Probably Orange

Our backyard borders the elementary school and a few weeks ago, their big lawn mower came out to mow that big field. I asked Jarren, "Do you think that color [of the lawn mower] is red or orange?" Jarren looked at it and said, "Probably orange." Now, every time Jenna sees a lawn mower, she calls it "probably orange."

Speaking of lawn mowers, I was mowing last week and almost mowed over a SNAKE!!! I was screaming and I'm sure the neighbors thought I hurt myself. Luckily, the ambulance didn't show up. It slithered (really creepily) through the fence--maybe it sensed it wasn't welcome here. :)

And last of all, for all of you Backyardigan fans, Jarren and Jenna now call worms "wormans."

My Little Bird

Yesterday, Jenna came up with a new plan to try and catch the wild birds outside. She got a small handful of bird seeds and ran around after them saying, "C'mere birdie! Come eat your dinner!" Of course they'd fly away, but she sure did try hard to get one to come to her hand. She tried for about 10 minutes. Silly girl!

Guess what we will probably be doing this summer?? Potty training! Jenna asked 3 times this weekend to sit on the toilet, but of course she didn't actually go in it. Maybe soon.....

I'm Not Going After All

My days have gotten better, so therefore, I'm not going to Australia. :) I managed to take all 4 kids swimming (by myself) the other day and none of us drowned. The kids have been helpful and good--for the most part.

JON AND KENDALL left this morning for their trip to New England. Poor Jon!! He missed his flight last night (luckily they had another flight later), so he got home around 10:15 pm. We had to leave at 4:30 am to drop them off at the airport. By the time we got his laundry done and his suitcase packed, it was midnight--he got less than 4 hours of sleep!

JARREN has been super into Star Wars for about a year now and just this morning decided that he's obsessed with Jinny-auna Jones (Indiana Jones). He now wants an Indiana Jones birthday party--good thing I haven't even done one thing to plan his party yet.

KRISTEN has dance pictures today and her last competition is next week. She has her recital June 2 and we're done for the "year." She's always wanting to help cook lately. That's exciting!

JENNA loves Hello Bunny right now (it's really Hello Kitty--I'm not sure why she thinks it's a bunny). She'll be off playing and then come and find me and say, "Mama! I missed you!" So cute...

Maybe I'll Move to Australia

My life since Monday makes me think of the children's story "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day," but my "day" is lasting all week.

I took Jenna to the doctor for her 2 year checkup on Monday and she was perfectly healthy. She's 27 lbs. 9 ozs. (78%) and 35 inches (81%)! Yes, a big girl! She woke up from her nap later that day and had a fever--100.5 degrees. How in the world did she get that if she was perfectly healthy? And she didn't even have a shot! The next day, she was fine.

Later that night, I asked Jarren to go and get his pajamas on and he forgot that he left a little dinosaur outside, so he ran outside in only his underwear. Apparently at this age, clothes aren't too important.

I needed to go grocery shopping yesterday and everything went wrong. I couldn't find the keys, Jarren's shoes, my list, etc. We finally went and three of the four kids were HORRIBLE!! Jenna wouldn't stay in the cart. Jarren and Kristen wanted me to buy everything they saw and kept trying to throw things in the cart. They started fighting and crying and screaming. I guess I'm mean because I'm not going to fill up the cart with junk food. I managed to get a couple of things in the cart, but had to get a neighbor girl to come and babysit later so I could finish. And I lost the keys again. Kendall was sweet--he asked if he could choose a few things to cook for us for lunch. He chose Italian sausage with cheese and strawberries.

Last night, Jarren and Kristen went over to the neighbors. They have a wooden skate ramp and Jarren decided to slide down on his tummy and got tons of little slivers all over one part of his stomach. I heard if you put glue on and let it dry, you can just peel it and they'll come out. I tried it, but not all of them came out. Poor kid! I need to try some other things, because the needle and tweezers aren't working either--too traumatic I guess.

Just before bed, I went to open the pantry and the door fell off. It's big and heavy and almost fell on me. I'm just so glad it didn't fall on one of the kids.

We all slept in until 9:10 this morning and Jarren has preschool at 9:30! He was a little bit late, but we made it! Jon's out of town on business and I swear when he leaves, everything falls apart. Maybe tomorrow will be a better day. If not, maybe I'll move to Australia.

Dancing Queen

I almost forgot to put these pictures of our dancing queen on here! Kristen had a dance competition last Saturday. She was in two dances--a cute one to "Wishin' and Hopin'" (in the purple dress) and her whole dance school did a production number set to Peter Pan--she was a crocodile.

The production number took 1st place. The older girl who leads the crocodiles out broke her arm and the girl who took her place didn't know where to put them and so they danced off in the corner at first and then spread out, but it was still cute. Just me and a few other moms were having a cow, trying to figure out how to get them to move to the center.

The other dance took 2nd. This was the first competition for some of the girls and one poor girl got confused and didn't know where to go. But it was still just so cute! If I can figure out how to put video on here, I'll put a clip. But don't hold your breath....

Kristen had a lot of fun, but it sure was a long day for me. :)

Update on School--Maybe There's Hope...

Jarren still says he HATES preschool. He only has 5 more times and then he's done and he always seems to have had fun, but it's so hard to get him there. I've been dreading Kindergarten because it's like preschool, but it's every day and they obviously learn more. I've been feeling like I'll be fighting him with school until he graduates from high school.

We had a Kindergarten orientation last Friday morning at the Elementary school. They divided the kids into three groups, based off of the color of their name tag, and they went with one of the teachers while the parents sat in a meeting. They were gone for about 45 minutes and Jarren will NOT talk about what they did. After they brought them back, they got a packet of Keebler Elf cookies and we went home. But he came running up to me and said, "Mom!!! That was AWESOME!!!" and he keeps asking when he gets to start going to Kindergarten. Now I have hope that things will get better.

Happy Birthday Jenna!

It happened yesterday--my baby turned two years old!! Jenna woke up and saw the balloons, so we sang the happy birthday song to her. All day long at odd times she'd burst out into song (even inserting the "happy birthday dear Jenna" part).

After we dropped Jarren off at preschool, Kendall, Kristen, and I took her in for her birthday pictures. They gave her a flower to hold and it fascinated her for a long time. I was expecting to get maybe one picture, but they let her sit on my lap for several of them, so we got more than I thought we would.

Kristen had a mandatory dance practice and Jenna had so much fun running around chasing this little boy and climbing up and down the stairs with Jarren.

I think the older three kids had more fun opening gifts than Jenna did. She loved what was inside and wanted to sit and play with it, but someone would rip open another gift for her. She got some fun gifts!

Now for the cake....Jenna has a bee toy that used to be Jarren's, but she loves it! She talks to it and treats it like a baby. I was trying to think of what kind of cake to make her when I thought of a bee cake. I showed her some pictures online of bee cakes and she got excited. The night before her birthday, I was looking to decide which one to make and she started saying, "Bee cake. No yellow. I don't. I want pink cake." So after a few seconds of questioning, I think she was trying to tell me that she wanted a pink and brown bee cake. Hey, it's her birthday, so that's what I made--just in case anyone's wondering why it looks like a blushing bee. :)

Of course, it all tasted better with her dancing around on the top of the table. Jenna was thought it was kind of neat to have candles in the cake, so she got ALL of the candles and put them in her piece of cake.

I think she had a fun day--it's hard to believe how fast the time went--two already!