Toothless Katie

Katie had her two bottom eye teeth pulled this afternoon. She had already lost the two bottom front teeth, but the remaining teeth were too tight for her permanent teeth to fit. One was growing in the middle of the gap and the other was coming in somewhere behind it. According to the dentist, we bought about a year and a half of time with the two extractions, but count on major orthodontics after that. Great.

Spring Pictures 2

Here are the Spring Pictures. I have no idea why they retook Michael's. He looks great in both.

But no retakes of this gem?

Really?

And did they HAVE to pose her hands so that her chipped nail polish is showing??

Spring Pictures

Michael and Katie's school takes spring pictures in addition to the regular school pictures taken in the fall. I should add that they just send you a package of pictures and then you can either pay $35 for them or send them back. I hate that. Now I have to send back these pictures in my kids' backpacks and explain why Mommy doesn't want their pictures. Jerks.

So, we got these pictures on Monday and apparently the photographer took two sets of pictures of some of the kids and just one set of others. He just took one pose of Katie and two of Michael, adding to my picture drama. That led to this exchange:

Katie: *sob* Why did Michael get two pictures and I only got one. That's not fair.

Mrs. Chaffee: Katie, maybe Michael's eyes were closed in one picture and they needed to retake it. (They weren't.)

Katie: Michael, guess what!!! MY first...

Me: Katie... just .... no. Let's not.... (too late)

Katie: MY first picture came out soooo good they didn't HAVE to take another picture of ME. YOUR picture needed to be retaken.

Michael: Or... I looked so good, they WANTED to take another picture of me. Because my picture came out so AWESOME.

Katie: No, they NEEDED to retake it.

Michael: No, they WANTED to retake it.

(repeat those last two lines for the next hour.)

*sigh* You just can't win.

At least Michael is standing up for himself more than he used to.

On the Trampolines

While we were in St. Louis for Easter weekend, we did some shopping at St. Louis Mills. They have a place there where you can purchase time on a bungee cord/trampoline set-up.

Michael went first.

This is as high as he got - about 4 feet.

Katie was up next.


Holy Crap!

Yep. She's flipping in these pictures. Totally fearless.

Smart Cookie Club

Katie is the newest member of the Smart Cookie Club.

Aren't those glasses too cute!!!

That's a Good Question

What's more bad-ass than a lightsaber?

A sword tied to the end of a lightsaber. Duh.

This is Why My Kids Think I'm an Idiot

Katie asked me this question on the way home from school today.

"Mom, you know those candle things with the tubes and water in them? Well how does it get there? Is there some kind of air conditioner at the top?"

What is she talking about??????? I'm always saying "I don't know" because they ask me questions like this!!

Last week, Katie asked me if it bothers me that Daddy is so much smarter than I am. He's smarter because he knows the answers to their questions. Well, Daddy gets ten totally easy questions a day, and I get 500 gems like that one above.

APRIL FOOLS!!!

The kids planned their own April Fools prank for Steve. We got a slime egg to serve Steve for dinner and put a whoopie cushion on his chair. The whoopie cushion was electronic and had a cord and push button to make the tootie noise.

(Lying in wait)

(The yucky egg)

(Hee. The whoopie cushion in action)

Why, yes. I DO let my kids dress themselves.

This is a typical day for us. Maybe once a week, I'll pick out a cute outfit for Katie, but most days I just tell them to dress themselves. I've learned to live with the results.

( It's hard to see in the picture, but Michael's shirt is backwards.)

Paper Factory

Katie received a Bill Nye the Science Guy Paper Recycling Kit for her birthday. This kit allows you to take old, used paper and recycle it into even uglier paper to make cards for people you hate.

First, you tear up some old paper and let it soak in warm water overnight. Katie completely ignored my suggestion to stick to one color family and just threw together a bunch of construction paper - mostly black.

(Soaking the paper)

The kit came with a plastic hand blender. I let the kids use my blender to puree the soaked paper. They both ran screaming from the room as soon as I turned it on.

(Ahhhhh!!! Not the Blender!!!)

Then you pour the resulting grey sludge into a shallow pan.





You scoop up some sludge into a fine mesh screen then let the excess water drain away.

After shaking off the excess water you press it in this vise thing to get out more water.

Set your wet paper out to dry and in just a few hours, you have new paper.

(cool!)

Arrr! That Mirror is dARRty!

Katie saw the optometrist yesterday, and she will be getting glasses. Apparently, she's far-sighted in her left eye. Her right eye has been compensating for so long, that her brain isn't processing much info from the left anymore. She has an eye-patch that she's supposed to wear at home when doing close up work like coloring or writing. She loved the patch for the first 30-60 seconds, then she got frustrated because she couldn't see. I think this is going to be tough.

Party On!!

Michael and Katie had their 6th Birthday Party on Friday at Lifetime Fitness. They had pizza and cake, climbed the rock wall and swam in the pool. We had 16 kids total and it was three hours of craziness!!!! Below are some pictures of the fun, fun, fun!!

Ultimate Blog Party 2009

If you're a blogger, ever wanted to start a blog, or just like reading them, 5 Minutes for Mom's Ultimate Blog Party 2009 is going on now until the 27th. You can check it out here or click on the button on my side bar. There are tons of giveaways going on. I love bloggy giveaways and just this year I've won a Strawberry Shortcake DVD, a kid's game, some super cute shoes and an awesome blingy bracelet (see my older post for a pic of that baby)!





What can you win?? There are 119 different prizes up for grabs and you can see them all HERE . My favorites are:


1. A Kitchenaid Stand Mixer (Valued at $349)!

2. 5 kajeet phones with $5 of airtime

3. $100 gift card to HomeGoods

4. A $50 GC to Target ( there are 2 up for grabs!).

After that, in order, I want 58, 42, 26, 41, 50, 77, 89, 88, 91, 118, 1, 37, 43, 47, 49, 7, 5, 12, 15, 20, 18, 38, 63, 72, 114

COMMENCE VOTING!!!!!

Katie needs your votes! She's been chosen as a finalist in the My Princess Academy Role Model Contest. They have just started the voting stage. Please go to
http://extras.myprincessacademy.com/elect_a_princess.asp
to cast your vote. Each person may vote once per day thru March 31st. If you try to vote more than that they won't count your votes and may disqualify Katie. If Katie gets the most votes in her age category, she will win a $500 savings bond. We will buy one for Michael, too.

Look Out Below!

Last week, Michael got a book from the school library that included directions on how to make your own airplanes. We found some pretty simple directions to make parachutes out of tissue paper, thread and empty water bottles.

A Modern Princess

Exciting news!! We came home from lunch yesterday to find a package on the front porch. Inside was a bunch of super cute dress up outfits and a note. Back in February, I entered Katie in a Modern Princess Role Model contest hosted by the website MyPrincessAcademy.com. I had to write a short essay and send in a photo of Katie. Well, Katie was selected as a finalist! The note in our package said to take a picture of Katie in one of the dress up outfits and send it in. They will post that photo along with my essay on their website on Monday for a voting round. The girl with the most votes in each age group will win a $500 savings bond. Below is the picture of Katie that I just sent in. I will post a link for the voting when they have it available on Monday.

So Many Questions ... So Few Answers

I happened upon this in the foyer yesterday. I can't help but wonder, what did the dog do? What can a small stuffed dog do that would be a hanging offense? Did he receive a fair trial? I found him 3 hours after I took the kids to school. How did I miss this for 3 hours??

Playing Together ..... Sort of.

I overheard Michael and Katie playing together in the playroom this morning. Well, they were trying to play together, but it was very clear that they each had their own agenda. I guess this is what happens when boys and girls play together.

K: Let's play house. I'm the mom and this is our baby kitten. You're the dad.
M: Yes, the dad who is Spiderman AND a firefighter.
K: Isn't our baby kitten sooo sweet and cute Daddy Michael.
M: You mean Daddy Spiderman Firefighter.
K: Do you want to hold our tiny baby kitten?
M: Spiderman, Spiderman does whatever a spider can.
K: I'll put our tiny baby kitten in his crib.
M: THE CRIB CATCHES FIRE!! Weeeoooo! Weeeoooo!
K: Waaaaaa!!!!! Mooooommmmm!!!!!!!

And the winner is....ME!

This is why I love sweeptakes! I just found out that I won a 33 carat green Amethyst tennis bracelet. Whoop Whoop!! Here's a picture. That baby's going to look great on my wrist!

All the buttons on the right are blogs where I enter giveaways. This one came from An Ordinary Life. I've also won from Amanda's site.

FIRST KISS!!!

Katie got her first kiss from a boy this week. His name is Cooper and she met him at the gym. They had been playing together before Steve picked the kids up to go home. Katie gave Cooper a hug when she was saying goodbye and he planted a wet, sloppy kiss on her cheek. "Gross!" cried Katie, turning away and wiping off the kiss. She later reported that his kiss was "gross and slobbery." I always kind of figured that the first boy to try to kiss Katie was going to get a knuckle sandwich for his efforts.

I hope she continues to think boy kisses are gross....until she's 30.