of. The girls and I went shopping after that and by the time it was all said and done I was worn out. We ordered some shoes online so that part was easy. Except now we have to wait for them to be delivered, boo.
School starts on Monday for the girls (and me) so we are trying to enjoy the last few days of freedom. Today we went to the beach which was lots of fun. Friday we are going to Papa and Nana's lake for a swim. It is amazing how brave the kids are in the water now. Alexandria is doing cannonballs off the boat and Ian loves to jump off the dock. He likes getting a running start off the dock before he jumps in which is funny to watch. He also is sticking his whole head under water. Annika is like me, she kind of prefers to just float around. And Elizabeth? Completely unimpressed with the whole lake thing. She wants to be held in the water, and it is difficult to hold a two year old while treading water. So we try to put her in her floatie and she is having none of it. Oh well, maybe next year.

Back to school and other random topics

I am going to post soon about our vacation. Not to bore you all with it, but just so we can remember everything we did. But first, this: it is two weeks from today that the girls are going back to school. Can you believe that? I swear the start date just gets earlier and earlier every year. We are going to look at the girls' new school tomorrow and fill out paperwork and such. The district built a new school and we are in its boundary lines so the girls will be switching there this year.

Ian will be starting preschool soon too. At first he didn't want to go and was upset. When I first told him he cried "I can't go to school! I don't know what 1+1+1 means!!" But we have talked it up a bit and now he is getting excited. So much so that he decided that he needed to call 'everyone in the whole world' to tell them about it. So he called Papa, GopGop and Grandma Goody. After he hung up he looked at me, tapped his finger against his mouth and said "Hmmmmm...who else is in the world?" His school is pretty close by which is nice and he will go two half days a week. I am excited for him. I think he will love it and it will be good for him. My next idea for him...karate. It is supposed to help with reinforcing the ideas of self-discipline and respect- perfect for Ian, right? I was telling the family I was thinking about signing him up (not now, but eventually.) Alexandria shot me a 'girl, what are you thinking' look. She said "Mommy, do you think that is a good idea? He will be trying to chop our door down and karate chop us in the head."

Anyway, we already got our school supplies, so now we get to do the fun part- clothes and shoes. Before we can do that though, we had to spend the evening going through clothes and seeing what still fits (in Ian's case, not much- I think he has had a major growth spurt.) Everything that doesn't fit he says we need to put in his 'membory box' aka the Goodwill bag. I save things that have personal significance, but I am not putting a pair of tattered holey jeans in any memory box...but shhh, don't tell. What he doesn't know won't hurt him. Then we took a break to run and get some hot fudge sundaes from McDonalds, or as Ian calls them hot hot funjays. So that is all here. Oh, and I got beaten horribly at tennis last night. Here was the breakdown:

Mom and me vs. Zach and Malcolm- Zach and Malcom won
Malcolm and me vs. Zach and Mom- Zach and Mom won
Zach and me vs. Malcolm and Mom- Malcolm and Mom won

Are you seeing a pattern here? The losing common denominator is me. Oh well, I had fun. Don't know about my poor teammates, but I enjoyed myself!