Little Dancer

Today Kate had her Spring dance recital. It was a little chaotic and crazy with so many little girls running around (okay, so there were a lot of crazy mothers running around too), but Kate did a great job. I love watching her dance!

Here's Kate with her sweet teacher, Miss Julie.

Finishing her tap dance.Can you tell which one is Kate? She's the one in the pink hat. Okay, so she's the 6th girl from the right. (Two girls are standing really close together so it looks like five girls.) We had a hard time keeping track of where she was when they were dancing around in circles. Since all the girls look the same in their hats. The dances were all to music from Mary Poppins.

Indiana Jones vs. National Treasure 2

Last night Dave and I went to see the new Indiana Jones movie. We took advantage of having my parents here overnight. They were really sweet and put the kids to bed so we could go on a "date". I was really disappointed with the movie. The whole plot was kind of "out-there" and a lot of the film looked really, really fake.

Over Memorial Day weekend we watched National Treasure 2 and I kept comparing the two movies while I was watching. So, comparing the two movies National Treasure 2 is the better one. I really enjoyed it.

Old Navy Sale

I don't know if you live near an Old Navy, but if you do you might want to drop by. I went yesterday and found a pair of khaki pants for $4.99. And they fit! They were actually long enough. This never happens! I don't find pants/jeans for under $20 very often. They had a lot of other pretty cute clothes on clearance or 40% off. Check it out.

What's New

Here's what's new with us:

I finished reading "The Host" by Stephanie Meyer. I loved it. I recommend it, but make sure you have a few days to read it without having anything else to do. I had a hard time putting it down.

Kate just finished soccer this week and has her last dance class today. Her dance recital is on Saturday. She is going to miss it! She has the sweetest dance teacher ever. We will miss Miss Julie!

We are getting ready to move back to NM the end of June. We found a great house to rent. I'm really excited to have a house all to ourselves (no neighbors attached, like in our duplex), a garage, a fenced backyard, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a dishwasher, etc. I could go on and on. I'm starting to go through our boxes in the basement. I've been organizing and giving stuff to DI so when it gets closer to moving day it won't be so overwhelming. We've moved so many times I've got my packing strategy down. I'll miss all my great friends here but I'm glad that I already have great friends in NM.

Here's something funny that happened on Tuesday. We went to the U to have lunch with Dave. The kids and I were waiting outside for him. We were looking at some pinecones under some trees and Kate said, "Hey, who put that on me?" I didn't know what she was talking about so I looked at her and she had bird poop on her head (poor girl!). We went to the bathroom and cleaned it off, but she was pretty disgusted and didn't want to talk to Dave about it.

Jack is sick, again! I swear that boy is sick so much. He just got over his ear infection/chest congestion stuff a week and a half ago. I hope this runny nose/coughing goes away on its own so we don't have to make another trip to the doctor (at least Jack likes going to the doctor now).

Dave is working hard to finish up things at the U. He defends his dissertation proposal in a few weeks. Then hopefully it won't be too much longer before he's completely done!

He really is two!

Every day Jack is getting crazier and wild and more like a two-year-old. I'm pretty sure that Kate was never as wild as Jack is. I guess he has an older sister to watch so he can figure out how to through good tantrums, run away from me, yell, etc., etc., etc. Today we went to Target and Jack took his pants off three times. I finally just gave up and let him ride around in the cart pant-less. Both kids are going through some crazy stage (I hope it's just a stage) where they are always yelling at each other or hitting or pushing. It's really trying my patience (what little patience I have). Any tried-and-true consequences for hitting/pushing a sibling?

Running Through the Sprinkler

Kate has been asking me if she can run through the sprinkler. So today after lunch we pulled out of the old hose and sprinkler and the kids had a great time.

Getting a running start to go through the sprinkler.

Both kids figured out how to turn the water on higher and lower.

Kate is so excited!

I'm not quite ready for it to be so hot yet, but at least the kids got some relief from the heat.

The Week in Review

This week was a good one, but I don't have any pics to post, so bear with me with just words to look at. Here are a few highlights.

I spent most of the week at my parent's house while Dave was in NM for work. It was a great visit. The kids loved all the baby lambs in all the fields surrounding my parent's house. Jack knows now that sheep say, "baa" not "moo." They loved seeing the horses and cows too. And they loved playing on Grandma's "park" (her swing-set). Lots of fun! It was nice that Steven was home for the week too.

Jack is feeling better. Finally on Thursday he let me do the albuterol inhaler without crying (it only took him a week to figure out that it won't hurt him). He had his 2 year dr appointment on Friday. He amazed me at how well he listened to the doctor and answered her questions. He didn't even cry when she looked at him. Amazing!

Yesterday we got a few upgraded pieces of furniture. Dave's advisor (the one that gave us his train table a month or so ago) gave us a couch (that's only like 4 years old, so that's really new to us). It looks kind of like this except that it is greenish. I'm loving how it reclines! we got rid of the old hid-a-bed couch (it was my parent's couch that we got when I was little so I've lived with it almost my whole life). It's nice to sit on a couch that isn't so low and sunken to the ground. And my parents traded dining room tables with us, so now we have a bigger one and they have our little one in their storage room. And we set up a full-size bed in the kid's room (since we no longer have the hid-a-bed) and took down the crib. I have some major rearranging/organizing to do tomorrow in the kid's room.

It's great to have Dave home and get things back to normal. Kate is loving taking care of her babies (she has to take care of her "twin" dolls), dance class, soccer, and sunbeams.

Living in the City

We've been enjoying living in the big city lately since we don't drive much. Dave walks to work almost every day. The kids are fascinated by the trains and buses that we see all over.

Yesterday the kids and I went on an adventure by riding the bus (that stops right in front of our house) to meet Dave after work. The kids were so excited. Jack thinks that the bus is just another form of a train. I'd forgotten how crazy bus drivers drive, so Jack took a little spill when he fell off the seat when we were going really fast down a curvy, steep road. He was sitting on the seat next to Kate and wasn't holding on. It took him a little while to recover from it, but then he enjoyed the ride. We met Dave after we got off hte bus and walked home together (walking home is all downhill -- hooray!).This afternoon we rode Trax downtown to do a little shopping at Gateway. The kids always love riding the train. "Tooo. Tooo." (that's what Jack says when we're on it).
As a little side note when we were at Gateway we spotted Matt Harpring (plays for the Jazz just in case you don't already know) shopping for jewelry with his wife. Dave told him, "Good game, Matt." And he said, "Thanks." I bet he gets a little sick of that, but at least Dave got to tell him what he thinks. Anyway...Go Jazz! Hopefully they win tomorrow. Life at our house is always a little happier if they win.

Another Successful Visit to the Doctor

Well, today I took Jack to the doctor . . . again. He has been sick so much in his short little life. So, I know it's not really that much compared to people with serious illnesses, but it seems like he's been sick a lot. Anyway...

On the way to the doctor I was wondering if I was going for another wasted visit where the doctor says that whatever he has will go away on it's own and then we leave. I took him in because he was kind of wheezing and has a nasty cough. He's had a runny nose for a week or so, but I just thought that it was allergies. But today we got to come home with lots of stuff: meds for an ear infection, some steriods, and an albuterol inhaler. What fun stuff!

Anyway...So the highlight of our visit to the doctor was when I got to try to hold an albuterol mask on Jack's face for five minutes so he could breathe in the mist. Have you ever tried to hold a mask over a flailing-wiggling-squirming-hitting-kicking two-year-old's mouth? Not so easy. Things were flying off of the mask during our struggle. It was kind of traumatic for Jack. But at least it helped open his airway a bit.

This is what we get to do at home. Obviously that's not Jack and I wish that Jack would hold still like this.

Well, that was our exciting afternoon. I'm sure there will be more wiggling-squirming fights in the days to come. Hopefully he gets feeling better soon. Poor kid.

Sweet Kids

Kate said to me the other day after printing off some princess coloring pages, "This makes my spirit happy."

Then later that day we took her babies for a walk in her new double stroller and I discovered that she didn't just have two babies in it, but five babies. She's very into babies lately. Our dining room is set up as a nursery/kitchen for her babies.

Anyway... Our walk around the block took quite a while. We had to stop at the park and then Jack kept having to put his teddy bear in time out over and over. I've been putting Jack in time out when he won't sit down or stay in the stroller. We go on a lot of long walks, and this has really helped.

Eew! What's that smell?

It's been raining today, so all afternoon I was thinking of what I could make for dinner so it would be ready after we got home from picking Dave up from work (since he walked). I decided to make some white chili (my favorite, Annelisa's recipe). It was ready and on low on the stove, the table was set, the chips were out, everything was ready so when we got home from getting Dave we could eat right away. I put the kids in the car and then remembered that the chili was still on low. So I ran inside and turned the stove off.

Or so I thought. When we got home I smelled something that made me realize that I didn't turn the stove off. The knob was between off and high. Oops! The chili was very crispy on the bottom and our house was very stinky.

We were planning on going to the mall to pick up the kids pictures from Sears after dinner, so Dave suggested (very sweet of him) that we go to Panda for dinner instead. So, the burnt chili is now in the garbage outside and we had a good dinner of orange chicken, but man does our house stink. I've been trying to air it out but it's a little chilly outside, so I've been spraying a little lysol. Candles just make it smell worse. So, hopefully the stink goes away soon.

Dave keeps teasing me about burning it, but all I can say is that I haven't ruined dinner very many times in our almost seven years of marriage. Most of the time it turns out fine. Although I do have a big problem of burning garlic cheese bread. That's another story...

Cinderellee, Cinderellee

On Sunday my friend, Jen, told me about a Cinderella park that isn't too far away. Kate has been dying to go since she found out that there is such a thing as a Cinderella park. We finally made it there this afternoon in between rain showers (actually it sprinkled pretty much the whole time that we were there, but I'm pretty sure Kate was too busy to notice).

We all got to take many turns driving the coach.

The ladders to the castle are inside the turrets.

Too bad I didn't fit through the little hole, so I couldn't get

up on top of the castle with the kids.

Jack is yelling, "Giddyup!"

I'm sure that we'll be back to play at this park soon. Poor Jack had a hard time keeping up with Cinderella/Kate. She had a plan of where Cinderella was going and what she was doing. Good times!

Turkey Meatballs

Okay, so I was making turkey meatballs a few minutes ago and it smelled heavenly. This is my favorite recipe and I have already given it to a few of you faithful blog-readers (or you got it from Melinda -- thanks for giving it to me, Melinda!). But I thought it was a blog-worthy recipe because I love it so much. So here it is:

These are my favorite! This recipe if from my SIL Melinda. When she makes these she triples the recipe and has a whole freezer full of meatballs. My whole family loves them. We make them into meatball sandwiches and also eat them with spaghetti. The kids gobble the meatball sandwiches up.

Turkey Meatballs

2 lbs ground turkey
2 pieces of bread (to make breadcrumbs)
1 onion
1 green pepper
2 cloves garlic
1 carrot
1 egg
1 Tbsp Italian seasoning, crushed in the palm of your hand
1 Tbsp grill seasoning or 1 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp black pepper
2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 Tbsp red wine vinegar or balsamic vinegar (optional)

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees
2. Whirl bread in blender or food processor to make soft bread crumbs
3. Coarsely chop all vegetables and place in food processor. Process until finely chopped, or finely chop all vegetables by hand.
4. In a large mixing bowl combine all ingredients. Mix with hands. Mix as little as possible to keep meatballs from being too dry.
5. Form into large meatballs and place on rimmed baking sheet. Makes about 25 large meatballs (I usually make them smaller).
6. Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes or until cooked through.
7. Cool and package into freezer bags. Use right away or freeze some.

I usually buy a 5 lb package of ground turkey from Sam's Club and make 3 lbs of it into meatballs. I make the meatballs smaller than Melinda explains in the recipe. When I use 3 lbs of meat it makes a whole cookie sheet full of meatballs. I bake them, then freeze them in packages of 12.

Meatball Sandwiches

On a sliced crusty roll (you can butter and brown the roll first if you want) spread spaghetti sauce on the inside. Then slice some meatballs and mix with a little spaghetti sauce and put inside the roll. On top of the meatballs put a half a slice of provolone cheese then close the roll and warm in the oven until the cheese is melted.

Great Books

Jack has a few more great children's books to add to our collection after his birthday. I thought I'd share what some of our favorite books are.

This is my new favorite book. So cute! She also wrote one called, "Llama Llama Mad at Mama."
We loves these books (thanks Melinda for telling us about them).
A classic!
We love these dinosaur books.
Thanks Mom for the cute new books! We love the "If you give a..." books. Thanks Anne Marie for this one. I love this book! I can't believe that we haven't read it before.

Jack's Big Day

I can't believe that my "baby" is two now! Here's a look back :Five days old (I'd post a "birth" day picture, but he looks a lot cuter in this one.)

One year old

Birthday boy (yesterday)

Showing how old he is (he started out saying that he's "two-five." By the end of the day he got just "two" down, but he likes holding up all his fingers.)

I think Kate opened most of his presents for him while he was looking at his car stuff. I bought him a few books that he doesn't care about, but I'm excited to have new ones.

Kate had dance class yesterday morning and Jack wanted to go too. He got himself dressed in her leotard and tutu.

Eying the cake (he obviously got a little taste as shown on his face)

I watched my friend's kids yesterday and they helped us celebrate. We built a nice big train track with Jack's new Geotrax track extension set (thanks Grandma/pa J.)Our friend, Owen, helped Kate and Jack decorate a little cake with cookies and sprinkles.
Then they took turn blowing out the candles and then devoured the cake.Jack with his soccer ball cake (in case you can't tell what it is). I decided that next year I'll actually make some good cake decorating frosting (this year I just used the can stuff and I was in a hurry). I'm definitely not a perfectionist when it comes to cake decorating, but hey, the kids don't care, yet.