Like duh!

I was driving along and saw a store that I thought was called WAHEDY. I thought that was a very interesting name
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until I realized that it was a laundry mat called Wash & Dry and it was missing a few letters.....

Egg (and finger) dying

Of course I went to take pictures and the camera battery needed charging...so I used the webcam! Josie was really supposed to be in bed, but she had a nap today and ended up having trouble falling asleep.
Each child did 5 eggs a piece. Josie was very particular about her eggs and the colors she wanted. Her eggs of course came out the darkest because she was patient about waiting for them to sit in the dye for awhile. Doug went next and he breezed right through. All of his eggs are pastel colors and almost look white in the pictures because he basically put his eggs down in the dye and then pulled them out.
Andy, true to his desire for quantity and variety, wanted as many colors on each egg as possible. I also learned that my children apparently really favor the color green....

Mr. Andrew

He also looks so grown-up to me. I can hardly believe that Doug and Andy are going to kindergarten next year.

Mr. Douglas

My baby looks quite grown-up...

My little imp

We went to Portrait Innovations and despite the fact that it was a zoo on a Saturday we ended up with a good session. They did do the Spring background, but most of the pictures that we liked the best ended up being on just black or white backgrounds.
Josie, who if you ask her will tell you that mommy calls her an imp and her teacher calls her a hoot, was quite the little darling and really got in to the picture taking.

Illustrating the differences

When Andy and Doug were little I used to put them in their high chairs and let them color with markers.
I always thought it said something about the differences in their personalities that Doug would color all over the place in many different colors (hence the restraint of the high chair...) and Andy would spend his time fascinated by opening and closing the markers.

So this past week something else happened that said loads about their personalities.
During Spring Break it was a nice windy day and we pulled out some kites. Andy was all about getting the kite up as high as it would go. Doug, on the other hand, became worried and told me that

1. Andy was flying his kite dangerously
2. Andy was not following the rules

I could never quite get it out of Doug what was worrying him so about having the kite so high. He decided that he was done flying kites about the time Andy reached the end of his string.

Spring Break in a snippet!

Cleaned house (okay...this was technically prior to actual Spring Break)
Sister with small child came
Children sick
Gave small child his first vomiting virus
Everyone recovered
Left sister and small child with her husband to continue on their journey
Finally spent gift certificates from Christmas (woohoo Lego store....)
Drove to Nana and Pop's house
Shopping at the outlet store (Thanks Nana for every thing and especially watching the kids while I spent MY gift certificate from Christmas)
Hands on Science Museum
Pictures of the kids (I'll share I promise)
Drive home to get ready for back to the normal schedule

How to kill plans for a romantic evening

Jim and I had planned to watch a movie after we had put the kids to bed on Saturday night.

However, nothing kills romantic plans faster than a child needing to go to the ER.

The children had just gotten out of the shower. I was putting their robes on them and Andy thought it was funny that Doug tried to put his robe on backwards. So Andy swapped his around and put his hood over his face.
He was spinning around in his room....(you see where this is going?)
About 2 seconds after I said "Stop that, you need to get ready for bed or we won't have time to read stories...."

Andy fell over in to Doug's bed and managed to tear the top of his ear. Thank goodness it was not where the ear attaches to the head...but right at the top where it is all cartilage. The good thing about that is that there was not much blood. The bad thing about it was that it gashed pretty easily and was probably about a quarter inch long.
So I got Andy dressed while Jim held ice and paper towels on his ear and said a quick prayer over him. I got them out to the car and then went back to find Doug (who had been sent to Josie's room) sitting on Josie's bed with her reading books (she was in a diaper and sunglasses).

I got them to bed and about an hour and a half later Jim and Andy returned. Andy had many stitches and was excited because he got a sticker, ice cream (yes...actual chocolate ice cream, not just a coupon to get some later), and he was their best patient (even better than some adults apparently). They didn't believe Jim when he told the medical professionals that Andy could manage his pain while they numbed his ear...so they wrapped him and then were impressed when he did his breathing thing to "blow out the pain" (apparently one of the nurses said that Andy was going to be a great Lamaze couch some day).
His stitches will disolve (thank goodness...Doug healed so fast that some of his skin grew over his stitches). We have to keep it uncovered, no bathes, and keep it moist with antibiotic ointment. It already looked significantly better this morning compared to the red puffiness it was yesterday.
It has not slowed Andy down one bit. He says it hurts a little, but I have to remind him to not be rough with Doug because I don't want to have to go to the ER again.
There is always something. Some days I feel like I signed up for the advanced crash course in parenting.
I suppose on the bright side of all of this that I am learning how to react in an emergency with calm and cool, and now all three of my children will have identifying scars....

My new challenge

Jim and I did a comparison of miles driven over the course of a work week.
I was driving about ten miles fewer than a single round-trip for him between our house and where the RV is parked....so I am now driving the big truck instead of my minivan in an effort to save on gas.
I am adjusting just fine. One of the features that the truck has is a display that gives you information such as outside temperature, direction, miles per gallon, etc.
It has the miles per gallon both as an instantaneous reading and as an average overall reading. So my new challenge has been to keep the instantaneous reading as high as possible so it bumps up the average overall reading. With hard work and dedication to not being in a hurry I have managed to bump it up .3 miles per gallon more. Woohoo! Go me!

A new game

The children have discovered a new game.
You set up little green army men (Thanks William! We are getting TONS of use out of your Christmas present...although Doug's army is increasing and Josie's and Andy's guys seem to be AWOL....).
Then you toss a plastic boulder or a cat toy in the middle and hope that the cat chases it and knocks over the army guys.

Extra laundry

As if I didn't have enough laundry already I have scored extra laundry recently.

1. I decided that since Josie can manage pottying in the potty chair if she is completely naked that it is time to move on to underwear. She is still getting used to the underwear but she and I have a deal that if she keeps a pair dry while we are at home (not going to worry about underwear at preschool yet) that she will get some M&Ms.
2. Andy decided to wear extra clothes. Friday he spent all day in a tunic he made at VBS last summer. Then on Saturday he wore two long sleeve shirts all day. One night he decided not to wear pjs to bed, but wore underwear and then socks on his feet and socks on his hands....but he had one pair of socks on the right side and a different pair of socks on the left side.
3. At our house clothing covers more purposes than originally intended. Socks are not just for your feet. They can also be "driving" gloves. Underwear is not just for your butt...it can cover many uses. Did you know that it can be a ninja (or inja or baninja....depending on which child you are talking to) mask, an astronaut helmet, a race car driver helmet.....the list goes on and on and on.... If you wear it the right way it even has a convent vent at the top of the head so that you can both see out and not get overheated.
   

Shared Pictures

My in-laws were here a couple of weeks back and gave me all of the pictures off their camera. So I cannot take credit for actually getting it together and moving pictures off my camera, but I am enjoying seeing all the ones they had because they had not erased their camera in quite a while.
These are from when they first got to our house a couple of weeks ago. Doug has decided that he likes to go hide and surprise whoever is coming in to the house. Also, we have several pretty good circles for racing in our house so one of the pictures is of Doug going full-tilt getting ready to round a corner.