Tess Bess This and That

Sometimes you throw caution to the wind and give your toddler her own cup of strawberry/blueberry smoothie.

Sometimes you have to spend 30 minutes cleaning up after breakfast, scrubbing strawberry/blueberry smoothie off of every nearby surface.

Sometimes toddlers are a lot of work.

*****

Tess is my fourth child to wear these Spiderman jammies.  She loves 'em.

Excellent purchase seven years ago, Grandpa ElRay!

(I had grand designs of finding pictures of all three boys in these jammies as well.  Yeah, life happened so that didn't.) ((And by life happened I mean that Tess and Cole were on wild rampages today.)

*****

Tess MUST spend at least 15 minutes on my bed every day, propped up on pillows, tucked in with her "piggy blankie", sipping milk, and reading books.  "Milk on Mommy's bed!" she demands, ever so sweetly.  (No, not sweetly.  She demands it as only a toddler can.)

I think we have a little princess on our hands.

*****

This afternoon I decided to make some pickled peppers and jalapeno jelly.  Tess had other plans.  She woke up ANGRY.  No, more than that.  ANGRY.

I can't figure out what her problem was, but she absolutely refused to let me put her down.  She let me sit on the couch with her, but putting on the floor?  End of the world.

I finally got her to calm down a bit by letting her drink milk on my bed (see above), so I was able to get my canning done.  But as soon as I finished she was back on the rampage.

I emailed Lance and told him I was running away.

So how am I blogging now?  Josh and Cole magically distracted her.  But I suspect my reprieve won't last long.  In fact, I know it won't - I can hear her coming up the stairs right now.  I better run to the bathroom while I'm still allowed to go by myself.  (You moms of toddlers know what I'm talking about...)

Truth.

This morning at breakfast I was talking to the kids about all of the errands we needed to run this morning and listing all of the places we needed to go.  Then I decided to be a little silly.

Me: Hey Cole - do you want to go crazy?

Cole: Yes... No.  I already went to there.

Truer words never spoken out of this boy's mouth.

Seeing a Movie with Four Kids

Subtitle: You're Not Really Going to See the Movie, You Know This, Right?

Spencer and Josh have been begging and begging to go see "Despicable Me 2", so when the optometrist called this morning to let me know that Josh's glasses were done (the office is right next to the theater), I knew what we were going to do today.

First thing's first: snacks.  You can't see a movie without snacks.  The last time we went we had lots of gift cards and coupons and points on my frequent movie goer card, so everyone got a drink, popcorn, and candy.  This was not an affordable option this time.  So we made a quick trip to Wal-Mart and picked up some Lunchables and candy.

But even this little errand is not so easy - I had to lay down the law about which Lunchables could be bought.  Spencer loves the nachos Lunchables.  But he always - always - spills them.  And then freaks out about spilling them.  So those were out.  Cole wanted the Lunchables with the pudding cup included.  Um, no dice.  Not in a dark theater. And Tess wanted a Lunchables, which is ridiculous because she never eats them.  But this was no time to cause a Tessie meltdown, so she got a small one, too.

We decided to do the self checkout, thinking it would have been faster.  And it would have, had Josh not forgotten to give me his candy, forcing me to either 1) shoplift for the first time ever, or 2) go through a whole new transaction.  We chose option 2.

We rushed down to the optometrist's office.  For whatever reason, Josh decided he didn't want new glasses today.  Too bad.  A few threats later and we were all marching in.  Cole and Tess immediately ran for the display cases full of glasses.  I distracted them with the doors instead; they were going in and out, but not causing any sort of problem.  Then the office ladies told them to leave the doors alone.  I was irritated* enough that I considered setting them loose on the displays, but fortunately for the office Josh was already done.

We walked next door to the theater.  The excitement in these children was palpable.  We walked into the lobby and my children scattered all in different directions.  A threat to leave with no movie got everyone back in order - except Tess, but once she saw everyone come to me she came, too.

It must be noted that my backpack was pretty packed; it was fairly obvious we were sneaking food in.  But the bored teenagers working didn't give me a second glance.  And I didn't feel guilty at all.  If I have to spend freakin' $32 just to get us all in, there's no way I'm spending $30 more on food!

We were a little early to the show, so I let the kids run around the theater to get their wiggles out.  Josh thought it was pretty fun to be up right next to the screen.  It got close to show time and I started raising my hopes that we might just have the theater all to ourselves.  No dice - 3 more families showed up right before it started.

I rounded up my brood and started opening and passing out all of the food.  I'm pretty sure the mom behind me raised an eyebrow or two over all the food I had in my backpack - but whether in disapproval or envy, I'm not sure.  (I'll assume envy.  It was pretty awesome.)

We were fine for the first half of the movie, but then Tessie got the wanderlust and had to start walking up and down the stairs.  I'm fine with this; she's not hurting anyone and not going to leave the theater.  But Cole was not fine; he started freaking out.  Enough so that I had to drag him from the theater.

Oh, the joy.

After a rough 10 minutes I got both kids calmed down.  Tess and Cole wandered up and down the theater for the rest of the film, laughing at the movie and generally keeping out of trouble.  (I had to shush Cole several times.)

I felt guilty until I really thought about it: we were at the earliest showing on a Tuesday morning of a children's movie that had been out for several weeks.  If you really didn't want to deal with other people's kids at the theater then you should have probably chosen a different day and/or time to see it.

Getting everyone out of the theater was pretty fun, too.  It was like herding cats.  Drunken, sugar-dazed cats.  Seriously, no one could listen to me or walk in a strait line.  We got home with little fanfare, although Tess did fall asleep in the car and now refuses to take a nap. *sigh*

What I saw of the movie was really good.  I would really recommend seeing it!

Just not with my kids.

*Speaking of irritated: I got home to discover a voice mail from the optometrist office.  Seems they forgot the most important part of the lenses - the prism that stops him from being cross-eyed - in Josh's glasses.  So they've reordered them and now we have to go back in a few days.  "Sorry for the inconvenience."  Yeah, sorry my kids are going to run wild through your office because of your incompetence.  Sheesh.

Ward Pioneer Party

Our ward held a Pioneer Day celebration this evening.  This evening.  As in literally the hottest day of 2013 so far.

I'm pretty sure last year's ward party was also held on the hottest day of the year.

We know how to pick 'em.

No matter!  We had a great time hanging out with friends and celebrating our pioneer heritage.

We were asked to bring our best pioneer desserts.  I know, most people think of cobbler and pies and whatnot.  I think "Oh boy!  I get to use my pioneer cookie cutters!"

In case you can't tell (and I wouldn't blame you), those are yellow beehives and brown covered wagons.  The wagons in this picture are upside down because I'm cool like that.

Tess and I made this awesome corn husk doll.  And by that I mean I quickly tried to get the doll together while Tess wandered around and whined because I wasn't fast enough for her and she didn't want to help.  She liked the doll once I was done, though, and named her "Tree".  (Tess really likes trees right now.  Whenever we drive in the car there's a constant "Oh!  A tree!  A tree!" coming from her in the back seat.) ((Man, Lafayette has a lot of trees.))

Then we tried our hand at watermelon seed spitting.  I just love Tess's face in this shot!

McKay and Lance are looking pretty good in this shot, too.

By the way, Deidra, I totally beat you in seed spitting.  Just thought you'd want to know.

Josh really got into the stick pulling with his buddy, Alex.  Apparently Josh is pretty strong, because he beat Alex and several other kids.

Including his older brother.

Just look at Josh, all relaxed and not really trying.

And look at Spencer, giving it everything he's got.  Josh has always been pretty athletic; I can only imagine the drama this will bring to the future between these two.

Then we decided to join the Salazars and the Hartwells on our own little trek.  Everyone was pretty excited about this - at first.

Then Tess and Millie started freaking out and had to be carried.  Tess decided she'd rather poke herself in the eye than get back in that hand cart.

Kids kept moving and rolling around and making it rather difficult for the dads to pull the handcart.

The Madsen-Hartwell-Salazar company was not very efficient.  I think we would all agree that we would not make very good pioneers.  (Although Deidra, Cielle, and I would have lots of good conversations along the way!)

Finally - a majority of the kids were happy!  Until Spencer stepped on something and hurt his pinky toe and thought he was going to die.  I was not willing (nor probably capable) to carry him, so I made him limp along for a while until the Easton family picked him up.  When we made it to "Salt Lake" I told him we should probably just amputate his toe, since he'd probably complain less.  (Because he sure couldn't complain more than he already was!)  ((Nine year old boys are drama kings!!!))  He just scowled at glared, something he is becoming more and more adept at these days.

After our trek we enjoyed some fresh fruit and a little dessert.

My cookies won an award!  Woo-hoo!  (I didn't even know it was a contest until we got there, so way to go me!)

My secret for taking desserts to ward parties is always to cater to the kid crowd.  This means, cookies, brownies, anything with M&Ms, those s'mores pops I made last year - you get the idea.  That way you will for sure not have to take any dessert home and you will be very popular with the younger set.  (And being popular is oh so important to me.)

It was a great activity.  Kudos to our wonderful primary presidency for putting on such a great evening!  (And thank heavens I didn't have to plan it!)

Pointless Housework

I spent a better part of the morning cleaning the house.  Vacuuming, dusting, scrubbing the kitchen, etc. Clean!

I stepped out of the shower to discover Tess covered in dirt.  She can apparently now reach the potted plant I keep up high in my bedroom window.

The floor was covered in dirt.  The window seat was covered in dirt.  The window was covered in slimy, dirty Tess hand and nose prints.  Tess tracked dirt from the window the to the bathroom.  And her clothes, which I had put on her not 15 minutes before, were covered in dirt.  She spit dirt out of her mouth onto the towel I had wrapped around myself.

Okay, see, this is why I find housework so frustratingly pointless.  Because despite your best efforts, at any given moment, when your guard is down oh-so-slightly, some child is going to swoop in and destroy all of your hard work.

*sigh*

Two Examples of Why It's Sometimes Better to Not Try to be a Fun Mom

Okay, so I've been really trying to be a spontaneous, laid back, fun mom this summer.  You've seen a lot of what we've done and there's a ton more that I haven't mentioned, mainly because I'm lazy and do spontaneous trips to the park/library/movies deserve blog posts?  No.  No they do not.

But over the past week I've had two experiences that have really made me wonder if trying to be the fun mom is really worth it.

Earlier this week we were having a really rough afternoon.  Tess wouldn't nap.  Spencer and Josh were bickering non-stop.  And Cole had been in time out three times within an hour.  I quickly realized that if we didn't get out of that house soon some of us might not survive.  So, within the space of 20 minutes I had everyone changed into bathing suits, lathered with sunscreen, and packed into the car.

Woo-hoo!  Mom rarely just drops everything she's doing to go to the pool for the afternoon!  But desperate times, people...

We played and splashed and had a pretty great time for well over two hours.  We left the pool before any meltdowns and we were all feeling pretty good, so I decided to be a 'fun' mom again.  Instead of heading straight home I started driving towards McDonald's with the idea that we'd all get ice cream cones.  (Something we never do.)  On the way I pretended I had forgotten how to get home.  Josh really believed me, started freaking out, and yelled that I should call Daddy for directions!  Spencer was oddly silent, probably working it out in his head whether or not I could be believed.

We pulled up to the drive thru.  "What are you DOING?!?!" bellowed Josh.  "I'm going to ask them for directions," I replied, thinking that surely they would figure out what was going on once I placed the order.

They didn't.

Even after I handed them each a cone I had to assure Josh that I had just been teasing and that, yes, I in fact truly knew my way home.

Sheesh.

Then the fun really began.  Spencer and Josh freaked out because they had unbuckled their seatbelts to get their cones and now couldn't buckle them again.  Of course they ignored my suggestion of one person holding both cones so the other could buckle, and then vice versa.  Of course chaos ensued.  Of course Josh's ice cream landed on Spencer's arm.  And of course this was the end of the world.

Such drama.

Tess and Cole, on the other hand, were being quite lovely.  Their cones were in cups up front with me.

We got home and somehow I got everyone out of the car and onto the driveway with minimal incident.  Tess  and cole demanded that they get to hold their cones instead of eating them out of a cup.  Fun mom decided that it didn't matter, since they were going to get messy anyways.  Spencer freaked out because he had to go potty but couldn't because he was holding his cone.  Then he freaked out more when I put it in Cole's empty cup.  Such is life, Spencer.

Finally, everyone calmed down and ate their ice cream.  Yes, I sat on my driveway in my bathing suit eating ice cream with my kids.  I probably wouldn't have even dreamed of doing this even five years ago.  But fun mom doesn't care what the neighbors think.  Fun mom says if you want to see super models in bathing suits you should probably go somewhere other than Lafayette.

Tess was pretty cute; it was her first time with her very own ice cream cone.  You should have seen the delight in her eyes when I showed her how you eat the cone.

When everyone was done we were all pretty sticky and dirty.  So I took the kids out back and sprayed them down with the hose, which they loved.  I yelled "Grow, my little garden babies!  Grow!" which got lots of giggles and shrieks of laughter.

Okay, so this ended on a good note.  But still. During that drive home I swore under my breath that we would NEVER go for ice cream again, that's how stressful it was.

The second experience was just this evening.  It started this morning when Josh asked what we were doing today.  "Not much" was the reply.  "Go outside and play.  It's gorgeous out!"  He liked that even less.

"Can we eat dinner outside?" he asked.

My first instinct was to say no.  But then Fun Mom decided to make an appearance.  "Sure," I said.  "What should we eat outside?"  We proceeded to set a menu of hamburgers, corn on the cob, and lemonade.  Then Josh took a good 20 minutes deciding what kind of dessert we should have, and of course chose the most complicated option of them all: blueberry lemon sweet rolls.

The day went on.  Josh refused to help me make the sweet rolls.  Spencer refused to help me bring up the table.  Cole refused to leave me alone for one blessed second.  (Seriously, the child is my shadow.  My always-underfoot and often annoying shadow.  Oh... four  three year olds.)

I was in the throes of last minute dinner prep when Lance got home.  He set the table and finally got the boys to bring up the chairs.  I think I put out a pretty good spread: cheeseburgers, corn on the cob, frozen blueberry lemonade, cucumber salad (from my garden!), grilled squash (garden!), and honeydew and cantaloupe.

"Ewww!  I wanted hot dogs!" was the first thing Josh said as we sat down.  "Me too!" chimed in Spencer.

"Why are we outside?  It's hot!" Josh said.  "Me too," whined Spencer.  (For the record, it was not hot.  It was very pleasant.)

At this point I wanted to smack the both of them, but since we were using our big table I couldn't reach them.

Cole wouldn't eat his corn or burger.  Josh didn't like the lemonade.  Tess got angry about something and knocked an entire pitcher of lemonade across the table and onto the floor, earning her a rather angry trip straight to time out.

It was not the relaxing, fun dinner I had envisioned.

And then the sweet rolls turned out runny, despite the fact that I had followed the recipe perfectly.  (Curse you, Pioneer Woman!)  However, they did taste pretty good, so not all was lost.

At the end of the meal Josh claimed he had never wanted to eat outside.  Both boys had to be threatened before they'd take the chairs downstairs.

I guess the dinner wasn't horrible.  But it certainly wasn't worth all the effort.

Fun mom needs a vacation.

**ADDENDUM**

As I typed this post, Tess and Cole silently and maliciously poured 39 gallons of water out of the tub and onto my bathroom floor.  See, I had decided to be a FUN MOM and let them have a bath in my big master suite tub.

I spent at good 10 minutes mopping the unholy flood up.

Then I caught them throwing board books at each other in my bedroom.  I yelled at them to stop.  They each threw one more, Tess's hitting the wall with enough force to peel the paint and make a rather large dent.

Fun Mom is definitely Done For The Day.

Projects

I have all sorts of projects around the house that I've been working on for ages but never finishing.  But a couple of weeks ago I decided enough was enough!  Time to get some stuff done!

We finally got the basement repainted.  It looks a bajillion times better, even if I still haven't gotten all the touch-up painting done.  (Hey, I can't finish ALL projects at once!)  Having this project done meant that I could no longer ignore decorating the basement.  There's just so very much wall space down there; it's a bit intimidating.  But, as with so many things lately, Pinterest came to my rescue.

First, my photo collage wall.  It was kinda a small little mess of pictures before. (I don't have a before picture.  Dang.  Although now that I think about it, I might have blogged about it a couple of years ago.  But I'm too lazy to go look it up.)  But now it looks like this:

Ah, much better.  It'll look even better once I get all of the frames filled, but at least I got all the dang frames up.  I plan on buying cheap black frames every once in a while and adding more and more through the years.  Then the task will be making sure the pictures that are up there aren't too ancient.  (I have no delusions of keeping them all current all the time.)  It was a bit of a pain hanging them up, but I survived.

The second project came about because I love maps.  There's just something so fun about them!  Even though we used GPS on our trip out to Utah last summer, I had an atlas in my lap 90% of the time, just looking to see where we were going and where we had been and where we could have gone had we been more adventurous.  (We weren't.  This time.)  I had some cheap wall maps in my closet that I planned on framing and hanging up in the basement.  Problem was they were way to big for framing, unless I was willing to spend a couple hundred bucks.  Say what?!  I'm just not inclined to spend $XXX on framing a $5 map.  Pinterest saved the day again, and after months of picking up canvases at Hobby Lobby with a 40% coupon, I came up with this:

This project was much more involved.  First, did you know that a 6x6 canvas is not really 6x6?  And an 8x16 is not 8x16?  True story.  And I didn't realize this until I had already cut out the map, because why wouldn't the canvases be the size they advertised?!!?  Grr.  Also, even though they all fit together to a certain size in theory, when you hang them up you have to deal with the spaces between them and how it looks and whatever, Lance and I took forever hanging the dang thing up.  (It looked weird with no spaces inbetween the canvases.)  I mean, it looks fine, but it's not the perfection I was hoping for.  (Or that Pinterest offered.  Dang it.)

I put the map off to the side of the wall with the idea that I would eventually get a world map up as well.  So I guess there's another project I have to work on.

True story: my kids think I'm crazy because I keep going downstairs to look at the map.  Maybe they're right.

I know this is only two projects, but it sure feels good to get them done!

Rain Run!

Today I actually remembered to go to playgroup.  The kids were all SUPER grouchy this morning and it was the perfect thing to get us out of the house and prevent us from all killing each other.

It was hot and sticky.  See the photo below?  That's not a filter from Picasa - that's the humidity on the lens of my camera.  Nice.

For whatever reason, every time we go to the Columbian Park Zoo Josh has to have a picture taken on a large fiberglass frog.  It's kinda his thing.

Despite the look on her face, Tess got into petting the goats.  She was much braver than her big brothers!

Sheri just about got bowled over by all the goats wanting food. (This was just before the big goat rush.)

I like that Tess and the chicken kind of have the same hair.

Toddlers trying to catch chickens?  Pretty darn cute.

"Come out, chicken!  Come out!"

Three big chickens hiding from the goats.  They all picked out their own outfits today and ended up as triplets.  It was actually helpful in keeping track of them!

We got to the pavilions a bit before the rain started.  It wasn't too bad, but we decided to wait it out a bit.  Eventually the rain died down, and since the kids had been playing in the rain and the wind kept blowing water on us, we decided to risk running to our cars.

This was a mistake.  We weren't 10 yards from the pavilion when the heavens opened and tried to drown us.  Of course I had parked behind the zoo, which was a good 1/4 mile (if not more) away.  We ran and got soaked to the bone.  In fact, at one point the wind was so strong the rain drops actually stung!  But the kids were so good about it.  We laughed and giggled the entire way.  I could barely see with all the rain in my eyes and bouncing off of my glasses.  We finally got to the car and Josh proclaimed this was the best picnics in the park ever.  Also, he was bored.

That child.

I tried to take some pictures when we got home just to show how wet we were, but I don't think they do it justice.  Let's just say that we had to change every piece of clothing we had on because every piece of clothing was soaked through.  It was pretty impressive.

I love Tess's face in this one.

Hooray for getting caught in torrential downpours!

Stuck!

Sometimes it's hard to be two and have a mom who finds so much amusement in your woes.

Favorite Reading Spot

Tess's New Fashion Statement

You laugh now, but it'll be all the rage next summer.

Back Yard of Fire 2013

Guess what?

This year's Back Yard of Fire actually had fire!  We've had a very wet, very mild summer. In fact, on the 4th the high was only in the low 80's.  There was a slight breeze and it was so very pleasant.

In other words, the polar opposite of last year's Back Yard of No Fire inferno.

We had a great time this year, and not just because of the weather.  We had a lot of great people join us.  And these great people brought some great food.  Great food + great people = great evening.

Last year I had bead necklaces for the kids, which went over very, very well.  This year I decided to do pinwheels.  These did not go over as well.  Dang.  But don't they look festive?

I also made festive cookies.  You wouldn't believe the battles I had to fight with Cole - the little sneak tried every trick in the book to steal those dang cookies before the party.  (I know, I should be flattered.  But really I was just annoyed.)

Because the weather was so mild it was just a bit chilly for playing in the water.  Not that this stopped my and many other children.  Poor Cole was shivering within the hour!

I had found a slip-n-slide on clearance the year before for only $2.50.  Score!

As per usual I didn't really get any good pictures of people this year.  Mainly just generic shots of everyone looking awkward while eating.  You're welcome, friends! (Hey look!  The Sister missionaries came for a bit!)

Miss Tess in her third or fourth outfit of the evening.  Seriously, the girl could not stay out of the water and/or mud.  Nor could she keep those fingers out of her mouth - poor teething girl!

Lance and his fellow pyromaniacs.  (The guy to the left of Lance is not Tad Colver.  It's his younger brother, who just happens to look exactly like him!  He actually lives in Korea, but was here on a visit.  He was supposed to be on a plane going home, but he missed his flight and got to spend the 4th with us.  Fortunately, we were serving A&W Rootbeer, the one thing he claimed he really wanted to drink while here in the states. Also?  He apparently has a sordid childhood history when it comes to fireworks.  He was in his element helping light them all!  Bad luck missing his flight?  Kismet, I say.)

Just to prove you were here, Smiths, Hartwells, and Hansons!

The Tate family brought a ton of their leftover fireworks and sparklers, which we used first.  The kids LOVED this.

Our neighbor, Justin, with a sparkler.  See that blur behind him?  That's the only picture I got of Josh the entire evening.  (At least he got a blur - I'm not in a single shot!)

Yes, that's my oldest son in just a bathing suit holding a stick on fire.  Yes, after this I did tell him to go put some shoes on.  No, he did not listen to me.  And no, he did not get burned.  (He got super lucky, because there was all sorts of craziness going on up on the hill!)

There's Cole, also in just a bathing suit.  The fire on the ground?  He had picked up some sort of sparkler he wasn't supposed to pick up and the end fell off.  Yeah, all the dads were at the top of the hill but none of the moms (except me).  Not so much supervision going on.  I think next year we will need to be a bit more proactive in that department.  (Just after this shot I manhandled him down the hill to get some shoes on the boy.)

This year we put lights up with the pennants.  I really liked them!

Someone's child playing with fire.  Because that's how we roll in Indiana.

This year Lance did a great job in buying awesome fireworks.  The pictures don't do justice to just how big some of them were - we're talking professional sized.  They were HUGE!  Even better?  Our neighbor to the south - the one with the pond whom we affectionately call "Pond Guy" - also had a ton of fireworks!  It was like getting two shows in one!  At one point our guys and Pond Guy were battling it out over who had the best fireworks.

We kinda worked Pond Guy over.

It was awesome.

The grand finale included a rather large firework that started coming back to earth before it exploded.  It exploded really close to us, producing lots of screams and a general rush of adrenaline from the crowd.  Ack!  Fortunately, all lived to tell the tale.  (There were no injuries.)  We found powder all over the place, though, including our food tables, my garden, and the swing set.  That thing was LOW.

This morning while I was being the worst mother in the world and making my kids help pick up all of the fireworks detritus I discovered stuff all the way over in our neighbor's yard - two houses down.  (I'm sure they just love us now.)  I'm pretty sure that's a sign of a great fireworks show!

So mark your calendars now and let us know if you'd like an invite for next year.  Lance is already making grand plans!