Snow Much Fun

Over the weekend, we have had some perfect winter weather. The girls got to go sledding with some of their friends, Claire, Katie and Ellie. It was so sunny, bright and beautiful. The girls had a lot of fun.
 


 The day before we went sledding happened to be Claire's 8th birthday. Here's Emma and the Birthday Girl. Happy Birthday, Claire!


 Running back up the hill to try again, it took a lot to wear these girls out!


 


 Emma and Katie.


 Rebekah is not much for thrill rides of any kind. Having Dad pulling her around the park in her little purple sled was much closer to her idea of fun than actually going on the hill. Sometimes I love that about her.


 




















Especially with her sisters somersaulting and catapulting themselves down the hill, it's comforting to know that at least one of the girls will be right by my side.


 


 


We have a thin foam sled that Alyssa kept insisting that she could stand on and board down the hill. Most of her attempts went just like the slideshow below:



Lately Rebekah has been asking a lot of questions about where she was born and we were sledding close to her hospital, so we stopped by.
 I was surprised that they let us walk through the labor and delivery hallway and peek in the window of the nursery. Rebekah was so curious about everything and it brought back wonderful memories to be in the place where my baby was born.


 We finished up the day at an educational fair where the girls drew pictures on a paper tablecloth. It looks like they had something other than winter on their minds.

Tea Party Sweeties

Last weekend Alyssa went to a sleepover at church. The theme was Time for Tea, and the timing could not have been any more perfect. With everyone feeling under the weather, she had been such a sweet sister and a good helper all week. She needed a fun night with her friends!
 They decorated so cutely for the tea party theme, and as you'll see below, Alyssa came home with some of the decorations.


 




















I could tell Rebekah was feeling so much better yesterday when she wanted to set up a tea party and have her Barbies join us. It was so nice to see her playing again, and since Emma has been back in school all week and I'm pretty sure Rebekah will be joining her tomorrow, I'll be missing my girls. They are such good company, even when they are sick.


 We just returned home from having her stitches taken out, but this photo was taken yesterday when they were still in. You can kind of see them in the top left corner of her mouth. It has healed nicely and looks really good.

Rebekah said something funny to me the other day. I had been holding her on the couch, hoping she would rest a little, but she said she was hungry so I made some soup. As we sat down to eat, she sleepily told me, "I can't wait until I'm a grown up and I can stay home." I was pretty sure I knew where she was going with her comment, but I asked her what she meant anyway. She told me, "You know, when I'm big like you, I can stay home from school. I will relax and eat soup all the time." A sweet perspective of what I do all day :-)

one difficult week

We have had a long, kind of rough week around here.

Two weekends in a row the girls have had extra days off school, and we planned that they would spend the first weekend with my parents, and then for the second we hoped to visit a museum that we've been looking forward to seeing for a while. Everything started a little over a week ago when Emma got really sick to her stomach at my parents' house. So their first weekend of fun didn't go exactly as planned, and poor Emma was miserable.

After being sick for about a day and half, I brought her to the doctor last Tuesday, knowing there was little they could do for a stomach flu. The doctor was not very concerned about her stomach symptoms, he said it would likely run its course within a couple of days and just asked that we do our best to keep her hydrated. He was more worried that she didn't seem to be over her illness from December that he had treated with antibiotics and steroids. She had a sinus infection and an inner ear canal infection that he felt was all related to what she had been fighting off a month ago.

She ended up missing the entire week of school. I don't think she sat up for more than fifteen or twenty minutes at a time all week, and she barely left the house. Each morning, I kept expecting that this would be the day that she would start to improve and get back to her regular boundless energy self, and it took until Saturday before she started feeling much better. I think starting out with an upset stomach and adding some pretty powerful antibiotics to that really wiped her out. It was a hard week for her.

Rebekah has also had a rough go at it this week. When we went to pick Alyssa up from gymnastics on Thursday night, Rebekah split her lip open. She was playing with her friends as she always does when we're at the gym. The kids were running up to jump on the trampoline and she slipped on one plastic stair and bumped her face on the next plastic stair. It didn't bleed too much, and at first didn't look too bad. Alyssa and Emma have split their lips open at different times, and in both cases we were told it would be best not to put stitches in their lips if it could be avoided, but after closer examination of Rebekah's cut we decided she should go to the ER. The cut is tiny, but in the corner of her upper lip, where I was told the skin is very delicate and the healing of this spot could be troublesome if it is not stitched up. So I'm thankful we took her in.

The doctor came in to look at Rebekah's lip, and I immediately felt comfortable with how he kindly spoke to her and how carefully he examined her. I did take notice of how young he was, like maybe barely out of medical school young. His age didn't matter though, I felt very confident with his assessment of her injury and his ability to help her. The next guy who came in had huge muscles and he explained that he would be holding Rebekah's head still so that Doogie Howser could put the stitches in while I would try to hold her papoosed body still. They discussed how to place her on the table and Muscles said to Doogie, "No, Dude. We gotta do it like this." And he shifted her head to the other side of the table where the exam light would not be blinding her. Very considerate. I had to stop and think to myself though, okay, these are the two guys who will be repairing my daughter's tiny mouth and the word dude is being thrown around the room freely ~ awesome.

I joke about it, really because it was the only laughable part of the whole situation or even our entire week for that matter. They did a wonderful job, were very efficient and careful with her, and I appreciate everything they did so much! I wanted to post a picture of both Emma and Rebekah here so you could see how much improved Emma is feeling, and see how Rebekah's lip is really not that bad. Unfortunately, as the healing process sometimes goes, I think it is looking a little worse now than it did earlier. I know it will get better soon! A complication of her healing has been that Friday, almost a full week after Emma came down with a stomach flu, Rebekah caught it. I can't imagine that all the vomiting she has done over the weekend has been any good for her stitched lip, but she's a trooper and is holding up okay. I promise I'll post a happy picture in a couple of days once she's better.

To {almost} quote one of our favorite book characters, Mr. Slinger:
"Today {last week} was a difficult day {week}.
Tomorrow {this week} will be better."

Absolutely Normal Chaos

Ka'iulani has been working on a book project for school. She made a powerpoint presentation running down all the main facts of the book she read, Absolutely Normal Chaos. She was interested in the story, but at the end of each chapter she kept rolling her eyes saying, "this is completely not normal!" After reading brief sections of the book, I'm glad she had that opinion of it.

From very early on in the project, she had the idea that she really wanted to create a puppet show for part of her visual aid, so in addition to the powerpoint that she finished earlier in the week, we spent this afternoon putting together the best talk show/puppet show she could write a script for:

Although I'm not sure how much heavy content their little show has, it was a lot of fun to watch Alyssa create her own talk show. And her made up hostess, Ruth San-Francisco made me laugh!!

Whether it was forgotten lines or "over-acting" there were a few clips that didn't quite make the cut. Here are the outtakes:

I wish I could bottle up that laughter and keep it forever!

Christmas at the Domes

After a full week back in school, Christmas vacation is seeming like a little bit of a distant memory. I'm so glad a new weekend is here!

One Monday over break, we took the girls to the Domes. We try to go the Domes every time the theme of the Show Dome is changed. Typically the Show Dome changes four times a year, and we have definitely missed some, but we try not to miss the Domes decorated for Christmas.
 These photos were taken in the Tropical Dome and the Arid Dome. It's always surprising when we visit in December and just a few steps into the hallway we can feel the stickiness of the tropical air and the smell of the flowers, then across the hall is the dry, desert dome. All the while, it's freezing and snowy outside.


 The Show Dome decorated for Christmas was so pretty.


 The girls picked out their favorite ornaments on the silver and white decorated tree.


 I loved the glittery poinsettias.


 And these shiny snowflakes hanging side by side.


 


 The pretty castle entrance.


 By the monochrome tree.


 By the more colorful childlike tree covered in candy canes, Christmas cookies, and cupcakes.















Since we went on a Monday, which is free for county residents, it was very crowded but definitely a fun Christmas vacation "field trip"!

Mr. Bean and Baked Alaska

The first picture of all three girls on my memory card for 2011:
 The first morning of the new year found the girls all cuddled up watching Mr. Bean's Holiday. When Dave picked out the movie thinking the girls might be amused, I had my doubts. But they absolutely love it, and have watched it no fewer than three times. They've also asked us to check the library registry to request other Mr. Bean titles. Mr. Bean is a constant topic of dinner table conversation and I don't entirely understand the fascination or what it says about the girls' sense of humor. I think he's strange, but seeing them laugh at him makes him funny.

The first day of the new year also brought my first culinary misadventure of 2011. I decided earlier in the week that a fun new year's day treat for us would be to make Baked Alaska (an ice cream cake dessert). Nevermind that I had only made this before once in my life and it was over 14 years ago in Senior Foods Home Economics. Already sensing the recipe for disaster?

Dave had a preoccupation with my plans to make this dessert. He asked me questions about it several times in the couple of days that spanned between the day I looked up the recipe and the actual day of preparation. Now, you have to understand that he NEVER asks me questions about ANYTHING food related. He just eats what I put on the table. He said he didn't like the name of the dessert and kept thinking I was going to prepare some kind of seafood and try to pass it off for dessert. I told him he was going to like it so much that he would ask for it to be his birthday (which was only three days away) dessert. I should have stopped short of bragging.


 Everything started out just fine. We made the cake layer and let it freeze. Then we spread on the ice cream layer, all was well. I had some difficulty with the meringue, which is where all the problems of this relatively easy dessert took root. I didn't have enough meringue prepared to cover all 3 cakes at once, so I had to make a second batch. In retrospect, the fact that I decided to make 3 Baked Alaskas to accommodate everyone's choice of ice cream flavor was a huge lapse in judgment. I'm not sure under what circumstances I thought our family could eat three ice cream cakes in one sitting.

During the time it took to make the second batch of meringue, something must have happened to the meringue on the first two cakes, because during the baking process it didn't hold and what we ended up with was a mess of somewhat melted ice cream, slippery meringue and soggy cake. At least one cake turned out okay, and it was Dave's:


 The strawberry and vanilla ice cream one that looks reasonably close to the recipe. We did try to eat the other two, and they tasted good, they just didn't look very pretty! Emma loved the mint chip one.

Happy Birthday, Honey. We love you! And if you are in the mood for three partially eaten Baked Alaskas that are now as hard as bricks, I know just the place!

Happy New Year!

On New Years Eve, we went to the Field Museum in Chicago.
 The girls had never been, and the last time Dave and I were there was for PWC's Christmas Party in either 1999 or 2000.


 This is the 10th anniversary of SUE being in the Field Museum. Sue is the most complete T-Rex skeleton ever found and the best preserved on display at any museum worldwide. I remember what a big deal it was when the Field Museum brought her here.


 The girls loved exploring all the exhibits, and as I watched them play I was flooded with memories of school field trips to this museum when I was young.


 




















The Ancient Egypt exhibit is remarkably similar to how I remember it as a kid {another big opening that I recall very clearly}. The girls enjoyed it a lot along with a newer section downstairs that had a music lab, lots of microscopes and petri dishes for scientific discoveries, and a village of a few clay homes that had it's own corn field where you can actually pick the corn! Alyssa loved the Hall of Gems too.


With time running out in 2010 we headed to Chinatown...
 




















My parents met us there and we had dim sum. The girls picked out some wonderful $1.99 treasures in the trinket shops that Chinatown is overflowing with.


 I was trying to get a good year end photo of my parents and the girls. The busy road in front of us proved to be too much of a distraction. Here the girls are waiting for my parents to join them for a picture...


 And here's Rebekah trying to exit the photo in the direction of the road. Sorry, Dad ~ I caught you looking down at the wild baby.


 We moved towards the corner where we took one last picture for 2010.


Happy New Year!