Marshmallow Art

A friend of mine posted this awesome art project on Facebook, and I knew we had to give it a try.  We picked up some marshmallows and pasta when we were running errands, and got started when we got home.  Karsten was having a play date at a friend's house, so Liam and Scott put together most of his masterpiece but when Karsten got home, he wanted to jump right in and start building.

Note to self, next time, do this on the dining room table, not the kitchen table.  It was too cool to take down right away!

I didn't know!

Karsten has had strep and a virus that has caused a cough.  He actually ended up at Urgent Care last week because he was having what sounded to us like croupy sounds while he was coughing.  Since he was doing this at dinnertime, we knew it was going to be a rough night since croup gets worse at night.

With all this coughing, we've been having him take his inhalers every four hours.  Right before dinner I told him to run upstairs and take his inhaler.  He went upstairs then came back down after a few minutes.  I was picking up school papers on the island and discovered Karsten's inhaler (busted!)

Me: Hey Karsten, did you take your inhaler upstairs?
Karsten: Yep
Me: Really? The red ones? Are you sure?
Karsten: Yep!
Me: Come here
Karsten: Whhhhy, I'm playing. (Karsten sulks over to island)
Me: Look what I found! {points to inhaler}
Karsten: (stares at me with wide eyes)
Me: Your inhalers are here, but you said you took them upstairs, that's confusing.  How did you take them upstairs?
Karsten: I went like this (pretends to take inhaler)
Me: {laughter} You did what?
Karsten: But I didn't know where my inhaler was!  
Me: {more laughter} And you thought taking a pretend inhaler was a good solution?
Karsten: (shakes head)
Me: {still laughing at the ridiculousness of this}.  Karsten, you lied to me, is that ok?
Karsten: (sad voice and more tears) nooo
Me: Take your inhaler and always remember that mommy and daddy WILL find out when you lie to us.

Proud parenting moment right there - Scott and I could not stop laughing.

Basketball

Karsten's basketball season is drawing to an end, he only has one more game.  It's been fun to watch him learn and play this season.  The boys have all started to work really well together and are learning new skills each week.

I'm learning a lot as well - for example, I know that I should not yell encouragement for basketball until I know more.  Yelling BLOCK HIM is not the appropriate encouragement, it's apparently better to say GUARD HIM!

Right about the time I took this, Scott reminded Karsten to keep his arms up - apparently that's how you do it.  See, my basketball knowledge is expanding weekly.

Today's practice was all about guarding your guy which was good since the other team was huge.  Our boys did a great job stealing the ball away, then shooting, but it was tough for them to rebound or stop passes that all happened over their heads.