Can I have that for Christmas?

Oh it has begun. Yesterday the girls and I did some browsing of Costco's holiday toy section. Macy began by demanding a book. I told her maybe she could get it for Christmas. From that point on every toy she saw she asked if she could "have that for Christmas too". This was a lot of toys. She must not realize that Santa tries to use a budget.

Today I ran to Walmart and picked up a Santa gift for Macy. It happened to be on sale (supposedly). I left it in the sack in the front seat. Macy happened to find it and asked if it was for her. She was real excited for a new toy. The dilemma I face is that this child has an amazing memory. Just the other day she was asking to do Easter Eggs again. She can identify all of our family's members cars down to the make, model and color. Do I still give her this particular item? This will probably be her first year of understanding about Santa and I would hate to ruin it. The other thing is this. This is a gift I have had my eye on for her for sometime. It is the Fisher Price kid digital camera. She loves ours and is constantly taking pictures with it.

Dance Class

Tuesdays Macy has been taking a community dance class. Each week they watch a scene from a princess/Disney movie and then learn a dance to the song. They also give them costumes to dress up in. I am not sure Macy is into the dance thing yet. She complains every week when we have to go. She won't wear the little leotard I bought her and usually the ballet shoes are gone by the end of class. Half the time when the parents come in to watch she doesn't dance. Today she performed but it could have been because I had the camera. The other 3 year olds seemed to get into it a little bit more. She leans a little bit more towards a tomboy than a princess.

PS My camera doesn't record sound. Sorry.

Another gum run-in

Yesterday we had our second gum incident. I forgot Macy had gum when she took her nap. As Brian and I were getting her ready for bed, Brian noticed a white gob in her hair. Gum! Somehow it managed to get underneath the top layer of hair. Needless to say I worked tirelessly for at least 45 minutes. I didn't want to have to cut it out. It has taken her so long to get a full head of hair and this gum was close to the scalp. Macy was a trooper and there wasn't too much screaming. Thanks to Heather's comment about vinegar and a piece of ice, I was able to salvage most of the hair. By the end I had to cut some pieces off. Like I said before, luckily it was not in the top layer so you cannot see any missing hair. She never lets me really pull her hair up so I don't think anyone will notice. I did snap a picture of the amount of hair lost. It is not the best, but I know some of my family will worry and wonder and I wouldn't be able to say exactly how much was lost. It is in a bowl because we had just finished eating some ice cream when the discovery took place.

Miss Independence

This could be a long week at the Kartchner household. Last night Kelsey fully realized she can get out of her crib. The bad part is that she is not graceful when doing it. I believe she just falls out as soon as she gets her leg up over the railing. I heard her hit the toy box. There are not bruises today so I am not completely sure of the scenario. Anyways, she was too fussy and wouldn't stay in bed so the mattress came out and she was going to sleep on the floor until I find some new beds for the girls.

Kelsey loved this new found freedom. She would not stay in bed. She would get up and go into Macy's room or play with her toys. One time Brian and I saw her walking down the hallway. When she turned our direction she froze for a second like, "uh-oh. I didn't think they would catch me." She then turned back around. At this point it was almost 10 PM. Brian took her back to her room and this time shut the door. She finally fell asleep.

Macy didn't help much. She was out of her bed just as much as Kelsey. However, she is smarter and listens to hear when we are coming so she can jump back into her room and lay down. Brian's favorite thing is to have me keep talking while he quietly goes to the hallway and then he runs around the corner and surprises Macy in the act. Macy was excited the Kelsey was out of the crib because that meant someone to play with.

Back to Kelsey's new found independence. I thought for sure she would sleep in this morning. I was wrong. She was up even earlier than usual. At about 6 AM I noticed that my room was usually bright. I opened my eyes and saw that my door was open and so Macy's night light "the bathroom light" was shining in. It took a while to register that this was strange because Brian has to have the door shut to block out the light. Then I heard a toy. I walked into the hallway and saw Kelsey's door open. I found her in Macy's room. Luckily Macy can be a heavy sleeper. Who knows how long she was up for. I can't imagine that it was for a long time. She can't stay that quiet for any length of time. We never had a problem with Macy because she has always come to find me instead of playing with toys.

Right now the two of them are still up. I put them in bed an hour ago. I finally locked Kelsey in her room and it seems to be quiet in there. I am afraid that there will rough days ahead with the lack of sleep that may take place until Kelsey learns to go to sleep instead of playing.

One other item to note in childhood milestones. Macy got her first item stuck up her nose today. I was leaving someone's house and she tells me she wants "this out before we go" (pointing to her nose). I am thinking this is a bugger. I tell her when we get home. She gets upset so I take a look. I looked like a huge bugger, so I said when we get home and grab a tissue. She insists on doing it now. She is not normally so adamant about buggers in her nose because then she can pick them and taste them, so I thought there might be something up there. She told me it was stuck. Then I saw the toilet paper and asked if she had shoved a piece up there. She gave the affirmative. Luckily all I had to do was have her blow really hard. Gross. Hopefully she learned her lesson.

Macy's other favorite questions

Macy has become quite curious about the male and female body. In particular, she is fascinated with "boots" or "boopts". I haven't corrected her pronunciation for 2 reasons. One reason is because I think it is funny to hear her say it and two because then on lookers don't really know what she is talking about unless they are listening to the whole conversation. She really likes to compare sizes. I have larger ones than daddy and she has small ones. Sometimes she asks, "do I have boots?"

Her question of the day is, "what are those little things for? Why do you have those little things? What are they for? Do I have them?" She is referring to nipples. How do I keep a straight face and answer her. What do I tell her. I did my best. I tried to use all the advice that books and articles have given when it comes to this stuff. I am not sure if she is satisfied and I am sure the question will arise again. If it doesn't come up again, I am sure she will again bring up the idea of standing to pee or peeing outside on the side yard (a friend had to do this while we were swimming).

Gummy

Macy's favorite line is, "Can I have a piece of gummy? I went potty on the toilet."

If I gave her a piece of gum every time she used the toilet during the day, her mouth would not be able to close to actually chew it. She chews her gum until there is nothing left. She will take it from her mouth while she eats, but will resume the chewing when finished with her meal. Today we ate lunch in the car and she wanted me to hold her gum for her. Where was I supposed to stick it? I think that this eating scenario which plays out daily is what led to gum getting stuck to her shirt. After church I found her gum stuck to the bottom hem. I am assuming that during snack time she removed her gum and it somehow wound up there. I am now calling for any and all advice. How do I get the gum off her shirt? Is it a lost cause? I removed the majority of it by placing the shirt in the freezer and then pulling off the chunks, but the last little bit warms up to fast to get it off.

Lots of things have been going on.

First our camping trip was a lot of fun. We had to set up our tent in the dark, but the weather was perfect for camping; not too hot, not too cold, the smell of pine trees, and no mosquitoes that met me. I did take my dad/Jeff's advice for keeping them away. I ate a lot of craisins. Supposedly there is something in craisins that repels the bloodsuckers. Kelsey and Macy had a blast. They played with their friends and Macy got to throw pine cones into the fire. They both were able to stay up until 11:30 PM wrestling and playing in the tent (they love bouncing on air mattresses). I loved it because it required minimal work. We ate dinner at Sonic on the way up and breakfast was provided. We borrowed a larger tent from some friends so the sleeping was pretty comfortable. Macy did end up sleeping with me on the queen air mattress. Brian was kicked on to the pool air mattress and Kelsey slept in Macy's sleeping bag because it wasn't working with Macy and I. Of course Brian and I were able to sit down and play Quiddler and Five Crowns with our friends, the Ralphs.

Sunday we ate dinner over at a neighbors house. We invited them to our house but it would have been a little difficult for this family. Nate is a retired air force man who is taking care of his mother and brother. He and his wife own a house on the west side of the valley (she lives and works over there), but he has had to pretty much move in to care for Hester and Ben. I am not sure when he sees his wife, but from the sound of things they make it happen. Hester, I believe, has some dimensia and is just growing old. Ben has either cystic fibrosus or cerebral palsy (I can't remember, but he was involved in some accident to make it worse). I made dinner and we carried it over there. We had a great time chatting. Hester loved to watch Macy and Kelsey play with each other and see all their energy. Ben loved the brownies I made. It was an enjoyable evening.

Between now and my last post I finished 2 books. The Face of a Stranger I read for my book club. It was an intriguing, clean, murder mystery. At the meeting I found out it is a series. I am not sure if I have time right now to dive into the series, but I will have to add it to my list. The second book was one I was listening to as a ran at the gym. It was The Goose Girl. I loved the book. One of the reasons had to do with the fact that this was the best reading I have listened to. It was a full cast instead of one person reading and doing all the different character voices. It was like listening to a play and my imagination created the stage. If anyone is going on a trip and needs something to listen to I can find out what company produced this book on tape so you can have as good as experience as I did. I also loved the story. It is a classic fairytale that has been embellished to answer some of the whys that are lost in the childhood versions. The author, Shannon Hale, got her idea because one of her favorite authors when she was younger was Robin McKinley. Not everyone I have spoken with said that The Goose Girl was their favorite from Shannon Hale. They all liked the book, but liked the The Princess Academy better. I guess I will need to grab that one next.

The weather here has cooled off this week making it perfect for the pool. It gets to just below 100 degrees during the day, so the girls and I just had to get outside. I say it is perfect because I can sit in my new lounger chair and read comfortably. I do have to dive in everyone once in awhile to cool off, but isn't that the point of laying out by a pool? The water temp. has also cooled off because the evening lows have fallen to the upper 70s. I checked the water temp and it was 83. It is funny because the girls were shivering sometimes and Macy's lips were a little discolored but there was a pretty good breeze blowing. It was so enjoyable that I put the girls down for a nap and tiptoed back outside for another hour of relaxation.

I have the greatest life

I don't claim I am a night person or a morning person. I actually don't mind staying up as long as it is not too late and I am having a good time. I don't enjoy getting up early in the morning to an alarm. I don't mind waking up at 7 AM as long as there was no alarm blaring in my ear. Luckily for me my life is like that right now. I wake up when my kids get up. No alarm and lately I have been aiming for 7 to 8 hours of sleep. I am the happiest person when all the morning universe's align.

The morning was bliss. I got to sleep in until 8 AM. The day couldn't have been better. I went to the gym came home, picked up the kitchen, swam in the pool and now I am off to a church camp out.

The Dustbuster

Brian and I love our dustbuster. I gave it to him for Christmas last year kind of as a joke, but after a week of having it we were asking ourselves why we did not buy one earlier. I think everyone with kids should have one. I have been tempted to give them as baby shower gifts, but you don't really need it when they are little. They become most useful at around 1 year of age because that is when the crumbs start falling.

However, having a dustbuster can sometimes make you feel really old (this is why I gave one to Brian). It seems that only grandparents have these useful tools. Case in point, this weekend when the Cranes were over Brian had to clean up a mess so he whipped out the old dustbuster. One of the girls asked him what it was and then said that they don't have one but her grandpa does.

Mad House

My house was crazy this weekend. We had a 3 children join our family Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Some friends of ours wanted to go to the BYU vs UCLA game so Abby (6), McKenna (4), and Zachary (3) came to play. There were times when the noise was making me crazy. All the kids would be running around screaming and then Brian would have a football game on. There is something about that sound combination that makes me cringe and want to hide. There were also times when Abby, McKenna and Macy would just fight and not get along. Girls are just plain mean sometimes. I don't think I can have any more girls. My parents must be saints for raising 4 of us. Of course with that many young children, Brian and I discussed the possibility of 2 being the magic number. I was in awe at church for the mothers who had 7 children. They must have some trait I don't. These women reassured me that it is different when they are your own. I will just keep repeating that comment to myself. I am proud to say that on Sunday we did make it to church on time. We don't even do that when our numbers are smaller.

The only really awful thing that happened this weekend was when we had to evacuate everyone from the pool. The plan was to spend the day swimming. Well Macy had an accident while swimming, but she quickly told me of her #2 problem. My pool background and our family telling us of the pool epidemic in Utah (I guess children had to 5 years plus to swim in community pools because of some awful disease that came from children pooping in the water) I had to seriously consider what to do. The decision was to let everyone continue to swim because she got out as soon as it happened (which is not what apparently happened in Utah. The children would continue swimming with messy pants). Well a little later an awful smell blew by my nose. I asked Zachary the dreadful question. He answered no, but I checked anyways. We immediately blew the whistle and made everyone get out. He had definitely been swimming for awhile. I had to superchlorinate the pool (dump a lot of chlorine in to kill everything) and we all made our way to the shower. At this point in time, no one seems to be ill and I think we are now in the clear.

One last thing on having lots of kids. Brian and I are afraid we would end up broke from the amount of food we would need to buy. In 2 days we went through a box and a half (large boxes) of cereal. The cereal was a "snack". I made large breakfasts everyday. It seemed that 5 minutes after we ate they would complain about being hungry. In fact usually when they said this Brian and I were still clearing dishes.

Lake Powell

The pictures below pretty much sum up our Lake Powell trip this past weekend.

Okay, this is not completely true, but we forgot our camera when we were actually on the lake. We arrived Saturday afternoon later than expected. Brian's siblings had been waiting an hour and a half for us to arrive. We got to the boat launch at about 2:00 PM (AZ time). They backed in the boat and it wouldn't start. Lucky for us "Mr. Fix-it" owns the boat. Chad, Brian's brother-in-law, took the boat back to the hotel and started to work on it. He had to replace the starter. The rest of us spent the afternoon swimming in the pool.

Sunday morning came and the boat was running again. Brian and I were hesitant about what to do. Everything bad that has happened to a boat we were on happened on the Sabbath. We decided we would go and just watch everyone. All the nieces and nephews tubed and did some wake boarding. In the afternoon, Kelsey had an allergic reaction to something. Her eyes became swollen and red. She broke out with a rash on her torso. Of course the boat was out and she had to spend the afternoon miserable on the beach. This, however, was not the worst of our problems. In the evening on the way back to the marina, the boat broke down. It was almost dusk and we were 10 miles away from the ramp. Some nice people towed us all the way back. It was 8:00 PM by the time we made it back to the hotel.

Mr. Fix-it arose early Monday morning to work on the boat. He thought he had it going so we all loaded up and checked out of the hotel. We drove to the ramp and everyone was ready to get back on the lake. I too was excited because I passed up 2 opportunities to ski earlier in the week because I knew I was going to Lake Powell. Well the boat wouldn't start. The kids were so sad. We all piled back in the cars and made our way home. Brian and I detoured to Antelope Point Marina (we were already at their boat launch and thought we should check out their amenities). This is where we found the fountain that the girls played in. They were already in their swimsuits so we said have fun. They really did. I think it was one of the highlights for them. After 30 minutes or so we changed in the marina's nice, new bathrooms and hit the road. The best part about having to leave earlier than planned was we didn't have to pull into our garage in the middle of the night.

I have added a few other pictures from the trip to our photo album. I also added some more pictures from our Disneyland trip.