Well the freaky Kansas weather has finally freaked on the good side. No snow today, that was a few days ago, just sunshine, little to no wind, and in the 70’s. It was fantastic!

The past couple of days, Jayden and I have decided that it would be a good idea to take a trip to the neighborhood park. Usually I put Willow in the stroller, and I always have to take the double stroller because at one point Jayden gets upset that he has to walk and he wants to ride with Willow and if he can’t ride, well then he wants to be carried, and really I don’t want to walk a mile pushing a stroller and carrying Jayden on my shoulders or listening to him whine the whole way home. So, I busted out our backpack and we did a little urban hiking. Willow loved it! I’m not sure why she wouldn’t, she’s up high and can see everything. I think I’d like it!

Jayden did some super sliding down the fast slide.

And it was sooo warm, well, Jayden just had to run through the sprinklers

And it’s just not a sunny day without an ice cream cone!

After we had a few fantastic weeks of 70 and 80 degree weather, us here in Kansas are getting ready for a cold snap and a freaking blizzard. Good thing I never transplanted my strawberries into our garden box or I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t of survived the storm that is coming. Starting tonight, Wichita is suppose to get around 10 inches of snow in blizzard conditions. We’ve had hail and freezing rain the past couple of hours and the road in front of our house look pretty icy, hopefully Royal can get home alright after work. Here’s a newly frozen window in our house.

So, while we’re waiting on the storm…..
I finally decided to get over my OCD about play doh colors getting all mixed together. I have a 5 year stash of play doh in the pantry thanks to Christmas, so really if I want to use a specific color, chances are there’s an unopened can of it somewhere. And really, whose the play doh for? If Jayden wants to smoosh it all together, than fine with me! So, Jayden and I made this tie-dye looking road with a tree, turtle, a duck eating a snake (which I think it looks like the snake is eating the duck, but whatever….), and some worms.

And then of course it isn’t a storm without a bunch of cooking going on. Royal’s gonna love all the dishes I’ve got piled up for him and I’m probably not even done yet…he he he. Plus the oven helps heat up the house, so it’s like killing 2 birds with 1 stone. Food is cooking in the crock pot, I’ve got all the stuff out to make some beer bread, I’ll probably make some breakfast egg muffins incase the power goes out tonight, and Jayden and I just finished making a chocolate pie!

And just to keep my distant family happy, here’s a bunch of pictures of the kidlettes.

Royal? Is that you? Oh no, it’s just Jayden…even Willow looks a little scared.

This morning was a morning of doctor appointments for us. Royal had an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon to talk over his MRI results from Wednesday. Good news, no surgery! He has a tear on his outer meniscus, no ligament damage, but he’ll have to do physical therapy for awhile and it’ll be a good 6 weeks before he can play basketball or anything again. The only good thing I can think of for me in the this whole thing is that I won’t have to deal with stinky sweaty basketball clothes for awhile. :) But the doctor did see a couple cysts in Royal’s knee that he said should not be there and could possibly be what has been making Royal’s knee swell up so much. So, he stuck a 3 inch needle in Royal’s knee and drained out like 60cc’s of what Royal described as cranberry colored nastiness, and had it sent off to a lab to determine if those cysts are going to need to be taken care of. Let me tell you, I have been hearing about that huge needle all day. :) I’m not sure Royal was a little bit traumatized by it.

While Royal was off getting his knee shrunk back down to normal size, Jayden and I took Willow to her 4 month well check. Willow is coming along quite nicely, she weighs 14 1/2 pounds, and is 24 inches long. Turns out she’s a short, little fatty with a small head. :) Her weight is in the 70th percentile, her height in the 40th, and her little head in the 20th. Gotta love those percentile charts to make you feel like you can’t grow a kid right! :) She also has been cleared for eating some rice cereal! Hot dog! So, I whipped some up tonight and while she ate it, I don’t think she’s as excited as me about it.

Jayden and I made some shamrock sugar cookies yesterday.

He carried the cookie cutter around all day and said, ‘oh mom, this is my favorite! i must need it!’ So, cookies we made.
Jayden has his own rolling pin and gets his own ball of dough to roll out and cut.

He used to be able to roll out and make a couple cookies out of his dough when we made cookies, but then he discovered how delicious cookie dough was and well he just can’t help himself - hence the small amount of dough in the above picture. Each time he’d break off a piece of dough and shove it in his mouth he’d say, ‘that’s enough, i’m full now’ and then another piece would find it’s way into his mouth until he had no dough left and no cookies cut out.

Willow hung out with us, chillin’ on the counter. No dough for her yet!

She held the cookie cutter for me.

Later in the day, I was rocking Willow, putting her down for a nap, when I hear the porch door open and close. I look out the window and find Jayden sitting on the porch eating sugar cookies. Needless to say, he was bouncing off the walls for the rest of the day.

It’s been snowing/drizzling all morning here, 37 degrees outside, but feels like 30. A few minutes ago, Jayden looked out the window and saw this :

I hear, “Oh no, Mom. My slide. It’s all wet. I need to go outside and dry it.” Now, I do NOT want to go outside. It’s freezing out there, plus I was getting Willow down for a nap, so I said, ‘If you want to go outside, you need to take off your pj’s, get some pants, shirt, socks and shoes, and I’ll help you change your clothes and get a coat on” Jayden says, ‘OK!’ and runs off to his room. This is how he came out and he told me he was “ready to go outside!” I think those cheeks are gonna get a little cold.

As me and the kids were driving home from working out this morning, Jayden says to me, ‘Hey Mom, I’m getting all the dirt off.’ Not having any idea what he was really talking about, I said, ‘Ok’. I can’t see him all that well, as he is sitting behind my seat now, so I’d really have to turn around backwards to get a good look at him and I decided that might be a little too dangerous, and I couldn’t think of anything that was in the car that I didn’t really want him to have. So I didn’t think much of it and went back to singing along with the radio. Then a little while later he says, ‘Mom, look! It’s all clean now.’ And I say, ‘Great! What’s all clean?’. And he says, ‘My shoe!’ I’m thinking, ‘What the???’ But I say, ‘It’s all clean? What did you use to clean it?’ To which he replies, ‘My tongue!’. And he holds up his shoe, so I can see it in the rear view mirror, and low and behold, the sole of the shoe is all shiny and clean. Fantastic. Hope he hadn’t stepped in poop or anything.

Can you tell which one he cleaned???

Jayden loves taking bubble baths because he can “hide” under the bubbles. Really, who doesn’t like bubble baths? or hiding for that matter… :) Today is a day I’d like to hide from Jayden. I called Kaylee and told her I was giving up. Jayden wins, I’m done. (not really, but somedays I want to) The boy has an attitude like there is no tomorrow and enough stubborn genes running through his veins for at least 5 kids. He picks fights just so he can yell at me (awesome!), so most of the time I don’t respond to his ‘I wanna watch a movie’ right after we just turn a movie off, because when I say ‘We’re gonna do something else since we just watched a movie’, he says, ‘I WANT TO WATCH A MOVIE!!!!! NOW MOM!!!!’ and then throws a fit. (awesome again!) We go upstairs to paint, but it’s not the right paint or the right paintbrush. On the way to timeouts, if I am holding Willow and can only grab him by one arm (instead of an entire body hold/grab/carry), he bites, and scratches, and hits, and kicks. My hands look like they have been attacked by raccoons (once again, awesome!) Then, this is my favorite. When he’s in timeout, just to give me something else to think about, sometimes he’ll take off all his clothes and pee on the floor. Or like today (this is really fantastic), he doesn’t take his clothes off, pees right in them on the floor, then takes them off and when I come to open his door and let him out of his room, he throws his wet pants and underoos at me and says, ‘You need to dry these! AND I need new pants’. (AWESOME!!!!) I think I need a freaking vacation…. Anyways….. Here’s cute little Jayden enjoying his bubbles.

What about you Willow? You gonna give me trouble?

Never Mom! Never!

I’m just keeping it real, that’s all. :)

Jayden started up some swimming lessons about 2 weeks ago. It’s really just more of a chance for him to get in the water and have something to do with Royal. He’s still in the infant/toddler class, and all they are trying to teach the kids how to do is kick their legs and paddle their arms. Jayden got those skills down when he was swimming in Oly, but he can’t move up to the next class until he is 4. Might have to find a different sport for him to try out. :)

Me and Willow just chill out in the stands. Maybe we should put Willow in the class. :)

It was so nice today! It got up in the 80’s, so we tried to spend as much time outside as possible. We have to enjoy it when we can, because I looked at the forecast to see how long we were going to have such great weather, and well….we have snow in the forecast next week. Freaky, I know. (I’m just not sure God created this part of the country, maybe He just nodded off for a second and all the sudden Kansas was there, and well, God doesn’t make mistakes, so it’s not like He could take it back… jk!)

Jayden refused to believe it was nice enough for shorts, so he wore his jeans pretty much all day until he finally got too hot. Me? I was in tank top, capri’s, and flip flops the whole time, soaking up as much vitamin D as I could!

There was lots of running around the yard.

I love this picture because it looks like Jayden is running so fast his hair is flying up. However, that would be the ever present wind blowing.

There was wall climbing and jumping

Then, obviously the plants needed some work. Jayden was using his leaf blower like a chainsaw and trying to saw the plant in half.

Then, we had to pull the wagon down to the end of the road and back.

This is what Willow did most of the time. If she wasn’t laying on a blanket in the grass, she was chillin’ in the jogging stroller.

She likes it in there.

And then my camera’s battery died. Guess when it’s flashing low battery, it really means low battery. Good to know.

This is a picture story about Jayden and Willow, interpreted and completely made up by me, of course.

W: Hey brother, what are you doing?

J: I’m reading my Alphabooks, duh.

W: You’re kidding, right?

W: You should stop reading and come over here and play with me.

W: Yes! I love it when he listens to me!

J: Hey sister, how about a shoulder rub?
W: I’m not too sure about that…

W: That feels great!!!
J: My thumbs are breaking!!!

J: I’m not too sure about this shoulder rubbing business…She’s too little to have these kind of knots…
W: Really??

The End