Laser Tag

On Friday we took the kids to the Crete Family Fun Center for a final hurrah for spring break. We played miniature golf - always one of the kids' favorite things to do - but the highlight was the laser tag. Conner had played one or two games before at birthday parties, but this was our first time as a family (my first time ever!). They had a special where you could play as many times as you wanted for $10, so we went all out - even Avery joined in.

It was hilarious! Seeing Asher in the vest, which went down below his knees, was so cute, but man, don't underestimate that little guy!! He was amazingly good considering his age - he could easily sneak up on all of us and get us every time. He kept saying he was the police and that he was getting all the bad guys. Conner and Jude loved the entire thing. They seemed to especially like finding the other team's base and hitting the signal and planning battle strategies to try to get the other team. They would always let us know when it was our turn to protect the base or go on the offensive. Avery was neutral territory, dressed in lots of white so that she glowed in the black lights and was easy to see. She loved crawling up the ramps and around the obstacles. Since hardly anybody was there, we had the entire arena to ourselves whenever we played. We all had a great time!

Gold Coins?

I was just at the bank and picked up several of the "gold" dollar coins in preparation for St. Patrick's Day and was reminded of this funny little incident:

Every year our kids build a leprechaun trap (a box painted green with lots of sparkly stickers, rainbows, and pots of gold drawn on it) and set it out to try to catch a leprechaun and his/her gold. The first year they came up with the idea, they were so cute about it and so sure that they would catch one that we couldn't disappoint them. So, we got a few golden dollar coins and put them in the trap while they were out. Ever since it has been a tradition. The only down side is that it leaves us with a lot of dollar coins lying around, which are not the most convenient to use.

Well, Chris filled his pockets with a handful of some of the leftover coins and made an effort to use them over the course of a few days. After making several small purchases with them, he hands one more cashier several coins. She looks at them for a minute and says, "Um . . . these aren't actually real money." Chris takes a quick look, thinking that she's probably just never seen a gold dollar before, but instead is rather startled by what he sees:

You see, the previous weekend he took the boys to Chuck E. Cheese, but they got tired before they used all their tokens. So, he put them in his pocket, mixing them in with the real money. The question is how many tokens did he spend at the other stores? He didn't know how many of either coin he started with, so we'll never know.

Happy First Birthday, Avery!!

I can't believe our baby has already turned one! It really does go by so quickly. Watching her grow has been so fun, but I'll always miss those infant times, too.

We had a pretty low key birthday with just our family. We made cupcakes and of course opened her presents, which she thoroughly enjoyed. Asher chose pink cake, pink frosting, and princess themed decorations - I didn't realize that he associated those things with girls. It's kinda sad that the gender stereotypes develop so early even when you try to avoid them. However, it was also great to see a three-year-old step out of himself and think about what his baby sister would like, not just assuming that she would like whatever he thought was cool.

Avery got lots of clothes; a giant, blow-up penguin; a crazy chicken car that ALL the kids love; and a toy that has lots of little places to hide and find balls shaped like cute bugs. She must have remembered the whole unwrapping presents concept from Christmas because she dove right in when she saw all the presents in front of her.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AVERY!!

Cursed

For the last few months, Asher has been using "my throat hurts" to mean anything on his body hurts.  It could be he stubbed his toe, has a stomach ache, or even a poked eye.  It has NEVER meant that his actual throat hurt.  So a short while ago I said something to the effect of, "He just needs to have  a sore throat once so that he can understand what part of his body it actually is."  The problem is that I didn't really mean it, but sure enough he has come down with strep throat.

So, to test my potential gift of issuing curses, I am trying the following: "The makers of Teletubbies just need to be forced to watch their own show for a few hours so that they will understand the error of their ways."

With any luck, the show will be virtually eliminated within a few weeks.

(Disclaimer - my kids have never really watched Teletubbies, but I personally am creeped out by that baby in the sun.  It's just scary!)

And the frog rose from her ashes . . .

Okay, so maybe it doesn't have quite the poetic poignancy of the phoenix, but it sure is cute!

About two months ago our frog (symbolic of our household and my sanity) suddenly aged and burst into flames leaving only a pile of embers and ash.  The good news is that recently a new frog has sprung from the debris and all is happy once again in the magical realm of Hansenland.  What, you may ask, brought about this sudden demise?  Let me list the dominant causes (all occurred within a few days of each other):

1.  Our car died.  I was babysitting for a friend who had jury duty.  I was supposed to take her daughter to school, but after I got all the kids bundled up in their winter gear and strapped in their car seats the car wouldn't start.  I turned on the lights to see if the battery was dead. They turned on fine, but now the weird part began.  The lights wouldn't turn OFF.  Also the electric door would randomly decide to open and close.  After a while some lights would turn off, but others may turn on.  We called a tow truck (and an exorcist) and found out that there was an internal fault in the battery.  They said that it would cause "unusual symptoms."  We found that to be true.

2.  My sewing machine died.  Really annoying since it was only the second time I used it, and it died when somebody was over at my house so I could "show" them how to make a project.  (Yes, I realize that all of you who really know me are laughing at the absurdity of me teaching anybody how to do something crafty, but it's true.  I'm not sure I did such a great job, but the project did get done!)   Fortunately I also had a friend's machine at my house, so all was not lost.  The real kicker though is that about a month later I find out that nothing was wrong with it, only with me.  I simply wound the bobbin backwards.  (Now would be an appropriate time to resume your mocking laughs.)

3.  Our vacuum died.  Why, oh why, can we not find a vacuum that lasts for more than two years?  Why are virtually all vacuums either absurdly expensive ($1000+) or get very mixed reviews?  Is vacuum technology really that expensive/difficult?  After MUCH searching, I finally got an Oreck based on a friend's glowing recommendation.  So far, so good.  And it comes with a ten year warranty (with an Oreck store close by to boot).  Sure it's quite boxy and dowdy looking and is sold by a fairly creepy old man, but it works great so far and truly is very light.

4.  My computer died.  OK, so it's not actually mine.  It technically belongs to the Booth School of Business, but it was at our home and it had ALL of my stuff on it (not to mention Conner's favorite "Spore" creature - he was very upset).  They were able to recover everything on both of the hard drives except the main "My Documents" folder.  Go figure.  Where I keep pretty much all my stuff.  Fortunately they did recover all our family's digital photos and home videos and most of my mp3s were on my iPod.  This is largely why I have not been blogging - my beloved had died and a mourning time needed to be observed (and we finally got the replacement computer and got all our camera stuff set up on it).

  

So, we must say goodbye to the old and welcome the newly born frog, who is greener and hoppier than the old!

Yellow Belt!!

Jude did it!! After a lot of hard work and practice, Jude has passed his examination and received his yellow belt in Taekwondo. It started snowing a couple of hours before it was time to head out to the testing site, so all the roads and freeways were a mess. Of course it was rush hour, so snowplows didn't have time to clear anything. Basically the weather turned a 30 minutes test into a five and half hour ordeal. Jude was wonderfully patient throughout the whole thing, even when we thought the instructors were not going to be able to make it. Fortunately, they made it just before the time set to postpone the whole thing.

The highlight was the wooden board breaking. Jude was pretty nervous about that part, but all went well, even with the surprise:

Congratulations, Jude! You look awesome in that yellow belt!

"The Two Bubbas" and Family

For the week of Thanksgiving, my brother Ben; his wife Rebecca; and kids Lilly (6), Jeremiah (23 months), Zack (15 months), and Leo (5 months) drove out from Las Vegas to stay with us. Yep, we had 4 four kids under 4 in our house for a week. While there were moments of insanity, we had a really great time. We took all the kids to the Children's Museum at Navy Pier (unfortunately we all forgot our cameras). The older kids went to Madagascar 2, Rebecca and I got a little shopping in, and there was a lot of playtime with the kids.

Jude, Conner, and Lilly were obsessed with Spore, a fun computer game where you create a creature and help it evolve from a spore through space exploration and domination. They also built a pretty incredible city in the basement out of boxes, bins, and Legos. Leo and Avery enjoyed staring at each other and cooing. Jeremiah (nicknamed Bubba), Zack, and Asher had a love/hate relationship going on. Asher had a hard time remember the boys' names and which was which, so he quickly took to referring to them collectively as the "The Two Bubbas." The name stuck and we called them that for the rest of the week. Anyway, they loved to play together, but Asher also got annoyed frequently (understandably since The Two Bubbas are quite a bit younger than him). He did an amazing job controlling himself. I was so proud of him! Sometimes he would get so frustrated that his whole body would start to tremble and he would say is his deepest voice "I am MAD at you!" but he wouldn't physically lash out at them.

We found out shortly after their visit that Lilly will be going back to her mother in a couple of weeks (Ben & Rebecca have been her foster parents for about two years), so it was really great to be able to get to know her a little better, even if she was horrified by my son's blasphemy. It went something like this:

Asher is being possessive and won't let Bubba play with a toy. Bubba gets upset and Lilly tells Asher that he should share because "God wants us to share." Asher considers this for a moment, wondering how best to respond to the "God says so" trump card, and then he mutters, "I hate God."

Lilly was truly shocked and worried for Asher's immortal soul. I tend to think He thought it was pretty funny, but maybe that's just me assigning my sense of humor to Him.