Geographic Bee

Oskar participated in his school's Geographic Bee today. This is his fourth time qualifying for his school's geographic bee (which is in fact, every year he's been eligible to participate).  As per usual, he did awesome!  He made it to the last round before it narrowed down to the final three. He said he knew most of the answers for the questions he didn't get, and I believe that to be true. But I suspect that was probably also true for several of the other kids as well.  It's easy for me to believe that your brain overloads a bit when it's your turn. It's a lot of pressure to be answering tough questions in front of an audience.

Having said that, I actually did think some of Oskar's questions were on the trickier side. I won't be specific since that's against the rules, but I'll share some general observations.  In the first round - which he missed - his was the only question I *didn't* know the answer to.  He had it narrowed down two options but picked the wrong one.  Round two was a group question and most of them got it correct, including him.  I didn't know the answer although maybe I would have guessed correctly.  There were several more rounds which he answered correctly.  The question that he finally missed, I was pretty sure of the answer that proved to be correct.  Again he had an excellent guess.  In both of his misses, he picked a spot neighboring the correct answer. So they were educated guesses. But that's still a miss and in this case, two strikes and you're out.

As always, this kid blows me away.  I love his passion for not only Geography but just knowledge in general.  Oskar has a thirst to understand the world on so many levels.  It's pretty awesome.  Proud to be his mom!

Happy Holidays from the Engen family

It’s the day after Christmas.  My sniffles have turned into a full blown cold. This morning I had big ideas about getting the house all cleaned up after yesterday’s onslaught, but once I finished with the dishes, my energy petered out. So it was a good excuse to do something I've been meaning to do for a long time. I’m writing a holiday letter!  I felt bad that I didn't get around to it last year and had sort of intended to just go ahead and write one at some point during the year, but here we are with Christmas behind us and the year rapidly winding down.

Before I started writing, I put together a slideshow of photos from the year. I’m pretty sure I get more out of this exercise than anyone who watches it. It’s a wonderful way to remember everything we did over the course of the year – the roads we traveled, the adventures we shared, the funny mishaps, the highs and the lows. Fortunately I take more photos of the highs than the lows!

Happy Holidays 2014 from Heather Engen on Vimeo.

It’s been a good year.  Many of you will know that in 2013 my mom got very sick. So one of the greatest blessings this year has been to watch my Mom return to more of her old self and to see the amazing progress she has made.

Because we never gave you a 2013 update, we never had a chance to announce that our family grew by two very sweet kittens: Smokey and Bandit. We think they might be at least part Maine Coon because they’re quite big.  In September they turned a year old and weighed in at 16.5 and 17 lbs, respectively. It’s always fun to watch Kardynn haul them around because they’re about half as long as she is!

Bandit & Smokey, November 2014

Around the same time that we acquired the kittens, I was having some struggles.  In November 2013, I attempted to run a half marathon. And I did run it but the instant I finished running, I could hardly walk. I got home and pulled out crutches because I was in so much pain. I was only on crutches for a couple of days but when a month had passed and things still weren't good, I finally went to the doctor.  I eventually discovered that I had a labral tear and a stress fracture in my hip. That was a lousy way to go into the holidays. I was in a massive brace that went from my waist to my thigh and on crutches for six miserable weeks. Literally adding insult to injury - I gained weight. Ugh. It was not a fun time. I had already committed to helping coach Girls on the Run in the Spring so that was a good way to ease back into exercise.  I was able to mostly jog the 5k race at the end so that felt like progress.

Meanwhile, in April (Spring Break), Oskar and Dwight had a big adventure. They flew out to Colorado with Grampy in his single engine plane. The trip took them a full day of flying!  But they had a blast. Meanwhile the girls had a good week too. The highlight was an overnight trip to Baltimore with friends.

Around this same time, my brother Jonny left his job in Colorado, defended his master thesis and started hiking the Appalachian Trail.  He left from Georgia on April 5 and he finished in Maine on October 9. It will no doubt be one of the highlights of his life. I was thrilled to be able to meet up with him on three different occasions. I loved hiking with him but I also decided maybe I don’t need to thru-hike the AT.*smile* Jonny’s trail name was Rockman. Dad and I were given trail names as well: Hippo and Blisterkrieg.  The funny thing about “Hippo” is that he was named by someone who knew absolutely nothing about his previous history with hippos. You can’t escape your past, it seems!

In June my past caught up with me in the form of a very dear childhood friend, Gary Roberts. He spent a few days visiting us, along with his wife and daughter. It had probably been nearly twenty-five years since we’d last spent time together but it was just like old times. We had a great time visiting with them and doing some touristy stuff as well.

We spent most of our summer poolside. But we did enjoy two quick getaways to the beach.  In July, Grampy took Kiersten, Kardynn and myself to Ocracoke for a day, in his plane.  A few weeks later the kids and I drove to the Eastern Shore and spent a couple of days with Dad and family.  Both trips were so much fun! We’re very grateful for relatives who share with us!

In September school started and it was a momentous occasion because Kardynn started first grade, which meant a jump from half day to full day. She did great. I thought I would have loads of free time but somehow that hasn't happened. Our house remains as disheveled as ever. But I have managed to squeeze in some good stuff all the same. In September, my friend and I did a 21 mile day hike on the AT. (Now I've hiked from Front Royal to Harper’s Ferry, not to mention 20 miles in southern Virginia and another little leg up in Maryland.) I managed to squeeze in a quick trip with Dad out to Arizona to visit Ted’s family. Dwight and I trained for a half marathon. I’m coordinating Odyssey of the Mind at the elementary school for the second year in a row (and the last year!). I’m also coaching two Odyssey teams. I’m taking photos for the school yearbook. And I've started working part time. So I’m keeping busy!

Dwight is still working from home for Oracle. It’s been interesting figuring out how to navigate around each other during the day. I think his life got easier when I started working because I’m no longer available to pester him during the day. I have to make the most of the time while the kids are away to get my work hours in! I’m really enjoying what I’m doing – I’m working with my Dad – but it’s only a short-term opportunity. So now I’m trying to decide whether or not I’d like to continue to work part time when this opportunity ends in a few months.

In November we were wild and crazy and had two whirlwind road trips.  At the start of the month, Dad and I piled my kids into the minivan and drove to Michigan for a long weekend.  It wasn't a very long weekend, however. We left here the Saturday after Halloween and came back two days later, on Monday. But we did get to visit a lot of relatives so that was fantastic and totally worth it.  Two weeks later Dwight and I drove to Richmond for the repeat Half Marathon. (I was thrilled to be able to jog the entire time and most importantly – I walked away from it!) The following weekend, Jonny and I loaded up the kids and drove down to Tennessee to visit with more relatives. Again, it was a mad dash there and back.  We took the kids out of school a little early on a Friday and then drove home on Sunday. Dwight surprised us by getting a ride in his Dad’s airplane and meeting up with us and then driving back with us on Sunday. We had a great time visiting with family, as always.  But all the same, we’re happy to report that there have been no road trips this month!

Jonny has been staying with us while he looks for a job. It seems he has a promising prospect so his time with us may be coming to an end, which will be bittersweet – bitter for us, sweet for him!  *smile* We really enjoy having him here. Unfortunately I think we've permanently cured him from ever wanting children!

Speaking of the children, we’re trying to adjust to the little people they’re becoming. Oskar has braces. Annika and Kiersten get their braces next month. Kiersten has started wearing glasses. Oskar's only a few inches shorter than me.  I look at them and wonder how they can possibly be this grown up.  They've changed so much, and yet they haven’t changed at all. 

Oskar wants to understand how everything works. He’s very curious about the hows and whys of the world. 

Annika is a powerhouse. She is organized chaos - a girl of extremes. One minute she's got our entire family organized and has everyone and everything moving like clockwork. The next minute she's on a raging rampage, wreaking havoc everywhere she goes. 

Kiersten is our sweet - and a little sneaky - bookworm. (She prides herself on the sneaky part.) She's tender, careful and cautious. 

Kardynn definitely makes the most of being the baby of the household. And yet it’s amazing to watch her interact with other people. She’s learned so much from having older siblings and she navigates the world with ease.   

They're all thriving in spite of us!

We look forward to the coming year and the many highlights it will no doubt bring. We hope our paths will cross with many of you and we wish you too, all the best things in 2015.

With much love and goodwill from the Engen family!

December 2014

The Kids Still Amuse Me

Last week my friend Lisa stopped by to pick something up.  She opened her car door and something blew out in Kiersten's direction so she ran and picked it up.  It turned out to be a Wegmans receipt.  Lisa says, "Man, I spent a ton of money at Wegmans this week."  Kiersten looked at the receipt and said, "I see that."  Lisa and I died.  (For the record, it wasn't even that much money.)

This morning Oskar and I were walking to the school bus.  He held my hand and I said, "Aw, that's so nice.  You never hold my hand anymore."  He said, "Well I'd like to but you always have a lot of people around you."

Welcome to my life, folks.

Trail Magic

In the year 2000, I read Bill Bryson's book "A Walk in the Woods" and I loved it.  I had hiked on the Appalachian Trail before but didn't necessarily realize that it stretched across so many states or that "thru hiking" was a thing.  But I finished that book and dreamed of hiking the trail myself.  I even made plans with my husband and father-in-law that we would start planning for a thru-hike in the year 2005.  And then things changed.  By the year 2005, my husband and I had two small children.  By mid-year I was pregnant with our third. So this was a dream that was going to be on the back burner for a while.

But last fall, those dreams were given new life.  My little brother informed me that he was thinking about thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail. I was so excited for him. I offered to help him with mail drops and I enjoyed many a long discussion about gear or logistics and otherwise trying to live vicariously through his hike. I read Cheryl Strayed's "Wild".  We talked about trail names. I was a mixture of pride, envy and enthusiasm.

On April 5, his friend dropped him off at Amicalola Falls and he hiked the 8 mile approach to the trail head. And he's been doing his thing ever since.  Well, sort of.  At some point he started mentioning that his foot was bothering him. Then three weeks ago he called to find out if there was any way he could get picked up to take a little time off, to let his foot rest up and possibly get it checked out.

He spent nine days off the trail - nine days which felt like an eternity to him.  But he got xrays and saw a doctor and was able to rule out a stress fracture - which was his greatest fear. The doctor suspected that he had strained a ligament but it wasn't something that needed to keep Jonny off the trail.  So now Jonny needed a ride back. He suggested I join him for a couple of days of hiking.  It was something we had been planning on all along but suddenly it was really going to happen.

The timing was a little tricky because I was tied up for the weekend but we were able to work it all out for my dad and myself to join him.  We took off on a Monday morning, after getting my kids on the school bus.  Six hours later we were parking our car and hopping into a shuttle to get to where we wanted to start hiking.

Rockman and Big Sis

I only had three days on the trail, but in those three days, I quickly realized that, although I really enjoyed Bill Bryson's book, it didn't leave me with an accurate picture of the thru-hiking experience. Hiking the Appalachian Trail is an amazing physical accomplishment that requires mental fortitude and tenacity.  That part I understood. It takes a special person to be able to be able to trudge along, day upon day, through good weather and bad, sleeping in the elements, drinking from streams and digging cat holes in the woods.  When you get a bunch of those special people together, all overcoming the same obstacles and hurdles, something magical happens.  In our few short days on the trail, we met so many interesting people.  Everyone had a story.  Everyone was a character.

In AT vernacular, trail magic is when someone performs an act of kindness or charity for hikers.  But I think the trail magic is more than that.  It's the spirit and camaraderie that you feel on the trail - a force that binds the hikers to one another and helps encourage them along towards their destination.

Milestones

For many years I looked forward with anticipation to the day when all my children would be in school. It would mean no more preschool payments. It would mean no more schlepping them to and from preschool. It would mean no more trying to coordinate preschool hours with bus stop times. It would mean no more last minute grocery runs to provide snack for the preschool class.  It would mean a slightly bigger window of free time than I had ever had before.  These are some of the reasons it was a milestone I eagerly awaited. The day arrived and unlike so many mothers sending their youngest off to kindergarten, I didn’t feel an iota of melancholy about it.  She was ready. I was ready.

The school year has flown by.  There’s just over a month of school left.  Now, suddenly, I’m feeling nostalgic.  Frequently I find myself staring at that little girl, shocked to see that she has somehow turned into a big girl.  Her legs are long and lean. She’s losing that round baby face. Yesterday we drove down to the bus stop in the rain, and while we waited for the bus she read to me from the back seat. Again I found myself staring at her and thinking, “Where did this big girl come from?”

When I was a young girl, I always dreamed of going to college and what I would do and how fantastic it would be. That was the pinnacle. Luckily for me, those four years lived up to my high expectations. At the last minute I opted for a college close to home but I made great friends and had a blast. My sophomore year I went abroad to France and those memories are everything I ever hoped they would be. My junior year was back with my old friends and new friends and it was just as great as all the previous years.  My senior year I changed schools and again, I loved it.  College was definitely a high point for me. But after I finished, I remember feeling that I had made it into uncharted territory. I had never really imagined life after college.  I mean, of course I had planned for a career and I had vague ideas about a husband and children but I didn't have a clear picture of what might come next.  That is exactly what I’m feeling now. 

When the children were younger, I would always imagine how great it was going to be when my kids were all in school and I would finally have some time to myself. This September it’s happening. All my children will be in school for a full day.  I will have seven and half hours every weekday to do things without them. But I never had a clear picture of what the future would look like. Will I go back to work*?  Will I become an exercise fiend? Will I increase my volunteer hours at the school? Will I revisit my many hobbies that have fallen by the wayside these last few years?  I’m not sure. But the more I think about how quickly time has marched me to this place, the more I know that I’m no longer eager for any future milestones. Hopefully those daily seven and a half hours of quiet will give me the rejuvenation I need to be able to slow down and enjoy this process.

*I just couldn't let that sentence go without commenting on it.  It pains me to use that turn of phrase because of course these past nine years of "not working" have been a ton of work. I just wasn’t getting paid to do it. But I digress.

Boot Camp

The other day Kardynn and I were leaving a friend's house, as that friend was preparing to rush out the door for boot camp.  The following conversation went down on our way to the car.

Kardynn, "What's boot camp?"
Me, "It's a group of people exercising."
Kardynn, "Oh, I thought it was a place where people practiced so they wouldn't get scared at Halloween."

Ah, yes, Boo Camp.

Oskar

This morning I was mystified when I found a light bulb wedged under the dryer. And then I realized what must have happened. We keep light bulbs in the drawer in the pedestal under our dryer. So Dwight told Oskar to put the light bulb away under the dryer and Oskar, as always, took his words quite literally.

Rockets

Me to Oskar: "Oh, guess what?! I just got an e-mail with an invitation to Matthew's party."
Oskar: "Yes!  He's going to watch 'Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters."
Me: "Actually he's going to launch rockets into space, well, not space."
Oskar: "Yeah, into the air, not space.  Liquid fuel or air pressure?"

Seriously?! And here I was so pleased for catching myself on the "space" thing.   

We Got Cannibals Up in Here

This morning Kardynn and I were discussing the importance of being honest.  I was trying to drill into my little five year-old that every time she tells a lie, we trust her less and less.  She piped up, "Yes, it's part of being a cannibal."  I was startled and trying to figure out the connection until she repeated herself, "It's part of being ah-coun-able (accountable)."

I feel safer already. 

(For the record, it does seems to me that cannibal children have a mighty big incentive to be honest to their cannibal parents.)

Third Grade Woes

Yesterday Oskar was playing with a fellow third-grader.  Knowing they had recently studied Roman history, I pointed out to them that it was the anniversary of the day Julius Caesar was assassinated.  Oskar's friend said, "Wait, that's a guy?  Up until now I thought it was a girl."  I chuckled but realized he had a lot of reasons to think that.  We always see Caesar depicted wearing a robe and with a laurel around his head.  And the average little boy probably isn't encountering the name "Julius" too often in his everyday life.

While I'm on the topic of little boy, perhaps fellow moms-of-boys can relate to this conversation I was having with my son.  I was trying to convince him that as soon as you feel the urge to pee, you should go do it.  (Um, yes, this kid is nearly ten and we're still having this conversation.)  But this is when I discovered that there was more to the tale.  He told me that XYZ Friend had told him not to go to the bathroom so much.  Wait...what?  I said, "Why on earth would he tell you that?!"  So he explained that he had confided to his friend that he doesn't think he's very cool at school. This friend is older so of course Oskar puts incredible weight in everything he says.  This is the advice his friend had for him, "Don't go to the bathroom so much."  I asked Oskar if he's been going to the bathroom a lot at school (because he sure doesn't at home).  It didn't sound like that was a particularly frequent occurrence for him.  But I guess his friend just thought that was the solution to life's problems. I'm still baffled by it.     

I tried to convince Oskar that that was terrible advice and that it's definitely NOT cool to be doing the potty dance at school...or worse. 

Meanwhile, I feel sad for him that he feels out of place with his peers.  I feel his pain...or at least I did back in third grade.  I remember struggling to fit in too.  I had always been so confident that if *I* had kids, I could spare them all the misery and suffering that I had gone through. But now that I do have kids, I've learned that it's not quite that simple.  Oskar's a really smart kid who seems to be interested in things many of his peers could care less about.  It seems to me that it's awfully hard to be smart and cool.  There are certainly plenty of kids who pull it off but I've known more who have struggled in their youth. Fortunately, by the time you become an adult, being smart is generally considered super cool...at least by all the other smart people.  *hehe*

Sweet Oskar

That is my wonderful son, Oskar.  Doesn't he look like a sweet, thoughtful, considerate child?  He definitely is. 

The other day he was talking to me about how much he wishes he could spend more time with his Dad.  I know it's a little hard for the kids to understand - now that Dwight works from home - that he's still not really available during work hours.  So I explained to him that Daddy has to work and that's how we earn money to pay for our house and food and everything else that we need.

Oskar's reply, "But how come you can't be the one to work?"

I take back that comment about him being a sweet boy.

The Flu

My kids are each taking a turn getting sick, it seems.  It's very bizarre because they're literally going down one-by-one, one after the other.  It started with Kiersten.  It seemed we had finally gotten through the HSP fiasco when one day she announced that she was looking for her dad.  I told her that he'd gone off to play basketball and she said, "Oh, I wanted to see if he would take a nap with me."

First of all that made me laugh.  Dwight definitely has a reputation for sleep in our family.  But after the initial chuckle, I was slightly alarmed that she *wanted* to sleep in the middle of the afternoon.  I offered to let her lie down in my bed while I folded laundry and before I knew it, she was out like a light...for several hours.  More alarm bells were going off.  For the next several days she was a mess.  Her eyes were so blood shot and watery. She had a high fever. I felt miserable just looking at her so I can only imagine how she felt.  But she eventually got over it. When she was still coughing a few days later, I got nervous about the HSP returning so I took her to the doctor,  She shared my speculation that Kiersten had had the flu. 

A few days later, I picked Oskar up from an activity and was surprised to hear that he'd fallen asleep in the middle of it.  I got him home, took his temperature and sure enough - a fever.  He followed Kiersten's pattern almost exactly. I can just copy and paste from Wikipedia's influenza entry for their symptoms, "The most common symptoms are chills, fever, sore throat, muscle pains, headache (often severe), coughing, weakness/fatigue and general discomfort."  With an apparent flu epidemic sweeping the nation at the moment, it seems a pretty safe bet that they had the flu. 

Another week passes and then Annika comes home, says she doesn't feel well and falls asleep for several hours.  Well now I know the drill. 

Of course now I can't help but wonder if Kardynn will come home after school one day next week and fall asleep for several hours.  Although, I know she fell asleep once for several hours during the holidays so I'm hoping maybe she already had her run-in with the flu and it just didn't hit her as hard as it hit the others.

Hopefully Dwight and I continue to evade this!

Anyway, when the bug hits, they all end up missing several days of school.  When they're sick I don't mind if they sit around and watch TV or play on their laptops.  Kiersten has really gotten into e-mail.  The kids only have a handful of people that they e-mail but Kiersten has been sending those few people a lot of messages in the last few weeks.

One of her favorite e-mail recipients is my Mom.  She's always asking my mom to send her jokes.  Although I don't think my mom minds - particularly when she's traveling. (Mom frequently points out that only one of her four children is good about keeping in touch...and no, that child is not me.)


Mom actually travels a lot and most of her travels are international.  Unfortunately this means her laptop ends up in some sketchy places...like Nigeria.  (It's no coincidence that those "send-me-your-bank-account-number e-mails" are often called "Nigerian e-mail scams".)  Numerous times she's tried to legitimately connect to sites and had them lock her account because they could see she was trying to connect from Nigeria. Nigeria is a seriously hostile environment for your computer. And it would seem that she did indeed get her e-mail hacked the last time she was there because suddenly my kids are getting fake e-mails from her. 

Up until now, we've not had to worry too much about their e-mail accounts because of the small number of people that they exchange e-mails with.  But these spam e-mails made me realize that I needed to have a conversation with the kids and explain about some of the perils of the Internet - specifically viruses.  Because, while I'm jaded and wary, I was certain that my sweet, innocent children would click on any links that came from their grandmother. 

I knew the message had gotten through when earlier this week Kiersten informed me that she'd gotten a flu message from Grandma.

The Bed Fairy

We had a very nice New Year's surprise from Annika.  She had made everyone's beds and left one of these little notes on them. 





(Do not judge us for the fact that the bed wasn't already made.  Or at least don't judge ME.  You can judge Dwight since he's always the last one out of bed.)

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Well, this holiday season is one we're not likely to forget.

This year we decided to stretch the holidays a bit and for the last few days before Christmas, we let the kids open one gift every day. December 23 was one such day. Kardynn picked out a gift from Annika.

She was delighted to unwrap a Hello Kitty makeup/toiletry kit. The girls immediately started to play with it but then they moved on to other things.  They were using post-its and making "beards" and taking turns pretending to be Santa.  We watched several performances of Santa interacting with little girls.  (In this case the "little girl" is bigger than Santa.)

They had also opened a marble run present so everyone took a turn making a structure.

Eventually we encouraged the kids to take showers.  But after a while, Dwight and I realized that it had been quiet for too long.  I went off to investigate and found two little girls locked in the kids' bathroom - never a good sign.

They had taken the three bottles of Hello Kitty nail polish and decided to "highlight" Kardynn's hair.  I only took one photo before Dwight suggested that I was giving the wrong message by taking photos.  So I have no pictures of the ensuing buzz cuts...which probably would have been tricky anyway since I became somewhat emotional watching their beautiful tresses falling to the floor.  But I'm getting ahead of myself, what you can't see here are the additional "highlights" on the sides, not to mention the additional mess of nail polish that was unveiled when we removed the bun.  It was definitely impressive.  That one blue streak, for example, went the entire length of her hair.

 

I spent quite a bit of time reading online about how to get nail polish out of hair and most of the suggestions were for nail polish remover (which I did NOT want to put on my baby's sensitive scalp).  Dwight tried to get it off with water but that didn't do much on the thick glob of nail polish.  We thought about just leaving it, and letting her have multi-colored hair, but that didn't seem like a good idea either.  So eventually we decided to go with the second most popular suggestion on the Internet - cut off the hair.  We had warned Annika that if Kardynn's hair ended up having to be cut off, we would cut off her hair as well.  Initially she was enthusiastic about the idea but when she saw my reaction, as it was happening, she started to get second thoughts.  I'll admit, it didn't really seem like *that* big of a deal until I saw the hair falling to the floor and then it seemed like the worst idea we'd ever had. 

But, hey, it's just hair.  It will grow back.  And on the bright side, I don't think we have to worry about these two putting nail polish in their hair ever again.  Let me tell you that seeing those two girls with their bald heads makes me incredibly grateful for two healthy - albeit mischievous - little girls.

Dinner Conversation

Overheard last night at the supper table.

Annika and Kiersten were discussing a boy in Kiersten's class, who has apparently told both of them that they're pretty.

Annika, "He said that I'm hotter than Kiersten."
Kiersten, to Oskar, "What does that mean? That she's like, cooler than I am or that she's sweatier than me?"

DNA

Kids are great for keeping things light. Last weekend, when Dwight, Joy and I were talking to the kids and explaining that Grammy had passed away, at one point it was pointed out to them that Grammy lives on inside of each of them because she's a part of them - we pointed out some specific similarities - and that they all have her genes.

So yesterday I was talking to a friend and mentioned my mother-in-law's passing, in our conversation. Kardynn plugged her ears which I thought was coincidence but once we were back in the car, we had this conversation. "Mommy, do you know why I plugged my ears? I don't like to hear you say that Grammy died. It makes me very sad." Her little lip was quivering and tears were welling up in her eyes. I told her that it makes me very sad too. She attempted to comfort me and said, "It's okay Mommy. Her body parts are in all of us. But mommy, are her pants in us too?"

Boys and their Toys

On the way home from Oskar's allergy shots, I was having a conversation with the kids about their strengths and skills.  Oskar piped up from the back, "I'm good at playboy toys."  Me, "WHAT?!"  Oskar, "I'm good at playing with boy toys."  Ohhhhh. 

Career Day

Annika's class is doing something special every day until the end of the school year.  They're working their way through the alphabet with various special activities each day.  Today was "Career Day" - for C.  Annika had told me that she wants to be a firefighter when she grows up so was intending to wear our fireman costume.  Unfortunately we both forgot about it this morning so she went to school wearing a brown shirt and brown striped pants. 

When she got home she reminded me that today had been "Career Day.  I said, "Oh no!  What did you do?"  She pointed to her clothes and said, "It's okay. I'd also like to work at a Hershey Chocolate Factory."  

I love that she rolls with the punches.

(Ahem...next time I will move the rug before taking photos from this spot.)

Sanitize

On nights like this, I'm so grateful for Sanitize mode on my washing machine...

Little Girl

Kardynn and I pulled into a parking space at the gym.

Me: Are you going to put on your sweater, little girl?
K: Yes, big mama!

Um...point taken...I will now stop calling you little girl.