Mommathon

We had our Easter Egg Hunt at church today. The weather was cruddy so we had to have it inside, but it was still a great hunt. We had donut holes and juice to snack on beforehand. There was also coloring, hopscotch and a kiddie pool full of bubbles to keep the kids entertained.

I have been wanting to buy these for the boys for quite some time, but I haven't because I didn't want to buy them if they weren't going to eat them. Well, today they had samples at the grocery store-what luck! They had three different flavors and the boys decided they liked the purple ones best. We bought a bag and now that we have them I don't care if they eat them-I want to eat them ALL. They are SO GOOD and good for you, too. I would be surprised if there are any left by the end of tonight.

You might be familiar with Whyville. It borders Whoville and Whatville in the land of Question. Colm is the leader of Question and I am his faithful servant who answers ALL of his questions...ALL of them that are neverending. He is at that age where he wants to know what that is, what her name is, what does that do, what are we doing next, who lives there, what's that sound, etc. etc. etc. We went to get our oil changed today and there are a lot of things to ask questions about in the oil changing shop. At one point the oil guy laughed at us because there were just so many questions to be answered. It's good to know we were able to bring a little joy to someone's day today.

Sean has discovered the world of Imo's Pizza and we just recently discovered that they deliver, too. We always used to get Imo's when I was in high school and we went to go visit my brother at UMR. Imo's is a St. Louis thing and there are a lot of St. Louisians in Rolla. Anyways, I took the boys there the other day for lunch and they LOVED it. Who wouldn't? With their kid-sized pizza, they also got a juice box, some applesauce and come graham cracker goldfish. Sean was jealous, so we got Imo's again a few days later for dinner. I love Imo's and the store is owned by people who go to our church, so it is a win-win. I think we are officially an Imo's family now.

We are a winning family. I have won twice in the past four weeks. The first thing I won was some lovely products from Arbonne at our monthly MOYC meeting at church and I also won an appetizer serving dish thing from a fundraiser Liam's school was having a couple of weeks ago. Then, today, we got a phone call from Mr. Bradley at the library telling us that Liam had won their grand prize from the Arthur week they had last week during Spring Break. He won some Arthur books and an Arthur doll. Now all I need to do is win the tickets that will get us to Vegas.

We went by our lot today and they have FINALLY started to dig. We signed our contract in very early January, so we have anxiously been awaiting some sort of action. We were very happy when we saw this when we drove by our lot today. The kids were also excited because their parents have been driving them by "the lot" atleast once a week for the past two plus months and there had been no action up until today..not very exciting when you are two and five. The arrival of the bulldozer got them sitting up in their carseats though. :)

Take a Ziploc sandwich bag, some small pieces of construction paper and a pipe cleaner and...voila...you have yourself a butterfly! I can't take credit for coming up with this little gem of an activity, we have to thank our friends at High Five magazine.

I have commented before on how I can't believe some of the crazy things that come out of my mouth and I have noticed that many of these conversations center around food. Kids will do that to you! Two of my recent favorites:

Colm, the dog doesn't eat pickles.

(To Liam) Why are you rubbing cheese on my leg?

Click here to test how many states you can name in ten minutes. I came up with all but six...not too shabby, but definitely room for improvement. How did you do?

If you don't already know, Liam is a picky eater and in the past two weeks he has eaten two of his forbidden foods. He ate pizza last week-with sauce on it! Tonight he ate turkey, as in on a sandwich! Sean is SO patient with Liam. I just don't have the patience to fight him! Somehow Sean has been able to get him to eat things he would NEVER eat for me. You know what he ate in January? A HAMBURGER! Yes, a hambuger, people. He hasn't eaten one since, but he ate it without much of a fight and he said he liked it. I am going to make them for dinner this week...we'll see what happens.

We went to Cabela'sthis weekend since we had to get out of the house since people were coming to look at it. We had never been there and I knew it had a lot of animals that I thought the kids might enjoy. Okay, I knew the animals would be dead, but I didn't realize there would be SO MANY of them. Seriously, it gave me the chills!!! Also, if they knew who killed the animal they had a little plaque with the shooter's name and the year it was "taken" next to the animal. One of them had been dead since 1938. That thing's been dead longer than most people I know have been living. We don't hunt and if you don't hunt either, you probably don't want to go there. It's just weird.

I got thismagazine for Colm for Christmas and it is perfect for him. It says it is for ages 2-6, but I would say it is probably for kids who are 2 1/2 to 4 1/2 maybe...it's hard to say since all kids are different. (If you want to borrow one of ours first to see if it is something you would be interested in let me know.) It has short stories, rhymes, easy hidden picture games, poems, finger plays and more. It is made by the same people who make Highlights magazine.

Colm did a great job yesterday post surgery, but you could tell he was hurting. The doctor gave us Tylenol with codeine and I gave it to him religiously, but he was still walking around half bent over like I did after I had my C-sections. That didn't seem to stop him from running around though. At one point he lifted up his shirt to show me his incision and he said, "Why doctor do dat?" Poor guy.

Okay, maybe not THE BEST, but pretty darn close. I went to the bathroom at the hospital today and this is what I saw! Have you ever been in public and had to use the restroom and you have your little one with you and you aren't quite sure what to do with them while you are going to the bathroom? THIS is what you do with them! It's like a carseat thing that you strap them in so they will stay put for two seconds so you can do your business. How smart is that?!

Colm was such a trooper today! He didn't get to eat anything all day until after his surgery and he didn't put up a big fuss about that. (I, personally, was starving since we couldn't exactly go ahead and eat in front of him.) He might have decided to not complain about the lack of food since he did get to have two doctor-approved popsicles for breakfast as well as three glasses of doctor-approved Sprite in the morning, too. We had to wait about an hour before his surgery started and since he was the last surgery of the day he had the whole place to himself! He got to play with all the cars and all the toys. He also had some coloring books and sticker books to play with that we had brought from home. When it was time for him to get wheeled back to the surgery room he didn't cry one teeny tiny tear. (Thank goodness because if he had that would have been the end of it for me.) He did great in postop, too. He was still really tired and just wanted to lay down. When we got him home I sat him down in the kitchen and he just laid there. He was having hot flashes from some meds that they gave him so I am sure the cool wood floor felt good. It wasn't long though before he was running around chasing the cat. We are going to TRY and take it easy tomorrow. Colm may have another agenda though.

Notice the cute hospital gown. It was even cuter from the back with his diaper hanging out.


Putting a matching ID bracelet on Duckie.

My mom and I went to go see Music and Lyrics today with Drew Barrymore and Hugh Grant. It is definitely a chick flick and I would recommend it. Not only is it a great spoof on 80's music, it is funny, too.

My sister-in-law told me this: Cleaning a house with children is like shoveling during a blizzard. Truer words were never spoken.

We went on a tour of the hospital last night for Colm and they did such a good job that Liam wants to have surgery now, too. They watched a little movie and then they got to try out a stethoscope, a blood pressure cuff, an oxygen monitor and the mask that delivers the "sleepy medicine". They also get to pick out the smell for the sleepy medicine. They can choose from bubblegum, banana, orange or strawberry. Colm wants bubble gum and Liam wants banana. Liam has also picked out the stuffed animal he wants to bring with him to the hospital because the stuffed animal gets a hospital bracelet, too. As we left they both got bags that had a hospital cap and mask so they could play hospital at home. Liam knows that he isn't having surgery. He isn't even going to be at the hospital when Colm has his surgery, but he's ready to go if he ever does have to have surgery.

I took the boys to go buy some shoes today. We walked into the store and it was packed! We had to sign up on a sheet so that we could queue up for someone to help us. We were there for about ten minutes when it was clear to me that my children were not going to wait quietly so we headed out the door and went to the toystore a few doors down for a few minutes. I figured if our names were called while we were at the toystore it was our loss and we would just come back another day-no big deal. After playing for a short while, we went back to the shoe store and we were still at the same spot on the list, but I figured we must be getting closer. Certainly the people before us should be close to finishing up. We waited about another ten minutes or so and I looked at the list-our names had been marked off, but no one had called our name. Time is money. We left. I was ticked that I had wasted AT LEAST thirty minutes of my morning waiting to buy shoes and then we got skipped on the list. Maybe we'll try again tomorrow since we'll be in that neck of the woods anyway. Maybe we won't even go back to that store...I am still a little ticked.

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UPDATE: We went back later on tonight...there was no sign-in sheet because we were the only people there...we finally have shoes.

Last year Liam went to a half-day violin camp. It was the first time he had ever gone and I didn't even think to bring my camera. There were several moments during the camp that would have made great pictures. I promised myself that this year I would remember my camera, but I didn't. Ugh! And this time camp was a whole day, so there were even more picture perfect moments to capture! Liam had a great time, but we were both tired/exhausted/zombies at the end of the day.