Kids Awards Day

The kids at JNES had another awards day for the end of 3rd quarter on Tuesday. Kaisa received one award, but the day was clouded with some 6 year old manipulation.


Sky was VERY happy to receive an award!

Do any of you have a bright child? I mean, my daughter is very bright, but in addition to that, she's very quick witted. She's very, VERY quick. She sort of pretends to be shy and observes her surroundings and then, What? Whatever she wants is done and over with and you already gave it to her, long after you've realized that you were duped by a little girl. And worst of all, she KNOWS she's pulled the wool over your eyes and has a little smirk on her face. Is that bad?



I mean, we had to have a LONG talk about that Tuesday morning...AT school after she'd convinced the lunch room lady that she was sick and needed to go home, after her teacher told her she wasn't going home, and she was fine. And not only did her TEACHER say she was fine, Dean said she was fine before school. So, somehow, after a long time at Buckland, I arrived at 8:30 a.m. back to Kotzebue and went to work. Needless to say, she had the lunchlady call ME, because I wasn't keen to the situation and, of COURSE, I'll go pick up my sick baby.



Except that I stopped off at home first and spoke with Dean, then stopped at her classroom before the office. And I had a talk with a certain first grade teacher who told me all kinds of stuff about my child. One thing she said was..."She's maybe a little too smart for her own good."





Hmm...is that good or bad?!



Anyway, when I went to pick her up, she was smiling in the office ready to go home for the day, with me...her mom, who had been gone for 4 days, and would probably sleep on the couch all day while she got away with playing Wii instead of reading...on account of I'd be passed out on the couch, and she KNEW it.



Boy was she pissed when I told her to tell me what hurt, and how was she sick, and why did she tell the lunch lady that she was sick after her teacher had taken her temperature, looked in her throat and listened to her belly?




Smarty girls... straight A's...

Shoot, She was caught!


Kaisa's classmates....


and the cutest of them all!

Needless to say, she's on restriction, but that doesn't stop her from getting what she wants. One of the meetings we had about her, I was told that she'd go far in life, if she didn't piss too many people off first when they realized she had "got them."


Even if their mom says they're freshwater boys...


I think they're costal babies...all the way!

Hmm... Ah well. I'm just going to keep on telling myself that she is smart and I am doing fine as a parent, and she'll be fine as an adult!



Sigh.....Now, on ANOTHER NOTE...



I was much too busy last week with the Annual meeting preparation to post anything so many of you in internet land, didn't know that we had a HUGE basketball tournament here, 28 teams...and my son's middle school boys team won! Yay for the Kotzebue Middle School Huskies. Actually, both the Kotzebue girls AND boys won the middle school tournaments, so YAY! :)

5 day vacations...

Whew...

So, I just came back from Buckland yesterday morning. We worked and worked and worked some more.

We didn't really have an internet connection and actually, I think I was mourning the loss of the Blog rather than Facebook! Does that mean I'm growing up? I hope not. :)

In any case, my feet are completely numb from all that walking around in Mukluks, and my hands have sufficient blisters to showcase that I am actually fighting off another illness of an unknown cause. And you know what? It was completely worth it.

Buckland is a town that is FULL of wonderful people. They work extremely hard. They smile at every single opportunity. They make me laugh just by a look. I mean, seriously, it is just so happy and fun in Buckland! The kids are all wiggly, and cute. Especially the shy ones. Whom, of course, I love to tease. Their shy little smiles force their shoulders to shrug and open up. Maybe it helped that I handed out gum and prizes to them though!

For a while there, I sat in the middle of the gymnasium, closed my eyes and listened. All I heard, besides the meeting taking place was the sound of Inupairraq, Elders speaking Inupiaq. I giggled with them, teared when I heard one talk about how he wished his wife were here with him, and sighed when they said they wished more young people could understand them. So, I leaned over and smiled. "I Kaniqsi." (I understand.) To which, both of them blushed and smiled. They asked, "Everything?" So, I smiled slyly and said, "EVERYTHING!" haha. It was great.

The other thing about Buckland is that you would never know that the town doesn't have running water. Why? Because no one is complaining. They just go about their business, helping people, and smiling. They are completely appreciative that the town is getting water and sewer this summer (I'm pretty sure) and during one interview, an elder said, "The only thing I want to do before I die is flush my toilet."

Comments like that, completely humble you. Because in reality, she said she didn't really mind it, but she really wanted it for her grand kids. She said that she thought they deserved "flush toilets and water from a sink."

How many of you complained about your toilet being dirty, or your water tasting funny from the tap? Because again, reality strikes back, there ARE places in the United States of America, full towns, full cities that do NOT have running water, or sewer systems in place.

People get water by the 55 gallon bucket, make "dump runs" to empty their qugviks (honey buckets) and they know a thing or two about conserving.

Funny story about the word "Honey Bucket" too. Another comment was made by an elder who said, "I am so happy to get water and sewer, but I don't know who came up with the word 'HONEY bucket!' I never call my husband HONEY ever. Only when I'm mad at him!"

I didn't take a lot of photos, but the ones I did, I'll load soon. Right now, I'm resting my feet for my 5 day vacation. I just cut a bunch of skins I bought in Buckland for baby mukluks, kid mittens and Koy Gloves for our "Spring Break" trip to camp. (Our kids spring break is only a two day vacation, because they get out of school for the summer on May 8th. Yay!)

What'd you do for "Spring Break?" :)

Belly Painting time...

Some of you may know...I love face painting. I usually do it for the Carnival's and the 4th of July Celebrations here in town. But rarely, and I mean RARELY, do I get to paint on a pregnant belly!



But this weekend, I did! And it was so fun, until the pregnant woman let one rip and I had tears streaming down my face. AHhaha....

There are lots of different things you can paint on bellies; pumpkins, basketballs, etc. But we went with the more traditional...baby with a placenta!!!

Step One: Paint a skin colored blob with some blueish background.



Step Two: Add a placenta and some white cloudy stuff in the amniotic sac.



Step Three: Outline with Black. (Black makes ALL the difference!)



Step Four: Add shadows.



Step Five: All done. And I call it, "A noodle on a belly!" By Maija



Very cool if I do say so myself! hahaha.

It completely helps if you have a willing belly to paint though. Thanks Elsa.

Help ME, help YOU!

Let's do this together!

One of the ladies I follow is hosting a giveaway on her NEW and improved website. Susan at SHE'S BECOMING DOUGHMESSTIC is giving away TWO kitchenaide stand mixers.

And hello? Don't you want to win?! I mean I do.

But I need YOUR help! You see...if you go HERE and comment on her site that "FINNSKIMO" sent you (or feel free to use my name if you know it) then I'll win ONE and YOU'LL win ONE!

And since I'm a great friend, I'll even let you choose which one you want.

The PINK ONE...



or the BLUE ONE!



Doesn't it just make you drool?! I mean, what can't you make with these?! ANYTHING. Cookies? Check. Bread? Check. Ground caribou? Check. Homemade Pasta? Check. Ice Cream? Check. Seriously.

Come on now...lets DO THIS!

The MORE times you leave comments that I SENT YOU, the more chances you'll have for both of us to win!

DISTRICT CHAMPS!

Here's a quick note to let y'all know that Kaisa's 1st grade team won the District Battle of the Books competition last night. A very special THANK you to my sister Elsa and my friend Kookie for making their tie-dye t-shirts in less than six hours!



My six year old can READ, READ, READ! She loves reading. Like mother, like daughter! Although when she was interviewed after winning, she said, "Thanks mom for making me read all those books and always making us study when we got them wrong."

WHAT?



MAKING?! I didn't MAKE her. Did I?! haha. Oh well, she's six, that's my excuse.



Anyway, I rarely get nervous, and throughout the WHOLE competition, I was NERVOUS. I mean, lump in my stomach, ready to throw up nervous! Every time she got on the mic and said, "Caps for Sale, by Esphyr Slobdkina," I held my breath!



Yes, they had to remember and SAY ESPHYR SLOBDKINA.

Crazy.



Anyway, Here's to the 1st grade DISTRICT CHAMPS. The JNES Challengers!

Kaisa, Kelly Jr, and Kaitlyn. Whoop, Whoop!

Here kitty, kitty...

Does your husband come home randomly with presents for you? Mine does. But it's not the presents you're used to. No flowers. No purses. No jewelry. No lingerie. Nothing like that.

Me likey when the hubby brings me back some furs.



Ahhh... What shall I name her?



Hat? Mukluks? Maybe a Noodle Parky?!

Whatever it is, we'll just call her "mine."

Eskimo Baby Showers...

There are a LOT of games that people play for baby showers in "America," but up here in Eskimo Country, we play the same ones over and over, and they NEVER get old!


Seriously. Does she even LOOK eight and a half months pregnant?! UGH.


Cafeteria turned Baby Shower venue!

There's the "Berry Picking" one: where you blind fold a person, give them a berry bucket (bowl) and a spoon, scatter cotton balls on the floor and time them "berry picking" to see how well they'll do as a mom berry picking. Count the cotton balls and the winner is the person who has the most.


"I like this one!" as said by Amber!

And then we have the "This is how babies are made" game: Where you take two teams, give the first person a roll of toilet paper to stick between their legs, put them at the other side of the venue, and give the second person in the line a plunger, or a broomstick to stick between their legs. The second person runs down the hall with the broomstick/plunger between their legs and then without using their hands, sticks the broomstick into the toilet paper hole between player #1's legs and then they switch. The team who finishes first wins, and probably has LOTS of babies!





Of course, there's the "Which Poop is this?" game: Where you take about ten diapers, and crush 10 different kinds of chocolate candies into them, then microwave for 10-20 seconds, so it melts, and squish it around the diaper, number them and pass them around to see who will smell the diaper, taste the diaper and stick their finger in the diaper so they can figure out which candy it is. The person with the most wins.





And we can't forget the "Let's have a baby" game" Where again, you take two teams, two static-y full balloons, and two laundry baskets, preferably that have just had clean towels right out of the dryer in them. The players then stick the balloons between their legs and run down the hall and try to place the balloon in the basket without using their hands. (Much harder than you think, especially when the air is cold and dry!)


The spread.

And of course, there's Eskimo Bingo, but that's just played when we have lots of prizes left.

For Elsa's baby shower, my mom worked and worked and worked while all I did was decorate, think of games and frost. She baked the cookies, the cupcakes, the wings, the wrapped sausages, cut all the vegetables, and fruit, monitored the kids while they washed things, and mixed stuff. She worked from 6am until 2pm that day, then ran home, took a shower and went BACK to work and did the shower with us. She swept, mopped, put decorations up, washed a boat load of dishes and laughed until she almost peed.


And then she ran around playing games with us too! GO MOM!

She works so hard and the baby shower wouldn't have been such a great event if she didn't.

The two favorite games that we play are the plunger/tissue one and the balloon one. During one game, one of my cousins said, "We should have Harris's against the rest of the people!" But, when I counted, far more than half the people there were Harris's so it probably wouldn't have worked out in our guests favor!



More than four generations were in attendance, watching, laughing, eating, and remembering.


My grandmother, Katak, with her great-grandchildren, McKayla and David (Aulasruaq and Kuvlu)

Sigh...My baby is having a baby. Thanks everyone for your attendance, laughs and gifts. Noodle will be so happy to have them when she comes!


Elsa and the Noodle Bump.