Happy Easter!

As if coming home from the hospital isn't enough to take in for one day, there was also the Easter preparations to worry about. Bennett is my original Easter baby, having been born on Easter morning in 2007. Now I have a new Easter babe, born on Maundy Thursday! Unfortunately, that meant that I was not going to be able to go to church for Good Friday services or even on Easter morning, and I admit I was a little saddened by that. Luckily, my mom was game for taking the kids to church on Easter morning, so after the eggs were all found, breakfast and a good dose of sugar was had, off they went. Myself, Lance and my Dad stayed back and celebrated Easter with Landon at home.

Here are a few pictures from Easter morning!

The kids' baskets

 The pre-hunt investigation

Easter Sunday best!

A fresh perspective on the season

Two years ago, I was plotting my escape from the corporate world. I had short timers syndrome and I was eagerly looking forward to a day when I would only have myself to answer to. One year ago, I was completely immersed in all things Christmas. I was baking and decorating, writing Christmas cards, and wrapping presents. Last year, I had it all done by early December and enjoyed the season, rather than rushing through it as I'd done every previous year.

This time of year is stacked full of shopping and decorating. Get togethers and obligations. Travel, logistics, planning, shipping, baking, dinners and planning. As a parent, you want to really make things sparkle, remembering the magic of Christmas as a child. You need to make sure everyone has the best Christmas ever. That's a lot of pressure.

This year, I'm trying to find the happy medium. The balance of being able to really enjoy the season without feeling a slave to it. I want to retain some of that ability I had last year to enjoy it. Since I'm working and don't have the luxury of being at home this year, I've made an agreement with myself.

Self: You will not put unattainable expectations upon yourself. You will do the things that bring you joy and take a pass on the ones that you do because you feel like you have to or someone else needs you to. You know what? You may not be able to get the perfect picture for the holiday card. No one will notice but you. You cannot do it all. Delegate tasks to others so that you don't overly burden yourself with the weight off all things Christmas. Most importantly, you will cherish the moments you have with your family. They are so precious and really, nothing else matters...

On Sunday, we had such fun as a family decorating the tree. Lance is not as "into the holiday spirit" as I am, but I caught him humming along to Jingle Bell Rock. Morgan told me that her favorite thing about this time of year was the smell of the fresh tree in our house (yes, my heart melted to hear such a thing out of the mouth of my babe!). I will forever remember this Christmas as the one where Bennett could really help decorate the tree. Well, specifically, two branches since those are the only ones he felt obligated to decorate. I'm glad I was able to stop, step back and take it all in. That's what it's about. Not some silly fake pet hamster that only the first 100 people in line at Toys R Us can get. :)

The thought is what counts!

My wish for today was nothing more than to be able to lounge around in bed all day. Here's what I had imagined.

Sleeping in.
Breakfast in bed.
Snuggling with children.
Sending children away to commence hours upon ours of alternating between blogging, reading and watching trash TV.
Staying in my pajamas all day.
Seeing sweet faces give me cards.
Not having to lift a single finger to do a single thing.
Facebooking in bed.
Not having to plan, cook or clean up any meals.
Did I mention the staying in bed all day part?



Here's what I got:
Slept in a little
Breakfast in bed.
Snuggles with children.
Sent children away and commenced short bursts of blogging, reading, and watching TV.
Stayed in my pajamas most of the day.
Sweet faces gave me cards.
Ended up helping with kids because they were a real handful.
Facebooking in bed.
Didn't plan, cook, or clean up any meals.
Didn't stay in bed all day....it's too stressful to hear your husband losing his patience with children acting like banshees.
Oh, and I got some lovely flowers on Friday!

Happy Mothers Day!

Happy Easter!

It's not very often that I'm able to enjoy a holiday at my house with my family. However, we were smart to have Bennett in April since his birthday is usually close to Easter (he was actually born on Easter the year he was born). That makes it a little more compelling for my east coast family to venture out this way on a holiday that they would traditionally be at their house. So, it was extra nice this morning to wake up with the kids and my parents and watch them discover the fun stuff the Easter Bunny had left for them as well as watching them hunt eggs. I think the Easter Bunny needs to find some new spots or get a little more creative next year because it went by far too quickly this year!


After all the morning fun, it was time to get ready for church. We had such a full load, that we ended up having to go to church in the minivan that my parents rented. The message was interesting, and also ironic since it also tapped into a lot of what Lance and I were discussing at dinner last night. Funny how God works, huh?

I heated a spiral cut ham, made homemade mashed potatoes, and asparagus for our dinner. Lance had even baked some really yummy walnut cranberry chocolate chip cookies yesterday that we were able to enjoy for dessert. It was a lovely meal, so nice to be with the ones you love on a day such as this.

Fun times continue

This time last year, we were partaking in our annual tradition with our family friends where we decorate cookies and dye Easter eggs. That's the same friend whom I had the falling out with and so this year, we weren't going to be going to their house to do this. It wasn't long before Morgan wanted to know if we were going to be going to their house to dye eggs, so I had to tell her (yet again) that we weren't really friendly with them anymore and we hadn't been invited there, but I thought maybe we could continue the tradition at our house and invite some different friends. She got so excited, my little party girl, and was clamoring for a list of things we needed to do to get ready! Well, we're ready and today was the day! Yesterday, the eggs were hard boiled and this morning we baked the cookies. The goodie bags are stuffed, the table cloths laid down and then we were ready for our friends to arrive! Everyone brought a dish to share and so there was lots of yummy food. All the kids had a lot of fun, some of them just now coming into the age where they can get into things like this. Morgan and her friend Chenoa, enjoying some big girl time together. Chenoa even commented about how this was the best party she'd ever been to! I teased Lara that she's sheltering her daughter way too much! Though it can be chaotic with so many kids in one house, it was well worth it!! Here are some pictures from our fun evening!

A very ordinarily magical Valentine's Day

There were no plans to go out to a fancy dinner. No going to see a jazz band or taking in the latest movie. Nope, we opted to stay in for Valentines today and it was perfect!

The day started with some heart shaped pancakes my hubby made for me. That's right. For ME. The kids had already asked for cereal and didn't have the patience to wait for pancakes, so we fed them breakfast first and then Lance and I sat down to some heart shaped pancakes.


I'm sure I don't have to tell you this, but the second picture has Kiss Me written in syrup. You saw that, right?

The kids opened presents from us and from my parents and were ecstatic with what they got. Bennett got an Elmo Loves You video from my parents and a Find and Fit puzzle book set from us. Morgan got the movie E.T. from my parents and Barbie paper dolls from us.


After presents, it was time for Morgan and Lance to head off to Lowe's for the Kids' Workshop where they were building jewelry boxes. Morgan came back really excited. She got to keep an apron and even got a patch for building the jewelry box. I think this is something we'll be doing more of in the future. Especially since it's totally free! When they came back, they also had a little something special for me. :)


Oh, and while I'm thinking about it, here's the card that they made for me. All three of them. :)

Lance, Morgan, Bennett


And here is the "smelly heart" that Morgan made for Lance and I at school. They took scented candle shavings and melted them between wax paper and cut them into hearts.


After lunch, the kids went down for naps and Lance and I got busy. No, not that kind of busy. He went to work in Morgan's room, scraping the ceilings. We had a plumbing issue that required us to cut a hole in the ceiling of her room to diagnose properly and now that it's time to repair it, we've decided to scrape down the popcorn from her ceiling. Here's my little honey bunny on Valentine's Day this year.

Doesn't he look cute?? Yeah, in that freaky oompa loompa way. ;-)

While he was busy working up a sweat in Morgan's room, I was busy in the kitchen baking him some special treats. I made him Russian tea cakes (his favorite) and also baked some brownies for our dessert later that night. I also started to prep for the romantic dinner we had planned for when the kids went to bed.

Later, Lance got the kids fed (leftover heart pancakes, nonetheless) while I got showered and prepared dinner. I made Cornish game hens with rice, toasty garlic bread (the bread I made from scratch!) and Caesar salad. We ate on our fine china and silver at the dining room table, complete with candle light, wine, and some Coldplay. I even used the dimmer on our dining room light fixture, so it was extra romantic over the candle light. We actually got to talk and not have to worry about disciplining children or who's throwing what food. It was really nice! We should do it more often!

After dinner, we loaded up Made of Honor in the DVD and watched this romantic comedy together. Half way through, we stopped and got the brownies from the oven and put some ice cream on top and enjoyed our chocolaty gooey goodness. Mmmmm.

No grand gestures, no elaborate plans. Just us, together, enjoying each other's company. What a perfect Valentine's Day.

Domestication of Paige

Want to know what happens when you leave me at home with a toddler who is still recovering from a cold?

This...



























And a little "this" with the little ones....
















Then when all that was done and dinner was done, I popped some cranberry banana nut bread into the oven for my MOPS meeting tomorrow morning. So, yeah. I pretty much spent the day in the kitchen. I was really proud of myself for the bread though! It's the first time I've made bread from scratch and it actually wasn't that hard to make and it tastes great!

In fact, the hardest thing I did today was to put the sprinkles on those damn pretzels. It was very time consuming! You couldn't roll them in the sprinkles because that would just smear the chocolate everywhere, so I had to hand sprinkle each pretzel, by sprinkling while turning. To 20+ pretzels. Ummm....yeah! Morgan had fun drizzling the white chocolate over them, though. And when I was letting her stir the chocolate in the double boiler as it was melting, she looks at me and says, "Mom, I'm noticing that you are making a lot of things homemade these days. And I'm really glad that you are letting me help you. That way I can be a great cook one day!" It's then that you realize that these little things that are total pains really do matter! Anyway - hope the kids in her class like them! We opted to totally make all of our Valentines this year. The cards are handmade and we did these pretzels instead of the standard conversational hearts. When Morgan hands these out to her classmates on Friday, she can take pride in the work that she actually put into each and every one of these. For that alone, all the work is worth it!

A great way to start 2009

Last night, we had just a few friends over for a fondue party to ring in the New Year. It was low key and fun for both adults and kids. Believe it or not, Bennett was up until about 11pm and I tucked Morgan into bed shortly after midnight. We did a cheese course, salad and then went straight for desert, which included Rice Krispie treats, Snickers bars, and madelines. Mmmm. I think the chocolate course was the kids' favorite. We drank champagne and sparkling cider and did poppers and pop-its out in the courtyard. The kids had hats and noisemakers and I believe they all really enjoyed our celebration. Maybe we'll have to make it a tradition!

I'll close with a message from Bennett:

Things that I've been remiss in discussing here

1. My daughter's report card. 4 is proficient at grade level (which is where you want them at the end of the year) and 3 is basic approaches grade level standards). She got 4's on all academics except for one of the phonemic awareness ones (I.D rhyming words...she said that run and red rhymed---the teacher said that 90% of the kids missed that one because they are focused on the first letter) and "Follows one-and two-step oral directions" (due to her lack of focus because SHE'S talking). She got a mix of 3's and 4's for Work and Study Skills. A couple 3- for "follows school and classroom rules" (not raising her hand to speak) and "demonstrates verbal self-control" (yeah - that one is pretty self explanatory LOL). The commentary was all glowing. Her teacher says she "LOVES her Morgan" and that she puts a smile on her face every day. She said that even the tough stuff - her talking - was just a result of having such a happy child. She's so happy that she just wants to tell everyone about her life. She said she's a true joy to have and that she "came there wanting to learn" and how that's so great because not all kids are like that and it's tough to pull them into a desire to learn. She said I didn't have anything to worry about with Morgan.

In true Morgan fashion, she wanted to go LINE BY LINE through her report card. I tried really hard to be upbeat and positive, but to also give her something to strive towards. I just don't want to be the parent who's all "What's this A- all about!!??". We told her we were very proud of her report card and that if she improves, especially in the areas of the 3-s that she got, she'll get a good surprise after her next report card. So, we'll see how that works out!

2. Bennett is now consistantly putting together more than one word. "Big Bird Bed" and "Love You Momma". Now if we can get him to listen to more than one word. ;-)

3. Thanksgiving festivities. Morgan and her class kicked off the holiday on November 21st with the Turkey Tango and the Thanksgiving Feast. Unfortunately, the night before was when I went with my friend Kristin to the midnight showing of Twilight and Kaitlyn and Morgan had their own midnight showing. Poor girl was sooo tired during her party. Here are a couple pics from school.


After that, we had a full week of no school ahead of us and we hung out and made the best of it. On Monday we just hung out at home while I cleaned. We headed to Superfranks on Tuesday with some friends. On Wednesday, Bennett's playgroup headed to the library for percussion time. It was fun, but a little long for the toddlers. After the library, Morgan went home with Chenoa for a playdate, which gave me the perfect opportunity to get things going for our Thanksgiving feast. I made the cranberry salad, two pumpkin pies, and cornbread muffins. On Thanksgiving day, we woke up and made a big breakfast of Pumpkin Waffles with homemade Apple Cider Syrup. Yumm! While the kids were napping, Lance fried up the turkey and I cooked the sweet potatoes, jiblet gravy, and green beans. We ate around 5 and we had so much food, I brought a couple of plates over to our elderly next door neighbors. It was a quiet, relaxed Thanksgiving and I loved it!



Black Friday was awesome! I met some friends at Kohl's at 4am and we shopped there until 5:30 when they headed to Target and I headed to Toys R Us. I stood in line for AN HOUR AND A HALF for one particular thing at TRU!! I hope it was worth it! After that, we went and got some breakfast before going for round 2 at the mall. I hit the jackpot in children's clothing at Macy's and then we hit a few other stores at the mall before finally heading home around 1pm! That's a long time to shop! Luckily, I came home just in time for nap! I took a good long nap and then before I knew it, Lance was leaving for a night out with his geocaching buddies and I had my friend Kristin and her daughter Kaitlyn over for a girls' night in. We all ate popcorn and the girls watched movies while Kristin and I chatted. It was fun!

4. Christmas is coming!! Yippee!! I'll leave that for a whole other post unto itself. :)

5. Our latest addition to our toy stash. Hello slide! I think the video speaks for itself!

Hhmmmppphh....is this thing on??

My friend Melissa keeps asking me when I'm going to blog again. I know it's been over a week and while I'd like to give you all the logical excuses like Morgan was out of school and it was Thanksgiving and we were busy, what it really boils down to is that I didn't feel compelled to write. I mean, why force it? Yeah, sure there were a few funny moments between gym happenings (like this older woman who I used to go to church with before I had Morgan ~6 years ago, asking me if Bennett was the bump that used to be in my belly. Wow. Yes, she just has incredibly stunted growth. Oh, and her gender suddenly changed 19 months ago) and various Morganisms. But, I haven't really had that itching in my fingers to hit the keyboard.

Well, folks, that has changed. Because you'll never believe who made their appearance in our house on Sunday. ELVIS! That's right. And rather than hear it from my biased perspective, you can go straight to the source. Before you go off on some crazy rant about future therapy sessions for my children, I want you to know that Morgan practically BEGGED for the elf to arrive.

Yes, I have gone off the deep end. And you love it.

Last stop on the insanity train

I'm sitting here, eating a tootsie roll and although we had a FABULOUS time today, I'm so glad that Halloween is officially over. It's been too much, all lumped together and I'm looking forward to some weeks of NOTHINGNESS until we roll through Thanksgiving and straight into Christmas.

Yesterday, I met a friend at the gym to do the track and stairs with, after dropping Morgan off at school. I haven't done cardio quite that intense in a couple of weeks, and I was REALLY feeling it. In fact, after sprinting my last lap, I felt as if I were going to pass out. We were walking laps around the track to cool down and I got that chilled, shaky feeling that I know all too well. Luckily, I just kept breathing deeply and it subsided.

After the gym, Bennett and I came home and I did a few chores and then we went to pick Morgan up from school. The kids came home and had lunch and then went down for naps right on time, since we had planned to go to the park for playgroup after. While they were sleeping, the rain started to fall and playgroup was canceled. I took advantage of the atmosphere, and took a nice long nap, leaving my dirty floors to be mopped at another time. By the time we all woke up, it was nearly time for dinner! We did leftovers for dinner and then I headed off to bible study.

Today was Morgan's parade and party at her school, followed by Trick or Treating tonight, of course. The party was open to siblings, so Bennett tagged along. I was SHOCKED by how well he did. Yeah, he threw a few goldfish on the ground, but that's not something that the five year olds weren't doing. He even played with them when it was "choice time", playing and SHARING at the doll house and chalk board! I was so proud of him! All the true kindergartners seemed to be having a really good time at the party. There were stations for decorating cookies, making spiders, a witch's cackle station, monster hands, fishing for treats (my station) and other cute crafts. The kids had a blast and it was so fun to be able to be there and experience it all with them. :)




After school, we came home and had lunch and then I got to work finishing up the chores I had put off on previous occasions. I worked non-stop until the kids woke up. I'm so glad I did too, because now I won't have that stuff hanging over my head. Pretty soon, it was time to cook dinner. I made a chicken pasta dish (artichoke hearts, sun-dried tomatoes, olives, mushrooms, goat cheese, and chicken) with the remaining chicken that I roasted the other night. Lance said again tonight,"you need to always make this with the chicken leftovers!". I think he likes it!

After dinner, the kids got back into their costumes and we took the obligatory cheesy pictures and then took off for trick or treating. We went with our neighbor, who's son went to preschool with Morgan. They did the whole neighborhood and filled their buckets! Bennett hung in there the whole time and was rewarded when he got home with his first Reese's peanut butter cup! He's officially hooked on Halloween!

BOO it forward!

Last night, as we were preparing for my parents' departure, we noticed a little Halloween basket of goodies that had been left in our courtyard. We brought it up to our front porch and left it there for Morgan to find this morning.

She was so excited to find this bucket full of fun stuff for the kids. Two Cinderella pom poms, a Disney coloring book, some candy necklaces, glow in the dark stickers, pumpkin peeps, glow sticks and LOTS of candy all in this cute pumpkin bucket. Immediately, I wanted to know who had delivered it, so my mind went to work trying to figure out who it was.

According to the really cute poem that came in the basket, we have 24 hours to BOO two neighbors. We were to make two copies of the poem and two copies of the BOO sign to deliver with our treats. After dropping Morgan off at school, Bennett and I did the grocery shopping and then came back home to unload before heading to Target to find stuff to "Boo" our friends with. I had decided that I would have to Boo my friends Kristin and Andrea since I wasn't sure if either of them had BOO'd me, and I just wanted to anyway. Then, I decided I should pass it along in the neighborhood and pick two here. I picked Morgan's friend, Nolan, who lives part-time with his Dad across the street and the family down the street who has two older daughters and a son who is just a little older than Bennett. Yeah, I probably spent more money than I should have, but it's nice to do nice things for others. Here are two of the baskets I made for them.


The one on the left is for Nolan and the one on the right is for the family of three. I had so much fun making these baskets and Morgan had so much fun being super sneaky and delivering them to everyone's front porches after school. Unfortunately, we weren't sneaky enough because Kristin already called to see if we left something on her porch. To which I innocently replied, "I have no idea what you are talking about". :) She told me how she had wanted to do this to me, but didn't. So, I really have now I'm even more clueless as to who could have BOO'd us. There are so many different groups that this could have been from - the moms group, church, the charter school, MOPS, the neighborhood, the tennis club, etc. I really have NO IDEA! My husband can attest to the fact that it WILL drive me crazy until I figure out who it's from. :)