Breakfast at our house today

So that I can say I did homework from last week's weight watchers lesson on portion control, I decided to measure out my cereal this morning. Darin brought home a kind I really like-should have taken a pic. Special K with fruit and yogurt. I know in advance that it wouldn't be a ton, but wanted to see anyway.

It is 3/4 cup a serving. I figure tha tthis is why people who do the "Special K diet" lose weight-if that is all you eat, you will for sure lose weight! I measured out 1/2 cup of milk to get part of a serving.
Here is the dish all measured out. I'm sorry but this doesn't fill up my toddler. Crazy how the servings are so small and most people get out a cereal bowl and fill it up, ending up with probably 4-6 servings. I decided I would see how long it would keep me satisfied. I ate at about 8:00. It is 10:35 and I'm hungry-I mean getting rumblings in my tummy and feeling weak. It actually started a while ago. So, one serving of cereal doesn't do it for me. Have to add some fruit, yogurt or english muffin. Excuse me while I get a snack.

not a heck of a lot!!

Landon loves cereal. Here is what his place at the table looks like when he is finished. But...there is a story to follow.....
I was downstairs getting waffles out of the freezer for Spencer and I heard him and Jordan yelling. "mommy....Landon poured his cereal in the milk" Nice.

Yup, he had taken his leftover milk and poured it into the milk jug. I guess he figured he didn't want to waste the milk....lovely. And it was about 2/3 full of milk. Wonderful. Thanks Landon.

"What did I do?"
Here's the milk jug. I know, why get my camera instead of cleaning it up? I figure I'll have proof of his antics so I can show future grandchildren what their father did That way they can torture him as well. Apologies in advance to my future daughter in law:)

So how bad is this milk going to be tomorrow with cereal in it? I hate to throw it all out when we mostly use it for cereal....what will Darin think in the morning? I did try to see if I could get any out by pouring, but cereal stays inside the jug.....Guess I may be going to Costco sooner than I planned:)

Uh oh, I hear water running in the upstairs bathroom and Landon is missing......

How do I get my smile back?

This is a quote from Spencer in the throws of a tantrum before school.

See it all started when we got home from picking Landon up from a friend's house. Spencer was sitting behind me, but he is usually willing to go to the other side the car and get out the door by Landon's seat, the electric door. The door I much prefer using because it requires the least amount of work on my part. So I unhooked Landon and started into the house. Spencer was freaking out because he wanted me to go around and open his door so he could get out. (the kids can't open and close the one slider door by themselves....our next van will have 2 electric doors:) I now realize that had I just opened his door as I walked around, I could have avoided the whole mess, but you know about hind-sight.........

So I continued in the house, carrying Landon because he hates to keep shoes on. Spencer is having a major fit. I refuse to go back out and open the door for him-I had already decided when he yelled at me in the car that I was going to win. In the meantime, Lanny has a mini fit about ringing the doorbell. Spencer finally comes in crying and yelling at me "you're the worst mother in the world' etc. I take away a very precious Dinosaur book and explain that if he is mean and yells at me, he loses something he really likes. He continues to whine and cry, and runs up to his room.

I sit down with Landon and do some computer games. I tell Spencer that we are playing on the computer, but he realized that the TV had been left on in my bedroom and goes in there to watch. Yes, I know I should not have let him, but I'm half falling asleep while Landon is watching the computer. Spencer comes down and is now crying because he wanted to do the computer-he wants to start over what Lanny was watching. He is also yawning, and history tells me that when he is tired, he is very grumpy.

So the fits continue, and I realize he is still mad about the whole car door thing-this is and hour later!!! We talk a while, I try to do funny things to pep him up and try to get ready to take him to school. I pretend I am going to call his teacher. All of a sudden, he is half crying and says to me "How am I going to get my smile back?" I chuckle inside a bit and ask him what he means. He tells me "you know, the smile I always have on my face when I walk into my classroom"

Oh my goodness, soooo cute. He was sooo worried about crying at school. I tickle him for a while, he says he is sorry for yelling at me and gets his book back. He wants to tickle more on the couch, but I try to move to the door, tickling him the whole way. We finally make it out the door and get to school. When we are waking in, I ask him if he found his smile, so he smiles at me. I tell him that it must have been in the car....that is of course where the whole mess started:) He gets to his class a couple minutes late, but quickly gets right into his daily routine-with a smile on his face:)

If you want a small behind....

leave a little behind! These were the words of wisdom from my weight watchers leader today. Good stuff! I was amazed that I actually lost 2 lbs in the last 2 weeks. I have been a bit down about the whole weight loss thing and wasn't really trying so hard. I wondered if it was the clothes since I wore shorts today, but I'll take it:)

So I am motivated now!! And to celebrate, I joined a gym!!! Yes, you saw right-I joined Lee District RECenter!! I am so excited. I absolutely LOVED going to the gym when I was losing all my weight before I got married, so I think it is just what I need! I am not looking forward so much to the early hours, since I need to go and be home by 7:00 am so Darin can leave for work. I just have to alter my time clock a little and get myself used to getting up early going to bed early. I got really addicted to it before and am hoping to do that again. I am excited because I'll get to swim, and also there are some free classes for people who are members.


So hopefully after riding one of these for a while, I'll have a smaller behind!!

eating watermelon

How do you eat watermelon? Spencer can ask that question for you:

No need to cut it up.
just dive right in.
don't be scarred....get right in there!!
keep on going....eventually you'll get to the bottome!


(this is what happens when you get the watermelon out, but get side tracked before you cut it, and the little watermelon lover in your house gets to it before you do. So what other choice do you have but to get out the camera!!!

Don't you think it is more important to help friends?

So Jordan, my little sweet child, loves to draw pictures and color things for people. I do think her heart was in the right place as she did finally make a card for her friend. But she did not want to do her homework before she made the card. And incidentally, she know exactly which coloring book had an actual "get well soon" page to color in it. She really is so sweet in all the things she colors for people.

Here's our conversation: (in a nutshell)

Me: Jordan, it is time to finish up your homework.
Jordan: (very emphatically-borderline yelling) Mommy, don't you think it is more important to help your friends....more important than doing something for yourself????
Me: What are you taking about?
Jordan: Mommy, Rhiannon is hurt and I need to help her. It is more important that doing my homework.

It is at this point when she is getting out crayons and paper and begging for me to locate a certain coloring book that I realize that she wants to color some pictures for Rhiannon, a friend of hers who has a broken arm.

Me: It is nice to help your friends, but you have to do your homework first.
Jordan: But mommy, I need to help Rhiannon first, then I'll do my homework.
Me: No Jordan, do your homework first.

We go back and forth.... and at the same time

Landon is spilling one of those yogurt shakes all over the floor, Patrick is running around yelling, and Spencer is whining about being hungry.

And since it is historically very trying to get Jordan to sit and concentrate on her homework I lose patience and work up to a boiling point ending up yelling:

Where is your dad? Go get your dad!!!

So Darin comes down helps her with her homework. Then she happily made her card colored on with some cool medical paper from Auntie Marion-the kind that prints out of like heart monitors that is all connected. She loved that.

So this morning she frantically finished up cutting out her cars. I do love that she loves giving people her work. She does every week at church-colors stuff in Sacrament then gives it all away. Who know, maybe someday she will be a famous artist!!

Air and Space Museum

Last Saturday was Girl Scout Day at the Udvar-Hazy campus of the National Air and Space Museum. I decided the boys would love it, so I ditched a visiting teaching conference and away we went. Jordan was excited to get a patch for going, so everyone was happy.

It was so packed, and unfortunately Jordan's troop isn't very organized so we finally found them. We actually only stayed with the troop for a bit, then just went off with our family. It was a really fun time. The boys loved all the airplanes-I mean, what little boy doesn't?

Here is the shuttle they have on exhibit. Pretty cool, I thought. Jordan did sit with her troop to hear a talk about women astronauts. I didn't catch much except that there have only been 48 women astronauts in the space program's history.....well, I think that's right anyhow.

Spencer by the shuttle.
The timing of the trip was perfect for Spencer since his unit of study at preschool this month is Outer Space. He was so excited to go and see the shuttle and all the missles and rockets. We also picked up some posters and handouts about stars for his class. His teacher was so excited and even put a little note in all the kids backpacks thanking Spencer for getting the stuff for them.

It was so fun to go around to all the booths they had set up. My kids absolutely love picking up free stuff. They got their little bags and started filling them up. There were spots to color and make things, as well. It was really packed, but still fun.

Spencer was very excited to see an orange space suite. The had little play ones for sale for $50 bucks, and I would have gotten him one until daddy put the kabosh on that one. I think it would have been so cute for dress up and halloween.

more shots of our fun time.
So they had a little cessna you could sit in. The kids saw it and we had to get in line. It was ok until I read that they gave every kid 5 minutes. Not bad until you realize there are like 6 kids ahead of you. Good thing they put 2 kids in at a time. My boys got in an immediately grabbed the controls before Jordan could bat an eyelash. They loved pretending to fly the plane. But I don't know if they will ever be pilots-the volunteer kept saying-"easy, easy-not so hard."


The boys really loved the "plane with the teeth."
Jordan looking through a telescope.
Such a fun day!! Thank you Girl Scouts for all the fun stuff!

a few little tidbits:)

Just a few tidbits from our family this week:

I went to Spencer's preschool and took all the ingredients to make choc. chip cookies. I had all the kids at the table and they took turn dumping and stirring. The electric mixer scarred a couple of them, but they all finally took a turn. The teacher also had bakers hats and aprons, so they looked pretty cute. I loved it-so fun teaching the kids and seeing them get so excited about it.

Then this week, one of the parents, after seeing the pics of me with the kids, wanted to come and do cooking as well. They are from Columbia and brought hot dogs, Columbia style. They put cheese, pineapple and crushed potatoe chips on top of the hots dogs. Weird, but good!!

We went to dinner tonight at Red Hot and Blue and I had a pulled pork sandwich. When it arrived, seeing how large it was, Spencer said to me "mommy how are you going to eat that?" Pretty funny. In case you were wondering, I did cut it in half to be able to take a bite:)

I took Landon with me to tour a preschool today. He was soo active-looking around EVERYWHERE!! I was so nervous that the director would think he was too hyper, but she never batted an eyelash, and even got ice for him when he closed his fingers in a very heavy door and was crying like crazy.

I took the kids to the dentist today. Jordan has a starting of a filling...oops. Funny part about the visit, though was how chatty Jordan was. She told the hygenist about changing into her "church" shoes before her visit. And in chatting with the hygenist, we learned that her daughter is in Jordan's class. When she made the connection she said "Oh yes, Jordan...I hear Jordan, Jordan, Jordan like 1000 times a day." Life is so funny-we are all connected!!

I went to a consignment sale on Friday and got lots of good stuff. There weren't as many clothes, but I got 5 nice pairs of shoes for Jordan for about $12.00 total!!! It got some great books, a couple good games. Was bummed the bike I wanted for Jordan was gone, ah well.

Girl scout cookies coming to a close!! Woo Hoo!!!

Hmm....went to the air and space museum on Saturday, but have lots of pics of that so a post will come about that soon.

Having a great time in my photography class-need to do a post on that too. I've take some fun pics lately, so I'll have to post them, too. Man, I have lots of posts to do!!!

that's it for now!

One of our favorite places

Huntley Meadows.

On Sunday we took an early eventing stroll at Huntley Meadows. We really love going there. It was AWESOME!! Exactly what I needed to get out of my grumpiness:) I absolutely love to watch my children run, play and explore. It was a bit nerve wracking because there water was really high-the highest I had seen it in a few years. So Landon running on a boardwalk over water is a little scarry! We walked a round to the lookout, then walked back through the woods to avoid the water.

Here are some shots of our fun adventure!







Can't wait for many more trips to Huntley Meadows this Spring!!

I went on vacation.....

but not what you are thinking.

Just a vacation from my blog. Not to sunny Arizona or California, not to London or Boston-my favorite cities, not to Utah to see great friends and family, not to Mt. Vernon to see the Tulips.....no just from my blog.

Guess I'll catch up now.

I'll call this the rest of this post: the good, the bad, and the ugly

The good:
~I started a new photography class the teacher is great!!
A lot of it is review, but has been explained to me much better than the last class I took.
I'll do a post on that next:)
~Today was Sarah Price's baptism: Yeah Sarah!!!
~Jordan is reading better and better every day. She will read books to her brother at bedtime-sooo cute!
~having a diagnosis on my back problem and starting physical therapy. It's going well and I feel improvement. Learning how to do more with butt and leg muscles vs my back.
~crocus blooms-purple ones-spring is coming!!!
~tulip buds coming through the flowerbeds!!
~yummy girl scout cookies
~I did cook a couple yummy meals this week.
~Having a friend call and ask me if she could bring me anything while she was out. Then she knocks on the door with yummy cookies. Why do cookies make things "all better?"
~playing outside today
~going to Spencer's preschool and making cookies with his class. They had little chef hats and aprons. I took all the pre-measured ingredients and utensils, etc and had the kids help do all the dumping, stirring, etc. They LOVED it and I had a BLAST. I'm going to do it way more often!


The bad:
~tons and I mean tons of laundry
~ugly gray cold days
~getting Jordan to sit down and focus on doing her homework-
like pulling teeth so suggestions welcome!
~being too lazy to start potty training Landon. Tonight he put underwear on himself and didn't want a diaper. Too bad he doesn't realize what he has to do in order to wear them. Soon....
~sick children and sick daddy and mommy with horrible cold.
~when Spencer tells Patrick (the little boy I watch) to throw something at a light fixture hanging from the ceiling in the basement and from the kitchen I hear glass shatter
~eating wayyyyy too many girl scout cookies.
~we had a couple "what ever you can find" dinners this week...whoops!
~when you call your husband and he tells you he thought he was feeling sick until he realized that one of the children had turned the thermostat all the way up and the house was 80 degrees!!

The ugly:
~Barf....lots of it. Especially bad when it's on my bed twice in one week.
Here's the children's preferred barf schedule:
Jordan at 3:oo am, then again at 3:30
Spencer: first day at 11:00 & 11:20 ishpm, second day 1:30 am
Landon around 9:00pm.
Notice it is NEVER during normal waking hours!!!
~one impatient, exhausted, worn out,yelling at the kids too much,
some days no shower taking, messy haired mom.
~putting off mopping the floors wayyyy too long.

but....I'll end on the best news we've had all year:

White House Easter Egg Roll: Here We Come!!!!