Mikey's Birthday!

I took the top picture with my phone and sent Mikey a text on the morning of his birthday. Then I decided to take some with the camera and put them on Facebook for all to see. These two were the best, but I think I'll put up some of the outtakes just for fun...

Marc continues to do really well in front of the camera. He still says, "cheeeeeeese!" when I ask him to. Emmery, not so much.


Once Marc went down for his afternoon nap, Emmery and I got started on Mikey's birthday cake.  She loves to help out in the kitchen. She's so good, "okay mommy I'll be careful okay?"

  

The best part of baking!....

Into the oven it goes...

Is it done yet mommy?

Carrot Cake with cream cheese frosting

While we were waiting for the cake to bake we wrapped Mikey's present. Emmery, of course, helped with that too. I asked her what we should write on his present, DADDY or MICHEL? She said both. She then asked why she couldn't write on the present, and I told her because she didn't know how to print yet. But it gave me an idea, why not let her try? So I took a scrap of wrapping paper and taped it to the counter. I drew dotted lines for the letters of her name and handed her the marker.

She liked the idea at first, and I was really impressed with how well she did. But, like many other "educational" things, she gave up.

Sorry the pictures are so dark. No idea why I didn't think to turn on a light! Anyway, look at the improvement between the E and the M. I didn't help her at all. I kept telling her how great she was doing and how hard she was working but after writing the M she asked me to finish it. I just don't get it!


Mikey left work early so that he could spend the evening with us. When he got home, Emmery led him right to the cake. She couldn't wait one second longer to dig in!

Poor guy had to cook his own dinner on his birthday! (I'm sure that is what he prefers!! ;-)

Marc eating some corn on the cob...

Big kiss!!!

Some more pictures I took throughout the day...

Marc had just woken up from his nap. The blue thing is called an Ugly Doll. They each look a little different and this one is called "Ice Bat." He loves this thing and insists on sleeping with it. When we bring him in his room to put him down he says, "bat... bat!"

Nowadays there's pretty much nothing he can't climb...

Ta Da!

Marc is so funny, anytime a TRUCK passes by (not a car, not a bike, not a jogger or a mom with a stroller) he has to wave hello. I don't know what his obsession is with trucks but it is too cute.

Marc suddenly became preoccupied with pulling the leaves off this shrub. I kept calling his name to get a picture but he was too engrossed...

He finally looked up!  Look at that face!!!!

Goofing around on the couch...

It's stuck on my finger mom!

Recently Emmery has discovered the game of hide and seek. Since she can count to ten, we let her count and we'll hide. This is how Emmery counts...

Such a cheater!!!

The best is when she hides and we look for her. We'll say, "hmmm, where could Emmery be?? Is she in the bathroom?" and the next thing we hear is, "noooo." And we'll say, "where can she be?" And we hear, "I'm over here!!!!!" 

So yeah, guess we need some more practice with that game :-)

Great way to end a birthday, right??

Crafts, Potty, and Tofu---Oh My!

Another cute idea I found on Pinterest (do I even need to credit Pinterest anymore?? Maybe if I ever actually think of something on my own I will give myself credit!) was to use a cupcake tin to dye shaving cream all different colors. 

So I squirted the shaving cream into each little cup while Emmery watched and waited patiently.

Then I let her drip the food coloring into the cups and swirl them with a craft stick.

Pretty colors!

The idea was to then use the shaving cream to "paint" the bathtub. We didn't make it that far because I chickened out in fear of staining the bathtub. Instead I let her take it into the art room and smear it all over the paper on the easel. It was pretty messy and the only picture I got was the aftermath of the cupcake tin...

I got out the Elmo potty for Marc-man because he is so aware of going to the bathroom. When he poops he'll point to his butt and say, "poo-poo." And he LOVES it when we flush his poop down the toilet and he gets a chance to say "bye-bye poo-poo!" We haven't gotten lucky yet but it's fun to stick him on there. I mean, how cute is this???

In honor of the upcoming holiday I have started my search for St. Patty's Day crafts! Here we just did a simple cut and paste, but Emmery loves these.

While she was working on these I came up with an idea (hey, look at that, I DO come up with ideas on my own!!! ha!) to get her to practice spelling her name. She can spell it verbally, I taught her a singsongy way to remember it. But I'm not sure she could manually put the letters in order. I cut up the letters and she had to paste them on top of her name. 

At first she seemed to like the idea, but she quit after this picture. I think it got a little annoying to glue the flimsy pieces of paper. Next time I'll print it on card stock to make the gluing a little easier.


So I do believe we are officially on a health kick! After watching Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead we have started to focus on health and nutrition a little more. One thing that I would like to change is the amount of "meat" we eat (I know, I know, I don't eat meat!). But we eat a ton of chicken and from what we've learned it's important to get protein from non-animal sources. So tofu it is! We had tried tofu a long time ago, I think we lived in Atlanta, and I remember not liking it. But I have recently found some recipes that actually look pretty appetizing so we gave it another shot. This recipe was for spaghetti bolognese with tofu instead of ground beef. After I almost burned down the house... I got the sauce started. 

Tofu and onions.

Lots of veggies!

Bolognese sauce!

It turned out... okay. Actually I really liked it.  Marc seemed to enjoy it. Emmery was indifferent, lately she is more into PLAYING with her food rather than eating it. Mikey is always very sweet and never says my cooking is bad, but I'm pretty sure he dumped half a bottle of Red Hot on his :-) But since we have joined the gym we are working on changing our daily/nightly schedules up a bit. I go to the gym with the kids in the morning and Mikey goes right after work. Which usually gets him home around 7:30. Which means I cook.
Anyway back to the tofu. The sauce, with all the veggies in there it had a really garden fresh taste that I love. It's true what they say about tofu, it just takes on the flavor of the food around it. The texture is a little strange, I think it is something you have to get used to. But overall, I think we will be doing lots more with tofu.

Fun at Home!

The other day Emmery got the idea to have a picnic on the rug in the living room. She started grabbing whatever she could find from the pantry and setting them in the middle of the floor. Marc immediately snatched the cans and started stacking them. It's funny how you start to notice the differences between boys and girls. Ever since Marc has been able to sit he has been stacking blocks. Emmery? She will if you ask her to, but she just doesn't see the point.

It's so cute to watch them play together lately. Emmery is constantly "pretending" to do something. And Marc plays right along with her. In this picture she had turned the four-wheeler on its side and was acting like she was working on it. Marc came right up next to her and played right along. He is so funny, when Emmery is cooking in her little kitchen, she'll give Marc a taste. You would expect him to be confused that she was giving him a spoon with nothing in it but he takes a little taste and says "mmmmm."

Emmery is giving Marc detailed instructions.

 Mikey snapped this shot. I have no idea where I was because I don't remember this! They love to look out the window at the birdies. Mikey picked a great spot to hang the bird feeders.

Sheldon Lake

Today we decided to take the kids to this nearby nature reserve called Sheldon Lake. I had been there before with a friend of mine but Mikey had never been. Every time I went it was stifling hot, and very dry because of the drought this summer. I thought it would be interesting to see with all of the recent rain we've had.

We walked down that middle aisle there, between all the ponds and then around the other side. I believe the ponds are manmade. People can fish in them, although I overheard someone say that they are very low on fish because of the drought.

Alligator warning sign even though I've never seen an alligator there.

They recently built an observation tower, of course I probably should have taken a picture of it from the ground. Instead here is a picture of the kids in the elevator!

At the top! That is Sheldon Lake behind them.

What a gorgeous day! A little cold but we will take it.  Supposed to be back in the 70's next week!

Activities!

Emme is always asking to do "activities" which basically means arts and crafts. I found this Team Umizoomi puzzle online and thought she would like it.

Finally got around to doing a Valentines Day craft. I found this on Pinterest, using toilet paper tubes to paint hearts! So cool!

Winter Blues

Both of them came down with a cold at the end of January so we've spent a lot of time indoors cuddling on the couch and watching TV. Marc woke up from his nap and Emmery asked him to come sit by her. She offered him some Goldfish and they sat and watched Yo Gabba Gabba.

Poor  Marc, every time he sneezed the snot just shot out of his nose. He thought it was hilarious though. Typical boy!

My mom had a business trip in Dallas so she flew in early and drove to see us for the weekend. After a very rough trip which involved a flat tire, she made it! Her birthday had already passed but I made her a cake so that we could sing Happy Birthday (Emmery's favorite thing!)
Unfortunately I didn't take any other pictures that weekend. :-(

Every once in a while Emmery climbs into Marc's crib to play. Sometimes she even falls asleep!

The other day I made a PBJ for Em. When she told me she was finished I walked over to the table and found this. WTF? I wish I would have watched her eat to see how this happened!