...do you ever wonder...

Do you ever wonder if you are spending too much time at your local Carl's Jr.? I'm pretty sure Lindsey and I do. We have a weekly "date" on Wednesday's at 12:25 (love those nice Kindergarten pick up times, mine is 12:08). Anyway...I was cleaning out Jace's junk drawer on Friday, and I found three Kung Fu Panda Bears. Now I know have have tossed several of these already....either they are muliplying or Carl's Jr. is getting rich off of my kids...Maybe the weather will warm up (right!) and we can finally go back to the park!

oh happy day!

Today was birthday #6 for Miss Laityn. We planned a big dinner/party for Sunday night with grandma, papa, and all the cousins....unfortunately, the 3-days-of-fever started at our house last week, and Lady woke up with 104 fever on Sunday morning. Bummer! She stayed home with Tim and Jace (also fever struck) while the rest of us took the enchiladas to grandma's non-infected house. Lady did get to open a present from mom and dad...still didn't make up for missing her party....and cake.... The fever broke Tuesday, so today we celebrated lots! At school, Laityn got to wear the birthday crown and bring home the birthday bag...as she put it "Mom! I gots lots of stuffs in my bag cause it was my birthday!"

For dinner, Lady picked "food you can eat with your fingers". We dined on pb & j (cut up in squares), diced apples with peanut butter for dipping, ham & cream cheese roll ups, and totinos pizza rolls (which were not nearly as good as I remember them being when I was a kid). Sticking with the finger food theme, I made PF Chang's lettuce wraps for us older people...YUM! I'll have to post that recipe later. Lady upwrapped her second gift...a flower fairy book and fairy doll... Maddy informed me that book was better than all her fairy books (seriously! she has at least 4 different books on fairies) so she told Lady they will have to read it together. I am all for that!

Lady paged through her book for a good 30 minutes before konking out for the night. Happy birthday girlie!

Throwback Thursday

Since today is Lady's birthday, I thought there should be a picture of her from her early-ish days. She was about 2 months old in this picture. We drove the kids to California to see Tim's parents. On the way, we stopped at Julie & Ron's for Ronald's birthday....this is where the pictures were taken. And I must say...dang cute kids!

Maddy's alter ego....

Maddy went to a birthday party on Friday where they acted out the play "Slurping Beauty". There were only girls, so a few of them had to play the men's roles. Maddy was "Prince Alarming"...which seems so fitting after seeing the makeup below...YIKES! She informed us proudly that she spoke with an English accent during her lines....we then got a full demonstration of her Prince Alarming voice. Nice. I do love that Maddy is willing to do pretty much anything and doesn't often get embarrassed...she certainly didn't get that trait from me. That is all Tim!

Throwback Thursday

So this little game was invented by my cute cousin, Candy (if you haven't checked out her awesome bags, pillows, baby stuff...on and on...scroll down to my "i spy" section). Every Thursday you pull out an old photo, post it, and give a little explanation. So...here goes. This is one of my favorite pictures of Jace. He is about 18 months and we are camping at Mill Hollow (I'm sure all the Edward's cousins have stories about that campground!). I needed this sweet face to offset the one that follows.

This is Jace the same summer at Thanksgiving Point. Two things are very apparent in this picture:
1. Jace is in desperate need of a haircut
2. He is really, REALLY happy about something...thus the major crinkle nose smile that is going on...which by the way, I absolutely love!

things that make me smile

So the weather this week has been beautiful! I spent all day yesterday raking the grass, and sore arms and farmer's tan aside, it felt great to finally be out! Tim bbq-ed hamburgers and we had dinner in the back yard...Tim even put up the hammock (more for himself than the kids). This morning, my first daffodil opened up...appropriate since today is the official start of Spring! Which is the reason for Smile #1.

Smile #2 made me laugh out loud. Laityn brought home her leprechaun paper yesterday. When I first glanced at it I read "I am going to set up a crap. I am going to put in gold". Nice. Of course what she meant was "I am going to set up a trap" (she sounded out trap ch....rap--which if you say it out loud actually sounds right). Yeah....you're sounding out chrap right now and thinking "huh...it really does say trap". Tim and I had a good laugh...this is one paper I'll be saving.

Hope you all enjoy your first day of Spring!

How do you catch a Leprechaun?

With today being St. Patrick's Day, my kids came home from school filled with tales of leprechauns, pots of gold, and rainbows. Carter came looking for a "big bowl" ..."Why?"...."to build a trap and catch a leprechaun!" He enlisted Lady and Jace as his helpers, and they went to work. After nearly 2 hours of work, they called for me to come see.

There is nearly an entire roll of tape holding those straws together, and keeping them stuck to the pan. The plan of catching goes something like this:
1. Arrange straws to prop up pan
2. Run string to various toys/books that will fall and wake you up (to see the leprechaun)

3. Tie string to vial with real gold (Carter panned for this gold during summer camp).

4. If falling books aren't loud enough to alert you, falling Legos will do the trick!

5. Hopefully, you will catch a leprechaun. If not, he should at least leave $5 in the trap to let you know he was there.

They were all so proud of their handiwork. In fact, it was the best stay-in-bed trick ever! I reminded them that if they didn't go right to sleep, they would scare the leprechaun away. They were asleep within minutes...too bad we can't catch leprechauns every night. And although they will not likely find a real little man in their trap, I suspect they will find a shamrock shaped note left by their friendly neighborhood leprechaun, Lenny.