getting ready for Easter

This weekend didn't exactly turn out the way we had hoped it would. I took Bella to see the Passion Play at our church on Friday night. I was a little leery of how she would handle the actual scenes of Jesus being put on the cross. They have been learning about this in Sunday school and she has been asking a lot of questions. Some friends of mine were in the play and after asking there advice, we decided to let her go. She was not a fan of how Jesus was treated, of course, and she didn't understand how anyone would put him up on a cross like that. I think seeing it helped answer some of her questions and I'm glad I took her. I did have to laugh at her on Sunday morning. I turned into the church parking lot and I hear her exclaim from the backseat "Jesus is BEHIND us! Jesus is driving the car behind us!" She saw him go into the children's building, pointed him out to Amelia, and almost made us late to class watching hime. We saw him when we were picking up Will from class and she stood in awe of him. We had planned on going to the play again Sunday night but the girls both woke up from naps with a fever. Drew had been running a fever since Saturday and Will has an ear infection. Since we couldn't leave the house, we decided to dye our Easter eggs a little early this year. We have a lot planned for the week and I'm hoping it was just a 12/24 hour virus.

The kids were in a picture taking mood while we waiting on the eggs. I'm usually behind the camera and agreed to pose with them while we waited.

kisses from one of my favorite men.

Isabella was very specific that the eggs be just the right color this year.

Amelia is in a phase of making faces.

Will says cheese every single time I take his picture.

sweet little wee-man. Even with a 102 fever he was all smiles for his mama.

all for chicken nuggets

Amelia has been more vocal lately. As she has become more and more comfortable with her surroundings and the people around her, she is freely expressing her opinions and asking questions. Her teachers usually meet me at school every afternoon with something funny she has said or done. Jason and I are usually the "butt of the joke" and I must admit, I usually find them more embarrassing than funny. I have tried to talk with her about what is appropriate information to share versus keep to yourself. I've tried explaining that sometimes we need to talk about things quietly in our own house and not in public. She is only three and doesn't always understand.
This afternoon, I took the kids through the drive through of McDonalds for some happy meals. I should set the backdrop of my humiliation up for you by letting you know that 1)I went to the worlds slowest McDonalds 2)It was 70+ degrees here and I had rolled all the windows down 3)I had locked the windows down to keep sticky fingers from continuously annoying me and the other gray bus riders by rolling them up/down/up/down. I order, pay and go to the window to collect my food. There is a person there handing me drinks. My fries aren't ready and neither are my nuggets. The waiting begins. Amelia would like to know if the person handing out the food is a boy or a girl. I have no idea. It is in no way shape or form an obvious answer. The person is clearly within earshot, standing there staring at me waiting for my answer. I don't want to be offensive and say "I don't know". I definitely don't want to guess wrong. I try to ignore Amelia. She repeats the question louder. And louder. I'm frantically trying to roll up the car windows, totally forgetting that they are locked, as Amelia is now yelling "Is it a girl or a boy?". I'm sweating profusely and I'm sure my face is tomato red. The person is glaring at me now and I turn around and quietly say (probably more like hiss), "I'm not really sure. Please be quiet." WRONG answer to give a three year old. I can practically see the wheels turning in her head. She raises her arms like she always does when she doesn't understand the question and she says "what do you mean you don't know? you either have a vagina or a pee pee. so is she a boy or a girl" I wanted to die right there. I apologized profusely to the person, gave them my best Chandler Bing wedding photo smile and tried to lighten the mood by asking them not to spit in my food.

And people wonder why I need a vacation!?

our moment

The other day Amelia was sitting on my lap and we were having a little discussion. I always say to each of the kids "do you know how much I love you?" Each one always replies "you love me the most". The question and answer is always the same.

We were nose to nose this time and having the sweetest little moment.
Me: Do you know how much I love you?
Amelia: You love me the most.
Me: I do love you the most.
Amelia: I love you Mommy but I'm Daddy's girl.

Here we are nose to nose having a moment and that Daddy comes in and steals my girl.

tree houses

Today was the last day of spring break. It was the first day that actually felt like spring all week and we had beautiful weather. My good friend called me and said she was heading to the local botanical gardens with her three girls in an hour. We live a lot closer now and it was do-able, so I decided to join her for the last minute adventure. So did the rest of our city. I pulled in to the usually empty parking lot an hour after the garden opened and was directed to the area usually reserved for the big events (i.e the egg hunt, Halloween, the special nights you can walk through the lights at Christmas). We get a little closer and I see a massive crowd of people right were we need to be. I almost panic. All of these people are going to be in this small area. I am going to be running a pretty thin zone defense on three small children. While trying to keep an eye on Drew in a massive double stroller, and the diaper bag containing my wallet that's sitting there practically with a bulls eye on it. These are the days I wish I was that Octopus mother from the commercials on TV. Thankfully the crowd thinned out a little once we got inside the park. I did find Jason's soccer whistle in the stroller and I told the girls in the event of an emergency if they heard that whistle, they were to come running. We ran into several people from our church too. I should also point out that we live in a pretty safe city but I look at everyone that talks to my child as if they are a potential danger to my child if I don't know them. And I still view everywhere as if I'm walking home in some back alley, at a ridiculous hour, about to get mugged for the very last ten dollars I have to my name. I guess I watch too much Dateline and 20/20.

The kids absolutely loved the tree houses. They were pretty amazing if I do say so my self. You could climb them, swing on them, slide down them, etc. Some were made of tin, wood, one was completely round, a Wizard of Oz theme (complete with ruby slippers) it was very cool and the girls are super excited to go back again. And again. Good thing they will be here for several more months.

ladybugs and fish

We had dance pictures immediately following the closings last Friday and it's taken me until today to upload the pictures. I forgot my actual camera in the chaos and finally remembered I had my phone. Amelia was a trooper. She slept in her sponge rollers and wore them for twelve hours. Her hair looked beautiful. I had several people ask me if she had naturally curly hair. This made me laugh because her hair is poker straight and super fine. Both the girls sat patiently for their makeup application, to include eyeliner and mascara. (A must for the stage.) They are both practicing really hard for their recital already and can't wait to be on the big stage!

a Hail Mary pass...

Most of you probably already know by now but we finally moved!! < Insert round off back handsprings here > It was a very long, drawn out stressful process that I swear took a few years off of my life. Let me just say that a buyer's market in real estate sucks. And I was also a home buyer and I still think it sucks. Some people were down right crazy and we had two different couples ask if we would come down 40 and 60 thousand dollars from the asking price after we had just dropped the price drastically. Of course we can. Obviously Ed McMahon and Publisher's Clearing House just pulled up in my driveway with my winning check. Why don't I just give you the house? People are crazy. We had someone ask us to lease purchase the house. We finally got an offer from a pre-qualified buyer and signed the paperwork on Sunday night. On Monday evening, I got a call from another realtor asking to show the house. She showed it Tuesday morning, Tuesday afternoon we found the "pre-qualified" buyer wasn't so qualified and wasn't going to be able to re-run her loan paperwork until March. Jason was furious and I was literally sick to my stomach. We had been so close. On Wednesday morning my phone rang again and the couple wanted to come back through our house again! I started praying, pleading, begging that this couple would buy our house. That it would finally be our turn and this mess would be over. I was tired. The kids were tired. The last week the house was on the market, I showed it six times. I had to wake the kids up twice from their naps and set them on the floor asleep just so I could make the beds. Ugh. I'm so glad that it's over and that part of our life is behind us.
We had back to back closings last Friday and moved into the new house that afternoon. There are tons of little kids in the neighborhood and we love it so far. Amelia's friend is our backyard neighbor and they have already played together a couple of times. My parents came in to help us get settled and my Dad has been painting bedrooms. He and Jason are going to put up a new swing set this weekend. Thanks to everyone that fed us while we were transitioning and helped us move and settle into the new house!

pizza field trip

Bella took a field trip with her class to a local pizza place the week that we moved. It was one of a few days we had actual flakes on the ground and we actually had school. I had an early morning text from a good friend asking me 1) if we really had school 2) were we really attempting the pizza trip in the snow? We lived a good twenty minutes away from school then and wasn't so sure about the roads. I know some my northern friends are rolling their eyes as they read this because half an inch of snow doesn't exactly equal a great road hazard. The garage was full of boxes and I slipped on the ice as I'm loading the kids into the van. Super. I told Bella we would attempt to go to school but I didn't know how bad the roads were. I wasn't going to risk our lives driving through snow and sand to make the pizza. The tears start flowing. I'm driving down the road at a slow, acceptable rate of speed. It's sleeting, snowing and this is the south after all. If they had been salting the roads for six months I probably wouldn't be worried in the slightest but my hands are sweating and people are honking at me because I'm driving to slow. All of a sudden, I can feel the van lose traction and the dashboard completely lights up and the TCS lights were flashing and beeping and we're sliding all over the place. Thankfully I got control and we made it to school safely. The snow melted by the time we returned.

Bella loved learning about the pizza business. They learned how to take a customer's order, how to locate a customers house on a map and how to make the pizzas. At the end of the trip they got to fold their own boxes (pure excitement for five year olds) and make their own pizzas. Bella is fairly particular about her pizza. She will only eat pizza from certain restaurants and usually only eats cheese. Every once in a while she will splurge for mushrooms. On her field trip she surprised me by loading her pizza with chicken and ham. What?! Who is this girl? She took it back to the school for lunch and told me it was absolutely delicious. I guarantee if I order a pizza for dinner with ham and chicken, I will have a major issue on my hands.