Springtime Thoughts

It will officially be spring in just a few weeks. I cannot wait. I am always so ready for the change of seasons. We've already had a few little glimmers that spring is in the air here in Oklahoma. All the beautiful Bradford Pear trees are brimming with white blossoms (although pretty, they do a number on my allergies). Soon the Redbuds will follow suit bursting forth with bright pink blooms. The days are starting to get longer as well, giving us more evening light. Soon we will set our clocks forward and enjoy even more beautiful sun. The weather is also giving us a taste of spring. We've had a several days with highs in the 70's and even 80's. Oh to just run out the door without grabbing a jacket or gloves or scarf or hat! I've been turning off the heat in exchange of open windows and ceiling fans. And of course, we've had a few rain showers as well.

Hannah before school one rainy nearly-spring morning

Our monster size umbrella

"I'm so glad I don't have to get out in the rain!"

Living in Oklahoma, though spring also ushers in tornado season. There is something both terrifying and thrilling about living in Tornado Alley. Yes, it is scary to be woken up in the middle of the night to the shrill cry of tornado sirens. But only in this area of the country will you find that when the sky turns that eerie, sickly pre-storm green color, people everywhere go out on their front porches and into the streets to stand and stare at the approaching bad weather. We even get our cameras out and document the event. And don't even get me started on the weathermen around here. They live for the excitement of spring!

More than anything, I love spring because it symbolizes new life. After the long months of brown dead grass and grey skies, it is so wonderful to see flashes of color. Living, breathing, beautiful color.

What do you love about spring?

Blue Sweater, Blue Tongue

This is the result of a blue ring pop. She likes to color coordinate her suckers with her outfits.

One of Those Days

Today was one of those days where I could either laugh or cry at many different circumstances that occurred. Here's how the day went down.

At 11:00 this morning I dropped the girls off at a tea party/etiquette school themed birthday party. The invitation said for them to wear their "fanciest dress" which for us was a Christmas dress from two years ago. They both still fit! Score!

Leah and Hannah before their tea party

While the girls were at the party, I took the opportunity to run to the tag agency to transfer the title of our new mini-van over to us. After waiting in a super long line (I think I counted 11 people ahead of me when I walked in the door), I finally got up to the counter only to be told the old owner hadn't notarized their signature on the title. So, I would have to get back in touch with her and have her take it to a notary before we could sign our part. 45 minutes down the drain! At least I got to people watch which is always fun. The middle-aged guy right in front of me was wearing a shiny jacket that said "Jiggie Wear" really big across the back. I kept giggling at that.

After the party, the whole family loaded up to go run a few errands. Nothing major, just returning some movies and making an exchange at Mardel. At this point all three kids were melting down from lack of food, so after a short debate we decided to go to a local Mexican food restaurant. The kids love to munch on guacamole and chips, and Mike and I could order a meal that we could take the leftovers home for dinner later. Sounded like a good plan anyway.

When we got seated in a booth, Hannah instantly declared that she felt like she was going to throw up, and the look on her face proved that she was not kidding. The poor child gets motion sickness very easily, and she had been riding around in the back row of our new van for awhile. I thought we were going to have to leave right then, but after a few sips of water and a few minutes putting her head down on the table, she revived and was back to normal.

Then it was Lucas' turn for some crazy shenanigans. First he took off his jacket then as fast as lightning threw it over the booth and onto the head of a poor gentleman seated behind us. Extremely embarrassed, I profusely apologized and gave the jacket to Mike to hide from the Little Man. Shortly after that incident, Leah declared, "Mom, Lucas is really stinky!" My girls have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to their brother's dirty diapers. No problem, I scooped him up and carried him out to the car where I keep his diaper bag full of fresh diapers and wipes. When I got there, though, I discovered the diaper bag missing! Oh yeah! We had left it at a friends' house earlier in the week.

Plan B. I took Lucas to the bathroom hoping I could just flush the offending mess into the toilet, wipe his rear with toilet paper, and reuse the diaper he had on. Thankfully I was able to execute Plan B and head back to the table where our food had just been delivered.

After a few minutes of trying to eat, Lucas was still acting like a crazy man-- crawling out of the high chair and smashing chips and sprinkling them like confetti. I could see that Mike was about to break out into a sweat when he said, "Just get my food to go. I'll wait in the car with Lucas." And just like that, it was me and the girls sitting at the table alone. I scarfed my meal down, then asked our waitress for a "to go" box and the check. She stared at me for a minute then said, "Ma'am you have a long piece of cheese hanging from your chin." I reached up and sure enough, a long, hair-like string was dangling away. "Thank you," I muttered and got out of there as quickly as possible.

When we were all in the car, I told Mike about the "chin cheese incident" and we both died laughing. It was just that kind of day. One we can tell our kids about later and hopefully laugh it off all over again!

How was your Saturday?

Movie Night

Following the routine of our usual Friday evenings, we rented a movie to watch as a family. Well, four of us watched, Lucas went to bed. I'll give you a few hints about the movie we picked tonight.

1. Don't expose them to direct sunlight

2. Don't give them water

3. And never, ever feed them after midnight

Yep, we rented an 80's classic

We had to fast forward through a few parts, but overall the girls thought it was pretty funny. Mike and I laughed a lot too. We had forgotten how utterly ridiculous this movie is. Who wouldn't laugh at crazy, alien-like puppets throwing popcorn in the movie theater?!

Happy Friday!

The Saddest School Picture Ever

Lucas attends a Mother's Day Out program at a local church one day a week. We signed him up so he could socialize with other one year olds, and so that I could work that day and not have to worry about finding childcare. Both his weekly notes and his teachers always tell us what a happy, fun-loving child Lucas is. He smiles easily and loves to play with his friends. But apparently all of his happiness flew out the window a few weeks ago when it was time to take some school pictures. His teachers warned us that he shed quite a few tears at the picture taking process. And they were right. Yesterday we got the proofs from that photo shoot and staring back at me amidst the beautiful spring flowers was the saddest little boy face I'd ever seen. It was like looking into the eyes of Bambi.

I just want to pick him up out of this photo, kiss his cheeks and tickle his belly until his infectious, gap-toothed smile returns. And because I can't leave you with this sad image, here are some sillier, happier shots from earlier this week.

Muahh! XOXO

Book Character Day

In honor of Dr. Seuss's Birthday today, the girls' school had a lot of fun activities planned. One of those things was to dress up as any character from a book. I remember reading about this event in a school newsletter last week, but my mind then shoved that information way back into the deep recesses of my brain where I didn't think about it again until I was tucking my girls into bed last night. I quickly rummaged through their dress-up box hoping for something that would work for both of them. I scored when I found a blue Alice in Wonderland dress because we all know that Alice was a character in a book long before Disney made her come alive in cartoon form. The first costume crisis was solved. Then I kept digging and digging and digging. A butterfly? Too generic. Wonder Woman? No. Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz? I thought I had hit the jackpot because Dorothy was a book character before the famous Judy Garland movie, but then I looked at the tag and realized that the costume was a size 3T. Yeah, my girls are wearing size 6 now. Unless I wanted them to look like Cindy Brady or Shirley Temple, Dorothy was just out. Eventually I had to pick between a brown, ratty old fairy costume or a silky, pink Mulan outfit. Is Mulan a book character? That's debatable. Disney probably produced a few books after the movie Mulan was released, right? I showed the costume to Hannah and she was happy to wear it, so we just went with it. Here's how they both looked before school today.

A very sweet Alice

Alice falling in the rabbit hole (while her little brother watches on, brushing his teeth)

Alice chasing after the rabbit (Leah insisted on a few action shots)

Giant Alice!

Hannah as Mulan. Who knew Mulan had the same tooth-brushing little brother as Alice?

Mulan showing off some karate skills

Hi-ya!

My favorite Mulan picture. She came up with this pose all by herself by the way.

If I could dress up as any character for a dress-up day, I would be Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables. Who would you be?

11 Years and 139,517 Miles Later

Today we said good-bye to our eleven year old Ford Focus that we had lovingly dubbed our "Old Lady." After 139,517 miles, we decided it was time to let her go. The last time we sold a car, we parked my old Nissan 200SX in a grocery store parking lot with a for sale sign in the window. This time, we used craigslist and had it sold in less than 24 hours. Within the first hour that we posted our car ad, we had ten emails. And by the next morning we had over thirty! This was by far a much smoother process. Thank you, Technology.

The reason we decided to sell our car was really due to the need to have two vehicles that could both fit all five of us comfortably. So, we are buying something I never thought we'd ever buy.....a mini-van! We've been looking at a 2002 Honda Odyssey. And to be honest I am really excited about it. I love the idea of having sliding doors and more interior room. I'll have to post pics of it later in the week. So picture me driving around, looking cool as I cruise the streets of OKC in my "swagger wagon."