Shake Your Booty!

Both Fia and Moo had their dance recital this month. It was Moo's first recital and she only took beginner ballet. Fia is in her third year of dance and took ballet and tap. Both girls looked beautiful and did a great job dancing. Moo's song was "Under the Sea" from the Little Mermaid, and the youngsters in her class provided hilarious comic relief during the recital.

In the above pic, Moo is 4th from the right

 Here, Moo is second from the left, saying "take it from me!"

This is how the dance ended, Moo is second from the left.

Fia's first song was the country song "Let them be little". It was adorable, and they danced so gracefully! I was impressed by how well Fia did (she was in a class with much older girls, remember?)

Fia is in the middle.

I love this pose, Fia is second from the right.

Look at how graceful they are! Fia is 4th from the right.

Fia's tap song was "Mama, I'm a big girl now!" from the musical Hairspray. It was a lot of fun, and it was Fia's favorite dance.



Here she is tapping away, on the left!

The only thing she still has to master is smiling while dancing! Still on the left.

Final pose, Fia is standing on the left. She did such a great job!

After the recital, we went out to eat with Papa, Auntie Jeni, UBJ and Auntie Becky. Here are some pictures of them (and us) with the girls.

Camping!

We took the 4 crazies on our first family camping trip to Lake Bemidji State Park. It was a 10 hour drive, but well worth it to have a nice place to camp while visiting old college friends and convenient to make a stop on the way home to visit their grandparents. We left on Tuesday and came home late Sunday, one of our longest stays away from home yet.

I have never camped in a tent. As a youth, I worked as a counselor at a summer camp, but always had cabins. I didn't realize how much more effort it would take to tent camp, but we had a fun time. The first day, we had fun setting up camp with help from our friends, the Johnsons. We had a campfire and smores, too. The kids went to bed, Jeff and I waited out the fire then joined them.

About 4:30 am, Pander woke up sick. He gets sick all the time when we are away from home, and he announced, "I think I am just homesick!" Poor guy was up most of the night, and so was Jeff. At 6:30, Jeff ran to the laundry mat to take care of the things that he got sick on, and I got up and got the kids ready for the morning. The sickness passed, so we were able to enjoy the beautiful weather and take a hike. We saw so many cool things- about a thousand ants helping decompose a tree stump, a natural sink hole in the forest, a huge tree with 3 connected stumps that Aleks loved standing in, and a beautiful overlook of the lake.

After our hike, we drove to the airport to pick up Uncle Ben, Jeff's best friend who flew in to hang out with us. We were so glad to be able to spend time with Ben, Zak, Katie and the kids, since we only see them once a year, sometimes less, and it was great to reconnect. We had dinner at Zak and Katie's place, and stayed until dark. Then we headed back and had another campfire with cookies baked over the fire. Noodle was so tired he asked to go to bed instead of staying up for dessert! In fact, everyone but Moo fell asleep before the cookies were done. Moo has serious FOMO (fear of missing out), so that isn't a huge surprise!
At about 3 am, it started to storm. Thunder, wind, lightening, the whole kit and caboodle. The kids slept through it, and the tent stayed dry, thankfully. But the next morning everything was soaked. We couldn't cook, we had nowhere to sit down, it was just miserable. So we made the most of it, went to breakfast at Perkins, walked around Walmart, and then went back to the campsite when things were at least dry enough to hang out at the site.

In the evening we went to the Johnson's again and had pizza. The kids loved hanging out with G and K, and Fia told me that "K is such a tough girl, I really like her!"even though at one point Fia nd K were playing and somehow K let go of a pine branch and it flew back and hit Fia in the face. Fia was ok, but had a pretty nasty looking set of pine needle scratches on her face for a bit.
After a long few days camping, we spent an afternoon at the park in Bemidji and took pictures by the statues of  Babe the Blue Ox and Paul Bunyan (or Bald Onion, as Pander calls him!)

Here we are at Lake Bemidji, above to the right, the kids are learning to skip stones, and to the left Noodle is standing below "Bald Onion", realizing just how far he has left to go before he can reach his greatest goal of being a giant!

We also went to see the gazebo in the park where Jeff proposed to me over 9 years ago. It was nice to remember and share that memory with the crazies.

On Friday, we left town a bit earlier than planned, because Fia woke up with a high fever and allergy issues. We headed to my in-laws house to visit for a few days. It is always nice to visit with family and the kids had a fun with grandpa and grandma. All in all, we had a great trip, learned alot more about what we will need for future camping trips, and made great memories!

Summer Sun

We have been spending alot of time with the crazies out in the sun lately. On Memorial Day, we attended the shortest parade of the year (seriously, it is only about 10-15 minutes long, tops!) We spent the rest of the day at a family picnic with my sisters, brother-in-law and soon-to-be-brother-in-law, nephew, and many cousins and their kids. I love spending time at the park, grilling out, and hanging out with family. I grew up as part of a large family and I enjoy opportunities to share that experience with the crazies. Pander played some baseball and frisbee with the other boys, Moo and Fia spent most of the day on slides and digging in the sand, while Noodle ran around doing everything and nothing all at once.

This Saturday we had a playdate with my high school friends, Jenny and Marta, and their kids. Three moms and 8 kids at the park, what a great morning! Then we had a "camping rehearsal" in our yard that evening. Jeff built our new tent so he and the crazies could sleep in it before we head out camping next week. As part of our caming practice, we hosted a fire for my sisters, their families and my dad. UBJ brought his guitar so we could sing a few campfire songs. The kids loved it, especially when he played Noodle's request "the one with boy and the girl chipmunks"- if you have seen the 3rd Chipmunk movie, you may understand he was asking for "Kumbaya". My sis Jeni brought marshmallows, always a big hit, and the filling to make apple pudgie pies in our new pudgie pie cookers. My other sis, Becky, and UBJ also had the inspired idea to grill shish kabobs. We all jumped on board and enjoyed the tasty goodness! At bedtime, Fia was pretty cold, so she decided to wear a sweatshirt and her slippers into her sleeping bag. She is a huge slipper fan, and one of her birthday requests is a new pair of slippers and a robe! After everyone settled into the tent, Fia was a bit scared and Moo said she couldn't sleep, so I went into the tent and told them a story. Moo requested that I sing a Jesus song, and I started to sing. She interrupted me and said "Not that one, Mama, the one about when I am afraid I will trust in you!" I guess all the crazies had a bit of fear sleeping outside for the first time, so I'm glad we did the practice camp out. Once everyone fell asleep, they stayed asleep. No one came in, no one cried. I call it a success, and I think our upcoming camping trip to Bemidji will go well.

Sunday we had the same group over to celebrate Jeff's 33rd birthday. His birthday isn't actually until 6/7, but we always celebrate on Family Sunday, and next week is the girls' dance recital, so we celebrated early. The kids had water wars thanks to the water launchers their cousin, the JJ Monster, brought over- with a little help from his mom. We made more kabobs and had a yummy chocolate cake. Happy birthday to the father of my little crazies, love you bunches hon!

At the end of the weekend I was reminded that too much fun in the sun can be a bad thing. While we have no sunburn or major injuries, we had a few people down with a fever and Noodle is a mess. He is very sun-sensitive and has an allergic reaction to almost all sunscreens we've tried on him. We were out of the very expensive, all natural sunscreen we used for him last year and tried a different brand, but no luck. He has had flame red cheeks and hives for the past 3 days. It reminds me a bit of the saying, "You play, you pay!" No worries, we have his special sunscreen on order and I plan to stick with it from now on! After all, it is pretty awful when he walks around sadly saying, "My face is a fire."

Swim and Hike

Well, mostly this post is about our hike through the 7 Bridges at the park, but I couldn't resist posting this pic of Moo and Fia in their new swim caps. They start swim lessons in mid-June and have to have caps for their longer hair. They ran around the house wearing them all day, inspired by the movie Hop to yell "We are the Pink Berets!"

Tonight after a nearly free dinner at TGI Friday's (we had a terrible experience with burnt kids meals once and they gave us a bunch of free credits for our next visit), we took a family hike through the park. Our favorite spot is the 7 Bridges, Pander always wants to count the bridges to see if we crossed them all, while Noodle prefers to do all the steps on his own and yell "I did it!" at the bottom of each set. Here are some pictures of us at the bridges, and a few pictures of the trees I thought turned out well.

Here is Jeff with the Crazies, Pander is trying to peek around the tree like Dada.

Here is Noodle, so proud of walking the crooked steps by himself!



 A nice woman offered to take a family picture, so nice!

Me and the hubby on a bridge.

Moo, Fia, Pander, Noodle and Mama!

One of my favorite pics from the walk, I love the tree branch in the middle, what beautiful creation!

Last pic! Praise God for the wonderful gifts of beauty he gave for our family to enjoy together.

Crayola Crime

Today, we faced a challenge above and beyond the normal daily tasks of caring for the 4 crazies. We experienced a Crayola Crime. There are 4 suspects, but no confession. What exactly was the crime? One of the kids placed a blue crayon in their pocket, put said pocket into the laundry basket, there by allowing Daddy to place the crayon into the washing machine and finally, into the dryer. This resulted in the death of several towels and children's summer clothes. Someone in my household is a murderer of clothing, by way of negligence.

Instead of teaching homeschool this morning, I ended up sorting a load of laundry into piles- trash, crayon spots with possibility of salvage, and crayon-free. Then I made a nifty mix of Goo-gone and dish soap and proceeded to scrub the living daylights out of the spots of dark blue crayon on the items I thought we could save while being heckled by Fia saying "That's my FAVORITE shirt, save it Mommy!" about every single item of hers in the load. Moo, who lost the most in the load, was less worried and very excited about the new pack of underoos and shirts I promised her for replacements.

My husband spent the morning going to buy supplies to clean out the dryer and then scrubbing all the leftover crayon out of the dryer. Needless to say, he wasn't very pleased about spending his time cleaning the dryer, and I don't blame him. I believe he is committed to checking all pockets when running a load of laundry now, though!

Through the course of the inspection, I believe that Moo and Fia have the greatest chance of guilt, since they are the only 2 with pants or shirts with pockets in the load. My inclination is toward Moo being guilty, since Fia is such a neat-nick that I can't imagine her putting a crayon in her pocket instead of back into the box, into her school box, and finally into her desk. But, we have no hard evidence, so the Crayola Crime will most likely become a cold case, never to be resolved.

What's in a name?

So many people are having crazies of their own! I am excited that so many women I know are having babies, and I love hearing the names they pick, along with the reasons or meanings behind their names. So, while I don't share Pander, Fia, Moo and Noodle's real names, I thought I would share the meanings of their names and why we chose them.

I chose 2 names for Pander and let my husband choose from them. The name we didn't pick was Owen- in the end, we both didn't like the idea of having a short first name with no nickname options. As you can tell, we are really into nicknames! The name we decided on was my favorite of the two anyway. It means "Stands in the place of those who defend men." It is one of my greatest prayers that my eldest son will stand up, take a place as a defender of those who cannot defend themselves. I want him to be strong, to protect the weak, to do right when others do not.

Fia's name was also my choice. I wanted a fancy-sounding, beautiful name for my first little lady. We don't use many nicknames for Fia, because we love her pretty first name! It means "God is gracious and wise" and I pray she will grow in faith, knowing that God is indeed wise and always gracious in his love and forgiveness.

Moo's name was chosen by Jeff. We actually chose a nickname for her, and then searched backward for a more formal, longer, first name. Her middle name is a combination of her grandmothers' names, Linda and Kathleen. Her name means "Pure work of God." She is certainly an original work of art by the Creator, and her pure heart is full of joy.

Noodle's name was a combination of the first name we liked had Moo been a boy, and the middle name I had chosen to go with Owen for Pander. It also happens that Noodle's first name is the middle name of his uncle on Daddy's side. Together his names mean "Gift of God, bearer of Christ." He is certainly a gift from God, and I pray that he is a bearer of Christ throughout his life.

Crazy Quotes

Here are some quotes from the crazies in the last few weeks, enjoy!

Noodle- "I had a bad dweam! Monster ate me! Monster ate my head! It not okay, it skeery!"
When told to eat his peas- "I not eat peepees! Peepees gwoss, peepees potty talk!"
"That's me!" No, its not, you are not that dark. "YES I AM BLACK!"

Fia- "Momma is Milady and we are her servants, so we GET TO clean for her!"
"When I go potty, I just feel SO relaxed! That's why it's called a rest room."

Pander- "The best 2 things about Easter are Jesus is alive, and candy!"
"God the Father, God the Son and God the Ghost of Holies."
"Yes we can put elbows on the table for dinner, our house doesn't count, we're not fancy!"

And a group effort:
Pander- "I wish Daddy was home."
Fia- "Why? 'Cause he cooks better?"
Pander- (nodding) "I'm not going to say that, it might hurt Mommy's feelings."