March Madness

March went by way too quickly. Not that I'm complaining. I sure am ready for some warmer weather, but I'm not quite ready for how fast time seem to disappear.

We had a fun, busy month. Last week in particular was really hectic, but in a good way. We went down to Salt Lake on two separate occasions for basketball games. Monday David and I went to the Jazz/Celtics game, then Thursday the whole family piled into the car and headed down for the NCAA tournament games. I had no interest in watching the NCAA games; I'd already been to three basketball games this year, which is my limit for watching a sport for which I care very little.

So while David went to the games, the kids and I hung out at my cousin Heidi's house. We had loads of fun! My kids loved playing with her kids. Owen especially enjoyed playing with Rachel, who was a really good sport about playing with the "little kids."

We also went to the Mayan, which we discovered was a little over-hyped. Sure, the divers were cool, and the pool into which they dove was precariously narrow, but the shows were too short, the food wasn't remarkable, and the place was too dark. But the kids had fun, so that was a plus.
Saturday we got to spend some time at a park while we watched Heidi finish a half-marathon. That was lots of fun! I admit I got a little verklempt as she crossed the finish line. I just admire the dedication it takes to train and run that far. And also, it reminded me of when my cousins Carrie and Emily ran the Salt Lake Marathon five years ago, which is a memory I'll always cherish.

Also this month, I started getting more serious about toilet training Samantha. It's been a fairly smooth transition from diapers to big girl underwear, and there have only been a few accidents. I haven't even been doing rewards or consequences like I did with the boys. I think Samantha is just ready to move on from diapers, and she has a better understanding of her body's signals than the boys had of theirs.
The last couple days, though, she's been acting like she doesn't want to sit on the toilet. Instead, when she "has to go" she brings me a diaper and says, "I just wanna wear this diaper." Of course I tell her, "Nope. Just go sit on the toilet." And she'll go pretty willingly. It's thrilling to know that when the big box of diapers in our bathroom closet is gone, that's it! (Well, we might have to buy a few here-and-there for nighttime, just in case) No more spending loads of money on something that's going to get pooped in and thrown away!

The Good Ol' Days

I saw this article over on ParentDish.com. It gave me a good chuckle and, even though I'm not part of the "Over 30 Crowd" mentioned, I remember the days spoken of in the article. Days before MP3s and cell phones and Call Waiting. Days before realistic video games. I love how she describes it:  We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'. Your screen guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen... Forever! And you could never win.. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE! 
I won't paste the whole article here, but here's a link: "PaRant: I AM That Mom Who Says, 'You Kids Had it Easy.'" It's good for a laugh!

Their Irish Eyes Are Smiling

Well, they were smiling. But I guess they got tired of saying "cheese."

I was looking through past blog posts and saw the green eggs and ham that I made for St. Paddy's day a couple years ago. I was less ambitious this year, not to mention my kids didn't seem thrilled about the idea of eating green eggs. We wore green, but that was about the extent of our St. Patrick's Day celebrations. 

I did spend a little time contemplating my kids' eyes, thinking about the song "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling." My kids' eyes sure steal my heart away. 

I've been playing around with my camera lately, trying to get better at taking pictures. I just have a little Kodak point-and-shoot, which I'm trying hard to be happy with, so I've been fiddling around in Picasa too. I figure if I can learn good editing techniques, maybe I can make do with the little camera I have. 

I happened to discover that our bathroom has really nice lighting for pictures between the hours of 4 and 5 in the afternoon. So I made my kids sit on the edge of the tub so I could take some portraits. Owen and Samantha were pretty cooperative. Drew was less so. He thought it would be more fun to monkey around and ham it up. At least it was entertaining.

Here are a few of the best ones:

Owen:

This shot is straight out of the camera. Not too bad, but it doesn't look real special.

I clicked "I'm Feeling Lucky" in Picasa's editing tool. I kind of like the result.

Another "I'm Feeling Lucky" treatment.

Samantha: 

Again, "I'm Feeling Lucky" treatment, plus I used retouch to make her cheeks less blotchy. I know, they still look blotchy but they were even worse before. We got a lot of sun that day.

All I did to this one was a crop and a Retouch to get rid of blotchy cheeks and some Cheeto stains I noticed on her sleeve.

Drew:

No editing here.

SOC

Another "I'm Feeling Lucky" treatment.

SOC

And if anyone is making a horror film and needs a picture for the cover, I've got just the thing: 

Samantha jumped right as I took the picture. Isn't it scary?! It gives me nightmares. Drew and Owen thought it was hilarious so they asked me to take a "ghost picture" of each of them. Theirs didn't turn out, though. Some things are just hard to do on purpose.

Signs of Spring

Yesterday was absolutely gorgeous (today isn't bad either, though it's a little windy for my tastes). I had planned to go to the store and get the boys some zip up hoodies that they can wear this Spring, along with some new Sunday shoes since they've grown out of the old ones, and some more "four-year-old underpants," as Drew calls the new underwear I finally got for him and Owen (because the "two-year-old underpants," which actually were almost two years old, are "just too small"). 

We got our sweaters on and headed out the door, and made it as far as me backing the car out of the driveway and parking it on the street so the kids could ride their bikes around the driveway. We ended up spending about two and a half hours outside, just playing and enjoying the warm sunshine and the uncharacteristic lack of breeze. 

While we were out, I decided my flowerbeds could stand some attention, so I got out my gloves and went to it, pulling weeds and other dead plant matter that had piled up in the Fall and had been sitting there all winter. It was pretty gross. But I'm sure all that stuff helped keep the bulbs warm underground, since we didn't really have much snow to insulate them from the cold.
The kids had a lot of fun helping me clean up the flowerbeds. It became a sort of treasure hunt as we discovered new life poking up out of the dirt. 

We found my amaryllis:

Which, in the summer will look like this:

We found my crocuses (croci? I'm thinking not, because my spell checker isn't liking that word. Who knows):

Which, in a few weeks will look like these:

We found my tulips:

Which will soon look like this:

(The bunch of leaves on the right is what the amarillys looks like in the spring. All those leaves will die before the stalk with the flowers pops up.)

We found some new strawberry leaves and shoots, and a lovely ladybug crawling among them:

They'll look like this in a few months (not that the lady bug will magically become a strawberry--that'd be weird):

I'm looking forward to Spring so much! (Or, as Samantha would say, "mo munch!" I love it when she tells me, "Teenk oo mo munch!" when I do something for her.) Today was just what I needed to get me through the last few days of Winter and the crazy weather that always accompanies a Southeast Idaho Spring. For example, Sunday it snowed, Monday was upwards of 50 degrees and sunny with nary a cloud in sight! 

Vacation; Days 9-10

Day 9: What I Call Vacation

We had a really laid back kind of day on our last full day of vacation. It was the kind of day I like the best when I'm on vacation: just hanging out with good friends, chatting, watching the kids have fun together, and doing nothing in particular. 

We went to McGrath's Fish House for dinner. I ate New Orleans Catfish, which was sooooooo yummy. The menu describes it thus: Petite Prawns, Andouille Sausage, Mushrooms, Scallions, Peppers, Tomatoes and Cajun Cream Sauce over Blackened Catfish. I describe it as pure deliciousness. 

Then Madeline and I went through some old photos she took a couple summers ago when they were in town. We came across the following gems:

Lunch at the park.

Drew, wearing Madeline's glasses.

Owen, waiting for his turn on the swing. I love how chubby their little arms and faces were! Look at Owen's elbows...

Evie and Samantha sharing a swing.

Samantha doesn't like to swing too high. Or relinquish food in order to play.

She loved the swing if it wasn't moving. She's still like that, even now. But she'll go down the tallest slide she can find all by herself with no second thoughts.

Drew climbing on a little jungle gym.

Day 10: On Our Way Home

We started our trek home on Wednesday, February 10. We stopped in Portland on our way out of Oregon, so that I could go to a Thai Market I learned about online. It was everything I hoped for and more! They had plenty of ingredients for Thai food, lots of yummy Asian candies and they even had a deli where I could purchase some already made Thai food. And I got to practice my Thai with the people working there, which is a rare occasion for me. Owen even practiced his Thai (he can say "hello" in Thai; the employees thought it was pretty cute).

It was pretty late by the time we got out of Portland. We were hoping to drive straight home, but we got a little less than half way and ran into a blizzard. We stopped for the night, and when we woke up in the morning, most of the snow was gone! Weird. After a few final hours in the car, we made it home safe and sound. It was such a fun trip. I loved Oregon (this trip was the first time I'd been further than about 20 miles into Oregon). I hope to go back soon!