Prima Ballerina- the preview

Really, I think the price we pay for Madeline's ballet class is worth it just to see her dressed all up in her recital costumes. Yesterday was picture day, her recital isn't until June. I didn't order any pictures of her, but she still got to dress up for the group shot.

By Tuesday of this week

- We harvested our first strawberries. There were 4.

- Maison learned how to get the 4-wheeler to go in turbo mode.

- There were 2 ducks swimming in the pool at the new house. I'm sure they thought it was a pond by the way it looked and smelled.

- Using my mad couponing skills I got 7 boxes of cereal for FREE. I love free.

- Thor's TV stopped working. Thank goodness we bought the warranty (and have more than one tv).

- Madeline surprised me by knowing the name of our street.

- We had an awful parenting moment where Maison fell flat on his face getting out of the car. His finger saved his teeth from being knocked out. The doctor said his fingerprint will grow back.

Hoppity Hop Hop

One word: CANDY

I can not believe how much candy we ended up with this Easter. What's the point of this holiday again? Oh yeah with us being the non-religious type, the point is CANDY. I guess we got it about right then.

We did dye eggs and left them for Mr. E.B. to hide for us around the house. Madeline was super excited and found most of the eggs with very little help from us. Maison is a late sleeper so he had his own little egg hunt set up for him outside on the patio.



Then we had our awesome spring picnic on a beautiful day at a beautiful park.





More pictures are here.

Gardening al la Stewarts

Someday I will have a real garden. It's just so strangely satisfying to see food grow on a plant. That is until they all die because this is Las Vegas and sometimes I forget they need water to live. But for now we are very satisfied with our herbs (the basil already looks bad though), and the strawberries (so excited for these), and the tomatoes and jalapenos that are just blooming.

10 things about Madeline

1. BACK. SEAT. DRIVER.
2. 4 years, 1 month, 1 day; 36 lbs; 3 feet, 5 inches
3. Total Drama Mama
4. Can't stand to see or feel her body hurt in any way (see Drama Mama above).
5. Goes to the end of the driveway by herself to get the mail.
6. Doesn't skip the number 5 when she counts quite as often, and can get most of her teens correct. Except twelveteen. She still has that one.
7. Is usually very nice to her little brother.
8. Her clever joke: "Where do (pencils, grapes, pillows, etc.) come from?"... "Mommy's (or Daddy's or Gma's etc.) BUTT!!"
9. She only wants to watch Spongebob. And yells "Mommy! Spongebob's on!" a few times a day.
10. Wearing her "wobble gobbles":

Brunette

I went brunette once in high school and it was so horrible that I never went back. Could have been the perm/hair dye combo I was sporting, but I've been very seriously afraid to be anything but blonde ever since. Well, I finally jumped. I'm officially a brunette again. A much better brunette than my high school version (I hope).

Getting our craft on

Thanks to the blog eighteen25 for this quick, easy and cheap idea. Madeline loves her little basket.



For the record, I really do NOT like to craft with my kiddos. I will be very happy when they can craft by themselves. I know. Bad Mommy.

And yes she is painting a rock in the background. That's about as creative as it gets around here folks.

He's got style

It's an "I'm on my way to Nascar" sort of style, but I won't argue. My little man picked out a hat the other day. He hates to wear hats and with summer coming up quick I thought maybe he'd wear this one since he picked it out himself. Plus, it's Lightning McQueen for goodness sakes, who WOULDN'T wear a Lightning McQueen hat?


Turns out, he'll wear it all right. Like this:

And like this:

And when he's forced to keep it on his head, he'll wear it like this:



It's a really cool hat. And it'll keep the back of his neck nice and shaded. I can just feel the sunglass/sunblock fights ahead of us. Stubborn little pooper.

And yes, he's scheduled for a haircut very soon.

Goofy Goobers

I found these in my inbox the other day.

Her very special day

My baby girl turned four today (well, it was today when I started this, but now it's been a whole nother week). And it was a marvelous birthday if I can say so myself. She would certainly agree.

It started out the same as every day with her crawling into bed with me at 6:30. She took at look at her foot and confirmed that it had indeed grown overnight. Now it's big, and she's a big girl. Soon she'll be big like Ian and Max.

Grandma stopped by on her way to work and gave her a birthday hug and some mini scones. We made homemade blueberry muffins for breakfast, ate and then put on her "4" shirt so she was ready to go when GG came to get her.


They had an appointment at the "beauty shop" for finger and toe nail painting. Pink with sparklies and sparkly flowers. Then they stopped for some park play.


When she got home, Oma, Grandpa Roy, and a giant princess balloon were here waiting for her. By this time she was off-her-rocker excited about her day. After lunch, some errands and a little resting, it was time for the real party to begin.

She had a pink puppy cake with a purple bow, as requested (but when the tail fell off she let out a big, "Now my birthday is ruined!"), and some soda. The only thing missing in her eyes were the balloons. We forgot to get her more balloons to let fly up into the sky.




My baby girl is four. She's in such a hurry to grow up. She didn't understand why she still had to ride in her carseat today. So we weighed her and she was upset that she only weighed 35 pounds when she should weigh 40. And she cried before bed because she's not as tall as Max yet.

We love you baby girl. You are so smart. I love every word that comes out of your mouth. My little 4 going on 9 girl.

It's Sunday, can I hit 10?

1. Madeline is sick, sick, sick. Sore throat, cough, fever. We've locked her in her room and won't let her near any of us. I hope she's doing ok.

2. That was a joke, ha ha. SHE doesn't think she's sick, so we couldn't keep her away even if we tried. Her throat is really bothering her. At least that's what I'm guessing from her "I just can't take it anymore!" screams. She's extra dramatic since I've been letting her suck on candy canes to help it.

3. We won our Superbowl bets. Go Saints! I only bet a wimpy 20 bucks, but it payed pretty good and Thor's less wimpy than I am, so he won lots. Maybe he'll take me to dinner (hint hint).

4. Since it was SUPPOSED to be a rainy gloomy day today, we had tomato soup with grilled cheese and bacon sandwiches for dinner. If you like tomato soup this recipe from PW's site is soooo good. And super easy too. Certainly not low-fat though.

5. Maison has been practicing his jumps. Yesterday both feet left the ground. Go little dude!

6. We're in the midst of buying a house. A few wrinkles have been ironed out. Now I just hope it will close with no other problems.

7. Madeline needs more entertainment than I can provide. I would like to get her into preschool in the next few months. Although I haven't done any research on the matter, which probably isn't a good thing. Maybe living in an older area has it's perks- like maybe no waiting lists at preschools? Oh, and probably I should get a job.

8. Check out my friend's new photography website and leave her some love on her blog to win some cute stuff. It's really a nice site. And her pictures are BE-A-UTIFUL.

9. My tax papers are nearly ready to turn over to the CPA. This is a serious record- about 6 months earlier than usual. I think I'm finally getting the hang of this staying at home business. Too bad I have to prep for an IRS audit too. Suckies!

10. Eeek, It's 11 o'clock already. Time for bed!

Progress and lack thereof

Ok, so last new years I made a few easy resolutions. I actually managed to turn about 20% of those resolutions into habit over the past year. Which is good. For me.

I've managed to plan my meals monthly for the entire year. I really like it that way. I use a weekly calendar printout that hangs on my fridge to plan my week and I adjust my monthly food plan slightly if I have to according to the meat I have and our other plans for the week. At the beginning of the year the meal planning was hard because, planning that far ahead, we weren't ever eating what we were particularly craving like we were used to, we were eating what was planned. I was surprised how fast the craving something in particular changed for me. Eating like that was just a habit in itself.

The other thing I've really gotten a handle on is my shopping trips. Costco once a month was my biggest concern and I've got that one down. I only go when the coupon book comes out. And SUPER thanks to my grandparents still watching the kids for me once a week, I have a great grocery shopping schedule too. Every Monday.

The last of my 20% is my ever slightly better handle I have on updating my checkbook and budget worksheets. I actually converted everything to a computer program, which is nice, but it's taking a surprisingly long time for me to be really comfortable with it. I don't like change very much.

Well, that's the 20%.

As for the lack thereof...

The exercise video I bought to assist me with my exercise goal is still unopened. A whole year, and still unopened. I have lost 5 pounds though. But I'm assuming that's from muscle degeneration. My stack of pants that need hemmed is still the same size, and I still don't plan activities for the kids regularly. But I'm ok with all that. I feel pretty good about my 20%.

For this year I'm going to re-focus on opening that video and maybe running in my neighborhood. And the pants. I'd have so much to wear if I'd just get those damn pants hemmed before they all go out of style.

And I've added two habits that need to be formed this year. Firstly, I need to get ready for my day more regularly, in the morning, before the day really starts. Shower, hair, AND makeup if I'm going out of the house. And secondly (thanks Ang) I'll be doing my dishes at night more often than in the morning (when I could be showering) because it DOES make the next day easier (and cleaner). And so far, more than 3 weeks into the new year, my new habits are well on their way to being not so new habits.

On a side note, Thor stole my baby girl this morning to take a quick trip to Colorado and I miss her. She was SO excited to go and as far as I've heard she hasn't cried for her mommy yet at all. I'll have to have a talk with her about that when she gets back.

Getting along

The kids have been getting along unbelievably well lately. So much so that Madeline has been throwing fits whenever I have to put Maison down for his nap or to sleep at night because she wants to play with him more (unless she's waiting for a naptime popsicle, of course). I love it. Maison is getting old enough to sort of participate in Madeline's games. And Madeline is getting old enough to just pretend he understands even if he doesn't. And they communicate pretty well. Madeline understands Maison's gestures & noises even better than I do sometimes.


Madeline does get frustrated when he decides he doesn't want to play anymore and ignores everything she says, but before she throws a fit she tries being really, really sweet to him to get him back into the game. In her sweetness, she calls him Buddy and Little Buddy. And she sounds like she's calling a puppy. It's so cute.


I hope his "Buddy" nickname doesn't follow him into his school years. I don't think he'll want his friends calling him that.


They were playing together on the Sit-N-Spin here. The picture's freaky, but in person they were spinning and laughing.

Las Vegas fish

are hecka ugly. But we had some time to kill so I took the kids out to the marina to feed the carp. They loved it. It was a little stressful for me to have them so close to the water, but they mostly sat anyways. After their bags of popcorn were gone (half to the fish and half in their mouths) we took a drive over to the beach. I thought they could run off some energy. There was no one else there and it was a nice but windy day. Most of our time there, Madeline stood/ran/jumped with her arms spread wide enjoying the wind, and Maison wouldn't go near the water so he played in the dirt up closer to the truck.

A haircut

To stop the tangles.



She loves it. She can't stop looking at herself in the mirror and has taken on brushing it herself every morning.



And I love it too. She's growing up too fast.