Grandpa's 90th birthday party

My Grandpa turned 90 this May.

My grandparents with my family

My girls making necklaces with cousins and aunts.

This is my aunt Marjie.  She lives on the other side of the country, so I only get to see her on really special occasions like this one.

Marjie is the opposite  of my mother.  For example, my mother would never do this:

My grandparents with great grandchildren.  (Notice my child on the floor in the front.)

Grandchildren:

And children:

May 2011

Emily's violin recital.
She was a combination of excitement, terror, and cuteness all in one.

Here is a sample of her performance

Olivia turned three years old!

This is my first time using rolled fondant to decorate a cake.  I love the way the fondant flowers look, but they tasted terrible.  Everyone scraped off all the frosting and ate the cake plain.

I loved the fondant bees with sliced almond wings.

Miriam's third grade recorder recital.
She is on the top row in the middle waiting for everyone to take their seats on the steps before the performance begins.

Her favorite song. (Miriam is right above the man with the red coat)

Adam graduated from Kindergarten

getting his diploma

Adam turned 6.  

I was so thrilled Adam wanted pie for his birthday!  I wasn't feeling too good, and it made it so much easier for his birthday dessert.

One of Adam's birthday presents was a Real Construction set.  It is plastic "wood" pieces, plastic nails, a hammer, and a saw.  Adam was so excited to make something, he did it all by himself!  No help required.  He designed and made this tool box.

The Elementary school dance festival is a lot of fun for some kids.  

But others are forced to hold hands with girls.

Miriam loved dancing to this song

And the biggest news of May 2011, is that we are expecting baby number 6 sometime in December!
Hurrah for morning sickness and ALL the extra activities this month.  (eeewwww!)

April 2011

Miriam's third grade class created a wax museum.  Each child picked one person from history to do a report on.  They needed a costume, poster, and oral report.  Miriam chose Cleopatra.  She did all the research and  created an amazing poster with the information in her own words.

I visited her class during her oral report.  Miriam was amazing!  She was loud, confident, and interesting.  After her report, many of the other parents in the room complimented me on how well she did.

This is Miriam during the wax museum.  They were instructed to pose by their poster and hold still no matter what.  Don't talk, move, or even smile!  Miriam held the pose even when I tried to get her to smile for the picture. 

April also brought strong winds that tore the shingles off the roof.  Michael was able to patch the holes.

And EASTER!
The kids enjoyed an Easter egg hunt at my Grandma Johnson's house

The three youngest sitting down to open their eggs.

The two oldest playing tether-ball.  It's all fun and games until someone gets hit in the head with the ball.

My Dad and sister Michele made the LONG drive to be at the party.  I didn't catch a picture of Dad, but here is my smiling sister.

My sister Jenny.  She lives closer, but we always love seeing her when we get together with family.

 Of course, the Easter Bunny left a few eggs at our house for the kids to find on Easter morning.
I just love the difference between these next two pictures.  In this first picture, you can see all the attitude of my oldest two girls, and the cuteness of the youngest three.

Next, Joshua's happy smile disappeared, and has been replaced by extreme discomfort when his sisters invade his personal space.  I just love their personalities!

 And where are all the other "hunting for plastic egg" photos?  Have you ever tried to take pictures of kids hunting for Easter eggs?  All the pictures are of backs, and bums, and hair!  No one can stop and grin at the camera, because if they do, their siblings get all the eggs!

March 2011

My adorable kids!

March means Miriam and I get to celebrate our shared birthday!  This year, we had banana cream pie.  I vote we have pie every year from now on.  Not only is it easier and faster to make than cake, but we all like pie better anyway.

My Aunt Marjie surprised me this year!  She sent me an edible chocolate bouquet.  Bananas, apples, grapes, strawberries, and oranges dipped in amazing chocolate!  It is a good thing I had the whole family to share with.  There must have been at least 100 pieces.  

Has anyone ever participated in a Flat Stanley activity in school?  The kids received a Flat Stanley from their cousin, Melissa with a request to take pictures doing something with Stanley, and mail it on to someone else.  For our activity we watched one of the Harry Potter movies.  

Laundry Solutions

The first time it happened, I promised myself I would never tell - let alone blog it.

The second time it happened, it was so much worse, I had to find help to clean up the mess.  In my google search for a solution, I discovered it wasn't so unusual as I had previously thought.

You see, I was doing laundry today, just like I always do.  The kids (finally) brought me their dirty clothes, and I dumped them into the washing machine.  When it finished, I ran them through the dryer, and then dumped them out into the clean clothes baskets where they will sit until someone decides to fold laundry.  (no telling how long that can sometimes take.)  Batches of laundry go round and round in the cycle as fast as I remember to reload the washer.  It never ends.  Laundry is never done.

Today, I opened the washer after the cycle finished to find the kind of mess I never wanted to find.  No, I didn't wash a Sharpie, or Chap-stick, or Kleenex.  Those are messy, but not the ultimate messy.  Even if it had been a really red or black clothing item that leaked dye all over everything else, I would have cheered compared to this mess.  Dye is easy to rinse out with another rinse cycle and 1 cup of white vinegar.

Today I found the clothes in the washing machine completely covered in tiny clear/white beads.  I mean millions and billions of beads.  You are right to think it wasn't the kind of beads you string on a necklace or bracelet.  These beads are far worse.  They soak up liquids, are sticky, slimy, and are supposed to be contained within a pull-up.  That's right.  I washed my son's pull-up.  This time, it exploded after absorbing all the wash water it could hold and sprinkled the absorbent beads evenly over every piece of fabric in the washing machine.  Not an inch was spared.  A complete and absolute mess.  And to think, on top of it, the pull-up was probably  full of pee to begin with.  EEEWWWWW!

At least the first time it happened, I found a HUGE pull-up that did not explode.  All I had to do was remove it and rewash the load.  Easy.  But not this time.

I considered drying the clothes anyway, hoping the heat would dehydrate the beads and they would be swept away in the vent.  No.  I don't want to do that.  What if it gummed up my dryer?

I considered shaking out the clothes outside.  No.  It would take too long.

Could it rinse out?  I decided to give it a try.  I started the cycle over, without soap, and added some vinegar just for good luck.

Then came my moment of enlightenment as I typed these search words into google:

"pull-up in washing machine"

go ahead.  Try it.  you won't believe how many mom's have done it.  NOT on purpose, but by accident.  They all thought they checked each item of clothing as it went in the washer, but happened to miss their child's pull-up stuck inside a rare, non-inside-out pajama bottom.  Of course there are the pull-ups PUT IN THE DIRTY CLOTHES by the children themselves.  That's another story.

So, I scanned each google result (and plee for help),  to find a solution to my BIG MESS.  And then I found it!  I want to thank L.W., a Mom who posted her answer on momapedia.  You saved my laundry.

Here is how she promises to get rid of the exploded diaper/pull-up mess in the washing machine...

"QUICK AND EASY SOLUTION!!! 
Use an entire container of table salt (the kind you refill the salt shakers from, about 89 cents ...) in your washer with the clothes, re-run the washer cycle with the salt in there(no detergent). If you tightly packed the washer with clothes, it may take two cycles of this. Salt is a desiccant, it will chemically break the bonds holding the gel together, causing it to dissolve and be washed away harmlessly. :)
Best of luck, from a mom who's done this more times than she cares to recount!"

Guess what!  After reading this, I dumped a whole container of salt into the running washing machine. After the first cycle, the beads were 75% gone.  After a second cycle, with another full container of salt, ALL the beads were gone.  

What I find interesting is the large quantity of suds in the water during the first salt cycle when I didn't add any detergent.  It made me wonder if it was extra soap in the clothes that didn't rinse out, or worse, the soapy water (initially soaked up on the first cycle) now released from the beads as they dissolved in the salt water. 

So now you know what to do next time you accidentally wash a pull-up - or diaper - or nursing pad, etc..  Just add a whole container of salt, and repeat as necessary.  And don't feel embarrassed about it.  Just read google.

What's worse than washing a pull-up?  Some frugal suggestion I read today suggested washing non-poopy, used swim diapers in the washing machine to re-use.  That Mom claimed it works - and doesn't explode.  

Not me.

No me like...

Some days my kids are really cute.

Take this day, for example.  The kids got all the characters from the nativity set and lined them up like a train. It's the same thing they do with all their cars.  Cute.

On January 3rd, 2011, contrary to popular opinion, Olivia was not cute.

I was putting Christmas decorations away and when I got to the nativity set, I couldn't find the baby Jesus.  My nativity set is a Fisher Price Little People Nativity set.  It usually sits under the Christmas tree all mixed up in a box overnight, and it is played with all day.  It is kid proof and I love that the kids can touch it without breaking it.  Sometimes I have to remind the kids not to throw the pieces through the kitchen, or down the hall, or to the bottom of the stairs. 

For the past few years we have always been able to find all the pieces. 

Until this year.

On January 3rd, I was taking the Christmas tree down and putting all the decorations away.  The baby Jesus was missing.  I looked everywhere I could think of.  I asked the kids to help look for the baby Jesus.  I sent them to look in their rooms, and behind the T.V.  I ordered them to dig through the shoe closet, and crawl behind the couches.  Still no baby Jesus. 

Then, I asked Olivia if she had seen the baby Jesus.  Her answer?  "no me like the baby Jesus, Mom.  I throw him way."  WHAT?  Where?  Olivia proudly walked to the garage door and pulled it open.  She hung on to the doorknob with one hand, and with the other, pointed to the stinky garbage can where we throw dirty diapers and pull-ups.  "In there, Mom" she announced.

I was MAD.  Quickly I sorted through the diapers, but could not find the baby Jesus.  Next I walked outside to check the big dumpster.  I looked through the whole frozen pull-up/ diaper mess and still no baby Jesus.

Olivia was not cute.  And since she is only 2 years old, she doesn't understand how bad a decision it was to throw away the baby Jesus.  I mean, how do you have a nativity without the main character?


........ Fast-forward 1 1/2 weeks ........

As I was blow-drying my hair to get ready in the morning, Emily interrupted me with important news.  "Guess what I found, Mom!"  Emily held out her hand and I was shocked to see the baby Jesus in her open palm.  "Where did you find him?"  I asked.  Her answer?  "In the box I keep my extra hair elastics in the back of the bathroom closet."  (and that box is rarely used or ever gotten out.)

I have no idea how the baby Jesus got there, except that sometimes the kids like to play hide-and-seek, and when I'm not watching, they hide in the closet.  I try to keep them out so they don't knock all the towels off the shelves onto the floor.  The closet is only wide enough for one folded towel.  I avoid putting anything else besides towels in the closet because it is so inconvenient to get things in or out.  Only a small child could fit in the closet.  Emily's box is usually stuffed in the small space under the bottom shelf.  I guess someone decided it was a good place to hide the baby Jesus.  I'm glad he is back.

And what do we learn from this story?

Either my two-year old can lie convincingly,
or I am really gullible.