I betcha didn’t know that the best way to eat mashed potatoes was by sticking an olive on your finger and using it as a scooper.

Yea, Willow didn’t know either…

After you’re all filled up on lunch, well, you have to have a tea party.

Jayden likes to put one of the “desserts” into his cup, so he can have whipped cream tea.

Delicious!!

After a few days practice, Willow is now cruising around the house. That is, if I remind her to just walk. She has a tendency to want to sit down and scooch, but once I tell her to walk she gets this look on her face like, ‘Oh yea! I am so doing that!’ And then she just takes off!

Here is an updated video for all my long-distant peeps. I know that last one was pretty dark and blurry. I thought it turned out kinda bad because it was at night and our room wasn’t very bright, but then today when I was trying to take more videos of her walking, things were still kinda blurry. I turned the camera over and I found a perfect little greasy fingerprint covering the whole lens, I’m gonna go with it was probably Jayden’s. Once I got that cleaned off, the picture came out much better!

We weren’t sure it was ever gonna happen. But at 15 months and 13 days, Willow decided she would try out this thing we do called walking. :)

Does Willow’s hair look like it’s sticking out just a little more than normal?

How ’bout in this one?

Ok, here?  Does it look like maybe someone put a little something in her hair and scrunched it, trying to create some body and wave?

It wasn’t me.  This is the result of eating waffles with syrup for dinner and not wanting to use a fork.  Then stretching halfway through and playing with your hair.  Guess we’ll be taking a bath tonight.  :)

We have finally had a nice break from the horrible cold that is the winter here in Kansas.  We actually got up in the 50’s.  It was so nice, and it actually felt like spring was coming.  Although spring here, while it is a bit warmer comes with some pretty scary storms, and I did watch the movie Twister last night while ironing Royal’s work clothes, and I’ve pretty much freaked myself out about tornados again.  I’ve been here for a little over a year and a half, and I’m still not sure I’ve found a Kansas season that I like the best.  :)

Here’s some pictures of the kids swinging in the backyard, taking advantage of the warmish evening. I can’t wait ’till we can play outside after dinner again!

And on a side note, Willow has learned that she does indeed love cherry dum-dums.

The kids and I went to a fundraiser for the YWCA today at MyGym.  If you brought package of pull-ups or diapers, your kids could play for only $1.  Sadly, I didn’t even have a dollar on me, and not really wanting to charge $1 on the credit card, I raided Jayden’s piggy bank for it.  He caught me too, and then said, “It’s alright Mom, you can borrow it”  Thank goodness, or we would of just been stuck at home today!  And that just wasn’t going to work because Willow had a race to compete in!

Jayden and Noah burying themselves in the ball pit.

Willow tackling some stairs.

I was starting to think that Willow wasn’t having much fun.  I couldn’t get her to smile for me and in all the pictures she was looking so concerned.  And then I stuck her on the trampoline.

Spring Loaded…

BOING!!!

And from another angle…

Good thing I got her on the trampoline because we had to get her legs all warmed up for her race.  She was going to have to be scooching her fastest today because she was going to be competing against a walker, because, well, most kids are walking by the time they are 15 months old.  Not my kid though!  And you’re not gonna believe it, but Willow won!

Her competition got a little distracted and went off course for a bit.  See the little girl in the brown pants and blue shirt?  That’s Joyce, Noah’s little sister, and Willow’s competition.  The race started at the red taped line and Willow sure enough came scooching across the floor to get a ball, while Joyce turned around and started going the other way.

WINNER!  Willow made it to the red mat first.  There’s Joyce behind her, she started coming the right direction, but just a little too late.  Slow and steady wins the race, right???

We’re having an impromptu pajama day at our house.  Jayden came into our bedroom this morning and declared, “Mom, we are NOT working out today.  I just want to play with my toys”  And I really didn’t have the energy to argue with him, not to mention I sliced off the end of another finger yesterday and then proceeded to burn it on a hot pan, so I wasn’t sure how the throbbing in that finger was going to feel while pushing a stroller and doing pushups (not at the same time of course).  And poor Willow seems like she’s been living on Tylenol lately, thanks to teeth and colds and shots.  So, I’m taking the day off and we are hanging out in our pajamas, or at least I am until I figure out time to get a shower in.  And lets face it, Jayden will only stay in his pajamas until he discovers that in fact I did not wash his dino costume yesterday and after a few words to me about it, he will put on his horse costume.  And Willow, well she likes to dress herself.  So, she asked me to take off her pajamas by pulling on them and yelling, ‘ahhhhhhhh. ahhhh. ahhhhhhh’  And then handed me these slippers for me to put on her.  When I brought her a shirt and showed it to her, she shook her head at me.  No, I am not kidding.  Even at 1, Willow seems to have an opinion about what she wants to wear, sadly for her I’m bigger and stronger so if we need to go outside and a diaper and slippers just isn’t going to keep her warm, I can force her to put on more clothes.  I figure this will last until she’s 2 and bigger than me.

Me and the kids went to a friend’s 2nd birthday party today at Pure Entertainment.  The kids both had so much fun.  Jayden went buck wild around the place and kept running by me saying, “Mom, I’m so sweaty!”  He was all red in the face and out of breath, but that wasn’t going to slow him down.  Thank goodness they were serving chicken fingers for lunch, a personal fav of Jayden’s (he asks for them for breakfast), or I don’t think I would of got him to take a break and cool off.

or, as Willie and I always called it, Happy Singles Awareness Day!

For part of the kid’s presents this year, I decided to make them something.  For Jayden I made him a flannel dinosaur pillow case, which sadly has already gotten a lot of use since it was opened this morning.  Jayden has been real sick for the past few days.  He had the flu on Thursday and then Friday the flu seemed to turn into a cold, and now he’s all laid up on the couch.  Poor kid.

For Willow, I made a little valentine dress.  And for the 5 minutes she had it on today so I could try and take some pictures, she managed to get food on it!  How the heck did she find food????  I figure she’s got a secret stash  around somewhere…

For lunch, I made the kids and Royal some heart shaped sandwiches.

And then I finished up my heart sugar cookies by frosting them with some chocolate royal icing, Royal’s favorite.