Hello Weekend!

And hello spring! Today was the perfect example of why I love the weekends.  The boys had some guy time at the barber shop, the girls went grocery shopping.  When Lauren went down for her nap I took Luke to the park which he was beyond thrilled about since we hadn't been since last fall.  When he went down for an afternoon nap I got some exercise in outside by myself - its the best kind of me time there is, so glad the weather is starting to break and I can do that more often.  Then back home, shower, get the kids ready and off to an early Easter dinner.  Home to get the kids in bed, stuff our own Easter baskets and eggs for tomorrow and soon to bed myself.  Today was jam packed, exhausting but awesome!

woohoo, I love the park!

Don't mind the battle scars, you should see the other kid! Seriously though, he had a rough week at school and apparently got his grace, or lack there of, from his mother.

He actually went down the big kid slides today without hesitation.

And it doesn't matter how many years pass, he still LOVES this spinning ball thing the most.

Monday Funday

Monday the kids and I had an unexpected day together.  Got a 2 hr delay call at 6:10, left for work at 8, then got a cancellation call at 8:15.  So I turned around, picked them back up from daycare and we hung out the rest of the day!

 We pulled out the Easter baskets last weekend so there was a lot of fun time playing with eggies.  They were playing so nicely for a little but soon after these shots Lauren was hit in the head with an egg.  Sibling love.

 I attempted a picture of all 3 of us together - got a semi good one of Lauren and I, one that at least has all three of us in it, then mostly Luke's head.

Lauren took major steps this week in the land of solid food and actually ate a banana!  At least 5 pieces! You don't realize how completely awesome this is for us, she was refusing almost all solids except cheerios.  And I was just about in tears at the grocery store last week because almost everything you would want to buy at the store has either dairy, soy or both.  Not cool and pretty stressful/frustrating for a mommy.  So the fact that she ate fruit that didn't come out of the jar is amazing and wonderful!  Even better, she ate green beans at school today!!!!!

 And there actually were a few minutes of 'down time' because they were mesmerized by the snow falling.  Then we made cookies and had a sugar high!  Woot! 

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.