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.

Tanner, you have been banned

I love my children. I do! I try to be patient with them and show them that I love them often. But sometimes they do things that push me to the edge of my patience...

Tanner is a habitual bath pooper. It seems like almost every bath he's had in the last 2 weeks, he's pooped in the tub. Oh, and didn't just start 2 weeks ago, this has been an ongoing problem since his early months. Needless to say, it is disgusting. It makes me gaggy just thinking about it. Thankfully Paul cleans it up because I can't handle it. The one time Paul wasn't home and I had to clean it up I scolded Tanner until he cried. I know, not my proudest motherly moment but it was gross and I was mad because I had to clean it up.

So, Tanner, I hereby ban you from baths until you understand that pooping in the tub is unacceptable. You are still an enormously cute kid and we love you, we just don't love cleaning up your poop in the tub.

Day of Service

Yesterday our Stake participated in "Day of Service 2009". You can click here and here for more information. We had a lot of service projects going on in the area (and a lot of Eagle Projects getting done).

We went to the local Primary School (which consists of Kindergarten and 1st Grade). There we planted shrubs, flowers, laid pine straw, built flower beds, built and painted benches, organized art closets and cleared out a whole lot of trees and branches.

Paul worked on clearing debris from the nature trail and rebuilding the bridge at the back of the school. My service mostly consisted of moral support (and taking of a few pictures) since someone had to keep tabs on the little ones. Tanner decided to catch a cold the night before so he was slightly crankier than usual. Unfortunately we only lasted about 2 hours and 45 minutes until Tanner had a complete meltdown. So I brought the kids home, Tanner slept for about 30 minutes. I figured I'd go back after I fed the kids lunch, but as soon as I was ready to go I look for Lana and she's fast asleep on the couch. Oh well. It was a good thought. 3 hours later when she finally wakes up, Paul calls to tell me he's on his way home.

Planting shrubs.

Tanner completely mesmerized by the little Bobcat pushing dirt around.

Building and painting benches.

Lana and her friend playing in the sand.

Clearing debris and rebuilding the bridge.

Garden Update

We have greenery! All but 3 squares have sprouted. I'll have to ask Paul what was in those squares because I can't remember. Beans maybe?





The radishes have gone a bit psycho. Radishes anyone?

Hi, what's your name?

"Lana...no, Tinkerbell!"

"Really? Oh, okay. Well my name is (insert normal name here). Come on Tinkerbell, let's go run around."

Such has been the last few overheard conversations Lana has had with other kids. Of course they tend to vary but the end result is the same. She convinces the other kids that her name really is Tinkerbell. Perhaps we need to cut back on all the Tinkerbell stuff...

Easter 2009

For Lana, Easter began on Thursday. Her preschool had an "Easter Field-day". They asked the parents to provide an Easter basket and they had some fun and games outside. She loves preschool now. Every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday she wakes up and tells me that it's time to go to school. And if she wakes up early then I have to get her ready and then sit her in front of Handy Manny or Imagination Movers until it's time to go or else I am inundated with "Mom, I'm ready now... Let's go... Why aren't we going? Mom, let's go to school! It's time..." It's enough to make any sane person a little bit crazy.

We opted to do Easter on Saturday since we have early church, I had to be extra early for choir and Paul had early meetings. (Oh, and not to mention the fact that I have a hard enough time getting to church on time on regular Sundays...9am church is not my friend.) So we stuffed and hid the eggs Friday night. Tanner was the first one up on Saturday. He really didn't know what to think of Easter.



He's thinking "did you want me to pick these up? This is a little lame, mom."



And here he's telling me about the meaning of Easter. Such a deep thinker this one is.



And this is where he figured out that there was candy in the eggs.



I love this picture. Lana had just crawled out of bed and there's Tanner-the-blur going from egg to egg. Lana's just trying to figure out what's going on.



It didn't take long.

Today (Sunday) we enjoyed a beautiful Easter Sacrament Program. I am so thankful for all those fabulously talented people who are willing to share their gifts to bless others!

Square foot gardening

We really felt like we needed to do a garden this year. So Paul, as the EQ President planned a "Manrichment", did some gardening research, got together the materials and we put together these gardens. Everyone who showed up took their gardens home to their own backyard, but since we don't have one we are borrowing the church's for now.

Hopefully in a few weeks these little squares will be full of veggie goodness.

We planted things like tomatoes, romaine lettuce (we hope those take, but I think we might've planted too late), red/green/yellow peppers, jalapenos, cantelope, watermelon, carrots and even beets (only because Paul wanted to be a "Beetdigger" literally). For those few readers who didn't know me in high school, my mascot was a Beetdigger.

Let's just hope that Paul's thumb is greener than mine because I am a plant serial killer. I have killed every plant I have ever owned except for an ivy. And that sweet plant could go weeks without water and look like it was dead, then I'd water it and it would miraculously come back to life. Sadly it didn't survive the move to Mississippi.

Lana was a super helper in planting.

Tanner...not so much. His type of gardening mostly included the throwing of dirt.

This is the other ward's garden, it's already starting to sprout. Unfortunately a big chunk of it got washed out from all the heavy rains we had last week.

Lana is obsessed with picking flowers. She is not picky even if it's a weed. If it looks like a flower then she has to have it. Lana told me she picked these "very boo-tiful" flowers for me so we took them home and put them in water.

Haircuts, rain and a cold free home!

I gave the kids hair cuts the other day. You can't see Lana's since she's all into a one ponytail hairdo right now. She was a little upset that I trimmed it because she likes having long hair like her Tutu, but when I showed her in the mirror that it was still very long, just not as straggly and stringy. She was okay with it.

Tanner always looks a little more grown up when I cut his hair. It makes me a little sad to do it. Since I am by no means a hair stylist, I buzz it.
A number 6.
All the way around.
And I still screw it up somewhere.
Sorry Tanner.
I do get better with every buzz though. I offered to cut Paul's hair, you know to save $15 bucks every 3 weeks. The word "no" came out of his mouth so fast, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't ever let me near his hair even if I got Tanner's hair right. I can't blame him.

Tanner officially has all his baby teeth in. (yay!!) The last 4 just poked their heads in.

(I just love Tanner's facial expressions don't you?)

Rain. I'm tired of rain. It's supposed to rain tomorrow. I got drenched in the rain on Thursday while picking up Lana from school. Woken up by the same said 3 year old who's scared of thunder on Thursday and Friday and watched as the drainage ditch next to our building transform into a raging river on Saturday during a Tornado warning. Fun times. Not.

In some good news we are finally sickness free after 4 weeks of snotty noses, coughing and sneezing. (Knock on wood) Yay! That's 4 weeks of Lana, Tanner, Me, Lana, and me again. Lana's second round lasted 16 days. Poor girl.