St. Jude's Trike/bike-A-Thon

Let me just preface this post with: I am a crappy school mom. Thank goodness I get to "practice" with Lana and that this is only pre-school.

Lana came home with the St. Jude's Fundraising packet about 2 weeks ago. I put it on the bar top in the kitchen and forgot about it. I guess it got buried with old mail and such and then thrown away because when I pulled the reminder flyer out of Lana's backpack yesterday the packet was no where to be found. Way to drop the ball for the cancer foundation (which multiplies the guilt by at least a million). After Paul talked me out of banging my head against the brick wall for being the crappiest school mom of the year, I got out a big envelope, threw in some cash and signed a quick permission slip on the top to allow Lana to ride in the Trika-A-Thon.

Thank goodness I did because this girl had a blast. She was so excited when I told her that she would get to ride her bike at school with her friends. Tanner and I stopped by to watch her make her laps and snap a few pictures.


Tanner was not really happy that everyone else was riding bikes and he wasn't. Sorry Tanner. Maybe next year bud.



I fixed Lana's helmet after I took the picture. I guess the teachers didn't want to take out her pony tail so they just propped the helmet on top of her head. Nice.




These were just the kids from the Pre-K 4 classes (pre-k 2 and 3 went earlier). It was a little crazy at first and I was almost positive that someone was going to get run over or we were going to have a 10 bike pile up or something. But the kids did great. Most of them watched where they were going and Lana got through unscathed (phew!). I guess they really were listening to the bike safety lessons!

Lana's Valentine Day Party

Thursday was Lana's Valentine Day party at school. She came prepped with her Lightning McQueen (for the boys) and Disney Princess (for the girls) Valentine cards. I made her write out each one with her classmates names and also her name on there for practice. Some were barely legible but at least she could say she did it all by herself. It was obvious that the parents of a few of the kids did all their Valentine stuff which to me is a little disappointing. Lana had more fun putting the cards together than she did handing them out. She also decorated a hand sanitizer bottle with stickers for her teacher Ms. Monika.



Tanner and I were a little late so we missed the cupcake action (I'm okay with that, trust me.) The kids had made two, one for them and one for their parent. I guess Lana was pretty ravenous because she ate mine before I got there.



Here's Lana holding her Valentine's stash.



Happy (over-rated) Valentines Day!

Snow Day!

The forecast was calling for 5-9 inches of snow beginning Thursday night and into today. When we went to bed the snow was just starting to stick to the grass. I guess it changed back to rain after that because when Paul woke up at 4am and looked out the window there wasn't any additional snow on the ground. The snow picked back up after that and it snowed up until about 1:30pm. I think here at our house we only got about 2-3 inches of snow. Not "Snowmageddon" by any means but it was enough to make the kids happy, wet and cold!


The back yard.


Some random guys truck who happened to be parked outside the front of our house. I would have taken a picture of the front of the house but really I just didn't want to get dressed and then snowed on just for a picture.



Tanner's "cheese" face.


I know Lana's gloves are gigantic on her, but for $0.99 at The Children's Place yesterday I'm not gonna be picky.



Even though it was a Snow Day and schools were closed, Paul still went off to work at 7am (but came home by noon). The kids and I have been lounging around watching movies (I've been catching up on my Hulu shows) and eating junk food. Is there a better way to spend a snow day?

Michelle vs. the laundry room

Today I have done 6 loads of laundry. All of which are folded AND put away. (I still have a few remnants of last week's laundry sitting on top of the dresser, so that's saying a lot.)



A couple of weeks ago I spilled some OxyClean on the floor. At the time I reasoned with myself that as soon as I got all the laundry off the floor then I could sweep, vacuum and mop. Then the kids got sick so I pulled the rug on top of the said OxyClean and more piles of laundry were dumped onto the floor. Some of which were "emergency" loads ie. the ones I pick up with a plastic bag (or gloves, or something not covered in gross-ness) so other non-emergency loads were pushed to the back of the line on the floor. And my laundry room has been neglected until today.




Today I conquered my laundry room. It will probably not last for very long, but I would just like to document that today, my floor is OxyClean and laundry free. PS, I would never show a picture of my dirty laundry room. It would give you nightmares.



A big thank you to Peyton Manning for winning the AFC Championship (sorry you lost the Super Bowl, but I did enjoy watching the Saints win!) so that Nabisco would send me a coupon for a free bag of OREO's. Yum! Of course, I will have to wait to eat them until I can taste food again and also be able to breathe out of both my nostrils. The kids so lovingly passed on their sickness to me.

That's a little pathetic

Having only 2 posts for the month of January I mean. Really, that is a blogging low for me. I don't know if it was because I'm all blogged out or if it's just because nothing interesting enough to blog about has happened. Sad.

Here's a few Tanner episodes: Last night Tanner found a bottle of baby powder right before he took a nap (this is one of the downsides of his big boy bed, his new found freedom to roam when no one is looking). Luckily it was travel size. He spread it all over his room. And I mean all over his room. Bed, chair, changing station, bedside table, lamp, carpet. Even after I vacuumed everything there was still a cloud of powder hanging around in his room. It gave me a headache from smelling it all night long. We finally decided to put the humidifier in his room in hopes that would help some and thankfully it did.

Then this morning I caught him with a jar of Vick's Vapo Rub. Luckily I got to him before he smeared it onto anything more than his hand and a little on his face, but still. This child is causing gray hairs in me quickly. If he's not causing havoc with that type of stuff, he's calling people on my phone. (Yes, he knows how to unlock it and call Paul. Multiple times.) If he is quiet for more than 30 seconds I know he is into something. I've had to fish him out of the toilet a couple of times last week. The first time he was making bubbles with the shampoo bottle and the other time he decided to "go potty" ( lucky for me he can't take off his diaper yet) and he fell into the toilet, bum first. It tried not to laugh too hard but it was so funny. All he would say as I pried him out and changed his now soggy diaper was, "I fell potty mommy". I have now locked the kids' bathroom just to keep him out.

Lana is doing pretty well with school and all. Her confidence has grown a lot. She now volunteers in Primary as well. It's so fun for me to watch her answer questions or raise her hand to be a helper. She's come such a far way from not wanting to say a word or do anything. Yesterday at church they had a matching game for sharing time and she got up there and was able to make a match with no one's help and earned herself a cookie. I was so proud of her!

It looks sad that the paragraph about Tanner is much bigger than the one about Lana, but I am thankful I only have one crazy child and not two. Lana is out of the terrible two's stage and is a good girl (for the most part). I'm not sure Tanner will ever be out of that stage...he is such a stinker but he is also super smart and cute. It's hard to stay mad at him for long.