Merry Christmas

I hate it when I miss a few day of posting and then get totally out of the blogging groove. Then I don't know where to start because I have too much to say. So, I will just catch you up as quickly as possible. Alexandria recovered from the strep quickly, Annika and I never got it (false alarm for both of us.) Annika got an award for self-control at assembly at school on their last day before break. Alex got one for cooperation last month. We had a lovely Christmas. We went to my dad and Claudia's for Christmas Eve and enjoyed spending time with them, Erin and Chad. We had a great dinner but our afternoon was cut slightly short due to the snow/sleet. Christmas morning the kids let us sleep until 7 which was nice. They loved their gifts. The three big kids got a Wii from Santa. Elizabeth got a kitchen and highchair for her baby doll. After we opened presents we went to Karl's parents' house and ate, played games and visited. It was nice Ben, Liz and Ellie are back in town so we got to see them too. Ellie is such a sweet baby and I think she and Elizabeth will have so much fun together as they get bigger. So that was our Christmas. We are so blessed to have such a wonderful family! I hope you all had a great Christmas as well.

Ian says:

"Mommy, I like your li...did you just put on lipstick?"

Me: No.

Ian:" Oh. Well I love you."

Sick yet again

Alexandria has strep throat, Annika might have strep throat, I am feeling ill (but I am known to adopt the symptoms of the people around me so we will see.)

Max was sick but he is better now. Did you know his given name is Maxie? Doesn't that sound kind of feminine? We shorten it to Max because it sounds tougher (although it was also my grandma Maxine's nickname so that is a little weird.) Elizabeth calls him Mackie or Woof Woof. Anyway, Woof Woof (I think that is how I will refer to him for the rest of this post) had some gastrointestinal problems over the weekend. I called the vet Monday and they said to bring him right in. They did an x-ray of his stomach in case he swallowed something. And don't you know I was just waiting for the vet to hold up the film with a crystal clear outline of a Polly Pocket or a Christmas ornament or a Barbie boot or some such. But no, there was just a little speck, that could be of concern or could be nothing. Vet gave Woof Woof an anti-vomiting shot and an antibiotic shot with instructions that if he got sick one more time to bring him in for surgery. Well thank heavens we didn't need to do that and he is better and enjoying his cheese-wrapped antibiotics twice a day.

However, I was amazed at the concern and service he received over his stomach problems. Does my doctor care if I have the stomach flu? Big N - O. I get that my doctor probably doesn't have the same level of worry that I am ingesting toys and knick-knacks, but still! That anti-vomiting shot? I would pay big money to have a few vials of that lined up in my medicine cabinet. When I get the flu, it is always very severe and dramatic. Last time I was so miserable I thought I was going to die. I couldn't sleep, couldn't read, couldn't watch tv, just laid there feeling wretched. And Karl? He says to me "Well the problem is you need to just go to sleep. You will feel much better after you get some sleep." Really? As if I am just laying awake ALL NIGHT long in pure misery for the fun of it. If I could go to sleep, obviously I would. Did I mention I get a little dramatic when I am ill? He can sleep off the stomach flu, which I just think is really weird. I can't sleep when I have the stomach flu because I am too busy having the stomach flu. Karl is very sweet about making late night trips to the store for Sprite and popsicles so I can't complain to much though.

So recap- Alex is sick, Annika might be, I am probably not, and Woof Woof is recuperating quite nicely.

Smart girls

I found this really cool website where you can send your child a video from Santa. It is totally personalized with their picture, name, gift request, etc. This child:

Not falling for that at all. Not only did she and Annika immediately know that I sent it, Alexandria figured out from the email the website I used to create it. She then began creating her own video to send to Uncle Welcome.

Hmmph...well at least Ian was completely in awe of his video. Check it out here:

http://portablenorthpole.tv/watch/374748a4b08ed4e81f50437e3cdec6a8

And this little girl:

passed her multiplication test and now has moved on to the divison group.

*These pictures of the girls are so good...so you know I didn't take them! They were taken by Diane at church.

Gull Scouts Christmas and a gift for me!

We just got home from Girl Scouts (or Gull Scouts, as Ian calls it), where they had a Christmas exchange, greed style. You know, where you pick a present and open it, then you can keep it or take someone else's present? First of all, major props to Annika's scout leader for being brave enough to attempt this with a bunch of 7 year olds. Annika unwrapped the coveted gift of the evening- a Bratz doll. That thing got stolen so many times. But Annika? Did not want. She traded it right away for the arsty set of dot pens (the gift that we brought.) Then she hid that gift behind her back so no one else would see it and want to steal it from her. Some of the kids were not so much understanding the concept of greed. One girl unwrapped a gift that contained about three items. She wanted to trade one of the items for someone else's gift (and keep the other two.) But they all had fun and surprisingly handled the gift stealing better than I thought they would. The best part of the night? Finding out that there are no more meetings until January 11th. I can't tell you how happy that makes me. I am all for the kids being involved in activities, but a month-long break from schlepping four kids around in the freezing cold...with the coats, hats, mittens, carseats...well that is the best Christmas present ever.

Annika on stage

Here are some pictures from Annika's school program last night. She had the part of Elf #1 and did a great job. It is kind of hard to see, but she is on the front row, far left:

Max

Have I mentioned this dog is a little hyper? He likes to jump and nip (not a mean nip, but a playful puppy nip.) He particularly has it in for Ian. Ian, of course, does not appreciate this. He told me "Max makes bad choices that God wouldn't like. I think it is because he doesn't have God in his heart."

And who needs his eyebrows trimmed in a bad way? Maybe I could just barrette them back.

I know what this looks like

It looks like Ian got into the markers doesn't it? I thought so too, but he assured me that this was not the case. It turns out, as he told me, that he has come down with a case of the "blue chicken pox."



I think it is pretty serious. Look, it has spread to his back:

Pearl Harbor...according to Annika

Annika wrote this in school:

I think Peal Harbor is about when we hade less people in the war than the japines did so we lost the war and the war hite the city and lots of people who wert in the war but in the city got hurt and thair homes got desteroyd.

She says she is writing a whole book on Pearl Harbor next, so stay tuned.

Crackin' up for Down Syndrome

Just doing a little advertising for my brother's event that is coming up in January. It is for a great cause!

Ian's artwork

Ian has been drawing some interesting pictures lately. He draws on one side of the paper and then flips it over and draws the scene from the back. Like he drew Elizabeth in her crib and then on the back of the paper he drew the back side of her crib. Kind of interesting.


Here is a picture of the girls locked in their room.

The front of the paper (their door):

The back of the paper (the girls in their room):


I wonder who would ever want to lock those girls in their room? And see how mad they are? They have on their grouchy eyebrows.

If only he could read...

Mom had a meeting last night and offered to take Ian with her. I packed him a bag with some crayons and books and told him he needed to be quiet during the meeting. He said, "Could you please write 'Be quiet' on a piece of paper and put it in my bag because otherwise my brain won't be able to remember."

Ian and the doctor

I had to take all the kids to the doctor on Monday so they could get their seasonal flu/H1N1 shots. I knew Alexandria and Annika would be okay with it and Elizabeth of course is really too little to know what is going on and can be calmed down fairly easily afterwards, but Ian...I knew there would be drama. As I saw it there were a few choices in how to handle it. I could tell him beforehand that he would be going to the dr. and getting shots. This, however, would have resulted in relentless whining and griping until the appointment. It also would give him extra time to get good and worked up over it. The other choice was to not say anything, and just take him in and let him find out there. This would probably make future dr. appointments horrible because he would be suspicious that I was going to trick him again. So I chose a compromise, which was to tell him on the way there. He completely flipped out and I had to literally drag him out of the elevator and over to the check in window. The whole time he is crying and screaming "I DON'T WANT A SHOT!" Once we got in the room it took THREE adults to hold him down so the nurse could give him the shots. So embarrassing.