TOO funny!

Today Lily and I were drawing with a new set of markers, having fun and just chatting. She wanted me to draw her a picture, so I wrote her name and then used it to make a little picture of trees and flowers, etc. She thought it was really neat and wanted me to do another.

I just told her to give it a try herself. I told her I had used my imagination, and she could do the same! She looked at me quite seriously and said, "Oh, I didn't know parents had imagintations".

Thank you for the music

Alexis and David got to go and spend the night with Grandma Jane last night. They went and saw a production of The Sound of Music, and then are going to Rumpelstiltskin this afternoon. They will be home tomorrow in time for church. What a treat for them, but it is always a little treat for me too!

I got up early to feed the baby and heard my phone telling me I had gotten a text, so I pried myself out of bed. It was Ez telling me he was too tired to drive home and he was just going to stay and sleep at the office. So now my head started reeling with plans. It was early and I was awake. I had all sorts of time today to get a bunch of things done, and I was actually in the mood to do it!

I spent the first couple of hours cleaning my room--organizing the closet, finding hidden treasures under the bed, dusting, that sort of thing. Once the kids were up and entertained, I moved on to tidying the kid's rooms. I needed some music, and since I had just straightened all the CDs in my bedroom, I knew exactly what to grab.

**random explanation here**
I grew up in a house where music was important. To say my dad loves music is an understatement, and I will leave it at that! I have so many memories of singing around the piano as dad played songs, of spinning circles in the living room to all sorts of music. There are some albums, like most people, that are simply ingrained somewhere within our memories ready to come out as soon as we hear it again. So, thank you, Dad!

**back to the point**
While tidying my CDs I saw my ABBA album. LOVE IT. I listened to it all the time when I was younger. Truth be told, I don't think I have opened that CD in about 10 years. So I thought, what is better cleaning music than some fun ABBA? I had so much fun cleaning things up today, if you can believe that. The moment ABBA started to play, it was like the lyrics flew out of nowhere. I had such a fun, fun time today having those sweet memories of that album.

And in those famous ABBA words:

So I say
Thank you for the music, the songs I'm singing
Thanks for all the joy they're bringing
Who can live without it, I ask in all honesty
What would life be?
Without a song or a dance what are we?
So I say thank you for the music
For giving it to me


And that is my rambling for the day...

The strike is over!

You know how babies tend to be fussy eaters at times, especially when they are teething and their little mouth hurts? Evie has been teething like a mad woman lately--she got two of her top teeth about 2 weeks ago and the other 2 have been bugging her for the past week.

The pain of it all has caused a little food strike. For the past week Evie has wanted to have nothing to do with eating any form of baby food that would come to her on a spoon. She has survived on Cheerios, graham crackers, cheese, and Dino chicken nuggets from Costco.

I knew today her mouth must be feeling better because she actually let me look at her teeth. There they are, nearly in! You know what that means--FOOD! Our little Evelyn ate like it was going out of style today, it was rather hilarious.

I have my own version of "homemade" baby food--pretty much a can of fruit that has been canned in fruit juice is a heck of a lot cheaper, and those frozen veggies are truly so good foo you... So I grabbed a can of peaches and blended up about 3/4 of them. No joke, Evie ate them all, along with cereal! Then about 3 hours later she plowed through the rest! And that is on top of the chicken nuggets and all those other goodies. I am glad to have my hungry little eater back!

Our crazy little "dance"

These days I simply feel there are not enough hours in the day to get things done. Perhaps I should rephrase--there are plenty of hours in my day. There are, however, not enough kid-free hours of the day!

At this point in my life, I feel like I am in a very awkward dance--take 2 steps forward, and 10 steps back! Then every now and then do a few zig-zag kind of moves, spin around till you get dizzy and nearly fall over, then start again by taking 2 steps forward and 10 steps back!

We have simply had so much going on these days. We are nearly finished with our home projects, hooray! Ez is in the middle of staining our beautiful new fences, which we love! No longer can Duke run through the hole in the fence to our neighbor's yard, and their dog and rabbit stay on the right side as well. The painting projects are finally finished. The bedrooms are starting to finally feel put back together....it is taking far more time than anticipated, but there does seem to be a light at the end of the tunnel!

As for the rest of the craziness:
1. Alexis had another book report and project due this month, plus her California Missions project to work on! She fully impressed herself (and me) when she finished her book and her project 1 1/2 weeks before it was actually due! Bravo. Alexis has been also taking a little eight-week tennis class after school. She sadly gets most of her coordination and athletic ability from me, but I truly admire that she is simply not afraid to try something new. Also, we have finally gotten Alexis back into piano lessons--we took a very long break, but I think she is more ready and interested now.

2. David took a 3 week art class after school and thoroughly enjoyed that. His biggest thing these days has been getting ready for his first Pinewood Derby with Scouts. It was fun to watch David and Dad figure out how to carve out that car. The original plan ended up being poorly drawn and wrongly cut out. David did his best to fight back tears of sorrow, but he ended up with a car he was happy with. He got to spray paint it gold, which apparently was way cool. We learned all about the addition of weights and tricks like that from Ez's friend who is a bit more seasoned in the derby department. Tonight was the big race and David ended up coming in 2nd place, and lost only by a little bit! Hooray!

3. Now that the weather is nice Lily and Joe spend much of their days in the back yard. They hunt lady bugs and spiders, ride bikes, play in the water table. We pulled out our jump house last week and everyone has had a great time in that the past few days. Joe was a good sport and let Lily give him a make-over the other day. We limited it to lip gloss and hair brushing, however. Joe has taken to calling me old lady every now and then. Lovely.

4. Evie is just a little busy body. She gets into everything and goes everywhere. She is getting better at standing on her own and I am afraid she will be walking in no time! She is also teething like crazy, getting 4 teeth in a matter of a few weeks and has 2 more on their way out. She is not thrilled when I try to take a peek...

Lily the Ladybug

Things have been busy around here and so I am finally getting to things that have been on my to do list. Lily's birthday party was great fun, she really thought it was special and enjoyed her friends celebrating with her.

Lessons learned

A few lessons we've recently learned:

1. Lily wanted to paint her nails today, which is a fairly regular thing in our house. Joe typically asks to get his nails painted too and I always tell him no. Today I decided to just let Lily paint his nails. I imagine most brothers at some point want to give it a whirl. Of course, I walked in on him getting his toes done too, which I had specifically said not to do. Toward the end of the toes getting done, Joe decided it was all gross and wanted it off immediately. We all know that can't happen without a photo to document it! He spent the entire time of me getting the polish off complaining and saying it hurt and was so gross. I have a feeling that will be the last time Joe ever asks to paint his nails!

2. We had strawberry shortcake for dessert last night, and in our house it is always served with whipped cream. The kids LOVE to get it sprayed into their mouths, and Ez let Evie have her first experience with it last night. She loved it, but is that a surprise?

3. Since Lily's birthday fell during the week of Spring Break this year, she didn't get to bring goodies and celebrate with her friends at school. We are remedying this by bringing something in tomorrow. I have been planning her ladybug party for Saturday and came across cute little ladybug rice krispie treats that I thought would be pretty easy and cute. I got everything and started working on them and decided that instead of making tons of small little bugs that the kids would gobble in one bite and then ask for more, I would make them a bit bigger. Good idea...until it came to putting on the little ladybug heads which are now far too small for their bodies. Oh well, hopefully Lily will still think they are ladybugs, and the kids won't be too critical!

4. David, Joe and I were walking in the hall after church on Sunday. David was messing with Joe's hair--which we all love to do since his hair is so crazy! I mentioned how fun his hair is, David agreed, and I asked him if he thought it would be fun to have hair like Joe. He immediately said, "NO! I would be so embarassed!" I got a good laugh out of that one.