Earwax is Yucky.

 I have some problems with a bit of OCD.  Not in everything and not enough to validate medication or anything but I HATE long nails.  And I HATE ear wax.  Now my kids have just learned that a part of their life is getting their nails trimmed every Saturday night (And now Chloe trims her own nails since I gave her and her friend a little nail class as part of their birthday presents!  Woo-hoo!) and they also know that every so often, I have to do an ear check and if I see ear wax, I will be grabbing a Q-tip and taking care of it.

Now let's be clear, I understand that there is a lot of contraversy surrounding the removal of ear wax.  In fact, my childrens' pediatrician likes to tell the kids that nothing smaller than an elbow is ever allowed to be stuck in their ears.  And while I know he's trying to be funny and is trying to teach me to be safe,  I also know that I completely am going to disregard him.

• I've been cleaning ears for years.  Mostly my own and I know how to stay shallow and be safe.
• Nobody wants yellow wax dripping out of their ears.
• I never do it unless they have just showered or bathed and have the wax be all soft.
• I only do it if it is visible from the side.

So recently Gavin's turn was up.  He's a bit more squirrely so I do need to be more careful and more shallow.  I had Greg help hold his head this time a bit.  I went in with the q-tip and took a quick and shallow swipe and just as I was about to move onto the next ear, he started gagging and coughing.  I was so confused.  Greg then says to me,

"That is what happens to me when something goes in my ear too far too."

I just sat there both feeling super confused and on the verge of hysterical laughter.  I said, "What?!"  That is THE weirdest thing I've ever heard before.  Have you ever heard of something so bizarre?

So I guess Gavin inherited a weird gagging function from Greg.  Also, that picture is from one of my kids' favorite books:  Yummy Yucky, by Leslie Petricelli

Sparkle Girl

There aren't very many things Tatiana does quietly. One of them is watching tv and another is getting into trouble. Really, it is a handy feature she came equipped with. When she quiets down and Julie and I don't know where she is, it generally means a crime is in progress. Well today Tati disappeared into the kitchen for a while. I began to get suspicious. So I sneaky peeked around the corner to see what she was up to. This is what I found:

There she was. Playing in/with the sunshine (she gets that from her mother). She was wearing one of her favorite shirts that has a number of pink sequin rows. The dazzling show it produced in the sunlight mesmerized her for some time - hence the quiet - and who can blame her? It was pretty cool to watch. She kept turning slowly from left to right making the dots dance and move along the wall/door. I'm not very good at capturing human subjects with the camera, but this has to be one of my all time favorites. I just wish I knew what she was thinking. . .

Snow Picnic

There's nothing like having a post in the "Edit" folder for weeks.  But here is a bit from Spring Break.  I'll be doing some more catch ups soon.

We are enjoying Spring Break up here in the Arctic.  It has been mostly cold but warming up.  It is funny how excited we all get when we see water in the street.  "The snow is melting!!!"

We even turned the melting into a family affair.  Greg busted out his rock hammer and we worked on clearing the storm drains so the water had a place to go.  (I have to say a rock hammer has proved to be a very handy tool many a time in our family.)  Otherwise, the streets just keep melting and freezing every night.  It probably doesn't affect everybody on our block, but the bottom left picture is where we cross the street to go to church and all that wet and slippery ice isn't good for the kids nor their big Mama!

It was amazing how much fun it was.  The kids splashed the puddles and excitedly watched the water rushing down the drain.  It was like we had our own homemade river.

With all the melting, I thought we had better get out and enjoy the snow before it was gone.  Ha, ha, on us because it has since snowed several more times.  I decided we wanted to go out sledding.   I invited as many people who wanted to come along and we had a pretty good turn out.  Take a look! 



Well technically I didn't do too much sledding and not just because I'm pregnant (because honestly the hill was pretty wimpy) but Tati has decided she hates sledding and would much rather "roll" down the hill and while Gavin enjoys going down the hill initially, he hates having to walk up (who doesn't?) and he turns pretty needy with walking in the snow. So after I snuck in a few slow runs down the bump of a hill, I just basically helped him eat and go back and forth playing in the car.

After we ate our snacks, we just chilled with our friends and let the sun warm our faces.  It felt great to get out and do something fun with the kids and some of our friends.

Also, since the snow was finally melting, it transformed into perfect snowman snow.  The girls had tried several other times this Winter but the snow was always really too powdery and the balls would disintegrate.  So here they are as proud builders.  To everybody's shock, they didn't name the snow ladies or snow girls.  Since we don't know if we'll be living where there even is snow next Winter, I'm glad they had a chance to get the snow man making thrill this year.

9 is just FINE!

Chloe is 9!  She had a great day.  The kids gave her so much attention and affection.  The kids layed in our bed together and lingered in the morning.  Then Chloe dressed up fancy for school and excitedly put on the traditional birthday hat for breakfast and opened a few presents.  She got a few books and other random gifts--nothing big--but she was stoked.

Chloe was excited to have a friend party this year.  She invited some girls from church and from school.  We even got a babysitter for the little kids so the big girls could have their own time.  We started out with a lego activity.  Greg put a bunch of random pieces in a bucket and then we had a contest to see who make the most creative, the craziest and the best use of the blocks.  Greg even had certificates for them.   After that we made book marks because at this age, it is all about the reading.  My big highlight was going outside to do some jump roping.  My big plan was to show them some moves and teach them some jump songs but then I remembered that I was pregnant and not such a good jumper.  Good ole Greg took on the roll as the teacher after I gave him a quick crash course.  He's such a great Dad and such a team player and boy can that guy jump!  We taught them how to jump in and expected to teach them all kinds of other tricks but honestly time just flew by.

If we were to do it all over, we'd probably have just jump roped the whole time.  They loved it.

Then we had lunch and cake and it was already time to go.  (BTW,  the cake looks a bit ghetto, but it was delicious.  I got it from this blog.)  Chloe has made such nice friends here.  We will really miss these kids when we move.

• Chloe loves to read.  She is especially into the Geronimo and Thea Stilton books right now.  We often find her tucked away reading and sometimes sneaking a flashlight and book into bed to read.
• One of Chloe's major chores is clearing the table after dinner.  She stores all the leftovers and clears the dishes.  When she is feeling extra nice, she even washes the dishes.
• Chloe loves to wear head bands.  It is pretty much her signature look.
• She can finally change her own earrings without any hesitation or fear.  She has a widely growing earring collection.
• She LOVES going to Activity Days at church.  She loves all the friendships she has made there and also loves doing something away from home.
• She loves playing with Gavin and Gavin absolutely adores her.  She reads to him, plays cars with him and helps get him to bed and change his diaper.  When we have a babysitter, Chloe really does most of the work.

Her favorite color is:  turquoise and lime green
Her favorite food is: strawberry pie
Her favorite movie is:  Brave
Her favorite thing to do is:  travel or go on trips with my family
Her favorite song is:  Trouble (Taylor Swift)

Handy Manny

Gavin was cutting a paper with the kid scissors and got a paper cut.  He was crying and saying, "Owie, Owie!"  He wanted someone to fix his cut.  So he got his screwdriver from his tool kit and took it over to Greg and said, "Daddy, fix it!"  Although Daddy couldn't fix it with a screwdriver, he did blow Gavin's mind when he applied some super glue to his cut and the pain immediately stopped.  He said, "Owie gone Mommy?!"  Then he showed everybody where his cut used to be.  His eyes were in wonder.  He kept touching the spot on his skin where the cut had been and just couldn't seem to believe that it had vanished.

Cute kid.

Here he is with his drill fixing our shelves.  Not the same as a screwdriver but still shows how much he loves to fix things.  I love this little Handy Man.

Snack Table

Well I finally got that table I ordered a few months ago.

It's great for holding bowls and glasses. Probably would be a nice perch for a bird too. This is me in week 23. Not quite steady enough for a plate though...yet.

Egg Hunt

Easter was a little problematic this year.  Our kids were getting to greedy and bratty.  They were fighting a lot and not doing what we asked them to do.  Saturday night before Easter was a straight up battle.  I told Greg that I hated that after them not listening to us or helping around the house and just fighting, that they were going to wake up to treats and presents.  So we decided that we'd put Easter on hold--at least the candy/present side of things.

So Sunday morning, we read the story of the resurrection and did a fun little churchy activity with them.  Then we took some family pictures.  We tried both before and after church.  They all turned out the same--difficult to get everybody looking--just with different lighting.  The skirts were made by a friend and I used some leftover fabric from her to make Gavin and Greg matching bow ties.  (I'm certain Greg will never wear this bowtie again.  I initially was going to make real ties, but these were just so dang fast and easy, it was a no brainer.)


That was it.  The rest of the day was just a normal, nice and relaxing Sunday.  We told them that if they could be helpful and nice to each other that we'd do some treats and fun the following day.

So Monday, we did their baskets and a fun egg hunt.  We were worried about finding a good place to go since there was still so much snow.  In other years, we've had nearly all the snow melted completely.  We were determined to have a Spring day though so we tried to have a picnic and we froze our butts off.


Greg really had a stroke of genius because he set up the eggs in this little forest of trees so there were lots of nooks and crannies to put the eggs.


I also had a stroke of genius (that I heard about from somewhere) to assign each child a different color.  That way they each had an even amount and we could put different more appropriate things inside for them.  It also allowed for Greg to place the girls' eggs in more difficult places. 

It worked out great and they loved it.  We'll definitely do that every year.  It was great too to have the secular stuff of Easter a little more separated from the spiritual stuff.