A quiet Easter

This year's Easter was very low key. The best part was sitting Sunday night on the couch with 4 little ones looking at pictures of the empty tombs and talking about what that was and what it meant. Matt unfortunately had to spend the last week in Houston and Easter in a hotel room. Lucy set up an egg hunt at her house for the kids and we did one at home for the Easter baskets. We had a fabulous Easter dinner of grilled tuna sandwiches with tomato soup. (We can only have this when Matt is gone, not one of his favorites.) Now a week later Matt is home, Yahoo with no more trips until May, one sick little boy and I get a little time to play catch up.
Thanks to Meme, the kids did look pretty spectacular in green dresses that she had made and suits for the boys. As Benjamin says, "I look better than Grandpa in my suit." Josette would have nothing to do with the camera, before or after church.

Bad Mommy

I have had days were I wondered what I was doing and if I was cut out for this mom stuff but I always knew that by the next morning things would be right again. NOT this week. Some sort of switch went off in the boys last Sunday night at about 7:30 pm and it never got switched back. The first three days of this week was spent being screamed at all day and all night. Carsten managed to wake -up two nights and scream at me for 2 hours because I couldn't find his green shovel and I wouldn't allow him to sleep in my bed. After being bit, screamed at and sleep deprived I was really wondering if this was going to be the rest of my life! Finally after hearing I was a "Bad Mommy" for the nth time one morning I told the boys that if I was such a bad mommy they could just go and find a new one that wasn't so horrible. Benjamin's eyes got really big and he quickly said that he loved me and didn't want a new mommy. Carsten went to the garage and got his boots on.

The Good Samaritan

A funny little Mower story: Sophie taught our FHE Lesson on Sunday and did an incredible job. She picked 3 pictures dealing with the birth of Christ. She asked questions of the boys and had their attention the whole time. Carsten choose the activity for the night and UNO Attacks was the winner. Before we could start playing the boys decided to start the attack portion of the game and the cards were everywhere. We asked the kids to pick all the cards up so we could start playing and Sophie started cleaning up, the boys were not helping. Sophie looks up at me and states, "I should have picked the picture of the Good Samaritan!"

6 months

Very crazy but Josette is 6 months old already and doing great. She's put on 2 pounds in the last month and so she is really starting to fill out and look like a healthy little girl. We finally have her in her crib, she's been next to mom for much longer than all the rest. We survived spring break and even had some fun. I tried to do one fun field trip a day which can be a bit of a challenge with break up going on. No outdoor activities are available between mud and ice. By Saturday evening dinner time when Sophie asked, "what are we doing for fun next?" I was close to losing it and really happy that school started again on Monday. I was always under the impression that as they got older I would have to do less of the entertaining but boy was I wrong. The only difference is that a bowl and wooden spoon don't seem to cut it anymore.
Matt took on the challenge of taking all 3 kids to the library and each one got to pick a movie. Benjamin came home with the original Superman movie. We watched it for family fun night, with capes on. Benjamin has now moved a little from Superman saving the day to Superman's flying techniques. Right arm, switch to left and then both arms to go really fast. I didn't think much of this switch in focuses until Sunday when Benjamin informed us that he could fly off the roof of the house and his cape would fly in the air behind him. Thankfully I can't figure anyway onto the roof for him but I am a bit concerned that he'll use this same theory with a 2nd story window or the deck. And of course I could guarantee that Carsten would be right behind him, like Robin is to Batman.

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Our big HEALTHY 6 monther

The bubble maker at the science museum.

This picture is more to show the fish tank off to mom. Check out how clear it is. It just mysteriously cleared up after mysteriously turning so green that you would see the yellow eyes of the fish fade in and out. We tried emptying the tank several times to get it clean but nothing worked. All of a sudden I got up one morning and it looked like this. There are two large fish who are camera shy. We can't get anymore fish because the orange one rules the left half and Pig, the black fish, rules the right side and neither one will allow any other fish onto their side. Eyes are eaten and gills have chunks taken out to any fish that tries.

Cool Sunset

One thing about winter in Alaska is we have some pretty incredible sunsets of pink. The mountains and snow take on this rosy shade and it truly is incredible. We live in a river valley and so we have mountains on two sides of us and a view of the cook inlet on the other two. This was taken off our back porch looking towards the mountains to the side of the house. Just the beauty of things really helps turn a crummy day into a better one.

Wipes, the mom's duct tape

I decided to cut the boys hair last night and I'm not sure if the boys hair was very static or what but there was hair everywhere in the bathroom. Instead of breaking out all the cleaning supplies and doing a real wash down I decided to use the chlorax wipes. Quick, easy and only two left. So what to do....wipes. They are great for wiping up all the hair off the floor. That got me to thinking about what other things I use wipes for. There are the usual sticky faces, hands, to blow a nose (mine or the kids), wipe off public high chairs, muddy slides at parks, car windows, and toys at garage sales (to see if they really are worth it). Then there is the camping and fishing world and that opens a whole other can of worms, pardon the pun. Still while cleaning up hair I wonder what other creative things mom's have used wipes for. So I would like to hear from you guys. How do you use your wipes?

Wow, Time Flies

It is so crazy how fast time is flying by. I can't believe that in two more days we will be in March. We've been busy with all the normal things of life. I played in an annual snowshoe softball tournament in anchorage that is just crazy. You wear these old tennis rackets and try and play normal softball. Luckily it was about 25 degrees, which actually allowed me to take off a glove in order to throw the ball. I keep thinking that only here would 18 teams of 12 people put these things on and torture themselves for two days and actually enjoy it. In one of our games two people scored and the batter got a triple off of a hit to the pitcher. The bright orange ball got lost in the snow and there were three people searching for it.

The kids came out and saw the sled dog races that go right by the softball fields. It is always so fun to watch these dogs run. I always have to wonder if any of these animal rights people who think these dogs are being abused have not seen them at the start or during a race. These dogs are so excited to run and they are going just crazy wanting to get going. It is all the people can do to hold them back until it is their turn. It is really cool to see. They had a juniors race of 5-12 year olds and now the kids have a new things they want to do in life! The only problem is that I am not adding a dog to this household!

They breed dogs with certain traits that make them better race dogs. I think these ones were bred with extra long tongues!

At the end of the day. The lady in the funky cowboy hat is just a little taste of some of the costumes people wear. Donald Duck even made and appearance. I would also like to add that I have several, several layers on!:)

The great snowshoes, left over from world war two. These are what we use to play in.