Vacation Prep

Last Wednesday, we finally got around to having people try on swimming suits before our big Spring Break trip back to the Dells. It was a good thing we did that ... as the girls have grown and their suits had not. With a large pile of suits that did not fit and a very.tiny pile of suits that did, the girls and I headed to Target on Thursday night with a clear mission. We probably brought 20-30 suits into the dressing room and they had SO much fun trying them on. I assured them that this was most definitely not the last time the three of us would be in a dressing room looking for suits that fit. 

Years of swimsuit shopping with my sister prepared me well for that field trip. We learned that Fiona's body shape is unique enough that I need her to try on suits. Size is less relevant than the cut. The good news was that we found a couple suits for each of them. The bad news was that they both liked the same suit and there was only one in that size in the store. They agreed to share the suit for the trip and I promised to order a second one. Then I checked the EP store on Friday and found one ... so they had their matching suits as desired (and I got some serious Mom points).

Then my kitchen basically exploded on Saturday. We were in full production and at one point, we had muffins, monster cookies, and salsa chicken all going. While those were cooking, I was washing and cutting up fruit. The payoff to all that work (once I spent an hour finding the counter again) ... a very relaxed prep for meals for the next few days!

The kids were invited over to the neighbors to watch a movie that afternoon and Mike had already brought Yogs to my sister's ... so it was just us for a couple hours. It was simply too quiet around here. And while it greatly aided the packing, we were happy when the kids came bickering through the door.

We needed them back because we were off to meet the Pilchers and watch Mike and Brad's last hockey game of the year. They were playing on the north rink in the New Hope area, which is where parts of The Mighty Ducks were filmed. The coolness of that was not lost on the kids - but no amount of petitioning would convince Mike's team to pull out the "flying V." Apparently it is not a legitimate hockey play ... (the movie begs to differ. As do D2 and D3).

The kids were great and had the best time running around the rink. Cheryl and I shaved a few years off our lives trying to ensure no one fell down the very steep steps with no railing! But we all survived and the six kids ended the night with a giant group hug. They were so amped to leave on vacation together the next day! A couple other moms were laughing at the level of excitement in the gang ... and wished us luck.

While the game was a little later than we would normally attend, it was nice to watch the boys' final game and kick off our vacation with a little hockey.

Fiona is Seven. And a Half

Fun fact: In June, my blog will be eight. Want to know how I know that (besides the fact that I can just look at the archive on the side)? Because Fiona was seven and a half this week. Which means she is now closer to eight than she is to seven. EIGHT! Yikes!

Seven has been a bit of a bumpy year for Fiona. She has a lovely teacher at school who is very by-the-book and expects the class to run that way. That’s just not Fiona’s style. She’s incredibly smart, but her focus wanders and the stories in her imagination simply pull her away from math worksheets and spelling words. This has translated to a bit of a confidence hit, as well as a dramatic uptick in sassiness and defensiveness. With some adjustments to our expectations at home and her realization that she is not going to be punished for having a “yellow” day, we’ve settled in enough that we should be able to ride out the school year. 

However, reading confidence is increasing and she is becoming quite the voracious reader. Turns out, reading is more interesting when you know more words and the story is good. We currently have three different chapter books at various stages of completeness spread across our living room [plus my book, Dec's book, and Quinn's writing journal]. And while I don’t like clutter, I have been dealing just fine with that! She also informed me yesterday that she passed the reading level she needed to be able to check out chapter books from the library. Day was made!

She continues to be our perfectionist (I know. A daydreaming perfectionist! There are not a lot of parenting books on how to shape that personality ...). We are pushing her to test her limits and challenge herself without fear of failure. For example, she didn’t want to take the math tests at school to see if she would “exceed” grade level skills – because she might not. There is no punishment for not passing that test, so we are talking it up at home as worth trying – just to see where she is. We celebrate when she goes outside her comfort zone.

We also haven’t found her “thing” yet – the extracurricular activity that makes her incredibly excited. She likes skating, swimming, and gymnastics fine, but nothing has really clicked yet for her passion. I’m doing my best marketing to convince her to be a in community theater play this summer. We’ll see how good my skills are!

What we most want to remember about Fiona at this age is how she is the best blend of “kid” and “big kid.” She’s crossing that line into some serious big-ness … like walking over to friends’ houses alone across the big street (and Mike and I will stop watching out the window while she does ... soon). She loves snuggles, sings loudly in the shower, and is currently writing her own joke book. The first joke:

Knock Knock.
Who's there?
Cow.
Cow who?
Why do cows wear clothes? They don't.

It's probably going to be a bestseller.

**I would also like to note that I had to make her take a picture for this post because I have NO good pictures of her from the last few weeks (at least ones that I haven’t already shared). This goofy face stage ends – right?

Weekend Trip

Not appreciating the Efron

We hadn’t been up north since Christmas – so Otto’s third birthday was just the perfect reason to make a weekend trip. Since we weren’t making it a long weekend, we decided to have the girls ride the bus home and we would get out of town a little before the official end of the work day. Which was a super good plan. Until Mike called me and said that the entire network was down at the theater and he needed to stay until he could get them up and running again.

So I ran through Target with my giant bag of dog food, scurried to preschool to scoop up Declan, and caught all the lights back to our house to get to the bus stop by the skin of our teeth. Luckily we had Ms. Katie in our back pocket – who would have snagged the girls if D and I had not made it. As it turned out, Ms. Katie was the only mom in the neighborhood who had it pulled together and she was basically collecting every child from the bus.

Leprechauns

The kids and I got home and Mike called to tell me they were back online and he was on his way. Whew! We managed to hit the road shortly after 4pm – not too shabby based on the previous hour of mania. About an hour into the trip, I went to put a movie on for the kids and the DVD player was all sorts of uncooperative. While disappointed, the kids took the news pretty well and hung in there until Milaca when we made a pit stop at Subway for dinner.

I was able to fix the DVD player and the melodious sounds of High School Musical 2 propelled us to Grand Rapids. Or at least four of us. Someone did not find Zac Efron as delicious as the rest of us did. My favorite moment was when the entire back seat sang most of the “dancing baseball” scene and Mike died a little inside.

Just the sweetest buddies

We made it to Rapids shortly after 8pm and got a fun visit from Auntie Tracey, Nate, and Ben before we trundled the troops off to bed. Ben’s my practice for how I’m going to feel someday when D is taller than me. If my current state of mind is any indication, I’m not going to like it!

Saturday was all sorts of busy, but also pretty laid-back and relaxing. It doesn’t make any sense, but that’s how it felt. The kids and I headed to the gymnastics academy mid-morning for Otto’s kid party. They had a great time tumbling, jumping, rough-housing, and eating cake. They did not have fun when I told them that we actually didn’t get to be there all day and needed to leave.

Birthday boy!

While Dec took a very needed nap, Quinn and Auntie had a headstand contest. We decided Grammy won because nothing in her house was broken during this "athletic" event. Then Auntie and I hunted through the shed and brought in our old Barbie stuff … “for the girls.” We had a great time setting up our old surf shop and campsite – and marveled at the super stylish clothes that Barbie had in the bin. Yikes! The girls, especially Fiona, spend the whole afternoon playing with them. Dec even joined in when he woke up.

Meanwhile, Mike and my dad were ice fishing on the bay. In the direct sunlight. Mike walked in late afternoon and all anyone could say was “WOW!” It was 4^th of July quality sunburn, which is pretty impressive for mid-March! After pizza dinner, we squeezed in one more visit with Nate and Tracey and the girls played with Auntie Tracey’s Barbies (there was a theme for the day!).

Coffee, bagels, and silly faces

Sunday morning, we met the gang at church and the little boys lasted about 12 minutes before they were crawling over and under pews and were sent down to the nursery. They were happier there … and likely MUCH louder! There’s just so much love to contain in a church-service-appropriate environment.

After church, we packed the car and went to Otto’s family party. We got more pizza and cake, played pin the smokestack on Thomas (which Fiona won), and ran around with the cousins for a couple hours. Yet again, they were not happy when it was time to leave. Otto and Dec turned their good-bye hugs into an excuse for a bit more rough-housing … because they are three-year-old boys!

After a little naptime at the early part of the ride, the DVD player cooperated and we watched non-High School Musical options for the sake of the driver. We made one pit stop for coffee and bagels (YUM) and made it home in time for dinner. It was a quick, but really fun, trip to see everyone. And the kids were glad that Darby the leprechaun founds us in Rapids and left gold candy in their shoes.

Sunday at the Rink

To get out of the house (and not at all to wear people out so that they would think going to bed at 7:30 when it really felt like 6:30 was a good idea), we hit up open skate on Sunday afternoon. The girls are both completely proficient on skates – and also apparently know everyone. So they stepped out on the rink, found friends, and we saw them infrequently at best for the next hour.

Dec started skating with me, lasted about 10 minutes, and decided he wanted to be done. I told him he could be, but he had to skate around the rink once first. Somewhere in that circle, we ditched the skating “walker” and all the practice up to this point finally clicked. Suddenly, the boy was skating. And then falling. And then getting up when he fell. Come to find out, open skate is so much more fun when you can actually skate! So he partnered up with his dad and they goofed around for the rest of the time.

While having three official skaters was exciting, we were not done at the rink for the day. We left one and drove across the cities to another to watch Mike’s hockey game. We got there a little early and saw the end of the high school girls’ hockey practice. It was pretty powerful for all three of them to see up close how talented these girls were. Lots of respect for girls’ hockey in our house (and hopefully motivating to Quinn to consider it).

Mike’s game wasn’t terribly exciting. They won soundly, but that’s not terribly hard to do when the other team only has six players and no goalie. Mike said it wasn’t terribly fun to play either, because you hold back a lot to not be jerks. That said, we always like watching Mike play and it was a fun way to wrap up our weekend.

We enjoyed a picnic dinner in the stands, watched a Zamboni, flirted with the ref (Quinn), and watched 17 or so goals be scored. All in all, I think we spent about 4 hours at the rink for the day. Not a single person complained – about the time at the rink OR bedtime.

Fun with Friends

Sports camp gang

We sprung (springed? trudged? sleepily stumbled?) ahead this weekend. Four out of five Vs looked a little worse for the wear on Monday morning. And then there was Declan. The boy could have subbed in for the sun. He radiated happiness and joy. And sound. So much sound. Mike and Fiona needed to be separated from him. They’re more “sun [and sound] at midday” kind of people.

As we anticipate spring and warmer weather (while knowing we live in Minnesota and it will probably snow at least two more times), we’ve been enjoying getting out with friends. I imagine we feel as the bears do when they come out of hibernation. Holy smokes – there is a whole world of people out there!

D's best buddy

Dec did another round of sports camp in February. It’s for 3 and 4 year olds – so they basically just run around a gym for 45 minutes. However, this session, his buddy Sam from Ms. A #1 (both in chronological order and in our hearts) was in class. And Sam’s sister Emma “got” to come watch each week. So the ladies happily tagged along to sports camp and spent 45 minutes tearing around with Emma each week. And the mamas sat and visited and watched baby Manny. Life was good at sports camp!

Last Thursday, we attended an 8th grade basketball game to see Dec's buddy Jack (Ms. A #1's son) play. Jack's little sisters were there too and they were thrilled to have some V friends to play with. Dec rotated between watching the game and playing Beanie Boos with the girls. Quinn, surprisingly, also rotated between playing and watching. She was very intrigued by the game and has already asked to go to another one. Fiona was glad that Finn and Bella were there to play with.

Dance face painting

Jack's team got beaten pretty soundly and it was so impressive to watch him take a deep breath, shake off his frustration, and stride across the gym to give Dec a big hug and thank him for coming. Those two have the sweetest friendship and Dec truly looks up to Jack. The girls were also pretty pumped to hug Jack. It's entirely possible that he has three additional pseudo little sibs!

Then Friday night, we headed to the school dance. All was good for the first 70 minutes. They got in line right away for the face painting - which was much better than the 40 minute line we waited in last year! The girls were constantly running around with friends and Dec was happy to explore with Mike and me. Until he wasn't. He hit the wall about 7:15 and we headed out very shortly after that. Quinn was also getting tired, although she claimed she didn't want to leave. There was a lot of aimless wandering and whining happening.

Help! So much candy!

When we got to the dance, each of the kids got a raffle ticket. There were approximately 30 raffle prizes lined up - each with their own bucket. Dec put his ticket in the sleepover kit bucket; Fiona put hers in the beads set bucket; and Quinn dropped hers in the candy bouquet bucket. We limit candy consumption here. It's not banned and no one would accuse us of living a sugar free life. It's just really that we prefer other things - and encourage the kids to choose other things. In fact, we are still working our way through the Valentine's Day candy.

So Monday, when I picked the girls up from school, Quinn proudly pulled the candy bouquet that she had won out of her backpack. Because of course that's what we won. Not only are the "flowers" fun size M&M packets - but the vase is filled with loose M&Ms. We may have to have an M&M eating party! But goodness, she is proud of her win! I wonder how many dozen monster cookies we can make with a vase full of candy ...

Conversations with the Kids

A few interesting discussions were heard around our house this week ...

[helping Dec out of the shower one night]
Dec: Approximately nine sentences - all about butt cracks.
Me: Buddy, I don't want to talk about butt cracks.
D: Mom, poop comes out of our butt crack.
Me: For real. No poop. No butt cracks.
D: Can we talk about spiders?
Me: Sure.
D: Mom, spiders are so small they can fit in our butt crack.

*******************************************************
[Dec "inviting" himself into the bathroom while Quinn is going potty]
Dec: Quinny, why are you sitting down?
Quinn: Because I'm going pee.
D: I pee standing up.
Q: I can't do that. [then reaches for toilet paper]
D: Why are you getting toilet paper?
Q: So I can wipe.
D: You can just shake it.
Mike: She doesn't have anything to shake.
D: Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat!?!?!

*******************************************************
[Quinn, after attending a soccer clinic]
Me: Daddy told me that you were really good at soccer today.
Q: Yes. I was.
[later in the day when we were discussing soccer again]
Q: There was a tunnel and we had to run through it. As fast as we can.
Me: Did you run fast?
Q: Yes. Super fast.

********************************************************
[Fiona, reading a laffy taffy joke to Mike]
F: Why did the goose cross the road?
M: To get to the other side.
F: siiiiiiiiiggggghhhhhhhh. No. That's an oooooooooooold joke.
M: Then why?
F: Because the chicken was on vacation. Come on, dad.

Gotham's Finest

When we were up in GR for Christmas, we found out that Mike's sister and family were not doing the Polar Plunge this year, which meant we were off the hook. A few weeks later, we were talking and both mentioned how we were strangely disappointed to not do the plunge. So we gathered our neighbors Mike and Katie and my co-worker Brad and his step-daughter Kayla and all agreed to dress up like Batman villains (the three of us who had plunged before already had villain costumes) and jump into Prior Lake.

We had such a blast and raised about $1700 for Special Olympics. We were also really impressed how well run the event was and how smoothly they moved 500+ plungers through the line. And we are glad that I snagged us an early plunge time!

In case you are wondering what goes through your mind when you decide to jump into 33 degree water on a 25 degree day, read on ...

First, you "warm up" at Buffalo Wild Wings after leaving five children with a babysitter (who made bank for the day so don't feel bad for her at all). You wonder if it is sad that your big "date day" is to jump into a frozen lake. But you move on.

When it's your turn, you walk up to the ledge and feel significantly less sure about life choices than you did when you were nice and warm in BWWs. But you're still like "we got this."

Thank goodness for the MC's countdown. Although at this point, you are wishing for the magic Instagram Boomerang feature that would land you back nice and dry on that ledge.

This right here, ladies and gentleman, is why you wear bikini bottoms under your costume skirt!

Full team cannonball. Which felt like thousands of shards of ice stabbing every part of your body. Good times. And yet, it really is good times. Before we were even in dry clothes, the three newbies on the team stated they would totally do it again. In a year.

When your hair is soaked and sending ice cold drips down your neck. And you realize that your mask and the dozens of ivy leaves in your hair are completely tangled together and you can't get anything out. Or you are just damn cold.

Don't let anyone know that super villain identity. Don't let anyone know that super villain identity.

When you are done by 1:00 but you have the babysitter until 2:00. So you decide to go to the bar with the neighbors. But Catwoman accidentally locks the keys in the house and Riddler and Joker legit break in. Because babysitter and bar.

If you have ever considered plunging, do it! I guarantee we'll be back next year. We may need a new theme though.

Shades of Pre-Tween

I looked it up. Pre-tween is a real thing. You've probably heard of teenagers and pre-teens, except pre-teens are now called tweens. I think this is so they could add the category of pre-tween. The new category was needed.

Google tells me that tweens are ages 10-12; and pre-tweens are 8-10 year olds who are caught in-between kid and big kid behaviors, such that you never know which one you will get. Possibly described as mature one moment, and losing it the next. Yeah. That.

We most certainly have a human in this house who is on the cusp of pre-tween! Fiona is so fun to be around, with a fantastic sense of humor and an incredibly big heart. There are so many moments where she is the most delightful person, happily curling up in a chair with a book or playing babies with Quinn or creating a hurricane of Barbie accessories across the entire square footage of the house.

She also rolls her eyes at us (mostly at Mike), thinks following directions is optional, and cannot smile normally in a picture. This is where I see it most. I kid you not ... I say " everyone smile for a picture." Quinn and Dec stand and smile. Fiona makes some sort of weird face. Or weird hand gesture. Or weird face and weird hand gesture. My phone is full of pictures of her making faces at me.

I plan to save those pictures. Just to show her - when we get to the other end of this tween-teen game - that I was not exaggerating [in this specific instance anyway]. In the meantime, there may be a training class or two. Mama's gonna need a real smile. And for her to stop ruining the group photos!

We are also encouraging the babies and Barbies and giggling and joy of childhood as long as we can. We'll try to teeter on that cusp for a while longer!

Slopestyle Sledding

When your parents refuse
to pull you up the hill, you
make nice with your sister

It snowed on Saturday night. A lot. While it wasn't ideal for travel during our Saturday Night dates, it was perfect in every other sense. We got around 8 inches total - and followed it up with a beautiful, sunny day on Sunday. While it wasn't super warm, there also wasn't too much wind - so it was pretty comfortable to be outside.

After a needed lunch date with Auntie and an even more needed rest time (after the late night on Saturday), we headed down the road to the sledding hill. The snow was perfect and there were a couple runs already packed down. The kids were also really excited about packing their own paths. Fiona made a really good one and Mike added a jump to the middle of it. Once that happened, everyone was using that run! We were clearly inspired by the Winter Olympics and all the skiing and snowboarding we watched. 

Dec did the inaugural jump run and we realized that it maybe wasn't packed down as much as it could have been. He got quite the face full of snow - but didn't seem to mind in the slightest. Our neighbor buddies met us at the hill and we had a whole pile of giggling humans! Mike even entertained us with a solid sled surfing demonstration ... that totally did not end with him rolling head over heels at the bottom of the hill and his elbow most definitely does not still hurt. Wink wink.

It's been in the forties all week, which is melting all our snow. We don't appreciate it. We have been refusing to wear jackets. It's so hot! It's only March 1, so there's almost a guarantee we will get at least one more good snow storm. Our sleds and saucers are at the ready!