Robots and Fazoli's

This has been kind of a crazy week so far - fun, but crazy. Abby has been at Lego Robotics Camp at Wichita State University this week. She has to be there every morning by 9:00 and is done at 4:30. A dear friend of ours, who also happens to be an instructor at the university, has taken her and brought her home a few times (a huge blessing considering the commute and the cost of gas).

Abby has really enjoyed this so far. The 6-8th graders work in teams led by engineering students to build and program robots and then compete in challenges. Tomorrow ends with a parent reception.

I took Abby and Emma each out for a "date with Mom" to buy their school supplies and some school clothes, since we're spending all of this extra time in Wichita as it is. This is all a new experience for us as the girls enter school for the first time in August. I took each of them out to dinner as part of our shopping outing to a reasonable place of their choice. Abby picked Famous Dave's and Emma picked Fazoli's. Honestly, being from Texas has made me a bar-be-cue snob, and Famous Dave's was terribly unimpressive (esp. for the price), but I think Abby really liked her meal - and we had a great time. Now Fazoli's just makes me really happy. All those fabulous bread sticks, amazing prices, decent atmosphere - and we had a great time.

O, and while we were shopping, we had to pick up some rain boots for Grace. She has wanted some for as long as she can remember. They were half price at Target, pink, and have kitty faces on the feet. She is super excited, and put them on right away in the living room. Then, she sat on the couch to wait for rain (not a cloud in the sky and 100 degrees). I checked the weather; there might be a storm tomorrow; Grace can hardly sleep due to anticipation.


Just a quick life update, more to come later...

What's up with the Hesston tooth fairy?!

Emma lost a tooth this evening. Grace was astounded and amazed. We all looked at her wad of wet, blood stained paper towel and congratulated her. And then she said this...

"Mom, do you just want to give me the money now, so you don't have to try to remember tonight?"

"WHAT!?" I replied incredulously. "This has nothing to do with me; the Kansas tooth fairy just seems to be a loser. We will absolutely make sure she gets the memo."

A little background is in order...
Back in Cedar Rapids when my daughters first started losing teeth, it was all a very big deal. At one point one of my daughters looked at me, straight in the face and said, "Mom, I know YOU are the tooth fairy. I've seen you sneaking into my room."

I just couldn't lie to her, so I said, "O.K., you're right, I AM the tooth fairy...

for the entire Cedar Rapids area. That's why I am often tired in the afternoon; it's a really big job: putting on the tights and the wings, visiting all those children in the middle of the night, and then trying to find something to do with all of those teeth! Tooth fairies are hired by city, and you're right - it's me."

But now that we're in Kansas and teeth keep falling out and there are so many of them and children get older, this new Kansas tooth fairy is totally not on the ball - or so I told my red head who rolled her eyes the whole time I explained.

I met some friends for coffee this evening and came home to find a little yellow note on my pillow. On the front there is a sweet little drawn face and...

To Mom/fairy

with love

Then the inside has a little fairy drawn on the bottom corner and this message...

Dear Mom/fairy

remember!

I lost a tooth!

a molar!!!!

So, I'm going to go let this Hesston fairy know now.

Happy Birthday, Abby!

HAPPY 12TH BIRTHDAY, ABBY!

It doesn't matter how old I am - the fact that I now have a 12 year old makes me old. Wow! Greg and I realized today that we only have one more year that we won't have a teenage girl in our home before around 14 years of teenage daughterdom.

Honestly, I am loving this time. It's such a blessing to interact with our oldest daughters in a more grown up way and have deeper conversations. I am fascinated by their unique personalities and talents (and weaknesses). I love to hear them pray. I love to watch their tastes develop. And, I love that we can play with Klutz Icky Poo that Grace gave Abby for her birthday (aka "sticky poo" by Emma and "Icky Poop" by Grace), see picture below:

It was a fun day for Abby. We started with her requested birthday breakfast of...

breakfast sausage... and anything else we wanted. The important thing was breakfast sausage - links. We also had buttermilk pancakes and o.j. - two other favorites. She had a great time opening gifts, enjoying them, receiving some special phone calls, having a guitar lesson, going to volleyball camp (everyday this week from 3-5), and having some surprise gifts dropped off throughout the day from friends.

Requested birthday dinner was bar-b-que beef sandwiches, homemade fries, green beans (o.k., those were not requested; I threw those in), and chocolate chip cake and vanilla ice cream for birthday dessert.

Then we watched a family movie, and now we're calling it a day.

We love you so much, Abby!

Bood pirp

Emma and Greg just returned from a memory-making bike ride that involved a surprising deluge of rain and of other things that sometimes fall from the sky, especially when the sky has birds in it.

After hearing a bit about their adventure, I responded with, "I can't believe a bood pirped on Emma's head!" Some spoonerisms just come out a whole lot better than others, and this particular one had me in tears shortly after I heard it come out of my mouth.

Anyway, yesterday we had the opportunity to go see the Wichita Children's Theater's production of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. We went with some friends and had a great time eating lunch there, watching the play/musical, and then heading back to our house for fun on the "slipper slide." Kansas is not the place for any sort of incline, so the kiddos definitely had to make the slip or slide thing happen all by themselves; but they had great fun.

Here are a few favorite pics:

And, of course, Grace and Malea had to dress up:

I should be cleaning my bathroom

Grace and I found a tiny baby robin underneath the slide at the park at the end of our street yesterday. He looked healthy but very small and didn't move very quickly. We quickly ascertained that leaving a slow moving baby robin underneath a slide in a park would be to its detriment, so we brought him home to our garden.

He snuggled right into my hand without a fight, looking around and occasionally chirping while Grace and I walked home. When we came home, Abby quickly found some earthworms which our little robin nibbled from her hand. He hopped around some, and when I checked on him a while later, he was gone. I think he'll be a success story; at least I prayed that God would watch over him, and I thanked Him for the opportunity to witness His creation up close.

We also have a huge caterpillar nibbling away at a Missouri primrose in our garden. We're hoping for the chance to watch the chrysalis stage. He's so large and fat, it can't be too far away; and that Missouri primrose was one we had tried to dig up and transfer - so, bon appetit!

I love summer.

The third of July

Today was the day of THE BIG TENNIS TOURNAMENT that always caps off about six weeks of lessons and play dates for Abby and Emma. We had a great time. I love tennis tournaments, especially on a beautiful day like today. I don't think it ever got out of the 70's (if so, not by much), and it's all about the time outside with friends and snacks and some tennis.

Now the pre-fourth of July (as in the 3rd) celebration is in full-swing outside our open windows. It is 10:10 p.m., and my children are "trying" to go to sleep with all of the boom-hiss-screech-light show beckoning them to the window, while I remind them that the big party is tomorrow and late night tomorrow will be more difficult after a late one tonight.

I don't think my logical reasoning is terribly convincing.

On Fish Tacos and Exterminators

First of all, I have to share one of our favorite family dinners with you. It is sooo easy and sooo yummy and pleases, get this, every single member of our family! That in itself is such a rare occurrence that I felt obligated to spread the news.

The award-winning dinner I'm referring to is (drum roll please)...

FISH TACOS

The original idea and inspiration comes from Brian and Melanie (Greg's brother and sister-in-law), but I'm pretty sure I remember theirs having a bit more of a gourmet touch. Here is what our version has evolved into:

FISH TACOS

1 box of inexpensive fish sticks (of course, you can feel free to get expensive ones if you'd like, but the point is: fish sticks - it's all about the crunch). Make sure there are enough for about three per taco.

flour tortillas

small grape tomatoes, cut in half or quarters

coleslaw (we buy the shreds and use T. Marzetti's original slaw dressing)

Colby jack cheese, shredded

fresh cilantro

chipotle Tabasco sauce - it's awesome and on the mild side

Throw everything inside the tortillas and enjoy! Make sure you heat the fish sticks according to package directions first - forgot to mention that part.

O.K., on to exterminators...

When we first moved here to Hesston, we had the disturbing experience of finding and killing about 11 yucky, scary, brown spiders a day. They were everywhere inside our new house, and we were a little creeped out about the potential of them being brown recluse spiders. We did some online checking and became even more panicky as we read "Brown recluse spiders, otherwise known as common Kansas house spiders,..." right there on the Internet. Yikes!

That started our first ever relationship with AN EXTERMINATOR. This man is very nice, and we are so thankful that he comes every three months to rid our house of anything that might attract brown recluse spiders. You can't actually kill them very effectively, but the point is to get their prey. We found out that we had a "hatch" of spiders that had been eggs in our basement as our house was being built. The good news is that they were harmless wolf spiders and not brown recluse spiders, but they're still icky.

All that to say, even though our exterminator is a very nice man, I REALLY REALLY don't like it when he comes to our house. Actually, I wouldn't mind a bit, as long as I was NEVER here when he came. As long as this man never ever put my face together with my house, I would be just fine with him coming over every three months. The problem is that he usually calls the day before to make sure someone can let him in, and then he comes in and chats in a very friendly way while he is opening every deep dark secret door of my house.

It is so terribly invasive, I always find myself explaining why certain closets are the way they are and why my STORAGE ROOM is what it is with some lame "in the process of organizing excuse" only to find myself caught off guard with the next visit and everything pretty much the way it was three months before. I then feel like a failure the entire rest of the day. The last couple of times, I have actually tried to make sure Greg would have to be the one to let him in because we're running errands or something, just to preserve my emotional health.

Anyway, he came yesterday. Greg let him in; we were at violin lessons.