First Day of Kindergarten

Today was Ian's first day of Kindergarten.  He was SO excited to go to school.  When he was in line for the bus he was grinning from ear to ear and fighting it the whole time.   When Emilia and Elise went to Kindergarten for the first time I got a little teary like most moms do.  With Ian, I wasn't sad or teary at all.  He's almost 6 and has been going to preschool for 2 years.  He just seems older to me, and ready. I guess after having his 2 sisters pave the way it wasn't as traumatic for me.  That or I am getting calloused in my old age.   I think I have a harder time adjusting to 1st grade than Kindergarten.  To me it isn't as big of a deal having them gone for 3 hours. It is when they are gone ALL DAY long that I really miss them. 

I gave Ian the option of riding the bus or having me take him to school and he wanted to ride the bus.  He was very excited to ride the bus and NOT have to wear a seatbelt. 

Waiting for the bus

And there they go...

Another One Bites the Dust

Well, figuratively speaking anyway.  Skinnies finally went belly up.  He started looking hunchback-ish about a week ago and I knew his time was coming.  This morning we found him dead.  Now we know. Goldie is the murderer.  At least he is a cannibal.  It looked like Goldie had been munching on Skinnies and I think he pretty much ate all his guts and even his eyes.  Ewww. 

Here is all that was left of poor Skinnies.  Now he is even more skinny.

HAAAAPPY 34th Kent!!!

Today is Kent's birthday.  He decided to take the day off today since it was his birthday. He was SOOO excited to have a day off.  We found a sitter and went for a hike to Kanarraville Falls.  It was really fun and beautiful.  There were very few people around and that made it really nice. On the way up we only saw about 5 people in the 2 hours we were hiking up to the waterfalls.  We saw more people on the way down but overall it felt really quiet and secluded.  It was nice to have some time away from the kids and to go on a little adventure.

What a fun day! Happy birthday Kent! Love ya!

First Day

Happy (school) days are  here again!  Ian starts school next Tuesday. He's SO excited.

August Update

• We have had 2 mysterious fishy deaths this week.  First was Tiny. One day he was there, the next day he was gone.  He vanished without a trace.  We are suspecting Skinnies or Goldie swallowed him whole.  We thought at first he might have gotten sucked into the filter since he was SOOOOO tiny but we didn't see him in the filter anywhere.  The second mysterious death was Bowser Jr.  We found him with half of his tail and body eaten.  Again, it is making us suspicious of Skinnies and Goldie. I guess we'll find out who is the cannibalistic murderer and who is dead if this killing streak continues.  We do have another fish:  Mrs. Sucker.  She just eats algae so I don't think she is a fish of interest in this situation.  Adele was so funny when we discovered that Tiny was missing.  I said, "What happened to poor Tiny?" and she replied, "He got an owie on his brain.  Poor little fishy."

• 
  
  Kent has been tinkering with computers again.  He built what I call  his "Frankenstein Box":

 

I don't know what he does with it but it is a good thing he is a computer guy and not a biologist.  Severing and resecting computer parts is much less freaky than doing the same thing to animals.  (Ever see Word Girl? It reminds me of Dr. Two Brains with his second brain on the outside of his head.)

• 
  
  Kent has taken each of the kids (except Adele) fishing individually. None of the kids (or Kent) really like eating the fish that they catch but they go anyway.  Elise caught 2, Emilia caught 1 and Ian had an unsuccessful fishing outing. Right now we have 1 tiny trout in our freezer waiting for some other fishies to join him so we can cook them all at the same time.
• 
  
  I have finished my back to school shopping.  There have been some killer online deals at Old Navy.com and Oshkosh.com.  Only 5 days until school starts. I can hardly believe it!  I need to make some big and exciting plans for Thursday and Friday.

Good Times

Tonight I have been in a rather bloggy mood without much to blog about. I feel like writing something exciting and fun and funny.  But our lives have been anything but exciting, fun or funny, thanks to the stomach flu.  Ok, I take it back, trying to get kids to make it to the toilet for their barfing activities IS exciting but certainly NOT fun or funny. Especially when they don't make it.  In fact, I was telling Kent yesterday after a particularly unsuccessful attempt of one of the children (who shall remain nameless to protect his/her privacy) at making it to the toilet that I had my grossest parenting moment of my 10 years of parenthood.  I'll spare you the details because it's only something that I can share with people who have stomachs of steel and I just don't know if you guys can hack it.  I was about to do the "heave-ho" myself when I realized that I was going to be the one responsible for taking care of this horrible mess.

Well, anyway, I wasn't going to blog about that and I actually came here to say that I had nothing to blog about -- except some LONG lost pictures (ok, not long or lost but forgotten) of our trip to Idaho last month.  So, to leave you with some warm fuzzies instead of a sick feeling in your stomach (which I have to say I am feeling tonight and it is starting to concern me slightly), I present you with an introduction to a series (lucky you) of posts about our July trip to Idaho.

Good times up ahead.

Lake Day Collage

Bead Removal

I am happy to report that the bead removal went more smoothly than anticipated.  I called the ENT this morning only to find out that the Dr. was going to be out of the office all day. They said he might be in sometime to do some paperwork later in the day and they might be able to squeeze us in for an emergency bead removal. I waited all morning to hear from them.  I never heard anything.  I checked my phone around 4:30 and found that they had left a message and the Dr. was going to be there at 3:30 if I wanted to come in. Dang. I missed it.  They must have called when I ran to pick up Costa Vida for lunch.  Dang. I called and he was gone. So we scheduled the removal for Friday morning. 

Then we played.  We went to Kent's work party and the kids bounced and jumped and went crazy on all the bouncy houses at the party.  The kids were all very sticky from all the popcorn, cotton candy, chips, watermelon, soda etc. they ate at the party so I promptly threw them in the tub when we got home.  When I was getting Adele out of the tub I suddenly and almost without thinking said to her, "If you can blow the bead out of your nose I'll take you to the dollar store for a treat."  She blew (without even plugging up the non-beaded nostril) and said, "It came out! I got the bead out!"  I didn't see it and thought she was just trying to fool me.  I asked her to show me the bead and there it was on the bathroom rug.  I couldn't believe it.  It came out SO easily.  Yesterday Kent had her hold one nostril and blow and blow.  Nothing but the usual result of nose blowing. (eww).  My theory:  All that bouncing in the bouncy houses must have dislodged it. All it needed was a little extra force and VOILA! There it was, complete with some residual boogers on it, so I knew it was the self-same bead that had spent the last 24 hours in Adele's nose. (Yes, I removed all the stuff before photographing it, you're welcome.)

So, thanks to my Costa Vida lunch I saved myself some dinero.  Totally worth the sacrifice.

Here's Adele giving us an up the nose shot and a great big THUMBS UP! Tomorrow we'll go to the $$ store and get that treat!

I am SO relieved that we won't have to do the torture board on Friday.

Bead in the Nose: Part 4 -- The BLUE Bead of DOOM.

Yeah. My cute and adorable 2 year old is sleeping in her bed, breathing through 1 nostril right now.  You'd think that that papoose experience of a few months ago would be clearly and indelibly carved into her little brain and that things like beads would no longer be a temptation.  Unfortunately, they are still a temptation. And unfortunately Kent and I were unable to remove the bead on our own. And unfortunately the (useless) Instacare does not have small enough instruments to extract things like beads from children's nasal passages.  Really?  REALLY??? I know my kid is neither the first nor the last to put something small up their noses.  (Perhaps it is time for them to invest in some pediatric-nasal-bead-grabbers?)  Soooo, anyway, we have a desperate bead plucking mission for tomorrow.  I am feeling like I need to banish all beads from my kingdom like Sleeping Beauty's parents banished spinning wheels.

If we have to do the papoose thing again I must take pictures.  Not because I like to capture the memories of my child being tortured, but she needs to know what a little stinker she was as a 2 year old.