Trouble Makers

So after dinner yesterday, I jump in the upstairs bathroom to take a shower and Curtis jumps in the downstairs bathroom to attend to some other business. When we get out, we find Tayla eating syrup out of the back of the tricycle. Xander, now that he has figured out the child safety lock on our cupboards, opens them quite frequently. He opened the cupboard, got out the pancake syrup, dumped a pile of it on the counter (I have no idea how he reached that), and poured what was left of the bottle in the back of the tricycle. Tayla noticed that syrup is super yummy so she started eating it out of the tricycle with her hands and spreading it on the couch. It was one big sticky situation. Luckily, I was in a hurry to leave for symphony rehearsal, so Curtis had to clean up the mess by himself. Sorry hunny.

Thank goodness! Earlier that day, for whatever reason, I decided to move the peanut butter from that cupboard to a very high place. We could have walked out of the bathroom with a baby in anaphylactic shock. Peanut butter is Xander's favorite thing and I can guarantee that if it had been there, he would have grabbed that instead of the syrup.

I dare you to try this!

I had to wait for the washing machine to clean my workout clothes before I could go to the gym today. While I was waiting, I thought I'd try something at home. I got this idea from The Biggest Loser this week. (Yes I'm an regular watcher.)

Take a deck of cards, shuffle them, and draw one card at a time.

Red cards work your abs
hearts = sit ups
diamonds = reverse crunches (I lay on the floor and while keeping my legs straight lift them, then lower heels to the floor)
spades = push-ups
clubs = lunges

The number on the card = how many reps you do (face cards are 10)

If you are lucky enough to get an ace you get 1 minute of rest.

My kids thought it was really fun and Xander even did the exercises and counted reps for me. I only did half of the deck and man oh man was I sweating. It's really rough if you get like 3 spades in a row and end up doing like 30 push-ups in a row. I won't say I always did full sit-ups or 'boy push-ups' (after a while, my muscles just couldn't do the real thing), but I will say it was a great work out! Hopefully one day I'll be strong enough to do the whole deck. I dare you to try it and let me know how many cards you get through. Bonus points for doing all 52!

some random spring pictures

Here are some pictures Kerry took while she was visiting. Here is Xander going disc golfing. He did really well! He threw his disc hundreds of times all the way through 9 holes.

These pictures are at the park:

Tayla had fun throwing wood chips!

What's in a color?

Xander has been referring to people by the color they are wearing. In church he said, "That's my teacher, the white." (She was wearing a white jacket.) I was talking to Kerry on the phone, Xander says, "What color is Kerry?...green?...pink?" You get the idea.

Well here's the embarrassing down side. There is one black guy in our ward and we happened to be walking into church at the same time as him. Xander says, "Mom, he's black...hey there's a black man." (As you can guess the man was wearing a black suit...and Xander was simply referring to what he was wearing. However this man probably thought we taught our son to refer to people based on the color of their skin. For the record, we didn't teach either, sometimes these things just come out of his mouth.) So I continue to ask Xander what color daddy is. "Daddy is green." Curtis was wearing a green shirt that day. Not sure our black-suited friend heard that part, but oh well -- what can you do?

The Hunt

Our playgroup friends had an Easter egg hunt earlier this week. The weather was beautiful! It was so much fun for the kids, especially Xander. He found tons of eggs. After practicing the hunt at playgroup, the kids knew just what to do when we had our own. The weather turned cold and rainy so we had to hunt inside. They ripped through the house and found every egg in minutes.



Here they are just before they began to devour the candy they collected from their egg hunt.

Dying Eggs

Curtis and I helping Tayla color eggs. She was pretty impressed for a while. I can't believe it wasn't a disaster!

This is Xander after he let his egg drop into the dye, splashing it into his face. I can't imagine vinegar water feeling good in your eye. It's a good thing we took off his favorite shirt!


Concentrating on putting stickers on the eggs. We tried the "camouflage" kit this year.


Say cheese! Xander had so much fun dying eggs. I think he could have done it all day if we had boiled more eggs.

Beauty Sleep

Yesterday Tayla had two naps. (I threw in an extra one because she was so grumpy.) Then I put her to bed at 7:00pm as usual. To my surprise, she slept-in this morning past 8:00am! Xander and I just hung around in our pajamas waiting for Tayla to wake up for breakfast. At 9:30 I decided we should just eat breakfast and let her have it when she got up. I was also starting to get nervous so I opened up her door to check on her...still breathing...okay. Xander and I ate breakfast and finally got dressed. Before we knew it, it was 12:30 and not a peep came from Tayla's room yet. Again we ate without her and again I checked on her...still breathing...okay. Xander napped. Finally at 3:00pm Little Miss Sunshine woke up! That's 20 hours straight! Talk about beauty sleep! I examined her, trying to come up with some reason for such a deep slumber. She didn't seem sick, so the only explanation I can offer is the new tooth that wasn't there 20 hours ago. How's that for anesthesia!?!

In case you are wondering...after only being awake for 4 hours, I put Tayla to bed at her normal bedtime and she slept another 12+ hours the next night.