Happy Birthday Little Man!

Karl, my little man, turned ten years old yesterday.  

I cannot believe how quickly ten years have gone by.  Any one who has a child knows what I am talking about.  I can still picture Karl's fat little face looking up at me from a crawl and his flirty head tilt.  He was the smartest baby...he loved to laugh...he was HUGE...and was just a wonderful first child.  To be turning TEN!  I have a hard time wrapping my brain around that.  If these ten years flew so quickly by us, then in another blink of an eye we will be celebrating Karl's 20th birthday - that just is so hard to swallow.  

In his first ten years he has learned so much and grown so big.  From his first words - dada, mama, ball; to going on the big boy potty before he was two; to tying his shoes, dressing himself, learning to read; and all the way to flipping pancakes for our Sunday breakfast - WOW...he has learned so much.  In the next ten years he will be learning to drive, experiencing relationship highs and lows, getting pimples and muscles (hopefully more of the latter and less of the former), and graduating from high school - WOW.  That is all I can keep saying.  My baby isn't really a baby at all anymore...

So happy birthday to my little man - our little Karlybar - KDog - KarlD - and anything else he may go by.  To another wonderful ten years filled with laughter and love and learning.  Love you Karl. 

My Piano Man...I Mean Men

Karl has taken piano for the past three years now. This week he has been putting in extra practice time because he had a piano guild performance. Mike and I are not real sure what a guild is exactly but we were proud of Karl for working so hard preparing for it - he was ready. He looked sharp too - ever since Karl was little he enjoyed dressing well; Karl likes neck ties and nice shoes and when he is wearing all of those things he walks a little taller...it is awesome to watch.

What else is awesome to watch is my other piano man pounding on the piano. When I say pound, I do mean pound. Sam LOVES the piano. When Karl or Abby are practicing, he will crawl up to the piano, stand up, and stretch with all his might to reach the keys. Both kids get a kick out of this and often pick him up, sit him on the bench, and let him pound away. He plays, laughs, plays some more, laughs again, and just goes and goes. When you take him down off the bench he lets out a blood-curling-don't-even-think-about-taking-me-away-from-my-favorite-thing scream that just makes you take notice and is so intense it kind of makes you laugh at its extremety.

Regardless of the noise the piano causes - music, laughter, or screams - I am thrilled we have one and love to watch the kids use it any and every way they can. Mike wants to leave it here when we move (whenever that is) and well, that's just not going to happen...unless he wants to buy us a new one ;)


Results are in - Karl got a perfect score on his guild!! Wow! Way to go Karl!

Summer Plans

Mike finalized reservations for our summer vacation. I am so excited. We are taking the kids and traveling to South Dakota with Mike's parents. We do not get to see Mike's parents/family as much as we would like and so we wanted the kids to have a lot of great memories with them and figured it would be a lot of fun to take a trip with them. We are driving to South Dakota with my parents' RV thing and camping at a campground for a week while we travel on day trips to Mt Rushmore, Bear Country, Reptile Gardens, Dead wood, and the like. Our campground has parks and water parks and all sorts of fun things.
Anyhow - we have been talking about this for months and the finality of making reservations kicked our excitement into high gear. Cannot wait!
While we are there we are going to be able to go to a free Lone Star concert. When I told the kids, Karl and Abby both started singing "Already There" which is "Daddy's' song" from when he was gone for 14 months overseas. I was really tickled they remember that and can't wait to experience all these great things with my awesome husband, wonderful kids, and crazy (in a good way) in-laws! It will be a blast.

I'm a little crabby

It has been a tough few weeks for miss Aine.  She no longer naps (unless she is home with Dad, not sure why that is) but she needs to nap.  Since she isn't napping, as soon as 5PM rolls around she is crabby...non stop tears and pouting and disobeying.  It makes for a long 2 1/2 hours of staraight drama before she goes to bed.  Last night she was so cranky that at the dinner table she refused to eat anything until she got some more crescent rolls.  Well, crescent rolls are like gold at our house - everyone loves them and wants the extra one. She already had one and we told her she couldn't have more until she ate her actual food.  Aine wasn't going to have any of this and after sharing with us what she thought about that through grunts and wails, we removed her from the table.  I put her on the couch and told her that this is not how you behave at the table and she was done eating.  She cried and hollered a bit and then it got quiet.  Completely quiet... see - she fell asleep.  It was 5:30, in the midst of defiance, she crashed.  Unbelievable.  The rest of us at the table all just kind of looked at each other, chuckled, and enjoyed a quiet meal together...

In honor of her crabbiness, we had her wear the perfect shirt that my mom, dad, and younger brother Brian picked up for 

Aine at the Mall of America.  We think it is hilarious because it is so fitting to her personality right now.  She thinks it is hilarious because we say, "Aine are you a little crabby?" and she laughs

 and replies, "I am not a little crabby, I am a little girl!"  Ahhh bless her heart.

Hair today...gone tomorrow

We have been pestering Karl for weeks now about his hair. He decided to grow his hair out because he was afraid he was going bald. Like his dad, he has colics on each side of his forehead and hair doesn't grow there so great. He thought his forehead was too high and he looked bald so he grew his hair out to cover it up. It didn't take long for him to see that growing his hair out only made to bigger, empty spots on his head - see, he had one long center bang and then two long sides growing well past his ears. After letting go of his stubbornness concerning the matter, he took a good look at his hair, started laughing and agreed that it showed the colics and bald spots worse this way and allowed his dad to cut his hair.

Everyone gathered in our small bathroom to watch the hair go. It was impressive how much hair fell to the ground - and it is amazing how different our little man looks without his locks.

Sick Mommy

Every mom out there knows that when the kids get sick...Mom takes care of things, When the husband gets sick...Mom takes care of things.  And when Mom gets sick-yet again, mom takes care of things.  Well, life was quite different in my world this past week.  

Every one in my house has gotten quite sick over the course of this wint

er.  I could probably take all my sick days that I used (not including the pregnancy ones) from the past 3-4 years, add them up, and they still would not equal the number of days I have missed this year.  I hate missing work - it isn't like my dad's job where if he calls in sick, the secretary rearranges any necessary meetings; or like my husband's job where others just pitch in and when he gets back he deals with what they couldn't.  No, my job, if you call in sick you have to plan an entire day for hundreds of teenagers spread out through 6-8 different class clusters, all while you are sick and can barely think clearly AND you have to deal with it and more when you get back.  Yes - I chose my job, and yes - I like my job, but any teacher of spouse of a teacher clearly sees how much of a huge pain in the butt it is to call in sick.  

Any who, excuse my rambling tangents, I have spent the greater portion of this winter taking care of my sick kids.  Mike ha

s helped out substantially but the bulk of it has fallen upon my shoulders.  Lately we have had an outbreak of strep...not fun but I hadn't gotten really sick throughout this time.  That quickly changed on Thursday.  

Thursday - I was looking forward to a nice relaxing trip to get my hair cut and colored (and time away from the kids), and I got just that.  The last hour I sat in the chair though, I had the strongest, most uncomfortable cold shivers running through my entire body.  My head began to throb(not good when getting a cut and style), my throat began to hurt.  In the flash of mere minutes I went from cool and calm to cool and trembling.  As soon as I got home I went to bed - and there I stayed (other than the 90 minute round trip doctor check to verify I had strep) until mid Saturday.  I have never ached so much-I couldn't do a  thing.  I whined(hate whiners), I moaned(dramatic!), I pouted(won't work missy), bossed and ordered(do it yourself), I even cried(big baby...)-I hurt so badly.  I didn't "just suck up and deal with it" because physically I couldn't.  It was awful.  

What was wonderful throughout this time was my husband.  He left work early on Friday to help me (and was welcomed at home with three kids running through a trashed house, baby Sam in a high chair with toys and finger food, and mom crashed on the couch oblivious to it all.  He got me up, took me to bed, helped me get comfortable, brought me a covered drink(of Sprite and orange juice, my favorite), a phone, remote, tons of blankets and pillows and saltines before he closed the bedroom door and left me alone. 

 Then he got the four kids ready, took them out to eat for dinner, treated them to a movie and didn't bring them home until nearly ten.  I slept the entire time.  The next day he scrubbed the house.  I haven't had such a strong Lysol and bleach smell permeate through my home in ages.  He dusted, vacuumed, got on his hands and knees and cleaned floors, (I think I should type that again... see...he got on his hands and knees and cleaned the floors) AND continued to let me be a complete sick slacker.  

Not a single complaint from him.

Not a single request later.

Nothing but help.

Nothing.

Maybe I was truly delirious and I simply envisioned it all.  Maybe he secretly has a uterus.  Maybe he just loves me and is sick of all the sickness.  

Not sure - don't care.

I'll just take it.  

What a guy.

Happy Easter!

Hope everyone had a relaxing weekend and was able to spend time with their family and/or loved ones.