Do you know how mad your Dad would be...

Anytime the kids are home for extended amounts of time (Christmas, Spring Break, Presidents day, weekends...) they always seem to find highly creative ways to keep themselves busy. Sometimes it's root beer races off the loft balcony, sometimes it's forming a path with all the books on the shelf and skipping over them in an impromptu game of homemade Candy land, sometimes its makeovers on the baby. Sometimes, like today, its filling in the touch pad on the laptop with peppermint chocolate candy. I walked in to the delightful smell of peppermint and declared in my most serious voice "Who did this?" Followed with "Do you know how mad your Dad would be if he saw this?" Four pairs of eyes stared back at me and one squeaky voice dared "No, how mad Mom?"

Silence...hmmm what to say...they had finally got me...

Moms since the beginning of time have been using that phrase. I swear they have. Its in cave drawings and Egyptian tombs. Small pictographs of moms warning their kids of the great wrath that will ensue when their father gets home. Its the ultimate scare tactic right? Not only did you get "Mom" punishments but you also had to spend the remainder of the day stewing in the void of exactly what was going to happen when Dad got home.

Ok so I may have overused that phrase but it was working well for so long. I just never really realized how much until one kid decided to go rouge on me and question the logic that is, well, me. I guess they are on to me since anyone who knows Erik is probably asking the same question. I'm not sure if mad is even usable for him. Guess I need a new threat.

12 Days of Christmas

We love Christmas music! We play it in the house, we play it in the car, we play it on the computer. When we are in the van we can plug in the ipod and listen to music but when we are in the car we can't so we have to listen to music on CD. I discovered this year that our selection of Christmas CDs is really lacking. When I took Emily to Karate class the other day she kept asking to listen to The 12 Days of Christmas. We listened to it over and over again all the way up and all the way home again. We are almost home when suddenly she exclaims oh I get it turtle doves! They are birds like doves but they are shaped like turtles but why are they singing about a fridge? Doves that looked like turtles...fridges...where we listening to the same song? I had to ask. Emily says yeah mom is says two turtle doves and a part fridge in a pear tree. How did they get the fridge in the pear tree and why is it only part. It was really hard not to laugh. When we got home I showed her the words to the song and we looked up turtle doves on the Internet. She seemed a little disappointed but I hope she never forgets her version of the song

Halloween

Okay so way past Halloween but way to worn out for more than this...sorry folks I'll get back on the ball promise! Alek was a cyborg (he designed it himself this year), Ethan the skeleton, Emily the cheerleader, Andrew was supposed to be a pirate but wouldn't put on the costume so he was a golfer instead, Eleanore was also a cheerleader (Emily felt that if she had to be a cheerleader then Eleanore did too, loooong story). Enjoy...

Preschool Bound...

Yeah for preschool! We finally got everything squared away and found a preschool for Andrew. Andrew HATES primary and hates being left alone without either me or Erik so we weren't sure how this preschool thing was going to play out. He was pretty apprehensive but you could tell that he was really excited too. He wouldn't go unless we let him wear his Wall-E shirt.When we got there he was met by his teacher Mrs Jones. She is originally from England and taught preschool, kindergarten and first grade there. She has lots of fun new ideas that I had not seen before. I was very happy that he warmed up to her so quickly, not something he usually does.

Now there are four of the five of them at school at least four days a week. The house gets really quiet for at least a few hours of the day.

Emily's Birthday

Happy 7th Birthday Emily! I can't believe that our Pim is 7! She was very excited for her birthday this year and started reminding me about it a month and a half in advance. (As if we would forget)
She wanted a Tini Puppi dog, new markers, some High School Musical stuff, lip gloss (i.e. lip smackers) and a pink and purple flower cake. It took some looking but we actually found the Tini Puppini dog. Andrew gave her the new markers and Alek and Ethan went in together and got her a High School Musical purse and High School Musical lip gloss.

It doesn't seem that long ago that she was little and watching never ending episodes of Dora the Explorer. Now we have turned a whole new page and are into High School Musical, Hannah Montana, and Wizards of Waverly Place. Crazy how time flies like that!

The Karate Kid

Emily decided that she wanted to start taking Karate lessons. We weren't sure about it at first since her interest in lessons has ranged everywhere from dance, to horseback riding, to snowboarding. We found a good local class and went ahead and signed her up.

She just started at the beginning of August but she is really enjoying it. I got to sit in on one of her lessons and see how it went and she did really well. I like that they emphasize respect a lot in her classes. They talk a lot about how to do karate right you must respect yourself, respect you class, respect your teacher and respect your parents. I also like that they teach them how to handle "stranger danger" with what they learn should they ever need to.

Emily on her first day of class.

Striking a pose.

I wish these pictures where better but they came from my Palm.

When I picked her up from one of her first classes she was telling me all about her friends in class and the things they are working on and she says "I have a couple of teachers in my class. I have Sensei Frank and Sensei Dinner." I asked her Dinner? She said "Yeah I don't know why he has such a weird name" I tried to gently correct her that his name was Sensei Daren. She looked out the window for a few minutes then said "So that explains it. I thought it was Sensei Dinner so I just kept yelling that every time we had to say his name. I will have to remember next time." I love how kids say the funniest things.

First Day of School

The first day of school was actually August 3rd. I am running way behind. The first day of school is always bittersweet. On one hand it is nice to have them returning to those "hollowed halls" of learning where they can do so many other things than play games, jump on the tramp and just generally annoy each other. On the other it means homework, early bedtimes, early wakings, lunch boxes and catching the bus. Here are their first day of school pictures for 2009.
Emily on her first day of 1st grade. She had to have this cool lunchbox that looked like a purse.

Ethan looks like he is headed to military school with that pose. He was excited to start 4th grade. You can't see it but he was especially proud of his new black and yellow striped backpack.

I can't believe Alek is in the 5th grade. I remember when he started preschool! When we went back to school shopping we found out that he wears a mens size 7 shoe! (I had the lady at Famous Footwear measure him twice to be sure ) He wasn't at all happy about having to be to the bus stop by 7 AM.

Here's to another fun year!

Back to School

It's hard to believe that it is already time to head back to school. Yesterday we went to back to school night for the kids. They don't want to admit it but they are all so excited to go back to school.

Taking the kids to back to school night always brings back those memories of going to school. It was always exciting to find your name on those long class lists. You would search and search until you found your name and then search to see who was going to be in class with you. After that you would either groan or celebrate depending on who you got as a teacher. Then you checked out your classroom, got your supply list and then got to go school shopping! Nothing like the thrill of a new lunchbox and backpack!

It is strange to think that we have a fifth grader this year. To this day my most vivid memories of school start at around the fifth grade. It may be because that is the first school year that I only attended one school, I'm not sure. Erik says that he remembers fourth and fifth grade clearly too so I think that it is just that at about that time you are old enough to be able to carry those memories even many years after they happen. Alek is really excited to start band this year. The first week of school they get to go in and try out the instruments and decide if they want to join. I have mixed feeling about school starting. I am of course looking forward to having a quieter house during the day and hopefully getting things done but I am not looking forward to the homework, early bedtimes, packing three lunches every morning and most of all 7am school bus! Yuck!

Our friends the goats

Funny how the highlight of a trip can often be the simplest parts. The kids LOVED the petting zoo. They had a calf and a miniature sabu and of course goats. The kids could brush and pet the goats as much as they wanted. Each goat had on a collar, like a dog collar, that had its name on it. We all like finding out the name of each goat.
Even Eleanore got in some goat riding action.

Andrews Birds

We first discovered Andrews dislike of birds when we first got to the zoo and went to the aviary section. He jumped at every bird that he saw from the pigeons on the ground eating crumbs to the birds in their cages. Most of the birds are of course totally enclosed in their cages but some cages you can enter and look at them flying around. Seems a little dangerous to me...mostly because of the obvious repercussions of standing under flying birds but it makes for a fun experience. You go in the gate and are standing in a cage of sorts then you go through another gate and into the cage. Like at the dog park to keep the animals from getting out. Well, we went in one that had some owls in them. You had to really look to see the owls but one was hiding the corner right above the exit gate. When Andrew saw it he tore out of that cage as fast as he could and stood in the little cage between the two gates. He looked like a shark diver! He was okay to look at them from afar until we stood in front of the Condor cage and that huge Condor opened its wings...I knew little boys had high pitched screams but wow! By this time the poor kid had had enough of birds. Unless he was looking at large animals he didn't want to leave the zoo cart that we had rented. We stopped at the savanna exhibit to look at the giraffes and gazelle roaming around. Like most zoos these two peacocks where strolling around freely. Andrew didn't notice them at first, he was happy to watch the giraffes. The female peacock walked up to him and stood next to his cart. Andrew looked over and saw this huge bird standing within hands reach of him. He jumped from the cart and bolted scaring the peacock. The peacock started to run, Andrew started to run, both bird and boy thought they where being chased! They ran back and forth along the sidewalk each scaring the life out of each other! I was trying to grab Andrew, he was screaming and trying to get away from the bird, the bird was squawking and running from Andrew, people are taking pictures....it was crazy but funny in the end!

Zoo Adventures

The Phoenix zoo is running a special for the summer...kids under twelve get in free before 5:00. Leah and I decided that it would be a fun way to spend the day while she was here so we packed up the kids and all of their stuff and headed off to the zoo. We had no idea that we would have such an adventure. Ethan who is our resident animal guru wanted to see it all...every animal, every bird, every reptile! We learned that Ethan likes to read all the signs, Alek is a map fanatic, Andrew is afraid of birds, and Emily whined for 45 minutes about seeing camels! By the time we had made it half way through the temperature was over 100. The kids played in the spray park for a while then we headed to petting zoo. After that we saw a few more animals and decided it was time to go. We had been there for several hours and still had not seen the entire zoo. Ethan was sad about that but we promised to come back again. I am going to post our zoo fun in a couple of posts so that this one is not so long..

Let the FUN begin!

While Erik is away on reserves Leah is coming to play at our house...we are going to go and pick her up this morning. Hopefully we will get some of the stuff done on our long list of fun things. Then I will have more to blog about....

Bisbee AZ

For Aleks final fourth grade project each student was given a town in Arizona that they had to research. They had to do a written report and then decorate a box and build a diorama of the city inside. Alek got Bisbee. This is ironic since a lot of Erik's family comes from Bisbee. This is his Bisbee project...






We learned a lot of fun things about the town and it's history. The have some very cool places to visit there. Alek liked being able to tell his class about his personal ties to the town. He has decided that our next vacation should be to tour the mine and the haunted hotel there. Its not that far away so we are hoping to do it soon.

Say hello to our little friend.

Or more like our newest enemy. We found our first scorpion of the year the other day. I being the arachnid wuss that I am of course screamed at it first then grabbed the nearest thing I could find and trapped it. I called Erik at work and let him know first that he was welcome to put in for a transfer to anywhere else his work could send him to (even Cheyenne) and second that there was a fun present waiting for him trapped under the small garbage can on the back porch.


After that we made an appointment for our exterminator to come out and visit. Kisses to the exterminator guy! When he got to the house Andrew told him all about his mommy screaming at the scorpion and trapping it under the garbage can for his dad. Good thing is that he did a full flush out of the cinder block walls for me and put delta dust all over, bad news is that it can take 10-14 days to stop seeing the yucky bugs all together. Most of them are not dangerous on the "could possibly kill you" level but I have heard that a scorpion sting is like being burned with a lite cigarette, not something I know about and would like to keep it that way! I hate those things! Thankfully Molly is good about letting us know when she sees them but still....eeewww!

When your the youngest....

you get to dress up a lot! Emily has discovered that not being the only girl anymore can be a lot of fun. She has found Eleanore to be a fantastic dress up partner. She used to try to get Andrew to play dress up with her but he always complained about what she wanted him to wear and she always got frustrated because he wouldn't wear high heel shoes. Eleanore never complains about the accessories she has to wear and although she can't wear high heel shoes yet she has had her toe nails painted! I love it because it keeps both girls busy for at least a little bit before Emily is on to her next project.

Flashback Friday on Saturday

Okay so I know that it's not Friday but at least I am getting closer....
We DVR'd Flight of the Navigator a little bit ago. I had totally forgotten about it until I was deleting some things on the DVR and came across it. Remember that movie? It was one of those that we watched over and over and over. I was at Target and noticed that they had it in their cheepie section. I also noticed a few other of our favorites, Goonies, Karate Kid, Escape to Witch Mountain, Return to Witch Mountain, Gremlins, Short Circuit, Superman. The best part is that they are all under 13 dollars! I think that our video collection is going to grow soon.

My sister, brothers and I used to play a game called Movie Theater when we where kids. It wasn't really much of a game actually. We would take all the movies that my family had in our movie cabinet, take them out and spread them all over the floor. Then we would go through each clunky VHS tape and write the title on a piece of notebook paper making a list. As we made our "list" of each movie we would talk about our favorite parts, recite lines, and play out scenes from each movie. The whole idea of "the movie theater game" was actually to list all the movies, vote on a favorite and then watch it. We usually never made it to the voting or the watching. My mom would probably say that all we did was make a big mess but aaahhh the memories! Cleaning the mess was so worth it now that I have those memories. The only messier game we played was store but that is another story...

It is fun having the kids get a little older and be interested in a lot of these old movies that my sister, brothers and I used to watch. On Sunday we like to play games and watch movies together, just spending time doing our version of family stuff. I am going to turn on Flight of the Navigator tomorrow and see how they like it. Anyone want to come over!?

Kindergarten Graduation

I remember very little about kindergarten. I remember it being all day. I remember having snacks and punch in little paper cups. I remember refusing to nap on my towel. Those things I remember but I don't remember having a graduation.

Emily had her kindergarten graduation yesterday. They did a good job of keeping it short sweet and to the point. The kids all sang a song about going to first grade to the tune of "New York, New York" that one of the teachers had made up. Then they each got to go up when their name was called and get a certificate and picture. This is Emily's:





They did a good job of hiding her chopped of bangs. If I had known they were taking them I would have tried to convince her to wear a nicer shirt, not like it would have helped, she would have worn what she wanted anyway. She definitely has her own style! It looks a lot better than the snapshots we got since we were a little to far away from the stage. We all got treated to punch and cookies in the classroom when it was finished. That was Andrews favorite part. It's hard to believe that she is all finished with kindergarten and headed to first grade. It seems like just yesterday she got lost getting on the bus as a brand new school kid. The boys are very jealous that she is done with school and they still had to go today and tomorrow. Schools out tomorrow, YIKES! Now the fun really begins.

Flashback Friday on Tuesday

My friend Charlene always tries to do a flashback Friday post and being the great friend I am I think that I am going to steal the idea from her. I am going to try to always do them on Friday from now on but this time we are making an exception.

The bus comes at 7:00 sharp so the kids have to be up early on school mornings. Usually I can't drag them out of bed but this morning they all got up nice and early in anticipation of Field Day. Remember field day?

I loved field day in school. Not only did it mean you got a whole day of playing games outside and not doing any work but it was also that signal that the end of the school year was upon you. Aaahhh, a morning full of kickball, softball, and mini track and field events. Some schools we went to even had each class wear a different color shirt or would give medals or ribbons to those"exceptional athletes". One year on the morning of field day my school also had a pet show. I got to bring my cat who of course won nothing and spent the entire morning trying to run away. It was successful a couple of times. Lessons learned: cats don't like leashes...and you can still do field day covered in scratches. I'm sure that my mom was also there. She often helped out with field day at our schools. I will have to ask her if she remembers this.

Here in AZ the kids don't get to have field day all day like we did. They only get to have a small block of time set aside for each grade. With temperatures already in the triple digits they get to wear swimming suits and shorts and tank tops to school for just one day and have "water field day". Wouldn't that have been fun as a kid! I just hope that they are making as many memories as I did when I was a kid that they can remember for years to come.

Reward boards & chore charts

I am a list maker. A very, very big list maker. I have lists and charts for everything. I had a friend once that laughed when she found something that I had not made a chart or a list for because it was a bit rare. As the the kids have gotten older some of the lists have gone away and some have stayed. I have struggled with finding a chore chart and reward system that would work with the varying personalities in my kids. I found one awhile ago that works so well I have to share. It's at www.myrewardboard.com. It was designed and created by the same gentleman that created the Jump Start series of computer games for kids. It says that it is geared for ages 5-12 but we have started our kids on it younger and it works well. You download it and then can do everything on the computer or print things out to hang up around the house.



You get to set up a chore and/or a goal chart for each child. Then you get to customize the chores or goals anyway you want. When they complete them they get a "happy". There is lots of interactive features and lots of clapping and congratulating from the happies. If you do allowances you can also use the piggy bank feature.

At the end of the week they kids get a payout day when they get to collect star points for what they have done for the week. As the parent you get to determine how many star points chores are worth and it has parental locks so that they can not do their payouts without you. They have a list of award certificates that the parent can turn on and off or you can create your own. They redeem the star points for the certificates.

The things I like about it are that I can customize chores differently for my 10 year old than my 6 or 4 year olds. I also like that you can print out achievement certificates that they can hang on the fridge or in their room. My favorite thing is that you can type in your own chores or choose one from the list. The lists have everything from being nice and not hitting, to doing the laundry. My kids love it. You can get a free 15 day trial on the website. That gives you a couple of weeks to try it out. It's a very motivating program for kids and besides who doesn't like knowing they did a good job?

Car Seat Cover

Okay, for all of you out there having babies, who have babies, or know someone with a baby.... When our babies are little and still in the infant carriers its nice to throw a blanket over the carrier so they can sleep, or keep out of the cold or sun, and just be covered from all those nasty germs everyone likes to share right? I hate the way that when you put the blanket over the carrier it covers up the handle of the carrier and makes it a pain to carry, or slips off into the dirt, or falls in the snow. I wanted to share this awesome car seat cover that I found.


They are fantastic because they cover the car seat all the way front to back, leave the handle free, and will not slip off. They come in all kinds of colors/patterns for girls and boys. Check them out at www.thecarseatcanopy.com its lots of fun

A smile really is everything

Eleanore gave us the best gift for Easter. Her smile. Not just the no telling why haphazard baby smile but the kind when they look at just you and then smile. What a beautiful thing! Erik and I have gotten her to smile for us but her favorite person to smile at is Andrew. Molly draws a close second. Sometimes I'm not as good at taking pictures as I should be. You always try to make sure to burn those images in your mind but sometimes its hard to remember the camera too. One day they are babies and the next they are complaining because they are grounded and can't ride their bikes to the park!

Toenail polish & Peep toed shoes

Emily is 6 going on 16 with the attitude to match! This year for Easter she got a really cute lime green and white dress. She needed new shoes for church so what better time to
buy them than to go with a new dress for Easter. She tends to have feet that are a little larger than most girls her age so it is hard to find shoes that fit but don’t look to old for her. We found these cute little peep toed shoes at Target on a great sale. She was so excited that they did not have straps on them and that she could wear them without socks. Of course she promptly informed me that if you wear peep toed shoes then you MUST have your toenails polished. We had to go and buy some sparkly polish for her toes. While there she tried very hard to convince me that she needed makeup to go with it. I wouldn't let her but the Easter bunny did just happen to leave some lipsmackers lipgloss in her Easter basket. If you know Emily you also know that she hates having her hair done. I told her that to look good for Easter she also had to do her hair. Not an easy thing since she cut all of her bangs off a few days before but we agreed on and made the flower for her hair. She is very proud of her Easter outfit this year and her perfect pair of peep toes!

Happy Easter!

Monsters in the drain

Andrew has been talking a lot lately about the monster that lives in the kitchen drain. Wasn't exactly sure what that meant but he never seemed disturbed by it either. Sometimes he leaves the water running in the kitchen to "give the monster a drink". Since it never bothered him that there was a "monster" in the drain I didn't make a big deal out of it. Last night when we where finishing up the dishes he started talking about his monster. He couldn't figure out why I had never heard the monster that lived in there and was getting a little frustrated with me. Well, you know how when you run the water full stream straight into the garbage disposal on the sink it makes a bit of a rushing sound...and the when you turn it off you can hear the water finishing its journey down the pipe. There in lies the monster! He swears that that sound can be explained in no other way than simply that there is a monster that lives in the drain and eats all the food that we send down. If he is always eating our old food than surely he needs a drink from time to time. Wouldn't it be wonderful to still be able to see the world that way?! Theres always a simple reason for everything if we just look for it.

Monkey Bars

Emily has been trying for a while to learn the monkey bars at the park. Last week when we went she made it all the way across. She is posting some pictures so that everyone can see.

Great job Emily! You go girl!

Happy St Patricks Day!!

Eleanore's new duds

Just wanted to thank Aunt Kim for the great gift she sent for Eleanore and wanted everyone to see the fantastic job she did.

Thank You Aunt Kimberly!

Blessing Eleanore

We where able to bless Eleanore on the 1st of March. She is adjusting well to being part of such a loud, crazy family. We couldn't have asked for a better baby! She is waking up a little more every day and we are looking forward to watching her sweet personality develop and grow. A huge thank you to Erik's family for making the LONG drive down to celebrate this with us, and especially to Grandma for the beautiful dress. We loved having you and hope for more visits to come.

Happy Birthday Andrew

Happy 4th Birthday Andrew!!

Its hard to believe that four years ago we welcomed Andrew into our family! He has been asking for months for this Spongebob cake and was shocked to see that he got it! We had so much fun celebrating with Grandma and Grandpa, Aunt Leslie, Uncle Tyler and the cousins. He was very sad to see Zane leave. (I was very sad to see Zane leave) Thank you to all the boys for being so much fun to play with and give us all a break!

New shoelaces and old shoes

All of you who grew up back in the 80's have to remember those shoelaces that we all used to have. You know the ones, they came in every character, color and pattern that you could think of and you always got at least one pair from your friends on your birthday. It didn't matter how dirty, dingy, or old your shoes were you put them on anyway. It was like a brand new pair of shoes right?! Emily found these at Target a while back and she had to have them put on her dusty old shoes. Don't you love buying those crazy nostolgic things for your kids? She is so excited to show them off at school. She has told me several times how much better her shoes look than another girl who has the same pair. Oh the vanity!! Better yet, for all of you who are smiling and nodding your head at your own memories ...remember when we used to put them on our roller skates? Even when they where to short?? You know you did....ah good time, good times!

Rock Bottom For President

The President has been on TV a lot lately and was here in Mesa last week so it reminded me of a conversation I had with Ethan when it was time to vote. Ethan had come home from school and I had reminded him that there was no cub scouts that day because it was voting day. He asked if Erik and I had gone to vote. I told him that we had. Who did you vote for he asks. John McCain I told him. Awww that's to bad he says. Why I ask. I wanted you to vote for that other guy, you know Rock Bottom. Rock Bottom?? You mean Barack Obama, why do you want us to vote for him? His name is Barack Obama? Yes.... Oh never mind, I wanted you to vote for the guy with the weird name but I thought it was Rock Bottom! It doesn't matter now.
I can't help but think that maybe that would be the easier way to vote....to the guy with the weirdest name go the spoils!!

The perfect pair of new shoes

Ethan needed new shoes...not a surprise there. He isn't much into athletic shoes like Nike, or New Balance but he loves canvas sneakers. He usually has ones like Keds or Vans, or some facsimile of. Well, if you have priced kids shoes lately you know that it is not surprising to find that they are around $20 a pair at their cheapest, and that was at Target. So we figured we would pay a little more and get him a good pair that might last just a little longer. He found a pair of Chuck Taylors, you know those good old Converse sneakers. If you've never seen a boy fall in love with a pair of shoes than you should have been there!! A couple of days after he told me that they where the best shoes he had ever had and that he never wanted any other kind of shoe the rest of his life. Can't you just see him as one of those funny guys who wears a suit and Converse All Stars! Sure makes the price you have to pay worth it!

Our newest addition

She's finally here! Eleanore Kathryn Olsen arrived February 6th. Unlike the rest of us she was in no hurry to get here. After almost 25 hours she finally arrived at 4:49 pm. They had originally had her due date late in the month but thankfully moved it up so she only weighed in at 7lbs 4 oz. Ironically the same weight as her two oldest brothers. She is a wonderful baby with a very calm, sweet personality and (finally) dad's hair!

Happy Birthday Alek

Happy 10th Birthday Alek!!

Aleks birthday was a bit of a whirlwind. Thanks go to Boo for picking up for us while at the hospital! She made sure his birthday went smoothly. We couldn't have done it without her. He said the chocolate chip pancakes with whipped cream and sprinkles with candels made up for us not being there. Wow, trumped by a chocolate chip pancake!! It sure would be nice to be ten again sometimes!

Boa Constrictor

Ethan had to make a shoebox diorama of a boa constrictor habitat. I love when teachers send home these assignments. They take a little more work for us but the kids enjoy something different. He did an awesome job and wanted to post his pictures.