The Toilet Wars

Some of you may not know this but Aaron and I have been fighting a long and exhausting battle with the porcelain swallower. For the most part is hasn't been swallowing. It tends to vomit its contents all over the place. This has led to a plunger wielding firefighter and Grandma with a pipe snake up at 5:30 am the day after Christmas trying to "solve the problem". It didn't help that it was the kids bathroom I think every time they flushed the toilet they feared for their lives.
We thought we had the problem under control but this morning the poor turd burglar lost its battle with whatever was wrong and promptly spilled its guts(2 inches of water) on the bathroom floor. It was clear the kind of action that needed to take place. That throne was coming off the floor and getting a royal flushing! So Aaron sucked up the water with a shop vac, brought out the necessary equipment and gave the toilet a big hug!
He determined that the problem lay somewhere in the S curve so started to run a lot of water through the toilet which was in the bathtub at this point. The water began to push out toilet paper and a mysterious object
Another object came out as well......must have been stuck behind the glow stick! Let me just say seeing that was about the grossest thing I have seen in a really long time! Oooh it give me the shivers. I will spare you the details. Not that I haven't been detailed enought already right? At least I didn't take a picture of that.

Were Going to Disney!

We are so excited to take the kids to Disney World. We were waiting for Peach to be old enought to not NEED a nap everyday and no diapers or strollers or sippy cups and this is the year to go! I think we are going to do the Cruise and maybe spend a few extra day in the park. There is so much to do that we know we wont be able to everything this time around. The millitary rate this year is so good Aaron will go for free and me and the kids would be 150 each and that is for the waterparks and the park hopper and that is for 5 days. Planning stuff like this for your kids is so fun. I am so grateful that we can do this for them. Not to mention I am a roller coaster junkie so I am so stoked. Oh and Grandma and Uncle Steven are comming as well as Aaron's sister Beth her hubby Keith their little boy Brady and possibly Aaron's mom.

Curly Hair Girl

Last night I decided to roll Peachies hair in foam rollers. I was wondering how long the curl would last as her hair is board straight like mine. I moused and hair sprayed each section before rolling it. Then she had to wear a pair of clean panties on her head to hold the curlers in while she slept. I didn't have anything else. She had a little trouble falling asleep but when she woke up in the morning she looked so cute with her curls.

I could not get her to keep her eyes open for any of these pictures.

Silly Girl!

I think she thought if she kept her mouth open she would be able to keep her eyes open too!
Peachies big gift this year was a doll house with furniture. We have really had fun time playing with it.

Rambo Caleb

Back in the Blog Box

Well, trying to anyway. Right now I have a killer toothache and the meds are starting to kick in. Christmas was awesome the kids loved all their gifts. They played together the whole two weeks pretty well. One of the rules we set up for Christmas break was that they would not be allowed to play their Nintendo DS games. They are a hand held type game and they literally suck the life out of them! They get very absorbed. So in an effort to encourage constructive play we simply nixed them. They did awesome and didn't even ask once to play. They played with all of their new toys, colored, baked and we watched old family movies too! We had a family Wii night but we all played together.
WE had the Koehlers for Christmas Dinner and had a great time visiting and enjoying the Perfect Turkey. Our new oven which is affectionately named the Star Treck Oven has a setting called perfect turkey. You insert a probe into the turkey plug it into the oven wall and touch the perfect turkey button. The probe monitors the temp of the bird and uses convection to work magic. The turkey was awesome and I have to say even better then a fried one!
School starts tomorrow for the kids and boy do they need a break from me! They are ready to have a schedule again and see their classmates.
I start my first class on the 12th and the rest the following wing. I have signed up for 10 credits this semester so I will be a busy bee. The more classes I take the sooner I can finish. I hope to start my internship year in 2012. I work full time at the school for a whole year while submitting portfolio work. I am still not sure I will be a working mom even after I finish my degree but we shall see. I would love to teach Kindergarten but Aaron would have to be on a different schedule I would prefer him to be home every night if I was working and not working 48 hours at a time or more.
Soon as I get to the other computer I will post some pictures. I really wish it would snow. We don't much of any right now and I want to try snow shoeing!

Christmas Parties

The last week of school before Christmas was very busy. Everyone had parties! Peachies class had a little potluck and small gift exchange. One of the students in her class is Philippino and her mom brought in a huge dish of yummy food. It was rice noodles and chicken with veggies and just plain yummy. Another mom had made salmon dip with crackers. There was fresh fruit. Grapes were on sale at the commissary (yeah) and a cupcake for everyone. I laughed about the typical Kodiak mix of ethnic food and salmon.
Friday was the East Elementary School sing-a-long. Basically the whole school meets in the gym to have a top ten Christmas song count down. There were even quite a few religious songs with Joy to the World and Silent Night was number three. One of the island drummers performed and they sang using a Russian Orthodox Starring whatever it is. It was neat. The school really does a great job of encouraging each child and the teachers are very supportive, warm and friendly. I really do like their school. Afterwards both classes had parties with lots of good treats to eat.
Friday night was Peachies pre-school performance. Its a very short but sweet yearly show with about three Christmas carols and a visit from Father Christmas.
Peachie was a super start and struck an awesome pose after each song. The Koehlers came to watch which was so sweet of them. Aaron had to work so it was nice to have our family there. I don't know what I will do if they don't get to stay here a little longer.
Sing It!


Peachie with Father Christmas.

Christmas Cheer

Since I left you guys with such a poor me post last time I thought I would perk things up around here. You may be glad to hear that no one has vomited in ...3 days which is awesome! We visited Santa on Saturday and the kids had a good time. Peach really loved seeing him and gave him a big hug.
Sunday when Aaron got home from work we started decorating. I must confess we did play hookey from church. We had an awesome family day! We started by going to breakfast at the Shelikoff. It was nice except for the four gentleman ( I use that term loosely) sitting next to us that cursed numerous times and talked about visiting a bar in Anchorage with, well it was a bar only gentleman would enjoy. After they finally left Aaron and I were like "Thank you for leaving." Aaron said "Those men did not use good language." Our kids were like "What do you mean?" So I don't think it registered with them. But give me a break there is a woman and three kids sitting right next to your table have a little courtesy. I guess that's what we get for not going to church!
So after we got back from breakfast I started emptying out the boxes of indoor decorations and Aaron started lighting the outside of the house. He had a near disaster on the roof so we decided to just light the porch and the trees out front!
We worked hard while the kids played outside. Finally we went and picked out our tree. This is the every other year so we got a real one this year. It smells so good. At the end of the day 7 hours later the house was decorated. All the boxes were put back in the crawl space and the house looked beautiful.

Peachie ran to see Santa come in off the fire truck.
At the Santa day they were giving away a toy to each child. Some were big, some were small. I am not sure how many years ago they started setting this toy out but something tells me that no one was looking to get in shape.


Here's our tree this year. I tried to take pictures of some of the other decorations around the house but I am not a very good photographer so they came out really fuzzy or the flash went off. Thanks for reading my post.

Orphan Flu Round 3?

I don't know what is going on here but last night around 11pm just as I layed down in a nice hot bubbly bath with a new book I heard the all to familiar sound of a child vomiting. Yes, once again I found myself mopping up the dinner contents of my baby girls belly. This one was a hard one as there was quite a bit of it. To make matters worse Aaron won't be home today as he is now working 72 hours on 24 off through Christmas Eve. That means he will be home 2 days between now and then. We don't have our tree up yet. Its hard to feel merry.
So I got the girl all cleaned up. She got to sit in my bath. This time she was really weak afterwards. Even today she is just starting to perk up. We had planned to go see Santa. This is the "real" Santa. He arrives either by helicopter or fire truck. Its looking like a helicopter day as the weather is clear. I am waiting to the last minute to decide if I am going to drag her out or not. I kinda "need" a few things at Wally world too, as my fall decorations aren't put away yet. I need to get a bigger tote and I wanted to print our photo cards so I could get those out on Monday.
So if you could send us get well and stay well vibes I would really appreciate it!