Happy Birth Day!

The newest Altman sibling arrived safely at 3:3?AM this morning. He is very cute, super adorable, and absolutely perfect. I was hoping his mom would do a quick post, but she seems to have been otherwise occupied today. (Picking out a name for him?!)

After daddy made it home in the early afternoon, I got to go over to the hospital to meet the wee little one . Opa had already come and gone during his lunch hour.

The threesome arrived in late afternoon with their father to meet their new brother. Jake and Viva were excited to see and touch "Mommy's baby". Bentley was very reserved. He refused to get too near the baby, but he did eventually talk to him. B's been through this routine before and it was life altering.

A few more camping pictures

A (belated) continuation of fun camping times, day 2:

The fun included: 2 cute little heads huddled together for warmth at 5 am. Before you ask where their sleeping bags are, rest assured I already quizzed their Father on that topic. He tells me they kick them off/shrug out of them, but assured me that after snapping a picture he covered them back up!

Activities included "stick" moving (apparently their Dad tried reasoning with them about how big it was but then gave up with the realization that boys will be boys):

a visit to Hatcher's Pass:

they also threw in a trip to iHop on the way home. I'm not sure how that tied in with camping, but they all seemed excited about it! Lastly, here are 2 bonus pics of the boys "fishing" on their camping trip before this past one. Jake told me he caught some seaweed!

No! No! Absolutely NOT!

I was driving with the three kidlets and an ad came on the radio for a contest giving away airline miles. The announcer said you can use them for a vacation, to visit family or friends, or even to go on a honeymoon. "What's a honeymoon?" Jake asked. I told him it's a vacation couples take right after they get married. He then told me that he and Viva would go on a honeymoon after they got married.

I told the kid that he could not marry his twin sister. It's not legal. He took the news well, but Viva did not. "I am, too, going to marry Jake!" Bentley suggested to her that she could marry Patrick instead. (A friend of the twins who is also a twin.) "No! I only want to marry Jake."

The topic came up again a few days later when Jake during one of his meltdowns announced that he did not like anyone in our house. Viva asked him "But Jake aren't we going to get married?" "No!" Once again Viva was upset. Bentley once more tried to pacify her: "I'll marry you, Viva."

We have a few years to straighten them out on this topic.

The Hair of Viva

Viva's hair is getting LONG! I ask her if she wants to cut it, sometimes, and she always runs shrieking the other direction. I'm not implying she should buzz it all off, but she seems to think it is safest to just stay far away from me I guess. :-) Genevieve tells me that she's going to grow it out to her feet. I think not.

BUT, we have been having fun "doing" her hair more often. I've told her that if she wants long hair than she can't just let it hang in her eyes all day! I'd like to say she enjoys our time together while I tug on her hair and yank on her head, but I'm not sure we've come QUITE that far yet. Soon I'm sure!

Here are her curls from the other day. I'm still a novice curl wrapper, but getting better with our new rod curlers!

Like the headband in that photo too? Viva picked it. Apparently she likes big dramatic hair statements.

And check out the lovely braids in our hair from last week:

I have a picture file (on my iPad, of course!) of hair styles I see online and Viva picked that one out last week. ;) Of course... she's happy enough to get all dressed up in one of her 30 dresses and with all her bling on, but take her out in public? She'll give quite the nasty scowl to anyone who has the nerve to tell her how pretty she looks.

What a dear child. Not at all ornery or stubborn!

Jake the Builder

Jake built this lovely structure from blocks the other day. When opa asked to take his picture with it, he said "No!" "Fine," opa said, "I'll just say Viva built it." Jake immediately plopped himself into the photo and gave a lovely smile.

B's Lego Movie Drawing

Last week Matt rented the kids a Lego movie to watch. They love, love, loved it. They insisted that Opa and I watch it with them the second time they viewed it.

I didn't last the entire movie. I'm not a big fan of animated films. I just don't have that gene. Opa was a better sport. The gist of the movie is that there was a bad wizard trying to defeat the Prince and rule the land. He needed to get the sword out of the box that the troll was guarding. One of the Lego heroes was a fix-it guy who could repair anything with parts on hand. I think the Lego heroes' mission was to stop the bad wizard. Like I said, I didn't stick around long.

If you asked Bentley about the movie, he could give you the entire plot with lots of extra details. He was so ensnared by this movie, that he drew an elaborate drawing based on it.

Here's the drawing:


Here's what he told me was in the drawing:
* the bad wizard with the thing to zap people
* his magic ball
* his treasure chest of gold
* two funny skeletons eating popcorn (seriously!)
* the green guy (?!)
* the Prince and another guy getting captured
* the thing to put in the catapults (balls?!)
* the place where you launch them out of
* the lava around (it's everywhere in the movie)
* the troll
* he left the treasure chest with the magic sword in it at the door
* the club (belongs to the troll)
* the skeleton guy with his shield and knife
* the lock to lock the doors
* this (?) is to scare people away
* stairs to get downstairs (do they only go down and not up?!)
* stairs to get to where they load the catapult

The drawing is very elaborate and colorful. B is a much better artist than I am. Maybe he'd agree to give me lessons.

The Zoo with Friends

The trio and I went to the zoo yesterday and met up with some friends from church. Two of the three ladies are in their last trimester of pregnancy, but not in their last two weeks which is why Kara stayed home. (She's getting rather sleep-deprived. The nurse prescribed Ambien. Seriously?)

So there I was at the zoo with the wild trio, four other preschoolers, two toddlers and three moms. We started at the preschooler music session. The other children enjoyed the singing and rhythm play, but my three were not impressed. I wandered over a short distance to see what on earth the zoo workers were crafting from an old fire hose. They were making a bear hammock!


Surprisingly enough, we made good time on the zoo paths for such a large group. Viva led the way. Sometimes she was too far ahead, but my remonstrations did not slow her down.


A good percent of the animals were prowling around their cages instead of sleeping. That always makes a zoo visit more interesting. The river otter was very playful. The yaks entertained us with a head butting contest. At first I thought they were being friendly and scratching each other's ears, but then it became a head butt followed by a stare down until the smaller male backed off.

The tigers were, of course, sleeping. It's very unusual for them to be active during zoo hours. Maybe one out of five visits? The snow leopard was awake for a while. One of the dahl sheep was making an awful noise. It sure didn't sound like a baaa to me. The black bears were pacing their cage. The polar bear was doing a very odd pace and stretch routine. The brown bears were awake, but not very active.


The kids enjoyed looking at the animals, but mostly they enjoyed running up and down the paths and climbing over, under, and on the rail fence. What could be more delightful?





We stopped at the petting zoo. Viva and Jake petted the goats. Bentley kept his distance from all the animals--he did not want to go into the enclosure, but I carried him in so he'd be near the rest of us.



Jake took the fox photo. I deleted his other photos because he insisted on taking a shot of me from the neck down (he liked my coat he said) and his other photos were of the chickens. Chickens are ugly. No chicken photos allowed on my blog post.


Our friends came prepared with a sack lunch, but we did not. The children had just eaten breakfast, so I didn't think about bringing food. Isn't bringing three children enough of a challenge?! We walked over to the zoo café and purchased some cookies and chocolate milk. I promise you that although the cookies were quite large, they were not as huge as the photo below implies. My camera angle is to blame.



As you might have noticed Bentley has a new...look...he's perfecting for the camera. Here it is again in my final group shot at the zoo.

From the Heart

Kara was playing the piano the other day when she noticed Bentley watching her. She asked him "Do you want to take piano lessons? Do you want to learn how to play the piano?"

His response? "I can already play the piano." He then came over and demonstrated his style of playing.

Kara can read music and play what she reads, but B plays from the heart. Would piano lessons ruin his unique style? Something to consider!

Balloons: Take Two

Yesterday evening a local children's service organization hosted an Alaska Flag Day Celebration. (FYI: The Alaska Flag was designed by schoolchild named Benny Benson.) Mark and I took the children to check out the event.

The celebration was just six blocks from our home, but we took the long way there. We drove across the street to the high school, we waited in line for the shuttle bus to arrive, we slowly loaded the bus (a full size tour bus), the bus turned around in the parking lot, more people got on board, we drove five blocks, the bus very slowly unloaded with our group being one of the very last off. The children enjoyed the novelty of a bus ride.

We paid the entrance fee. We hit the BBQ buffet line first. The boys said no to buns and burgers and finally agreed to a bag of Cheetos each. Viva, of course, wanted food. She chose a hot dog with catsup (she loves catsup). We ate while the boys raced up and down the hill.


Then we joined a line to have balloon swords made for the children by a balloon artist. (Are you able to guess where this is headed?) The balloon artist was very good and offered to make anything the children wanted. Our boys wanted sword. Oddly enough Viva did, too. I tried to talk her into some of his other awesome creations, but she was adamant. A sword it was.



The children were thrilled with their swords. I warned them not to drag the swords on the ground because grass can be sharp enough to pierce balloons. We played a ball tossing game next. The trio picked out a prize--bracelets or necklaces.



Next we went to find the ice cream. On the way we briefly stopped to regroup (let all the kids catch up) and disaster struck. Who do you think popped their balloon sword by playing in the tall grass with it? Miss Viva. She was quite upset about the loss. Jake was even more upset than Viva. It ruined the rest of the celebration for him.


We continued on to the ice cream line. The children refused to pick a flavor. We picked for them. They refused to eat it. It was very good ice cream--blueberry cheesecake.

Bentley played two more games: throw the football through the hoop and bounce the ping pong ball into the cup. He accrued new prizes including a small dinosaur. While we were waiting in line at the football throw game, Viva's sword belt popped. I have no idea how that happened. Bad luck?




The next time the children get an offer of a balloon, we are running the opposite direction. We have to break this new tradition.

Off to Camp, Day 2

Viva & Daddy made it home mid afternoon, and the boys were packed up and ready to head out! They spent a good hour packing. Viva threw a few things in her backpack and was done. The boys? They kept thinking of more things they should take. Sticker books. Butterfly catching nets. Maybe their drawing boards? Umbrellas! Containers for collecting bugs!

They were funny. Their Dad was amazed with their gear collection. In a good way I'm sure.

My husband is becoming a dilligent photo journalist, so here are some photos he sent me of the evening with the boys!

Made it to the camp site! Time to throw rocks at trees...

Learning the fine art of fishing: waiting and waiting for that catch... :-)

Dinner time! Everyone loves the campfire.

A walk! Sticks are an important part of walks. Bentley says they are for getting branches out of the way and Jake says they are for smacking stuff!

finally (says Daddy?!) - bed time. They sure look tired, right?! Good ol' Alaskan midnight sun.

Hopefully at least 2 out of 3 of them get some rest tonight! As for Viva?

We're trying our newest curlers. We'll see what it looks like in the morning! We spent a long evening shopping with Grandma after crafting in the afternoon (more abstract art - she cut and cut and taped and taped, then held it up and asked me what it was supposed to be... !). Good times for all.

Off to Camp, Day 1

Matt has been quite the dilligent adventure coordinator for our little peeps that love camp fires and the outdoors. A few weeks ago he and the boys took camping trip #3 of the summer, and this weekend #4 is done and #5 is under way! Last night Matt & Viva headed out for some Daddy daughter bonding. Matt offered to take all 3, but I think 3 at once are kind of scary and refuse to do that to him. So we decided to send Viva out last night, and then if the weather held he would swap out kids today.

And, luckily for us, we received another weekend of not rainy weather! We've had good luck so far this summer!

Matt reports, again, that Viva loves camping. She eats and eats. She sits and reflects by the fire. She stays up late and is a happy camper. She sleeps in late in that nice fresh air. She soaks in the Daddy time. This morning when her brothers were vacilating over leaving their cat home (their one objection to camping tonight!), Viva told her Dad that she'd be happy to just stay another night and he could leave them where they were. :-)

I talked to her on the phone last night but she wasn't too chatty. It went something like this:

"Did you have smores?"
"Yeah"
"Did you have steak?"
"Yeah"
"Did you have chips and cookies?"
"Yeah!"
...
Looking for another word, I asked:
"and what was your favorite food you ate?"

"Celery!"

Weird little girl. She has a strange love of celery. We're not sure where she got it from, neither her father or I (or her brothers) have this same affection for that particular vegetable. She is happy chomping on it with every meal. Even knowing this, her Father was a bit disturbed to hear her say celery was the best food of the evening! Maybe he felt his smore cooking skills were being insulted? :-)

Fishing time:

and here she is on a hike earlier today with her Dad:

She is, of course, chomping at the bit to head back out and camp some more.

Love it!

Recalcitrant!

Kara and I took the twins to their four year check up at the doctor's office Thursday morning. Jake did not want to go and told us repeatedly (when asked to put on his shoes to leave, when he was carried to the car, when he got out of the car, etc.) that he was not going. Viva made no protest.

We arrived at the clinic, checked in, and were almost immediately called into the back area. Viva was a little charmer with the nurse. She was really good about getting her weight and height measured. Jake was not as cooperative, but the process was completed with a little pleading on my part.

Next we went into the exam room. The nurse put Viva on the table and took her blood pressure and asked Kara some general questions. Then the nurse proposed that Kara and Viva go into a second exam room because the doctor was ready for Viva and I could stay in this room with her and finish the first part of Jake's exam.

We separated. Jake was pretty good about getting his blood pressure taken. The nurse asked the standard questions and then she left. A little while later I heard crying from the next room. I was surprised that they were already giving her shots, but why else would Viva be crying?

It turns out that Viva was crying because the doctor asked her to walk for him. Viva's entire doctor's exam was a bust. From the moment the doctor entered the room until he left Viva was uncooperative. She refused to let him look at her eyes (she shut them), she refused to let him look down her throat, she fought him when he put the stethoscope on her chest. She would not talk to him. When he lifted her up and put her down to watch her walk, she refused to put her feet on the floor and when she finally did, she remained glued to that spot instead of racing back to mommy like the typical preschooler.

The doctor had an intern/resident in the room with him and he told her that Viva was a textbook case of a recalcitrant preschooler. I found this choice of word vastly amusing. When Kara was eight her orthopedic specialist used that exact word to describe his interactions with her. When Kara was five the doctor wrote on her official school medical charts that she was "unusually resistant to exam". In other words--extremely uncooperative.

How did Jake handle the exam? He was golden. He talked to the doctor. He did whatever the doctor requested of him.

Neither tyke was happy about the three shots they received, but other than wimpering for fifteen minutes afterwards, they were good sports about the process. The nurse gave the shots. When Viva and I went to check on Jake and Kara, the nurse was amused at the nasty look Viva gave the doctor. She asked her, "Why are you glaring at him? I'm the one who gave you the shots."

I heard Viva tell her father that she didn't work with the doctor because "I didn't like the man." When Kara told Jake that he had done a great job at the doctor's and that he didn't have to go back until next year, he replied "shots are not cool."

Lego Passion

Monday, the Fourth of July, was a holiday. We adults hoped to sleep in. Some of us did. Matt did not.

It's really his own fault. He's instilled such a love of Legos in Bentley that it's B's favorite activity. It beats iPad time and basketball practice. So when Bentley woke up early on the Fourth, he got up, he got dressed, and he arrived at his dad's bedside before 7AM. (According to Kara it was around 6:30AM. Bentley told opa and I that it was 6:56AM.)

"Hey Dad, get up. It's time to do Legos!" His father tried to put him off by getting him to climb into bed and rest, but that only worked for 10 minutes. Dad was home. It was a free day with him. Legos were top of the list and it is never too early to start playing.

Kara just laughed and told Matt "I bet you never thought you'd find someone more passionate about Legos than you!". Every father hopes his son will share some interests in common with him, but 7AM on a holiday? That is dedication.

Huh?

Jake handed me a pencil on Tuesday and asked "Grandma, can you put the thing that colors paper on it?" Huh? I looked at him blankly. Finally my brain started processing what he meant. Obviously he wanted it sharpened. I'm not sure about the colors part of the request. When I asked him for verification, he told me that yes he wanted the pencil sharpened so he could draw with it.

I've heard some women complain that living with small children is a dumbing down experience. They have the same low level conversations day after day. They long for intelligent banter. Not me. Maybe my grandchildren are exceptional (I'm sure they are, but aren't all children exceptional?!) because they keep me on my toes mentally. Their daily barrage of questions about how the world works would keep Einstein engaged.

Bentley and Basketball

Bentley is a bit obsessed with basketball lately.  We were recently gifted a full size hoop from family friends, so now we have the toddler size and the full size (not at its full height!) opposite each other for twice the fun.  With the higher hoop Bentley has been enjoying basketball quite a bit.  I counted for him the other day (at his request!) and he made 19 scores in 5 minutes!  

He has his Dad outside playing horse with him every night.  He'd be happy to play for hours, and hours, and hours... :).   Apparently he's pretty good.  Matt taught him some tricks, and now Bentley is busy instructing Dad.  What a lucky Dad!  

Isn't all that green beautiful?  Summer is nice!

Notice the lovely badminton net in the edge of the picture.  That's because our hoop is currently against a hill, and the net catches the ball instead of it rolling all the way down the hill when a shot misses the hoop or backboard.  Clever Grandma, right?!

Our Fourth of July!

Alaska is relatively new to the union, so our Fourth traditions are not the best. The fact that in Anchorage on the Fourth it never gets truly dark outside makes a fireworks display less than stellar. And our endless miles of forest make firecrackers a really, really stupid idea. So, what are we left with? A parade!

Unfortunately our parade is nothing special, but we have one. Matt and Kara have taken the tykes to see it a few times. As a youth, I vaguely recall joining the parade as a Girl Scout and when Kara was little we took her a few times, but I haven't attended for years. Or if I have, it wasn't a memorable event.

Mark and I decided to attend the parade with Matt and the children. Kara is 37 weeks pregnant (it's not a secret, but she has never mentioned it on the blog!) and she did not want to go and stand for an hour or more. We decided to park a few blocks from the parade route because we were going to check out the flowers on Town Square after the parade.

We parked. We walked. And walked. We saw some kites on the park strip. We walked some more to locate a decent spot to watch the parade from. We found one. We waited. The parade came by. We saw a few lame floats--there were no floats covered in tissue paper flowers. I like those! There was the usual marching bands, patriotic groups, dancing troupes, beauty queens in sports cars, the mayor in a sports car, some classic cars, and fire engines. The highlights of the parade were the bagpipers, a motorized car-size radio flyer wagon, a handful of clowns and an oddly dressed lady on stilts.

Jake found the parade too loud at times and Viva gave anyone who looked at her the Viva Glare, but for the most part they seemed to enjoy the parade.




Sadly, no candy was thrown from the floats. (I told you Alaskan parades are lame.) Nonetheless the children did score a few treasures. On the walk to the parade the children were each given a Mylar helium balloon advertising ACS (where opa works). During the parade someone gave Jake and Bentley each a small American Flag. Viva didn't seem to care that there wasn't one for her. After the parade the trio were gifted kaleidoscopes. Bentley gave his back. I asked him why he returned it; he didn't want it was what I got from him. Later he regretted giving it back, but it was too late. He wasn't too upset. Unlike his brother Jake, who I will discuss later.



After the parade we checked out the vendors on the Park Strip. There were a few fair type things to do. The children wanted to try the obstacle course fun house. The first time through Matt went with them to make sure that they could make it all the way through on their own. They wanted to go again, so we let them.


I wanted to purchase a candy apple for the twins to try, but the line was impossibly long. True Alaskans do not do lines. (This has been a problem when we travel. Mark and I have skipped more than one venue because of the absurd lines.)

When we were getting ready to the leave the Park Strip disaster struck. No we did not lose a child. I was in charge of the balloons and one of them slipped away from me. The balloon managed to detach from the ribbon it was tied to. It sailed off up into sky. Jake did not take its defection well. He started crying. He didn't stop for a long, long time.

Viva started crying, too. She wanted her father to carry her. She was tired of walking. He said no. She howled. She was loud. She kept it up for a good fifteen minutes. Then she found something better to do. Jake did not. He just kept on crying and crying and crying. Mark was somewhat sympathetic to Jake. (Did he lose a balloon as a child?) Matt and I were not. Get over it already.





We visited Town Square. Matt sat with Jake by the waterfall so his crying wouldn't disturb others who were at the square trying to commune with nature. Bentley and Viva ran around. Mark took lots and lots of photos of the flowers. They were gorgeous. Anchorage doesn't do a good job with parades, but they do a most excellent job with flowers. The city green house dresses the city up with thousands of fabulous flowers. I'll take flowers over parades.


We stopped by the bakery and purchased the children some cookies. We headed back to the car. We got home. Later in the evening we had a traditional Fourth BBQ with corn and watermelon.

Three final Fourth details: Summer is always busy with lots of outdoor activities, so it's hard to fit in any holiday crafts, but Kara did find a really cute wind sock made from crepe paper and the children had fun each making one. Kara and Viva also made red, white, and blue pudding pops. Jake and Viva enjoyed them, but our picky eater did not, of course, get near one. (The pudding pops were not only a new food (yuck!), but a cold one.) Grandma Vicki sent the kids a holiday package which included books, necklaces, and glow sticks.