OCD and AA

Have I ever mentioned that I love my husband? He has a strong affinity for having things run smoothly. As much as I appreciate the results of his efforts, it is funny to watch him in action when he is implementing one of his new efficiency programs.

Exhibit A: The kitchen washcloths. No one likes the discovering a slimy, smelly washcloth that has been sitting in the sink for two days. Nate came up with a simple color coding system to prevent this problem at our house. Each day of the week has now been assigned its own color of washcloth (as cataloged on the handy little label). If you wake up on Tuesday and there is still a yellow washcloth in the sink, it is time for it to go.

Exhibit B: The universal remote. Thanks to Woot, we now own a quality new remote for the movie room. Nate spent several hours getting it perfectly programmed. He got the other five remotes that we’ve been using, took a picture of them, printed it off, and then set to work with highlighters and a pen to devise a master plan. He wanted to make sure that everything was in the most logical position on the new remote, and is very proud of the fact that he was able to fit all of the most essential commands onto just two screens.

In other news, we might have a bit of a boozer on our hands. Here is the conversation I had with Ben yesterday morning before school.

Ben: “Mom, could I just have a little alcohol and some Sprite?”
Me: “What?”
Ben: “Could I just have a little alcohol and some Sprite?”
Me: “Do you mean Tylenol?”
Ben: “Oh yeah. Tylenol.”

The poor boy is at the beginning of what will probably be a fairly long ordeal with orthodontics. He got spacers put in between his back molars on Wednesday, and has been pretty miserable ever since.

Nine Years Old

Ben had a fabulous birthday. He told us 117 times in the last two weeks that he was mad that he had to go to school on his birthday, but he ended up loving it. He took Rice Krispies Treats and Fruit Roll-ups for his treat and was so excited about the giant card that his class gave him. When Nate picked the kids up from school, Ben told him “It’s like my whole body was just filled with joy all day. AND, today is a cloudy day so it is almost like my wish came true because I love cloudy days.”

Ben was happy with all of his presents, but the best part of his day was that we let him skip his piano lesson (a major reason he was dreading the idea of a Tuesday birthday). He wanted to go to Firehouse Pizzeria for dinner, so we skipped basketball practice and pack meeting and headed down to Centerville. It worked out great that Ben’s birthday coincided with their kids eat free on Tuesday deal. :) Dinner was delicious and Ben even got his own personal size FH’zzookie.

I didn’t have any great cake ideas, so I asked Ben if he wanted me to make a cake or if he wanted to pick a different dessert. He chose apple pie. Then he said “I really wish there was such a thing as lemon pie because lemon is my favorite flavor.” Ben was thrilled to discover that there really is such a thing as lemon pie (we don’t get out much). And, it just so happened that Marie Callender’s featured pie of the month was lemon meringue. Perfect!

We told Ben a couple of stories from the day he was born on the drive home. It was fun to think back and remember how excited we were for that little boy. He has certainly made parenting an adventure. He is famous for throwing us a curve ball whenever we think we have him figured out. Still, he has one of the biggest hearts of any kid I know and really wants to do what is right. We sure love that boy!

Little Miss Abby

Abby is at a sometimes fun and sometimes aggravating stage of life. Half of the time she is funny and charming; the other half she is stubborn and irritable. She can switch from one extreme to the other within seconds and we never know exactly what to expect. I had forgotten what an adventure it is to have a two-year-old in the house. Here are a few of the great things about Abby:

Every time we’re in the car and go down a hill, Abby will say (in a very excited voice), “This is like a ride on Space Mountain!” It’s a line she picked up from Space Buddies, and it sounds hilarious coming out of her mouth.

She loves to sing and does it all day. Her repertoire of songs really grew with all of the new Christmas songs she learned. She isn’t too picky about singing the lines in the order they were written. She just sings whatever parts she remembers in whatever order she wants . . . over and over again.

Abby hasn’t worn real clothes for weeks. We have about a dozen princess dress-up dresses and she typically wears at least five or six different ones every day. I make her wear real clothes if we are going somewhere, but the second we walk in the door, she is taking them off, putting on a princess dress, and clomping around the house in plastic high heels. She insists that we call her by the name of whatever outfit she is wearing . . . “I not Abby, I Seeping Booty.”

If someone hurts her feelings (which happens about three times a day), she will run as fast as she can into her room and throw herself onto her bed to cry. When you combine princess dresses with oversensitivity and lack of sleep, you get cute pictures like this:

Abby is a great gift-receiver . . . even if the gift is a Jolly Rancher. When you give her something, she gets all wide-eyed and says “For me?!?!?” It was my favorite part of opening Christmas presents this year.

The most wonderful news about Abby is that she is finally potty trained. I jumped the gun a bit back in October when I thought we were done. She has been awesome with tinkling from the beginning, but was not a fan of pooping in the toilet. She had a fabulous turn around in the last couple of weeks and is now a pooping pro. She insists that the whole family comes into the bathroom to celebrate after every success. The kids have been great cheerleaders and the whole scene is pretty amusing to watch.

Toad's

We spent a few hours at Toad's yesterday for Ben’s birthday activity. We had a blast. Ben went to a birthday party there in November and loved the laser tag, so he wanted us all to try it out. Since Abby is too small to wear a vest and run around shooting a laser gun, we recruited my mom to come and hang out with us. She and Abby had a root beer float from the snack bar while the rest of us played. Our teams were boys vs. girls and Nate and Ben kicked some serious bootie. It was more of a workout than I was expecting, but loads of fun. We are looking forward to when all of the kids are a couple of years older and we can go and play for hours.

(Omega = Malinda, Centaur = Emily, Avenger = Elise, Whizzbang = Nate, Priest = Ben)

After laser tag, we played a round of miniature golf. Nate wrote all of our names on the little card, but we abandoned the idea of keeping score before we finished the first hole. It was pretty much a free-for-all. Abby gave up on playing altogether by the third hole and spent the rest of the time climbing over and crawling under parts of the course.

Then we spent some time in the arcade. I hadn’t forgotten my plan to avoid arcades, but the passes we bought for the kids included $2 for the arcade and we paid for Abby before we knew that she would be free, so we had some extra credit to blow. It was actually pretty fun. Nate and I even played a few games. I was a brat and left Nate with all four kids to cash in their tickets at the prize counter. He did a great job of moving things along, and the kids were all thrilled with their new three-note harmonicas.

We stopped at Arby’s for lunch before taking Grandma home. It was a fabulous day and hopefully helped Ben come to terms with the fact that his birthday is on a school day (he is not happy about that).

Welcome 2010

We had a great New Year’s Eve. We took the kids sledding in the morning. We were excited to test out our jumbo river tube on the snow, but it only made it through two runs down the hill before springing a leak. Luckily, we had two other tubes and a sled with us and that was enough to keep everyone entertained. Abby was a little reluctant to go down the hill and spent half of the time playing on the playground instead. Once Nate convinced her to ride with him on the sled, she was hooked.

We spent the rest of the day watching movies, playing games, and eating yummy food. It was fabulous. Ben and Emily played their first game of Scrabble and loved it. They should be able to give us some real competition in a few years. All four kids managed to stay awake to ring in the New Year.

I’m still trying to break back into the routine of school and work and schedules. Emily and Elise had their first dance classes this week. Both of them absolutely loved it. (Abby was more than a little upset that she didn’t get to go. She wants to do everything that her sisters do.) It was also the first week of basketball for Ben. He knows most of the boys on his team and his coach is a friend of ours from the ward. It should be lots of fun for him. Between dance two nights a week, basketball two nights a week, scouts, and piano lessons, our calendar is pretty full. The good news is that nothing overlaps and with a little planning we should still be able have dinner together every night.

Year in Pictures

Fat Cats

Yesterday, after Nate got home from work, we took the kids to Fat Cats. We had lunch at the Pizza Factory (another great deal thanks to Ben’s reading gift certificates and the Happenings book) and then headed over for a round of free bowling (more reading rewards, birthday passes and some left over gift certificates). It was loads of fun. Nate schooled us. Apparently his finger has healed up since our last bowling adventure. After bowling, we let the kids play at the arcade. We never (and I mean NEVER) spend money on things like arcade games, but we had some free tokens and we let the kids each spend a couple of dollars of their own money to get some more. Elise hit the jackpot and got 500 tickets on some Wheel of Fortune game. It took a few minutes for the machine to kick out all 500 tickets. The more tickets that came out, the more ecstatic she got. It was hysterical. She was nice and said that everyone could have a fourth of her tickets to spend at the prize counter. Four kids + 623 tickets + lots of cheap plastic toys = one huge time warp. It took for-e-ver for them to pick out their prizes. They thought it was the greatest thing ever, but I think we are moving back to our policy of skipping the arcade action.

Locks of Love: Take Two

Emily got her hair chopped off yesterday. She has been wanting to get her hair cut since August, but I convinced her to hold out a few extra months so it would be long enough to donate. I told her it would be long enough by Christmas and I was glad that it really was. She looks so cute with her new hairdo (it turned out lots better than last time) and she is so excited to go back to school and surprise her friends. We are both looking forward to a break from crying about tangles.

Christmas Traditions

We try to strike a balance in this house between making the holidays fun and memorable for the kids without creating a ton of extra work or busyness for ourselves. Last year we started a new tradition of singing a Christmas song around the tree every night before bed. This year we decided to add a Christmas story to the routine. I wrapped up 25 Christmas books and the kids got to take turns unwrapping one every night for us to read together. Just to keep everyone happy (4 kids, 4 tasks), we let two kids pick a song, one pick a book, and one put an ornament on our miniature Christmas tree. It was a perfect way to slow down and spend some quality time together every night before bed. The best part was hearing Abby sing “glo-o-o-o-oooooo-o-o-o-oooooooo-o-o-o-oria” whenever Ben picked “Angels We Have Heard On High” (his favorite).

We also made some quality paper trees this year instead of our usual countdown chains. They were cute and fun, and the kids loved them.

Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. My mom comes every other year to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with us. This was our lucky year. We even convinced her to come a day early and stay two nights. The kids loved that. We had our traditional Christmas Eve junk food feast and movie marathon. This year’s lineup was The Nativity (aka Luke 2), Frosty the Snowman, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Prep and Landing, Mr. Krueger’s Christmas, and Miracle on 34th Street (the 1947 version). We tracked Santa on NORAD, made him some cookies, and left nine carrots out in the snow for the reindeer. I love how excited the kids get about the whole Santa thing.

We managed to get a fairly late start on Christmas morning again this year. Ben was the first one up at about 7:30, then Elise, then Emily. We finally woke Abby up at 8:15 so we could start opening presents. The kids got just about everything on their lists and were all very happy with their gifts. Nate and I got exciting things like measuring cups and $3 DVDs.

We spent the day watching new movies, playing Wii, and being lazy. It was lovely. We were hoping to follow the lead of the family in A Christmas Story and go out for Chinese food on Christmas day, but all of the local Chinese places were closed. We decided to make homemade pizzas instead. They turned out super yummy. I think it may be the beginning of another Christmas tradition.