Spaghetti: The Great Torture

Spaghetti is one of the few meals I cook that everyone in my family will eat. So, I'd say we have it every other week or so. 

I like it because:

It's easy to cook

It tastes good

It makes great leftovers

Everyone eats

I hate it because:

It's a huge mess with my boys

I don't mean just a huge mess on them or the table or the floor. This mess travels across the house creating more and more and larger messes. This afternoon for lunch the traveling mess went like this....

I sit all the kids down at the table and get their spaghetti. By the time I get drinks and my own spaghetti and sit down myself they are almost done. They finish and begin to get up with their spaghetti caked faces, and arms and tummies. I send the boys to the bathroom to get started washing while I finish eating. I know I shouldn't, but it's such a rarity for me to get sit down and continue sitting the entire time I consume my food that sometimes I just want to. 

I can hear splashing and lots of laughter in the bathroom. I know it will be bad. By the time I get in there the boys have drawn themselves sink baths. They are each sitting in a sink with their clothes on having the best time. They somehow still have orange faces and everywhere they have touched is orange. 

So, I strip them down, wash them, and dry them off and send them out for me to dry the water on the floor and drain the sinks. I put down three towels to get up all the water on the floor and then I see that each sink has an orange ring around it so I wipe those out, hang up the wet clothes, wipe down all the orange handprints, turn out the light and shut the door.

"Mom! Colby pooped on the floor! Come here I'll show you!" (Remember I just sent them out naked... my mistake to think they could be naked for 5 minutes)

SO....I am brought to the poop and PEE and I clean it up, clean up the riding toy that he chose to sit on after free pooping and then take him to his room to wipe his booty and diaper and clothe him. Clothing him is a chore because he is very particular about what pajama pants and shirt (that's all we wear) he puts on. I go through the chore of letting him choose, and change his mind and run off and come back and get dressed.

I am getting tired.

I just have one last thing to do....clean up the table and the floor and dishes from lunch...that are still covered in spaghetti. Not sure we should keep eating this.

Happy Easter!

    

We had a very nice Easter day. I have given up on filling eggs and having an egg hunt at our house and I am glad I have. Aunt Sara dyes eggs with Mckenzee the day before. We just get the kids one toy and we’re done and we let the grandparents go hog wild with all the goodies. Way less stress on me. We started out by going to church to celebrate our risen Savior, because that’s what Easter is all about.

Then, we headed to Grandma-nette’s house after church and had lots of good food and watched the kids hunt eggs in the rain and stomp in puddles in their Easter clothes. From there we made a quick trip home for our pup and headed to Maimee and PawPaw’s for more good food and egg hunting.

It was a nice day even in the rain that ruined our Easter hair. I love our little dressed up family.

 

Sleeping in sponge rollers is never fun at the time, but always pays off in the morning!

Maimee made sure Elizabeth (Kenzee’s American Girl doll) had a purple Easter dress too!

 

No one is looking at the camera, but I love it just the same.

 

Sugar pie Colby

 

Mckenzee and Uncle Chad searching for hidden pictures

 

Our best picture with Nana (out of 20)

 

A shocking picture of these two together, smiling AND looking at the camera. That’s a real big deal folks!

 

This one melts my heart. Egg hunting in the rain with Daddy.

 

cracking open a find

 

more egg hunting with Daddy

 

Oh sweetness!

 

Doll face Colby with PawPaw and Maimee

 

more egg hunting

 

Colby Turns One!

We don’t do big parties for one year olds. We just had our immediate family over for burgers and cake. It was fun and just enough attention for my baby boy. Who is still very much a baby. :)

Colby loves to:

get into things (dog bowl, cabinets, dvds…)

pull hair

wrestle with brother and sister and friends (we hope he is not a bully in Sunday School)

ride around in his carrier on mom

eat crayons

play with tags

mess with electronic devices

dance and clap

 

He is sweet natured, loves to be loved on, and always has a smile for you.

 

WE LOVE YOU COLBY!!!

    and we are 3 for 3 on non-cake eating one year olds in this house. He was not impressed with cake.

A Project Finished

 

Scalloped Garland

Started this months ago and never went back to it. It’s finally done and when her room looks all nice and neat I’ll take a big picture of it showing the whole wall. It’s copied from Pinterest. I did put the pink ruffle instead of regular binding. It was something I already had and is special. It is the same ruffled edge that I used when making her special pillow she sleeps with. I bought the rest of a bolt once and it’s just been hanging out. I had just enough for the whole garland. Most of the fabric I snagged from my mom’s stash. Several patterns are leftover scraps from the special quilt my mom made her and the pink stripe is from leftover scraps of her curtain. She picked out the blue butterfly fabric and that’s the only one I bought. Very inexpensive project and it is sooooo cute on the wall. She loves it and I love it.

THUNDERCAKE

 

If you don’t have this book, you need this book. Go get this book. Get on Amazon and order it today. So cute and fun, especially if your kids are afraid of storms. It’s about a grandmother and granddaughter (if I remember correctly…I could have the relationship mixed up…i.e. aunt, great-grandmother) Granddaughter is afraid of storms and there is one rolling in. She learns to count the seconds after the lightning to see how close or far the storm is and they make a thundercake to take her mind off of it…..recipe in back of book…so you can read the book and make a thundercake too. It is so perfect for this stormy time of year.

I Love Soccer!

 

Who knew this dancer girl would love soccer so much. I have always loved sports, but I didn’t know anything about soccer a year ago. I never played soccer, never watched soccer, never had a boyfriend soccer player. Then, we signed up Mckenzee for her first season of soccer last Spring…we love it. that first season was awesome. She played for the Y, co-ed, 3-4 year olds and did amazing. She scored 11 goals on the season and just flew around the field. She wasn’t a bit nervous and looked forward to scoring every week. Then came the next division, 5-6 year olds. This season was rough for a little girl who had just turned 5. She played on a team of 9 boys and two girls. Some boys who were almost 7. She shut down. She was scared. She was lucky to get her foot on the ball, much less score. After her first game she got in the car and said, “I’m not as good at soccer as I used to be.” It was not a fun season, but we stuck it out. She ran hard and showed up at every game. We weren’t sure if she would want to play again, but she said she did so this season we wanted to get her confidence back. We signed her up for an all girls league, separated by one age. So she plays with just 5 year old girls. It’s a big change. Last season they played with 4 offense, 2 defense and a goalie. This season she plays 3 on 3, for the whole field, no goalie. It’s much easier, but we don’t care, we just want her to gain confidence and love soccer again, and it’s slowly working. She’s had two games and hasn’t scored yet, but come very close. She’s taking the ball away and kicking a lot and I can tell her spark is coming back.

Can’t wait for Saturday! Go Pink Pandas!

I love Coach Daddy too!

No More Babies

I’m trying to come to terms with entering this next chapter in my life. Colby is almost one and we are not having any more babies. I will not be feeding any more babies. And I have lots of pregnant friends, which makes me just a tiny bit jealous. It’s been around 6 years that I’ve been in the baby making business…or the thinking about the next baby business. I. LOVED. BEING. PREGNANT. No lie, I loved it. Call me crazy. I started to miss being pregnant very soon after delivering each of my babies. I would actually love to be pregnant again, I’d love to hold a newborn of my own again, but that’s where I’m kind of done with that fantasy. I feel absolutely complete in our family. I just have to get my brain around what I’m supposed to think about next. And when I try really hard I can see it……Dr. Pepper will reenter my life soon on occasion, peanut butter, staying gone as long as I want, perhaps a swimsuit mom suit, a trip with my girlfriends, cute bras, planning a trip to Disneyworld. This could be okay. :) But if any of you out there need me to carry a baby for you please call, but I get to keep it for the first month….those are my terms. :)