My little bug caught a bug

It was bound to be a long day. Sadie threw up last night and then a couple more times through the night. By morning she was feeling a lot better but she still couldn't go to school so she got to sit in my bed and watch movies all day. Anyone who knows Sadie also knows this is her personal form of ROYAL treatment. The kid is addicted to all forms of media.

Spring!!!

I think it's kind of funny to be so excited for spring because it has felt like spring all year. Spring here means upper 80's and an occasional cooler day in the 70's. I am excited to see the fields of blue bonnets (pics to come as soon as I find the fields I've heard so much about) and see our yellow grass turn green again. There are blossoms everywhere and we're loving it. We thought by moving from Virginia Sadie's allergies would improve but we've found that her eyes still get a little red and puffy at times. I have my own theory for why she gets pollen related allergies and the rest of us don't. We were all born in places with high pollen counts and our bodies therefore adjusted to the exposure. Sadie was born in San Diego (paradise) where there is little to adjust to. Poor Sadie was introduced into a perfect environment and is now suffering for it.

We've been reading the new testament stories with her and after seeing how the people were healed by Jesus, we decided that Dad should give her a blessing. He gave her one right before she went to bed and truly and honestly her eyes have totally improved!! We no longer have her drugged with Zyrtec and she doesn't need prescription eye drops anymore. We just use plain old Visine and it works great! Sadie had faith and witnessed her first miracle.

Hitched for Six!!

Yep, that's right...six years I've been married to the man of my dreams. Being a Saturday, we did all the ordinary weekend stuff. Sadie had a birthday party, Jack took a long nap and Mom and Dad just hung out. Kudos to me for getting out of bed early to make Chase some sweet potato pancakes.

We got a babysitter and headed to Chuy's for some delicious shrimp tacos, pina coladas (virgin of course), flan and tres leches. Chuy's is definitely our favorite Mexican restaurant around here mainly for the food but for the ambiance inside and out. The art inside is awesome with hubcaps all over one wall, pics of dogs on the other, and thousands of wooden fish strung from the ceilings. I prefer to eat outside with the stringed lights and picnic tables. It's is very retro/romantic and I love it. Chase and I laughed about the fact that our "big night on the town" involved getting a babysitter for three hours, drinking non-alcoholic beverages, and really "going all out" with some tres leches. Boy, we have seriously been desensitized to this house bound lifestyle. However, for us to be with out the kids for a few hours is reason enough to celebrate. We had fun just hanging out with out having to get out the baby wipes or clean up sugar packets off the floor.

For all of you who live by your parents, soak it up because it's a serious perk! We love being on our own but would also love to take a trip somewhere over night or even drop the kids off with out having to fork up all the cash for a babysitter. One day we'll live near family but it will probably be when our kids are old enough to babysit themselves. The good news is it doesn't matter where we go or what we do, it's always a party with Chase. Cheesy I know, but it's true. I'm so glad I married him.

Spring Break

First of all, let me mention that Spring Break is NOT a break. Moms work harder this week than any week of the year (unless they're on a Disney Cruise with 24/7 provided day care). I was a little worried about this week seeing that Sadie can be quite hard to entertain these days. A whole week with out school or dance was a recipe for disaster in our home. This is why I kicked into high gear and worked on getting some stuff planned. I tried to have a play date for her every day and the week actually went pretty well. We spent Monday at the lake with some friends, Tuesday at the zoo in San Antonio (that's a whole other blog post), had kids over all week, met others at parks, and wrapped up the week on Friday with face painting at IKEA and another round at Torchie's Tacos.

This was the last day of Ikea's spring break festivities. You could tell that the magician and clown were more than ready for it to be over. When Sadie asked the magician to make her a pony out of a balloon, he drearily told her that he can only make a flower or a bear. When she told the sad looking Raggedy Ann clown that she wanted a pony painted on her face, she just shook her head and said she only did rainbows, stars, and butterflies. I'm sure after a week of loud and crazy kids these guys were spent. I know I was:-)

San Antonio Zoo

Austin has a lot of fun things to do but they are lacking a good zoo. We have always lived in an area with an awesome zoo. I don't even have to mention how amazing the zoo is in San Diego. the National Zoo in D.C. was a great zoo as well. There's a zoo here but I've been told by EVERYONE that it's not worth the drive or money. So, I've never seen it and probably won't. Word of mouth is everything I guess. A bunch of us mom's decided to make the drive to San Antonio to see the zoo up there. Anything to entertain the kids during spring break, right. Well, after a two hour drive and another 30 minutes finding a parking spot, we sadly realized that 18,000 other mom's had the same idea. The zoo was a zoo!! There were people everywhere! Heather and I decided to stay until the zoo closed to avoid traffic coming back into Austin and most of the people had left by then. Our plan worked but we didn't end up getting home until 10 and we were totally wiped out!! It was a fun adventure that I probably will never do again, at least not during spring break. It did afford me a trip to McDonald's where I got that yummy little hamburger with the tiny onions. I love that hamburger but I only like it on the road or in airports. McDonald's food reminds me of camping food. It only taste good when there's nothing else to eat. The kids loved seeing the animals. Sadie searched for ponies (the zebra was the closest family member we could find) and Jack searched for water. The kid is obsessed.

St.Patty's Day

Those tricky leprechauns sneaked into our house and left golden coins all over the kids rooms. When asked why they didn't leave chocolate coins in Mom and Dad's room we decided it was because being as small as they are, leprechauns aren't scared of children...only adults. They only dare to go into the kids rooms. Too bad for Mom and Dad I guess.

Sadie wakes up early, as we all know, and the prospect of finding chocolate coins at the first sight of the sun doesn't help the situation. Before Dad left for work he helped Sadie find a couple in her closet and then it was my turn to get out of bed. Booo!

Jack slept in, of course, but we helped him find his coins once we woke up. We didn't tell him there was chocolate inside. He had to eat his green oatmeal first. Poor guy doesn't know any different. He always gets green oatmeal (kale:-). It was spring break and even though Linley came over NOT wearing green, we decided it would it would be rude to pinch a friend. I was just shocked she didn't know what we were talking about.

We made spinach and zucchini quiche for dinner (thanks Erin) and got through the whole day with out being pinched. That's not to say we didn't make it through without having to take the chocolate coins away after some naughty choices. Am I the only one who notices that when I do nice things for my children, like get them a treat or a toy, they seem to turn into monsters at the end of the day? Shouldn't they be bowing down to me and asking me to clean their rooms after my kind gestures? It doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The red haired leprechauns must have left some of their spicy tempers behind as well. Overall a great and green day.

She's Ready

Sadie has always been somewhat of a little duckling at my side these last four years. I never had to worry about her running off at the playground or getting lost at the mall. She has never been too far away. Sometimes this can drive me crazy when it's "quiet time" and she's still right there...by my side. I hope I don't shrug off her affection too often when I tell her Mom needs some "mom time." She's the kind of kid who wouldn't mind me playing with her every second of every day. I can only play "Go Fish" so many times. Chase continues to remind me that I will miss her when she's gone all day at school next year. I know he's right. Life will be so boring with out her but I can definitely see that she is READY for school. Her time has come to be entertained through out the day with numbers, words and social interaction. I've been told that it happens to every bored first born and it has happened to mine.
With all her dependent personality traits (she's sitting next to me right now) Sadie can be quite independent when it comes to doing what SHE wants to do. If it's her idea she's all on top of cleaning her room or putting her plate in the sink, but if Mom asks her to do these things it's like I asked for her right arm. She wanted to learn how to tie her own shoes the other day and after showing her a couple of times, she didn't want anymore help and wanted to do it herself. She practiced for a while and can now tie her own shoes (and Jack's if he'll sit still for her).
We got her her own swing so she doesn't have to be pushed anymore (mainly so I can cook dinner and have her play in the backyard with out my assistance for longer than ten minutes). She's figured out that standing on a tall chair and jumping off onto the swing gives her a much higher advantage over the ground. I love watching her swing like Tarzan back there.
I mentioned this before but she's all about making her own breakfast in the morning. This is something I don't meddle with because I love that she will let me sleep in a little longer while her waffle is toasting in the toaster. We make a big batch of sweet potato waffles at the beginning of the week and freeze them so she can have a healthy breakfast every morning. I love coming out in the morning to see her little plate with remnants of syrup (probably half a bottle) at the table. She's really growing up.

Ever since I got a smart phone she begs me to play Angry Birds just about 10-15 times a day. Note to self: NEVER buy a Wii or any other video game because this kid has it in her to become serously addicted. For an electronic fix I've been hooking her up to starfall.com where she plays around with words and reads stories. I love this website because I don't feel guilty having her spend a while learning to read rather than vegging in front of the Backyardigans (a show I can't dis too much because even I like to watch every once in a while:-).

Everyday it's "how will we entertain Sadie today?" Poor Jack is usually just along for the ride. Although he's easy going enough to sit back and play with trains while Sadie and I read books. We've started a new game where I give her a sentence to write on her dry erase board. If she spells everything right she gets a chocolate chip. As you can imagine, she loves this game. Her new favorite thing too do is read scriptures. For a while I was noticing a big change in her attitude after we had been reading for about three weeks. She was kinder to Jack, more willing to obey, and was all around a happier chick. I thought all my toddler problems were solved but realized after a few days that even the scriptures can't make a 4 year old into a perfectly obedient child. Although a challenge to excercise patience with the sass, I can't deny she's adds quite a bit of spice to our lives.
I do think she's pretty fantastic. I love her vivacious little personality. She dances in stores when she hears music, she picks dandelions and brings them into the kitchen for me. She wakes Dad up in the middle of the night because she just "wants to snuggle." She watches American Idol with us and comments on J-Lo's "beautiful lips" and gets out her plastic microphone to sing along with the girls in "pretty dresses." She loves to clean the mirrors with Windex and spray Jack's room with Febreez. She'll mop for me any day of the week and can always be seen humming a tune while at work. She's knows how to operate the DVR and find the recorded Backyardigan episodes. She can dominate anyone in a game of Go Fish or Memory. She's one in a million and quite a delight (when she wants to be:-).

Too cool for school

Sadie was on her way to a "Rock n'Roll" birthday party and we thought she looked so cute we should take some pictures. Now that I look at them I wish I hadn't shot any at all because she looks too old!! I see glimpses into the teenage years with all this attitude and it's making me want to put her in fuzzy pajamas and pop a pacifier in her mouth.
I love that Jack is doing the same pose as Sadie in this picture. He loves his big sis.

Say Please

Lately Jack has become rather dramatic. I've been attempting to facilitate some manners around here and he gets incredibly angry when I ask him to say please. He will only say it AFTER he gets what he wants. While Sadie was getting him some GummyVites, we asked him over and over again to say "please." The kid completely lost it, threw his head back in agony and screamed for about 2 minutes.
He finally calmed down, we gave him his "behhs" and then he said "tank you..peese." It was pretty cute. Who cares what order it comes in as long as it comes right?

A family tantrum

Today started off pretty good. Sadie made herself an Eggo waffle so I got to sleep in until about 8 (always a plus). We didn't have to be anywhere until 11 so we lounged around the house until Jack woke up around 9:30. Then Jack decided he wanted to push Sadie's baby stroller. There was screaming and ranting over this worthless piece of plastic on wheels as if it had a hundred dollar price tag. Over and over again Sadie ripped the stroller out of Jack's hands which resulted in screams and wails and a "time out" in the garage for Sadie (only door I can lock from the outside:-)

This set us back a little and we ended up being a little late for story hour at Barnes and Noble with her little friends from the ward. I don't like being late. It frustrates me and puts me in a rather bad mood. After story hour we all hung out for a while and then everyone retreated to Chick Fil A for some lunch. We were on our way but Jack HAD to play with the train table a little longer so Sadie and I read a few books. One being probably the sweetest story I've ever read. We've been reading Mo Williams Knuffle Bunny books for years and there is now the third and final book out called "knuffle Bunny Free." It's about Trixie and her bunny (much like Sadie's Clifford) who ends up leaving her bunny on the plane. After a few weeks of mourning she decides that she is probably too grown up for her bunny anyway and thinks of all the children all over the world that Knuffle Bunny will make happy, since the plane will take him there.

The whole time reading this my heart was crying out "no, Trixie...you aren't too old for your bunny..you still need your bunny. Please don't let the book end like this." Well it didn't end in such a sad fashion, the fate of knuffle bunny is much worse (in my eyes at least). When Trixie gets back on the plane she ends up finding Knuffle Bunny in the seat pocket in front of her. At this point the reunion is too much for me and tears begin swelling up in my eyes...YES!!! Trixie can still have her knuffle bunny. She ISN'T too old. Then the saddest thing in the whole world happens. Trixie turned to the screaming baby behind her on the plane and asks her parents if their baby would like her knuffle bunny. I guess she had abandoned the thought of ever being reunited with him and decided it really was time to move on and give the bunny to someone smaller and, at the time, in much greater need. Her parents were shocked and asked her if she REALLY wanted to give the bunny that had been by her side for the last 7 years to this baby she didn't even know.

Tears were streaming down the cheeks at this point because I kept thinking of my Sadie not wanting her Clifford anymore. Anytime she gets a new toy that seems to take precedence over him at night, I switch them while she sleeps so I can see Clifford nuzzled under her arm. It gives me comfort to see her little arms around him because she still looks little to me with that silly dog at her side. I am not very graceful with this whole "growing up" thing. I guess it never occurred to me that my babies wouldn't be babies anymore and kindergarten is coming up this fall and then she's gone! Everyday, she'll be at school, and leave a void under my protective wing.

The day was pretty much shot at this point. Our friends had since gone and eaten at Chick Fil A. My GPS couldn't find the darn restaurant and the kids were screaming in the back seat while I was trying to get directions from an Chick Fil A employee on the phone. Jack was holding one of Sadie's broken horses that had tape all over it's tail. As he started ripping the tape off the screams escalated into a panicked wail and I ended up hanging up on the nice gentleman and having a tantrum of my own. I threw the horse out the window and told them if they couldn't share their toys they would get thrown away. It was dramatic, sudden and unfair. A battle went through my head. Should I jump out of the car and get the pony or follow through with my threats like my Dad told me to.

Driving away with the horse in my rear view mirror put a little sting in my heart. I thought of the toys on Toy Story and how sad it would have made them if Andy's mom just threw them out the window. The little girl inside me who cried when Nick punched her doll was crying out inside to turn around and get that stupid, taped and broken horse. I didn't turn around and cried the rest of the afternoon with Sadie over our loss. It was a sad and nostalgic day. We should have just gone to Chick Fil A with all the other kids. We'd still have a pony, Mom would be a little less insane, and there wouldn't have been nearly as many tears.

To make a long story even longer, we all went home had lunch and took naps (including Mom). Dad came home and took us to dinner at Chuy's that night and we all felt a little better and Sadie had since forgotten about her horse on the side of the road.

P.S. I've been back twice to find that blasted horse. I guess I'm the one who will never forget him.

Pajama Days

Sometimes I think it's funny that my kids have such darling clothes from their grandparents and all they want to wear are pajamas. When it gets cold I usually just keep their fuzzies on, slip on some rain boots, and head outside. Because Jack is usually woken up to take Sadie to preschool in the mornings, Mrs. Rice must think I don't ever dress him. She's only seen him in pajamas.

The first thing Sadie will do when she gets home is either put on a "punky brewsteresk" outfit with every print and color imaginable or her pajamas. It usually depends on the day and if it's chilly outside or not. I swear I dress my kids even though it doesn't appear to be that way.

On these beautiful warm mornings we hang out in the backyard picking dandelions, rolling trains down the slide, or swinging in the swing. It's pretty relaxing and seeing that Mom is still wearing her fuzzy robe (daily uniform), we probably won't be going anywhere for a while.

Don't rock the boat

Ever since we got some new life jackets from Costco, Sadie's been trying hers on and begging to go on a boat ride. We always see people on the lake near the city and decided to join them this beautiful Saturday afternoon. Canoe rides are $10 an hour at Zilker park and $40 for the whole day. Oh, how we would have loved to be on that lake all day but the kids only lasted about an hour.
Sadie was very excited at first but once she stepped into the canoe and felt it rock a little from side to side, she was petrified! No matter how many times we told her the boat wouldn't tip over, how many cute little turtles we saw on the way, or reassured her that she wouldn't fall in, she continued to use caution and stayed near her Dad the entire time. At first she started at his side and ended up on his lap where she obviously felt more secure.
You can clearly see the displeasure written all over her face in this picture. She was especially upset when I wanted to take pictures because she thought I was being distracted from my task of keeping the boat afloat. She about lost it when Chase took a couple pics of Jack and me because while handing him the camera, the boat rocked a little more than she would have liked.

One thing I've always noticed about Sadie is her need to test the waters in any situation (no pun intended). Whether it be with a new friend, Santa Claus (that water was tested for about three years before he was even spoken to), or the monkey bars at the play ground. But once she's comfortable, she loves it. I think the next time we go down to the lake for a canoe ride, she'll be all over that canoe.

Jack was a little champ. He sat in between my knees and ate pirates booty the first 40 minutes and then decided that the water was more fun. It took all my strength just to keep him in the boat. Chase took over the rowing duties while I held onto Jack as he let his fingers slip through the moving water.
After nervous suggestions that we turn around and go back, we at last arrived back on dry land and Sadie was FINALLY safe again. One of these days Chase and I will come down and hang out there all day. It was so beautiful and peaceful (other than the hysterical 4 year old). Instead we strapped the kids in the jogger and walked about 4 miles around the lake's trail and into a festival with Steve Miller's band. You can always count on music playing some where in the city. We ended up hearing some awesome music while watching Sadie rock out with her new moves she learned in dance class. I love that she's afraid of a canoe ride but not scared of a crowd of people watching her dance.

The day ended with Torchie's Tacos at the local trailer park. Chase and I got some fried avocado tacos that were AMAZING. I can't wait to go back for more. Here's to a little exercise, great music and even better food. We really like it here...do I say that too much?

What?

Our little Jack is a sleeper. Sometimes he'll sleep until 11 a.m. and he's even slept until noon. These days we have to go in there to wake him up because life is happening and we've got places to go. Most of the time he wakes up pretty happy but upon being awakened out a a deep slumber, he looks a little like this.....dazed and confused.
However, after some silly faces and a little focus on his part, it's not hard to get a smile out of him.

Note: Bed head solely a product of Jack and his crib. No teasing involved.