Easter Sunday

We had a beautiful Easter Sunday.  Earlier in the month, the Boy helped me make "bacon and eggs" candy for all the neighbors.

Before church, we snapped a couple of pictures of the punks.  Unfortunately, it was difficult for the Girl to navigate the stairs in her poofy dress.  Right as we were coming down to take the pictures, she took a tumble and got a slightly black eye.

I loved these bench pictures.  I wish I would have noticed the price tag on the bottom of her shoe, though.

We had an egg hunt after church.  The Girl's nursery leader (and basically the person who takes care of her during sacrament meeting, too) came over to play.  Happy Easter!

Let's Go Fly a Kite

The weather here has one drawback in my opinion.  It gets pretty breezy in the Spring.  Really, really breezy.   To make the most of this, the Boy flew his first kite this week.  He loved it and loved showing off his recently acquired kite flying knowledge to all the kids at the park that gathered around.

Gone

Uhhhh....where did my Google Reader go?  Why on earth would they get rid of that? If I was horrible at keeping up with other people's blogs before, now I'm really up a creek without a paddle.

Potty Trained!

I was right. Independence was the key to training the Girl.  She is not totally accident free, but it all clicks with her now.  She initiates and is even often dry through the night. We will now move on to the "clogging the toilet with paper and flushing over and over are not acceptable" phase.

Taking the Long View

I'm glad I posted about potty training the Boy years ago.  Reading them helped me remember that with some kids potty training is a process.  A long, wet, messy process.  I'm hoping I discovered the key to getting the Girl on board with this, though.  Independence.  I should have known from the start that she would want to do as much as she can by herself.  I'll work that angle for the next couple of days and see how we get on.

Potty Training Number Two

Ugh.  I thought the Girl would be easier.  We've had four accidents in 8 hours (thank goodness for plastic underwear).  The only time she actually used the potty today was when she first woke up.  I'm thinking we have a long road ahead.

T-Ball

The Boy started T-Ball today. His first game is this weekend. Despite the Yankees hat, we've been assigned to the Colorado Rockies team. I was hoping to be put on the Yankees, but I'll get over it.  We are excited!

Today I'm 34

I always post about my kids.  I figured I should do one post about myself.  Especially since today is my birthday.  The weather decided to make it a good day.  It's 75 degrees and sunny.  So here I am at thirty-four.

I've already received lots of birthday wishes.  I was so happy to hear from my sisters and my girlfriends in New York.  I love and think of them all often. 

 

I made a super rich, dense, awesome cheesecake with blackberry topping. But since it's for the church youth fundraiser, I don't even get to eat it. That's okay. Tomorrow I am going shopping all day....all by myself. I love my kids to death, but that should be delightful. And then The Man is taking me out for dinner. I'm looking forward to it!

Santa Barbara

Yesterday we drove down to Santa Barbara to meet up with some of The Man's family and have lunch.  It was gorgeous there.  My mother-in-law snapped this picture with her new phone.  I'm posting it because my kids are so darn cute, but I wish I could completely photoshop myself out of it.

I Love My Neighbors

I've been wanting to get the kids a little play kitchen for a while, but when birthdays and Christmas come around, it always takes a back seat to other toys and games. My procrastination paid off. Last night, my neighbors decided their super cute play kitchen was taking up too much space in their garage. So they gave it to us!

I love this so much! I have a better place to store all the play food and dishes the Girl got for Christmas. The Boy puts a tealite candle in the bottom of the oven to use as his heating element. They have hardly stopped playing with it since it got here.

From the Phone

Poor Girl. Most the pictures I take of her are on my not-so-smart 1.3 megapixel camera phone. Rarely do they get sent to the computer. Here are some from the last few months.

 She loves wearing my sunglasses.

On her beanbag throne.

With her nursery leader at church. She loves her so much she rarely sits with us during Sacrament meeting anymore.

 This was taken at Larry King's house.  My sister-in-law had her wedding reception there.

A Couple More Firsts

Some fun firsts happened this week. Last night the Girl used the little potty for the first time by herself. (Is it ok to post pictures like this???) I haven't really entertained potty training her yet. I guess we'll do that pretty soon.

She also now has her hair just long enough to put it in cute little pony tails.

He Turned Six!

The Boy turned six. I can't believe it. Since he had a basketball game on the morning of his birthday and we were in charge of bringing the after game snack, I decided to make it a little party. Party bags and cupcakes for his friends. It was great!

After that we came home and opened presents. He made out big with some money and a few other gifts. We went out and had ice cream later, too. He chose boxed mac n' cheese for dinner of all things. Happy Birthday, Boy. We love you!

One of Those Firsts

Today we had a first.  It wasn't one of the fun ones.  I got my first "I don't love you" from the Boy. Ouch.

Sour Face

The Man and I saw this picture on TV last night and he commented on the similarity between it and the Girl.

 

I had to agree.  She has recently taken to scowling a lot.

Bumper Sticker

I want this bumper sticker.

I Want to Be a....

Yesterday at church, the Boy and the Girl started fighting before services even began.  So I pulled the Girl onto my lap and placed the Boy in front of me for a serious talk.  We had this conversation:

Me: Boy, what kind of a boy do you want to be today?

Boy: I want to be a gentleman.

Girl: (very earnestly) And I want to be a butterfly.

Couldn't be mad at all after that.

Christmas Present

The big thing I bought for The Man at Christmas was a grill.  It was both gas and charcoal and it had a smoker box.  It was a lot of grill.  I wasn't sure The Man would want/like it.  As it turns out, he felt it was a little more grill than he needed.  So he took it back and got this instead.

It HAS a grill, so I guess it's pretty much the same thing.

Christmas

For Christmas this year, I got.....the flu. So did The Man, the Girl, and the Boy. But I definitely got it worse than those three. As a result of the plague running through our house, our Christmas pictures are limited. Luckily for me, my mother-in-law, father-in-law, and sister-in-law were here to cook meals, clean my house, and take care of the kids. I don't know what I would have done without them. So here is our Christmas in short:

 

I made a ton of these so the Boy could have his gingerbread man party at school.

 

 

 

Many of our lovely neighbors came caroling.

 

 We opened stockings on Christmas Eve and the Boy just couldn't take his new headlamp off - even to sleep.

 

I got all of 5 pictures on Christmas morning.  I couldn't even manage to focus when snapping the Girl with her new dollhouse.  I had to take a picture of the Boy on his new scooter days later. 

My in-laws made a wonderful prime rib dinner with garlic mashed potatoes and asparagus.  I managed to take about five bites.  It was a sad, sad time.  I didn't even get a picture of the gorgeous meal. 

Here's looking forward to a New Year without the flu.

Basketball

The Boy started basketball last week - a game full of 5 year olds is a little chaotic and cute. He is number 2.  He took the ball halfway down the court and promptly passed it off. That's the most he touched the ball during this game.

 
The Boy was more interested in coaching than playing.  He even gave advice to the other team.

Craft Idea

I'm making some of these for Christmas presents. (This one is my first attempt, so it's not a masterpiece. It's also a little difficult to see the brown flowers in this picture, but they are there.) Sorry for those of you who read this and will be receiving one - it will no longer be a surprise. 

 

 

I saw the idea on Etsy months ago, but can no longer find the ad for it. Then I googled how to make paper flowers and found this tutorial.  A pretty and relatively simple gift.  If you want to make this, here are a few notes I had to learn on my own:

1. Card stock works nicely as long as it's the regular kind and not the overly thick kind. I also used 6x6 squares instead of 4x4 to make bigger flowers that would fit into the 8x10 shadow box.
2. Don't make your swirls too wide or too small.  Try and stick as near to 1/2 inch as possible. If you have to err to one side, go too small, though.
3. You don't have to roll it all the way to the center. The center is a pain.  Cut it off.
4. If you are using card stock, roll it tight! Then after rolling, hang on to it for a minute before letting go and letting it unravel. 
5. Close it up at the end with some glue or a sticky dot (my preference).
6. If it unravels more than you would like, don't throw it away.  Roll it tight again. It can be salvaged.

Halloween

It was the Boy's idea to go as Mickey and Minnie Mouse this year for Halloween.

In addition to the regular Halloween night, we had trunk-or-treat at church the weekend before.

We participated in the little parade and trick-or-treating they had downtown.

And finally, just before the real trick-or-treating began, we went to a little party at the neighbors where they had a bounce house, bobbing for apples, and create a mummy.  It was a great time!

It felt like this Halloween was a week long and I'm a little happy to see it go.

Ewww...

Just in time for Halloween, The Man decided to have a mountain biking accident.  I feel it's in bad taste to post the "before stitches" picture.  Here's the after, though.

It looks a little Frankenstein to me.

Money

Like almost every other child this age, the Boy wants me to buy him something every time we go to the store.  He also thinks that if he treats his toys badly and breaks them, we will just buy another.  At these moments, I usually tell him that if we spend money on toys all the time, we won't have enough to buy other things that we really need.  

A few days ago after having this conversation with him for the ___th time, he came to me with all the money in his piggy bank.  He wanted me to have it (since apparently I didn't have any).  Despite my assurances I did not need it, he insisted that I take it.

A day or two went by and The Man also had a conversation with him about money.  The Boy mentioned that he had given me his piggy bank because I didn't have any.  So The Man asked, "Do you think I have money?"  To which the Boy responded, "I think you have a pretty nice collection going".

Such a funny boy.

Pumpkin Patch

The Girl and I attended a field trip with our Parent Participation group (which is basically a fancy play date with a little parent education thrown in).

She fed the goats and the ponies.  She chased the chicken.

She ate the apples on the hay ride, which made me miss New York.

And she picked a couple of pumpkins.

Bigger Boy Bed

It was high time we got the Boy out of his toddler sized bed - especially since he broke it about 6 months ago.

The secondary reason for the full sized is so we can actually have a place for guests to sleep. So come visit. And please ignore the spot on the brand new quilt where the Boy wrote his name in pen.

World's Best Glass Cleaner

I love this glass cleaner so much, I had to share it with you.  It really is the world's best.  It's foamy so it doesn't run. There's no ammonia in it, so it doesn't smell. (Actually it smells nice.) And it doesn't streak!  I use it with a microfiber cloth and my windows and mirrors are perfect.  If you can find this where you are, buy it.

It's A Major Award!

The Boy got an award this week at school for being a "Superstar".  That's the award they give for achievements in character and other non-academic related things.  When I hear that term, I can't help but think of Mary Katherine Gallagher from SNL, though.

The class had a little "ceremony" with the principal to give it to him.  This is what his teacher wrote about him on the certificate:

"[The Boy] is a responsible learner in Room One. He worked hard as our very first classroom line monitor! [He] comes to school ready to learn. [He] is a kind friend to all. Congratulations, you are a true superstar!