"New Pow Ruske?"

My sweetheart has returned from Russia!!! Nathan had been in Russia for almost 2 weeks and he got back late last night. He went with an organization called "Heart to Heart" and was training pediatric cardiologists in the city of Tomsk which is in Siberia. Nathan's Russian really came in handy and the group was very grateful that he was there. I'm sure that he'll share some experiences and pictures on the blog soon. I'm just grateful that he's home! The kids were excited this morning to wake up and see Daddy here! We sure missed him! WELCOME HOME! WE LOVE YOU!

The title to this entry is a little joke between Nathan and I. On the movie, "The Hunt for Red October" Sean Connery, the main character, says this quote which is supposed to mean, "So you speak Russian?" but he totally murdered the Russian language! So anyway, just in case you were wondering....

"I'm a cat Mommy! MEOW!"

I have been blessed with very creative children, but my Haley, she takes the cake! She is constantly brightening my day with her creative ventures and "projects". One school morning during a crazy and frustrating week, Haley greets me with "I'm a cat Mommy! MEOW!" and shows me her "claws". For a few days before her cat venture she had discovered that she could put her barrettes on her fingers to create longer "fingernails".

The morning of the cat, she had discovered that she could also put the barrettes on her toes and make longer "toe nails".

She brightened my morning and I just had to document her "cat" pose! MEOW!!!

Happy Easter!

Aren't they beautiful? My sweet children in their sweet Easter duds! I love buying my kids new clothes for Easter! The kids were really excited about Easter this year, I really don't know why, but they woke up early and had a hard time falling asleep, it was Christmas all over again! Nate kept saying, "I'm going to ask the Easter Bunny for this or this..." I had to keep reminding him that you don't ask the Easter Bunny for things like you do Santa, you just get what he gives you in your Easter basket. Anyway..... the kids woke up to find this letter:

The Easter Bunny leaves a letter in the same place every year and hides the kids baskets every year. This year the clues led the kids to Michael's crib. The baskets were hidden way under his crib. Easter baskets are really fun and the candy is really yummy, but maybe next year we'll focus more on the real reason for the season.

We had Easter dinner with our good friends the Henstroms. We had LOTS of great food and banana splits for dessert. Good food and great company, couldn't ask for anything more!

Fooled you!

I decided to try and trick the kids for April Fools Day and planned a tricky dinner. I told the kids we were having grilled cheese with cupcakes for dessert.

Haley came into the kitchen while I was making the grilled cheese and asked "Mommy, why is there frosting on our grilled cheese and is this play dough on top of our cupcakes?" She almost blew my surprise! So I had to quickly call the boys in and have a very fast prayer before they discovered my April Fool's joke. The kids grilled cheese was actually toasted pound cake slices with almost life-like cheese colored frosting. The kids were really surprised and were hesitant to eat their sandwiches. Haley reminded me that she doesn't like pound cake, so she just scraped her cheese frosting off and ate the frosting plain. That's my girl!

While the kids were enjoying their grilled cheese, I suggested that maybe they'd like to have their "dessert" now. They look like real cupcakes, right?

Michael started reaching for his cupcake right away! He was so excited that he didn't have to eat anything before he got his dessert (usually it's a fight to get him to eat a couple of bites so that he can have dessert). When I gave Nate his cupcake he said, "Wait a minute Mom! Hey! These cupcakes smell like meatballs!" Haley immediately tried her frosting and said "SMASHED POTATOES!" The "cupcakes" were actually meatloaf with colored mashed potato "frosting"! It was a lot of fun planning and pulling off this April Fool's dinner!

Andy was sad that his top heavy cupcake wouldn't stand upright on his plate!

Como Zoo

This week, it's Spring Break so the kids are out of school. On Monday, we went to the Como Zoo in St. Paul. It's a great little zoo and it's free (they only ask for donations). Unfortunatley it was a little too cold for the animals to be outside, so we traveled from one inside building to the other looking at the animals. Michael was quite freaked out by the animals (or "goggies" as he calls them), which came as a complete surprise to me. Our first stop was the monkey house and he wouldn't go near the glass windows of the cages. I thought it was quite funny! My favorite was when we went in to see the giraffes and he would shake his head "no" every time I asked if he wanted to go see the giraffes. There were no glass windows separating us from the giraffes, so it really freaked him out. He even broke down into tears. I got it on video, but I don't know how to add video yet, so that will have to be added later.

This was taken in the giraffe house. He insisted on wearing his blankie like a scarf. He is standing so impatiently in the doorway, waiting for us to be done looking at the giraffes. The giraffe is Haley's favorite animal, so we were in there longer than anywhere else.

Michael did like seeing the "goggies" just at a distance. Every animal is a "goggie" except for a duck, which is a "Qak". Nate loved seeing the poison dart frogs. Frogs are his favorite animal. Andy just loved always being first in a building because he would be the first to open the door. Who cares about the animals, right? As long as there are doors to open, Andy is happy!

Pinewood Derby

Nate's first Cub Scout Pinewood Derby was the same day as "Wacky Hair Day" - hence his hairstyle in this picture. He took a shower because he didn't want to go to the Derby with wacky hair and I didn't have him comb it before this picture was taken. Nate and Nathan worked on the car somewhat together and Nate decided on the color and racing stripes. His car didn't do as well as he had hoped, but for a first Derby, I think he did pretty great! Each Cub got a trophy at the end of the race (a BBC Rootbeer bottle with a real toy car on top)!! Nate is pictured below with his good friend Kimball Henstrom who also particpated in the race.