A Fine Tooth Comb

I finally got to experience something that I really could have done without.  On Tuesday morning when I dropped Caroline off for school I noticed that her teacher was having everybody put all their belongings into trash bags.  Why would they do that you might ask?  Well because somebody came to school with LICE!!  I was hoping that the trash bag thing would be good and the infected person wouldn't be somebody that Caroline really hung out with.  But no such luck.  I checked her hair about 2 hours after school on Tuesday and found a louse and lots of nits.  I immediately started pulling the nits out (thank goodness I had just cut her hair) and when justin cam home told him the great news.  I was supposed to go to a potluck that night but decided that I better stay and help justin treat the kids and strip all the beds and put all lovies in the dryer before they got to sleep with them again.  So off to Rite-Aid we went and got so hair treatment.  While I was warming up dinner Justin stripped all the beds and brought it all downstairs to the basement.  After dinner we bathed the kids and to be on the safe side treated both of them.  THe creme rinse has to sit on your hair for 10 minutes (not more!) and then you rinse it out and comb through every inch of your hair with the nit comb that was included in the kit.  After combing Will's hair with the nit comb it has been standing up and looks like major bed head!  After combing through Caroline's hair I found a few more nits and 1 more louse.  I found it easier to pull the nits out by hand but the comb helped separate the hair enough to see them easier.


So the little black dot by my pinky is the louse.  The 2 MUCH smaller dark dots are the nits.  There are 6 nits on that tissue!

So after all that and doing mountains of laundry I can see we are lice free in this house!!!  I kept Caroline out of school the past 2 days to give the teachers time to clean up the room and to make sure that she didn't get re-infested or infest someone else.  Hopefully no LICE when I send her back to school tomorrow!

Caberfae Peaks skiing

This weekend went went "up north" as the locals call it.  We packed the van with eight people including 4 car seats and headed north for 3 hours.  The 3 bigger kids rode in the way back together and had a blast.  We stayed at a cabin by a lake in Evart, MI.  The lake is lake Miramichi.  Then Saturday morning we got up had a leisurely breakfast and hung out until about 11.  We had about an hour drive to Caberfae Peaks ski resort.

We stopped and had lunch on the way.  I had signed the kids up for lessons that started at 2 and we we had rentals to get for them first.  While the kids got to enjoy 2.5 hour lesson the adults headed off to do some skiing on our own.  The snow was great, wasn't even icy and was loose enough to even start forming some small moguls.  The temperature was right above freezing so all was good!  I had a great time beating the boys to the bottom of the lift and the kids enjoyed their lesson and wanted to keep going! Since the kids had missed nap time they were happy but exhausted from learning how to do the "pizza" or wedge to stop.  Caroline and Madeline caught on and Will never got it.  I think he needs a little more leg strength or he was just choosing to go fast!  If you click on the link it will take you to some videos of the kids skiing.  Caroline is in a light purple jacket, Will is in a grey and red jacket, and I am in a white jacket.
After dinner at Ruby Tuesday we headed back tot he cabin.  I bathed all 3 kiddos and then was getting ready to read to them and Justin and Todd came in saying they were going out snowmobiling.  I wanted to go too.  So I left the kiddos with Christina and got my winter gear back on and I jumped on behind Justin.  We had so much fun!  I also got to drive while Justin sat on the back.  It was awesome!!  I had never been on a snowmobile before.  Definitely something to do again.  I don't have pictures of the snowmobiling since we went at night.
Then Sunday morning we packed up and headed home.  We had a great weekend with our new friends and are hoping to do it again!!

Group lesson time!  They split the group into smaller groups, Caroline was in a group of 2 and Will a group of 3.  Great ratios!

Will trying hard to pay attention!

Caroline checking it all out before lesson time.

Part of the lesson time was spent having a snack of hot cocoa, pretzels, and twizlers.  Will was a happy skier!
Considering they usually don't let kids under 4 take lessons Will did great and we were very proud of both kids!  Will is ready to go skiing again.

Hand stands

So you all know that we got a bounce house for the kids for Christmas.  It has been a HUGE hit!  Caroline wants to jump everyday after school.  Will only jumps when his sister is in there.  They have tried all kinds of things in there and some of their favorites are wrestling, throwing balls out to a parent, and trying gymnastics.  So I got a video of them the other day and I don't know how to upload a video anymore since they changed the format of Blogger.  (I am still trying to figure it out but if you know and could tell me that would be great!)  Caroline has perfected a handstand in the bounce house and is working on a 360 jump.  Will also tries the jump spin but he is getting really good at doing a cartwheel.

I love how she is strong enough to hold herself up!

Twirlie girl!

Collision!  THere have been a few bumps of course.  Will is in there!

Recycling Center tour

On Monday Caroline and I went with her Daisy troop to a local recycling center.  At one of their Daisy meetings they had talked about recycling and littering.  I wanted to see what when on so I volunteered to go too!  The recycling center had an educational meeting room we were went first.  A lady talked about what gets recycled and how the city has to pay ($30 per ton) for trash removal but gets paid ($25 per ton) for recycling.  So the more people recycle the more money a city can make.  She also told the girls that it takes 1 million years for a glass jar to break down!  Since every city recycles different things they also have a drop off center that anyone can bring stuff too.  Caroline is in the light purple jacket below.  The girls from her troop are putting the recyclables into the bins.

Inside the building there are 2 areas for recycling.  One is all the paper products, cardboard, and such.  The other is bottles, plastics, and glass.  A big truck brings in all the recyclables and dumps them to which ever side they belong.  Then a bulldozer scoops it up and puts in on a conveyor belt and it then goes up to be sorted.  The same thing happens on the other side.  Once it is sorted it moves along another conveyor belt to a baler.  In the picture below you can see the bales of cardboard.

Above are bales of plastic bags.  Pretty neat how it all works.  One thing that wasn't explained was where it goes after it is baled.
I seemed like all the girls enjoyed the tour.  I know I enjoyed it!

Our snowman

So it has been really cold here lately.  But in the last couple of days it has gotten above freezing for the first time in a looooong time!  And since it got above freezing and the snow melted a little the kids could actually make snowballs and then snowmen!  After taking the dog for a walk, Justin and the kids made the first snowman of the year.

They were so proud of their snowman.  There are rocks for the eyes, sticks for the nose and mouth. and some old, dead flower thing for a beard.  They love it and the dog was initially scared of it.

The crazy thing about it getting above freezing is that we wore zip up hoodies instead of our winter jackets.  Did I mention that it only got up to about 37!

Blueblueblueblueblue!

Blue, blue, blue!  Will LOVES blue.   And that is possibly an understatement!  The only color he likes to draw with is blue, he only wants to wear his blue jammies, he paints with only blue, picks blue paper, blue cars, blue shirts, blue shoes.  Anything blue!!  He readily tells anyone he likes blue.  I don't have to ask what color he painted with or colored with, I know, it's BLUE.  The child care workers at the gym know he loves blue.
But the other day in the car Will tells me he doesn't like himself.  Kinda disturbing for a mom to hear.  But I asked the obligatory, why don't you like yourself buddy, question.  I don't remember what I thought he would say but it definitely was not what he said.  His reply:

"I'm not blue."

Whew!!  Well I can't fix that and he hasn't mentioned it again.  I am thinking he could possibly join the blue man group and be perfectly happy!  Too bad the Smurfs aren't still on TV!

You keep right on loving blue my Will!!

Tongue not in cheek!

A Christmas story was a movie from 1983 that had the kid, Ralphie, who wanted a BB gun for Christmas.  Well, that movie is also known for a particular memorable scene.  If you click on the highlighted text "a Christmas story" then you will see a picture from the scene I am talking about.

We all know someone, possibly even ourselves, that have gotten their tongues stuck to a metal pole in the winter time.  We may have even been the one to dare someone else to lick that pole and see what happens (sorry Karen!) And we all know not to do it.

But, what about our kids?  Mine anyway haven't seen that movie or had older friends that would know about tongues sticking to poles.  My kids also love to eat snow.  So last Thursday while I went to teach my water class Justin took the kids a dog to the playground near our house.  He didn't pay much attention to the fact that the kids were licking snow off the playground equipment.  There was a lot of snow that day.  It turned out to be a bad combination.  Caroline licked all the snow off the pole and ended up with her tongue stuck to the playground.  With the house being half a mile away it wasn't like Justin could run back home for some warm water and we don't know any of the neighbors.  So he started spitting on her tongue (desperate times folks!) and it was working so what does Caroline do?  She feels that it is coming loose and just rips the rest of her tongue off the pole!  It bleeds and Justin has to walk them all home with blood running out of her mouth!  I felt for him when he told me the story after I got home.  When I got home I saw Caroline sitting in Justin's lap trying to eat some yogurt and cooled hot chocolate.  She started crying when I asked what was going on.  She was telling me over and over that it was just an accident mommy!  Poor baby!  I got her to take some Advil and eat some oatmeal.  I didn't even try to brush her teeth that night. She was crying that she didn't think she would be able to fall asleep!  Of course she fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. The next morning she was able to eat a normal breakfast and hasn't had any problems related to her tongue getting stuck.  She did tell me yesterday when we went to the playground again that she was never going to get her tongue stuck again!!  She even showed me where it had happened!  Will has learned too!

The red marks are the missing taste buds!

Classic live and learn lesson!

Peer Pressure

This is not the bad kind of peer pressure and it isn't coming from an older kid!  It is coming from another country half way across the world and from a younger kid than Will.  The lucky (unknown to her) person is .....LYDIA!!  Lydia is my cousins 2 year old middle child.  My kids are fascinated with my cousin, Laura's, 3 kids.  They ask to see pictures and videos of them on an almost daily basis.  The great thing is we are connected to them even though they live half a world away.  After my kids outgrown their clothes we pass them on to them!  So almost every picture we see of Julianna, Lydia, and Isaac they are wearing something my kids wore!!

So how did Lydia peer pressure Will?  There was a blog post that my aunt Patt did show a set of pictures about how Lydia was putting on her panties all by her self!  Well, I used that in my favor.  I told Will that Lydia was dressing herself and that she was ONLY 2!  ( He makes sure everybody knows he's 3!) Will's response?  "I can do that too!"  Perfect, my plan is working!!  So that night he put his jammies on all by himself.  The next morning he got his undies, pants, undershirt, sweatshirt, and half a sock on all by himself!!  Below is a picture of him getting his jammies on.  He is showing off for the camera a little but he had pulled his pants on and he even got his shirt on too!  The hard part is me slowing down enough to allow him the time to actually get it done himself.

The other big thing Will is working on is not wearing a diaper to bed anymore.  He has been asking to sleep in his underwear since before Christmas.  He wants to be like the rest of us!  So 3 nights ago we gave it a go.  He peed every 3 hours!  I laid a towel on the wet spot the first time and the second time then out came the sleeping bag.  He kept that dry because the 3rd time just his undies got wet.  3 pees= lots of laundry!  The second night I woke him up when I went to bed at 1030 and he made it through the night!!!  I'm thinking great this might be pretty easy.  Then last night 3 more times!  UGHHH!  More laundry and I hadn't brought up the clean clothes from the other day so I ran out of undies for him and had to just put jammie pants on him! Oh well.  I take a nap, do some more laundry, and try again tonight!!  My little boy is growing up so fast!!

And a BIG thanks for the peer pressure from a terrific 2 year old!!

Random things

Here are a couple more pictures from when Granddaddy and Mimi were here.  They had a great time building with the Tinker Toys!

Will was enjoying having Granddaddy build with him.

Caroline's new hair cut.  I cut it about 3 nights ago.  I was tired of the yelling when I tried to brush it and it getting in her food at the table.  Syrup in hair is no fun to brush out!  She got lots of comments yesterday at school about how much everybody loved it.

Christmas part 3!

Monday dad and Marie flew to the wonderful city of Detroit to come visit with us! It was a messy snowy day (we seem to be having lots of those) so after we picked them up at the airport we headed to the Henry Ford Museum. I had packed a picnic lunch for us and we had that first then made our way around to see the sites. I have a few pictures and Marie has some too but they are on my phone so I will post those later. We had a great time looking at doll houses, old cars, trains, farm equipment, a walk through the decades, playing with tinker toys, lincoln logs, and knex. We also saw planes and tested out paper airplanes we made. After that we headed home. Will was stuck to granddaddy and wanted him to do everything! Wouldn't even let me take him to the bathroom, only granddaddy! Above they are cuddling and below they are working on a puzzle.
We also opened more presents. A grand time was had by all and when Will opened his firetruck Lego's he exclaimed, "this is exactly what I wanted!!"
Caroline is also loving what she got and as you can tell from the pictures she is matching her bitty baby, Sara! She loves it and wore the outfit out yesterday when we were running errands and received many compliments.
We also had fun going swimming and Dad took some video of the kids playing in the water. The next morning Dad and Marie came to my water aerobics class, which I really enjoyed! Then that afternoon we had to take them back to the airport. Caroline doesn't like it when we have to say good-bye and tells everyone that comes they have to stay for 55 days! We left Mimi and Granddaddy with Caroline in tears! We had a great visit and enjoyed you guys coming!
If anyone comes to visit please plan on staying 55 days!

Happy New year!!