The distroying angel

Today Chris kept Tori inside when he cleaned the carpets while Abby and I worked outside on the shelves. He came around the corner to find Tori sitting innocently in the chair.
What she did while they were he wasn't watching was this...

Happy Easter

This morning Abby got up and said she wanted to see what the Easter bunny had brought her. We went down and looked at her basket. She was most excited about the sunglasses.
Then off they went to look for all the eggs. Tori just wanted to shake them. Abby helped her pick up several. The Easter bunny being so smart hid them all inside since there was snowy outside.
Tori loved the chocolate of course and would have eaten more if we would have let her. Abby was most interested in separating the candy from the eggs.

After church we went to Aubree's for dinner with the family. The kids played and played and played. When we got in the car, Abby feel asleep within a couple of minutes. Tori on the other hand was awake until we got home, she was so hyped up it was too funny. Over all it was a great day.

Easter Prep

Today we decorated Easter cookies. I was feeling daring so I made cookies and gave the girls sprinkles to decorate them. It seemed like a good idea.Then Tori started to do some major sprinkle dumping...


Abby got into it too...

The girls had a lot of fun, after they were done, the sprinkles were gone and they were happy.

One of the best things about being a parent is that you get to damage your children in new and exciting ways. Here is what I did today. I tried to have time before today to purchase Easter candy but it just didn't happen. Therefore, today I took Abby and we went to purchase the candy at the store. That being said, I knew she would ask questions if all the sudden it showed up the next day, so I told her that we put it in the eggs and that the Easter Bunny would hid the eggs and leave her and Tori a present in it's place.

Needless to say we stuffed the eggs for Easter the Bunny as Abby likes to call him and then placed them outside the front door so he could find them. See how it turns out tomorrow...

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I always think St. Patrick's day is fun, not because I drink beer and not because I have lots of green clothes. I think it because I remember all the fund things we did as kids, green food, green decorations, etc.
I of course had to put my kids in green, I was however a different story because I don't own any green, other than as a side color. So I picked out a sweater and that would just have to do today.

I have to say this has been one of the least one holidays in a long time and I figured out why late tonight. You see as many of you know my company was sold last year and I will be leaving later this year to pursue new options. When I started there 8 years ago my very first day was St. Patrick's day which I was so excited about. Today it was kinda sad when I realized that this would be my last anniversary and also sad because I realized no one even knew it was my anniversary. I know that is pathetic, but admit it everyone has those poor me moments once in a while.

Anyway, hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

Happy Birthday to...

Ellie, Joshua, Jakob and Jeff. Today we headed up to Loveland to celebrate a lot of Cheatham birthdays. It was like Christmas in March with all the birthdays there were tons of presents to be handed out. John even received some, because the poor guy is the only one with a birthday outside of March of the kids and I think they felt sorry for him.

Elisa did a great job with all the cakes she made one for each of the kids, I am sorry but I didn't get a picture of them, they were all so yummy, way better than what you could get in the store for sure. After lunch and cake Judd and Chris decided they needed a nap, it was just too much excitement for them.

While they slept the kids all had a grand time playing in the back yard. Tori loved the big wheel toys.

Tori, Abby and Rachel all posed for a picture before they went back to playing "house:.

Yummy DInner

I have had this major craving for Chicken Marsala lately, so I decided tonight for dinner that was what we were going to have. I hadn't made it before so on to the Internet I went to find a easy and wonderful recipe. What I found were several options, I choose to go with Tyler's recipe and just excluded the prosciutto and changed out for portabella mushrooms. I also used 2x as much Marsala "cooking" wine and 2x as much chicken stock, which I think added more flavor.It turned out great and was really easy to make. Abby even helped me by using the hammer on the chicken to pound it down. I would recommend this recipe for any that want to give it a try. I also cooked up some asparagus and a side dish. Abby loved, loved, loved the mushrooms and had about 5 servings. One of her favorite foods in mushrooms. She won't each them fresh and prefers them to be cooked, so this was perfect for her. I almost started laughing when she said..."Mom can I have some more mushrooms and asparagus, please?" My reply "if you eat 2 bites of chicken you can have more", a response that I am sure is not heard to often around the world and I may not hear again, so I wanted to record it.

For desert, I pulled another recipe I have been dieing to try, Peach Cobbler, from Blake. Also very good, but I have to say not as good I expected based on his review. Chris and Abby both loved it, so we will see if it lasts more than 2 days in our house.

The Children's Museum

Today Chris had to do some studying for school, so I needed to get the girls out of the house so that would happen. I asked Abby if she wanted to go to the Zoo or the Children's museum and she chose the museum, then the Zoo and when we were half way there, she changed back to the Children's museum. Because I thought it would be best to get there right when they opened so it was less crowded, we left with plenty of time to spare.
What I didn't know was that both the Zoo and the museum opened at 10AM on Saturday instead of 9AM, so you can image my surprise to arrive to an empty parking and locked doors. Needless to say I was not alone, there were at least a dozen other parents that arrived before hand, perhaps so that their children could pay on the playground, but I am going with, because they too didn't know what time the museum opened.
It was cold enough that I made them ware their coats, at least at first. Tori thought that the gravel was especially fun to play in. She had two big handfuls, but dropped them right before I snapped this picture.

Abby has always loved to go down the slides. When she was an "only child" I used to take her to the park at least 2 times a week and she would find the slides and go time after time after time. She thought this one was really cool because it went around and around like a slinky.
They had a really cool fire truck that you could climb in as well as play pretend fire fighter. Abby was all over putting on the outfit and posing with the fireman they had there. Tori was more excited about the dog then anything else here.

There was an adorable little house that was just the size of the kids. Everything was kid sized from the pots and pans to the stove and cabinets. I think the bed was a little too small for any of my children, but Abby had to try it out anyway.While Abby cleaned and organized, Tori made moved stuff and made messes, just like at home, however when you are done, you don't have to put everything back in it's place before you leave. Other kids will pick up right where you left off and keep playing. Tori was fascinated by the wood fruit that you put together as well as the salt and pepper shakers.
We spent over an hour is this 0-4 year old area with all there was for kids to do, I am sure they could have spent much more time there.

Next it was onto the "store/kitchen" where the children could go shopping with either a grocery cart or a basket, get the items they need, check out and then go on to cook their purchase. Abby and Tori both loved this area. There was a poor kid who was volunteering in this area who was responsible for putting items back once abandoned by the children, so that other children could shop off the shelves. I am sure he wanted to cry by the end of his shift, I would because as soon as he put something away, another child grabbed it and was off to do their work. It made me laugh because I often fill that way at home.

After a fun time at the museum, we had a quick lunch on the patio and headed home. Both kids crashed on the way home from all the excitement.

Tonight I had a girls night out and Chris stayed with the kids. I am not quite sure what prompted this picture, but it was just to funny not to add. I will leave the interpretations up to you.

No More Binkies!!

So tonight is night 3 with no Binky's. The Dr. said at Abby's 3 year appointment she needed to lose the Binky or we needed to start saving up for some major dental work. Since that appointment I have polled several friends, received comments from my blogger friends and have googled to find the right way to do this. We had such good intentions we even started this last year with the whole "leave your Binky's for Santa" and the moved onto "you will be a big girl when you turn 3 and big girls don't need Binky's" and most recently tried the tried to use the "Binky fairy" who trades your Binky's for a lot of cool things.

In the end what won out what a night of not listening to the point that Chris had taken away everything else and that was the last threat that he could use "you won't get your Binky back tonight." That turned into you won't get your Binky back tomorrow night either. Well I figured we have gone this far, why turn back. So it is goodbye to Binky...

T R O U B L E

Tori is a handful and today she was especially hard to handle, or as we like to call her the destroying angel. I would just keep something cleaned up and she would come right after me and undo it. Some of her finest work today as pulling out all of the lids and then rolling around in them.

She also though that it would be really funny to put her bowl of soup that she had for dinner on her head. It was a good thing it was bath night tonight. She is quite the comedian these days, anything for a laugh.