A quiet Saturday

Paul and Lana have gone to the Madison house one last time to tie up some loose ends before we close on Thursday. (Whoo-hoo!! Still keeping our fingers crossed just in case.) Tanner and I opted to stay home versus drive separately in the car. So it's been a pretty quiet day. I did run 2 loads of dishes through the dishwasher, went grocery shopping with only 1 kid (in and out of Walmart in less than 30 minutes--on a Saturday!), made some chocolate chip cookies and enjoyed my quiet time while Tanner took a 3 hour nap. I think this will be my last quiet Saturday for at least the next 4 months so I'm taking full advantage of it and trying not feeling guilty especially when Paul called to tell me that it took him 2+ hours to mow the lawn because the lawn mower kept breaking down on him.

We went to the pool last night to try out the new floaties I bought for the kids.


It's called a PuddleJumper from Stearns. It's the best thing I could've done for Lana this swimming season. It allows her to be completely independent in the pool. She loves it and doesn't mind wearing it at all unlike the inflatable arm floaties. She does so well kicking her legs and moving her arms, taking her all over the pool. She was so confident she was jumping to Paul and blowing bubbles in the water. Amazing for a girl who screamed the first 6 months of her life whenever we gave her a bath! Tanner still needs some practice with his, but I think he's also a wee bit under the weight requirements which might be a factor. Regardless he doesn't mind wearing his either.

Tanner the talker

This boy has turned into a talking machine! In just the last week he has picked up at least 2 new words each day. Not just words he imitates back to us, but actual words that he understands. My new un-favorite word is "off". Off is referring to the light switches. "On...(click)...Off..(click)".The clicks are where Tanner is flipping the light (or fan) switch up or down. I finally had to move the chair that he was climbing on to reach the light switch just to stop the insanity. And it's not just him who is driving me crazy, it's the 3 year old (who knows better) but wants to do the same things little brother does.

Tanner also enjoys "Up and Down", especially when he's on your lap and takes you by surprise and knocks the breath out of you.

The new one yesterday was "cheese". He walked around the apartment with our old/broken digital camera telling me and Lana "cheese!".

Enjoying the weather

I was really worried that we were done with spring weather. We've already had our first days of swimming in the pool. And about a week and a half of sweat-in-an-instant producing weather. But yesterday and today have been fantastic. So I took full advantage and tried to herd the kids out the door as fast as they would move this morning (which fyi is not fast at all, where's a cattle prod when I need one?).

Anyway, we hit the local zoo. Which I shall call cute and quaint (read: small) and worth the $2 (total) admission fee. It takes 40 minutes to walk the entire zoo, that's with Tanner walking and not in a stroller. Which is actually perfect because that's about the length of the kids attention span. They do have a nice park so it's nice to go see the few select animals and then go play.


Lana showing off her writing skills.


Tanner showing off the mastered art of getting sand in his hair.


It was so cute watching Lana push Tanner on the swing. I remember the time not so long ago when she only wanted to swing and didn't care much what Tanner did. She is filling her big sister role nicely. Well, at least in this picture.


She got Tanner laughing so hard he got the hiccups.


The first time I ever put Tanner in a swing he cried until I pulled him out.


Now he cries because he wants to go higher.





I wish we could have more days like these.

End of the year Preschool program

We are so proud of Lana. She has done such a great job at school. It is absolutely amazing the type of progress she's made in just the last 3 months. I think we're all a little sad about no more school for the summer (only in that she loves it so much). I was interested to see how Lana would do in the program. If you know Lana you know that she is a very quiet and mostly shy girl. It takes her a long time to warm up to people. When put in new and awkward situations she is more likely to pout and cry and refuse to participate.



So we do a lot of practice smiling. This usually gets her laughing and gets her mind off of the task at hand.



Not the most appealing background, but I thought this was such a cute picture.



See Lana by the white arrow? We took a lot of pictures, but they are all mostly the same so I won't bore you with them. We did however video tape all the songs she was in so I'll post that as soon as Paul shows me how to get them off the camera (it doesn't have a memory card so we have to do it the old school way).

It was so incredibly cute to see her up there dancing and singing. I finally understood what songs she was singing to me when she'd come home from school. She did miss one of the songs though. As they were coming back on stage she tripped and fell onto the stairs and her teacher Ms. Lynn had to take her back stage to help her calm down. Poor girl has a huge bump on her shin, but she was a trooper the rest of the program.

Tanner however was not a trooper. He cried and whined the entire time. Occasionally I think how nice a mute button would be for children.

Happy Mother's Day

I have such a fantastic family.




They think I'm groovy. I think they're pretty groovy too. Thanks for a nice Mother's Day!

Lana's Preschool Picture

This is me taking a picture of her picture because our scanner is broken (bless it's heart, the poor thing was 7 years old after all). Anyway it's not the best quality, but it'll do until we buy a new scanner.



She doesn't produce big smiles, but atleast she's not scowling which happens quite frequently these days for pictures.

A little rain makes a big difference

I stopped by the garden after I dropped off Lana at school this morning. And after trudging through the church's backyard aka weed forrest that hasn't been mowed in forever except for the first 6 feet of the property closest to the road, this is what I found.

Wow. The radishes are still attempting to take over the world.

See, they're emerging.

The dud. Paul says this square was romaine lettuce but it doesn't look like lettuce leaves.

Happy Anniversary

There's nothing like celebrating 7 years of marriage with 3 hours of church on a fast Sunday! Woo woo! (Please note the sarcasm.) Regardless, we were able to enjoy 3 childless hours together on Saturday to go eat lunch at The Crescent City Grill (Yum!) and watch X-Men Origins: Wolverine (it was better than the reviews said it was going to be, remind me to stop reading those before I see the movie). It was nice to be able to sit through a movie and not have to pause it to change a diaper or to get someone a sippy cup of juice. Sunday wasn't too shabby either. Paul grilled his favorite type of steaks and I made my first chocolate sheet cake and frosting from scratch (which turned out pretty good except I found out that I need a new cookie sheet because mine is apparently lopsided. oops.). It was also quiet enough to take a nap. Now that's my kind of day.