I know I haven't blogged in almost 2 months. Two months!!! (seriously people, what the heck is wrong with me?) but before I get into the apologies and back posts of 4th of July, our trip to Idaho and Utah, my 80's b-day party, and a trip to Yellowstone, (see, we have been busy!), let me share something that makes me cackle EVERY SINGLE time I see it.
oh. my. gosh.
Can you actually die from laughing? This one might do me in. It's totally my desktop photo right now.
A few weeks ago I came to the depressing realization that my 3 year old is WAY better at yoga than her mama is. My body does NOT stretch the same way hers does. sigh. Here's the proof: Cobra pose
Tree Pose
Downward Facing Dog
I guess she'll give me something to work towards right?
I know I already posted about Mother's Day, but I have to document something Sydney gave me. In Primary (for our church) the teachers asked each kid questions about their moms. Here are Sydney's answers. I got a kick out of them!
The first thing my mom does when she wakes up is: MAKE COOKIES AND FOOD of course I do!
My mother's shoe size is: 40TH!
My mother likes to: BRUSH MY TEETH
My mother does not like to eat: COFFEE
I love my mother because: I LOVE HER SO MUCH!!!
My mother is happy when: I HELP HER
My mother's favorite food is: PIZZA
My mother's favorite story in the scriptures is: ABOUT JESUS
If I could give my mother anything, I'd give her: NUMMIES I don't know what nummies are, but I'm excited!
If my mom could go anywhere in the world, it would be: TO ATLANTIS
That last one was my ABSOLUTE positive favorite. A lot of the other kids said to Utah. Only my kid would say this right? ;)
I love my little girlies! We'll have to do these questions each year because they are hilarious!
I have a lovely history of Mother's Days. It was not my favorite day for a long time, but even after I became a mom, we had some exciting times.
Mother's Day 2008: At 4:30 I was up because Sydney had peed out of her diaper and all over everything. Welcome to motherhood!
Mother's Day 2009: Sydney graciously got up and got into my lipstick that was in my scriptures in my nightstand. She wiped it all over my light carpet. I sat in church by myself because I had to sing and she and Aaron were sick. So much fun.
Mother's Day 2010: Everyone was sick but me.
Mother's Day 2011: So far, it's the best one yet! Currently our worst ailments are being sore from planting our vegetable garden and building another garden yesterday. Yesterday Aaron took Sydney to a Kids Workshop and they brought me home this lovely planter. Sydney walked in and said, "Happy Wednesday Mommy!"
This morning when I came downstairs I found she and Aaron cooking me breakfast. Sydney informed me that it was all for me because it was Mother's Day. Aaron said, "What do you tell Mommy?" and Sydney replied, "You're handsome!"
I love my girls! (and my boy too!)
Happy Women's Day to all of you! Regardless of your current family situation, today is about all women and our proclivity for motherhood. Thank you for being the women you are and for being an example to me and to my little girls. We love and appreciate you!
My kids are hilarious. They often make me laugh. Sydney the other day said, "I'm so sick of you changing my bum." Me too! I thought.
Sydney in particular often talks about what a big girl she is. Mady tries to keep up, and although she's got some great verbal skills for a 2 year old, there are a few things she still doesn't get, which make them even funnier.
Tonight in the car Sydney informed me, "I weigh 16 feet." That means I'm big!
At that point Mady chimed in, "I have 16 feet!"
For the next 10 minutes Sydney argued with Mady about that. By the time we arrived at our destination she had set Mady more or less straight. She finished with, "I have 6 feet!"
Spring is definitely here. I mean, I know it's May already, but it actually has been very springy around here and we've had lots of rain and wind. Not a lot of outdoor time. Today I mixed fertilizer into the garden while the girls "helped" until I gave them a fruit roll up. It was their first, and let me tell you - they were big fans. Totally confused about the whole rolled up candy on a strip of paper thing, but big fans.
In case you needed it, here's true proof that I'm a dork: We have a raised garden and I have never once seen a worm in it, in the 3 previous years we have planted vegetables in there. Today I found like 10! I was so excited! I know, I'm weird, but that means we actually have dirt and not just rock hard clay and that maybe they will help our garden now!
After I was done in the big garden, the girls wanted to plant something. We had one of those TerraCycle planter thingies where they put seeds in cardboard and you plant them in upcycled yogurt cups. The girls were excited to plant their tomatoes and Sydney has been checking on them all day.
On Saturday we went somewhere new! We'd never been to the Butterfly Pavillion, so we headed up for the morning.
Almost right off the bat this littlle girl had a huge smile on her face. Mady didn't want to touch them. She's not one for bugs. She enjoyed looking though. This butterfly was actually like 3 inches tall (long?)
Here I am with our little butterflies watching one on the ground. It was very hot and humid in here and you had to be careful because if you stayed in one place for too long the butterflies would land on your shoes.
We've been reading Fancy Nancy and had picked this one up only the night before. In it, Nancy goes to a Butterfly Pavillion. My girls were so stinkin' excited. We read it on the way to the pavillion. We even saw an azure butterfly, just like Nancy does. Happy day.
After that we headed over to pay a visit to the mascot of the Butterfly Pavillion, Rosie the tarantula! We found out there are over 150 "Rosies" that they use so that the tarantulas don't get tired. I first held a tarantula in 2nd grade and was fascinated. While I'm not a huge fan of spiders, tarantulas don't bother me, so I immediately sat down and held Rosie. Sydney initially held back, but there was no line and when she saw I didn't hesitate, she decided to go for it. I think she just wanted a sticker. Jess, this picture is for you. ;)
After a lot of bribing, I got Mady to do it too. Funny thing was, I bribed her with jelly beans, which she totally forgot about. Sydney ate them. Typical. Mady's been sporting her "I held Rosie" sticker every day since. I think she's pretty proud.
We couldn't let Daddy miss out on the fun! He wasn't excited, but was a good sport and humored me!
Poor kid was all tuckered out and crashed on the way home! Being brave is tough! Great job girls (and Daddy!)
The Butterfly Pavillion was a fun little day trip. The Insectarium at the St. Louis Zoo is better for butterflys (and free!), but this was a good version close to home.
Last September at her third birthday party, Sydney was potty trained. It hadn't been an easy road, but she was potty trained. She had been for over a month. We'd gone on vacation and she hadn't had any accidents. After trying to potty train her a number of times, I told her I gave up and she did it herself. Maddening, but wonderful because it was done. And then something changed. Aaron had to travel for work frequently last fall and she totally regressed. She went back to wearing diapers and no amount of begging/bribing/threats/etc. did anything about it. Then she decided she wanted to go to dance class. Hello, new incentive! A week later that was not very exciting or worth earning anymore. We've been doing this for months. We try to convince her that she's a big kid and EVERY OTHER KID HER AGE (ok not all but most of them) are potty trained. Her response? Cool.
Why do you want to wear diapers like a little baby we ask? "I'm not a baby, I'm a big kid." is her response. The two are not connected in her mind. Nothing is working. She'll stay dry for a week at a time, so I know that nothing is wrong physically, it's just motivation. When we ask why her diaper/pull-up/panties are wet she'll say, "I didn't want to go potty."
Twice in the last couple of days she has wet her diaper and informed me, "It's wet, cuz I'm a baby, but that's ok."
?????
What do I even say to that? I hate potty training more than ANYTHING else I have ever done as a parent, or pretty much anything ever. This is how I feel every time anything to do with potty training comes up:
I've decided that disposable diapers are going to be a permanent fixture in my house until she goes to kindergarten. sigh. Any advice?
On Easter morning the girls were very excited to see what was going on downstairs!
And both were thrilled to discover the eggs hidden all around
They had a grand old time running around the house looking for all the eggs.
This video captures a bit of the craziness. Sydney was pretty good at picking up every egg she saw. Mady would go to a space that had 4 eggs, pick up 1 or 2 and then run off in the opposite direction, only to come back a few minutes later like, "hey look what's over here!" It was so fun to watch them and see how excited they were!
On Friday we were driving around a spotted a sign for an Easter Egg hunt happening Saturday morning at 10. I had been looking for a nice one in a park (like one I grew up with) and this one was the closest I had found, so on Saturday we saddled up the troops and headed over. I was nervous for the girls since they had never done an Easter Egg Hunt before and I was sure they would get trampled, but I figured if they each got 1 or 2 eggs it would be a success. I shouldn't have worried. This was the sight that greeted us when we got there.
Yes those millions of colored dots are Easter Eggs. Click on that picture to make it bigger, no really, do it.
Do you see the massive amounts of eggs on that field???? This was the little kid hunt (0-5 to avoid the trampling I was concerned about). The 6-12 hunt looked the same but on a different field. The little kid one was on a baseball field and included the diamond too!!!! They had garbage sacks full of stuffed Easter eggs the dumped out there. What? Needless to say, Kid #1 was darn excited. Kid #2 accidentally smiled for this picture. It was an unexpected bonus.
And she's not crying in this one, which was taken after they got their haul. A real estate group does this every year and it gets bigger each time they said. Their goal was for each kid to have 10 eggs. Sydney got twice that in about 45 seconds. Mady wanted nothing to do with the hunting until she saw that everyone else was having fun and she STILL got 10 eggs in about 1 minute. Oh we'll be going back to this EVERY SINGLE YEAR people. It was a winner.
Check out this awesome video Aaron shot. It's a little wobbly because there are children running EVERYWHERE but it gives you a great feel for the event. The kids were all in heaven, everyone got what they needed, and no one played mean. It was superb. I would buy a house from the Easter Egg guys.
That afternoon we attended our community's annual Easter Bash. There was a fun visitor that Sydney has been dying to see since last year. Look at that grin. Mady was less than impressed and I am shocked we got her this close without a meltdown. Seriously, the kid is impeding my photo ops.
Both girls were thrilled to discover the petting zoo and the pony rides.
Mady did have a meltdown getting off the ponies. It was hysterical though because every time she came around the circle and saw me standing there her voice jumped about 3 octaves and she said, "Mommy, I'm riding on a black pony!" I took a video, but there's too much background noise to hear her properly. Take my word for it. The dog tones were priceless.
There was a lovely bouncy house with 10 year olds jumping like crazy that my toddlers wanted to get in. We turned that down in favor of a giant inflatable obstacle course and slide. Great choice right? Here's Mady about to go in.
I was so worried she wasn't going to be able to do it all and I was going to have to go in there and get her. Imagine my surprise when I went around the back to check on her and found her almost at the top of the inflatable ladder (which looked wicked hard to climb up).
All smiles here! She went 5 times!
Sydney was a different story. She took one look and ran over to Daddy at the pony ride. She wouldn't go until Mady had gone 4 times and then she finally went down and still insisted on sliding down backwards because it was too scary.
They both had so much fun though! Look at that smile!
Tonight my little miss decided to dress up as a princess. Notice the tiara and the Cinderella slap bracelet. Remember slap bracelets? Oh I do. Aww, the memories. Anyway, my little princess was asking some questions about Mulan tonight. Apparently the concept of the Matchmaker (at the beginning of the movie) and arranged marriages are a foreign concept to her. Shortly after that she started quizzing me about getting married (her daddy is a husband - why can't she marry him?) and I told her that when she was older she could find a boy closer to her age (not Daddy) and get married.
She thought about that for a moment and said, "Like Uncle Garth!"
I quickly explained that Uncle Garth was taken.
"Daddy!" she said.
"No, remember, Daddy is my husband. You'll choose someone your age."
"I could marry Kenzie when she gets old like me!"
"But Kenzie is a girl. You need to marry a boy."
"Oh, um....."
You'll be happy to know that she has picked a husband. He's a couple years older than her (he's in first grade) and lives down the street. He goes to church with us and is one of her best friend's older brothers. I'll let you know how it works out.
A few minutes after the husband topic had been decided she came up to me and said, "Look, I have a baby in my tummy!" (can you spot the "baby bump"?)
Immediately Mady replied, "Mommy, I have a babysitter in my tummy!"
I neglected to inform them that those are 2 very different things!
I mentioned we've all been sick. All but Sydney that is. That girl is NEVER sick. And when she does get sick, it's for like, a day. I would covet her immune system if it was actually transferrable and it wasn't a sin. Another great thing she got from her birthmom! Anyway, I digress, but the kids have been giving me a run for my money every time I try to get them to sleep. My favorite was yesterday. I was desperately trying to get them to nap so I could stop being so frazzled and maybe even sleep myself since I had hardly slept for 3 nights in a row. They kept talking, getting up, and generally being wiggly. I then found Sydney out of bed going potty. I calmed myself down by reminding myself that this was the one valid reason for being out of bed. Then I noticed her naked feet.
Me: "Um, why did you take your socks off?"
Syd: "I didn't, Mady did."
Me: "How did Mady take your socks off?" (she's still in a crib)
Syd: "Mady asked me to put my feet in her crib, so I did and she took them off."
Me: deep breathing...... "Why were you out of bed?"
Syd: "ummmmm"
I decided to ignore this and put her back in bed.
Syd: "I need socks!"
Me: "You shouldn't have taken them off! Stay in bed."
A few minutes later I cam back in to find Sydney sitting up in bed putting on a new pair of socks.
Me: "Why did you get out of bed!?!"
Syd: "I didn't!"
Me: "Where did you get the socks?"
Syd: "Ummmmmm.."
My kids are so excited for Easter it's ridiculous. Nana and Pop Pop brought them a few little Easter treats and presents (including the awesome Ariel glasses seen in this photo and some Snow White ones for Mady.) I've been asked literally every single day since if it is Easter yet. The bad thing about holidays with this age is that they wait and wait and wait and wait for it to come and then it's over almost instantly. Fun right now though!
Also, my ARC of Chime came yesterday! FINALLY!!!! I'm so excited! Has anyone read this book? I'll post my thoughts when I'm done....
We're all sick at our house, so I'm off to watch Tangled for the 456,792,484th time and win some more books. What's on the docket for you today?
While Nana and Pop Pop were here we had some time grooving at the aquarium. I know it's fuzzy, but don't they look like they're dancing? It cracks me up. This is where we eat lunch every time we go to the aquarium. There's a nice little nook and a great view of the sea turtles!
Did you know they have a mermaid show at the aquarium? Like with girls who have on mermaid tails and actually dive down in the water? It's so wicked cool and my kids were A-MAZED!!! I kept thinking, "I wonder how long it took them to learn to swim like that?" Mady's convinced we saw Ariel (there was a read-haired mermaid!), so the trip was a huge success for her. On the way back to the car the kids found big rocks to climb on. I think they thought these were equally as cool as many of the sea creatures and, in Sydney's mind, infintely more cool than the sting rays. She is apparently deathly afraid of those things and still pretends to see them in the bath tub and almost jumps out screaming.
A couple days later we headed to the Botanic Gardens to get some great shots of the girls. This is pretty much how it went. I love the flying pigtails. It looks like she's trying to take off.
Sydney actually stopped a few times and let me snap some photos.
This was, BY FAR, the best group shot we got.
Look! A standing still one!
I love this one of Sydney checking out the little river.
This was what most of the pictures I tried to take looked like. Mady disappearing around the corner (she's getting fast!), Sydney running away, and Nana calling them back. Sigh. Welcome to everyday life!
This is pretty much the one decent picture I got of Madelyn. Hooray!
And the best one of the girls! It's totally wall worthy right?
In other news, Mady has discovered the Fancy Nancy books. Have you read them? They are hysterical. Mady has picked up some great new phrases such as "new ensembles" and "too plain." She came up to me the other day and said, "What's a fancy girl to do?" I may have cracked up right then and there. She's our little princess! Fancy Mady!
For book club last month we read the book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua. It's inspired me to try to make my kids (despite their young age) a little more responsible and accountable. This morning I started off great by requiring that Mady carry her own soggy diaper from the night before downstairs so we could throw it away. Since I was carrying her down the stairs, I thought I had an ultra-reasonable request. I handed it to her and said, "You need to carry this downstairs." She reponded by saying, "Ok!" brightly and chucking the VERY full diaper (which, mercifully, was only wet) over the railing onto my living room floor. Have you seen the inside of a wet diaper? It's filled with this goopy crystal stuff. See? (that's not me or my finger. I found it online - some science class dissected a diaper). But I did get to see it first hand this morning when the diaper exploded and deposited this all over my carpet. Lucky me. And, since it's gel stuff, I had to vacuum it up, not just wipe it. Joy joy joy.
I think Mady might be exempt from chores for a teensy bit longer.
What have we been up to you ask? Oh, not much. Just winning free books (8 9 so far! Yay!)
Going to the zoo in lovely spring weather (look - my kids have capris on!). Isn't that gaggle of girls cute? They walked around the zoo holding hands like that.
Silly leprechauns turned our milk green on St. Patty's Day. On April Fools' it got turned blue and Syd blamed the leprechauns. When I asked her if she knew what today was, she said, "What color is our milk now?" Silly kid.
This funny kid had a blast helping Daddy get rocks to build a wall (outdoor projects, here we come!) Such a ham!
Nana brought some Ariel panties for Sydney as an incentive and Mady got ahold of them. She has all 3 pairs on OVER her diaper and pants. Such a fashionista.
Lots of fun with Nana and Pop Pop too! More posts coming!
The hubs and I are raising the most beautiful little preschoolers you've ever seen! I love reading, Disney movies, crafting, and generally acting like a 5 year old.
For book club last month we read the book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua. It's inspired me to try to make my kids (despite their young age) a little more responsible and accountable. This morning I started off great by requiring that Mady carry her own soggy diaper from the night before downstairs so we could throw it away. Since I was carrying her down the stairs, I thought I had an ultra-reasonable request. I handed it to her and said, "You need to carry this downstairs." She reponded by saying, "Ok!" brightly and chucking the VERY full diaper (which, mercifully, was only wet) over the railing onto my living room floor. Have you seen the inside of a wet diaper? It's filled with this goopy crystal stuff. See? (that's not me or my finger. I found it online - some science class dissected a diaper). But I did get to see it first hand this morning when the diaper exploded and deposited this all over my carpet. Lucky me. And, since it's gel stuff, I had to vacuum it up, not just wipe it. Joy joy joy. 
