I made salsa

Today I made some salsa by throwing together a little of this and a little of that...definitely not my style, but it turned out ok! Which is good because you have no idea how much courage it took to just throw some things into the bowl and have faith that it would turn out. Its missing a little something still I think but it IS definitely yummy. Maybe I'll add a little lime to it.

What I did last weekend for Mother's Day

It's Mother's day. 9:25am. I've been up since 6:30 with Ian, and am doing my best to remember the awesome time I had last weekend. I participated in a crop Friday night and all day Saturday which meant that Tony had the kids Friday night and all day Saturday by himself. Could this be why he is sleeping in today? Probably. I wish we could both sleep in, but there will be many more years when the kids are older that we can do that. Last weekend was a blast and I told Tony to consider it my Mother's Day gift...it did cost $30 and I did get 2 catered meals and 2 days without cooking. And I had uninterrupted time to preserve my family's memories. And hang out with my friends. Here is what I completed (I still have some journaling to do on some of the pages).

Maybe we can go out to lunch or dinner today. I hope all the moms are having a great day! I will be celebrating with my mom and Tony's mom next weekend. I will definitely be enjoying the quiet today and probably chilling with a movie or some of my friends or er seasons today.

Unexpected Harmony

Tonight we went to Melody's recorder concert. All of the 3rd grade students at her school learned to play the recorder thanks to their wonderful music teacher. And they played a concert tonight. It was a 20 minute concert and they sounded very good! I feel like I am qualified to speak about this ... I did play the violin for many years and have attended many orchestra concerts. That music teacher had a lot of courage and patience. So proud of my little girl! Might have to get her violin in working order so she can continue working on music.

Momma's night out!

This Momma's night out is fast approaching! Actually I get two in a row this weekend. I am doing a weekend crop...that's right, scrapbooking! Friday all evening and Saturday all day long.

I'm working on getting photos together so that I will have something to scrapbook about. I just finished finding pictures from Melody's year in kindergarten. I really should have much more done, but Ian was a bit demanding slash crabby tonight. He has found his demanding streak and his stubborn streak and he's not getting through this phase very quickly. Bless him, I know it will come in handy when he's an adult, but man its tough for me to deal with.

But this morning he was so sweet. We had a memorable moment. This morning, when we were leaving for daycare, he picked up his toy car on the way out. Before we got into the car to leave, I took his car and put it at the top of our driveway and let it roll all the way down. It made him so excited! And I'm glad he didn't try to run after it...lol. From the look on his face, you would have thought I had just done a magical trick...gotta love gravity!

Tonight I had to go to walmart to pick up a few things so Ian and I went on the way home. While we were there he said "hi" to a dozen or more people as we passed them. He loves to say hi and he is always surprised when they say "hi" back.

Tomorrow night, Melody has a recorder concert. Note to self.... REMEMBER THE CAMERA!

Ok I'm off to find more photos...or go to bed. hrmmm yep I think bed. G'night.

Trying something new....

Instead of thinking each post must be full of something amazing, I will try to just blog about my day at least 3 times a week.

Today, I started the morning without an alarm. I absolutely love how I can wake up on time without it. My inner clock is awesome and I am thankful for it!

But no matter how on time I wake up, I can never seem to leave on time. I couldn't find one of Ian's shoes. And I got to work 30 minutes after I wanted to. But that means 30 more minutes with a pleasant little boy who doesn't need breakfast as soon as he wakes up.

Work was ... ok I don't want to think about it and you don't want to hear about it. It's busy and just a jumbled mess right now. So lets skip forward 8 1/2 hours.

When I picked up Ian he had a big smile and said "heeeeeyyyy!". He's on this kick where he says "hi" all the time to everyone and its so cute. Then he pulled the wagon of blocks that the sitter says he was obsessed with today into the sitter's kitchen and then promptly lets me know he's ready to leave by going towards the door.

When I came home, Melody was down the street at the neighbors...for an hour and a half after I got home! Tony had to go pick her up because she failed to come home and check in. I used to do the same thing to my mom. I remember her getting so angry with me. I knew where Melody was so I tried to be calm about it. Definitely something we need to talk about. 1) checking in and 2) respecting the neighbors week night family time. Well, they aren't just neighbors, they are friends, but still.

When she came home I looked over her homework and tried to help with math. It's division and multiplication word problems. Hate them! But I was able to help her. That's my goal...help her with her homework ... work through the problems slowly. Maybe she'll slow down when doing her school work.

I cooked dinner. Chicken Chili with diced tomatos added in. That's as homemade as I get. It was good.

And I remembered Ian's medicine for his Impetigo. Yeah, he gets weird illnesses. Now, Castle is on. I love that show.

Sweet moment

So the last week or so I've been whispering to Ian at bath time ... "Ian do you want to take a bath?" At first I just wanted to see what he would do and then he would whisper back "bath" real soft and it was so cute so each night I've been asking him in a whisper.

Tonight, I got Ian undressed for his bath and then I was just sitting on the couch being lazy and not actually going in to run his bath. Apparently he understood why I had undressed him. He came over to me and got real close and whispered "bath".

:) It's so exciting! I think it was the first time he talked to me to ask me for something without me prompting it. It was so sweet. And he whispered, which I love, because he can be quite loud!

Melody turned 9! (6 weeks ago!)

Ok I am a little late getting this posted, BUT better late than never, right?

For Melody's birthday, we went bowling. It was a very small party, but we had fun and didn't blow a lot of money, which was my overall goal. Melody had 4 friends attend...Kayla, Mercy, Danae, and Matthew. Her Grandma and Aunt Beth came and of course mom, dad, and brother were there too.

The girls

Melody and her friend Matthew

Melody and her friend Danae

Melody and her friend Kayla

Melody and her friend Mercy

Time for cake, but mom forgot the candles (oops)

Her one gift from mom and dad
I think she likes it

Here are some photos of Ian. I was so proud of him. He stayed in his stroller most of the time and was rather entertained by the kids. He even tried to hold a bowling ball.

And back to Melody:

We did candles on a 1/2 eaten cake at home

Stay Tuned

Ok folks I have lots of updating to do and lots of pictures to go with! I think I even have a video stashed away.
Stay tuned for...
-Melody's 9th birthday recap
-Tony's all time high score in bowling
-Melody is going to be a flower girl and I have a sneak peak of her in her dress.
- Ian Paul and his great hair and his tackling of the slide and cornering of a tree.

But before we go there, here are some things that Ian is doing that melts my heart.

• When he wants to go to bed, he goes to the gate and attempts to climb it.
• Every couple days I get a kiss, open mouth and all.
• He points, a lot.
• He picks up toys when encouraged (this gives me hope)
• He claps and says "yay!" when he knows he's done something great
• He loves to sit on the couch, especially right next to daddy.
• He knows just the right time to smile, you know, just when he's about to get into big trouble.
• He truly loves to be outside and does his absolute best to get outside as soon after I put his shoes on as he can.
  

Yes, those are words that he is saying!

Melody's first word was light. Her Grannie taught her that. And whenever we entered a room, she said "light" and would point. She was about 10 months old. Ian's first words were bye bye, also at 10 months. But he has been pretty quiet since. He doesn't jabber quite as much as Melody did - trust me, this is ok! : ) But now, he has a collection of words that he can say.

"Dad-dy"
"Kit-ty"
those both have very pronounced syllables.
Duck
Bye bye
an attempt at Melody which consists of different syllables every time he says it but I know who he's reffering to because of the tone of his voice
Ball
and we get a very rare "pup" sometimes for "up"

I love hearing him talk!

It snowed and we sorted some shapes!

It snowed this weekend so we were inside Thursday pm through Sunday afternoon. I took time to try to teach Ian to sort shapes. He rocks.

circle in a star? nope...

sqare in a circle? nope...

ah...this fits I think!

He managed to get two circles in there!
Not to mention many more after I put the camera down.

Did I mention snow? Yes! Here was our yard this morning.

Snow + Freezing Fog = Pretty!

And we took a little time this afternoon to experience the snow!

Melody and Ian

I sat Ian in the snow and this is the face I got.

Action shot!
Melody threw a snow ball at me!

Melody is holding some snow and Ian is checkin' it out!

Here is a great photo of Ian. He is taking in the snow.

Ian is just beginning to talk some. Today when I was yelling for Melody he repeated after me... "elllll eeeee!" It was sooo cute! His babble is getting more conversational so I think its just a matter of time before he comes up with something really serious to tell me. He is also starting to put his mega blocks together. He walks around with two in his hands and pulls them apart and puts them back together over and over. Tony built a tower with his mega blocks today and Ian added one or two to the tower....but it wasn't long before he took them back. HAHA

And, he's at the imitation age. Melody and I taught him to fake sneeze.

Melody turns 9 in Feburary. We are less than 2 weeks from her birthday. We are going to have a bowling party. I hope the weather cooperates for her. I was supposed to go scrapbooking on Saturday night and that didn't work out because of the weather. Hopefully soon I'll get to go.

I've got cabin fever!!

So during this past week we have had the coldest weather that Arkansas has seen in TWENTY years. I realize this was felt all around the country and we were not the only ones, but it was COLD! On top of that, it snowed last Saturday night, so we've had snow and ice on the ground ever since which makes going out and about that much more difficult, but I guess I've always said that if its going to be really cold we should at least have snow on the ground because then it's much more pretty. Well, I'm am ready for the snow to melt and for the temperatures to rise and for there to be some warm air and sunshine. It is supposed to climb above 32 today. And by golly, we are going to Walmart to do our weekly shopping.

Melody was supposed to go back to school on Monday, but did she? Nope...in fact, she still hasn't gone back to school from winter break. She has been out of school for three weeks. Lets hope the above freezing temps melts the rest of the snow on the roads and they get back to school tomorrow.

I enjoyed two days at home last week, one of which I was off work and one of which I worked from home. I am super glad that I am blessed enough to work at home when I need to but it is super hard to stay focused and keep the kids happy. I owe Melody something super fun here soon for being such a big helper. On the days that Melody was out of school and I worked, she went to Ian's baby sitter's house. She has older kids and was able to watch her for me. Soooo thankful for that!

On the Ian front, he has switched to whole milk fully. He drinks about 24 ounces a day, give or take some. I think it may be too much, but he is also bigger than the average 1 year old so I hate to not give him what he seems to want. He also drinks 18 ounces of juice mixed with water (only 6 ounces of juice daily). He drinks the milk straight from the fridge at the sitter's house and warmed up at home (yep, spoiled rotten). He is sleeping really good right now and (knock on wood) hasn't been on antibiotics for a week . I have been giving him 1/2 a tsp of children's claritin daily and he sleeps with a humidifier.

On the Melody front, she has been rather mopey, but being inside for nearly a week straight and not seeing her friends from school in 3 weeks is enough reason I suppose. I realize that a great mother would wisk her away for some girl time, but money is tight so we'll have to see what we have left after grocery shopping today.

Tony and I have been passing the time by watching Friends on DVD since I completed my collection for Christmas. It is so funny! I never realized how raunchy it is, and I've been letting Melody watch it, which makes it even worse. But I suppose there are worse things in the world that she could be exposed to. And it makes her feel included. Maybe we can play some games later today after we get home from the store. That would be fun. I bought her boggle for Christmas...and haven't seen it since...where did it go?

Here's a picture from earlier this week when we had lunch at home. I've entitled it...spaghetti head: