Good stuff

One of the my favorite recipes from my mom is a yummy fruit dip, and I am able to pass on my love of it to the next generation.  This is what you call "licking the bowl clean."  (I'm so proud.)

Happy Easter

We celebrated Easter like I'm sure many others do...  decorating the eggs, Easter egg hunts, lots of candy and Peeps (which Maddie loved),  Sunday mass/service, and yummy Easter brunch with family.  We were fortunate to celebrate Easter with Nathan's parents and Uncle Erik and Aunt Chelsea.  We also were grateful for the beautiful spring weather.  It was a great weekend!

Oh, and if you are wondering...  here is what a crabby 3.5 year old looks like when you are trying to take her picture in her cute Easter dress and she doesn't want you to...

Patience and sharing

Patience.  It's not something that comes easily to me, but I'm working on it.  And Madeline and Henry are sure helping me hone in on my patience skills.  Sharing.  It's a constant battle at our house these days.  This whole "sibling rivalry" thing happens early and often!!!  Madeline has been doing such a great job sharing with Henry, but there is only so much we can expect her to do.  Henry wants only 2 things:  either 1) whatever Madeline has and/or 2) a ball.  There is no middle ground.  And he wants it NOW.  We've had lots of tears these last few weeks. 

Documented proof:

This $2.59 ball from Target has been a huge lesson for me... JUST BUY 2 BALLS NEXT TIME!

Decorating the Easter eggs

With a 1- and 3-year old, it's fair to say that we don't go overboard on decorating the Easter eggs.  Who wants to deal with keeping your house safe from egg DYE?  But, in the spirit of good old fashioned tradition, we decided to dye 9 eggs.  Well, actually, it ended up being 8 because I had to give an egg to Henry to keep him happy and away from the DYE.  This is what he did with it.  

So, after Henry gave me back the destroyed egg, he now wanted in on the food dye action.  So, I hesitatingly gave him a cup of the dye.  As you can see, he was laughing hysterically.  I love those cute little belly laughs.  But, every good thing must come to an end.  And he did NOT like having it taken away.  Poor Henry.  He's such a 1-year old...

Getting ready for vacation

We're heading to Hilton Head, South Carolina next week for a little R&R and swimming with my mom, sisters, and their families.  We're anxious to see everyone, but we're especially excited to see Uncle Frank, who is finally back from a 15 month tour of duty in Iraq (THANKFULLY!), and also Aunt Katie and her cute pregnant belly.

Aunt Katie sent Madeline a little beach care package, with some new Crocs, Tinkerbell swim suit, and goggles - all of which she was *very* excited about.  And Henry LOVES his new sunglasses.

Hilton Head - here we come!

Catching up...

I haven't been so great about updating the blog lately. I have two excuses - 1) I use facebook so much that I feel like people probably already know what I'm doing and 2) I have been terrible at taking pictures of the kids lately, so I didn't have many to share... So, now I have had the camera out all week. Poor kids.

Everyone is doing great! We've managed to stay relatively healthy this winter, which we continue to be grateful for. Henry is fully a toddler and is excercising all tantrum rights that go along with it. He only wants to play the toy/item that Madeline wants, and he's willing to throw his head back in a tearful rage if he is denied. Yesterday, I sent Madeline to the corner for being naughty, and Henry was pushing her away so he could get in the corner instead. So you know we're in a mess here when tantrums are thrown over who gets disciplined more! He's really big into reading books and feeding himself, too. It's cute to see him figure things out on his own.

Madeline is really changing a lot, too. ... Almost like she's wrapping up her own extended toddler stage (which I'm convinced is 15 months to 3.5 years!). She is all about turning 4 now. She talks about her birthday on June 9th nearly every day now. And it's "I want 4 crackers because I'm going to be 4." Or into school today, it was "I don't want it to be winter. I want it to be spring so it's my birthday." Besides all of the birthday talk, she is working hard on her letters and numbers. And she is so patient and sweet to her temperamental brother - and I'm so proud of her for that!

Wanting in on the Wii action....