Story telling

My daughter Katlynn loves to listen to my make up stories. Every time she asks me to tell her a story I have no idea what I'm going to tell her about. But as I start talking my imagination just takes over and with Katlynn and Gevin contributing to the stories we make up some funny stuff and we all end up laughing and have a really good time. I love spending time with my kids. Thanks to them I realize that there is still a little kid in all of us, grown-ups:)

Another bit and piece

This is where we spent Christmas :) It was so gorgeous in San Francisco. It was the warmest Christmas we have ever had.

Christmas 2009

We have had a very special Christmas, somewhat different from the rest, very out of the ordinary, however it was awesome, bitter-sweet, emotional and unforgettable.

Great news!

I just got done talking to my mom on the phone. She was reporting to me that she arrived in San Francisco and that her trip went very well (except for a couple of minor details like the airlines loosing her only suitcase and she had to be checked by police personnel along with 10 other people of a certain ethnic background....we actually had a good laugh about the whole thing). I was very happy to hear my mom and my sister laughing together. It made me feel really good because my sister was in need of a really good laugh. Her husband is dying of cancer and it is progressing very quickly. That is why we have decided to spend time with them during Christmas time hoping we would be of much needed support. I'll go into details some other time. I'm just very glad that my mom made it safely and that she'll be able to be with her daughter during this difficult time.

Maminka a Zdenek

This is the latest picture of my mom and my step dad. It is quite a gem, because Zdenek doesn't dress like that or lets his picture to be taken very often. I love it:) They look great!

Hmmmmm, Christmas cookies!

I have decided that today is a good day to start making Czech Christmas cookies. I shopped for the ingredients at 4:30 this morning. Kinda crazy, but I was up and was out of milk and some other frequently used items, so I went. (By the way I needed to get assortment of fabric and it is a hassle with the kids because it takes me forever to pick out fabric. Consequently, they get into trouble while trying the pass the time.) It was nice and quiet in the store :) I want to mention that I bought my very first fabric rotary cutter and a mat. Yey! I've always wanted those. I'm doing a little more of sewing now, so I can justify it :)

But back to the cookies. I did find a new recipe that I absolutely love and the kids, too. I don't know about Greg yet. He's at work. Back in the spring when I was visiting my mom in Prague I found these little tin forms in a supermarket and on the packaging was a tasty looking recipe. I thought it would be fun to try. And they came out tasting really good and they were fun to make.

A dream come true!

This last Sunday happened something extraordinary. After the church ended and I was trying to locate my family, I met up with Greg in the hallway. He told me that he knew someone who was offering tickets to the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. I got way exited and he pointed me to that person down the hall. Without much hesitating I went to ask brother Morrel for the tickets. He approved and told me he would stop by our house on his way home. WHAT!!! We were about to go and experience something grand. Something I've been waiting for ever since I became a member of the church. We were going to see the prophet and listen to the Mormon Tabernacle Chior LIVE along with the orchestra!!! I was so excited. I sure was so thankful for my husband mentioning something. So with tickets in hand all four of us were headed down to Salt Lake City. We got to the Conference Center with plenty time to spare. We were about to take our seats in the very bottom left section towards the front when an usher lady caught up to us and told us that children under 8 years old cannot be in that section. We were suppose to go the the small theater. But since we made it that far we were allowed to stay but a few rows back. How LUCKY is that! To make it short.... we experienced a little piece of Heaven that day :)

Update on Gevin

OK, I do want to mention how it all went down with Gev and his baby teeth. I kept reminding him everyday to wiggle his teeth and he did make a little progress but the teeth were not loose enough. So I had to take action. Two days before the two week "deadline" I asked Gevin if I could feel how wiggly his teeth were and that's when I pushed down on one of them. Out came a "pop" sound and surprised Gevin's little cry. That made the tooth loose enough that it laied horizontally. That created excitement among us all. Of course, Daddy had to see it. And that's when the operation began. First came the direction: Give me some floss. Then a couple of unsuccessful tries of tying it on. After it was tied on I was selected to tug on it and on the count of three ........it slipped off. Greg wanted to use the end of the plastic flosser to push the front of the gums down and loosen the tooth that way. Gevin was getting pretty frustrated at that point. I remembered when I was little, my dad would pull my teeth using a handkerchief in hand and it was over in a jiffy. So I fetched me a handkerchief and grabbed onto the tooth and twisted it. I didn't pull the tooth out, but it was loose enough that when Gevin reached in, he could pull it out himself. Yeeeeeey! What an awesome feeling!!! He was so excited to have his very first baby tooth out, that he forgot all about the blood and pain. I thought, what a brave little boy.

We asked him, if he wanted to do the same with the second tooth, but since he had two more days he wanted to wait and work on that one some more himself. As expected the tooth was still in his mouth two days later. So it was either me calling the dentist or me pulling it out. To my surprise, Gevin trusted me and decided he would have me pull it. Boy, was I nervous that time. I thought that one would be much harder to pull because it was in tighter that the first. So I took my trusty hanky and wanted to push down on the tooth first like I did last time. When I did, out came the tooth flying, landing on my head. We weren't sure where it landed so we searched for it until a bent my head down and it fell onto the floor. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!! What a relief! I must say that Katlynn proofed to be quite a helper. She brought Gevin his three Teddy bears for him to hold and offered that he could squeeze her hand... and that he did. Katlynn was his moral support, too. She was the experienced one in loosing teeth, so she new all about it and was assuring him that it didn't hurt.

Now, we'll see if the new two teeth will situate themselfs where they need to be.
Hopefully the next new teeth will grow where they should right from the start and help the baby teeth to fall out on their own, because we don't want to repeat this a n y more :)

Great day with my kids

It was definitely a great day today.... if I don't count being at work of course. I enjoyed being with my little dearest friends.. my kids.

Gevin is so sweet when he brings home little notes from school that say how much he loves mommy and daddy. He colored a turkey and wrote: "mom and dad Love you (printed) Happy Thanksgiving!" And on the other side he wrote: "Love you For evre" Ahhh... that just melts my heart. I have to mention another note he wrote not too long ago: "I can hlep my mom. I can do the dishis. I can hlep roc up the lefs (rake up the leaves). I can hlep my dad." That is just so cute.

Today was Gevin's dreaded dentist appointment. Our dentist is great and our family likes him, even Gevin, but he is scared of Dr. Haws' two helpers: Mr. Whistle (small drill) and Mr. Wiggle (big drill). The only helpers that he likes are Mr. Thirsty (the straw) and Mr. Tickles (the brush). The last couple of times it was not much fun with him trying to get his teeth fixed. But today was a walk in a park. It was just a regular check up and cleaning and .... NO cavities! Yey for Gevin! If only it could be like that every time....Gevin has two wiggly baby teeth that really need to come out because two new ones are already busily growing behind them. Dr. Haws is giving Gevin two weeks to wiggle them loose or he'll need to go in to have them pulled. So we'll see if Gevin can do it on his own, like he wants. Good luck, Gevin:)

Katlynn had a chance to spend an hour at her best friend's house while Gevin and me were at the dentist office. Katlynn and her BFF:) They are so goofy together. I remember I started to have real best friends in third grade, too. She is having a very good time with Rayne. I can see how Katlynn is learning to be a responsible little person. I enjoy her taking care of our pets, Jazzy and Gus and does things more and more without being asked. She is a peace maker between us two. Whenever I get cross with her she wants to make things good again. Like today I got little mad at her for not wanting to eat some of tomato soup I fixed. I wanted her to try it and just take one bite. I finally made her put one spoonful in her mouth but she didn't want to eat it at all. I was disappointed, I guess, that she didn't like it and I called her a spoiled little brat. I don't know why I made such a big deal out of it. She sensed that I was mad and after a few minutes came over to me and gave me a big hug. Oh, how I loved that. It was needed. I told her that I loved her. I did feel sorry, too for raising my voice at her. She is such a sweety. Her teacher gave her a deck of Go-fish cards for doing extra homework so we played together and had a blast with it. At dinner time I read to my kids for 20 minutes and at bedtime played a puppet story for them. They love that stuff. We always end up laughing so hard. And then I pretended to be a tickle monster and chased them to bed a few times. That's a fun game for us all. I love to hear my kids laugh.

There was one school activity today that was pretty fun also and that was The Literacy Night where we learned all about the importance of reading and how to go about it to have my kids become great fluent readers. The school staff sure put on a show for us.

So it was all together a really awesome day. This is what gives me joy in life. I love having a family:)

Random things to remember

Blueberry muffins Katlynn was so eager to make, because the dosen that I made the day before got all eaten the same day. Two muffins out of this batch survived and saw the break of dawn of the next day. But even they didn't last much longer.

This is a little oak tree Katlynn and I found by her playhouse. When we were carefully digging it out we found the acorn it sprouted out of. Katlynn was very exited to see this little act of nature. I like how she always thinks of her brother and wants to share all of her experiences with him. Of course he was the first one to see the acorn.
These are pine cones that Katlynn collected while camping so she could make bird feeders out of them. Now they are covered with seeds. All we need to do is hang them up in a tree.
Katlynn and Gevin's playhouse. They sure have lots of fun playing with the dish set we use for camping.

Katlynn is neat and tidy and put her shoes by the doorway:)

Bees enjoying one of our sunflowers. I love how many little flowers are in the center of the big blossom.


We almost didn't have these. I was debating on pulling the sunflowers out, because they were in a bad spot in the vegetable garden. (Kids planted the seeds last year). I'm so glad now that I didn't pull them out.

The GIANT.

Oh, I can hardly wait for these to ripen.