The Dinner Bell

Dinner around here can be really crazy sometimes.  I often say it's the worst and busiest time of my day;  Jordan is not home, I'm trying to cook (sometimes), and they are hungry and usually not behaving wonderfully!  Now that Noah is big-time mobile, it's getting harder and harder to make dinner!  He's everywhere and he always wants to be with JM and Matthew trying to do the things they do.  The fun part about Noah getting bigger is that he is slowly starting to eat what we are eating!

Case in point: avocado.  Noah has really started to love avocados!  He's starting to use his little fingers just wonderfully so that he can pick up food, puffs, and yogurt melts!

 

There's never a dull moment at our house, even for dinner!

Happy, smiley Matthew!

Aren't avocados beautiful when you crack them open?  I love their green color and how soft and squishy they are!  Speaking of avocados, I did a homemade avocado hair treatment last night, and while it was a mess, the results were really, really nice!  It looked and felt like I had straightened my hair after I had blown it dry.  It's never that soft after I blow dry it!  I'm definitely going to try it again sometime!

I saved a few slices of avocado for myself to put with my taco pie!  It was yummy!

Our Saturday, Including The Cat in the Hat!

We've had a pretty awesome Saturday, if I do say so myself!  It rocked mostly because Jordan let me sleep in for 2 hours!!  I cannot even begin to tell you how awesome that feels.  I have the best husband in the world and he knows my love language these past few years is, well, sleep!  I woke up feeling so happy and refreshed and ready to start our day!  We headed out to a local library for a "meet the Cat in the Hat" day.  When we got there the Cat was no longer taking pictures, so it was a letdown.  Several other people were upset about it too because the signs said until 12 and it was only 11:30, so they had that mischevious Cat come back out for pictures!

While we waited for the Cat to get there, we played with computers and did puzzles.

 

Matthew and I had a good time working a few puzzles together.

JM was looking a bit apprehensive about meeting the Cat in the Hat.  He really didn't want to!

We finally got our chance and so we all went up together to meet the Cat.  You can see that Matthew is trying to flee and JM won't even look at the camera or over at the Cat. It should be fun times at Disney World in a few months.

After meeting the Cat we played a bit more.  Noah stood up and played with a little ball cube....

Goodness he's at such a cute age!  He's so precious!

And Matthew came over to play with Noah for a little bit.  Noah pretty much wants to be wherever they are and do whatever the big boys are doing.

JM is just like Daddy.....he loves to learn things on the computer.  He did a really good job with his skills with the mouse and clicking.  He asked for help for one small thing and then promptly told me to go away!

Next, we went to Sam's then the little guys napped in the car and Jordan dropped me off at Old Navy and Forever 21.  I ran in and look for 2 little things real quick.  This is usually the only way to do "mom shopping" nowadays.  I either go during naptime on a Saturday or have Jordan drop me off while the boys nap in the car.  This too shall pass!

Once we got home the boys all played outside while I started cooking.  We finally got the "big boy" swing out of the garage and they all gave it a try!

I made poppyseed chicken casserole, green beans, and rolls.....of which my boys ate NONE of.  It's so frustrating with them not eating dinner pretty much ever.  I also made my mother in law's pound cake but it ended up being a giant disaster.  It tastes really good but I had some issues with it sticking in the pan, so it's really ugly!  At least it tasted good!

We put all the little ones down for bed early and now we're just going to chill out, watch for bad weather later tonight, and enjoy our Saturday night!

Easter 2012

Happy Easter Greetings from our family to yours!  I was so proud of us for getting up early, getting everyone fed and dressed and only being SEMI late for 8:30 church service! Go us! We have had a great day today.  I've been very excited this week to reflect on Jesus' life and death and we've been working with the boys with resurrection eggs, Easter story books, and our kids Bible.  They're really starting to "get it" this year and that's been exciting for me to see and hear John Michael talk about the Cross, the stone being rolled away and Jesus dying for OUR sins!  Like one of their Kids Bible CDs says: "What a MIGHTY Resurrection Day" and that's how I feel this Easter!

I have to brag, because I'm their mom, but OH MY GOODNESS my boys just looked so precious and sweet today!  I'm a proud mama!

Noah kind of looks like he's yelling for help and Matthew's just looking on!

It's hard to get a family picture so we just took a random one at church.  They all look miserable.

Here's my serious Noah in his Easter Sunday white!

And here's my love looking handsome today!

We took some picture out front with all the beautiful flowers and pretty green bushes, but it's really, really hard to get them to all look, or even halfway look.  We just gave up!

We're not big on Easter bunny and all that, but we did do a few goodies and some candy in their baskets.

They got harmonicas!

I have a story about this egg tray.  I went to Europe when I was in high school and I brought this egg tray back home, knowing that one day I would have my own house, husband, and family and need to have a special deviled egg tray.  Deviled eggs are just one of those Southern things that you grow up with and you have to have a special little tray to serve them on.  I'm glad I got the tray in Spain and I'm glad it made it all the way home and then all the way to Arkansas.  I think it's very pretty!

Since we don't have any family close by it's really fun to get together with other friends who aren't having family in for the holiday.  We had some friends over to celebrate Easter and we had a great time just talking and eating while all of our boys just played and played in our backyard.  It's kind of nice to have the boys be pretty self sufficient out back now.

I made the best strawberry-ade! Yum!

Time to eat!

Time to look for Easter eggs!

Aaaaand, the day wouldn't be complete without Jack eating someone's food or stealing food from a baby...

The weather couldn't have been more beautiful.  It was nice and warm and sunny.  We were so glad to spend this special day with friends and I know our boys had a blast playing with their friends all afternoon!  We need to have friends over more often after church!

We hope you had a wonderful Easter!

 

 

Imagination Place

We've been up to up a lot of things lately!   Two weeks ago I decided that it would be a great idea to head back home to Alabama for a visit during the boys' Spring Break.  We had not been back (except me when I flew back for my grandmother's funeral this summer, which I didn't blog about) as a family since last spring.  Let me just start by saying that it's really, really hard to travel with little ones, thus, we don't usually make the drive back very often.  With kids, nursing, potty breaks, refilling juice and passing out snacks and getting gas, it turns into a 16-17 hour car ride.  Sigh.  My Mother-in-law helped me get there and my mom rode back with me to help me get us back home.  We drove half one day and then the rest another day, so it was 2 days in the car there and 2 days in the car back.  I've never wanted or needed Xanax so badly in my whole life, but I would have gladly taken it to get through traveling and stopping overnight at a hotel with little ones.  I have vowed to not drive it again by myself for a year or more because of how awful it was.  Just being honest!  Maybe as they get a little older it will become easier, but for now it's just hard!  It was an eventful, fun, long, and exhausting trip, but well worth it because both of my grandparents got to meet their THIRD great-grandson!

We really didn't do a lot while we were there, but we decided to go to the Imagination Place while my grandparents were up for a quick visit.  The Imagination Place still looks the same from when I was in 5th grade! I wish they could spiffy it up a bit because it's a neat little place with a play doctor's office, fire station, kitchen, bank, and construction zone!  I used to love going when I was a kid and I was happy I got to share it with my kids!

When we got there a man was blowing GIANT sized bubble with a wand and some rope!  It was pretty cool.  The boys were intrigued.  We do love our bubbles around here!

We explored the little kiddo area first...

but what they really liked was the construction zone area!

Construction worker John Michael!

My grandfather really enjoyed watching the boys play and he helped them with a few of the exhibits.  My favorite memory was the boys giving Papaw a "checkup" at the play doctor's office.  My nursing instincts came out and I showed each one of them exactly how to use the blood pressure cuff and fake stethoscope.  They did really well and did exactly as I showed them.  They also "listened" to Papaw's heart and I taught them the "lub-dub, lub-dub" of a beating heart upon auscultion. We also played with real x-rays and talked about the bones of the body.  I just couldn't help myself, I love anatomy and the body so much.  I hope they love science and anatomy as much as I do!

Before we left the boys had a puppet throwing fight with Papaw!  I've never heard them laugh so hard!  Can you see JM's head barely poking up above the puppet theatre sign?  They threw puppets back and forth with my grandfather and apparently it was the best game in the world!

I really should be ashamed of myself for not taking more pictures lately!  I've got my Canon lens ordered so I hope to be back to taking more pictures very soon!

Spring Walk

 I still don't have our camera lens fixed, so I'm taking pictures with an old Kodak.  Hopefully we'll get our lens soon!  I miss taking nice, crisp pictures!

A few weeks ago I picked the boys up from school and headed to a local walking trail.  I loaded everyone up in our triple stroller (that had a nearly flat tire) and headed down the trail.  I knew I'd be exhausted after wrangling all 3 of them and I was right, I was exhausted.  BUT I think we made some fun memories and the boys love "nature walks!"

 

I figured it up and it's well over 100 pounds that I'm pushing when they're all in this stroller!

 

We usually walk for a bit and then stop at a little place that has some rocks and things to play with.

The boys found rocks and different leaves and then JM just HAD to go to the bathroom.  I grabbed everyone up and quickly walked over to a little outhouse on the trail.  Needless to say, I was by myself and there was a random guy just "hanging out" there and I was scared to death.  I locked all of us in the bathroom then realized I didn't have anywhere to put Noah so that I could help JM and then I had to go too. I prayed my children didn't catch a random disease from the dirty bathroom floor that they were laying on.  Ick!  I was hoping the random guy wasn't going to kidnap us but alas, we ended up being fine and we finished up our walk.

Everyone had a great time throwing rocks and leaves...stuff little boys love!

After our walk we met Jordan at a new restaurant downtown and ate dinner together.  The boys were super tired by the time we got home that night!  We had a fun (and tiring) afternoon!