Names

The other morning Carson and I were having our typical bonding time (he is my early riser). Over our coffee and juice (and snuggling) he started an interesting, and then funny, conversation. They went to Vacation Bible School last week at the church we've been attending and they were learning a lot of new songs there. They asked us to buy a CD of the songs on Wednesday night, so we did. They taught us all 10 of the songs, with the motions for most of them, by Thursday afternoon. One of the songs says "Jesus Christ" in it, so Carson asked me if Jesus' name was just Jesus or if it was Jesus Christ.

The conversation went something like this:
"Why does that song say Jesus Christ? He's just Jesus."
"He has more than one name, buddy. Your name is Carson what?"
"Carson James"
"Carson James what?"
"Dillard"
"Okay, so like you have more than just Carson as your name, so did Jesus. But we don't always call you Carson James Dillard, right?"
"Yeah"
"What is my name?"
"Mommy"
"What is my REAL name?"
"Mommy James Tooley"

I don't know why I found that so adorable, but it was said in the most serious of tones...he was convinced that was my name! What a cutie!!!

Regatta '08

For the 4th of July weekend we headed down to Madison (Matt's hometown) to enjoy the Regatta festivities. Matt's grandmother graciously allowed us to borrow her apartment which is just steps from the parade route and blocks from the river where the fireworks, boat races, and food vendors are located. We started Friday off with a trip down to the river to show the kids the boats. Carson hadn't taken a nap yet, so he fell asleep in my arms while we were walking. I found someplace to sit and Matt went to get snacks for us. The parade was that evening. We watched it with all of Matt's family. It was very fun, but kind of long!!

On Saturday we decided to take a downtown Madison tour...courtesy of Matt. We went to see the fountain, some historic homes, a train caboose, and ate some donuts. That afternoon we walked down to the river again, this time with strollers so Carson could fall asleep there. Saturday night were the fireworks. As we were headed back up to the apartment to get the blanket and bug spray Delaney asked if we had popcorn to eat during the fireworks. We didn't have any, so we stopped off at the grocery store and bought some to microwave before heading back down. We popped 3 regular size bags of popcorn and she ate an entire bag alone....I guess she really wanted popcorn. She was a little hesitant of the fireworks at first, but with some convincing (they were not going to fall on her and burn her), she enjoyed them. Car on the other hand was NOT a fan of fireworks. He sat cuddled up on my lap with my hand over his ear so that he couldn't hear them. If I tried to move my hand to talk to him it was quickly slammed back down. I did finally turn him so he could see them and he stayed that way.

Sunday was the day for the boat races. They were delayed and then there was so much time between the heats it was ridiculous. Then they were delayed again......and again.....so we decided to go ahead home. Car fell asleep on our way back up to the apartment to gather up our stuff, so we laid him down on the air mattress to sleep while Matt loaded the car and I gathered everything up.

HA!

Some things are just too cute to not share! Carson has become an early riser (6:45 or 7am) lately. Well, I am constantly trying to get him to go back to bed using, "It isn't wake up time yet." Matt has been home later in the mornings, so if he sees Matt up he is certain it is time to GO! This morning he woke up at 6:50, but Matt was already in the kitchen and I caught him in the hall, so I thought I had the perfect plan. I told him it wasn't wake up time and he consented to go back to bed....in our bed. I agreed and let him lay down while I worked some more. After about 25 quiet minutes I could hear him in the bathroom. When I went in to check on him, he said (are you ready for this?), "My pee told me it was wake up time, okay?" He had the CUTEST look on his face while he said it.....so, we cuddled for a long time in the living room chair while drinking juice/coffee and watching the morning news.

And, as if that story isn't enough, I think I'll attach a picture that is also too cute to keep to myself. I bought these shoes for $2 at Children's Place and figured Matt would hate them. Matt thought they were okay, but Car thought they were TOO handsome! I don't think he'll wear that outfit with them, but I can hardly wait to find the perfect pants.

A Day at the Museum

Matt was able to take a half day from work to spend the day at the museum with us. We met him in the parking garage, the kids had no idea he was going to show up, so that made it even more fun...they didn't even know where we were going until I drove past the dinosaurs coming out of the building. They have a new animation exhibit and a comic book area, so Car really wanted Matt to see the Batman, Spiderman, Superman, and any other kind of man you can think of pictures! We had a ton of fun!! Delaney had a great time drawing and coloring in the comic book area and Carson loved to play memory in the dinosaur area. He does not like to go in where the dinosaurs are (they are too loud for him), so we sat out at the play table where there is a computer with dinosaur memory on it. By the 5th game he was doing an excellent job...and just as an fyi, the cards were not in the same place every time!!

Wonderful IN summer weather

One day last week we woke up to a wonderful summer day. So, we decided to take advantage of it. Before breakfast we filled up the little plastic pool (you know, so it could warm up while we ate...HA). The kids had SO much fun outside! They played in the water, squirted me with water guns, and ran all over the backyard. I did not require the water wings that Carson is wearing, he loved them and refused to take them off...hilarious tan lines, but he's 3, he doesn't care! He also learned to jump like a frog from standing outside the pool to inside the pool. It was very interesting to watch him try and try and finally master it. Probably not the safest idea, but he was so determined I couldn't burst his little bubble. Plus, Delaney couldn't figure out how to do it, so that made it an even more wonderful experience for him.

Carson's big day

Lucky for us, the PBS Kids Park (as Carson referred to it) happened to fall right on his birthday! So, as the announcer on the TV told him, he could go see all of his favorite friends in the park. Per the birthday boys request, we headed downtown to see all of his friends! It was a hot day and there were so many people it was crazy! Luckily our kids didn't want to have their pictures taken with the characters, they just wanted to take pictures of all of the characters...yeah!!! No 45 minute lines to stand with the character for 30 seconds and be scooted away so the next child had their turn. We took lots of pictures from the side of the tents that the characters were in. They also had a bounce house and other blow up things that Delaney thoroughly enjoyed....Carson isn't as adventurous yet when it comes to unfamiliar territory.

For dinner we headed to Chick-fil-a so he could play at the playland...and, yes Shannon, he came down all on his own (with the promise of cake when we got home).

He's 3 now....my baby is 3...doesn't seem possible.

From the eyes of Delaney

I mentioned in my last post that the kids received digital cameras for their birthdays. Delaney is really into hers and getting pretty good at it. We went for a walk yesterday and she had to take her camera with her. Here are some of the images she captured.

It was a PARTY!

Some people think I'm crazy, but if you are someone that has to attend the birthday parties, you think I'm sane. I don't do single parties for the kids. They get treated like royalty on their actual birthday, so their party is always combined the weekend between their actual birthdays. For the past 2 years they have "agreed" on a theme...or maybe Carson just didn't have an opinion until this year :-) We had a Cars movie/Princess (focusing on Snow White) party. I chose to go with "color" as my theme! The party was supposed to be at 10am, but because our garage sale was rained out the weekend before, our neighborhood decided to reschedule it for this past weekend. If any of you have been to one of those crazy neighborhood garage sales where the street becomes a one lane road of CRAZY drivers, that is what ours turns in to, so we decided trying to park 10 extra cars out there wasn't going to happen. However, I'd already planned a brunch menu, so we moved the party to 4:30 and had breakfast for dinner. (Bonus: We opened up our garage sale again and made a pretty penny!!)

This was what was occuring in my house at 3:45...the party was supposed to start at 4:30. Delaney had a cold and had pretty much passed out in her floor...she NEVER naps in the afternoon, so I was frightened as to what kind of attitude we might find when she did wake up. Carson was very into whatever Matt had been watching on TV and refused to go change his clothes...of course, through all of this I'm running around like a mad woman trying to prepare food, make sure I have everything out, and looking to see if there are any last minute messes to be cleaned up.

Obviously from the looks of this picture, everyone got dressed and cheered up. The party was fun and the kids received lots of fun toys (the yellow balloon being one of them). They have new dress up clothes (a pirate, princess, butterfly wings, and Snow White), lots of outside toys (balls, bubbles, bug catchers), digital cameras, clothes galore, and some coloring and activity books.

This is the butterfly version of Snow White the morning after the party...the cold symptoms were back in full force, so we lazied around the house in the morning before going to lunch with my family to celebrate the 3 awesome dads we are blessed to have in our family!

Delaney's birthday

Delaney asked to go to the zoo for her birthday, so that is what we did. We had a ton of fun going at our own pace and seeing exactly what the princess wanted to see. We stopped at one of those machines where you insert 2 quarters and a penny and it "presses" it into an animal picture...she thought she was hot stuff.

For dinner, she wanted quesadillas, so we headed to Don Pablo's. The meal and birthday dessert was so good there that we didn't break into her cake until Thursday evening.







Matt and I bought her a Leapster (wonderful educational game system). She was SO excited to open it! Her and Matt have had lots of fun playing with it.

Recital

I can't think of a clever name for this post....so it is pretty obvious! Enjoy these pictures from the big recital. She did an AWESOME job!! I, unfortunately, had to be backstage with her, so I didn't get to see any of it, but there are pictures of her dancing...YEAH!!! I was so proud of her (but we still haven't signed her up for next year).

Monkey Delaney

After the show, my mom bought her a rose. She thought she was something special...well, she is, isn't she?!?

My BIG kids!

This past weekend was a big weekend for both Delaney and Carson. We'll start with Car b/c he so often gets to be second! He has been working very hard on potty training and his chart was a SLOW success....seriously, you can look back through this blog and see that we started a (what we thought would be) 30 day chart in February and he just finished it last week!!! WOW!!! But, I can now say that he is my big "unders" wearing boy! He wore them to church yesterday, which is a big deal b/c we haven't been going to this church very long, so I don't know how much they pay attention to requests/instructions, but he came out in the same pants we dropped him off in, so they must have asked him a few times or he must have gone on his own. All of that to say ~ the last reward on his chart was a big boy bed (the same bed Matt slept in when he was 3). It was delivered last week and Matt put it up Friday. We left the crib in the room so he could go back to it if he wanted to, but Matt took it down yesterday b/c Carson claims he is a big boy and doesn't need that baby bed anymore.

On to Delaney....this weekend was her rehearsal for her recital (which is Saturday at Franklin Central HS at 1pm). She did a good job, but 2 hours is a LONG time for an almost 4 year old that really isn't that interested in dancing! She was a mess by 2:40 (I so badly wanted to leave, but knew I needed to prove to her that we had to stick it out till the end). I think she will just stand there and look cute on Saturday, but I don't care. It's been a good experience for all of us....I learned I am just not one of those dance moms and she learned she doesn't so much care for ballet...she needs a little more activity....maybe we'll try gymnastics!

Projects

I decided that this weekend we were going to tackle some of those projects on the "to do" list. So far we haven't done too shabby.Friday we stayed in our pajamas until almost lunchtime. It was the first day since I took the after school care job that we didn't have anywhere to be all day, so we took advantage of it. We made banana chocolate chip muffins when the kids first woke up. Then we watched a movie from the library in our pajamas while we ate our muffins (in the chair!!). Then, we got dressed, went to Walmart to buy the supplies for another project and went out for lunch....we deserved it!

Our next project (okay, the first one that involved any kind of productivity) was to organize the kid's computer table. It had a random collection of papers, markers, crayons, scissors, and glue all over it. It was really starting to bother me that nothing had it's own home. So, we made homes for all of it. Delaney and I worked very hard Saturday afternoon cutting, taping, labeling, and organizing everything. It looks so much better and is so kid friendly now.

Our project today was to finally plant the garden. I went to a wonderful nursery yesterday to pick our plants (zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers, green and red bell peppers, banana peppers). So, today we got them all in the ground. We think it looks pretty good for first timers! We'll see what happens....

Good friends.....good times!

My friend Gretchen does promotions for Backyardigans and she hooked us up with 5th row tickets to the Backyardigans Live show at the Murat. We decided to make a day of it and took the kids to Qdoba (beat out Taco Bell by my vote!!) for lunch. Then we went downtown. At lunch Delaney had told Carson that Backyardigans were coming, just like Sesame Street did (they had NO idea where they were headed at this point). When we got downtown we parked in Matt's lot and then we walked to the Murat. As we got closer Matt was trying to convince Delaney to read the sign on the building, but she wouldn't, so I sang the song to Carson and he guessed what we were doing. The show was wonderful ~ we even bought a CD afterwards so we could sing the songs the whole way home!! Then, we (I think that should be Matt) had this great idea to take the kids to South Bend on the circle to get ice cream. That walk was a little too long for Carson as he spent a lot of it whining!! However, ice cream totally rejuvenated them and we had a great walk back to the lot.

I invited some friends from the church we used to go to over for a play date on Monday. There were 12 kids between the 5 of us! Our kids had so much fun together and were all so well behaved. They only made one HUGE mess, but it is history now and all that remains are the memories of playing together and digging in the dirt. All of our kids have known each other from birth, so we are trying very hard to keep their friendships together...it helps that all of the moms have been friends since before the birth of our children, so we love to get together just as much as they do!!

So I'm a slacker....

I've been busy, but that is no excuse for not at least slapping a picture or 2 up here for all to see. You know, like what happens when you ask your almost 3 and 4 year olds to help you by getting all of their underwear and socks out of the clean laundry.

Grandpa Dick and Anna Marie came to IN a few weeks ago for Shannon's graduation. We were able to spend a lot of time with them. Matt took the week off work and I took the week off of job #2. We were able to take a trip to the zoo with Teri, James, and Alex. We went to the mall for a while, got new shoes, and played at the play area and ate out LOTS.

I am almost done with job #2. I think I am counting down more than the students are....5 more days!!! YEAH!!! I can hardly wait to regain some sanity and control at home. I have truly and honestly missed cooking more than anything else. Matt has done an excellent job, but it is really a hobby to me and I have missed it in the last 6 weeks. I am also looking forward to working out again. Unfortunately that was one of the things that I had to sacrifice to take this job, but Matt did too, so we've become "unhealthy" together at least :-)
Maybe now that I have a new camera (Happy Mother's Day to me....unfortunately I'd lived without one for 2 weeks b/c mine broke), I'll be better about posting these updates.

Who is that girl and when did she turn 5?!?

** I guess humor and sarcasm cannot be heard in one's voice in a blog...she isn't really 5, she just looks like it! She will be 4 in June. **

Sleepy boy...he is seriously sleeping in there....isn't that adorable?!?

blog

Okay, Matt is trying to "teach me" about blogging ~ not that it's that hard, I'm just not used to updating you all that way! So, I will send this update out and then I'll try to adapt to the blog next time I update :-)

I mentioned Carson's potty training chart a few weeks ago, well, it only has 11 stickers on it - not as much of a success as I had hoped!! He does great about peeing (loves to pee in public, those bathrooms are sooo cool)! One of his rewards, after 10 stickers, was ice cream. The ice cream you can see in the picture is mine, but remember that the camera angle makes it look way bigger than it was :-) I'm kidding - it was huge and wonderful!!!

Our kids really enjoyed Easter this year. We did the Resurrection Eggs (plastic eggs with a part of the story in each one - we opened one each day leading up to Good Friday) with them so they both could tell the entire Easter story by Good Friday! We were thrilled that they knew what we were celebrating. We attended the Good Friday service at a church we've been visiting and Delaney was able to go into the service with us. It was a drama about the events leading up to the crucifixion and it brought about some questions. It was so neat to see her process all of that information and really grow in her understanding of God and His love for us. We also colored Easter eggs and the Easter bunny visited! The kids got dressed up in adorable matching outfits too!!


My dad has had the month off of work, so we have been filling his time with fun events. One of which was going to the museum to meet Monkey George. We chose to do that on a Saturday so Grammy and Daddy could go too!! Delaney was none too thrilled with him (she does not care for big people dressed up). Carson went right up to him and wanted to get his picture taken! We also got to play in the Monkey George exhibit ~ what fun!

My dad has been watching Carson every Thursday so I can take Delaney to ballet alone. That has been very fun for both of them! They have been going to my sister's house and playing with Seth during that time too. Those boys can be wild together though, so watch out!!!

Delaney has grown leaps and bounds academically the past few weeks. I guess we just had to tell her she was going to school and she was ready to go!! She can read Step 1 books (with some help) and she LOVES to color. I mean for hours on end!!! I just took a job doing After School Care at GCA (the school I taught at that she will be attending next year) and I am anxious for that to start on April 7th. I will be working 37 1/2 hours a week between the two jobs with no childcare - pray for me!!!! Matt is going to come down to school when he gets home and get the kids from me. But I am figuring on nice days when I've taken my "students" outside to play, he is going to have NO chance of getting those kids to leave with him! I am very worried about the chaos that occurs at the beginning of after school care, so I am going to have to lay down some big ground rules starting on day one! I'm a mom, I can handle it, right?!?

Enjoy the rest of your weekends!
Gretchen, etc....

Easter

Easter was a fun celebration for us! We colored eggs, the Easter Bunny visited, we went to church and had lunch at my parents.

Day with Grandpa Bub

Once again I have hijacked this list to let everyone know how much fun I had spending the day with Delaney and Carson.

Even though it was rainy outside, the day flew by! We decided the best way to enjoy the rain was to have a breakfast picnic and watch the rain. Someone, , suggested that the best way to eat the cereal would be with our tongues. (I was eating some too. You just don't get to see it, because I had the camera.) It went over so well that we ate all of Matt's Lucky Charms.

We did finally decide to get dressed. I was able to get Carson into the planned outfit. Delaney had other ideas. She had dressed herself by the time I had dressed Carson. She was also adding a few finishing touches to her hairdo. At one point I think she had about 20 hair clips on the right side of her head. I think she needs to work on using her left hand to balance up the layout!

After lunch we watched "A Bug's Life". The grasshoppers were a little more violent than I remembered. Carson didn't seem to let it phase him though. He told Matt later that, "Grandpa Bub protected him".

The day went so quickly that Carson was still asleep when Matt got home. Delaney and I were laying on the couch talking.

Grandpa Bub

brief update

Hello! I wanted to give a brief update of the happenings in our home lately. It seems most fitting to do it with pictures...enjoy!

My mom and I took the kids to meet Bob and Larry at a new Christian book store grand opening. Laney was NOT going to go up to get her picture taken with them, but Car watched a few other kids do it, noticed they came away unharmed, and decided to try it himself. He still doesn't look too sure about it though! We came away with a free CD of three Bible stories and a sing a long DVD that goes with the movie we took them to see in the theatre - we watched it and Carson just kept asking when the movie was going to start.

"No more pictures, please." Can't you just hear it?!? I think this is an adorable way to capture that we are in the middle of potty training Carson - wow, what a task that is with a lazy little guy!! All of the candy and sticker rewards in the world make NO difference in his life! We started a new chart and he is excited about the possibilities on it - new unders, a new book, and the finale (after 30 successes)....a BIG BOY bed!!! YEAH!!!!

This update doesn't have to be all about the kids ~ it can also be about my absolutely wonderful husband!! I have wanted an ipod since before Christmas (I get VERY tired of listening to the women around me talk about their drama while I'm trying to walk/run at the gym). On Valentine's day I got this box of chocolates...lo and behold, there really was an ipod shuffle inside of it...thank you sweetie!!! All I could say in return was, "We made you a big heart shaped brownie - and we even iced it!!!"

Our nephew Seth has spent the week with us as his parents are in the hospital welcoming their new baby boy, Luke, into their lives. He has done a GREAT job adjusting to our routine and he fits right in. The boys have actually slept in the same room. It's been fun to see them all enjoy life together and to see each of their reactions to Luke. Seth is young enough it only phases him that we get to see Mommy and Daddy. Carson is worried he's being replaced. Delaney is in awe of this little creature and wants to look at him and love him lots.

Matt has promised to show me how to put all this on the blog so that you all can start checking it at your leisure instead of getting emails so full of pictures it takes 45 minutes to open :-)

Have a great rest of the week!
Gretchen