Spring Break 2010! Woohoo!

I have some great memories of really fun spring break trips to the Bahamas, Cancun, Daytona... It's funny how the meaning of the phrase 'Spring Break' changes, though, when you're the mommy. Before mommyhood, it conjured up images for me of beaches, friends, some (very responsible, of course) partying, time away from all things stressful... Now I hear 'Spring Break' and think, "Oh, for the love of everything holy, what am I going to do to entertain these kids for a whole week???"

Life in this town pretty much stops during breaks. There are no dance lessons, no swim lessons, no horse lessons, no base playgroup. EVERYTHING stops and takes a break during spring break. How can this be? Don't these people understand that my children (and I would wager other children) need fun things to look forward to each week to keep them sane? A trip to Oklahoma City would be fun, but some genius made it so ALL Oklahoma schools go on spring break at the same time. This effectively turns the zoo and everything else kid-friendly into a MADHOUSE this week. So we have to improvise:

Monday: backyard play (still a novelty because it has just recently been deemed "safe" after our ice storm, thanks to Phil's tree-pruning efforts last weekend)
Tuesday: day in the big city of Lawton (the van needed some service so we et some friends and shopped and played at the mall playground, which was, according to my children, not as fun as the Dallas Galleria mall playground. Go figure.)
Wednesday: sick day after the aforementioned day of play at the mall playground. I think my hand sanitizer must have expired or something because it's not working.
Thursday: base bowling alley for lunch with Daddy and then play on the outdoor playground there. Surely the sun's powers have killed any viruses living on that thing.
Friday: Ummmmm... still thinking.

I guess we're doing alright. And it has been nice to sleep late (well, later) and not worry about getting Claire (and sometimes Maddie) presentable and off to preschool by 8am. Claire and Madeline have been playing nicely all week, and they've even entertained their brother from time to time. It's been nice to relax and play together without any real plans. So, while spring break isn't the same, it's still FUN!

Happy St Paddy's Day!

The kids were so excited to wear their St Paddy's day clothes. And a little leprechaun turned our milk green and brought them Lucky Charms cereal! Now, I know none of that is REAL Irish tradition, but it's fun for the kids.

You want Colin pictures?

You want Colin pictures? We've got Colin pictures!

To appease the grandparents' requests for more pictures I will indulge in a cute-baby blog post. If you don't want to see gobs of photos of a super cute little-baby-who's-not-so-little-anymore you should navigate away from this page ASAP. You've been warned.

I found a toy!

Lookie what I can do!

Thinking about crawling

Smiley boy

Chillaxin' at dinner

Where's my food???

Eating leaves in the yard

Books of the Bible and the Crazy Dancer

We've been a little busy around here lately, trying to get prepared for our upcoming move to New Jersey. I've spent most evenings going through the rental listings and trying to decide which town to live in, which school to send Claire to, which preschool to send Maddie to, etc, etc. The kids have been a little squirrely too, probably because they're sick of being cooped up in the house. They're definitely ready for Spring, even if Phil and I aren't yet ready for our move. There have been more sister-fights than usual, more sassiness at naptime, more fabrication of reasons to come out of bed at night from the girls.

But in spite of all that, they are still SO DARNED CUTE! Please excuse my gushing and obvious parental bias regarding the cuteness of my own kids. I just feel so lucky to have been blessed with these three wonderful people to raise. Their youth and enthusiasm for life keeps me feeling young (even if they're giving me wrinkles and making me look older every day!).

Anyway, here's a little video of the girls being crazy. Claire had been singing a song she learned at school about the books of the Bible (Old Testament) when Maddie decided to join in and shake her thang. You can hear Colin singing along too. It makes us laugh every single time we watch it. Hope it makes you smile too.

Daddy-Daughter Dance

The base put on a daddy-daughter dance yesterday so of course I RSVP'd for Phil and the girls. Claire and Maddie were really excited about going to a ball with their daddy, especially when they heard that there would be cupcakes and roses there. They put on their new Valentine's day dresses, got their hair done by Mommy, had spaghetti and meatballs at home and then went out for their date with Daddy. They all looked so cute!


Claire told me that I could snuggle with her blankie and watch "Mommy shows" on TV while they were gone.

Each girl came home with a goody bag full of chocolates, a charm bracelet, a piggy bank (courtesy of the local bank), a mini heart-shaped balloon, and one long-stemmed rose. To say they had a good time would definitely be an understatement. Maddie was in tears because she didn't want to go to bed (she didn't want the evening to end!) and Claire just kept gushing that it was the best day ever (she also had a Valentine's Day party at her school, which may have contributed to the greatness of the day). And I got to watch a DVR'd episode of Private Practice without Phil rolling his eyes at me! Fun evening for all!

Last Hurrah

We got the fam' all decked out for the Superbowl ...in our Chicago Bears get-up! We know, we know: the Bears were definitely NOT in the Superbowl this year. But being eternally optimistic Bears fans (is there any other kind of Bears fan???) we're hopeful for next year!

Escape to Dallas

We had a nice little trip to Dallas even though we hadn't done any planning at all. We visited the Dallas World Aquarium, which is really more like a jungle/zoo/aquarium-type of thing. Very neat.

We had dinner with my Uncle Brian, Aunt Cyndi, and their son Grant:

We did lots and lots of shopping: Grapevine Mills, The Galleria, Ikea, Target, Costco, Target again, Grapevine Mills again... We now know that our girls are HUGE fans of malls with carousels and they love to eat at the Rain Forest Cafe. They think it's fun to pretend to cook in the mocked-up kitchens at Ikea. And they highly recommend the play area at the Galleria mall.

Click on any of the above photos to see a few more from our Dallas trip!

Have I mentioned that I dislike camping?

I am no pioneer woman. Let us just be clear on that. And I don't like camping. Camping is cold and uncomfortable. But when the power went out last week after our ice storm, we camped out in our cold house for two days. The girls have always wanted to go "camping" in the backyard, so I convinced them that we were having an indoor camping adventure. They thought it was GREAT! They carried their flashlights around with them and got to sleep in sleeping bags (with various other covers stacked on top to keep them warm). On the first night we had them in the hallway snuggled on one twin mattress while we slept in Colin's room on the blow-up bed. On the second night we all crammed into Colin's room together.

Click the photo above to see more of our camping adventure and some cool ice storm pics!

Even though we did all we could to keep the heat in our house, it got cold pretty quickly. We tried to make heat by boiling pots of water on the stove (which is gas, thank goodness). And running the shower on hot (gas water heater too). Both helped a little, but when we couldn't get the house up past 57 degrees on day 2 I was ready to throw in the towel. Pioneer women had fireplaces in their houses to keep them warm!

I'm glad we bugged out when we did. Here's what the time line looked like:
Thursday 4:35pm: power out due to the ice storm
Friday: Brrrrr
Saturday afternoon: run away to Dallas for Mommy's type of camping - in a nice hotel!
Sunday: enjoy the comfort of heat in hotel; sight-seeing and then dinner with my uncle Brian's family
Monday: Got ready to check out - decided to stay and shop
Tuesday: Packed up to check out - decided to stay and shop
Wednesday: Learned the power was finally back. Checked out, shopped a little more and then came home.

Ice Storm 2010

The local weather folks had been predicting this storm since last Monday. Sure enough, it came just when they said it would and it's just as bad as they predicted. The ice is pretty to look at, but some of the trees in our neighborhood probably aren't going to make it. They're losing branches everywhere!

Here are some snaps from inside - we didn't want to go outside because the branches keep falling down and the trees are making ominous creaking noises. Keeping our fingers crossed that we don't lose power!

Click on this one to make it bigger - the chains on the swings are frozen solid!

Teeth!

Colin has gotten a couple of teeth. Actually, he got them while we were on our Disney trip, but because he's the 3rd kid we're just now getting around to blogging about them. Oops. Anyway, he now has a cute TOOTHY grin. What better excuse to fill up the blog with cute baby pics?

Big cheesy smile

Big goofy smile

In addition to his cute smile, Colin's current talents include rolling each way (and all over the floor!) eating baby foods, feeding himself Cheerios, sitting up without falling over, grabbing items that one would swear are out of his reach, and making cute baby noises/songs. He continues to be irresistible to his big sisters, which is not in his best interest because I'm pretty sure one of them is going to squash him with an overzealous hug one day.

Cute baby noise footage:

Claire's favorite cookie

We recently received our annual shipment of hockey pucks - er, I mean - honey cakes from my mother. The recipe for honey cake cookies has been passed down in my dad's family, and I'm told that my great-great aunt used to make them. I'm not entirely sure how long the recipe has been around, but it calls for hartshorn (ammonium bicarbonate), which is an old leavening agent that now requires a trip to a pharmacy. Not just any pharmacy will do; I think it has to do compounding - your usual Walgreens or CVS will not carry this stuff. Anyway, the recipe is OLD and let's just say the cookies are an acquired taste.

I quite like them now but they were certainly not my favorite as a child. Claire, on the other hand, devoured them last year. When they arrived this year I was curious to see if she still liked them. She saw me take them out of the box and immediately started hounding me for one. I stopped her after she had eaten six of them! Looks like I'm going to have to learn how to make these darned things...

Colin's Bath Time

Colin loves his bath time. Especially now that he's graduated to the "big-kid" tub. It was the splashing in the sink infant tub that got out of hand and necessitated the move. As soon as he hits the water he starts flapping and splashing. Enjoy this quick movie Katie made while I was flying last week!