Cake for me.

Um yes, will you please send me a piece of Meta's cake? No matter that it'll be a few days old when I get it. Or can you at least post a picture for me so I can drool over it?

Happy belated birthday, Meta. Can't beat a husband who gets you a whirly pop!

This is Robyn, of course. Luke would never drool over chocolate cake like I would.

Dog treats

Cheerios are the only cereal option at our house for Emmett, but once in a while we buy and hide sugary cereals as treats just for us. On a few occasions now, Emmett has discovered the "special treat" cereal and been allowed to try it for dessert or as a before bed treat. This last time we got treat cereal he got to have honey nut shredded wheat. Once he figured out where that was, he immediately discovered the giant box of frosted flakes. He started begging me to have the "pretty cereal" and I just acted like I didn't see it and said we have honey nut shredded wheat and we have cheerios. He quickly got frustrated that I was still only seeing the cheerios and shredded wheat and started throwing his finger, nose and any other possible body part he could muster to get me to see the giant box of frosted flakes on top of the fridge sitting next to the shredded wheat. I finally had to acknowledge their existence but quickly found an out through lying. Yes, I did it!!! I lied to my almost 3 year old. That new box of frosted flakes is much MUCH too big to be discovered right now. On my toes I chuckled and casually said to emmett, oh this is what you meat by "pretty cereal?" Emmett, that's not cearal, those are dog treats I got for Josie (Tony the tiger passes as a dog right?) He says, "let me see, let me see, I want to see the dog treats you got for josie." Emmett has the sniffer of a blood hound and smells treats on your breath long after they've been digested. I took the risk for sake of him truly discovering a cereal as sweet and delicous as frosted flakes. I opened the box, he peered inside, chuckled to himself for being so silly, and asked very politely for some shredded wheat.
I love my son.

some things take a few tries

So what do you think, does instant pinto beans sound like they're do able....even with a Bosch???? Do you like the grey? Actually the picture is good, they look better than the pale dirty dishwater grey they really were when we ate them. Papa was all about the mood, he had the mexican music going on out there where he used the weed burner on high to light up the charcoal in his barrel bbq. A street person walked by and asked if I had a light, but he wasn't going to take my offer of papa down there by roof dumpster lighting the charcoal. We're uptown here in the neighborhood, got it ALL going on.

for the record

Mom's can see into the future when it comes to little boys, but not so much when they turn into men.

Emmett wants you to check out the concrete

He went to check it out as many times as someone would take him yesterday. Opa had to work really hard this week moving all that concrete to the back of the pick-up after he hammered it. It never stops.

Future

Eli: Moms can't see the future.

Abby:  Yes, they can.  Moms can see the future.  They're cool like that.

Eli: NO.  They can't!

Abby:  Mom!  You can see the future, can't you?

Me: (smiling) Of course.  I always know when you are about to get in trouble.

That made them laugh.

Abby:  See, Eli?  Moms see the future.

Eli is really ticked.  He's sure I'm just joking.

I'm thinking you would never get your nieces and nephews mixed up

but I'll provide names for future reference

Caden-Eli-Kai-Maggie
Emmett-Laina-Abby-Finley
Hazel-Kai-Laina-Finley
Eli-Evelyn-Abby-Evelyn
Emmett-Hazel-Maggie-Caden

does anyone else think Laina's pictures link most of the other pictures together? How could she look like Emmett, Hazel, Maggie, and Finley? Fun!

if you need an answer key....

you're out of luck until tomorrow.

the moral of the story is write the name on the back

who's who?

There's 2 of each grandchild here...I hope, I was wrong once, can you do it?

Kai Jordon

Okay all you living in warm states--you missed out this last weekend on a sweet, tiny baby boy.  Too bad you couldn't be in PDX where all the excitement was.  Emmett told Uncle Hans he'll be a big brother in a few weeks.  He did seem a little disappointed that the baby's name is Kai and not "Peanut." 

Hazel & Emmett played together wonderfully.  I'm so excited to have Hazel behave more kindly toward other kids.  She can be rather obnoxious.  They still had some competitiveness, but it seems limited to what they were eating mostly. 

I got to drive Emmett back to Mom & Papa's all by myself.  He is a character.  He pointed out the birds to me & commented how neat it is that they fly.  I agreed & said they were very aerodynamic.  That little man immediately stored that info & started repeating the word to make sure he got it right.  He also said he'd come to my house again sometime to play with all of us.

Lucas, Robyn, Erin, & Josh: you may be having fun in sunny weather, but we got funny kids in the pouring rain.  So there.

Weber Update

Thought you all might like an update from your favorite rambunctious bunch currently furthest north.

Abby & Eli are no longer sharing a room.  Sunday AM had me painting away the lavender & neutralizing the middle bedroom with a wonderful forest green.  I am much happier with the color & wish I had done it sooner.  We opted for Eli to move since he has such difficulty being alone at night & since we had "the talk" with Abby, we weren't too keen on having her on the other side of our uninsulated shared wall.  TMI?  Hazel hasn't gone to bed well since the transition & visiting PDX this weekend will only prolong the problem, but I get to see baby boy Mesdag shortly after birth so I don't really care.  I know those of you in Hawaii & Arizona are so wishing you could be me this weekend. :)

Hazel has been hilarious lately.  She just smelled my coffee cup & said, "Ew," while waving her hand in front of her nose.  Then I got a short dissertation on how the cup is "ooo-pee," puncuated by her plugging her nose as she's telling me.  She's just a nut.  Her newest activity is to sing quite loudly while either dancing or drumming on a paint can, then pausing to hold her arms up & proclaiming, "Daint choo! Daint choo! Daint choo." (Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!)  Such a funny little pip. 

Spring break this week.  It's nice outside today for the first time.  So excited to throw them out to play.  I'm going to threaten them with chores if they don't go out.  Lots of laundry to fold & piles of toys to sort since there is even less extra space than before in the younger ones' bedroom.  If only I had a cleaning service...

Didn't win my Greatest Loser contest at Curves but I finished it & lost a whopping 6% body weight in 8 weeks.  I was last of the 5 people who finished, but I did it!  Total weight loss since 6/2008: 35 pounds!  I'm starting to look like me again & even had some old friends tell me I'm a hot mama now.  It's so fun to be Hans's trophy wife. :)

EVELYN!!!

dumped egg whites into the gallon of milk. Guess we'll have crepes today :) Don't you all wish you could have an Evelyn?

know what I mean knot what I say :)

frig magnet band

Love the song, Anna! Maybe that's the up and coming alternative to the comb over, Papa should try it.

Good job on the spelling, Erin! I'm sure you had time to consider your words while you watched your car seats.

Look at me!

Did I actually figure this out? Maybe I'm smarter than I think. We looked at 7 houses today all when the girls were supposed to be napping. Keeping Evelyn from throwing things into other people's pools was interesting. I had to fish out a twig mess and one house we looked at with the people there and she threw a rock in while the lady watched. Josh's friend Mike, the guy from South Africa, told Josh that there is a pile of rocks in the bottom of his pool after we had dinner over there. You think we could keep a better eye on her, but already this week she has managed to dump out two different boxes of cheerios. I put them up high in the cabinet but she pushes the stool over, climbs onto the counter and gets them down. The other thing she's into is the Emergency packets. She's always pushing the stool over to get those. She opens them up and tries to get them into a cup, but half always spill out on the counter and by the time I catch her she is usually trying to lick up the raspberry granules. Josh just came out and said he thinks he broke his toe trying to get them into bed. I'm happy he's home. The girls had a nicer afternoon. Yesterday I pulled 4 car seats out of both our cars and disassembled them all and watched their covers. I had to get Josh's drill out for one of them to get the car seat cover off. Maggie opened what we thought was her water bottle but when she opened it it exploded with some chunky throw up smelling liquid. We were on our way to Costco. I let Finley sit up high with Maggie in the front of the cart and her smile took up half her face. She was so cute being a big girl. They had couscous for one of the samples and I fed her one while we were standing in line, she loved it! But back to the emergency packets, one time Evelyn fixed me my own, she brought it to me in the living room because I think she thought I would get mad at her if she was getting into them, but if she was bringing it to me I would be happy. So I drank it and told her thank you, but next time she needs to ask. Mom was asking me if I think she hears well. I agree that food is her toy. Could be because all the toys are in Maggie's room. I'm wondering if she is developing some kind of weird problem where she feels out of control because Maggie thinks all the toys are hers (sound like any other oldest we know?). She stores food everywhere. She likes beans so I gave her some but she ended up storing them in the front pocket of this blue bear chair they used to have in the living room. It's not there anymore because I used to always steam clean it with the upholstery attachment but I decided it could probably fit in the washer. Bad idea. Thank goodness it was garbage day and I got out of the house with it before the noticed. Not so good that when we came back from our play date the garage man hadn't come and they saw their blue bear sitting underneath the too full garbage can lid...whoops. What kind of garbage man takes until lunch time to come? I thought for sure it would have been gone. They handled it well. That was when Mom was here and I think her comforting, "he is injured" or something like comment calmed them down. I just had to prove to them that he broke in the washing machine. Too bad, they loved that bear, but it definitely wasn't the cutest or the cleanest thing in our home. I better hang out with my husband, I think the girls are down! Only 3 mispelled words when I did the spell check...woohoo!

It's not so much the pot...

but the coffee grounds that mess up the kitchen. Although I don't remember cleaning up a single one this last visit. Maybe because I was so busy lying around on the sofa being a slug. I'm happy to clean up coffee grounds any day if it means we get a visit though. Plus I really do wish the coffee pot lived at my home. Oh wait, I don't actually have a house. That I live in, anyway.

Right now it's slushing sideways in Juneau so we've got that going for us.

In case it's not obvious from the female tone of this message, this is the real Robyn Mesdag, not Luke that is typing, even though I'm sure it will put his name at the bottom.

me and my coffee pot

I heard a rumor that my pot messes up the kitchen but to be honest those kitchens probably just need to lighten up and share the counter. Those kitchens are just jealous that my very cool stainless pot doesn't actually live there.

I learned some things while I was away from home. Caden can outsmart his Grandma, now I'm not saying that is hard to do, but I can win a game about as well as the next person, so getting tagged to be "it" because I fell for a dupe is downright disgraceful. I saw Juneau the way I remembered it really being, steel gray with rain coming sideways. Not as hard to leave with weather like that. Leaving Laina, Caden, Robyn, and Lucas was another story, not good for me to let a cry surface, the recovery time is long and not pretty. Hearing your grandchildren giggle and enjoy each other is better than coffee.

I didn't get to spend the night with the Weber's, that was a sick house so I spent the night in Bellingham and came to Mt Vernon in the morning. I thought Grandma had already gone to heaven when I walked into her room, I let out a yelp and she jerked out of her daydream. She drank 4 grape juices, 1 milk, and 2 ice creams while I was there so maybe she's doing better. Anna was good to pick me up at Grandma's and run me over to the shuttle but getting there I realized I had forgotten my purse so I rode along to the girls doctor appointment instead. I didn't get to see the kids as long as I wanted to at all, and I didn't touch a single one of them because I didn't want to carry those germs to Erin's house. I did get to take Abby and Eli over and get an ice cream after Anna learned the doctor was going to flush Hazel's ears to get the wax out. They were infected, and since then she has gotten pneumonia as well. Anna has her hands full!

Stayed the night at home before going to Erin's, by this time I've been in many airplanes. Tucson was cold but it didn't prevent me from getting burnt. I don't really get that but whatever. I sat in the sun with a blanket and read my book while they napped. Evelyn's favorite toy I decided is food. I used to think she was a good eater but now I think she just likes to squish, spread, pour, and not eat. Maggie was preparing for her show and tell which is today. She had to decide what to wear, what earrings, what outfit, what toy. I slept in Evelyn's room, so she climbed into bed with me sometime in the night both nights, well...I snagged her on her way out of the room is why. She is smooth when it comes to escaping.

All in all I think it's a fact that I have the most beautiful, most intelligent, most kind, most endearing grandchildren on the planet. I wouldn't say they're the most quiet though.

It's always good to be home!

You know you want my life

Such a fun morning! (Please read that sentence with much sarcasm.) Wake up at 5:30 AM to workout, only to have my friend text me at 5:43 (when I'm already driving to pick her up) that she's skipping. Like it was my choice to get up so dang early.

Come home, make Hans's lunch and feed the pipsqueak who won't look at me since I was gone when she woke up.

Finally sit to enjoy a semi-quiet morning and check the computer. IM with a friend about Girl Scout cookies when snap!, a crack magically appears on the front face of the aquarium from the top edge to a bottom corner. This wonderful aquarium is the same one Hans was so excited about two weeks ago and had to immediately set up while we have the Deans here a few more hours before they ditch us. The same tank he and the kids have been agonizing over with numerous trips to the pet store for appropriate plants and fish. There has been at least 6 trips to PetSmart alone since they have to decide type of fish as well as fish aggressiveness, diet and size.

For the record, fish are fine. I just don't happen to care one way or the other about them and aside from feeding, have no interest in their maintenance. I am the lonely minority in my house. I get to wait and wait to begin a movie while Hans parks his fanny in front of the tank, mesmerized by the blue and gold gouramis. (You really should be impressed that I can not only identify a gourami now, but can also determine gender. My skills are astounding.)

The water starts spraying through the crack like a hose when you put your thumb over the end. Pure chaos. Abby's trying to scoop fish (into what?), I'm yelling for Eli to grab every towel he can find while dialing Hans to figure out what to do. One 18-gallon bin and a dozen towels later, all the fish, frogs and plants are safe, and the floors are dry with only one piece of furniture requiring movement. Plants had to come out of the tank so I could catch the fish. Full heebie-jeebies when one bumped my hand (I'm sure it was the dojo-eel fish) while pulling the grass. Ew. And then Mom calls to ask about international shipping charges. All this before the bus came for the kids at 8:45!

3 hours later we are down to about 4 inches of water left in the tank leaking slowly from the aluminum tape job I desperately applied to buy some time to rescue fish. Everyone wishes to have this much excitement in the morning. Can you imagine if Mom had to deal with this? She probably wouldn't even have had her two cups of coffee in her yet.

Morning with Emmett

Sunday is Meta's morning to sleep in, so I am up with Emmett this morning. We were sitting on the couch having a quiet morning, when Emmett said he wanted to watch Sesame Street. I said that Sesame Street wasn't on, and he answered, "Then I want to watch KATU News."

Oh My

Happy birthday, Papa!!

I am now officially voiceless, a fact Eli finds quite hilarious. Hazel is whispering back at me when she's not wailing about some perceived atrocity I've committed.

So glad so many came this weekend! I know it wasn't for me even though it felt like it was. Wish Robyn and all could have been here too. Then she'd see my little bonus Hazel isn't quite so sweet and angelic as she seems. She really is the constant in the 2-year-old brouhahas. I'm happy you could see and hear how my smiley pipsqueak can turn into a screeching, shrieking, tantrum-throwing twit at the drop of a hat (or the attempt at door opening). She has provided great entertainment since Hans set up the new aquarium yesterday, rocking in her chair, excitedly telling us about the "beesh" and their antics. Haven't caught all the words she's saying, but we had a good 10 minutes of them last night. "I sit. Mama, beesh! Meow-meow, beesh! Abby! Abby! Abby! Beesh! Beesh eat!"

Meta is amazing. Nothing ever seems to slow her down. She gets everyone's lunch requests cooking before I even figure out what Hazel got herself into. Then she's off again, corralling kids, hiking on the beach, rowing the boat, climbing cliffs...all with her cute 7-month basketball attached to her middle, unnoticable from behind. Good job on picking her, Alec.

I love my nieces and nephews! Those Dean girls are very, very entertaining. Maggie may have tried on every girlie costume in our house. She can sure glam it up. Evelyn is a funny snugglebug. Thank you Erin for letting those two spend the night over here. I loved seeing their happy faces in the morning.

Looking forward to pictures of the weekend's craziness. Wish I had a cool camera like Alec or Erin. Oh well. Think of me on my quiet, kids-will-probably-get-away-with-everything day since they "didn't hear" me say anything contrary to their intentions. On another note, I did succeed at my weigh-in this morning, despite all the cake and glorious food this weekend. Still competing in my "Biggest Loser" contest at Curves. Yay me!

Get the ball rolling...

Thanks to Robyn for bringing this site back to everybody's attention. Let's see if we can get everybody back into the habit of posting here, if for no other reason than providing a venue for Hans' strangely fantastic jokes.

The news at my house this morning:

Meta woke up about six seconds ago and is now setting the table with the eggs, toast, turkey-bacon, and coffee that she has already managed to prepare.

I will receive instructions to get off the computer in 5...4...3...2...Better get going!