Spring Has Arrived in Morton!!!!

One of the first signs that spring is near is the opening of Morton's Dairy Queen. We have the cutest little outdoor Dairy Queen. It closes in the late fall and does not open again until late February. Obviously, no one wants to stand outside to buy ice cream in the middle of the winter, so I am sure that is the main reason they close. However, I am certain that there is another reason--absence makes the heart grow fonder. After a few months without those chilly little treats, everyone in Morton starts watching the big sign for the opening date. On Monday, my friend sent a text that said 'dq opens friday!!'. I immediately started trying to decide what my first treat of this year might be! After months without it, it starts to seem like the best dessert on earth...although, my texting friend does have an adoring husband that occasionally drives to Washington to pick up DQ treats to tide us all over during the winter months...but, it just isn't the same as Morton's! My girls are old enough to remember spending many warm nights sitting on the picnic tables of our DQ and they were just as excited as I was that it was re-opening. We put on warm jammies and here they are on the drive to our first visit of 2009:

If you think they LOOK excited...you should have HEARD how excited they were...there was lots of singing and squealing on the drive there...I shamefully admit that a few squeals of excitement may have come from the front seat, as well!

Yes, Isabel is over 6 years old and is still sitting in a 5-point harness...she is not officially big enough for a booster yet. She needs four more pounds...maybe the opening of DQ can help the sista out!!!!! Isabel ordered chocolate ice cream with oreo crumbles, Ashlen ordered vanilla with cherry dip, I ordered a mint oreo blizzard, and Jason ordered an oreo blizzard! Mmmm, combine this with Wal-Mart's recent Easter Candy display (I love those little candy-coated solid chocolate Cadbury eggs...) and I am in a sugar coma...and loving it!!!

Think Spring!!!

A Funny Thing Happened...

I know that parents always say "Enjoy the baby days because they will be over soon" and "It seems like just yesterday that I had babies and now they are all grown up". When I had tiny babies, I will admit that I hoped all of this was true because I wasn't so sure that the baby days were exactly 'my thing'. But, a funny thing happened the other day...

I realized that my baby is not a baby anymore. It is not the usual milestones (like birthdays, school days, or sleepovers) that make you realize that your children are getting older...rather, it's the little things that completely catch you off guard--like an iron skillet across the jaw, you realize that your baby is not a baby. Isabel will always be 'My Baby', but she is a kid now...with kid feelings. Here is the story:

Last weekend, I decided to make a strawberry pie for Valentine's Day Dinner and I told Isabel that she could help (by help, I meant watch from a stool and occasionally touch the spoon...I do not like 'help' in the kitchen because I just think that even after soap, kid hands are never clean enough!!!). Anyway, my hands are busy with pie crust dough, so I ask Isabel to bring over the big container of flour. A few seconds later, she walks over carrying the vase of flowers from the table. I giggle at her (in a very normal, and non-insulting way) and tell her that I was referring to the white powdery flour, not the petal-variety. Shortly after, I notice that her face is sort of reddish and she is very quiet. I ask her what is wrong and she bursts into tears and I realize what is wrong....she was embarrassed by her 'mistake'! My heart broke for her and I instantly got teary eyed, as well! We had a long talk about how everyone gets embarrassed and that making silly mistakes is part of life and about how you just have to try to laugh at your own mistakes. In fact, Jason and I kept coming up with embarassing stories from our lives to make her feel better. But, my heart is officially broken because my baby is now old enough to be embarrassed. Yikes! I am sad because I don't want this for her...I want her life to always be carefree and happy. And, I am wishing I could now turn back the time because cuts and scrapes are way easier to fix than emotional boo-boos!

Here is my big girl at her school Valentine's Party:

The only good news is that Ashlen is nowhere near the stage of embarrassment yet...in dance class on Wednesday, she announced to her teacher and her entire class (loudly enough that I could hear her plain and clear all the way out in the waiting room) 'Last time I came to dance class, I went home and had diarrhea!!!' I don't think she is capable of embarrassment at any age...it is just not programmed into her personality!

The REAL Ashlen...

I ordered cute matching Valentine's day shirts for the girls (did you know that American Eagle now sells little kids' clothes...yipee!!!) to wear to their parties at school. I got up extra early this morning for a meeting at work and had just enough time to do 'special hair' for Ashlen...which pretty much means something other than just a bow. At school, I realized that I didn't get a picture of her before she went to school, so I asked Jason to snap a few. I decided to quickly run upstairs and upload them to the computer tonight before I went to bed, but the pictures had me laughing so hard that I am now staying up late on a "tonight, I am going to bed early to catch up on sleep" night to post them...

This is the REAL Ashlen Anne:

She is looking all cute and innocent....

And then crazy starts to creep in....

and gets the best of my little sweetie!

Who is this character??? She looks like the Easter bunny on drugs:

Crazy has not yet left the building...

because she has a secret....

"I wanna put on my my my my my boogie shoes"....

"Just to boogie with you".

(Oh yeah, we like to rock out to KC and the Sunshine Band around here!!!)

You did not inherit 'boring' or 'ordinary', my love.

Awkward....

maybe.

'Special'....

definitely.

25 Random Things About Me....

I am officially 'into' the facebook thing now. I have had a facebook account for awhile, but never really used until recently...now I love it! If you use facebook, then you already know about the '25 Random Things About Me'. It is starting to spill over onto lots of the blogs I read and since I have not updated in over two weeks and it will be a few more days before I have Valentine's Day pictures, I figured what the heck...so, here is my '25 Random Things' list: (By the way, for those of you that already read it on my facebook...I *gasp* found two grammatical errors that I have corrected for this posting...I should offer a prize for the person that can find them!!! Ha!!)

1. I only have to drive 8 blocks to work...my car doesn't even get warm by the time I pull into the parking lot! I do miss hearing the news and weather on the radio...I usually only get about two commericals.
2. I am trying to substitue Crystal Light for soda...I miss soda, but Peach Tea is a pretty good substitute. Those of you that know me best are shocked that I am making a healthy food choice! I am a skinny fat person. I look healthy, but I am certain that my soda and chocolate habits are waging war with my almost-30-year-old innards.
3. I just looked 'innards' up in the dictionary to make sure it was a real word and that I spelled it correctly. Although I am a science person, I feel that spelling/grammar tells a lot about a person, so I use the dictionary to 'double check' very often (at least 5 times a day...seriously). Now you will be searching my '25 things' for mistakes...
4. I hate conflict/confrontation. I try to avoid it at all costs...unless it is with my husband. We do not fight fair, but we do not fight often so it is no big deal.
5. I love my life. I could list a million things that I could be grouchy about, but who couldn't? Overall, I would not change a single thing about my life!
6. My husband and my girls have red hair....I hated red hair before I met my husband (truth be told, I wasn't a huge fan of it until I had my girls...sorry, sweetie!). Now, I can't go to the grocery store or the mall without getting stopped at least three times (no exaggeration) to hear about my girls' beautiful hair. Little old ladies love to tell me that they had red hair, or that they once had a husband/son/neighbor/niece with 'that red hair'. Will I be one of those old ladies some day?
7. I have been married for almost 8 years. I have two daughters...Isabel is 6 and Ashlen is 3. They are two and a half years apart, but they wear the same size clothes...people ask if they are twins all of the time (the hair thing is hard to get past). Isabel quickly replies "I have brown eyes and my sister has blue eyes, so we are not twins"...I wonder if I should explain fraternal twins to her.
8. I love to paint the walls of my house. The house is only 8 years old, but I can think of one wall in particular that has been four different colors.
9. My funniest moment in the classroom was after I told a student to wait until the end of class to use the restroom and he replied 'But, I'm Prairie Doggin It!!!'. That was my very first year teaching I almost peed my pants I was laughing so hard!
10. I allow students to be my 'friends' on FB, so I am keeping that in mind as I write my '25 things'. Teachers, do you let your students be your 'friends' here? I am torn...
11. My iTunes is set to shuffle all of my music and I just realized that I am halfway through a Christmas song...I love Christmas, but NOT IN JANUARY!!! One of my favorite songs is 'Son of a Preacher Man'...or, any song my dad used to blast on our stereo when I was little kid.
12. I am going to see two movies tonight!!! I love to watch movies, but could never begin to narrow down my favorites because it depends on my mood.
13. As much as I love to see movies, I am not a fan of television. I DVR Grey's Anatomy every week, but that is about it.
14. I couldn't wait to finish my master's degree, but I am already thinking that I want to start another one...could have something to do with the correlation between being in grad school and getting a cleaning person. I think my next degree will be in Biology and I think my next cleaning person will come on Mondays. Is it sad that I would rather write a research paper than vacuum?
15. I am the last of all of my friends to turn 30 and I am dreading it...you would think that I would be okay with it since I have already been to everyone else's celebrations! Nope. Could be because I can't decide how to celebrate...Vegas, Chicago, or sitting in my basement in my bathrobe...
16. I was the pull-up champion of my grade school in 3rd grade and 4th grade. I can still do a couple.
17. I have a really bad habit of picking at my fingers...it doesn't bother me at all, so I am not too worried about addressing the 'problem', but it drives my husband crazy.
18. I have a little white dog with a seizure disorder. His name is Rufus. He is cute, but free to a good home. I am only slightly kidding...any takers?
19. I love the smell of anything clean (soap, bleach, etc). I hate the 'imitation smell' of vanilla or baked goods.
20. I go to a different beach for vacation every year...this year is Virginia Beach! I love to fly, but my husband hates it. One year, I refused to drive to Florida with a 15 month old baby, so he drove to Florida with all of the luggage and picked us up at the airport...it was perfect!
21. My favorite food is cheese pizza. I could eat it every day and be happy. I also love seafood. There are very few foods that I will not eat/try. I do hate sloppy joes and lettuce (the iceberg kind...I like fresh spinach!).
22. I love to cook and bake. I usually plan dessert before I plan dinner. Once a month, I get together with a friend and we each make a double-batch of six dinners for the freezer. After only four or five hours, we each have twelve dinners in the freezer!
23. I love to take pictures. I am not artistic/professional about it...I just like to think that someday my kids will appreciate looking through thousands of pictures (I at least organize them by year). When I print pictures, I always print extras to give to everyone else in the picture. I have a really great camera that I don't know how to use. I want to take a class so that one day I can flip the 'dreaded' switch to go from automatic to manual....
24. I have a shopping weakness. I use shopping as therapy when I am bored, mad, stressed, happy, etc. My girls both have huge walk-in closets and they are both over half full (not counting what is in their dresser). Luckily, I also like to have garage sales...I sell most of what I buy within a year or two. I know it is sad and wasteful, but I think it is pretty harmless and lots of fun! The only problem is that I do not like buying winter stuff, so my closet is stuffed with warm weather clothes that can only be worn to work two months out of the entire school year.
25. This was fun...I hope I didn't bore you to tears! I looked in my dictionary at least five more times...now that I know you are looking for mistakes, I am extra stressed about it!!!

Valentine's Day pictures coming soon....Lots of Love to Everyone!!!