Huntin' Eggs

Lauren posing for the camera before we left, she looks so big in this picture!

Lauren didn't really do any hunting, grabbed one and decided shaking it and gnawing on it were better than looking for more eggs.  Whatever floats your boat.

Luke filled his basket quickly, I think he had a good time.

tongue out ready to go.

Not too many pictures, we thought it was outside so Zach didn't have the correct lens for the event.  More to come next weekend!

Spring!

Apparently it's spring now, anyone actually notice a change?  Poor Phil is getting a bad wrap this year.  I hope spring actually springs soon, I'm so ready. 

I worked on some spring time crafts tonight and finished up Lauren's Easter basket.  I made Luke this one a few years back and due to all the love he has given the basket it also needed a little tlc tonight.  Finished products:

You know whats really cool, I must have known two years ago we would have a little girl because I saved this pink little bunny from the pack I got when I did Luke's basket....perfect!

I also decided to kill challenge myself and signed up for a mud run tonight.  I have exactly 3 months from tomorrow to get my butt into better shape and hopefully get nice and dirty without dying.  Zach thinks I'm nuts and I'm going to die, well not literally but close to it.  I think it will help motivate me to work out and lose a little more weight.  Since January I'm down almost 8 pounds but I still have baby weight, which I don't know if you can consider it baby weight at this point but its more than I want so whatever you call it it needs to go.  If anyone out there is interested in joining our team let me know and I can get you some details - its in June in Philly.

And tomorrow is Friday and I get to wear jeans, sneakers, and a NMS sweatshirt to work, booyah!  Enjoy your weekend all!

3.14

Tomorrow is one of my favorite days of the year, Pi Day!  I'm all math teacher crazy about it.  I'm happy to share some of my madness with you.  Enjoy!

Last night I realized we had a box of jello upstairs so I mixed up the recipe for jigglers, poured it in this awesome ice cube tray my brother got me a few years back, and in the fridge it went.

Today I attempted to take them out....3 survived but most looked like exhibit b. 

exhibit A

exhibit B

So of course that meant that baking in the tray would obviously work out better.  Brownies seemed to be the perfect baked good for this little contraption.  Whipped up some batter (from the box of course), sprayed the tray with baking spray which would allow the cooked brownies to drop right out of the tray looking magnificent and like the perfect little pi symbol.  Sounded good in my head.  Then I realized how ridiculously small the molds are and I cursed myself for picking the brownie mix with big honking peanut butter chips in it.  My frustration grew and I made a mess but all 9 were filled and in the oven they went.  About 25 minutes later, wa lah - the finished product.

Let them cool a bunch and attempted to delicately scoop them out of the pan...7 out of 9 survived.  Waaaay higher success rate than the jigglers.  However, I learned no matter how much cooking spray you use nothing just drops out of these.  So lesson learned....it's called an ICE CUBE tray for a reason.  Patience and precision is required for this task which I had none of tonight thanks to 3.5 hours of interrupted sleep last night (poor little lady has a double ear infection). 

Luke was like, what the heck is this?  Just eat it kiddo, trust me it's delicious.

Mommy is right again!  Delicious!

Maybe next year!  Hopefully this isn't a preview of how my awesome pi discovery lesson will go tomorrow.  I am excited for school though, everyone is going all out for Pi Day.  It's probably because they're raising money for autism research and that also means you get to wear jeans to work but I'm going with the fact that every other teacher there is psyched about pi just like me!  My day will end with a student getting a chance to pie myself and two other teachers on my team....let's hope I won't be covered in chocolate pudding.  Wouldn't that just be the icing on the cake pie. 

And now I need to go make my final decisions about what I'm going to wear tomorrow.  Isn't it awesome that I have so many cool pi shirts that I can't decide which one will win!?!  (lack of sleep really shining now....wooo!)

Happy Pi Day all!  Go out and be all irrational!

Rain Day

We had a snow rain day today.  My phone rang at 5:00 am canceling school and then we got rain, lots of rain.  Luke kept asking me where the snow was because he wanted to build a snowman.  It was a bust.

Anyway, we made the best of it.  Started with a little morning workout.

Latest trend in baby workouts, pushing your big brother back and forth across the living room.

Had some snacks, played with Play-Doh, ran to the window to check on the snow...

11:45 am....by 1 even that small trace of snow you see was long gone.

Tried to have some down time, relaxing in bed.

best shot I could actually get but its out of focus.

By the time I got the phone out to take the pictures she was more interested in pulling his hair than anything else.

Finally did partake in a nap, the kids did at least.  Finished up the afternoon with some cartoons and breakfast for dinner.  Not too shabby.

Sunday Six

Six random things and some cuteness.

1.  A random picture from a few weeks ago.  He's getting so big.  Had his 3 year well visit last week and checked out great. 

2.  Luke moved to the Caterpillar room at school a few weeks ago and loves it! His first week there they learned about the planets and outer space.  Every night he came home and told me more and more.  We looked up pictures and information on the iPad and watched videos about the planets.  It was awesome.  He already seems to be learning so much there which makes me happy.

3.  Lauren is on the go. She sat and sat and sat for months.  Then at 9 months something clicked and within the last month she started crawling, pulling up, cruising, and now walking behind push toys!  Whoa momma!

4.  Sickness hit Luke like a ton of bricks a week ago.  My crazy, happy, energetic kid basically laid on the couch for 4 days straight and had a quite a fever to go with it.  We ended up at the doctors on day 3 but they said it was just a virus and it had to run its course.  His throat was pretty inflamed, they tested for strep, came back negative and they sent us on our way.  Luckily that was the worst of it and he was back to school 2 days later.  Then I cleaned and tried to disinfect everything...lets hope no one else comes down with it.

5.  Yesterday was Dr. Seuss' birthday, Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

6.  The kids visited 'Camp Moms and Pops' this weekend which gave us some down time.  Much appreciated and enjoyed.  Saturday night dinner with Zach, comfy pj's, a few glasses of wine and a movie.  Marvelous. And I'm pretty sure the kids had a marvelous time too being rightfully spoiled by their grandparents.  

10 Months

Lauren is 10 months old as of Tuesday!

• She is crawling fairly quickly and with purpose now - normally to go get one of her brothers toys which drives him nuts.
•  She pulls up on anything she can and just started cruising.  
• She just started walking behind push toys today and it makes her oh so happy. 
• She babbles a ton - a lot of 'baba', 'mama', and 'dada'.  
• She is in 12 month clothes.
• She eats 4-5 bottles a day and refuses any sort of finger food.  Even baby food with texture is out.  We are only successful with some Stage 3 - so she is on a mixture of stage 2 and 3.  
• We're still soy and dairy free although even on this crazy new formula she's still been congested...I've come to the conclusion that Lauren and food is complicated. 
• We lowered her crib so she can't escape and it makes her look so much bigger.
• She tries to only do one nap a day (aaaah!) and then is ready for bed before 6.  We're working on breaking that habit.  Two naps and a later bedtime would be wonderful.
• She loves Knuckles and Knuckles is starting to realize how 'dangerous' she can be now that shes on the move.  With Mommy or Daddy's help she can pet Knuckles and smiles and laughs the whole time.  
• Her favorite types of toys are ones that she can put things in.  Like the shape sorter buckets, balls in her house, toy that shoots balls.  She will put anything in them - the shapes intended, her pacifiers, her brother's cars...
• She loves the Johnny Jump Up and would jump all day if you let her.  
• Basically she loves to move, whether its crawling, cruising, or jumping.
• The hair she has is really starting to grow but not much new hair is coming in right now.
• No teeth and I'm not sure any are close yet.  She's been a droolin' fool for months now so I don't buy it that it means teething. 
• And of course she still has the sweetest little smile and cutest little laugh. 

We seriously suck at picture taking the second time around...like really bad...here's a few from the other night and some from my phone.

bad timing, she really isn't picking her nose :)

Sooo big!

Lies. All Lies.

**I started this post the other night before I was interrupted by children waking up/fusing in bed.  But now I'm almost afraid to post it because (knocking so hard on wood right now) she has been sleeping better.  Not great, but longer stretches at the right time of the night.  However, if I had to classify her as a certain type of sleeper, she would still fall into the "stinky" category. Whatever, here it goes**

Luke sucked at sleeping until he was about 18 months old, then again around 2.  We spent hours upon hours awake with him at the most ridiculous hours of the day.  I was cranky 24/7, there were tears and not just from the baby, it sucked.  During those months when we never got a full night of sleep I thought this would never end and I was doomed to a life of exhaustion.  But I wasn't, he grew out of it and finally figured out sleep is good, especially at night.  Good stuff.

Everyone swore to me the second child is the complete opposite.  To me this meant she would sleep, like all night and take awesome naps and just be the bestest little sleeper you ever did meet.  Lies.  It used to be 3 or 4 nights a week where we'd be up during the night but then there was the glorious nights of 6-7 hours of sleep straight.  A.mazing.  Unfortunately that isn't even happening much anymore.  Now she is up just about every night.  Like hey mom, look at me I'm all cute, I can crawl all over my crib, pull myself up, clap my hands and wave at you.  (all of which I absolutely melt over if the sun is out)  At 2 am, not cute at all.

It's frustrating and I feel like we're right back to Luke at this age.  Boo.  At least I know it will end eventually.  But if I have to wait until 18 months again, heaven help me and everyone else that has to deal with me.