Betty Crocker Goes Hollywood

Sunglasses on your head make Snickerdoodles even better.

She's my helper. She dumped the ingredients in the mixer and bopped around on her step stool to Mariah Carey's Musicbox CD (it's been a looooong time since I've pulled that one out!).

Mzuri Sana

We had a Kenyan in our home tonight. It did my heart such good! Apparently our decorations reminded him of home, so maybe it did his heart good too. :)

What I'm listening to

Tessa's playing dress up and talking to herself. I get to listen. She just found her Groovy Girls in the bottom of the dress up box. I asked how they got there, and she explained that they must have been playing Hide and Go Seek. As she's playing....

"And it's going to be very dramatic and beautiful! It's going to be like dreaming."

I took the kids to lunch at The Corner Bakery today. We had a lovely time together. And lovely food.

On the way home, she asked me if we could go to a dinosaur museum next year to see the dinosaur bones. Before I could answer, she said, "No. I don't want to go. I might be scared. Let's go to a mineral museum instead!" Then she proceeded to plan out a trip to the "mineral museum" with all her friends and then explained what they would see in a cave.

The "mineral museum"? Sounds like a party to me.

As the dress up playing continues, she's singing her made up song, "And I've got a thing to saaaaaay. Don't mess the shoes. Baby, baby."

I'm getting pulled in. Time to don the crown because apparently, "Today we're going to the magical castle. Shake your pants because it's tiiiime to go."

I'm gone. :)

Good News

Grandma and Grandpa M. opened up the mission call last night. As you can see, they are headed toward the historical mission of Nauvoo, Illinois. We were able to share the big envelope opening with the family last night on the web cam. I'm so thankful for modern technology allowing us to participate. We are thrilled for Jake's awesome parents who embark on their LDS missionary adventures in June.

In other news:

Here are a few ways my kids made me laugh today--

+When Cole is ticked off, he doesn't just say or yell "No!", he does it in this Michael Jackson, "Ow!" kind of scream. "Now!" It's funny. I can't help it. I want him to spin and moonwalk after he does it.

+In happier moments, Cole's inward sucking of air laugh and nose wrinkle is the best. I told him to dance with his stuffed dog. He walked in a circle with it and laughed at himself like he'd just told the best joke on the planet.

+Right now he's happily flying his "pane" (plane) through the air.

+Today our power went off for maybe a minute. Weird. Tessa looked at me and asked, "What's happening to us?"

"We're fine, honey. The power just shut off. It'll come back on soon enough," I replied.

She answered with, "We need to buy a new, helpthy house."

+I got Tessa new socks. She thinks she has won the lottery. (Socks with stars on them ARE awesome, to be fair.) She has been so excited to wear her new socks and jacket for the last couple of days and claims that she's "the best girl on the whole earth!"

Mama Mia

Grandma Lori came to see us! My mom. We ate yummy food, we shopped and wandered, we kicked back, we looked at neighborhood possibilities (for her!), we had a Just Dance 2 dance off, we played, and we talked, talked, talked, and more.

It was so good to have her here. Tessa has such a special relationship with each of her grandparents, which is so fun to see when they come to visit.

Here are the only two pictures I took while Grandma was here!

Tessa's massively forced "smile" and Cole's miserably sad teething self. I think three teeth came through while Mom was here. She was so patient with him. He finally felt much better a couple days before she left, so I'm glad she had some fun time with him too.

Thanks for coming, Mom. :)

Get Outta Town!

I reached a point this last month where I was buzzing on my overload setting. My friend Melissa was starring in a community theater play in Oklahoma and left an open invite to go see her perform. I wanted to, but wasn't sure if I could in good conscience leave everything behind for a couple days, but Jake assured me that I could and I should. He was right. What a relief to be able to step away for a bit-- to visit with wonderfully fun and good friends. It was just what I needed. I came back feeling better equipped to happily move forward. :

Meet Benson:
Benson Blue Eyes.

And this is Mr. Cole showing off his appetite for pizza. (Hooray! An appetite! Eat, Bubs, eat!)
We went to a family fun place for pizza and arcade games. The kids had so much fun and were buzzing in every direction.
Cole wanted nothing to do with me. He ran from game to game to push buttons and see the lights.


Tickets! I love arcades with tickets. I love seeing how much cheap junk you can get from the tickets.

The family on the floor.

I can't believe I was able to hold onto Cole or Tessa long enough to get a picture. :)

Jake and I went to see Melissa in her show that night while Matt stayed back with the kids while they slept. Aaaaaah. A date night. We had, as always, a fantastic and happily laid back time in Lawton. Thank you!

Getting over and on with it...

I've avoided loading pictures onto the computer and putting them on the blog because it now involves a couple more steps with the Mac than it once did. I realize I need to get over it --mainly so I can document these two yayhoots. (How do you spell that? There's no way I'm the only one who grew up with that word as part of my vocabulary.)

Grandparents sent some Valentine fun, and these lunch boxes are part of the booty. Lucky kids. We parents got chocolate. Lucky parents.

Okay, so here are a few things that I can remember I've wanted to write down about the kids that I haven't gotten around to....

*About a week ago I was driving the kids home from a friend's house. When we were pulling into the garage, Tessa told me that "Cole is really good at hip hop dancing."

"Really?" I asked, followed by a mumbled, "Do you even know what hip hop dancing is?" Then I realized I needed to seize this opportunity, because the possibilities were too good to pass up. I changed my response to, "Tessa, can you show me what hip hop dancing looks like?" She agreed, stepped out of the car onto the garage floor, and let loose a serious of moves that proved that she did, indeed, know what hip hop dancing was --a four year old version, anyway. Love my dancing girl.

*Tessa worries about dreams. I've tried to make her imagine fun things she loves right before she goes to sleep, which works sometimes, but lately, the approach has changed. I told her that sometimes I sing a primary song or hymn when I get scared or want to keep good things in my mind. She told me she could sing "I am a Child of God". It's become one of my favorite things to walk by her room soon after we've said good night and hear her singing that song with her sweet little voice.

*Tessa got put in timeout. What?! Not Tessa! She doesn't handle the punishment with grace very often, and hates being ignored. She was standing with her nose to the wall crying, smacking the wall, and yelling, "Mama!" to get my attention. Since Cole wants to be big like his sister, he watched her for a minute, walked over to the wall, started to fake cry, smack the wall, and yell for mama. He looked around, didn't see the sense in it and toddled off.

*Tessa's vocabulary....she's so funny...and dramatic. "I just can't take this much longer," or "I can't do this all day," is what she says when she's irritated that I'm making her do something she doesn't want to do. One day she let me know what her "hypothesis" about a certain situation was --go PBS! :) When she says "healthy", she actually says "helpthy", which I love. I told her to get one of her princess dolls dressed because she was tired of being naked, to which she replied, "Oh! There are beautiful dresses in the closet! (of her dollhouse) These are calories and will look ravishing!" She doesn't get all her new words right, but it's fun to hear her try them out.

*Cole loves to mess with things he isn't supposed to --and laughs when he's in trouble. He often climbs on the kitchen table and climbs to get to the computer and manages to open or change a myriad of programs before I can get to him. His skinny self is a lot more physically daring than his sister was at that age....even though he walked later.

*Along with the very basics like "Mama", "Daddy", "no", "ball", "hi/hwo" and "bye", Cole says, "peeaa" for please, "down", "done", "Sessa" for Tessa, "juuuuu!" for juice, "faffle" for waffle, "nana" for banana, "yeah" for yes, "doggy", "mine!", "nigh" for night, "moon", "baby", and a bunch more --since the list is getting longer than I thought it would be.

*Cole loves Baby Signing Time. Miss Rachel calms that kid down pretty quickly. Music CD's came with the 3rd and 4th DVD's, and I originally wondered what in the world I was going to use them for, but the sometimes cranky time of day, mom is making dinner time, is a lot more pleasant when he gets to listen to his music. Sometimes I can get him to sing the Baby Signing Time theme song. :)

*Tessa loves her art projects. She's got a little of me coming out in her though. Sometimes she'll get distressed when things don't look or come out like she'd envisioned they would. However, she comes up with some awesome drawings, color patterns, and ideas and is usually pretty proud of her creations.