Shaha update

Hmmm… I don't really know where to start.

Well, maybe I'll just copy and paste the post from our family blog since I don't know who all checks it.

But before I do that, besides Caroline's birthday bash, things have been good here.  Ben and I had the chance to go to the temple together yesterday… sadly it is only the second time we've been able to go together since being in Germany!  Hopefully we can go a few more times this year.  It's hard with it being over two hours away…  finding a babysitter for that long.  We swapped with another family in our ward that lives on base, but I tell ya what, it was not a very fun Saturday when we had to spend it watching their four kids and ours.  Totally insane, and we probably won't do that again.  But, it was nice to go with Ben and since the presentation was in German, we had headphones with multiple languages to chose from.  I chose to listen to it in French, which helped keep me awake and alert.  Ben and I were also the witness couple, and considering I had run 10 miles that morning, my knees were not exactly thankful.  But overall it was a really good experience.

So, yeah, I signed up for a half marathon in May… should be fun.  We are so looking forward to Mom's visit in April.  We are going to spend a week touring the northern part of Italy!  Italian Alps, Tuscany, and the Mediterranean coast.

Ben is busy with work, as always.  The kids are doing well.

 The most exciting thing around these here parts is Caroline has made some recent breakthroughs with her eating. In the past week she has tried jam, yogurt, broccoli, and meat and has responded positively to all of them (although the broccoli has been hit and miss).  These breakthroughs have come about since we've instilled new rules/guidelines at meal time, one of which is, "Try a little bit of everything.  You don't have to like it, but you do have to try it." Reading the book, "French Kids Eat Everything" has really given me some great tools and the confidence to steer these kids in the right direction.  Also, Caroline going to Occupational Therapy has been helpful.  The therapist has started introducing food to her  … the therapist told me to take her to the grocery store and let her pick a yogurt out, bring it to OT, and they would eat one together.  This was disastrous as she threw a crying fit in the store saying she didn't want ANY yogurt and she didn't want to go to OT.  Well, after much persuasion and reassuring, she went to OT and since that day has enthusiastically had yogurt every day!  OT comes into play because her aversion to new foods is based so much on her fear of textures. And the jam thing is huge.  All I did was make a smiley face out of jam on her pb toast.  I told her she had to eat the whole piece.  Amused by the smiley face, she ate all around it, and then finally nibbled her way through the jam part.  She enthusiastically pronounced that she likes it!  (I know you guys are thinking this sounds too simple, why haven't you done this by now… but really, it's been very difficult.)   Now she gobbles up her pb&j sandwiches instead of nibbling on dry pb ones.  She actually might put on some weight which would be nice.  We still have a long road ahead, BUT, she is progressing, so that's happy for us.  

Here are some recent gems from Caroline:

Mom, is today fast Sunday or slow Sunday?
(a bit confused) Um, it's slow Sunday…
Oh man!  I HATE slow Sunday!!
(With a little probing we realized she thinks fast Sunday is Stake conference when she doesn't have to go to primary, and slow Sunday is when she has to attend all three hours.  Yes, we have a heathen on our hands).

Emily:  Mom, I have a joke for you.  What do people call a butterfly?
Me: What?
Em:  Butter.  Fly!!! (very amused with herself)
Me:  Did you make that up?
Em: Yes.
C:  That doesn't sound like a joke.

Me: Em, what kind of sandwich do you want?  PB and jam?
Emily:  (being difficult) No!
Me:  Pb and honey?
Em: No!
C:  Emily, how about pb and pb?!

Day after St. Patrick's Day
C:  Dad, next time you have to wear green, I think you will wear brown, and I will punch you.
Em:  PINCH you.

And sorry if this long report about the daily nuances of child rearing has bored you to death.  But, this is my life.  Now for Caroline's birthday party:

 I am quite sure that never in the history of the world has another little girl looked forward with as much anticipation to her birthday as Caroline has…

she's pretty much been counting down the days since December 26.

And I can't tell you how RELIEVED I am it's over! 

We did a little family celebration last Sunday here at the house.  

She insisted on "wall-to-wall decorations" (she read that term in a Berenstain Bear's book and has not forgotten it).  So, Em and I spent an hour decorating while C very impatiently waited in her bedroom.

"Mom!  I'm ready for my partyyyy!"

"Mom!!  I'm ready to come ouuuuut!!!"

Unfortunately, this is the best picture I have of our decorating job… 

Thinking of a wish:

Blowing out the candle on her cookies… because why would you have a cake?

Her favorite gift is her "Brave" bow and arrow set.  She's hilarious with it.  I'll be sitting at the kitchen table and all of a sudden an arrow will come sailing into the room from nowhere.

The other night Ben hit into the chair as he was clearing the table so Caroline decided it was time the chair learned its lesson.  Here she is shooting it at point blank range.

A few days later we hosted a Frozen themed friend birthday party.  Oh my.  I don't know if we'll ever do a party on this scale again.  She invited SIXTEEN kids, and ALL of them came, plus their siblings since it was a school day which meant no dads were around.  I didn't mean for it to be this supersonic.  The problem is that this base has a lot of four year olds, and Miss Personality over here is friends with all of them… the guest list just couldn't be trimmed back…   So, we just went for the gold… go big or go home, right?

We held it at the Community Center, which has a great set up. 

The "ice blocks" are missing.  They were supposed to be blue jello cubes.  Except they were green because I couldn't find blue.  And they were not cubes, they were blobs.  So, I just gave up. 

My artistic friend made the labels, aren't they cute?

Diego was a tad off… 

They built snowmen out of marshmallows, pretzels, mini chocolate chips, and toothpicks.  The kid on the right here is pretty proud of his mutant creation

The moms jumped in and helped make everything run smoothly

James just kind of roamed the party, trying to fly under the radar

We played this elimination game similar to musical chairs, where they all danced around to Frozen music and then jumped on a plate… in theory it would work well with maybe 8-10 kids.  We had 24 playing, so it was kinda crazy.  I was just happy we had beautiful weather.  It's not often we have nice weather on March 16!

The piñata of course was the biggest hit (no pun intended, hehe). 

All 25 kids just lined up single file to take a whack at it. 

Then the stampede for the candy

Cake and ice cream:

And that's how it's done!

As we were sweeping up the last of the cake crumbs Emily asked if she could go home and start making her bday invitations.  

Shoot me now.