Goodbye 20's

Buck turned the big 3-0 yesterday. We celebrated with an ice cream cake and balloons. I LOVE helium balloons in large numbers floating around the room. My kids do too! They were in heaven all afternoon waiting for daddy to come home to see his party room and playing with his balloons.

Grandma got lots of love from Lucas.
Our friends and family came to celebrate with us!
Grace had to put on her princess gear since Averee had hers on...but that lasted for about 1 minute and she was back to her pants.
Here he is blowing out the candles but the cake is hidden behind Grace's head.
Party-pooped! This was after everyone went home.
Today we went cross-country skiing for Buck's gift from me (and Katie too since she watched the kids).
Happy birthday Buck! I love you!

Yoga

I recruited some friends to take a yoga class with me and tonight was the first night. We (6 of us) all carpooled together to class and when the girl driving (Rachel) asked where we were going I gave directions to 33rd and she said "Oh, I thought it was on 39th". Well, we should have double checked at that point because I was wrong! I was so confident though, everyone figured I must have been right. So off we went to the wrong place. Ends up, we were only 10 minutes late for the class which was not so bad, but here we all come in to this quiet classroom late. We set mats up as quietly as possible and got going.
I really enjoyed the class, but I'm sure the people in the class think I'm some kind of jerk though because someone in the class farted and of course, I start laughing. I kept it to a fairly quiet giggle but I was not silent by any means. So here I am coming in late making noise and then laughing at some poor person's misfortune of passing gas. I'm sure they were mortified in the first place and here I am making it worse. What an idiot I am. These things always happen with Julie right next to me for some reason. I got myself under control and the rest of the class was fine. Let's hope next week I can be better behaved!

Buster

I wanted to write down 2 cute (to me anyway) things that Luke said today.

* While getting his hair cut and ducking away from me (thank goodness for boosters with buckles): "Whoa. Be weh-wool (careful)."

* After ramming Grace's scooter in to the TV stand: "Oh! Cash (crash)."

I have never heard him say either of these phrases before today so it made them all the more cute to me.

nut house

One of Grace's new favorite things to do is to ride "Daddy's scooter" with Buck. She is so funny. Last night she pulled out his skateboard and tugged on his hand to get him to stand up and said "Hold tight Daddy." When they ride together I always tell her to "hold on tight to Daddy" so that's what she was telling us. She also loves to lay on her tummy and ride it like she was paddling a surf board. Their trips together are always just up and down the hall like this but she loves it!
Luke has found a favorite spot to play in the kitchen and takes all of his blankets in there with him. He opens the door, throws in the blankets and then backs in...meaning he turns around and puts his bum in first and then scoots the rest of the way in backward.

Grace has also had a strange fascination with mustaches too. She got out all 3 of the mr. potato head mustaches and was carrying them around with her the other day. She holds them up to things like the camera, pictures, toys with faces, etc. She loves this handle-bar one the best and has figured out that it will hook to her nose. Gross! Who knows, maybe she'll grow up to be mayor!

Crazy Hair Day

Today was crazy day at the jr. high and these 2 beauties asked me if I'd do their hair crazy. It's nothing too outlandish but they both turned out cute.
I should have taken a picture of the back of their hair too. Teah had those little nobby things all over her head and Kayla has french braids going opposite directions, diagonally across her head with the ends flipped out so the are "fountaining" off her head and the ponytail part of it crimped.

ch- ch- ch- lunch

Since Grace's expressive language is developmentally behind, I sometimes try to be creative with ways to explore language with her. Sounds, phrases, words, all of it. So today for lunch we had a Ch- theme. We ate CHicken nuggets, string CHeese, CHips and CHocolate milk and talked about words that start with Ch-. Luke could have cared less, but she had fun shaking her milk up and any lunch with chips is the best lunch in her book! I was proud of my little burst of imagination as they are rare for me.

I love that she is starting to form her own opinion on things. For instance, she picked out her outfit today (see picture below) and wouldn't accept any other offers! The only thing I insisted on was long sleeves under the McQueen shirt. She also refused to put on her own boots and is wearing Luke's snow boots (yes, his feet are that big, but the boots are one shoe size up in the hopes that they last him for next winter too...although at the rate he's growing, probably not.)

I am taking bets on when Lucas out-sizes Grace. They are 2 years and 3 days apart in age. At his 18 month well-check on Monday, he was 35 in. tall (above 97th percentile) and 27 lbs. 4.5 oz (70th percentile). I measured Grace to see where she is at and she is just over 38 in. tall and weighs 32.6 lbs.

out my window...

I've been sitting here getting more and more annoyed listening to Grace jump around and NOT take a nap this afternoon when I looked out my window and saw this:

The snow is gone! The rain today melted the rest of it (atleast in our yard) and it happens to be sunny right now. It looks like you could walk outside without a jacket and be fine. I am SO looking forward to spring!
I actually prefer when Grace doesn't take a nap except I am doing hair this afternoon and it's always better to have no children disrupting. It's just one of my babysitter's though so I'm sure she won't mind. However, I cannot figure out how Grace is still awake anyway since she had a long nap yesterday, causing her to be up until 12:30 last night, which is not unusual except that she was up at 7 this morning which is not normal. She usually sleeps in when she's up that late. So, oh well, if she doesn't fall asleep atleast she'll go down at a normal time tonight. I will, however, be very annoyed if she wakes Lucas up early from his nap with all the noise she is making!

7 years and never a harsh word

It all began 7 years ago today. Well, my marriage did anyway. It's been a wonderful 7 years! I can't believe it has been that long. I still feel like I am 20 (but obviously am not). I am so lucky to have married Buck. He is such a good husband. Most of our date nights end up being what I want to do because he wants me to be happy (i.e. seeing Twilight with me twice!) He is a great dad and the kids adore him (probably because he saves them from my wrath as my fuse is much shorter than his). He works so hard to support our family so we can have all that we want. I love you Buck!
So to celebrate our day, we spent last night at my parent's cabin (with the kids and my parents). This morning we tried to go snow shoeing but the kids were out in the snow with my mom and so they followed us, some guy nearly ran us over and then yelled at Buck for chasing Grace off his property (which had signs marked Private Property but what were we supposed to do, let Grace wander off just because she wouldn't respond to our yelling for her to come back?) Long story short, we bagged the snow shoeing.
We came home from the cabin, took Lucas in for his 18 month check-up at the doctor, then my mom came over to watch the kids. We went out to dinner and then a movie. I didn't want to see Valkyrie and he didn't want to see Bride Wars so we compromised on Paul Blart, Mall Cop. It was really funny. It turned out to be a really nice day.
Here are some pictures from playing in the snow up at the cabin. The sun was not out so they are kind of dark.

The many faces of Grace

Grace has been so much fun lately. I've always described her as a big personality in a little body and recently, that personality has been coming out all over the place. She is a day-dreamer (like her daddy) and so I will catch her just smiling and chattering to herself occasionally during the day. It's one of those "I wish I knew what you're thinking" moments. She was trying to ride Barbie's mo-ped here. "Mo-ped?" you ask? Yes. Mo-ped. And don't try to find them in stores. Ebay would probably be a better spot to track one down as this one is from when I was like 8. I am working on my pack-rat issues but some stuff is just too cool to give up!
Anyway, back to Grace. She has also developed an aversion to clothing lately and strips herself down to nothing several times a day. Sometimes she asks for a bath. Other times I can get her underwear back on but when I go to put on her shirt and pants she tells me, "No. I'm dancing." So here she is "dancing" tonight, but she felt this hat was a good wardrobe choice and stuck it on by herself.

Duck....duck....

Goose! Egg, that is.
I couldn't get Lucas to stay still long enough for a good picture of this egg on his head. All we know is he was running full speed through Grandma's kitchen, we heard a crash, then tears and he came around the corner with this little beauty protruding from his head. I wish I had had my camera to take a picture immediately as I was sure his head would explode from the swelling!
Grace declared it was her turn for a picture after I had chased Luke around for about 5 minutes, and she even smiled for me.