He's Back!

Although we are SO glad that John is back, I must admit that I wasn't looking forward to sharing my bed again, I slept really well while he was gone (he's a bit of a snorer). So even though I didn't sleep as soundly last night as I have the past few...it sure is nice to have a husband back. Especially one who brings back over 80 pictures of the games he attended. I'm sure you'll enjoy the pictures as much as I did!

A few words...

Now that Owen has decided that talking might be worth trying, I decided to share a few of his words with you. Mostly I just wanted to share my favorite word of his with you. I just love it when he says "hello." I think I like it so much because it reminds me of Squiggy on Lavern and Shirley(I tried to find a video of Squiggy doing his famous 'hello' and couldn't...what is this world coming to??? I guess that those of you who aren't huge Lavern and Shirley fans will just have to listen to Owen's 'hello' and know that it resembles someone famous!). I also need to thank Ains for helping me think of words to have Owen say...what a great helper!

Home Alone

John left this morning for his big Seattle trip. He's headed up there with my dad and our brother in law to watch 2 Red Sox games. They went last year too and have had this trip planned for months. I'm a mean wife and told John that this had to be his Birthday present...So Happy Birthday John! He's been REALLY excited. I'm sure he'll have a great time...I'm just hoping that those of us left behind to hold down the fort have a great time as well. It is Memorial Day after all!

Going, Going, Gone!

We've been growing out bangs around here. I cut Ainsley's bangs when she was 2 because she wouldn't leave anything in her hair and I just couldn't stand her hair always being in her eyes. She has now let me know that she is old enough to leave in her hair clips and informed me a while ago that she no longer wanted bangs. So we've been letting them grow. We went from long and bushy...
To brushed aside (or any other way we could keep them out of her face). This phase also required incredible amounts of hairspray!
To finally being long enough to clip back. Unfortunately for Ains, this is all we will be able to do with her hair for months.

Yuck!

Lately I've had a bit of an illness. I call it "I can't stay away from the kids snacks no matter how hard I try." Usually I don't have a problem eating the kids treats, they just don't appeal to me that much. But lately I have no self control when it comes to snacking. I've even tried to trick myself by buying yucky generic brand treats for the kids. I've been buying the Walmart brand treats to try to divert my crazed desire for snacks (no offense to Walmart brand food, but some of it just isn't good). But to no avail. Last week I bought a package of generic Oreo's, I got home and tried one...just as I hoped...it was gross. But here I sit a week later, having polished off most of the bag on my own (I feel a little sick to be quite honest). So either generic oreo's are an acquired taste, because now they don't seem so bad....or, my lack of control when it comes to snacking has reached new pathetic levels, and I'm willing to stick anything in my mouth. Either way I need to find some magical pill that decreases my need for snacks!

Or I just need to make the kids go with out any sort of crackers or treats so that they are never in the house. But who am I kidding, that won't happen. If I did that we would never make it through sacrament meeting, and I would never be able to do any sort of shopping without mega chaos...the calming effects of fruit snacks and crackers amazes me to this day. Also, I'm pretty sure Owen would die of starvation if I cut off his cracker supply, because then his only source of calories would be fruit. Crackers are considered a grain, right?

You see my dilema. Tough life I live...huh?

In case you missed it...

Ainsley's third recital was last night. She looked so adorable. She loved posing with her umbrella. She came up with several funky poses all on her own. She did a great job on her dance. I was so proud of her! I could tell she was really concentrating because her face was serious during her whole performance. She told me that she wasn't nervous at all this time...I didn't know she had been nervous before. What a cutie! Here is a fuzzy, distant video of her dancing to 'Singin' in the Rain'. Notice how she keeps looking down to make sure she is on her "spot." I thought it was cute how concerned she was about being in the right place. Enjoy...and I totally apologize that I have no clue how to get the good recording from the camcorder onto the computer, this will just have to do.

A random memory....

Picture this...

About 6 years ago John and I were sitting in our apartment in Salt Lake. We hadn't lived there very long and our apartment was VERY empty. I think our living room had 2 chairs and our TV in it and mot much else. In an attempt to fill some of the void of our lovely home I went to Fred Meyer and purchased a pot, a big palm type plant, and some potting soil. I went home and potted the plant. I had a record of killing innocent plants and was not going to let that happen to this one. I took great care of the plant until we realized that the plant had come with some issues.

While sitting and watching TV one night we happened to notice something dive out of the pot and into our carpet. I made John do the dirty work and he found a WORM burying itself in our carpet. The worm was able to bury itself quickly and John had a really hard time getting it out...especially since he was a little squeamish about touching the worm. We then looked in the pot and noticed that there were worms EVERYWHERE!!! I had just lovingly watered my beloved plant and had drowned the worms out of there home. There were literally at least a dozen worms in sight. At this point we thought we would drown the worms out. It seemed logical. We figured that one had escaped the pot, the rest would climb out for sure if they had to. So we set the plant outside, poured in a ton of water, and waited. I don't remember how long we waited to bring the plant back inside. But, we eventually figured that the worms had to be gone since the sightings had gone down.

We lived with the plant for a while longer until one day we noticed a trail in the carpet. That's right! I said a trail in the carpet. A little worm trail. Another worm had escaped the pot and was making it's way for the door. The thing had traveled a good 10 feet before it was discovered. GROSS!!! At this point I had given up on my lovely plant. I called Fred Meyer and explained to them that there were currently worms crawling around my carpet because of either their plant or their potting soil and that I wanted a new, worm free plant. They explained to me that worms are a good thing and there was nothing they could do for me. Apparently there are people out there that like worms crawling around their homes...I'm not one of those people.

So in our last ditch effort to destroy the worms in my house plant and save my beloved palm, we took the poor thing outside and ran water over the roots until ALL the soil was gone and then tried to replant the tree. Although we were hopeful, my plant slowly died over the next few days. I've never heard of anyone else having issues like this. I think I must have picked out the only worm infested soil/plant out there. It was a traumatic experience for us (although I'm sure the worms were a little traumatized as well), and I now stick to silk when it comes to greenery in my home. Worms are only welcome outside this house!

Bizarre

Today I went with my mom to the cannery to get some food. We both had green cards (a card you get when you work at the cannery so you can go back and buy stuff later with out working) and wanted to use them before they expire. We got to the cannery at about 9:30 this morning. We went that early because we had heard that you needed to be there early on the morning after their shipments arrive in order to get anything because they were selling out. Deep down I thought that must be an exaggeration. Surely people weren't that panicked about suddenly stocking up on THAT much food. I admit that I've decided to stock up on a few things due to rising prices of food, but I really haven't done that much. Well, I was wrong. When we arrived there weren't many people there...because there was NO food. Okay, there was a little food. But nothing that I wanted. Except for jam, and I wasn't about to use my green card just to get some cans of jam. Who ever heard of an LDS cannery running out of wheat??? Not me! Now we either have to keep calling and wait until more shipments come in, or wait until this current state of hysteria has died down. I'm thinking maybe the second option is best.

Year in Review

Ains had her last day of preschool today. I can't believe how fast this year has flown (that sounds cliche doesn't it?). Ains will be going to the same preschool next year though, so she only had to say good-bye to her teacher and friends for a few months. I decided to post a few of the things Ains has learned this school year so that we will remember what she was like at age 4.

• Ains can identify all of her numbers and upper case letters


• She can count to about 70 or 80, kind of...once she hits 20 her counting goes something like this, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31


• Ains learned that she won't die if water touches her eyes in the tub (we are hoping this lesson carries over to the pool this summer!)


• Ains can now pump herself on the swings all by herself


• She learned to write her name


• Ainsley currently draws lovely stick figures with hair, toes, etc., her drawing has advanced a lot this year.


• Ains has also learned 1st, 2nd, and 5th position ('agician' )in dance, and sashays and shaney's. (I have no idea what this means, unfortunately for Ains she inherited absolutely no dance skill from her mother...although her father is quite talented in ballet!)


• Ains also started reading chapter books with her dad. She is quite the fan of Junie B. Jones.


• Ains also has shown interest in sign language and has learned some signs from videos lately. For those of you who don't know, our ward services the deaf group for the entire valley and so we are surrounded by sign. A while ago Ainsley started noticing that someone was always signing next to the speakers in sacrament meeting. She now has a girl in her class that is deaf and so there is a translator there too. So, Ains has picked up some sign at church, and John has gotten her a few videos from the library. Here is a video of her showing some of the signs that she has learned. She has done really well and probably knows about 30 words now, can sign her name, and knows a couple of primary songs. I think it's such a great opportunity for her and hopefully she (and I) will be able to learn a lot more while we are surrounded by it in this ward.
  
  

Stuff...Plus Mother's Day

I realized today that I haven't posted in almost a week. That so isn't like me! So, since yesterday was Mother's day, here is a post about the big event....along with a couple of other random things.

First of all, my garden. Let's just say that things are growing! Yay!!! I was so worried that we would put all the effort in and then get nothing in return. So, while we have a small garden we can now see our lettuce, peas, carrots, peppers, zucchini, and our tomato plants. My tomatoes were looking a little sickly until I talked to my 'trainer' and was informed that they should be covered 24 hours a day for the next month with those pretty white solar caps. Maybe this is common knowledge to the general population, but to me it was new information. So now my tomatoes are covered and I'm not supposed to look at them for a couple of weeks...I really hope they're alive!

I had a great Mother's day! I have to admit that I wasn't too excited for mother's day because I had been quite angry at John the day before. I won't go into details, but let's just say that the sprinklers are now fixed and the argument is over! But I really had a nice day and John was great! He and Ains made me a dinner full of The Pioneer Woman's recipes and it was AWESOME!!! They even let me help with the stuff I wanted to cook (I like to try new recipes, so this was fun). I got to be queen for a day (kind of a tradition in our house, I get mother's day completely work free and John gets father's day off). All I had to do was point at a bothersome child or a mess that needed cleaned and John took care of it! It was so nice to just sit and relax all day. John and the kids got me some great gifts this year. I got the enchanted CD, which I loved watching Ainsley dance to for nearly an hour yesterday.
John got me Stephenie Meyer's new book, that I didn't even ask for, or know about for that matter. I started it last night. Really good so far!
And John had Ainsley draw this picture of our family and then framed it so it can now sit with our other family pictures. I think it's awesome. I think John put as much work into it as Ains did. He had quite a bit of restraining to do to get her to only color and write certain things. I love how 'mom' is 'wow' and the special random letters she added above family. I also love that everyone has five gigantic toes on their gigantic feet. She's getting to be quite detailed in her drawings. She was so proud of her picture, and I loved it.
We also got to go spend time with my mom last night. We went over in the late afternoon to talk to Michael. I can't believe he will be home from his mission in less than three months! It's crazy that he has been gone that long. It's also fun to see how much he has matured since he left. Weird how that happens?!? After the phone call Syd made us strawberry shortcake and we all got to relax and hang out. I actually got to sit and have a conversation since John was taking care of the kids...nice!

To finish off our night last night, John got video of the kids new trick. Ains was having so much fun jumping off the chair that Owen just had to give it a try. I must admit that I cringed every time I watched him jump. What a daring boy!

He might look cute.....

But this boy has turned into trouble. It's a good thing he's so darn cute or I might send him off to live with the monkeys! (Is that actually a saying or did I just make that up...if so, what in the world is that supposed to mean?) Owen is a master at getting into trouble. I decided to share a few examples here just so they would be recorded for posterity...you know, so that when my kids complain about their kids I can say, "Whoa, I totally got ya beat!"

Item of mischief #1.
Owen can get out of anything......I really do mean anything. Case in point, today while we were running errands I had Owen in the seat of the cart (not strapped in, so sue me) and while I was looking at something he managed to get to the back of the cart with out making a sound! I still have no idea how he did it. Quite impressive. He can get himself out of his stroller with enough wiggling and is not the least bit worried about falling or getting hurt. I need this boy to acquire a sense of fear!

Item of mischief #2.

A love of cups. I know it doesn't sound like a bad thing, but I hate giving Owen any of Ainsley's "big girl" cups. This is what he looked like one day after using one of her cups with a lid, a built in straw, and a little air hole. After a decent amount of blowing there was milk all over the place, including his face. He begs for cups and sometimes I cave during a moment of sheer weakness and without fail I end up with a soaking Owen, soaking floor, soaking high chair, you get the picture. Today I made him wear his soaking clothes until they dried. I mean, he only has so many outfits. Is that mean?

Item of mischief #3.

Aggression has reached new levels around here. Owen has found a way to vent when he is frustrated, angry, hurt, or just wants your attention and your not giving it to him. He hits. The worst part is that he just hits what ever is in front of him. A lot of times it's Ains. She's just not fast enough. I need to teach her to move out of the way faster if she's going to survive a brother. We've been trying to discipline Owen by removing him from the situation and making him have a "time-out" every time he hits, but it just doesn't seem to be working. I keep trying to teach him nice and mean things, like hugging vs. hitting. But we still haven't made much progress. Although he is getting good at saying sorry and giving whoever he hit a hug after his time-out. I really like watching him walk up to Ains slowly with his arms outstretched to give her a hug, and she's so forgiving that she's always ready to give him one back...for now. I wonder if he had more words if he wouldn't be so aggressive? Until then, time-outs for us, unless any of you have any magical suggestions.

Item of mischief #4.

AKA the current cause of my greatest daily grief. Owen loves the pantry and spends a good portion of his day here. You would think I would have gotten a child proof handle by now. But to tell you the truth, I have a hard time with the darn things and was hoping to avoid it. Owen rarely eats meals. He plays with his food, throws it on the ground, gets it taken away, and then sneaks into the pantry when I'm not looking. There are only a few packages that he can get into, but he'll eat anything in there that he can get open. He's been found eating a bag of Honey Bunches of Oats...what 1 year old likes Honey Bunches of Oats? Today he chewed through the plastic wrapper of a fruit roll up to reveal the goodie inside, not an easy task, but my son can get into ANYTHING! I swear I'm sweeping or vacuuming up his cracker messes at least 5 times a day, and this is on top of my after meal sweeping. Basically I'm sick of sweeping!

Item of mischief #5.
Lotion/greasy things. I have now had Vaseline and lotion on my carpet. Thankfully not in the same day. This morning Owen grabbed my big bottle of lotion out of my bathroom so quickly that I didn't notice even though I was standing there getting ready. A few moments later I heard Ains screaming and found Owen covered in lotion, along with my carpet. He had somehow gotten the whole pump unscrewed in order to get out the most lotion possible in the shortest amount of time. Smart kid! I'll bill him later for my carpet cleaning bill. (Sorry no picture.........would you have stopped to take a picture? I think not!)


Item of mischief #6.
Water...including toilet water. Owen has a love for all things liquid. He loves it when we water the garden or the yard. and has yet to come inside not completely soaked when we have been outside and there has been water involved. He's not a little wet mind you, you'd think he'd been sitting in a swimming pool by the amount of water dripping off of him.

He also loves the bathroom sink. More specifically, he loves a cup along with the bathroom sink. That makes a bigger, wetter mess and is therefore more fun. We usually have to lock bathroom doors to keep Owen out of the sink. This poses a problem for poor Ains when she needs to use the bathroom. Which brings me to my deal breaker of the day.

Now Owen has played in the toilet before, this is nothing new to us, but today he took his mischief to new levels. Which, unfortunately brought my anger to new levels and earned Owen his first true spanking. Not a proud mommy moment. But I truly lost it when I heard Ainsley in the bathroom screaming and went in to find her going to the bathroom and a sneaky Owen, who had barged in after her, playing in the toilet WHILE she was going to the bathroom. I was disgusted and angry and, well, hence the swat. I'm sure I'll think this was funny someday...maybe!


FYI: All of these things happened today except for the milk on the face...I'm exhausted!


And a side note for poor Ains. She has struggled to find the fine line between being a helper, a tattle, and sometimes just being in the way. She has really been good and helpful through all of Owen's new discoveries. I'm just grateful that she has been patient with me because sometimes it's hard to vent anger in all the appropriate directions. She's been a great kid for putting up with a mom that is grumpy due to a busy toddler.

Thanks Mel

I just need to thank Melanie for linking to The Pioneer Woman on her blog because, out of boredom one day I clicked on it out of curiosity and discovered this. We made up a massive batch on Sunday and they were all I dreamed they would be. Now I fully intend to make more of her recipes because I'm sure they will be amazing too. I'm thinking these might be next...Mother's Day perhaps? So check out the pioneer woman, I added her link to my list. I swear I get sucked in and stay for too long every time I visit.

Nature Center

Today was Ainsley's preschool field trip to the Nature Center. The kids had a lot of fun. Owen loved looking at the fish, he was completely enthralled with them. While Ains had fun running around with friends. We all came home tired...I guess that means we all had fun!

Ainsley's class.

Ainsley pointing out the fish.
Ainsley and Abby.
Notice the fish and Owen's look on his face in the reflection.
I just thought this picture looked awesome. For some reason in all of the pictures I was getting of Owen his face was completely white. But in this one his reflection looked cool, especially with all of those fish in the background. Boy, you'd think I was a professional...okay, maybe not, maybe this photo is just a weird fluke that only I think looks cool?!

Night Out!

A few days ago we found out that this week was music week and that there was a free production of Singin' in the Rain being performed. This was kind of siginificant because Ainsley has been dancing to the song "Singin' in the Rain" for her dance recital this month. So, John and I decided to surprise Ains and round up some tickets for a night out with mom and dad. This proved to be harder than we thought. When I called to reserve a seat they informed me that they were sold out for all 4 performances...10,000 tickets gone! They told us we could show up the night of the show and try to get stand by tickets.

So last night, John stayed at work late (he works right by the theater) and then headed over to get in line for stand by seats while I took Ains out to her favorite restaurant, Red Robin. She loves Red Robin for the Happy Birthday song, not for their burgers. She always orders pizza. Last night didn't disappoint seeing as how they did the birthday song twice while we were there.

After dinner Ains and I headed down town and met up with John, who had lucked out and gotten tickets before we even got there! Ains liked the play. She had fun clapping, and seeing the orchestra pit. She did a really good job for being so young. We did leave after intermission tough. It was 9:30 and they had done all of the good songs, and we could tell Ains was getting tired.

John thought the play was "awful". I thought it was what would be expected from local, volunteer talent. Although the lead did remind me of Scott Montgomery (those of you who went to high school with me and knew Scott Montgomery will understand why this might be a bad thing). All in all a fun night though. One that Ainsley will hopefully remember! Here are the three pictures I took...

The only good picture.

The only picture with all of us, but Ains has a crazy face.
Ainsley and the orchestra pit...although due to lighting, you can't see the pit.