Yah to Meat.

Sierra's volleyball team went to Copenhagen this past weekend and it was there she realized she is really a carnivore. :) She had to have a red "fransk" hotdog with the long bun ...and she ate two.

PS. Her Volleyball team won. They are currently undefeated. The big tournament is in Luxembourg in November and we hope to tag along with her because their team is quite good.

So....

After a week of stressing over what to feed my little Bear on a regular basis, she is back to eating meat. We've decided that our family will help her out and we all go a day without eating meat at least twice a week so we will save the same amount of animals that she would save by not eating meat all week ...in theory. That's what families are for huh?

She agreed to this plan and feels good about it and we aren't talking about it anymore. I'm happy she tried it out. I'm proud of her for trying something new.

Nein to Meat

Sierra is a vegetarian now... just so you know.

I will not make any smart comments because she seems pretty serious about it, meanwhile I'm asking her to look for a happy medium... maybe decide some animals are okay to eat. We've agreed on fish so far. Chickens are definitely out though.

I blame this on the vegetarians that came over for dinner last Friday night... no more "unique eaters" allowed in our house ...seriously. :)

I have made sure Sierra is not doing this because it is "cool". Maybe being a vegetarian is just becoming more common, but I've never met so many vegetarians or lactose intolerant people in all my life. The last two international schools have been FULL of them.

I'd like to take a little poll of an American school and the school here. Number of: Vegans, Vegetarians, Lactose Intolerant, Peanut allergies in each... Perhaps the kids' old teachers will help me. :) Sounds like a good "dateline" topic. :)

Anyways, Sierra decided this on Saturday afternoon. Since then she has passed up McDonalds, bacon, salami sandwiches, pepperoni pizza, and sausages for lunch... and she didn't even whine at all, let alone give in. Of course, now I will feel bad feeding the family steaks this weekend... Wait! Oh good, Sierra is in Copenhagen this weekend with the Volleyball team! Bring on the MEAT! :)

However it's pretty impressive if you ask me. All of the before mentioned meat products are some of her favorites and there is no way I could have had the willpower to NOT eat them all weekend.

Being the supportive parent that I am now mixing egg salad sandwiches for her lunch and I'm going to try and have some meat-less meals just for her... but the rest of family isn't going to stop eating steak or meatloaf. Sorry Bear. She is actually being very mature about the entire thing... here they go becoming their own people. Guess that was my job huh?

We'll see how it all plays out. Go life go!

SIERRA IS NINE!!!

WHOA. If Sierra is nine that makes me old. : /

My little Bear is getting so big! Nine sounds so much older than eight!!

Sierra's party was harmless and she had a great time. We had 13 girls over for four hours. We watched a High School Musical movie and during the show I SERVED them... popcorn, salad, and pizza. They all sat watching and eating quite contently and only got loud when the "mushy" parts came.

Little did my Sierra know the chaos involved in the kitchen though... It involved long skewers and a nearly empty caesar dressing bottle, frying pizza slices, and exploding butter in the microwave. ...and all, thankfully, while Andrea happily crawled around the kitchen floor carrying her new favorite toy: a whisk.

After the movie we had cake and ice cream of course! I created a High School Musical cake MASTERPIECE. :) Sierra liked it so it was a success. My new birthday cake plan is to hand out HUGE pieces of cake because you really don't want to deal with the leftover cake anyways. Why not share the sugar with others' children too... I had no cake leftover. Sorry to those of who whose children I fed the extra sugar to.

I'm just happy to not be making another birthday cake tonight. For my birthday on Thursday I want chocolate chip cookies. :) Please no more cake!!

After cake Sierra opened her presents. I sat happily watching. I laughed as I remember years past when I would take pictures of her opening every present, make videos, write down what people gave her for writing thank you notes later... This time I just sat and talked with some moms. I took four pictures as she started then called it good as she ripped the wrapping paper from various HSM items.

Her birthday day is done. She had a good day and I'm happy my Birthday Weekend is over. :) It was exhausting! I'm all done with parties until October when my little Michaela will turn 11. WHOA! Now that is old!!

P.S. - Scotty still agrees he is four. Especially when it comes to how many pieces of Bacon he gets and how many books at night we will read. (He used to get three of each!) (The bacon is really small.) :)

Michaela and Sierra

Michaela and Sierra are great.

I am sick. I feel terrible and Paul is gone so this leaves me at home with four kids. I've had offers from help from all my wonderful friends here, but in all honesty I've been able to function; I just haven't been happy about it. ...but if I get stuck I know who I can call. :)

But last night was pretty bad so Michaela and Sierra took over Mommy Duty. They made macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, and bread for dinner. They fed Scotty and took care of him while I got to take a nap with Andrea. Michaela helped Sierra with her homework. Sierra helped Scotty go potty. When I woke up from my nap Michaela took Andrea and Sierra made lunches for the next day. When it was time to put Andrea to bed I went to bed with her around 8:30pm. Sierra and Michaela put themselves and Scotty to sleep.

I woke up at 10:00pm and found everyone asleep, lunches in the fridge, and only a small mess in the kitchen. :) So I went back to bed. Thanks for helping guys... ROOT BEET FLOATS AND GUFS FOR YOU!!! :)

But no trip to Germany today. :( Paul will come back here.

Unrelated questions:
- Corn meal. Can I get it here? What's it called? I want to make corndogs and I almost used cornstarch.
- Laundry detergent. My plan was to import more "Tide with bleach"... but it's heavy, so any ideas for a good laundry detergent from Denmark or Germany? I'm now willing to try.

Haircuts, Field Trips, and...

Lots to catch up on = Longest post ever

Haircuts by Mommy
Add "barber" to my long list of job titles. I will not pay $25 to get each of my kids hair cut so I cut all their hair myself ...and sometimes they just look funny for a while. :) Michaela says her hair is too short, I just trimmed the sides and back of Scotty to see how it looked, and Sierra has long bangs that you can't really see because she wears a headband 24 hours a day. Now I can afford to go get my haircut. :)




I told Michaela if she stuck her tongue out I'd put it on here...


Bornehaven Field Trip


Scotty had some of his friends from bornehaven come over. :) At his little preschool the kids go on field trips quite often so Scotty goes somewhere at least every other week, usually with one teacher and two other kids. Sometimes they take a bus somewhere into town, but sometimes they just go to one of the kids houses to play. :) I think this is so cute!

Last week it was Scotty's turn to have his friends come over. I dropped him off at bornehaven and then later that day he rode the bus home with his teacher and they brought two of his friends. Scotty showed everyone his room and all his toys and his video games. (His teacher said we had more toys than the school. ) He thought it was so funny to bring his friends and teacher over. :) We all ate lunch together and then his friends went home on the bus and Scotty stayed with me. I think this is a totally cute idea for preschools.

Scotty and Andrea

Provided that Scotty is in a good mood he now likes Andrea. He holds her hand in the bath when she cries, he picks up toys that she drops, and he even shared his covers with her. He will put the pacifier in her mouth if she cries and will stick his tounge out and "spit" to make her laugh. He even carried her once (with help from mommy)!

However, he has his boundaries. She is NOT allowed to touch his cup of juice...even when it is empty. He does also get mad when she takes one of his toys... but he gives it to her first. He's silly. Scotty says "She looked at my car and I gave it to her." ...as he crying because she has the toy that he gave her. We are learning to trade toys with her.

Yummy Food

Andrea has been eating lots of food lately. Sweet Potatoes, Green Beans, Avacados, Peaches, Plums. She likes eating most everything. At dinner we give her a teething cookie and she enjoys that while I get to eat... then I have to clean her up: her hands, face, hair, arms, belly... I need a bigger bib. :)

Last night I even gave her her first bottle! She chewed on it for the most part, but some of the milk must have fallen in her mouth because it was soon gone. I've decided that since I've been breastfeeding for seven months I'm a superstar, espically by American standards. :) I still will, but she will probably end up getting a bottle at night sometime to help her tummy get more full.

Andrea has also kicked Sierra out of her room. This week I am going to put Andrea in Sierra's roon and Sierra downstairs in Michaela's room on the fold out bed. I'm hoping to get some sleep in the near future. I am beginning to get a little grouchy. I haven't slept all night in about a year now... probably closer to four years though. I can't believe I've been raising kids for 10 years!!

Trip Home

We are still trying to figure out and book the flights to have specific dates. Paul has been gone for the last two weeks (and leaves again next week to Spain)... so we haven't sat down with more than 20 quiet minutes to think. Hopefully we'll have dates tonight!! June, July or August....

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Stitches

My poor, poor bear....

She has five Danish stitches.

Below her poor little eyebrow.

It all started as I was walking out the door to go get the girls and their friends from gymnastics. I open the front door and find Michaela and her friend out of breath and saying, "Sierra's eye is bleeding all over!!". I was completely confused... How on earth did these kids get here and where is Sierra? Michaela and her friend had ran from gymnastics all the way back to our house.... in the dark rain... because I wasn't answering my phone that was on the kitchen counter and that nobody had called. Michaela thought running home was the best way to get to me quickly. Michaela was very concerned about her sister. It was very sweet of her. I found myself consoling two daughters.

See Michaela, Sierra is one of the most important things in your life... and remember when you thought Scotty got off the bus early and he was lost? ...remember that feeling? See Scotty is one of the most important things in your life too. Andrea will scare you one day too... and you'll realize how important she is to you too...

Turns out Sierra had gotten hurt at gymnastics during a game they were playing as the class was ending. She fell and hit a metal part of the trampoline. : ( Poor Bear.

So I take Michaela and her friend back to gymnastics to get Sierra. As I'm pulling into the parking lot a lady gets out of her car. This other lady has Sierra and our other friend in her car. She had called the emergency room and was taking them there... because we all know you can't go to the emergency room without calling first. She was a very nice mom who offered to drive there so we could follow her since I wasn't exactly sure which part of the hospital was the Emergency Room or "Skadestue". I get Sierra and her friend and off we all go, with Andrea, to the hospital.

From there we called Paul. He and Scotty got a ride over to the hospital with our friends' dad so he could pick up our friends to take them home... since I had made them tag along to the hospital with us. So now our whole family was at the Emergency Room.... and Paul brought dinosaur chicken nuggets and french fries - our great dinner I had made since Paul was supposed to go bowling with all the dads from school.

Once there we went inside the waiting room things calmed down. They calmed down for three hours while we waited. I'm not exactly sure of the process at this Skadestue, but it sucked (and I don't use that word often). People were showing up after us and being seen hours before us... and they were adults with hurt knees and thumbs. Sierra was the only one with blood.

I kept asking nurses when we would be seen because I had three other kids and I needed to figure out a plan for them. I was very nice about it. On my third attempt to find out how many more hours we would be there, the loser nurse finally asked what the name of the patient was!! HELLO?? She had been answering my questions the other times without even knowing who I was asking about. "Duh... Uhhhh... about an hour.", must be a pretty standard answer here in the Skadestue. I hope she falls and hits a trampoline and then gets to deal with this thing referred to as the Health Care system.

Paul finally took Scott and Michaela home. I stayed with Sierra and Andrea. Three hours later I finally went up to the front and said... "My daughter has been bleeding from her head for three hours. She is now dizzy and lightheaded (lie). She isn't feeling well (lie) and I need her seen now." They said in a moment. I think she should go back to wherever she learned English and redefine the word moment.

A half hour moment later we finally had our name called. Now, I have done this exact process in America twice... when Sierra had stitches on her eyebrows before. :( ...both times we only waited an hour at the most... because ummm... My child had a bleeding head wound! ...and she got a stuffed animal out of the deal! To say something nice about this DK time though... all I needed to do was give them Sierra's CPR number (SSN #). They didn't ask for another piece of information or a copay. Although I did ask at one point if I could take her somewhere and PAY for someone to help us.

I was SOOO ANGRY AT DENMARK during the last hour of our wait. UGH. I wanted to yell at every one of those nurses who were sitting around texting each other and flirting with the dumb injured handball players coming in. Handball isn't even a real sport. Soccer or Football or Basketball: Pick one. You can't mix them all together and make up a sport.. I hurt my knee. whaaa whaaa whaaa. Go home and put ice on it. Take some good ole' Panodil.

Back to my Poor Bear story because I could go on...

A nice nurse came in and washed up Sierra's eye and face. She was very kind, this part didn't hurt but I about fainted when I saw the gaping hole above Sierra's eye. The doctor came in and told us that it would need stitches. :( Not happy Sierra.

The doctor gave her a shot near her eye. This part was traumatic for all involved. Good thing I had passed off a sleeping Andrea in a stroller to another nurse to push through the halls... After that we calmed down and waited a bit for the medicine to kick in... then it was easy from there. Phew!!! Sierra did great. . She didn't feel the stitches at all ...and another fifteen minutes later we were done. In four days we'll go to a doctor and get them taken out.

I promised her everything under the sun while she was going through all this. I will now be making reservations at the restaurant Bones and going to the store to buy a High School Musical pen. :) She is fine now and has a bit of a swollen left eye. ...and I will never send my kids anywhere without a cell phone again. ...and I will write many phone numbers in their coats.

I'd put a picture up, but Sierra made me promise not too. I did take some to put with her collection of "eyebrow stitches" pictures. : ) When she was one she fell and hit a frame of a bed. When she was two she fell and hit the corner of a wall. :( Both times... right above the eyes.