I'm Walking on Sunshine

I take 50,000 IU of vitamin D a week; my liquid sunshine. But I have to admit, I truely am ADDICTED to sunshine. So now that it's April, and we here in Oregon are seeing the sun more, I have to get out there! So I've decided to get outside and start running again. I used to run 5 miles a day. But now that I've had 2 c-sections and 4 kids, at 35 my body just doesn't respond the way it used to. ERRRGGG! But it's time to get out there and kick my owm butt! And believe me I am KICKING my butt hard! OUCH! Kristin and Chelsea have inspired me: I'm going to run the 5K on May 1st. Now that I've said it I have to do it. And now that the sun is on my side I CAN.

Here Comes Mommy-Cottontail

I thought I would post a few picture from our Easter Extravaganza! The kids had lots of fun coloring eggs, hunting for them and posing for pictures. Except for Liam of course, he was way too preoccupied to stop for a picture!

April Fool's Dinner...Fish Sticks?

I like holidays, even the often forgotten, obscure ones. I've even been known to make up holidays some being Fall Fairy Day and Dog Day. They all come with their own specific ways to celebrate. For St. Patrick's Day we always dance to Irish music and eat green eggs and ham and other green foods. We even celebrate half birthdays by making a half cake. For April Fool's Day I have to be careful because the kids are getting old enough to suspect that I am up to something. This year I made fish sticks out of wafer cookies and marshmallow creme(which was extraordinarily messy!) and corn flakes. To go with the fish sticks we had potatoes and gravy which was actually ice cream and caramel sauce.

When I announced that we were having fish sticks for dinner the complaining immediately commenced. But they slowly came over to the table and started to eat. Olivia, however, refused to try it. After Savannah and Liam tasted it they encouraged her to try it, she finally agreed. When they realized they were getting dessert for dinner they were pretty excited! Then for dessert a pizza was delivered to the door. (I wasn't about to make 2 dinners!)

At The Lodge

We went to Great Wolf Lodge in Washington for Spring Break and had lots of fun. It is a huge resort and indoor swimpark with 3 pools, 2 hot tubs, 6 waterslides and a huge water play structure that dumps a gigantic bucket of water every 2 1/2 minutes.

They also have this interactive game called MagiQuest that the kids had a blast playing. The kids all got wands and instructions to find certain things around the hotel that come to life and speak to you. They ran around from floor to floor finding different enchanted objects and fighting interactive dragons and talking to pixies. It was fun for them and exhausting for me! There were about 500 other kids doing the same thing, and running from floor to floor was tiring, but good exercise, I guess. It's a great place for a family vacation, just avoid the crowds and don't go for spring break!

Can-A-Rama!

This week Kristin and I got togther to can lots and lots of dry pack food. We canned 80 cans together on Monday and then today Chelsea and Christine joined us. After a couple of failed attempts (the can actually got sealed to the canner and we had to pry it off, breaking the can in the process) we got pretty good at it! Today we did about another 90 cans together! I walked away with 66 cans filled with spaghetti (a real pain in the butt to break all of that), penne pasta, sugar, powdered sugar, flour, pinto beans, and rice.

The fruit of our efforts!

Hot canning mamas!

Daphzilla

So Daphne has aquired some new nicknames lately; among them are little booger and Daphzilla. She now gets into everthing and destroys anything she can get her hands on. I recently made the mistake of leaving her clean laundry in her basket and on the floor. She tore through it like a tornado til all that was left was a pile of rumpled laundry. If the kids leave any lego buildings or lincoln log houses around she pulls them down like a little Godzilla and scatters the remains to the four winds. But worst of all are the screaming tantrums. She is very stubborn and wants what she wants. I took her into TJ Max yesterday and she did not like that store. She was shreaking the whole time! All these people were looking at me like, "What are you doing to your baby?" or "why don't you just take your screaming kid and get out of here!" At least that's how I felt. I went into the dressing room and she screamed even louder! That was realy fun tryingto hurry and try something on while she is screaming at the top of her lungs, and believe me, she has HUGE lungs for a 14 month old. I felt like I was running a 50 yard dash while trying on clothes on and holding a baby and singing lullablys to get her calm down. When I came out looking frustrated and deflated, the attendant lady said, " Don't worry, I think you are handling her very well." All the while I was thinking, "Really? I feel like slitting my wrists!" So when we left the store she immediatly stopped crying, like nothing happened and she was just fine!
I would like to dedicate a song to Daphzilla: "You're hot and you're cold, you're yes and you're no. You're in and you're out, you're up then you're down."~Katy Perry
Make that 2 songs: " She's all four seasons in one day!"~Sting

Cookie Time!

Angie and I (with Daphne and Olivia) went up to Salem to hang out with Tara and her girls and make cookies. We had so much fun! Even the girls got into it. They were unsupervised when we let them do some decorating. Big mistake! The sprinkles were a 1/2 inch thick on each cookie and about that thick on the floor too! Tara was such a good sport though, saying enthusiastically "Oh, that's fine! Just as long as there is a little left." That was about all that was left from the 2 bottles. Then the girls all "skated" on the sprinkles until their feet were all dyed dark red and green!

Then poor Angie, who was rolling out the cookies on the counter, kept bumping her head on the corner of the cabinet. Ouch!

But no matter what, whenever the three of us get together we always have lots of silly fun!