Things my kids say that make me laugh. And cry.

 Don snapped this picture of Oscar. This is a new face he started doing within the last few days. I think he got it from Don.
Oscar is the bestest boy in the whole entire universe. I cannot even express the amount of joy my little buddy brings to me. I surprise myself at how much I love having a son. I never imagined caring about sports of any kind, but I love watching him kick and throw and try to catch balls. He gets so excited when he sees anything resembling a ball. He starts pointing and excitedly yelling "Ball! Ball!" His first word was definitely ball. I think his second was "Mom." I have noticed that he can sort of say "bottle" and "shoes." And the rest is a lot of jibber jabber. He knows what he is talking about, and is very passionate about it, but we have no idea what he is telling us. Probably something along the lines of "I want candy, chocolate or straight up sugar. And Macie and Chloe stole my ball." He also loves trying on shoes. I love seeing him put on the girl's boots.
He has starting going to nursery. He does okay. He gets a little emotional but I think a lot of it has to do with it being in the middle of his nap time. I took him to swimming lessons today, he hasn't swam in a few months but he used to love it, so I was surprised at just how much he hated it. He was breaking my heart with his sobs and trying to catch his breath. He doesn't normally cry like that or get very upset so when he does, he really knows how to pull at my heart strings.

 I have absolutely no idea where I took this picture. and no idea whose dog that is. But Oscar does like dogs (so does Macie! Chloe, not so much) so it could have been anywhere. I must have thought something was funny about it or I wouldn't have taken the picture, too bad I can't remember! But I am super bummed he already grew out of his chambray jumper. It was supposed to last until he was 2, but he was already too big by 18 months. This was my favorite outfit on him of all time.

 These are some pictures of when Rachelle and I met at this indoor kid's place. It had this rock wall. and you can't really tell, but it appears like the cable is being held up by duct tape. But nobody fell to their death while we were there, so...carry on I guess.

 One should always wear a skirt when rock climbing.

So it is March now, and I feel cheated. Almost the entire month of February was in the upper 80's. I kept waiting for the abnormal heat wave to dissipate and return our winter to the enjoyable 70's, but week after after week...the heat stayed! We even reached the 90's. We can't be wasting our good month on bad weather. It's not like June will come around and say, " sorry I took your nice weather in February, you can have a few weeks of it back. " Why is it always abnormally hot? I want a record breaking cold year. How about that kind of record breaking. My kids are out SWIMMING right now.
I say LAME.

I've been in denial that people don't think I am young anymore. I suppose age is all relative, but kids sure know how to point out that, relative to them, you are like decrepit. One of my friend's son told me I had bags under my eyes. And another one told me, "You look older!" You know, maybe botox isn't such a bad idea.
Anyway, my own daughter Macie asked me "Mom? Why do you have lines on your forehead?" And then the next day she told me she only likes my hair with bangs, not when I pin my bangs back. I asked her why and she said because she is embarrassed of my forehead. I have no idea what that means. I *think she meant she thinks I have a large forehead. But she probably also means that she thinks I have a large forehead and a lot of lines on that large forehead.
I asked Chloe if she thought I had lines on my forehead (okay, okay, probably not the best parenting strategy) and she said, "What lines? ...Everyone has lines on their forehead Mom."
^^^ Round of applause for Chloe once again knowing just the right thing to say.

Last week Oscar hurt himself. Again. I was over at my friend's house, visiting their dog while they were out of town. While I left the room, Oscar managed to fall from a baby swing and bonk his forehead presumably on the swing's bar on the floor. He started crying. I went to help, noticed a large horn growing out of his forehead at an incredibly fast pace, and a cut in the middle of the enlarging horn, growing ever larger as the bump got bigger. And like I always do in the face of emergency, I freaked out. What concerned me was how calm Oscar was being, I wondered if he had a concussion or something. I could barely look at him, he looked so gross.  I ended up leaving the house in a rush with only one shoe on Macie because the dog had taken off with the other one. and that was the status at which I arrived at the Emergency Room. I realized that the ER was not in any hurry to assess my toddler and so I left to an Urgent care instead where I only waited 2 hours. Turns out Oscar didn't need stitches, the bump just made his cut look worse than it was. So that was good news. Bad news is it is a pretty ugly scar. But I suspect it will improve in time.

Macie told me the other day that we should rename Oscar because "Oscar is a baby name and when he grows up he will need a different name." I asked her what we should name him instead. "Um...maybe like Satan?"

Don introduced Oscar to hershey's syrup.Bad idea. I have rid him of the memory after his detox, but for awhile, every time I gave him a bottle of milk, he would hand it back, lead me to the fridge, have me open it, and point to the bottle of chocolate syrup. And then he would check by holding up his bottle and looking on the bottom to see if there was syrup.

Macie had um some...regularity issues recently. I put her in the bath to try and relax her, and Oscar came into the bathroom and tried to jump in. And Chloe said, "No Oscar. Usually baths are for fun, but this bath is for an emergency."

My girls have been taking violin lessons for a month. We bought them violins for Christmas. I asked Macie if she liked her teacher. she said, "Kind of. I like half of my teacher and don't like half." I asked, "Which half do you like?' She said, "I like her shirts." And I said, "what half don't you like?" And she said, "She has black hair. I wanted her to have blonde hair. I don't want her to match you."

I trimmed to girls hair very poorly recently. Chloe was really mad at me because she thought I cut to much off. She moaned about it for 2 days and  nothing I said seemed to make her stop. Then she came to me and said, "Mom, I asked Dad if he liked my hair. And he said, 'It doesn't matter what your hair looks like because it's on your pretty face.' so now I am not worried about it anymore! Instead of arguing with me, he just said something nice instead!"  (I swear I said the same thing somewhere in those 2 days...but whatever.)

Macie has this little toy that makes a weird noise and the battery is starting to die so it is losing it's voice. Macie told me, "Mom, Trixie has a sore throat."

Chloe is really good at playing with kids who are littler than her. She honestly doesn't care how old they are, she likes to play with everyone. She told me that she doesn't understand why some of her friends treat Macie like she is a baby. She said, "I don't treat little kids like babies, I treat them just like me." And it is true.

Chloe and I were having a talk one night about bullying at her school and she said  "I stand up for myself. If someone said I was ugly I would say, 'it doesn't even matter what you look like it just matters if you are nice, and you are not being nice." I don't know how she is so smart, but I am sure proud of her,

I was plucking my eyebrows and Macie asked me "What if you make them look mean."

Macie was watching Donald Trump and asked "Is he really mad? Why does he look mean?"

Oscar loves to watch soccer on t.v. He will sit in front of the t.v. and excitedly point to the ball on the t.v. and say "Ball!"

We have a new neighbor girl Chloe's age. She came over and brought her beads and let my girls make jewelry. Then she made them give them back unless they paid her 2 dollars. I told them to bargain with her and they were able to bring her price down. I laughed about this for the rest of day. 2 dollars...

Macie Turns 5!

 I don't know how it happened so fast, but Macie turned 5. Macie has always been much less particular about party specifics than Chloe. It makes my life a little easier. I bought a Groupon for a tea party in Scottsdale. I thought it would be my easy way out, all I would do was show up. But I didn't realize the party only lasted 30 minutes, and it took more than a half hour to get there. I didn't realize it was the weekend of the big Golf tournament in Scottsdale so the streets were packed and took forever to get anywhere in Scottsdale. After the party we went over to the train park which was only supposed to be a 15 minute drive from the tea party, but with all the traffic it took well over 45 minutes. We took a ride on the train and then the kids played at the park for a long time. I didn't rush to get out of there because no matter when I left, I would be stuck in rush hour traffic to get home. It took over an hour to get home. My friend Emily helped me chaperon and drive all the girls, and Liisa and Dayna also came so it was nice to have the extra hands. I was pretty pooped when I got back home, oh like 5 hours later. But it was all worth it for my Macie MooMoo. I think it was the first real birthday party I have had for her. She was so happy...

What Macie wanted more than anything for her birthday was a mini Trixie. Her friend Ashlynn has one of these and she is in love with it for heaven knows why. I already bought her a Trixie a while back, but it wasn't the right size, too large. So now she has a Mama Trixi and a baby Trixie. She is so funny. I ordered it on Amazon and I was afraid it wouldn't make it in time, I was bummed because I had paid for express shipping and I thought it hadn't arrived. I didn't realize it had arrived, Don had just placed it somewhere I didn't know about! So at the end of the day I found the package and gave it to Macie. It was the best end cap for the day. She was complete. Don and I got a babysitter that night since it was Friday and like I said, by the time I got home from the party it was almost bedtime. We went to this new pizza place and I could barely keep my eyes open. We were only gone an hour before he took me back home and I crashed.

Cute kids ^^^

My life saver, Emily!

The tea party was 3 courses (and way overpriced by the way, even with the groupon). But oh well. The girls were all so quiet and polite. They ate their food in silence and with such good manners.

Beaming Macie.

Emily brought over lunch before the party, Macie had her favorite, mac and cheese and of course cookies.
Macie opened a few presents before we left for her party, that I had given her, and she insisted that she bring them to to the party. So we lugged her opened and unopened presents to the park, where she displayed them all for everyone to see her loot. I guess she needed her friends to see all her new stuff, not just some of it. Ya, I guess I unabashedly spoiled her on her birthday. I love my Macie so much. She fills our lives with so much joy and an irreplaceable member of our family.

V-Day

I'm going to try to catch up with the past 2 months going backwards. Valentine's Day was on a Sunday this year. We had sort of a Valentine's Day week. I am the activity day leader and I was pretty proud of myself for coming up with a valentine's craft for the girls, being that I am not crafty at all. They made valentine books out of paper bags and then wrote valentines to each other. My favorite thing about activity days is how Macie thinks she is one of the club. She is 3 years younger than everyone but she considers herself a verified member. My girls love valentine's day. They made a billion valentines for everyone. I still don't know what to do with all my homemade valentines. It feels wrong to throw them away. I found a piece of paper Chloe had made that she had was a chart of who and what she would be giving everyone for Valentine's Day. She included what Macie would be doing as well. For example for me she has listed that she will be making me a "pop up glitter" card and Macie will be giving me a "smell" card. I assume that means they would be using their smelly markers. I bought the girls matching dresses because I know how much they love to dress up appropriately for holidays. Macie went to a valentine's party at her friend's house and was very excited to wear her special outfit, as was Chloe to wear hers to her classroom party. 

Friday night my friend Emily hosted a small dinner in her backyard. There were 6 of us, and we had the most delightful evening. She has a lake that backs up to her backyard. we ate dinner under twinkly lights and then went for a paddleboat ride underneath the stars. It was fun acting like fancy adults for the night.

 This picture turned out as stupid as I intended it to be.

 The food was amazing. We dipped cheesecake in melted chocolate. It was heavenly.
Saturday I took the girls to our neighbor's birthday party and that night we had stake conference. Stake conference seemed to be a rather dull way to spend Valentine's Day eve, but it actually was really wonderful. A general authority came, Elder Tilleman, and shared his miraculous story of healing after a freak accident that resulted in him being paralyzed from the neck down. It was an uplifting evening and I am so glad we went.

 Sunday was stake conference again. Later that afternoon we took a walk to the park and then we can home and had a "fancy" dinner of frozen lasagna, salad and broccoli. I even broke out the crystal goblets. The girls decorated the table and we lit some candles. They

Ward party-Polar Express

It's February, and I am finally getting around to documenting our holidays. The ward party took place the first weekend in December. I stupidly volunteered to help. I don't know what my problem is. I guess I just like a good party. A lot of other people did a ton of work though, so I shouldn't try to sound like I threw the whole thing, I didn't. But I still did quite a bit of work. It all worked out in the end, my kids said it was the best ward party they had ever been to. And it really was, thanks to the creative geniuses in my ward. The best part was the pretend Polar Express we put up on the stage with the Bishop as the conductor. This kids loved it. And the Primary did a fantastic job setting up a kids area in the back with fake snow and ornament making. The kids had plenty to do which is key in controlling the chaos that naturally accompanies any ward party.

 Our real Santa neglected to try on the Santa outfit before the party, and realized rather late that he would not be able to don the red suit. So we asked Brother Shelly at the very last minute, as in there is not Santa if you don't wear this, so he obliged. He is a pretty slender man so it made for a skinny Santa. The kids didn't seem to notice!

 The activity day girls did the nativity. I love this picture above, they forgot the baby so Megan had to rush it out to them,

 Chloe played the part of the angel. She did really well, and I was proud of her because she had to memorize a paragraph. And like we always do, we waited until the last minute to learn it, so she memorized it that afternoon and for the most part, said it right. At least everyone got the gist of what she was saying. She picked out her outfit too. The dress was a liiiiiiiittle short...

 They did a really great job,.. I think Brooke took a video of it, which I really should get a copy of.

 And then the rest of the Primary came up and sang with them at the end.

 Then it was time for the Polar Express. The kids got their ticket and a cookie and went and sat down on the train.

 The Bishop led them on a guided tour...

 And then santa came on and handed them a bell.

 So the main thing  I did was food. Steffanie and I basically took care of it all, but Steffanie deserves the credit, she did much more work than me. And we both wore red striped shirts that night. The day before the party I spent peeling, cooking and mashing 50 pounds of potatoes. Or maybe it was 75. I can't remember. It was a lot of potatoes. Macie did peel one or 2 potatoes though, so that was helpful. I watched "Sabrina" on netflix while I peeled potatoes. Funny how when I saw that movie as a teenager I thought it was the worst movie ever because Harrison Ford was ancient. And now I watch and think he is handsome. Perspective is a funny thing.
Anyway...for dinner we had ham (which I warmed at the church for too long and for too high a temperature, good job self), rolls (steff's Mom and brother made them all. as well as honey butter.), corn which we cooked at the church, cheesy potatoes, and a salad with bacon, cranberries and homemade dressing (again, all Steffanie's doing). Dessert the ward provided pies. I think the food turned out very well and there was plenty of it.

 Here we are splattering potatoes everywhere.

 Decoration committee was headed up by Heather and the gym looked very festive and fun.

Other notable events...getting yelled at in the hall by a certain someone...and a whole lot of other funny stuff that I probably shouldn't share over the internet. In the end, I give the party a 10 out of 10.