Life lessons

Santa was a dear and brought a sled for Christmas.  We didn't get out of the house until 2 days after, but we live across the street from the best hill in town, so it would be ridiculous not to enjoy it.  Getting a kid all dressed up to sled is an ordeal, so I of course decided to make it way more complicated and insisted on coming along with Forster.  We had a snow suit, we had boots, but they just didn't fit quite right and were too tight in the wrong places.  But, I figured, he needs to be outside!  He's been inside for months, he wants this!

True, when we got out to the street, there was wonderment in his eyes.  But there always is.  I let him down and he took some excited, curious steps before he plowed face first into a snowbank.   His face was covered in snow and he was seriously mad.  But that crazy mom gene was going full force and I knew this was a life experience my 16 month old needed RIGHT.  NOW.

We got to the top of the hill, and Jared, Solei and Forster all piled on the toboggan.  To my credit, I did must that they were pointed towards the seriously steep side of the hill, but they went off any way.  I watched them got faster... farther... and CRASH!  There was a cloud of snow and a bit lump of Pagets in a snow drift.  I ran down the hill, positive they were all maimed or worse, but I got what my dear Lola calls the "funeral giggles" and couldn't stop laughing.

The scene was seriously bad.  Jared was shaken, Forster was howling and his head was bleeding, and Solei was laying there, screaming at the top of her lungs "SANTA BROUGHT A BAD PRESENT!!  HE SHOULDN'T HAVE GIVEN US THE SLED!!  WHY, SANTA, WHY?!?!?!"

It was so awful, especially because I was laughing hysterically.  Jared took Forster home where he was much happier, and I convinced Solei - despite her insisting her leg was broken - that we could try just one more time, on the other side of the hill.  The outcome was significantly different.  We had a ball and I snapped this on the way home.

I learned a valuable lesson.  16 month olds do not, in fact, NEED to play in the snow.  If he could talk, I'll bet he would have chewed me out for inflicting that on him.

Awesome advent idea

Just a quick note - I stumbled across this cool idea for an advent activity.  We never did one growing up, so I'm not as obsessive as the rest of the blog-osphere, apparently.  But this idea is to wrap 25 books up and unwrap one a day to read.  I scoured the house for bible books and Friend magazines and copies of the Book of Mormon and managed to wrap up enough to start today.  Even though it was a book she already owned and had read before, she loved the activity and can't wait to do it tomorrow!  (cool aside, she read the book to me!!  I had to help her with the word "Gabriel," but she already knew "Bethlehem" and a few other weird words apparently. !)  Plus she's been begging me to let her unwrap the presents she already has, so this gave her a chance to rip the paper off of something.  Whew.  This tradition is totally a keeper!

Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving season has found me reflecting more on my thankfulness than I normally would.

It has occurred to me over the last few years how blessed I am. Anyone who lives in the USA and has traveled anywhere beyond its borders knows that we have something special here. I’m not on my rameumptom here. In fact, I’m not sure that any of us deserves it.

I was born to wonderful parents who love me and have supported me in all of the good things that I have ever done. By our standards we weren’t rich growing up. We never starved but we were penny-wise. Even in this situation I was much more blessed than the majority of people who live in this world. In my adulthood I’ve been blessed with great blessings. I have a wonderful wife and family. My job is good and stable (famous last words). We have a beautiful home in a very safe location. We have friends, food, transportation, freedoms and happiness. We have everything I could hope for.

I look around at the wealth and prosperity that I see and I can’t help but think that I really haven’t done anything to deserve being where I am. On the grand scale of things, I’ve done nothing to create the stability or prosperity around me. Frankly, I don’t deserve to live in these conditions any more than anyone else you meet in Africa, South America, Asia, Australia or Europe. These blessings are nothing that I deserve. As much as I think Americans try to fool themselves, we individual Americans don’t deserve any of this. We simply lucked out. We were born in the right place at the right time. There is no real reason that I couldn’t have been born in a hut with a dirt floor in Africa. That was all up to God. I am unbelievably thankful that He put me where I am, but I know it is all Him and not me.

There are so many people around me who suffer in ways that I do not have to. People who do their best to prepare for the worst can still be overwhelmed by circumstances that they cannot control. Children get sick. Accidents come out of nowhere. Storms ravage. Waters rise. Regardless of what I do to prepare, I know that everything that I have could be taken away from me in an instant. I see how this has happened to wonderful people. People much better than me. My heart breaks when I see the trials of others. Not only for them but because I know that I could just have easily been placed in their shoes.

Sometimes I complain about this or that, but on the grand scale of things, I really have nothing to complain about. I’ve not had to face any of the trials that some around me have. For this I am grateful.

So this season, I am especially thankful for all that I have. I’m amazed at the love the Lord has for me. I’m amazed by his grace and blessings. I’m amazed with the wonderful family that I have. I’m eternally indebted for the blessing that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is in my life.

gezundenschniffle.

My parents are both officially retired now (HUZZAH!!!!) and I have seen them four times now since school got out last May.  How lucky are we?!  They took a trip to visit us a week or so ago for my birthday and it was marvelous.  I haven't been able to spent my birthday with them since I was 17!  Since Forster still takes morning and afternoon naps religiously, we couldn't venture out very far, but we discovered many loverly things around us.

We checked out our local zoo.  Did you know Baraboo has a zoo?  It has prairie dogs and bears and a monkey and some deer and a pig and a goat and a llama... and maybe one or two more things.  It's small, free and adorable.

We played with the Stomp Rocket Solei got for her birthday.  So much fun!

We played at the park...

And went to a fall festival in the Dells.

And took lots of walks and played at the park across the street.  The season for being outside is quickly coming to an end.  &^%$&^$&^%.

My dad also has a fancy schmancy camera so I asked him to take a few pictures of us, in between Jared's migraines.  That season is upon us too - pray hard for him!

Which one do you like the best?  Hope y'all are enjoying the last few days of autumn before the evil-terrible-no-good winter comes!  Jared just got the garage ready... which means he put the motorcycles and the tractor and the mower in the back, and brought the snowblowers out in front by the Jeep.  Grrrr.

no more black lung!!

So I've been feeling bad about my favorite bedtime snack because of all the new research into the chemicals they use.  Ug.  Poor lungs.  So I tried out this fun trick today - I made my own!  Just used a paper bag, a staple (no sparking... interesting...) a 1/4 cup popcorn and some olive oil and salt for flavoring.

It was perfect!!  I used the directions from instructables.

Part-ay!!

To celebrate Solei's 4th trip around the sun, we needed 12 rolls of streamers, about 75 pieces of paper, a mile or so of yarn, a glue stick and a roll of tape.  What a party!  I couldn't decide on a guest list and I didn't want anyone to feel left out, so Jared told me to invite everyone.  At one point he counted 41 people.  Yes, I'm insane and I always tend to bite off more than I can chew, but Solei had a ball and that was the point!

I wanted a theme but Solei kept changing her mind - by the end she was asking for a mermaid-and-unicorn-and-princess-and-fairies party, but I stuck with the original request of rainbows and the circus.  I didn't do very much, really, but I decided to do a few things as big as I could and it ended up feeling festive.

To greet our guests, I strung up some yarn with little colored paper flags along the walkway.  Paper and tape and yarn... not much, but it felt cool.

I couldn't find a stick to attach the string on, so Jared grabbed a microphone stand.  Voila!

 Cheesy yes, but I made this sign to hang out front:

 I used lots of streamers and tried to give it a circus tent-type atmosphere.  I also made lots of banners to hang about.

And what's a good circus without a trapeze act?

When the guests arrived, they decorated their own goodie bags.

Our first game was Lion Tamer - that was me.  All the kids got to jump through a "ring of fire", then it got higher and higher - like of like a reverse limbo with a hula hoop

Next we played musical chairs, which was not as successful.  Too many kids of too many ages meant little ones getting bored and wandering away from the game or back in, so we couldn't ever get the number of chairs right - there were too many or too few!  Lesson learned, and the chaos was kind of funny to watch!

Then we paused for lunch - hot dogs and brats.  It's the official party food of Wisconsin!

  

And then - oh then!!!  Cake time!!  And not just any cake.  We are blessed to know the most master of master cake masters and even though she was insanely busy this last weekend, she offered to make an extra special cake for Solei.  (Her name is Julie, and she has a blog of all her baking exploits.  Absolutely drool-worthy).  

She is an absolutely AMAZING decorator, but I wanted a very simple exterior and she complied, even though she wanted to do more.  When I went to pick it up, she insisted on adding a few flowers which were fabulous of course.

She got much better pictures with her camera - I'll post them later.  Isn't it lovely??  Solei was thrilled, especially because she is absolutely in love with Julie.

And then - BLAM-O!!!

Yes, my friends - THAT is a rainbow cake!!!  6 insanely delicious layers of super awesome magical rainbow cake!!!! 

It was insanely labor-intensive - she had to freeze up each layer before adding them so it would be structurally sound.    It was delicious and all around wonderful!

Another thing that made cake time super awesome was this idea I saw a while back in a magazine.  Instead of serving the ice cream right there, I scooped some up before-hand and put it in foil baking cups and left them in the freezer until they were needed.  

It made the whole serving process go much faster (since there was quite the hungry crowd) and another side benefit was that it didn't melt all over the plate and get the cake all soggy.

Then, presents!  Unfortunately, Solei going through that frustrating awkward stage where every time I try to take a picture, she gives me this awful fake grimace/painful smile and looks everywhere but at the camera, so I didn't get any really awesome pictures of the birthday girl.  But as she opened presents, I did manage to capture a genuine look of joy:

It was a ball and we all had a lovely time.  Today in Primary I abused my role as the music director and made everyone sing the birthday song to her twice.  She beamed and danced the entire time.  I'm amazed at how much she has learned in her short 4 years on this earth, and how wonderful our lives are because she is in it.  Happy birthday, sunshine!!!

Uncle Alex (kind of) catches a fish!

We had the absolute treat of going up to Minnesota to be with the Hachtmans and experiencing the glory it has to offer. Ikea, the Mall of America and....

(You have to try them. If you can find them. And afford them!)

Alex and his dad also treated us to the most Minnesota of experiences, boating and fishing.  It was awesome!!  I personally didn't believe people could actually catch fish (I've never seen it happen!) but Alex proved me wrong.  Kind of :)

Articles of Faith

Since we discovered that Solei has freakishly good memorizing skills, we figured we might as well put them to good use and have her memorize the Articles of Faith. We have the first 10 down so I made video documentation of our wonder 3 year old. We may have the next 3 learned before her birthday next month, we'll see!

Sibling Love

I was looking through the pictures of our summer yesterday - what a busy summer!  It makes no sense that when the weather gets absolutely gorgeous here we leave for half of it.  But, people got married,  families needed to play and pageants needed to be enjoyed so off we went.  One thing that struck me was that I do not have any frame-able pictures of of just Solei and Forster.  Forster is so photogenic it's ridiculous, and Solei is so fast it is also ridiculous, so it seems impossible that I'll ever have one of those cutesy pictures on my mantel of my offspring looking all noble and peaceful.

I do try, though.  At Dallin's wedding extravaganza, we has a picnic a few days beforehand in my parent's backyard, and I asked Solei to give Foster a kiss.  The results:

Maybe they do belong on the mantel.  They are pretty funny :)

Dallin and Alissa got hitched!!!!

In an attempt toexpedite getting this post done, I loaded all the pictures at once and they are a delightful choronological, mismatched mess.  I'm going to run with it, though.  I'm pooped.

So my very favorite younger brother Dallin got married 2 and a half weeks ago in the Denver Temple.  It was just about as perfect as the lovely couple who I am totally taking credit for setting up.  Oh, there were a few other players, such as it actually being a few other people's original idea, but I was the puppetmaster behind the scenes.  I may have gloated about it all day.  So without further ado, Dallin and Alissa's wedding in no particular order, as seen by his way cool older sister.

Aunt Sanny snapped this just as they went into the temple.  Isn't it the sweetest???

This was a shot someone took of Dallin and I at the reception - I love how we look so blasted related.

This was Father's day, Forster charming the heck out of my exhausted just-spent-3-weeks-sleeping-on-a-hospital-floor-while-tending-to-her-sick-brother. She was an absolute champ the entire weekend, but I hope she gets to spend the next 4 months in bed...


Uncle Quinn showing off his muscles on Solei and Teaq.

If you aren't going to cooperate when I try to take a picture, I'm using it anyway. This was outside the temple while we were all trying to not melt.

The reception was at my best friend Sabrina's parent's place. We've been thick as thieves since.. of geez.. for about 15 years? Ak! Best part about the venue? Zip slide!! There are pictures of the groom on it, but I didn't catch any. Waiting on those, Dallin..

The annual sibling reunion was hijacked due to a wedding for the 2nd year now, but we managed to sneak away to the Melting Pot for a fabulous dinner. Alissa got us to share the stories of how we all got engaged, it was sweet! Jared wasn't in town yet, so my date was the chocolate fondue. YES!

THe adorable couple, fonduing it up. She survived her first all-Kuzmich-kid experience and still married into the family anyway, so that's a plus!



Lucky lucky me...

Okay.. Solei is so desperate for attention she's banging her head into a tambourine.  I'm goingt o have to cut the commentary short, but enjoy the rest.  We're so happy to have Alissa in the family!!!

Circus World

I took the kiddos to Circus World today - our first time of the season.  I got an annual pass last summer when we moved here and came a few times, though I wasn't thrilled about the show (a few risqué moments).  But because there aren't very many playmates around and very few activities for 3 year olds, I decided to try it again this summer.  And it was awesome!  The show was much more family-friendly and we all had a ball.  Last year I had to watch Solei like a hawk because her little 2 year-old legs would want to run away when she got bored, but she sat there like a trooper, cheering and laughing the whole hour-long show.  And Forster??  I don't know how on earth we got this lucky, but when a baby is mobile and knows it (and he's taken a few steps and keeps trying to take MORE) they don't sit in a mommy's arms very well for very long, but dear Forster loved all the attention.  He flirted with the people behind us, danced to the music, giggled at and babbled on to me the whole time, never getting cranky.

I wondered while I watched the show if I was spoiling my kids - taking them to the circus all summer whenever we wanted.  That just sounds extravagant, right?  (Although it's pretty dang cheap, kids 5 and under are free and my adult pass was $14.95, with an additional $10 for the annual pass, so our summer of fun costs a cool $25) But as we walked across the bridge over the Baraboo river - gorgeous view, by the way - it occurred to me that it's not very often a kid gets to live 3 minute drive from the Circus World museum.  And we won't live here forever - so might as well snag some awesome memories while we have the chance.

So if y'all come to visit, we're totally taking you.  Although there is one snag - the clown this year is a GIRL.  And Solei is head over heels for her - can't stop talking about her hero, Jessi the clown.  It's only a matter of time before she decides SHE could be a clown and tries to run off with the circus.  Not a far fetched notion either, what with the circus being just down the road...

A few random snaps

Oh, our kids.  Solei spends most of her time railing at the injustices of not enough snacks, and Forster spends his time giggling at everyone.

It's hysterical - he's within seconds of walking and he knows it.  He's just so perma-happy, he cruises around the furniture or climbs on people all day long, laughing hysterically.

The weather has turned humane the last few days, so we ventured outdoors for FHE tonight and took a walk in the scenic Wisconsin countryside.

Speaking of scenic, we live one house away from the edge of town.  This was the view that greeted us as we pulled into our driveway this evening - and no, we did not use the zoom: