Our days

Yesterday morning Daddy made Madeline's cereal and sat her bowl down next to his at the table. Usually Madeline watches cartoons while eating breakfast. I mentioned this to T and he said- well today she's sitting by ME. And she did. They had a sweet breakfast together visiting and being cereal buddies.



This is M's precious belly while she was visiting with me on the couch and eating the cookies Tucker and I made Monday. It is the sweetest cushiest belly. I will never tell her to "suck in" this belly.



Surprise! Kids will eat broccoli, edamame, carrots, and whole grain noodles if you give them chopsticks!





God has given us amazing reminders of our smallness lately.



Madeline got a new bike for her birthday. Yesterday we took our first ride (part of it on the street) to the park! She did amazing. They were exhausted coming back home. Both slept well last night.


Wednesday. Hope today is good. Monday and Tuesday were stellar.

A day with my boy

Lately time has been flying at warp speed. I have been so busy with work and have found myself planted on the couch with the laptop more than outside exploring with T. So today I decided to make sure he was my priority. Our day started with sesame street and an idea to make cookies. I don't bake (see "how to catch a cake on fire" below) so deciding to make cookies from flour etc rather than a can of dough was a BIG DEAL. Tucker was thrilled the plan. He cracked our eggs perfectly, added our dry ingredients perfectly, he was so helpful and I was nervous. Baking is math and chemistry and timing. I was afraid that if he added one ingredient before the recipe said to that the cookies would be ruined. But they weren't!



So of course Tucker loved making them and eating the dough but does not like the cookies. So friends, let me know if you want some and I have a BUNCH of brown sugar oatmeal cookies to share!

Next we packed snacks and headed to the park. My recurring daydream lately is one of the kids racing their bikes ahead of me around the lake and me running behind. So I strapped on my running watch and wore my good shoes hoping I could run a bit but Tucker was nervous. I got a good workout carrying the bike over grass and holding onto him as we went down hills, carrying the bike when we went up a hill on the way home. So probably a decent workout overall but not much running. He did decide to fuss at and race with a man running intervals. Tucker took his starting and stopping as a direct challenge and cursed him as we would pass him saying "YOU CAN'T CATCH ME MISTER MAN!!" Then the guy would start running again and pass Tucker and off we would go again. Cursing and racing. It was hilarious. The man had earbuds in and would have never known about Tucker's ranting. I was laughing so hard every time we would pass him that I finally had to tell him we were racing him, "just fyi."



Then to the boat launch area. My best friend Lindsey and I spent a considerable amount of time there when we were middle school age. Watching tadpoles and trying to catch them.

Tucker got wet and muddy and waved at the ducks and tried to push his bike into the water.











Then I carried his bike up the hill back home. Awesome morning. I needed it.

Tucker is asleep and Madeline will be home soon. It has been a great day.






- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

a big girl room and little boy anatomy lessons...

Monday my parents recognized that my life was slowly spiraling out of control. Every time I took a breath in and out around them and actually slowed down enough to look either of them in the eyes when they asked me how I was doing I felt myself on the brink of tears.

I bought a dry erase board at the beginning of February because we were entering birthday season, a real estate surge (thank goodness) and all kinds of spring activities and obligations. The last think I wrote on it was a reminder and to do list for the week of February 6. It is still sitting in a prominent place on my kitchen counter but I have not taken the time to erase it or update it since then. That was the week life got really busy and it hasn't slowed down since. I think until Monday, that was the last time my house had had a thorough cleaning.

Monday morning I had planned to go to a public hearing about Charter Schools in support of the charter renewal for my daughter's school. I was to have T to Mom and Dad by about 8:15 am so I could get downtown and find a place to park and get into the hearing facility. At 8:00 I looked at the clock and called Dad to tell him that I just couldn't go. There was just no way to have myself and Tucker up and ready in time and that I just couldn't stand the thought of walking away from all of my mess again. For another day. I knew I would never get back in time to clean without the kids and I just couldn't bring myself to leave it all undone, again.

About 30 minutes later Dad called me back. He offered to come and clean my house, mop, vacuum, and even do my laundry. I immediately started crying and had to call him back to get out my "YES PLEASE THANK YOU!!"

Dad cleaned away, mom came too and we went to work in M's room. We moved all of her furniture, organized her clothes, bows, and everything else, and gave her a big girl room to come home to. She LOVES it. We watched The Last Unicorn Monday night and after it was over she said- is it time to go to my beautiful princess big girl room now and go to bed? She has told me so many times over the last 2 days how much she loves her room. Monday night she crawled into bed after Tyler and I had kissed her and tucked her in. She lifted up her hand to her face like a phone and pretended to dial her best friend Sydnie. She made the dialing noises- boop boop beep boop boop beep boop and said, "Hello? Sydnie? You won;t believe my room! I have a big girl room now! And a hand phone! Do you wanna come spend the night and see it? Not tonight? Okay! We'll do it another night! Bye Bye!" And she hing up her hand phone. Tyler and I DIED laughing. She is so funny when we give her a chance to be.

In other news, I caught some flack for this but I chose to teach M and T the proper names for their private body parts. I also encourage Tyler to take Tucker to pee pee with him so that Tucker understands how things work. Also pay back for Tyler because I know I have not used the potty by myself for 6 years. Anyway, the other day Tucker was really watching Tyler go pee pee and said, "Wow Dada, cool butt." Tyler asked him what he was talking about and Tucker corrected himself and said, "Oh! I mean, wow Dada, cool penis!" Tyler is very proud that he has a cool penis. Tucker said so.

Madeline is SIX!

This is the precious little face of a 5 year old one day away from her 6th birthday. This is the face I see nearly every morning- only she's not talking non stop here. Most mornings her mouth is moving as soon as her eyes open. I have to beg her to slow down so my brain can catch up with what she is saying.


Madeline's birthday cake. Our birthday theme was "rainbow unicorn." Can you tell?


I wish I had a better picture of the inside of the cake- a six layer rainbow cake.


So, someone else used to love rainbows and unicorns...I gave Madeline my unicorn collection for her birthday. Mom and Dad found all of my unicorns in my grandmother's attic and got them down for me. I went to their house the night before M's birthday and went through them all deciding which to give to Madeline. It was amazing to me how I was immediately transported to 6 years old again. Dad was living and working in Little Rock during the week and would come home on the weekends to stay with us and every week he brought me a new unicorn. The ones that play music are especially evocative of that time for me. Madeline's favorite is this one of the Mommy unicorn and her baby.


Mom and I found this fabric and Mom made Madeline this skirt. Rainbows, unicorns, and a little princess.


This is M dressed and ready to go to her birthday party. She looked so precious and I kept saying, "Awwww Madeline!" Aunt Jen made her the MOST amazing unicorn headband. Madeline and Tucker love to play baby unicorn and Jen and I just knew she would love it! This was her telling me not to cry, that she would always be my baby.





Madeline and Gigi





Madeline, Mamie, and Grampsy Pampsy


Pin the horn on the unicorn.








We went to a paint your own pottery studio. We had the place to ourselves and I encouraged parents to drop off their kids and go. M has a precious group of little girl friend. They were wonderful!














The Wednesday before they were out of school for spring break they had a little party for M and her other March birthday classmates.


And then there's this...Madeline at 3. How on earth did we get to 6 so quickly? I have an idea...it's a funny bundle of joy and energy that begins with a T. Life started flying at light speed after Tucker was born. As quickly as the days and months and years are going by birthdays are a great time to slow down and make that day a special one to take stock of where you were and where you are. This year M learned to swim, she learned to read, she started kindergarten, and she is learning to love love love her baby brother. She's an amazing girl. Happy birthday Madeline!

I look really sleepy in that picture. Tucker was about 6 weeks old.

How to catch a cake on fire

So I saw this precious train cake on pinterest. It has an engine, 7 cars, and a caboose. It is a Wilton pan that you can purchase from Williams Sonoma from the link. I liked it because that is the exact number of little kiddos in T's class at school. I baked it once for his actual birthday and took it to MDO. It was a hit. I decided to make it again to go around the Thomas train cake I was going to make for his big party. The engine was a 2 pan form and I thought I was supposed to fill both forms halfway and then sandwich them together with icing. But I couldn't figure out why one of the pans had a hole in it...



This was my kitchen right before I put Tucker to bed and put the leaking pan in the oven. Tucker had decided to help me crack eggs. The first one was on the stool on the counter. When he cracked it it splashed in his face and made him mad so we decided to try on the floor. The second one cracked and went all over his feet and the floor and in between his toes. It made him even more mad. But I finally got him to laugh about it and he was okay when he went to bed.


I want everyone to know that I am posting these pictures for FULL DISCLOSURE. If you have ever thought for one second that I am a woman that has her stuff together and manages her time and children and responsibilities well....well....this is the truth of my kitchen. And my baking inabilities.


And this picture is of the hilarity of the stange cake pan with a hole in it! Turns out I was supposed to fill one side completely and COVER it with the "vented" pan. There was nothing I could do at this point but let it bake and hope that the cake would bake enough to stop the leaking. What I didn't think about was that the cake had already leaked all over the oven before I ever got a pan underneath it and the cake batter was on fire and charring.


My whole house was filled with smoke. The only thing left to do was call mom and beg her to come help and ask her to stop off for a bottle of wine on the way.



Got the kitchen cleaned up, we finished both cakes, she took the Thomas engine home to ice for me and I finished the little train. Everything turned out super cute but the funny thing is that Mom insisted that I get a sheet cake because she didn't think we would have enough cake for everyone to eat. When it was time for the cake to be served I was so attached to the Thomas cake that I served everyone the sheet cake and the little train cake. I refused to cut the tank engine. Once we were home I cut some to give my kids and licked my finger. It was DISGUSTING!! It tasted like an oven on fire. Like I had grilled the cake on a dirty grill.



I was so thankful Mom had made me get the sheet cake and I was so thankful none of the guests had eaten the fire cake. Again, more lessons learned!

Pee peeing

Tucker lit up our monitor last night crying. I woke up because of the light of the monitor and could faintly hear him crying for us. I thought he was telling us that he couldn't find his bee bee (blanket). I started to get up and then hallelujah Tyler turned the covers back and beat me to it so I rolled over and went back to sleep.

Tyler called a few minutes ago and asked me if I knew Tucker had woken up last night. I felt like it was a test. I admitted that I had heard him and I was relieved when he just continued with his story and wasn't mad at me for not getting up with him. ;-)

Tyler asked me if I knew why he was awake and crying. I told him I didn't know and he said that when he went into Tucker's room that Tucker was upset because he needed to get out of his crib and GO PEE PEE!!!

Tyler got him up and took him to pee pee and told him what a good job he had done!! I'm so proud of him. Tyler AND Tucker.