Monday, October 22, 2012

tooth

Yesterday I took a bite of chili with corn chips and I felt something hard. Oh my gosh, it's a chunk of tooth! What the heck happened here? Was it actually a piece of bone that I missed from the steak I made my chili out of? Or worse, was it a tooth chunk of an unfortunate tortilla chip worker? 

"Dave! Oh my gosh! I found a piece of tooth in my food!"

"Did you lose a bit of your tooth?"

"No! I would have felt it! I didn't feel anything until I bit into this piece of tooth!"

(felt around mouth just to be sure.)

"Oh my gosh, I lost a piece of my tooth! How could this have happened?"

And that's the story of how I lost a chunk of my tooth. I guess I need to schedule a dentist appointment today. I already had a filling in that tooth, and it cracked at the edge along the filling. It didn't hurt when it happened but now it's annoying and I'm worried something will happen to my tooth if I don't get it fixed ASAP.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Recipe for delicious play

Take one shower cap
And a mini muffin tin
Add butterscotch chips
And you have Costco.

My sweet Rose was playing Costco this evening with just that recipe.  The mini muffin tin was essential, since I don't actually own any little disposable cups.  It made a suitable substitute.

It all started with my parents bringing home a shower cap from a hotel.  It blossomed to Costco.

Monday, August 06, 2012

Lacy's birthday interview

My name is: Lacy
I am 8 years old.
I am_____ inches tall and I weigh _____ pounds.  
My favorite color is red.
My favorite book is Ella Enchanted.
My favorite show Good Luck Charlie.
My favorite food is cabbage.
I want to be a fashion designer when I grow up.
The music I like best violin music.
My favorite thing I did last year was starting the minuets.
This year I hope I will go to the water park.
My favorite place to go is Utah.
My favorite thing to do is design clothes.
My favorite animal is horses.
My favorite thing to do with Uriah is tickle him.
My favorite thing to do with Rose is tickle her.
My favorite thing to do with daddy is rub his back.
My favorite thing to do with mommy is going to the hair salon.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Knitting projects... again!

Here's the pattern I'm going to be working on while I'm on vacation!  For Lacy <3
http://www.abc-knitting-patterns.com/1118.html

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Summer... so far!

We've been on summer break for a whole week now, and we're having a great time.  We're busy all the time!

Here's how our days go.

We wake up around 7:30 or 8 and start off with breakfast.  As soon as breakfast is done, we do our school work.  When that's done, we go on to chores, and lastly we get to the music practice.  We're usually done with that around 10:30, and at 10:45 we have to leave for swimming lessons (just this week and next).  After swimming lessons are over, we go to my mom's, who lives down the street, to visit for a few minutes and have some lunch. Then the rest of the day may or may not be free.  Tuesdays we stick around because we have hula lessons for the girls in the same town as my mom's house, and with gas being what it is, I don't like to drive back and forth from my house to her town.

We haven't had time for a lot of fun yet, but we did get to the zoo last weekend.  It was raining, but it was still fun!  Speaking of rain, we keep trying to have a garage sale, but every Saturday's forecast calls for rain!  Once again, it has been pushed out another week.  We're trying to make money for our family vacation, and we're hoping we have the garage sale before we actually have to leave.

Some pictures of our summer so far...

Here are Rose and Uriah looking at the clouded leopard cubs.  They were so cute and playful!


 Hipster Lacy and the Budgie Buddies.


 Rose at the Rose Gardens at Point Defiance park.


 First day of swimming lessons!


Monday, June 18, 2012

A popsicle Summer


We have a great method that I've been using for a couple years now that works really well for my disorganized self.  I write down different chores or other things that are necessary on popsicle sticks and have the kids draw from the jar instead of simply assigning chores.  I just went through last year's popsicle stick chore chart and made a few more and took out some of them (like dusting, which they really shouldn't do, unfortunately, due to their dust allergies, which all 3 kids have), and I created new ones for school subjects.  This year, I also put school subjects on colored popsicle sticks and they're going to pull probably 3 of those every day, maybe 4. School's not out yet, so I haven't yet decided!  For chores and subjects already done that week, I'll reserve the popsicle sticks and put back in the next week.  Some school subjects and chores I'll put back in every day.  This is a fun way for them to do chores and I'm hoping it works for our summer school program as well.  Plus I add in things like jumping jacks, go down both slides, sing a song, call grandma, etc to make it fun!  And I have fun school subjects in there too- knitting school, cooking school, science experiments, etc.  I'm using one color for all the school subjects so that they can tell them apart from chores, but not remember their favorite subjects and always go for those colors!

I'm actually revising as I'm writing this blog post.  I'm putting weekly subjects on red popsicle sticks, and multiple times a week on yellow.  They'll draw 3 yellows and 1 red each day.

Yellows- 2 workbook pages, do a math worksheet, story of the world lesson, First Language Lessons, Brainquest time!, Read to Mom, and Listen to read alouds (these are educational read alouds, such as The Golden Goblet, and not the books I read to them at bedtime).

Reds- music appreciation, knitting lessons, arts & crafts, cooking class, science experiment

We're going to have pretty strict TV rules as well- no TV unless all chores, music practice and school work is done, and no TV at all on "T" days.   This keeps a good balance in the home during the summer. I'm considering being even more strict than I usually am- I'm thinking about TV hours (maybe just for a few hours in the afternoons) or having a totally TV-free summer (which my husband suggested).  If we decide to do that, in order to keep them motivated to do their chores, we won't be allowed to go to the pool to go swimming unless all chores, music and school work is completed.  Since the pool is 2 blocks away, it's really convenient to go and we can go many times in a week, possibly every day.  It's not a backyard pool, but it's still handy, and as long as I have my dinners planned well in advance, I might just take them every day.  It's too soon to tell- summer vacation begins on Friday, so we may still adjust all this to suit our needs as the summer progresses.

Back to the popsicle sticks- I first started using this method when Lacy was a new violin player 2 years ago. It was hard to get her to do everything she needed to do to practice, so I started writing down all of them on popsicle sticks.  We no longer do that now that she's in the minuets, but Rose will be starting violin lessons this fall or late summer so we'll start that up again for her.  It worked really, really well, so I decided to incorporate it into summer chores.  And now I'm expanding it even further!  I  noticed last summer that other people were using similar methods, but I didn't get my idea from those blogs.  I don't do any fancy printouts to glue to craft sticks, I just write on them with pen and stick them in a jar.  That way I can add and subtract at will.


Monday, June 04, 2012

Allergies and Us

We have all the allergies.  Food.  Hayfever.  Dust and mold.  Pet.  Medication.  I did everything I could and researched up a storm to do the best I could to keep our kids from having allergies. I was very careful.  Despite my best efforts, all three of the kids have allergies.  According to the allergy doctor that we see, with Dave and my allergies combined, we have an 80% chance of passing those allergies on.  I guess genetics are a lot stronger than the other factors such as infant feeding method, introduction of solids, allowing your kids to play in the dirt, ect.

So now we have to learn to deal with it and now I'm on a mission to keep their allergies at bay using the least invasive methods possible.

In the meantime, at least the food and pet allergies are easier to avoid.  It's the hayfever and the dust and mold allergies that are difficult.  All three kids have dust allergies of varying degrees.  All three children also have food allergies.  Each child is allergic to egg whites.  That is Uriah's only diagnosed food allergy.  Lacy is also allergic to milk.  Rose is also allergic to banana, yeast, pecans and almonds.  And, because there is a child in her class with a severe peanut allergy, that means I have to rethink her lunches.  Fortunately, the food allergies are mostly mild to moderate.  Rose might have asthma. All three have eczema. And I'm afraid Uriah has the worst allergies of all three.  Because he's so little, there wasn't as much room to do tests on his back, and blood tests for two year olds are notoriously inaccurate.

So, we need to make a lot of changes.  I'm on a mission to keep my family healthy while staying away from as many medications as possible.

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Rose's birthday interview

My name is: Rose
I am 6 years old.
I am 43 1/2 inches tall and I weigh 44 pounds.  
My favorite color is blue
My favorite book is Dora
My favorite show Dora
My favorite food is spaghetti
I want to be a veterinarian when I grow up
The music I like best singing music
My favorite thing I did last year was going swimming
This year I hope I will go to my family reunion
My favorite place to go is the water park
My favorite thing to do is play with friends
My favorite animal is horses
My favorite thing to do with Uriah is play games
My favorite thing to do with Lacy is play games
My favorite thing to do with daddy is  play games
My favorite thing to do with mommy is play games

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

A few of my toddler's favorite books

Ri all of a sudden started loving to have me read to him!  I've been reading to him or at least *near* him since he was a baby.  Sometimes I didn't read specifically to him, though. Now that he's turning into a big boy, he has his preferences and lets me know them!

His current favorite book is Dinosaur Roar by Paul Strickland.  He always gets into this one!  There is a slimy dinosaur in it, and he always says, "What the snow?  What the wawee?"  I started saying what the snow when we had a really big snow storm here.  He hasn't stopped saying it as an expression of surprise.  He also always says gobble gobble when we get to the part about the dinosaurs eating!

 He also loves classics such as Goodnight Moon and The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  Another of his favorite books is Counting Kisses by Karen Katz.  And, because he has a sister obsessed with Dora the Explorer, he frequently requests me to read her "Backpack" books.  We will check out Dora books by the dozen for that girl!

I've always found it a challenge to find books that my toddlers love, but since we found Dinosaur Roar, Uriah has found a love of reading books.

Tuesday, February 07, 2012

Uriah's (late) birthday interview, by mom since Ri can't talk

My name is: Uriah
I am 2 years old.
I am 36 1/2 inches tall and I weigh 32 pounds.  
My favorite color is green (according to his sisters)
My favorite book is my book about animals
My favorite show is nothing because I don't watch TV
My favorite food is lentils
I want to be a big boy when I grow up
The music I like best is all music!
My favorite thing I did last year was playing with duplos.
This year I hope I will play with duplos
My favorite place to go is Grandma's house
My favorite thing to do is play with duplos (can you sense a pattern?)
My favorite animal is doggies
My favorite thing to do with Rose play in the mud
My favorite thing to do with Lacy is play dress-up
My favorite thing to do with daddy is build stuff
My favorite thing to do with mommy is nurse

Toddler nursing funny

I'm going to get better at blogging again.  I'm determined.  In fact, I have a few ideas up my sleeve that I'm going to address in future blog posts.  But for now, here is a toddler nursing funny that happened last night.  Little one just turned 2 at the end of January.   Yes, he's still nursing.  A lot.  No intentions of stopping anytime in the immediate future, though my girls were both weaned a little after they turned 3, so the same will probably apply with him as well.

I was feeling very touched out last night and needed a break from my busy little guy.  He just wanted to nurse all evening but I was super busy and my nipples were getting a little bit overworked and a little sore.  Nothing I tried dissuaded him from wanting to nurse.  So I held up a package of these and told him

Steel Nipples Zinc Plated, 1/8 IP

 and told him, "I don't have these.  So you're going to wait until later to nurse."  He said, "Okay!" and went off and played for about 45 minutes without asking to nurse again.  Apparently this was an excellent visual aid for a nursing toddler boy.