Laundry Day

I hate laundry.
I loathe laundry.
And I'm pretty sure laundry reciprocates those same feelings due to it's multiplying nature.

However, there is one perk that happens while I do laundry and that is... the kids leave me alone. That's huge. My kids... who sit on the other end of a closed bathroom door (occasionally screaming) until it is reopened... who must be kicked out of the kitchen while I make dinner because I inevitably step on one or both of them... who if one of them is sitting on my lap then the other one must sit on my lap as well. Apparently laundry is boring enough to entice them to find something else to do. Here is what they did today:



Playing let's be dirty laundry. And yes, that is the distance between our bed and our dresser. It's a one way/one person only walkway. It has been known to have a few collisions.



After they were finished pretending to be dirty laundry, Lana ran up and down the hallway with her laundry basket on her head while Tanner ran after her. Both of them screaming "Ahhhhhhhhh!" at the top of their lungs.



Lana is no stranger to running around with a laundry basket on her head. This is Lana at 14 months.

Szechuan Noodles

This recipe (and picture) came from my freebie Woman's Day Magazine. Pretty much the only useful thing I found while perusing it. Thank goodness it was free. I was a little apprehensive reading through the recipe as it calls for peanut butter and since I've never cooked with peanut butter I didn't know what to expect. (Baking with peanut butter is a different story.)

Paul and I were surprised to find it quite tasty, even my picky eater Miss Lana ate it!

(ps. Sorry Dad, I know you're not going to like this one!)

12 oz linguine
1 cup chicken broth or water
2 Tbsp lite soy sauce
12 oz ground pork
1⁄4 tsp red pepper flakes
6 scallions, cut in 1 1⁄2-in. pieces
1 large carrot, shredded
1 Tbsp each minced garlic and ginger
3 Tbsp creamy peanut butter
Garnish: chopped cilantro

1. Bring a large pot of water to boil. Cook linguine as package directs. Stir together broth and soy sauce in a measuring cup.

2. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add ground pork and red pepper flakes. Cook 5 minutes, breaking up, until browned and no longer pink. Add scallions, carrot, garlic and ginger; cook 3 minutes.

3. Stir broth mixture and peanut butter into pork. Cook until peanut butter is melted and blended.

4. Reserve 1 cup pasta water. Drain linguine, add to skillet and toss to evenly coat with sauce. (I didn't toss with the pasta) (Stir in some pasta water if needed to keep mixture creamy.) Sprinkle with cilantro.

One successful week

I'm happy to report that Lana had a very successful week at preschool. There were no breakdowns or freak outs for which I am truly grateful. These first few days have been a little stressful for the two of us, but I think we're getting the hang of it. By the end of next week we'll be pro's! We even discovered that one of her Sunbeam friends is actually in her preschool class, what a small world this turns out to be sometimes!

She is already asking me if she gets to go to school on Tuesday again and is so happy when she hears "yes". I'm glad she ended up with a great teacher and a program that seems to already be helping her come out of her little shell.

Lana's first day

(This is actually a post school picture as I completely forgot to take one this morning.)

The first thing out of her mouth when Lana woke up this morning was, "Mom, I wanna go to school." I'm thinking yay, this might not be so bad! So we eat some breakfast, get dressed and hair done, get Tanner up and ready. We go to put on shoes and she says, "I don't want to go to school now". Oh great. So I plaster on a big cheesy smile and go through once again what we're going to do. She seems to calm down once we get out to the car and she's got her new backpack in hand.

We get to the school and I walk her inside. It's quite an overwhelming scene since they gather all the children into the foyer to check them in and separate them into classes. She is essentially glued to my leg, I'm having a hard time juggling her and Tanner. (I can't put Tanner down because I will blink and he will be off wandering off somewhere amongst the chaos completely unconcerned about my state of mind.)

Once we get into the classroom she relinquishes her steel grip and immediately starts to warm up. Although that was about the time I had the overwhelming urge to grab her and run out of the building. I had just witnessed a rowdy scene of 2 boys from her class. But I take a deep breath and see that Lana is quickly acclimating and thankfully her teacher (Ms. Lynn) has effectively handled the incident. 5 more minutes of chatting with her teacher and I'm off for a few hours of free time. It was rather a strange feeling but nice at the same time. Although I was very happy to go pick her up. She was quite the chatterbox for the next hour or so telling me everything that they did today.

I'm not sure she realizes she's going again tomorrow because we kept telling her for the last 4 days that she's going to school on Tuesday. So when we asked her this evening if she was ready to go to school again tomorrow she kept saying, "no, I go school on Tuesdays". Hmmm, tomorrow might be a rude awakening for the both of us.

Yay, Preschool!

It's official. Lana is a preschooler! I'm having some mixed feelings on the subject, but after having met with the Pre-K director, I'm feeling much better. It's only 3 days a week 3 hours per day. And a short 3 minute drive from our apartment. I think Lana will thrive a little bit better socially once she adjusts to school. Poor Tanner, I think he will be begging for the Pre-K 2 once he turns 2. He wanted in on the action and kept trying to go into the classrooms while we were registering.

Well, for now Lana seems pretty excited. She was a little annoyed that we were only at school today to fill out papers. In fact it took a little bit of bribery to get her out of the building without a full on tantrum because she really wanted to go to school. So we'll see.

Flipper Bowl XIV

Click here for previous post and explanation.

I still got eliminated first round, but it was fun to go back to our old ward and visit with friends. It's still one of the most elaborate ward activities I've ever attended.



The Jumbo-Tron


Stadium seating.






This is not just a random picture, this is showing how Tanner terrorized the Denson's stroller all night long. The boy is drawn to anything that has wheels.




It was a great game this year. It came down to either the first girl or the youngest competitor to win the Flipper Bowl. I couldn't really pick sides because one babysat for us when we lived there and the other was in Primary with me. Anyway, Scotty took the trophy and became the youngest Flipper Bowl Champion.

Carpet - 1, Tanner - 0

I didn't even see it coming. One moment he was in my lap while I sat on the couch, and the next moment I heard (and felt) him make contact with the floor off of the opposite side of the couch. He can easily get up and down off the couch without any problem so this took me (and I think him too) by surprise. I do believe that this is our first visual casualty. He's had some bit lips before and a few bruises to the knees but that's it.

Door - 1, Lana - 0

While we were at church last night and Paul and Lana were running around the church trying to burn off some energy while I finished up my meeting. When a side door suddenly opened and Lana rammed right into it. Poor girl had a big red bump on her forehead. Luckily it was gone this morning and she's feeling better and not dwelling on her "owies". Poor girl, she is our little accident prone. Always tripping and falling down or running into things.

It's the small things

We had to renew our lease today and we thought our rent would go up. Luckily for us the complex isn't full so they let us continue another 6 months at the same rate we're at now.

The pot-smoking college kids who live in our building were out playing on a motorcycle. They ended up running into the tire of one of the vehicles in the parking lot. Thankfully that vehicle wasn't ours. I don't think there was any damage done, but still. And Lana witnessed the whole thing. After it happened she yells at me "Oh no! Mommy, the car is broken!" I don't think there was any damage except something had fallen off of the motorcycle.

Tanner thinks that when I have the hiccups, that it's the funniest thing ever. And then he imitates me and laughs even harder. Then when I tell him it's not funny and then hiccup in the middle of the sentence he laughs even more.

I picked up all the toys in the family room while the apartment fix-it guy a.k.a. "Handy Manny" was fixing our leaky faucet in the hall bath. Before he was even finished both kids had almost 1/2 of the toys back out of the box and onto the floor. I even caught Tanner with his head in a box throwing toys behind him just to empty the box. I don't think I will pick up the toys in the middle of the afternoon again.

Despite the days where I am constantly putting one or both kids in time out, Lana and Tanner have these super cute moments together which softens my occasional frustrations. Today they both cuddled up on the couch with their favorite blankets and played peek-a-boo together and laughed at each other.