Easter

The Easter Bunny spoiled them again this year. Bubbles, jump ropes, art stuff, bike paraphernalia, toys, and SO MUCH CANDY. I'm somewhat surprised we made it all the way through church without one of the kids falling into a sugar coma.

Dancing Queen

C's dance recital was on Saturday. The theme was "Masterpieces" and she was a Degas Ballerina. She did awesome.

Notify the Tooth Fairy

C's bottom front tooth has been loose for quite some time. Yesterday she came home from school and it was really loose. When J found out just how loose the tooth was, he instantly got that really evil look in his eyes. He told C that he just wanted to "look" at it, but before he could get a really good look, he needed to dry off the tooth with a bit of toilet paper. You could see the turmoil in C's eyes. On one hand, she wanted to show off her wiggly tooth BUT on the other hand, she's been around her Dad long enough to know that he never "just looks" at anything.

It took a lot of convincing on J's part, but she finally let him see it. And wouldn't you know - his hand ACCIDENTALLY slipped while feeling the tooth and he pulled it right out.

C FREAKED OUT. It has been a long time since I have seen her lose it to that extent. She was bawling/screaming/laughing/yelling at the same time and kept running around in circles. J kept asking her if it hurt when he pulled it out and all she could say was: "Dad! You're bugging me!" It was epic.

She finally calmed down enough so we could talk to her. J and I both thought it must have hurt when he pulled her tooth to elicit such a dramatic reaction. Nope - she told us that it didn't hurt at all - she just wasn't sure she was ready to lose her tooth. Lovely.

She called just about everyone she knows to tell them the good news. She was on cloud 9 for the rest of the day.

I gave her an envelope for her tooth. She decorated it, put her tooth inside, sealed it up tight and put it under her pillow.


J was able to unseal the envelope to take the tooth and put $3 back in without damaging the seal at all. He sealed it back up tight. When C saw that the tooth was replaced with the money without the envelope ever being opened - she got so excited! Tooth Fairy magic!

Oh, and ps: that necklace that C is wearing is the necklace that "Tim" gave her earlier this week.

Diamonds are a girl's best friend

C came home from school yesterday wearing a necklace that I have never seen before. It had puka shells separated by red/green/black/yellow beads. I asked C where she got it and she casually told me that Tim (name changed for privacy), a fellow classmate, gave it to her. I tried to get more information, but the only additional tidbit I got from her was, "I guess he still has a crush on me."

Uh huh. I made her take the necklace off and told her that I would call Tim's mother to make sure she knew that Tim was giving jewelry away and that I would make arrangements to give the necklace back if it wasn't okay. I called and left a message.

I got a phone call this morning from Tim's Dad. He explained that they went on a family vacation to Hawaii last week and Tim wanted to pick out some souvenirs for his friends back home. His Dad helped him pick out a few things for his buddies and then teasingly asked him if he had a girlfriend back home that he wanted to bring something to. Well Tim didn't hesitate and told his Dad that he wanted to bring a necklace back for C. Tim's Dad was surprised, but went with it. He helped Tim pick out the necklace, Tim paid for it with his allowance (precious) and wrapped it up for C.

I found the envelope the necklace was wrapped up in C's backpack. Tim wrote on it - and its one of the cutest things I have ever seen. Its going in C's scrapbook for sure.

So she's 6 years old and already has guys buying her jewelry. I've taught her well.

A Sunday Miracle

I didn't have a lot of hope left for our praying mantis egg case, but then - a miracle occurred. While reaching for the napkin holder during breakfast on Sunday morning, I heard this really weird scratching sound. I looked at the praying mantis pagoda and almost had a heart attack. The picture doesn't do it justice, but this is what I saw:

THERE WERE SO MANY PRAYING MANTISES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm not squeamish when it comes to bugs - but I had the heebie jeebies looking at all of them crawling all over the place. And then J thought it would be super funny to tickle the back of my neck - which stopped my heart for about 30 seconds and took at least15 years off my life.

We took the pagoda to Grandma Meow's house Sunday afternoon and let most of them go.

We still have a few of them left in the pagoda. We're supposed to be feeding them, but we're having a really hard time finding suitable bugs. So far we've put a few slugs, an earthworm and some other weird worm type thing in the pagoda. The praying mantises have refused all of the above. Picky little suckers. . . . . . .

The last few weeks

The last few weeks have flown by. Some highlights:

Dub & Swegin have been coming over to get some baby cuddles in:

C & F have been taking advantage of C's dress-ups.

F never ceases to amaze us with all the weird things he does:

Little M is fat and really super cute:

I put curlers in C's hair and this was her reaction:

So, about that Phase One . . . .

We're still in it. The stupid praying mantis egg case hasn't done anything exciting. Its still sitting there, in the praying mantis pagoda, not hatching.

So yeah. I guess we'll just wait some more.