sunny sunday

while saturday was cold and wet, sunday was warmer and very sunny!  it was in the 30s when we went to church, but the sun came out and warmed things up to the 60s after lunch.  the kids had parties at church (complete with cupcakes) to celebrate jesus' love for them and were sent home with goodie bags filled with party favors (pinwheels, toys, etc).  one of the 'goodies' was a bottle of bubbles so we went to sit out front (where daddy was done mowing) to enjoy the nice weather.

 when daddy was done mowing, he thought it would be a good idea to get started on the garden - and, of course, he had lots of 'helpers'.

he planted some tomato and strawberry plants before calling it a day.  the rest of the seeds will have to wait until next weekend.  his plan is to plant a second garden on the other side of the house with lettuce and spinach (basically right next to the rabbit burrow).  i am so excited to cook with veggies fresh from the garden again this year!

it was a great way to spend a sunday afternoon (maddux didn't nap because he had slept the whole time in the church nursery and we are trying to make sure he only gets one nap - regardless of how long - to make bedtime and overnight better).  madelyn said that it was a really great day too.  love.

furry friends

mowing the grass today matt found a rabbit burrow in our yard.  and the kids got to see at least one of the baby bunnies hopping around (i think matt had seen three in total).  it was the smallest wild bunny i have ever seen! maybe four or five inches.  i think that we are going to have to do something to protect our garden from furry friends this year (there are also groundhogs to worry about around here) since we aren't putting the garden in the backyard where maggie is, but on the side(s) of the house instead.

almost 34 weeks

i will be 34 weeks on monday.  i would say that 'nesting' has begun as i suddenly have much, much, much more energy than at any other point in the pregnancy.  there really isn't much to prepare for baby, but i am getting a lot of cleaning and organizing done.  it has also allowed me to be more active and engaged with the kids.  i have started dealing with sciatica (nerve pain that is almost crippling in my left leg).  it comes and goes which is both nice and annoying.  i dealt with it a little with mason, but this has been the worst by far.  but not too much to complain about when we are getting so close to seeing our little guy!  they aren't doing a 'tyke tour' of the hospital again until july, so we are going to arrange for a private tour so that the kids can see it and matt and i will know where to go.  it is a little weird to not know what to expect at the hospital when it is our fourth baby.  oh well.  that is what we get for moving.  love.

saturday morning

it was a cold, rainy/sleety/snowy saturday, but we had places to go and things to do!  and mason and i were wearing our matching puffer vests.  matt isn't a fan of vests, but mason and i love wearing ours!

first stop was the lowe's build and grow to make terrariums.  the kids are pretty excited to grow some plants inside - i think we have settled on planting strawberry seeds since the plants don't grow very tall and it is difficult to protect the berries outside so they might actually get to eat on off their inside plants.

next stop was panera for some lunch.  it was a little early for lunch (for some reason the building event wasn't even close to as crowded as it normally is and we were done quickly) so we went next door to marshalls for some browsing.  matt thought i was crazy, but we let maddux just walk like madelyn and mason.  we were there about 30 minutes and he did great.  lunch at panera was uneventful (but delicious)  it is so nice that the kids will stay seated and calm through an entire meal - especially because it was very busy.  we didn't even have anyone spill the little water cups - which normally happens at some point.

mason took a little nap on the way to madelyn's soccer practice (maddux had fallen asleep on the way to lowe's after waking up around 6am).  it was funny because he never let his book fall down even though he was very asleep.

this week as soccer practice we decided to try letting the boys stand with us at field level instead of watching from the bleachers upstairs.  they did great!  it is pretty crowded and a long time to just stand in one place.  i thought for sure maddux would try and get on the field for a ball, but both boys stood and watched nicely.  they would wave at madelyn when she looked their way too.  maddux did get on the field, but it was because he fell on while trying to sit on the little edge for the 'door' in the wall.

madelyn was most excited to try out her (pink) cleats that we borrowed from a neighbor.  it was also her first practice with all of her 'gear'.  she was so funny about her ball.  the balls brought are 'shared' but madelyn kept a hawk eye on hers where ever it went.  and when they did line drills ('laces' kicking into the goal), she would just keep having a turn because they kept rolling her ball to the front of the line.  we were yelling for her to get into the back of the line because no one was bothering to tell her that her turn was over - even if it was her ball.  i am not sure why they kept rolling the ball back to her. 

next week will be an actual 'game' and hopefully the weather will be nice enough that they can play outside.  love.

clean machine

maddux is very interested in the vacuum cleaner (i.e. he keeps pulling it out of the closet when i don't want him to), so i decided that i would just let him vacuum the kitchen.  it also seemed appropriate since his habits are the primary reason that we needed to vacuum. 

once i showed him how to suck up cheerios under the cabinets he got to work.  he didn't get everything but he tried really hard and i appreciated the effort.  love.

sweet, sweet mason

mason loves to be a "big helper" and he really is (most of the time).  he also has the sweetest heart.  this morning he got the cereal out and served his little brother (first) before getting his own bowl full.  they were so cute sitting on the kitchen floor getting their breakfast together.  when they moved to the table, maddux was so happy with mason that he sat very close to him and gave him a big hug.

(maddux has taken to using the bench as a table and his sister and brother have followed suit.)  love.

pretzel time

the kids have been acting out a little over the past few weeks and i thought that some more undivided mommy time would do the trick (and it really did).  today we made pretzels for our afternoon snack.  this is our second attempt at pretzels and a different recipe than last time.  they came out much better this time.  mason and i are the only ones that like them, but everyone enjoyed making them.  love.

madelyn plugs her nose because she doesn't like the smell of the motor (the mixer is still pretty new).  i think watching it 'mix' with the bread hook is their favorite part.

waiting the long, long 12 minutes for fresh pretzels.

soccer season is here!

matt and i aren't ex-soccer-stars/wannabes (i actually just found out that he had played at all).  somehow madelyn has had it in her head for some time that she is a soccer star.  she tells people all the time that she is really good at soccer and kicks a ball around at every opprotunity.  her big 'trick' right now is kicking the ball backwards with her heal.  i must say that she is impressingly coordinated and good at running with the ball.  (i say "imprssingly coordinated" because this is the same child who has been extremely accident prone her whole life.)

i almost missed the sign-up deadline and practically held my breath waiting to see if she was going to get on a team, but she did and today was her first practice. she has been talking about it all week and could not wait to go.  i decided not to get her any 'equipment' until after the practice so that we could find out what all she really needed.  the league is fairly large with about 30-34 kindergarten teams (madelyn's age group)!  thankfully the kindergartners play on the indoor field when the weather is bad - and it was today.

madelyn asked me to make a video of her saying "first day of soccer" and i tried to get her to hold still for a picture - this was the best one because of the ways she was wiggling and contorting her body with excitement.

once we got to the field, we went upstairs to buy her a team jersey (they are reversible for home and visitor and the same for every team).  it was pretty crowded so matt sat on the bleachers upstairs with the boys to watch and i took madelyn down to the field to find her team.  she was pretty happy that this 'girly' ball was not being used and claimed it as her own for the rest of the practice.

the practice started with all of the teams (not 'all' the teams because there were 4 or 5 time slots for kindergarten practice) circling up for a lesson in kicking the ball by making an "h" with their leg.  madelyn is near the middle of this picture.  her coach is standing next to her in the grey sweatshirt.  there were a lot of kids so i told madelyn to just stay with her coach.  she cried as she walked away because she didn't know the other kids and couldn't find someone to sit next to.  a set of parents (i have already dubbed them the 'know it all parents') thought that she was crying because i left her and started to give me advice about how important it was to keep signing her up for things like this and that she would be okay - they went through the same thing with their son (their daughter is on madelyn's team).  i just smiled politely.

here is madelyn doing a passing drill with another girl on the team (not belonging to the parents referenced above).  she is going to need to work on not touching the ball with her hands.

and then madelyn got to try dribbling up the field to kick the ball into the goal - she cried when she missed (in the first video).  i wonder where she gets those perfectionistic tendencies and self-imposed pressure?

she talked about how much she loved practice for the rest of the day and literally can not wait for next week's practice.  after that, she will have games every saturday.

we went to buy her some gear after lunch.  she agreed to gender neutral gear for the socks, shin guards and shorts.  she was on board for red or blue striped cleats (but we are going to borrow some pink ones from neighbors instead).  where we couldn't sway her was the ball.  she really, really, really wanted a pink one.  and she wasn't willing to get the one that was on clearance either (it had too much white on it).  so we explained to her that daddy and mommy were only willing to pay 8 dollars (and we told her that we would have paid more for a ball the boys would be willing to use) and the one she wanted was 15 so she would have to come up with some way to come up with the extra 7 dollars.  we discussed not getting a kids' meal the next time we went to a fast food restaurant or a treat some time, but she arrived at giving us the money out of her piggy bank (she really, really, really wanted that specific pink ball).  and right when we got home, she helped count out the money (and was delighted that it didn't require all of her piggy bank money).  i think she is a little proud that she was able to help with the purchase (she is pretty into saving her money for 'something big' lately) and wrote her name on the ball herself so that people would know that it was hers.

it looks like we are in for a pretty fun season.  matt and i are both fans of team sports and hope that they benefit our kids as much as they have benefited us.  plus, she is terribly cute.  love.

registered for kindergarten

last night i went to wait in line and register madelyn for kindergarten. matt has golf league on thursday nights so we had to hire a babysitter. the kids were just disappointed that i wasn't gone longer! we were amazed with the information and documentation required! the funniest (or scariest) was the 'technology' agreement that madelyn had to sign too. it was two pages and full of leagalese related to the use of computers within the school system. when she asked me what she was signing, i told her that it was the computer rules and she was signing to say that she wouldn't do things she wasn't supposed to do on them. i wonder how legally binding a 4-year-olds signature is? love.

might be time to get some sand in the sandbox

and, of course, today was beautiful!  it was pretty windy, but the sun was warm and we spent the afternoon outside.  the kids just love digging for rocks in the lot next door.  we have even started to let maddux join in the fun (usually this is something we do while he is napping).  and we got to go on a family walk after dinner too.  love a nice, unscheduled day outside in the sunshine!  love.

take us out to the ball game...

we always keep quiet about anything we have planned for the kids until we are actually on our way there because it is much easier that trying to explain why we can't go somewhere.  today was no exception.  the weather wasn't looking very promising, but matt had gotten tickets to see the minor league baseball game and we figured we would give it a try.  i just told the kids that daddy had a surprise for them and matt wrapped their gloves up in his jacket so that they wouldn't see them in the car.  even with the rain (which was that light, cold, drizzley rain) we thought that we could use the tickets and stay for a few innings.

the kids were extremely excited to be there and madelyn and mason discussed catching a ball for mason this time (remember that madelyn has gotten a foul ball from almost every single game she has ever attended).  there weren't a lot of people and our seats were four rows back from the home team dugout - we thought that our odds were pretty good.

after a few innings of watching from the covered walkway, we were able to dry off our seats and sit closer to the game.

maddux did better than i had expected him to, and even watched some of the game.  but he did spend some time 'loving' and hugging madelyn a little too much.  thankfully, she was a pretty good sport and only complained after about 5 minutes of straight hugging.

mason was very patient about waiting for a ball, but he never got one.  the boys in the row behind us got 3 or 4, but the timing never worked out for us.  he was so cute with his glove - waiting.  and he was even sweeter about handling his disappointment.  he was very disappointed but said that he would get one next time.

our 'plan b' surprise was a family fest day at a mall up that way.  we went last year and mason won an annual zoo pass which let us renew the one shannon gave us when we first moved here.  we figured it was worth the effort of going, plus the kids liked all of the activities.  we left the game around the sixth inning because the rain was picking up again so we had time to head to the mall for an hour too.  and as a bonus, we had two buy one/get one coupons for auntie anne's pretzels.

mason and madelyn are actually pretty good hoola hoopers considering that we don't have one (although we will get some this summer).

after the mall we went to a favorite grocery store up that way with some more 'freebie' coupons and had dinner in their cafe before heading home.  despite the rain, we had a nice family day!  love.

"sit on your bottom"

this made me laugh enough that i had to get a video to share.  apparently, i have a mantra about car seats that mason feels is universal.  he did have the word count right when he was 'reading' his car seat...  love.

big boy bed!

the picture doesn't capture at all how excited maddux was/is to be in a big bed.  easter might be an odd time to do it, but we (rather, matt) moved the crib out of the boys' room and then moved madelyn's twin bed in for maddux.  we were going to buy a third twin bed but since we don't have a guest room right now, we have a king bed that isn't being used.  so we moved that bed up into madelyn's room for her.  the crib is going to end up in madelyn's room too, but we didn't set it back up yet.

maddux is the only one who jumped right into his new bed and pulled up the covers.  the other two had to sort of 'grow' into using the covers over several months.  he loves, loves his bed!  and mason is pretty excited about it too.

maddux loves it that is until it is time to actually sleep in his bed.  that part hasn't gone too well.  he started his nap today behind the door and woke up when matt tried to move him to the bed.  bed time went a little bit better but we still have a little work to do.  love.

happy easter!

i was pretty impressed because the kids resisted the urge to 'hunt' for the few eggs we 'hid' around the house.  they saw them and were excited, but left them where they were until after church.  they did go ahead and check out their easter baskets.  i love candy, but since we don't really let the kids eat it they didn't get any in their baskets.

i hadn't gotten around to buying maddux his own basket this year (last year the baskets were in storage so no one had theirs), but madelyn had a spare basket to use so she let maddux borrow hers.

after church we let the kids find the eggs while we made lunch and just let them go ahead and eat the candy inside (there were three little jelly beans in each one).  the kids thought that this was a pretty special treat to eat candy before lunch!

and that was pretty much the end of our easter festivities.  more on the rest of our day in a separate post.  love.

dying eggs

while i was making dinner tonight, i realized that we had not yet colored our 'easter eggs'!  better get those suckers boiling... 

once they were cooled the kids got right to dying them.  i think it was a little too stressful for daddy (he doesn't handle messes well), but the kids seemed to enjoy it.  even though i got brown eggs and some of the colors were difficult to soak long enough to make a noticeable difference (like the yellow and orange).

and here was the finished product.  i was going to let them dye more eggs but since i waited so long and am the only one who likes egg salad one dozen would have to do it.  they didn't turn out too bad.

easter snuck up on me a little bit and we weren't nearly as 'crafty' as we were last year.  we did have a neat egg carton sort of like an advent calendar for christmas that we opened an egg from every day to learn about the story of easter.  we might not have done many 'traditionally' easter things this year, but the kids definitely knew the reason we were celebrating!  they were shouting, "he has risen!" and "hosanna!" most of the week.  love.

tooth fairy time

"i have good news, mom."  i never know if what follows is going to be good news or not but it is her new way of presenting information ("i have good/bad news").  yesterday, it was news that she was ready for the tooth fairy to come and get her tooth.  she was originally going to wait for "t" week at school so she could bring it for show and tell, but apparently changed her mind.

she has a little strawberry shortcake tin box that she got from the dentist for holding her tooth, but she put it under her pillow loose.  we are lucky that it could be found at all.  i had asked madelyn what the tooth fairy brings and she said "coins".  when i told matt her expectation, he selected a dollar's worth of quarters, one nickel, one dime, and one penny to trade for her tooth.

madelyn was ecstatic this morning!  she was so excited to get her coins into her piggy bank that she didn't count them or even know how much money it was.  she just explained that she is saving up her money for something big she might want to buy one day.  she does not have anything specific that she is saving for but she knows that she will need all of her money when the time is right.

the tooth fairy is going to be busy in the next few months.  madelyn has one bottom tooth barely hanging on, the other two lower front ones are pretty loose and the top two center teeth are starting to wiggle a little.  oh boy!  love.

lemon face?

when i was making dinner maddux (my constant shadow) was hanging out with me in the kitchen.  he asked for the lemon half i had used and i thought, why not?  he did not have the reaction to his first taste of lemon that i was expecting.

it was like the lemon was his best friend and he cried every time i took it from him when he would wander out of the kitchen.  silly boy.  love.

perfect timing

at mops this month, they are doing a 'mother' craft and they wanted advance pictures of our kids.  we were asked to supply one picture with our kids' faces close together.  i thought, yeah, right.  but today the pictures were due so i quickly arranged the kids before we were leaving for the library and for some reason everybody was in the perfect mood to get it done!  not too bad.  love.

swim boy

if mason keeps his current love for swimming, we are in for a really fun summer at the pool!  we only have one week left for swimming lessons.  i think he is going to be pretty sad when they are over.  it is amazing to see how brave he is in the water after his terror of it last summer.  we just have to hold on to the enthusiasm for a few weeks until the neighborhood pool opens up.

grandma bought both kids some swimming goggles when she was here.  mason hasn't used his in the pool yet but wanted to wear them while we waited for madelyn's class to start after his.  it is weird for me to have kids that don't swim regularly since it was a huge part of my childhood.  i plan on making up for lost time now that we have access to a pool!  love.

picnic lunch

the kids are super excited to have patio furniture!  matt and i are pretty happy about it too.  (it is composite wood which we thought was pretty nice.)  i think maddux likes it best of all and is constantly 'asking' to eat or play on the deck.  maddux or mason will just pick up their lunch plates (or snack) and carry it to the door.  we can't wait to use it regularly this summer.  now the hunt is on for the right grill... (we didn't dig our old one out of the snow when we moved.)  love.

grandma goes to the zoo

we finally had nice weather for grandma's last day.  so, of course, we went to the zoo!  not the zoo i had planned but the kids were excited all the same.  and since they didn't have school we were able to get there when it opened and not rush back to the cafe for lunch quite so quickly.

and grandma made sure that they wore their hats...

for some reason, mason thought to bring his binoculars.  he was ready for safari.  and because mason brought his, madelyn had to bring some too.  she couldn't find her set like mason's (they built them at lowe's/home depot a while ago) we had to find her another pair.

checking out the ducks.

maddux was having one of these days...

 

we didn't do the 'breakfast with the bunny' but the kids sat in his chair.

grandma got the kids new sunglasses at the mall. (maddux broke his other pair when i took the kids to church by myself on a saturday night only to discover that there wasn't children's ministry and they would have to sit through the service with me.  matt was home sick.  the kids were great!  we made it through the whole service without snacks or drinks.  the only casualty was maddux' sunglasses which he 'opened' too wide.)

 

riding the train with grandma

we all rode the merry-go-round.  it made me terribly sick and i had to keep my eyes closed.  i guess the operator was new and when it was time to stop, it stopped.  there was no slowing down.  i almost fell over.  thankfully, no one got hurt and the kids weren't scared (much). 

it was a fun day at the zoo and enjoying the sunshine (i actually got a little 'burn' on my neck.)  and then it was off to the airport to send grandma back home.  the kids were sad to see her go but know that she will be back this summer and this time big pop will come too!  we are going to have a very busy summer of grandparent visits.  love.