Wisconsin!!

So I know I went to Wisconsin a month ago and should have blogged about it before it now... but so it goes... Blogging is not really my m.o.... but here goes!

We had the most wonderful wonderful wonderful trip in the entire world. Yes I mean it that emphatically. There are several more pictures to go so at some point in my life I will do a Wisconsin part 2 post. I will just use the pictures to tell the story of our trip...



Marie is hamming it up in McDonalds. I thought this was so cute... hi Marie!

We went to the Green Bay Zoo and this is where Marie is trying to eat the Giraffe's cookie.

"No marie, you have to feed it to the Giraffe."

"But Mom... I want to eat it!"

Marie and Hayden hanging out on a bench. Marie still says "HAYDEN!!!" all the time around our house. It is soooooo sad to me that there is no Hayden here to respond to Marie's calls.

I hope these two will grow up as good friends... just like their Mom's. :)

This picture wasn't meant to come in the line up like this but oh well.... Here marie is finishing feeding an Alpaca. She fed him ONE pellet at a time... poor guy probably thought she was just teasing him. Well anyway, after every single bite Marie clapped for him. I guess we did that a little too much teaching Marie to eat...

Here is Mr. Alpaca... or Miss... I didn't check to find out...

Alpaca feeding again...

And again....

Hayden with the Alpaca...

Grace helping Marie with a bike... I think she got her workout...

I don't think Marie is helping her out...

But Marie sure does love playing with Miss Grace

Awww. I miss you Grace. Marie does too!

It was very hard to leave. Marie and I both had the best week. There is still so much more to write about but that is all the patience I have for loading pictures tonight. I will do Wisconsin part 2 at some point in the near future!

Cook!

my little kitchen helper woke up this morning ready to cook. She went straight to the kitchen and put on the oven mits and kept saying "cook mommy cook!" So, we "cooked" toast.

Free Earthquake Book

Marie loves books. I love that she loves books. There is a publishing company that makes educational books in math and science for children. We have a lot of the books and there are a couple reasons I love them. Number 1: Marie loves the pictures. Number 2: at the end of the story there are activities and games you can play with your kid to supplement their learning. Number 3: they are fun stories that teach about important subjects.

Marie's favorite book is Newton and Me. She loves it because it has a dog in it. The book is all about a little boy who plays with his dog Newton. Really, the entire book is about Newton's laws of motion and gravity.

My favorite book is Burro's Tortillas. This book is a spanish version of the little red hen. The book is all about cooking tortillas and helping. Part of the book has you whinee like a donkey and so now when Marie hands it to me to read she just whinnees. I think she thinks that is the title of the book. At the end of the story there is the recipe for making Tortillas. A couple weeks ago Marie and I read the book for the millionth time and then went to the store and bought Maseca and then made tortillas for dinner that night. I love the interactive learning in these books.

Anyway, this is kind of a long post to explain that this publishing company has a book all about Earthquakes and explaining Earthquakes to little kids. With what is going on in Japan right now the company has made the book available online for free for a week so that you can teach your children about the earthquake. Below is a link to the website and pictures of Marie with the book.

www.sylvandellpublishing.com

The real world of this houswife

when I feel like torturing myself I read other people's blog. More specifically, I read other stay at home mom's blogs. To say this is torture is really an understatement. I always walk away from the computer feeling depressed and a little crazy. It seems like every other at home mom is a perfect chef, housekeeper, baker, entertainer, etc. And they must be telling the truth because they have pictures to prove it right? I don't undertand how they do so much in one day? And then have time to write a book about it?

So let me tell you how today went for me... no sugar coating....


Marie and I bought Bambi the other day so we stayed in our pj's and watched Bambi together. We didn't get dressed for the day until after lunch. Lunch was supposed to be nutella sandwhiches but Marie only wanted to eat pretzels... I didn't fight her this time... she had pretzels and then licked the chocolate off the bread of her uneaten sandwhich for lunch.


This afternoon we made dinner for a couple that just had a baby on Saturday. Let me take a side note here to say that laMont and I adore this couple. They are so wonderful and their baby boy is the cutest baby. Ok so back to our day... I always let Marie "help" me cook because I want her to feel like she is a part of the process and I hope that along the way she will learn to cook. Well, we made Pizza's for the couple and Marie dumped a bunch of pizza sauce all over herself while I was putting the pizza's in the oven... sauce comes out of clothing right? I left the shirt on her... we had just made it out of pj's I didn't want to have to change her again that fast.


We decided since we had already cooked and laMont wasn't going to make it home for dinner tonight that we would go to Chick Fil a for there free kids meal night. This was a HORRIBLE idea. The place was packed. I finally get marie in, order our food, secure a table and a high chair (I did drop one drink which exploded all over the floor and a little 5 year old girl). I gave Marie her food and we are all ready to eat when Marie discovers the play ground. She BEGS "play please play please play please!" over and over and over. She won't TOUCH her food. I give up... I pack up all the uneaten food (I did manage to put the dressing on my salad which means by the time I eat it the entire thing is going to be soggy) and we go to the play ground. She plays until I tell her it is time to leave. When I tell her that she launches into the most hysterical temper tantrum ever... EVER. In front of a million judging eyes I yank her and our food out of there and to the car where we come home and I discover that she got into her food in the car and dumped it all over herself.

I am trying to get those pictures at the begining of this post down here at the end. I can't figure it out... Anyway, the first one is Marie dirty dancing in our back yard. The second is Marie helping me cook pizza's for our friends.

Anyway that was our day!

ps. the only reason I wrote so much is because nothing good comes on TV on Tuesday nights. This is probably when I will start doing my blog catch up... and torturing myself reading other's blogs.

Mr. Morgan

I took a very last minute trip to Wilkes this weekend and was only there for a very short visit. We had a wonderful time though. Marie LOVES her cousin Morgan. In this first picture, she was just meeting Morgan. It was taken over Christmas break just after he was born. The second picture is from this weekend.

Marie wanted to hold Morgan sooooooo badly. When I would sit her on my lap to help her hold him she would grab him around the waist and try to run off with him. Of course this didn't work so she was pretty upset. She settled on just giving him lots and lots and lots of kisses and hugs. She won't even hug and kiss LaMont or I that much! She loves Morgan!

I titled this Mr. Morgan because for some reason that is what he goes by. The funny thing is that EVERYONE calls him that. Even if they haven't heard someone else say it. So this is my nephew, Mr. Morgan.

My wonderful husband

LaMont suprised me on Monday. I knew he had taken the day off work but I didn't know what we were going to do. I woke up and when I walked out of the bedroom he had a bag packed for Marie. I saw her stuffed sweetpea that she sleeps with so I knew she was going somewhere. He had lined up a babysitter for the day and took me hiking!

We hiked Sharp Top at the Peaks of Otter. This is the same hike that my sisters and I did when I first moved to VA. On that hike we ran into 4 bears. No bears this time!

I am so out of shape that I didn't think I was going to make it to the top but we made it and it was sooooo worth it. The top of the mountain is huge boulders. It was so beautiful. It felt so good to make it to the top, especially with my favorite person :)

This picture to the left is Lamont near the top of the Mountain bragging that he has cell phone service. He won't get a new phone because he claims he doesn't need a new one when his still works. I have to admit that this is something I love about him because he never spends money unless he has to and he will use something until it absolutely won't work anymore. I am very similar so we are a good match. Anyway, whatever phone I have never seems to work as good as his ancient nokia. This was just more proof that some things aren't made as good as they use to be!

Enjoy some pictures from our wonderful trip. I had the very best day ever. I love you LaMont! Thank you for a perfect day.

Sleep Sack

We love the Halo Sleep Sack. Marie sleeps in one every night. I don't love the price of it though. I kept examining it and thinking.. I bet I could make one. I went to JoAnn's to look for a pattern and couldn't find one. So I decided to just wing it. I used her current sleep sack as a guide and went for it. I didn't have high hopes for this one because it was my learning one but it came out just fine. I love it! I am very excited about this!