Popcorn Popping

We were lucky to catch a nice sunny Sunday where I could grab a few photos of the kids in front of a 'popcorn' tree at the church. I love these trees and wish my whole yard was full of them! By the time we took the photos, a lot of the flower petals had blown off. The tree still looked awesome and the kids super cute!

Dan balanced Tristyn and let go just before I took the photo. She can stand for several seconds on her own, but will still get down to crawl rather than taking a step! She hates to sit on the grass or stand on it barefoot. Hopefully she'll grow out of that this summer so she can play outside! There was another baby wearing the same bug dress that day. I think she looks like Minnie Mouse with the bow.

After playing by the trees we had to bribe Mason with a sucker to go in to our meetings. Oh wait . . . we have to do that pretty much every Sunday! Hopefully the other parents don't mind that we sometimes provide them for the whole class. Kids learn to listen and obey some day, right?? I can't wait!

Under the Sea 3D

A couple of weeks ago we took the kids to the Planetarium to see Under the Sea in 3D. We hoped Mason would sit through it since it was only 40 minutes. Since he has loved popcorn lately, we hooked him up with a "Little Dipper" combo and headed in for the movie.

At first Mason loved the glasses and was interested in the show. Then he was surprised by a couple of fish that quickly snatched their food in 3D. He freaked out and took the glasses off. He put them slightly over one eye for a while, but then ditched them for the rest of the movie. He still kind of watched the blurry images--in between watching me stand in the back with Tristyn and climbing on the chair. At one point he lost his balance and fell backwards, hitting his head on the concrete floor. He had a nice goose egg and cut. Luckily, he didn't cry for long (I'm sure the family sitting next to us was tired of us by then).

Tristyn was tired, but was pretty good during the movie. She liked to watch it and wanted to eat our glasses. Melissa came a long because she had been wanting to take Mason to the fountains at Gateway forever.

The kids loved this contraption that sent balls through tubes and a lot wires throughout the building.

Here we are waiting for the fountains to turn on. We needed to take off so Dan could go to the gun show, so we didn't hang around long. we'll have to go back down when it's a bit warmer!



We had a lot of fun. I wish that Mason would have paid more attention to the movie and worn the glasses the whole time, but I'm sure he would have freaked out more when the sharks swam out in the crowd and when the sea lions kissed us! That was cool!

Kinked Neck

So you don't have to break your neck to look at a couple of recent photos, here they are right side up!

Swine Flu

On Wednesday Dan had to get fitted for this crazy mask. As I understand it, he can't go into a clinic where the swine flu could be present if this type of mask won't fit him correctly. He said they sprayed stuff into the 'hood' portion to make sure that it didn't leak into the mask portion. Talk about closterphobic--hopefully I never have to wear one! This is probably the closest I'll get to being married to an astronaut!

Yum yum!

I'm pretty sure Tristyn takes after her grandpa J because she LOVES meatloaf and potatoes.

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Mason's bean sprout

I was all excited to be able to blog straight from my cell phone, but I didn't think about the photos being sideways!

Last Tuesday Mason planted a seed at preschool. It's been in our kitchen window and we've watered it here and there. Today we were excited to see a big fat bean sprout (I guess that's what it is--I didn't ask his teachers). Mason couldn't wait to show Dan when he got home! I'm so glad his fun teachers do things like this for his class. Now I really want to plant some sort of veggy outside so he can watch them grow!

Don't worry, Mason isn't in distress in this photo despite the crazy look on his face. He's in the middle of saying "Cheese, click" and bracing for the bright flash!

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100 Posts

I just noticed that my last post about McDonalds was my 100th post! And it only took a year (I think I started it in March 08). Here's to a year and a lot of posts! I'm going to eat a cookie, a peanut butter egg (from Easter) and a sloppy joe to celebrate! Oh wait, I already ate all those things! I guess I'll take a break from typing and mop my floor instead.

Mickey D's

Recently we pointed out the 'yellow M' to Mason and now every time we pass a McDonalds he gets excited (who would have known there were so many between here and Logan). So we took him there for breakfast last Saturday. He was excited about the ice machine but not really the food. Who can blame him! He ended up eating his regular food from home. He did enjoy the kid's meal toy and my orange juice, but that was about it. Tristyn liked watching the silly kids a few booths away! I know it's pathetic that he's 3 1/2 and that's his first trip to McD's, but I figure that if he doesn't ask for it and won't eat the food, we shouldn't have to suffer through it, right?!

Ponytail

It took 10 months, but I finally attempted to pull Tristyn's hair into a ponytail! It isn't very thick and I had to wrap the rubber band around a lot of times, but look how stinkin' cute she is! Just looking at the picture makes me want to eat her cheeks!

Tristyn loves her princess chair and can climb up into it. She also uses it to climb up onto the couches and the recliner. Luckily she's only tipped it over a couple of times. I'm sure it will happen again though!

Here's another pony. This is a good shot of her upper teeth. She has quite the chompers!

Outgrowing the Radio Flyer

As you can see, Mason is a little big for his tiny tricycle! He still loves to ride it and is pretty fast on it. In fact, some mornings when I'm getting Tristyn loaded up, he'll open the garage door and I take off on it. He likes to go to the neighbors and I have to catch him before he rings their doorbell!

He wasn't real interested in getting a bike as a potty training reward, so he got it for Easter. We haven't found a helmet that fits him well yet, so he hasn't taken it for a long ride yet. Here he was helping Dan lower the seat. It reminded me of all the spring bide repairs my dad had to deal with growing up! Broken chains, flat tires, brake and seat adjustments . . . it's a good thing that he was a mechanic by trade! We can't wait for the rain to stop so Mason can enjoy his new ride!

We LOVE Spring!

We're so glad to have nice spring weather between the rain storms! It's nice to get the kids out and go for walks again. Mason likes to ride around in the church parking lot and we normally have to bribe him to head home.

Always admiring the flowers!

Tristyn's first ride in Mason's Jeep. She didn't stay in there long--we need to work on his steering!

M A S O N

The past few weeks Mason has been writing his name and spelling it out loud several times a day! Most of the time he'll spell it and say 'Mason', but he will occasionally spell it, then say 'hat' or 'mom' or whatever he thinks he spelled. A couple of days ago he was pointing out the letters on Tristyn's carseat and said "G R A C O . . . Tristyn". He also spells HAT all the time. We've also worked on MOM, DAD, CAR, TOY, and a few other easy words. He knows how to write all of his letters and writes with both hands. His favorite is to write HAT on his magnadoodle, then put it up on his head like a hat. He actually puts almost everything on his head and says hat--today it was the cookie dough scooper and my toothpaste. He does it a lot when he's uncomfortable about something or thinks he's going to get in trouble for something.

As I've mentioned before, Mason loves Blue's Clues and there's an episode about body language where they teach about facial expressions. Blue wants to pretent to be angry, so the clues are scrunched up eyebrows, scrunched up mouth, and hands on hips. So, Mason started drawing faces with eyebrows and either a happy or sad face. The eyebrows are scrunched whether the face is happy or sad! He likes to go through all the clues and do the scrunched eyebrows and mouth in the mirror. Here are a couple of his drawings and mine that shows the hands on hips. There have been a couple of times that I've pointed out my scrunched eyebrows and hands on hips so he knew I was angry or upset about something. It has worked to get him to go potty at least once!

Mmmm . . . flowers!

My awesome coworker gave us this outfit for Tristyn when she was born. I was so excited when the weather was finally warm enough for her to wear it a few weeks ago. I especially love the matching denim sandals.

Mason can't pass a flower without smelling it--even if it's on Tristyn's head!

It must have smelled pretty good, because then he wanted to wear it himself!

Later that day we took the kids out to Arctic Cirle. This is Tristyn's first french fry. Mason also actually enjoyed a few licks of the free ice cream cone they give. Of course, he was more interested in the playland!

Our Little Lady

Tristyn is now 10 1/2 months, but here are a few fun photos of her at 9 months. She now has 4 teeth (two on top, two on bottom), she is standing for several seconds on her own, she claps over everything (especially when she stands up), she opens the cupboard and helps herself to whatever looks good, she shakes her head no, she gives squeezes to her baby, she plays peak a boo with blankets, she hides things under blankets and then finds them, she has put herself to sleep the past few nights (we LOVE this), she wore a ponytail for the first time a couple of weeks ago (more photos on that to come), she loves to chase Mason and find him when he plays Hide and Seek, she finally likes to take baths and will splash around, she drinks well out of sippy cups and will now hold them herself, she loves to eat shoes (and string cheese, bananas, and pretty much anything she can pick up), and she likes to push things around the house. She's so smart and seems to catch on to things after seeing it once--she puts her hands on her head when we sing Head, shoulders, knees and toes. She's was also pointing a little bit today, so I'm sure she'll perfect that in no time! I could go on forever, but I'll save some for future posts!

Feeding 'Bish'

I know I promised photos of Mason and 'Bish the Fish' several weeks ago. I thought I'd do better and try to post a video. Most days he loves to feed him and laughs each time the fish snatches the food. Other days he could care less if the poor fish starves! No worries, though, we still feed him! I hope this video works!

Mason Field Trip to Dinosaur Museum

Mason went with his school to visit the Dinosaur Museum. He didn't want to get too close to any of the skeletons. He enjoyed playing in the erosion (water) display and then digging in the sand for fossils. Mason loves dinosaurs. Every night he insists on reading "Dinosaur Roar", "How do Dinosaurs say Goodnight" and now his new Dinosaur pop up book. We are looking forward to this summer when we can visit Dinosaur Land with Dan's family.

(that was posted by Dan . . . I made him post about it since he went with the class)

Dumb blonde/heart attack/ligh bulb moment . . .

I had the craziest and dumbest thing happen to me today! I wanted to take my camera with me to work today so I could run by Costco on the way home to have my photos converted to a CD. I normally don't take my purse to work, but I did today just to make the camera and my wallet easier to carry. By the time I carry my work bag with laptop, snacks/drinks, etc. into work, I almost need a shopping cart to push it all! So, today I decided to leave my purse, with wallet and camera, in my car at the office (which I NEVER do). I purposely parked right outside of an office near my desk so I could see if anything fishy was going on. I had a couple of griddles and bowls that I needed to take to my car from a breakfast we did yesterday, so I went out about 5 pm and first noticed that the passenger side window was down! I actually expected to look in to see broken glass and my purse gone (heart attack moment)! I will have to repent for some of the words I said! I was relieved to see my purse still on the floor tucked slightly under the seat, but I expected the wallet to be gone. I was shocked to see that everything was in tact and couldn't figure out what the heck was going on . . . especially since the driver's side window was also down! The only thing I could think was that someone had taken my keys from my coat pocket and played a little prank! When I went back in to grab my laptop, I asked Tom about it since the car was parked outside of his office. He said he didn't notice anything, but did mention that with some cars, the windows will go down if you press and hold the unlock button on the little remote (light bulb moment)! How the heck could I have not known that (dumb blonde)???! I tried it and sure enough, my car does that! I'm sure that's what happened and I think it must have just happened on my way out to the car since I think I would have noticed earlier if they had been down. I must have pressed it while trying to hold on to the griddles and bowls. It was a huge relief, but I was still dang sick about it!

After all that I couldn't take the time for Costco since I needed to pick up the kids. Needless to say, it will be a long time before I leave my purse in my car again. I've also been wondering what other cool things my remote can do . . . surely they can think of something better than rolling down the windows (like buckling my kids in their seats or turning on the defrost)! So my question is, did all of you know that some cars have that feature and if your car has it, have you ever used it?? I really need to read my car manual one of these days!