favorite sandwich

Currently one of Kaj's go to sandwiches when his mother is being a total slacker is a dill pickle and honey sandwich on white bread.  I have no further comment on that.

Skinner and I have had a very quiet last 4 days.  Kaj has been with the cousins in Nisswa and then to Auntie Doris' in Duluth for a couple of days.  He and Brandi return tonight.  I am excited by I have certainly enjoyed the quiet.

Even bigger news and this should have been first but it doesn't even seem real...drum roll please....BRANDI PASSED HER WRITTEN DRIVING TEST!  That is right.  As of this moment I will never have to drive again when she is around.  I won't even have to get in a car after August 8th and after her driving test!  This is all assuming of course that she really is a good driver and keeps her grades up.  Wow I am still in shock.  It really is a large step up in her growing up!

2016 Christmas

Well we have already had our Christmas with the family.  We went to Auntie Doris'.  Karli actually made it but Skinner had to stay home in an attempt to keep our house warm.  Auntie Bette and Auntie Doris made a great egg bake, fresh fruit and xmas cookies for brunch!  On to the dice game... this year the theme was reduce, reuse and recycle or the letter R.  I can't remember if it was Bette or Doris that said this was the most fun they had putting stuff together for the dice game.  Then it was on to Joseph and the Technical Color Dream Coat.  Bette came since Skinner didn't.  I hope she had a good time.  Grandpa asked Kaj at intermission how he liked it and Kaj scrunched up his face a bit and said it would be great if they did more talking because I have no idea what they are saying.  I forgot to clue him in on what musicals are!  Then it was off to dinner at the Silos.  It is a great spot and we had some pretty good food.  Kaj said it was the best pizza ever (I have to agree it was pretty tasty).  We got to see the lights come on at Bentleyville from the warmth of the Silos and then we all departed and the parents walked around Bentleyville twice (brave souls).  All in all I would say it was a success!  So wonderful to get with family.  However I personally missed having a girls night with the Aunts before everyone came!

Its been a long time

Our neighbor came over last night with his boy Russell who is two days younger than Kaj.  Kaj says to Russell "It's been a long time since I have seen you lets talk.  What have you been doing?"  ...  Grandpa had made the comment that Kaj is starting to think more like a middle schooler than a elementary kid.  It is a bit crazy.

He asked why we were celebrating Christmas so early this year.  I said because that is what worked with everyone's schedules.  And he had a list of items he wanted for Christmas and suggested that I send them to Auntie Doris.  I said I think we are just doing the dice game and I don't think that you are getting any presents just for you.  He was crushed.  Getting older sucks! (He didn't say that but that was totally the attitude.  Auntie Doris if you are reading this you do not need to get him an individual present.  He will be fine with whatever he gets in the dice game.  If you have already gotten him something well then he will be surprised.

Brandi got a german shepard puppy from her mom.  She named it Rhea and she is smart cookie.  She just turned 8 weeks old but was up to visit with Brandi because she is going to go everywhere with Brandi.  When they left.  Brandi said to her dad in the truck " Look at her."  He couldn't see what she is pointing at.  "Look at her, she is scowling at me because she doesn't want to leave!"  Very cute but I am glad that she is the one that is picking up all the poop and cleaning up the pee!

Brother and Sister

This weekend was MEA and brandi was up.  Love having her around and Kaj really loves it.  So fun when they are missing each other.  Wish they didn't have to but then it makes seeing each other more exciting.
However apparently Brandi blew up at Kaj and when I got home Kaj conveyed the story and ended a little weepy eyed with "that is not the sissy that I know".
Brandi is really good about including Kaj when she has a friend from Hermantown come up.  He still really wants her to get back together with her ex-boyfriend Alex. 
Kaj has been trying to get me to get him this game called Ark Survival.  Last night he read to me all about the game.  The first sentence was you start off standard naked on a deserted island.  Then he told me standard naked is where you have underwear only.  After reading me all the information he then says with the biggest eyes and cute face and voice " Have a changed your mind just a little bit about getting the game"  Nope.
Kaj was also working on figuring out this retirement thing, jobs from home....He said Gramma Becca earns all the money now because she works from home.  I said she has been retired for a few years and Kaj was concerned how Gramma and Granpa were going to survive with no one making money.  Long story short he is going to start saving for retirement pronto.
The neighbor kid told Kaj that Skinner and I are rich.  Kaj thought his parents could be rich too if his mom would get out the house and get a job.  Luckily he didn't say that to the neighbor kid because he thought that would be kind of mean.  Yes Kaj it would and we are not rich so you are going to have to get a job. 

I think that is about it for this weekend.

Crossing Guard

Kaj is a Crossing Guard now.  His thoughts so far.  He wanted to do it even before he learned he got paid for it.  He is pretty please with himself because now he will have a "regular pay check".  His intersection has a lot of middle schoolers and high schoolers and they just cross whenever which makes it very "stressful".
Brandi is a teenager so she tells me nothing so I know nothing about what is going on in her life.  Other than she loves small engines!

Almost 9 and just 15

So what is it is like to have an almost 9 year old named Kaj.  Well he is very opinionated.  He likes to do hard work (for a short period of time).  He can now lift the hay bales but can't walk anywhere with them.  He has mowed all of Auntie Doris' yard once, part of Grandpa Jim's yard, and weed whipped a few places.  He sells eggs to the neighbors for his spending money.  He also talked to the neighbors to see if he could build a club house on their property ("the most magical place for a club house").  He drew a map and everything and they were very happy to let him do that.  He has ventured out of the house even when no one is home so he isn't sitting in front of a screen all day.  He still has a very tender heart.  He also got good at being able to take care of his chores even if Sissy was at work.  He got very tired of putting away clean dishes.  Kaj likes to hang with one kid at a time mostly and he likes to have time to himself.  He goes to bed when the last person in the house goes to bed (about 10) and gets up about 8:30.  The start of school is going to be a tough change.  He has finally gotten to hangout with Russell at the end of the summer here.  Otherwise the biggest thing is that he is not happy when Sissy isn't home and chews her out for never being home.  She does the same to him!  Their relationship is really special and I hope that it continues for life.

Brandi the just turned 15 year old.  She is not into little kids unless it is Kaj.  She has worked really hard this summer at her first job at DQ and her second job delivering food and doing dishes at the brewery.  She has saved up almost $2000 which she wants to use to buy a truck.  Preferably a Chevy pick up short box from the late 70s early 80s.  She had her first boyfriend, broke up with her first boyfriend and has a lot of responsibility put on her shoulders being the child of divorce.  She is very lucky to have her Auntie Karli and we are lucky that she really likes her Auntie Karli.  She is tough.  She has those hormones that she will be fine but then will completely lose it for 5 minutes and then be fine again.  Acupuncture and massage are the ticket for her before she starts the school year so we can send her off as balanced as possible.  She will start driver's ed this fall and plans on working at DQ here and in Hermantown.  She has spend a lot of time home this summer when she isn't working.  She has gotten to hang out with some friends and wanted to stay here for the school year but unfortunately the whole having to convince her Mom stopped her from pursuing that.  When she yells she sounds just like her Mom.  Here is one of the great mysteries of Brandi she is always cleaning her room.  I mean constantly.  She is never in it long enough to make a mess but it must be when she gets ready in the morning she throws all of her stuff on the floor so she will clean it at night again.  I have no idea.

I have to say that they are two  of my favorite people in the world and I am so glad they are part of my family.  I hope that we continue to get to spend time together as a family.  What I love is that we don't even have to be doing something special for it to be special.  We just like doing everything together.  Please God may that not change!

Yearly Check up

Kaj had his physical yesterday and he is 4 feet 5.25 inches and is 57.2 pounds.  The growth chart shows that the track he is on will put him about 5'8"-9".  But we will just have to wait and see.  Otherwise everything else checked out great.

In other news
Brandi has been working like a crazy lady.  Bailey is here and we love her and don't want her to leave.  Karli is working like a crazy lady.  The hay for us is done and something is eating all of our chickens!  Terribly frustrating.

Haying!

I have no pictures of haying so far this year but it has been great.  Kaj has been driving the truck sometimes and he can lift a bail this year.  He can't walk anywhere with it but he can lift it up to hand to me.  And he is putting in more and more time helping.  Brandi has really wanted to do hay but she has been working so she missed out on yesterday where we brought home a load of rounds and two trailer loads of squares that filled up the loft in the barn!  We had help from Deanne and Brett and their two kids Tristan and Tyler.  Really a good time which is how haying should be in my opinion.  Still really hot sweaty and itchy but a really good time.

Firsts

Kaj mowed Doris' lawn and weed whipped.  Brandi had just taught Kaj how to weed whip before he went there.  So fun for Kaj and Doris to have this wonderful time together.  It sounds like he was super helpful one weekend and then the next time he went he was not as helpful but they had a great time.  So nice having Doris in Duluth.

Auntie Karen is in Duluth as well now for a few weeks.  Love having her here. 

Brandi has her first job at DQ and she got a second one at the Brewry with Auntie Karli.  She is working her tail off and seems to enjoy her jobs.

Plans are coming together for the new house.  We just need to figure out where everything is going from our old house while the new one is being built.  Next summer is going to be exhausting but really good.

We now have a round baler and it man is it fast.  The round bales are small enough that we can just roll them on to the trailer.  Kaj and I loaded a load last night for the first time.  Skinner was a bit shocked and quite pleased with us.

Oh the other big first that I even had to be called at work about is that Kaj got the garage door open for the first time all by himself.  Not a small feat for someone so little and the door being soooo big.

All in all the summer is going very well.

Quotes

It is near the end of the school year and I have completely lax in updating the blog.  Sorry to the Aunts.

Mom we need to talk.  It is about school.  I need this suffering to end!

Sissy didn't really sing with expression.
(Brandi had her spring concert this week and they sang sixties music.) You need to sing with expression otherwise you are just standing there looking duh.

I miss Grandpa Bill and Grandma Gert everyday.  Look at me I am just about crying right now just thinking about them.

I am having a growth spurt right now!  That means I need to eat twice as much (honestly I think he ate about 5 times as much as he normally does for about a week, so he probably wasn't wrong about the growth spurt!)

We were at Swenson's Greenhouse on 53 and we had cut ourselves off of getting anymore flowers and then we found one of their greenhouses that we hadn't been in yet.  Kaj says how about we each just do one more box!  Of course I caved.  When we got home he immediately told Daddy that MOMMY spent 300 some dollars on flowers.  Little bugger threw me under the bus.

I need to get back in the habit of doing homework everyday.  (This after he skipped doing homework and had to do a whole week in one night.)

Kaj has also been selling eggs around the neighborhood for a little extra money for himself.  He seems to do pretty good selling the eggs.

Too Tired

This weekend was a busy one.

About a month ago we got a couple of heifers.  Snoozy Suzy and Sassy Sophie.  They have done really well but are slow to warm up to people.  That is ok at least they are still little so they are easy to man handle if needed.

It was time for the barn to be cleaned out, Skinner got into the horse area and was cleaning.  That got Simon the bull all excited.  His fence has gotten shorter and shorter through the winter because he really doesn't pack it down and we can't get in there to scoop the snow, thus with the excitement he jumped his fence.  Skinner proceeded to chase him for about an hour and no luck.  He got close to the barn a couple of times but not back in his area.  We bailed on that and decided to move the girls into his area after it was cleaned out.  First we had to wrestle the girls to get halters on them, then convince them to follow us on a lead.  Lots of pulling and shoving and one getting away, but then getting stuck in the deep snow, then finally they were in there stall.  Skinner tried to get Simon again still no luck.  Of course he was mad which hinders his vision so as he was cleaning out the last stall he poked a hole in the water tank.  Such a peaceful calm day cleaning the barn. Not!  By the way after all of this we went after Simon and in about 2 min. he walked into his stall peacefully on his own.  Silly cows.

Kaj had a friend come over Saturday night and they played and played.  Inside and out which was wonderful.  Brandi was up and they had fun with the snowmobile after they helped dig her out of being stuck in the snow bank.  Saturday night they stayed up til who knows when watching movies.  Sunday Rayce decided he would give cross country a try with Kaj at Y-Ski.  They had already played outside that morning and then inside and I kicked them outside when I thought Gramma and Granpa would be coming to get them for y-Ski.  An hour later G&G showed up and the boys were a bit irritated because I wouldn't let them ride the 4 wheeler and snowmobile like they had earlier because well when I know someone is coming I don't want them to have to dodge kids on vehicles.

G&G came and they were off up the trail for y-ski!  Peace and quiet for a bit for me.  The boys had a great time and got to have malts at trail center before coming home.  We brought Rayce home and I Kaj and I got home.  Fast forward a couple of hours to dinner time, he is a little too tired.

Me: Kaj in about 15 min. you need to shower and eat and go to bed
Kaj: Ok
about 30 min later
Me:  Are you going to shower and eat or eat and shower
Kaj: There is nothing to eat (keep in mind that I made him a pizza which previously he said he would eat, there is also veggie beef soup, creamy baked potato soup, cheezy enchiladas or PB&J that he could also eat)
Me: What about the pizza
Kaj: I am just not hungry for pizza
Me:  Ok how about a shower
Kaj: There is nothing to eat......

This goes on and on.  Finally
Me:  Kaj just go to bed
Kaj: Why didn't you make me eat the potato soup?
Me: Why do I have to make you eat it?
Kaj: You should make me eat it.
Me: KAJ GO EAT THE POTATO SOUP RIGHT NOW
Kaj: That isn't how you make me eat it.
Me: KAJ GO EAT THE POTATO SOUP OR GO TO BED 1   2   3
I start to get up to get him up stairs
Kaj:  You can't just start counting you have to give me time to think about it.
...the argument unfortunately did not just end there.

Seriously this child.  He was so tired he was arguing about nothing.  For full effect we will have to reenact it live.  But just picture any sitcom where you are just like do people really have these arguments they are ridiculous.  Yes, Yes we do. Sadly