Backyard Fun

The kids in the 'hood...or "hoodies".

 

Keep this picture in mind...it will come in handy in the next set of pictures...trust me.

 

Sisterly sweetness.

 

Clover hunting.

 

Takin' a break from a rough game with her ol' mom.

 

This would work better if Tate didn't try to keep using his Fred Flintstone feet to drive.

 

Next year I should be just tall enough to scale this thing and play Superman.

 

Excuse my larger than life derriere in this picture. I believe an explanation is in order...

 

The kids like to climb through these wooden slats. Today Drue and Tate were climbing through them and Reese said, "I think I'm too big to climb through those now." To which her unthinking mother replied..."No you're not. I could probably even climb through there." Reese shimmied through them and my curiosity/stupidity got the better of me. "Here, hold the camera," I instructed her. Of course, I meant for her just to keep it safe while I attempted my stunt, lest it be tossed to the ground below by her brother. The next thing I know, she's snapping pictures left and right squealing with laughter. I got halfway through and got stuck...by my belt buckle thank you very much. Needless to say, a slight moment of sheer panic did course through my veins as I pictured having to fish out my cell phone for Reese to call her dad and explain my plight. That was, if I could get her to stop laughing long enough. Obviously I made it through and lived to blog about it.

Mysteries of Motherhood

Well, I hate to replace the sweet Easter pictures with this tale, but it must be shared.

Little did I know that these few words, "Mommy I gotta go poo poo" would change the entire course of my morning.

"Ok sweetheart," I replied absently as Drue ran up from playing in the basement and made a bee line for her bathroom. I visually located the boy, making sure he wasn't going to try and follow her in there and wreak havoc on the toothpaste or shampoo bottles.

When I didn't hear the ordinary bathroom sounds that a 3 year old makes, singing or having a conversation with themselves on the potty, miscellaneous clamorings and clankings as the TP is pulled from the roll and little hands are being washed, I became concerned.

The door was opened and the light was on, but as I peered around the door frame, the key participant in this potty experience was missing. She left behind some lovely specimens of poo, however, all over her potty seat, all over the ducky toilet seat cover, on a hand towel, and on the tile floor.

My blood had not quite reached it's boiling point because my first concern was to find her. I turned around and faced the room she shares with Reese, and there she was, naked from the waste down, holding Reese's Hello Kitty from Build-A-Bear behind her back. That, folks, tipped my patience scales.

"DRUE!", I hollered...then stopped myself as I stared in disbelief at the unmistakeble sight of poo on Hello Kitty's white fur.

I collected myself and a calm peacefulness literally swept over me. This is a big deal...David will attest to that. I didn't feel anger at that moment...I just plain felt sorry for Drue. Poo can have a nasty way of sneaking out unexpectedly sometimes, especially from a 3 year old.

I was a bit perplexed that I hadn't found the motherload yet, however, so I kept asking her, "Where did the poopie go?" in a fake sweet voice.

With tears in her eyes, she simply said, "Out of my hole."

Upon further inspection, there was no trace of poo actually in the toilet. And I am still trying to piece together what exactly occurred. Normally, with kids, it's not to hard to deduce how something happened even if they aren't forthcoming with the information. With their mouth half full and crumbs on their shirt, you can pretty much figure out that they were the one who ate the cookie right before dinner. But this was just an odd scenario.

Ok, so the poopie came out quicker than anticipated onto the potty seat...but why was everything else within eyesight also covered? The last two smears I found were on Reese's quilt. (By the way...I am not planning on telling Reese of this mornings events...I will just present her with a sparkling Hello Kitty animal and some freshly laundered bedding upon her return from preschool.)

I guess Drue just bounced around the upstairs and wiped her little poopie tushie on anything soft and available. Very mysterious...

Of course I wiped her up, then tossed her in the bath, all the while reassuring her that poopie can play tricks on people sometimes.

Another mystery to go along with these events, is #1 Tate didn't find any poopie smudges before me and #2 He actually played in his room by himself the entire time while I cleaned everything up. Doesn't really add much comedy to my story, but I was grateful, nonetheless....

Happy Easter

 

 

Loved his face too much not to post this one...

 

Tate helped himself to a serving of rocks from my centerpiece before lunch started...

 

The Bunny Came!

My sister text messaged me this morning and said, "HE IS RISEN...have you? Get up and start enjoying this glorious day! May you all have a wonderful & blessed Easter."

To which I texted back, "Some of us rose at 5:45am and were put back to bed!". Ahem...Tate. Little stinker.

I half thought the Easter Bunny was going to bypass the Hollaway house this year the way Tate cried and carried on when they went to visit him a few weeks ago. (I will scan the picture in and post it.)

 

I LOVE the way toddlers crouch down with their whole body to pick something up off the floor. Drue still does it from time to time, but Reese has outgrown it. Precious.

 

S-T-R-E-T-C-H! Drue spied the orange egg on top of the mantle and went all the way down the length of the fireplace like this trying to find it with her little hand calling for it..."Orange egg? Orange egg?".

 

Reese with her egg loot on the couch. Again, the little coordinator. "Drue, I'll put my pile here, you put yours over there.." and so on and so forth.

 

Dye Job

Yes, it was messy.
Yes, by the end I was ready to run screaming from the house.
Yes, it made for some fun memories.

Drue insisted on holding up each egg she dyed for me to snap a picture. Half of which promptly rolled off her dipper and smashed onto the floor...but she was persistent by golly.

 

Reese loves to just dive right in and show the other two how it's done.

 

Tate was a little unsure about this strange tradition at first...

 

...but he got the hang of it pretty quickly. His hands still have a green and pink tinge today.

 

Dear Starbucks Employees:

You all must be psychic or something. Thank you so much for messing up my drink this morning and accidentally putting in an extra shot of espresso. You must have known I would need the extra caffeine boost and energy.

Trying to keep the dogs from opening our trash can, that silly man I married put the laundry detergent bottle on top of the lid. So when my 3 year old went to throw her gum away, somehow the entire bottle got dumped all over the floor.

 

This was quite possibly the worst mess I have had to clean up in all my mothering days. A sea of blue sticky liquid. I used almost an entire roll of paper towels. I was scared to use a regular towel because there was so much soap on the floor that I envisioned the washing machine bubbling over when I put the towel in the wash.

On a positive note, that floor has never been so clean. The glare from the shine was incredible afterwards! And the entire downstairs smells cottony fresh.

So, bless you, Starbucks, again for helping me get through this catastrophic fiasco. You can screw up my drink anytime...

 

Sincerely,
A Grateful Mother

p.s. Could you please spit in my husband's drink the next time he comes by? When I called to sweetly inform him of the results of his actions, he said, "Wow...I hope you were able to salvage some of the liquid and pour it back into the bottle so it wasn't wasted...."

What we've been up to

**Somehow the pictures have been lost on this post...I will try and fix it tomorrow.

Well, it was my own fault. Last winter one of the kids was sick every week it seemed like. David and I would take turns staying home with them, while the other one took the well kids to church. It was a long winter. This winter we seemed to escape most of the crud and were able to go to church as one big happy family. So what did I do? Weeks ago I opened my big mouth while I was talking to one of my friends, saying how lucky we'd been this winter, no one had been sick, etc. So, of course, the very next week...germs, crud, phlegm, puke, fevers, etc. all descended upon our little household.

David was gone for two weeks to Pennsylvania and California. When he returned home from Pennsylvania, he brought us all a special treat...the FLU virus. It was terrible. Our viruses overlapped which has never happened before that I can remember, so one day we both had fevers of 103 and 102 and were trying to take care of the kids. Anyway, we are finally emerging from our feverish fog and I don't think I've ever been so glad to see Spring coming.

Here are a few snapshots of the sick kiddos. I had to pick Reese up from preschool TWICE for being sick. Usually even when she has a fever, it doesn't slow her down too much, but this one knocked her out. It got up to 104!

 

My sick little man. His fever got up to 103.9 that day. You can tell when he and Reese have a fever a mile away...their little faces and ears get bright red.

 

Drue's face and ears don't get red, but her eyes glass over when she has a fever. And you can't tell by touching her. One night as I was putting her to bed, I felt her forehead and it seemed fine. On a whim I decided to take her temp because her eyes were giving her away...it was 102!

I decided to throw in a few pictures of Tate's new hiding place...the girls' dresser.

 

 

And thats our lives for the past few weeks in a nutshell. Feels good to be back...