Kid update

Here are my cute kids on Easter. The handsomest member of the family was taking the photo! Thanks to grandma & grandpa HIGH for the darling outfits!

You know those surgical costumes/dressups I bought Tanner and Lexie at a garage sale for .50 cents a piece? While Tanner was playing in them the other day, he came to me to tell me about his experience.

“While I was in my doctor suit I had 3 autopsies to do. One of them was a baby that died. A baby doll died. The other two were lizards. One of the lizards was a momma lizard and she had in infection in her hands and feet.”

Today at nap time Tanner came to me to ask me to walk with him to bed. I told him only if I could give him a big hug and kiss too.

Mom: I love you a WHOLE lot!
Tanner: I love you as much as a grandma or grandpa
Mom: I love you as long as a long freight train
Tanner: I love you as much as a REALLY long freight train
Mom: I love you as much as the North American Continent
Tanner: I love you as much as TEXAS
Mom: I love you as much as the Atlantic Ocean
Tanner: I love you as much as the Nile River
Mom: I love you as much as the Moon is round
Tanner: I love you as much as Jesus
Mom: Oh! You win Tanner. There is no one who loves us more than Jesus!


I was putting the kids to bed two nights ago. I knelt at Lexie’s bedside to say her personal prayers with her.

“Dear Heavenly Father, thank thee for me and please bless me, and thank thee for me. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.”

I wish I could just package up that self image and self esteem for the next 15 to 20 years.


Next I stood to attend Tanner’s prayer.

“Dear Heavenly Father, please will you bless our home with a baby girl? Help our family to grow…”


Does it scare anybody else when kids do things like this? Who needs presure from grandparents to have babies when you have your own kids telling you its time mom and dad!


The other day I was driving down the freeway. The movie the kids were watching ended and they wanted me to change it to a different one. I told them I was driving and I couldn’t change it at that time. Lexie began hollering at me from the back of the van, “Stop the car mom! Just stop the car and change it.”

Colin is 11 months. He weights a nice 20lbs, 9oz. He is the cuddliest of my three children. He also ADORES his mom. I say this without bragging, though I do believe I bragging rights. He really likes to be with mom pretty much ALWAYS. This week that blessed little tooth #8 finally poked through. He had a bit of a tough time yesterday with it, but he is actually getting down and crawling around for a bit each time he is awake now. I have been taking advantage of this and scurry around the house trying to get things done while he plays and before he realizes he is not in my arms. But as soon as I come into sight, that’s it, he wants up and there no stopping him.

For some reason, I have felt inclined to give Colin all the love he can handle and then some. Perhaps it is because I already know what it is like to loose every ounce of freedom and independence. I am now comfortable relinquishing my own needs, wants and wishes for long periods of time. Perhaps it is because I can see how quickly they do grow and can almost measure that “blink of an eye” where they won’t desire to be in my presence all the time. And perhaps it is because my sweet Lexie, though she loves to cuddle now, had no desire whatsoever to be with mom as a baby. Than there is in the back of my mind the “perhaps if I smother him with cuddles, maybe reverse psychology will kick in and he will want to get down and go play”. Nonetheless, I am just soaking it in while I have the chance and letting pretty much the rest of my life fall to pieces. That is, except for Tanner and Lexie’s basic needs, which they hold me to every chance they can.


oh, ps: Colin continues to scoot everywhere. He knows how to crawl. He's even getting kind of quick at it, but he prefers to scoot. And he does it with one arm and one foot. He also is standing up everywhere he can (which is usually in mom's lap) and has begun to coast a bit. Will this child go from scoot to WALK? tba!

Pots and Pans

I am WAY behind on blogging! Boy have we been having fun the last few days. I promise, I'll post, but until then, here is the picture for today. The kids both came down with colds and Colin FINALLY brough through tooth #8. It was a day full of kleenex, but Tanner and Lexie still managed to sneak away into their own imaginary world. I honestly didn't realize I had that many pots and pans until they were spread out before me. The best part is once we got them back in the cupboard, I'm completely organized again!

At one point today, I mentioned under my breath I needed to get the dishes done. Tanner heard me, grabbed the stool and set to work. He did a fantastic job and got them almost completely done all by himself! Goodness, am I a lucky mom or what! Thanks buddie!

Egg-cellent Eggs

We really missed dad tonight during Family Night! I taught my Family Home Evening packet on the Resurrection, then we decorated eggs for the activity. (Eggs are on sale .80 cents a dozen at Walmart right now. I picked up a dye kit last year right after Easter for under a buck.) The activity took more time than we had, so we will finish the eggs off tomorrow.

It was fun seeing how much the kids have grown in the use of their fine motor skills since last year. They were quite good at handling the eggs in and out of the solutions this time. Tanner tried his hand at drawing on the eggs too, though most of the time, I filled orders!

Nature Preserve

Today we went to a nature preserve. We had a most amazing time! I couldn't pick just one picture, so here are a few of my favorites to capture our experience:

Burr! What happened to the 60 degrees you promised?

After we had lunch, they brought out a whole bunch of nets and buckets. This was truly a magical moment as the kids went "fishing" for marine life. It was pretty muddy there due to all the rain we had the day before, but the kids actually stayed quite clean. (Must have been the long dowels.) I did pack extra clothes, but only needed to change their shoes and socks for the drive home.

Tanner in his element

One of the kids hauled in 4 little fish!

Lexie attached herself to one particular volunteer. Or should I say, the volunteer attached herself to Lexie! Nonetheless, the two were inseperable.

We went on a safari hunt looking for wildlife and insects. Our volunteer guided us to some decaying tree limbs. She pulled them up and found a plethora of insect life! Tanner and Lexie both begged me to let them take home their newfound

PET WORMS!

Spring is in the air! I fancied these little tree buds.
Our Safari hunt was a walk around the lake. It ended on the dock.

We just can't get enough of the McGowan family! They let us borrow their snugli pack for Colin. It was HEAVEN for us both! He couldn't have been more content. I can see myself doing dishes with this thing on...

Thanks for the great memories!

Dress ups

Lexie had a couple of friends over yesterday. Girls will be girls! Tanner wasn't afraid to join the fun. He put on his cowboy boots and vest, then put a crown on his head and called himself a "prince".

Once all three girls were fully adorned, he gathered them in his arms and said in his most loving and magestic voice, "you are my most beautiful princesses". It didn't take me 10 seconds to grab the camera.

It was days like this that leave me feeling the pressure to introduce a few more "boy dress ups" into our repotoire. This morning I hit up some garage sales and found TWO surgicals for .50 cents a piece! Sweet! And room to grow.

Yesterday's moment

Derek is in St. Louis for the month doing a Pediatric Pathology rotation. Thankfully he'll be coming home on the weekends! I thought that while he was away I would take a picture a day to help him miss a little! hee hee

I took this one yesterday while I was ironing our duvet cover and while the kids were cutting out "E" pictures and words. (Notice he was sitting under the ironing board. aka: as close to mom as possible) I think it was the only smile I got of him the whole day. The only way I got it was because he couldn't see I was away from him because the duvet cover had fallen to the floor and over my feet. (I was hiding behind the corner of the couch.

I changed his clothes this morning and found he has rosiola. Hence the 103 degree fever earlier this week, the middle of the night crying, the all day crying, and the 100% clinginess!

I hope you enjoy the photo as much as I did!

Cut it up

This is no new idea, but we had a blast yesterday doing it. I brought together a whole bunch of our old National Geographic Kids magazines and a couple of pairs of scissors. We were focusing on the letter "E" so Taner looked for words that had the letter E at the beginning, middle, and end. He also found pictures with E. Lexie cut out mostly pictures of E with some large printed E to accompany.

Later in the afternoon, we made colages with our findings.

You can do this activity with just about any theme, colors, math, science, spelling, or make your own book, tell your own story and add handwriting to the pictures you cut out. Using scissors helps develop great dexterity with little fingers and hand-eye coodination.

Here's another card I made this week. I made it for our neighbor who brought over two different kinds of homemade soups, cornmeal muffins, chocolate muffins, and an entire salmon dinner! "Everything" was delicious!

I decided to spend a little more time on this one and added some distressing to it and black ink. I'm not very good at either technique, but it was fun to try! If only I had more time...hee hee! Oh well, I am my own worst critic, but despite its imperfections, I am happy with the results.

The inside