The more you eat, the more you toot...

Tonite at dinner, Dr. D got sent into time-out for passing gas at the table.  He does this out one end or the other almost daily, so we are trying to break that bad habit.  He finished his dinner not too long after returning to the table and as he was clearing his plate...here came more toots.  He laughed and said, "Why do I keep farting?  Maybe there is something in my pocket!"  (checks pocket)  "Hmm.  Nothing".  A shrug and then continues walking to the kitchen with his plate.
I wonder what could have been in his pocket to cause such a thing?  :)

Father's and Son's

Last weekend was our ward Father and Son outing.  DH took both our boys, and they had a BLAST!  Here is how Dr. D packs for a campout:

That would include:  two armor shields and some cars, and about 6 pairs of pajamas.  :)

Here they are leaving:

(as good as I could get of the very back seat-they were literally driving away)

Glad my boys had a great time together and came home safely.  Let's do that again!  ;)

Raising a rockstar

We like to start our groupies young-

He LOVES singing in the mic, too.  Fun!

How does your garden grow?

Turns out, despite my black thumb, I CAN grow some things!!  This is so exciting!

Tail Gunner at Two

What Tailgunner does as a new 2-year-old:

Has times where he talks, and talks, and talks (mostly unrecognizeable, but there is definitely inflection in that jabber)
Loves to sing
Is a very serious, somber observer around people he doesn't know very well
LOVES being outside
Can say prayers (it's so CUTE!) and read scriptures (he repeats what we say in both cases, although he does input some of his own into the prayers)  He loves to fold his arms.
Favorite game is hide and seek, esp the counting and seeking part.  Not so much the hiding.
Can say all of the family and close friends names
They sound like this:  Teeny Bopper is "Eeeeee",  Blondie is "Nana", Little Miss is "See-see-ya", Dr. D is "Een-ta".  For some reason he doesn't say Sweet G's or his own name very often.
Loves bubbles with all his heart, esp. the "bubba dun", Teeny boppers bubble gun
Finally likes nursery at church!!  He actually wants to go now
Doesn't care for TV.  Even if its on he doesn't watch it, except sometimes he watches video games momentarily
Loves watermelon, apples "bapp-o", grapes "geeps", strawberries "beeees", frozen cherries, yogurt, toast "tote", pizza
Loves to drink water, hates milk.  When he wants a drink he says thirsty, sounds like "tee-tee"
Still has orange hair
Loves cars, both real and toy
Loves looking at pictures of himself and family
Loves grandpa "paw-paw", grandma "pa-ma", and Nana "nana"
Goes to bed well and sleeps well at night, but has recently started revolting his naps.  Not ready for that yet!

That's our Tail Gunner in a nutshell!  Babies change so fast.  I love being his mom and watching him grow.

Da birthday boy

For Tail Gunner's big 0-2 birthday day party, we had a little family dinner party.

We played:

We were excited about cake:

VERY excited:

We pointed and talked about the cake:

 We tried to get into the cake with our brother:

We blew out candles.  Dr. D showed him how to blow with the first candle:

 Then TG knew just what to do:

It was YUMMY cake!

Blondie and Sweet G made a game where we chose a paper out of a bowl that had an object written on it.  We then had to make up a commercial to advertise that object.  Blondie chose "the newest Hip Hop CD".  She gathered a few props for hers:

Teeny Bopper got a "can of peas".  She looks pretty convincing, don't you think?

I wrote down some of the "catchiest" lines from that game.  Some are so funny!
Canned hot dogs- "because any time is wienie time!"
Tangerine- "sweet enough to handle, tart enough to be exciting!"
Overweight Barbie- "because McDonald's is the staple of our society, we have become bigger so our dolls have, too!"
Hip Hop CD- "Bunny Blastin' by Homie.  We're shootin bunny rabbits, wearing hats crooked and other bad habits..."
Doorknob- "only 19.95 plus $195.00 shipping and handling."
Fancy Nancy book- (by Dr. D) "you need to buy these books at the library because store don't sell books."

Nana brought bubbles, including the kind you can catch and stack.  Blondie had fun with these:

Dr. D was pretty fascinated with how they don't pop and they landed all over him.

 I love my baby boy!  (he's great to squish and love on) :)

Happy Birthday Tail Gunner!!

We love you! (lookin' forward to #3)

Last week!!

Only one more week of this:

I am SO GLAD!!  I am soooo looking forward to a more relaxed summer schedule.  How about you?

Temples and Dr. D

We have an LDS temple screen saver on the computer.  Dr. D was sitting and watching the different temples come up, and his daddy started asking questions.  It went like this:

Dad: What's that?
Dr. D:  Temple!
Dad:  How do you know?
Dr. D:  Because it has a Statue of Liberty on it.

Dad: What's that?
Dr. D:  Temple  (it was St. George with the weather vane)
Dad: How do you know?
Dr. D:  It has an arrow on it.

Dad:  What's that?
Dr. D:  Temple  (Manti, with spires on the towers)
Dad:  How do you know?
Dr. D:  It has a thorn on it.

Dad:  What's that?
Dr. D:  Temple!
Dad:  How do you know?
Dr. D:  It has the Angel Moroni on it.  (I guess he remembered it was Moroni instead of Lady Liberty, LOL)

Dad:  What's that?
Dr. D:  Temple  (Mesa temple)
Dad:  How do you know?
Dr. D:  It's ours!

Dad:  What's that?
Dr. D:  a room inside the temple
Dad:  How do you know?
Dr. D:  because it has a lamp.  (chandelier)

:)

More kids say and a recipe

So...my boy is truly a boy.  The other day Teeny Bopper was blowing bubbles for the boys and one bubble popped near her collarbone.  Dr. D took note of that and commented, "haha That one popped on your good things!"  She was like, "Good things?"  He said, "You know, your moobs".  And then he whispered "boobs", in case she didn't get it.
She got it.
Oh, boy.  Raising boys is going to be fun!!  :)

Anyway, here is a recipe that everyone really liked!!  I can't say how sick I am of hearing "I don't like that!" or "I don't want that!" at dinner almost every stinking day lately!  Ugh  I wanted to make tuna casserole and didn't want to use canned cream soup.  So I googled and found this one.  I modified it a little bit and voila!  Here it is:
Ingredients:
16 oz. egg noodles                                  2 cups milk
4 T butter                                               2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
4 T flour                                                 2 cans tuna, drained
2 t salt (opt. to taste)

Cook noodles al dente.  Drain.
For the sauce, combine flour, butter and salt.  Stir until butter is melted and ingredients are combined.  Add milk, and whisk until the sauce thickens.   Add cheese to mixture, and whisk until cheese is melted and well blended. Stir in tuna and noodles.
Serves our family of 8 just fine.

That's it!  Super creamy and you will never want to use canned cream soup again.

Kids Say...

This morning Dr. D came running up to me and said, "Mom!  Look at my pouch!  I have this pouch to hold all my weapons!".  He just stood there kind of sideways as if to show me a pouch at his hip.  I kept looking and he kept showing me his pouch... 
I finally asked where it was and he said, "It's right here!  It's invisible!".

Don't know how I missed that one.  :)

Good sister

Tail Gunner, my babiest of babies, is turning two this weekend!!  I have a certain amount of sadness in this turn of events.  And as happens when little ones grow up, he is wanting more and more independence.  For example, he doesn't want sippy cups much anymore.  He wants regular cups.  He also fights sitting in his highchair.  He wants to sit at the big table.  Which most of the time is fine, but with especially messy food, it is a disaster.
Take cereal, for instance.  Yesterday TG wanted to sit at the big table with his cereal and I just didn't want to deal with a big mess.  We have church at 8:30 am - I just didn't have time to clean up all that.  So I put him in his highchair, kicking and protesting all the way.  I put him in anyway and went into the kitchen to clean up.  Well, after several seconds of crying he stopped.  I thought he would go on for a while so I took a peek and saw this:

Little Miss moved her cereal over to his highchair so he wouldn't feel so alone over there, I guess.  It worked!  He totally went with that and was happy as a lark.  What a great sister!!

Favorite toy

Can you tell what is his favorite toys are?  These were given to us by a friend who was clearing out her toy stash.  Tail Gunner has loved these Chevron cars since he could play.  It's so cute!  Anywhere you find Tail Gunner, you can find at least one, usually two of these cars.

One baby's trash is truly another baby's treasure!  :)

Love notes

DH and I enjoy leaving love notes for each other.  We say "I love you" often, but notes are just so fun!!

This was on my frig Sunday:

Thanks, sweetie!!  I love you, too.

More bday pics

I don't need to say much, but I just got these downloaded.  These are the rest of the pictures from my bday.  I was (AM) a happy lady, to say the least!!  :)

My old slow cooker still works, but has no knob, no warm setting, and isn't as big as this one. 

 

Can you believe this???  It's a camera bag!!  I drool over it daily.  :)

The inside is as cute as the outside!

Tickets!!  Oh, yeah!!  Less than a month away now!  Can't wait.  My girls are going with me.  We will have to bring our own oxygen for our seats, but we don't care!  LOL

Mother's Day

Mother's Day was so wonderful!  My wonderful husband gave me the gift of his time and muscles and we cleaned out the garage!!!  When he told me this is what he was doing for my gift, I told him that even if we suddenly came into lots of money, I didn't want anything else!  That garage has been bothering me since we moved in, and was just getting worse!
We took a suburban load of stuff to Goodwill, got shelving put up and most of it all put away.  Just a bunch of half-full boxes left and we can park a car in there!!  Woot, woot!  Just in time for summer.  I am in heaven!  :)
The kids made cards and things at church and school, and I LOVED every one of them!  Blondie and Sweet G performed on violin and viola for us, which I thought was the bees knees, as well.
For my mom, we had her come over for Brunch for Lunch.  I made crepes (the best I've ever made!  yes!) filled with a sweet cheese filling and my strawberry jam on top, and a breakfast casserole made with eggs, bread, sausage, etc.  So yummy!  Mom brought a fruit salad and it was perfect!  We might even make it a monthly tradition because it was just so good.
After lunch, we had a blast making silly videos and then watching the backwards.  Weird, I know, but it's something we like doing.  It is hilarious-I never laugh as much as I do watching those things backwards!

I made my mom and I the cutest matching aprons.  They were super easy and she loves it!
For dinner we went to my sil's for a roast beef dinner.  My mil was going to be there, but they left town early.  Oh well, we had a SUPER fun time!  Good food, and then a rousing game of "King of the Jungle".  My kids have been wanting to play it constantly since!  :)  And for the record, I was King of the Jungle for the longest.  ;)

My Bday

OK-I am way behind on posting stuff.  Important stuff, like my birthday!  :)
Here are the boys taking a ride on Nana's scooter.  I never knew it was a three-seater, haha:

Here I am with my lovely Sam's Club coconut cake.  It was pretty good, and I didn't have to make it so double thumbs up there:

Looks like all my wishes will come true!  Yes!

It was a great birthday, due to family, friends, and food.  Those three F's are always key to a great celebration, yes?  Thank you to all who made it a great birthday for me!  Smooches!!

The things kids say

Here is a picture of our living room ceiling currently.  Notice anything strange? (besides blurry phone pic)

If you followed the big arrow to the headbands hanging from the ceiling, you found it!  It started with one shot up there by mistake and it stuck to the popcorn ceiling.  We like shooting these things around the house.  They don't stay in hair, so we have fun with them.  To get the first one down we shot another one at it, but it also stuck.  Trying to get those down we shot another one and it stuck, too!!!  It cracks me up. 
Well, luckily, Dr. D thought up a plan to get them down.  All we need is a cannon.  He will get inside, and someone has to light the fire thing, then pull the lever and BOOM!  He will shoot up there and get them down.  Hmmmm  It's worth a try-anyone know where I can find a cannon?

I was also lucky enough to chip my tooth today.  Huzzah!  (NOT)  As we were talking about it on the way home from school, I said how I am so bummed because although the back of the tooth chipped today I think the front is going to chip off soon as well.  Then I will look like a hillbilly with a tooth all chipped.  Yes, it is a front bottom tooth.  Well, to encourage me Dr. D told me, "You don't have to look like a hillbilly, just be a mom!".  Thanks, son.  I'll try my best. :)

Easter tradition

We really wanted to emphasize how important and meaningful Easter is to our family this year.  We had a couple of Family Home Evenings about it, but this one was great!  A new tradition for sure.  I got the ideas from How Does She?.  It worked great for all ages and gave us lots to talk about.  How Does She does this as a countdown to Easter, but we did it all in one family night.  Just open the eggs in numerical order, ask what the object inside has to do with Easter, read the scripture that goes with it and talk about it. 
For example, here is the first one:

1. And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying,

“O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me:

Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.” Mathew 26:39 (Sacrament cup)

Follow the link for the rest of the eggs.  Happy Easter!!

Easter Eggs

Not much to say about the annual coloring of the eggs, the pictures speak for themselves:

It was the best of times:

It was the worst of times:

But things got better:

And then they got worse (he was tired and frustrated that I had to help him):

Hmmm, what to write on the egg?:

Blondie's tradition is to write "evil" on one of the eggs.  So each year we have an evil egg:

For some, just a scribble and dunking in the color is good enough:

Mom had to supervise the little guy:

He did a pretty good job:

Teeny Bopper took the pictures, so she isn't in any of them.

Sweet G was babysitting and got home kinda late.  She colored her eggs but the camera was already put away.

I love coloring eggs!  :)