More Happys in NH

Baby steps to starting my blog again...  

Here are lots of pictures from waaaaaaayyyy back when Paul's sister came to visit us for two weeks during the summer.  Two weeks is BY FAR the longest time we have spent with Sandra and her kids, but it was really fun to get to know them all better!

During their time here we ate.  Lots.  Everyday.  

Good thing Sandra cooked us dinner for the most part.  :)  I stole some of her recipes and as a matter of fact we are eating her white fish and gnocchi recipe tonight!!  

The lobster dinner was the most amusing.  :)  Everyone ...EVEN THE KIDS ...got their very own lobster.  None of us really knew what to do with it though.  :)  Sierra tagged out.  She doesn't eat birds or crustaceans.  I predict she will be vegan one day.  Anyways......

We also had water fights and played on the trampoline...

AND then it was the Fourth of July!  YAY America!!!  Oh, I forgot about Canada Day.

 First it was Canada Day!!!   YAY Canada!!!

Which was really the only reason I had to make a American Flag cake.  I can't be outdone by the Canadians and we all know life is a competition in which I must win.  :)

For some American culture we went to Boston and wandered the streets for a while.  We didn't go anywhere in particular, but we had researched where to BEST ice cream place was in Boston.  Sandra and I thought we would treat the kids to the best ice cream ever at the end of the day so off we go.  We finally made it there and it turned out to be a little cafe in an interesting part of town...  Very yuppie-ish.  ...and the ice cream was very special indeed.  All natural ingredients.  All organic.   All disgusting.

$75 dollars later we left and the kids were slightly grouchy about the event.  I couldn't argue with them, Michaela's mint ice cream really did taste like bad toothpaste.  It was like they tried to flavor it with REAL mint leaves, the nerve!  Oh well, it's not like we walked two miles for this special ice cream or anything.  ...Oh wait.  We did.

Sandra and kids have already booked their stay for next summer and a good thing too!  Things fill up quickly here at the Happy Hotel.  We only had eight nights of vacancies this summer...  otherwise we were booked every night.  Please place your reservations as soon as possible to get the best room.  We won't turn anyone away, but you may end up in a tent.  :)

AH.  I left out beach pictures.  

We went to the beach on the Fourth of July weekend.  CRAZY crowded, but it was fun and we got to stop and eat at Petey's which is our new favorite "clam shack" on the coast.  :)

Lost TOOTH!

I had no idea my little Andrea was getting so big!!  I never would have guessed her tiny teeth were even old enough to fall out.  She's barely five!

Sure, she's mastered sarcasm and eye rolling just like her older siblings ...she even has a pretty good "whatever" going on, but even still, she seemed like my Little Poozie.

A week ago I was at Sierra's open house at her school and she sent me a video of Andrea's TWO WIGGLY TEETH!!  As I watched the movie I gasped out loud at the back of the room ...only loud enough for the back few rows of parents to turn and stare, but I couldn't believe it...TWO wiggly teeth!  And today Poozie has a tiny hole where one of her tiny little teeth were.

For the record (since that what this blog is) ...her class went on a field trip to an apple farm to pick apples today.  I'm pretty sure that a few bites of apples fresh off the tree caused this little tooth to loosen up quite a bit today.  :)  However, technically it didn't fall out while eating the apple; it fell out right after she ate a tiny green sucker.  She had finished the sucker and was chewing on the stick and POP.  Out fell the tooth!!

There was minimal drama, but there was a few seconds there where I thought the whole event would go horribly wrong.  When Andrea showed me the tooth she seemed pretty concerned.  I quickly put on my excited face and proclaimed a party was in order!!  She was then a little worried when she saw some blood, but I told her it was from her tooth, not her mouth and that seemed to make it all better.  :)

Then I lost a tooth.  I lost the tooth that Andrea lost.  UGH!

Parenting at it's finest.

- Little five year old loses her very first tooth and entrusts her mommy to hold it so that it stays safe until bedtime for the tooth fairy.
- Mommy places tooth in the kitchen on a piece of paper even though she was thinking how bad of an idea that was as she was doing it.

(Mommy was obviously tired from her long day and clearly not able to be held accountable for being making such a dumb choice of leaving a teeny tiny white tooth on a big white piece of paper on a huge and cluttered kitchen counter.)

Needless to say I panicked twenty minutes before bedtime when the tooth was no where to be found.  We swept and searched everywhere.  I had no choice but to "borrow" a tooth from Sierra's collection of broken teeth she's been saving up.  (Ewwww, but thankgoodness!!)

Yes, I was less than truthful with Poozie.  I gave her Sierra's broken tooth and acted like the world was good.  I'm sorry Andrea, but the tooth fairy was so excited to take your cute little tooth she took it from the counter while we weren't looking.  It happens sometimes.  Impatient Fairies....

Bye Bye Wall 1 & 2

What happens when three Happys gather in one house...?  

This.....

(yes, the wall was one big mirror...)

Kids thought it was great.

After Paul's brother and dad left I didn't talk to my husband for three days.  

I was a little traumatized by the whirlwind of destruction.

These two walls are now gone and it's not that bad now that I am used to it.  I'm still mourning the loss of my pantry, but I've adjusted.  I keep reminding myself that my kitchen in Germany had a total of three cupboards so I'm doing pretty good in the great scheme of kitchen life.

What do you think Mom?  :)

Now we have room for the ten foot long shuffleboard table in the green pig room.  Everyone needs a ten foot long shuffleboard table.... We can play when you and Dad come visit.  :)

The Happy Ballerina?

   

How sweet.

HA!  If anyone knew how much crying and screaming and bribing went on for this "sweet" and "happy" child to simply PUT ON her dance recital costume it wouldn't be so "sweet".  It would be more of a "thank goodness THAT is over"

I had some serious doubts as to whether or not my little ballerina would even make it on the stage at all.  She cried through her original fitting of the costume; she refused to move her feet during the dress rehearsal.  On the morning of the recital she screamed while I lovingly put her hair into a bun, she protested getting into the car, and she pouted all the way through me checking her in with her class backstage.  The entire process was a step below miserable.

Andrea finally musters a smile once she is surrounded by her surprise bribery items backstage.  She has a new colorwonder set, full PEZ dispenser, goldfish snacks, and a pink kitty cat water bottle.  All to ensure I could leave her and go to my seat...

I left her backstage and we all sat and waited in our $20 seats.  (FYI, having to pay a total of $80 to watch my own child dance in a school auditorium is NOT amusing to me.)

AND TADA!!!

HER DANCE

At the time I didn't realize how, uh...  unorganized it was.  The first 30 seconds are really good, it's kinda all downhill from there.  :)  Nevermind though.  I was just thrilled beyond belief that she made it on the stage!  In the end, it was worth it.  HA.  Maybe...  :)  She was the cutest ballerina ever and we were all proud of her for doing it.

PS.  This happened way back in June.  :)

Kryzers in NH!

A few weeks ago Shelly came to visit.  Shelly was the first friend I made in Germany and she rocks.  She is totally selfless and non-judgmental, she has the biggest laugh and even when something, or a situation, clearly sucks, she has a crazy way of making it seem okay.  I never would have survived Germany without her.  

People always ask if I miss Germany.  Nope, I just miss my friends.

 

 

Scotty's best friend in the whole world ...even to this day, is Clay.  Those two are like two little peas in one crazy whacked out pod.  They just get each other.  :)  

I had decided that the reason I found some of my best friends while living overseas because we were all coping with the same, often crappy, situations.  Sharing a common enemy really does bring people closer together and if the common enemy happens to be the entire German Population then ...well, that's how it goes!  :)  

I never thought about it until recently, but I think it was the same for my kids.  The friends they made were in the same situation: new school, new culture, no family, moms going slightly crazy while dad traveled the world working...  I miss my kids friends.

Reason #86 why Shelly is super awesome: She kisses frogs.

Reason # 194:  She jumps really high on trampolines.

Night time wrestling matches were hilarious!  : )  These four kids did not have one argument the entire time.  Little Tiny Angels!  Ben and Andrea would fall asleep immediately; Scotty and Clay would stay up talking and that was totally fine with me.

How cute is little Ben!  Poozie and Ben had a great time!  :)  These two used to have "Tempertantrum Throwing Contests" in the German ISH cafeteria while all the expensive mommys, who were wearing their furs and high heels, gave Shelly and me evil, unapproving stares.

 Michaela.   A little too cool for us.  "Ewww, don't get sand in my area".  Uh.  Okay Michaela.  :)

I should have taken a close up of this bright orange salamander.  :)  It was the coolest animal ever!  I love that Ben decided to take one home ...without telling us.  HA!!  Luckily we figured it out and returned the little orange guy back to his family.

All about me...

I would like to dedicate the following post to my Aunt Gail who took time to write me a nice email since I've been such a slacker blog writer.  :)

I'm sorry the last post I wrote was clear back at Easter.  .....sigh.

Life's been busy.  :)  ...and I HATE the glorification of "being busy" that so many moms go on and on about so I won't go into details about how my days are so busy ...blah blah blah, moving children from one activity to the next, homework, bake sales, scouts, baseball, soccer, chickens, dinner, cats, volleyball, laundry, painting, dance classes ....  Makes me tired just thinking about it.

Maybe everyone would understand my absence if I now mentioned that I went back to college and got a job.

There.  Feel bad about whining that you can't read my blog???  :)  

For the record, Aunt Gail did NOT whine about it; she nicely asked about how I was doing.  :)

Anyways, Yes.  I've already finished two courses at Rivier University ...trying to turn my Associates Degree into a Bachelors in Elementary Education.  Turns out I like kids more than adults.  :)  My current courses require five hours twice a week ...which does get me out of putting the kids to bed twice a week, but in the end I just end up missing the little monsters.

BUT... My teaching endeavor ...along with the fact I've caught Golden Eagles before, did help me get an actual part time teaching job at a local nature center.  :)

So yes. I have an official job.  It's more for fun, but it totally counts as a job and Scotty thinks I'm cool and he tells everyone he knows that HIS mom, "teaches kids about nature and knows what porcupine poop looks like".

My main job is to lead the field trips that all the local schools take.  The school bus shows up full of kids, they bounce off the bus like hyper-active jumping beans, and I try my best to show them "nature".  We catch frogs and turtles and bugs and go on long hikes trying to use up some of their second grade energy.  :)  Then I get home and I take a nap while Poozie pokes at my face.

Moral of the stories is ...yes, I'm busy, but I'll try to write on my blog more.  :)

Egg Hunt

Yah.  We had a great time at our egg hunt....  (really... I could get a lot of use out of a sarcasm font)

It was a beautiful sunny day and Poozie and I walked hand in hand giggling about the Easter Bunny and the excitement of soon finding candy filled eggs.  We arrived a the park and stood behind the rope admiring all the pretty colors and deciding which magical egg she wanted to pick up first.  Her cute little eyes saw a sparkly purple egg off in the distance, "That one Mommy.  I just want to get one egg ...the purple sparkly one."  

The countdown ends and off she goes skipping towards it; blonde hair bouncing in the sunlight, her pink Easter basket swinging alongside her purple tu-tu.  Cue scary music...  A psycho mother and son team come tearing in from the side; I watch in horror as they grab the sparkly egg and run off to terrorize other cute little girls.  Egg hunt was over.  ....sigh.   Turns out the sparkly eggs have a prize inside...  Super.  

Andrea stood there for the duration of the egg hunt.  I tried to help her get other purple eggs, but they weren't sparkly enough.  She got zero eggs.... because she is the most stubborn four year old I know.  (No comments please mom.)   :)

Like a good mother, I have a back up egg hunt scheduled ...so off we skip to another egg hunt.  Poozie functioned much better although I did have to pick her up and "save her" as the eggs became scarce and the kids a little more frantic.

Later that night we did a flashlight egg hunt at our house with a couple other families.  Very cute and it will be our new tradition.  Public eggs hunts are more of an "egg grab" as Scotty says.  Even with the flashlight hunt Sierra was willing to look and it took way longer to find eggs just tossed on the ground.  I figure with a couple acres I could amuse them for a long time in the dark.  :)

Micheala was still too cool to hunt for eggs.  I even tried to bribe her with $5.00 in one.  I should have none $5 can't get you much these days...  Oh well.  She did get upgraded to stuffing eggs though...

...and then there was the Easter Bunny's Egg Hunt.  He hid them in the house and outside too.  Except Sierra saw some outside and thought they were ones we didn't find in the flashlight egg hunt... so she collected them all.  And then re-hid them.

We survived Easter.  It was our SECOND Easter in the States marking our one year anniversary of being in the States for an entire year!!  I don't miss Germany, not one little bit, which seems mean, but I'm an American and I like American things.  :)    ....and Canadian things too I guess.  HA!

I'm Egg-stra Awesome

Look.  An Eggsicle.  HA!  I amuse myself.  :)

I definitely amused myself as I put up 120 eggs on the big tree at the end of our driveway.  :)  I even amused myself as I bought more for next year.  (Less amusing was the stringing, taping, and tying them with fishing line.)

Our tree is known as the Hollis Egg Tree ...well ...maybe only four people called it that so far.  HA!  I have used it to explain to people where we live though... and the kids on the school bus love it.  :)  I've decided next year I'm putting up even more eggs, 440 to be exact!  It's my little tribute to Germany.  It's actually a pretty common Easter sight in Germany ...eggs hanging from trees.  I can't say I've ever seen it here though.  Imagine that; something about Germany I find more "fun" than America!

Every day, while at the bus stop, I did "egg maintenance" and rehung the ones that had fallen, but sadly today was the day I took down all the eggs.  I decided since it was warm and sunny I didn't need the bright eggs to make me feel better.  Pretty good trade off I guess.

The un-egg-stillation wasn't as hard as I thought, but there are still an handful that need to be cut down.  :(  The wind tangled them all up in the branches and it was a bit of a fiasco; I was afraid to rip off the buds on the branches.  Removing them wasn't as bad and I thought though.  Truth be told as I was hanging them up I was afraid that maybe this wasn't the smartest thing I could be doing.  :)  Sure, putting them up was pretty easy with the help of a hockey stick, but I thought maybe I had signed myself up for a egg-ceptional mess when it came time to take them down.  It was all good though.  :)