Keepin up with the Harwards and the Hansens

So a few of you have posted about going Bowling, and after reading Sarahs post Porter was really wanting to go. Yesterday Elaine asked if we wanted to go with them and thinking I'd be a good mom and take the kids out to do something fun I decided to splurge. The kids were so excited to go "balling" , I fed them lunch and we were off. We got to the lanes and all the employees were smoking outside so we had to wait forever to get our shoes and get started. We played a few rounds and then the kids started in with "Mom I'm hungry" "Mom I'm thirsty" "Mom can I play video games" "Mom do you have any money for the candy machine" etc... So I started getting really annoyed (and it was at this point I remembered Leigh's bowling blog- and wanted to storm out of the bowling alley -but we were there with friends so I controlled myself-). Anyway theres $20 bucks I'll never see again.

Also last night I laid the kids down for bed and Porter fell asleep pretty quickly but Maya was being a twerp so I turned on her music and started cleaning the kitchen. Next thing I know Maya comes walking in saying "Mom Bennett was crying so he's going to sleep with me tonight" I walk in here room and sure enough Bennett is in her bed as happy as can be. It was pretty cute but I'm just glad she came and told me. I would have pancked when I went to find the baby if he was missing.

Will move for MUSE-ick

So I just have to brag a bit cause I finally met my goal of running (walking, call it what you will) 15 min miles. Last week I bought myself a set of headphones for my birthday (best $4 ever spent) and ever since I've loved my treadmill time. I use to hate it so much it was torture to stay one it for 1 mile (and a 4 mph setting would kick my butt), but i'm proud to say I completed 2 miles today in 29 minutes (ranging in speeds from a 3 mph (mostly just the cool down) to an astounding 6 MPH), and I burned 311 calories to boot (not a "boot" as in the horse part, I know you were thinking that Casey). If any of you have helpful ideas that keep you motivated while working out or trying to stick to a sensible (or if you just want to help me understand the meaning of the word senible (I know it has something to do with NOT consuming an entire batch of cookies in a weekend)) diet, please feel free to share!

Bucket Lips

We have discovered something very odd! Anytime Amanda sings to they children, they break out in tears!

Get your Bennett fix

New Project

So I'm writing this just because I feel like I haven't written anything in a while. Casey has to work today so the kids and I are just having a ho-hum day. I tried to convince them today would be a good day to hang at wal-mart, but they wanted to stay home and rot. Hopefully when Casey gets home he'll stay here and watch the homeboddie while I run to wal-mart. I really want to make a mobil for Bennett. I'm really excited to get started. It's been a while since I've done a sewing project, so it should be fun to shop for it. I'll be sure to take a picture of the finished project regardless of the outcome.

Wanna win?

Most of you know I love winning stuff. (it's the cheapskate in me) Anyway if you want to try you hand look into this.

Teresa is running her first contest of the year over at her personal blog. You have a chance to win a beautiful turquoise bracelet created by Lori Jaclyn. She’s willing to ship anywhere and that means anyone is eligible to participate and win.

Wouldn't it be cool if someone I know wins? Good luck.

Being a Mom is fun!!!

sometimes. Here are some shots of us at a neat little place we went for Mom's and Tot's.

It was this Big old house that was about 20 minutes from our house. The people who built it built it for kids to play in and there are three floors of toys.

On the entry level there was a big wooden train to play with, a wooden play house with a fridge stove and pretend food, and a cash regiser.

Then on the top level they had a big doll house with people and furniture, so cars and trucks some push type toys and (Mayas favorite) animals.

Then the basement was all riding toys. The basement was my favorite becasue the floors were just concrete and the walls were brick but there were murals painted on every wall. Each wall was different animals from different environments. Dinosaurs, fish, african safari type animals, and jungle. It was so cool. Also they had a real working traffic light, parking meters and parking spots for the cars. So COOL!

Little ??? in a blanket

Aunt Nicole and Uncle Will made these cool blankets for the kids and they all love them.

Porter's favorite thing about his blanket: "the humans who are on it"

Maya's favorite thing about her blanket: "teddy bears, cause I like teddy bears"

Bennett's favorite thing: "being smothered never felt so good!"

Thank You Grammy and Poppy!!!

Guess what we got in the mail today... A new swing for Bennett. We have the swing from when Porter and Maya were babies but the motor didn't work (or something) so we had to push him. We were pushing him in his swing on Sunday while we were chatting with Peggy and Jeff online. They must of ordered it right after talking with us. And just so you know shortly after this picture was taken he crashed and his is still asleep in his new comfy swing. Thank you so much.

Thanks Mom

So today I was yelling at the kids to clean up and they were driving me NUTS! Everything I asked them to do was a huge issue. After asking Porter to take Bennetts shirt to the laundry he left the room and came back in like this saying "Mom, thank you for buying me this new shirt" I couldn't help but laugh. (he succeded in melting the ice)

What do YOU feel like?

Maya: Mom, I'm Hungry!

Amanda: What do you feel like?

Maya: I Feel Like I'm Hungry!

Joy School

Yesterday Porter woke up telling me he had a "crap" in his leg. He ment cramp. And Maya told me here legs were embarasing. Why we were having such leg issues yesterday I don't know. Then when I was putting Porter to bed he said he wanted his fuzzy blanket that Nana gave him so I got it for him and before I gave it to him I smelled it and Porter said "does it smell like a Mexican?" What a wierdo.
We've started joy school again for Porter and Maya and I love it. I just think it's the greatest thing. I teach once month and get a little break from the kids once a week. It's also nice knowing they are doing something fun and constructive without me having to plan everything. It's the BEST!

These are for you Mom!

Since you asked for some new pictures I thought I'd be the good daughter and obey. I just took this one of Bennett last night. Pretty cute huh? I like how his little (a relative term) ears stick out!

And here's a picture of Punky Brewster oh...I mean Maya showcasing here ever funky fashion sense.

And here's a big hello from Porter. I'll probably try to include one more of Bennett just for good measure.

Pressure

Casey just told me he would finish bathing the kids and do the dinner dishes, and for me to go "do the blog" I'm not exactly sure what that means seeing as I wasn't planning on writing anything today but now I guess I have to, and with him doing all that I feel like I need to make it good! Today has been a pretty boring day but I'll just give a list of the highlights
-painting the kids fingernails (after I painted Maya's (one hand dark pink and one light) Porter came up to me and asked if I'd paint his "Pink...oh no I mean white") So he got white (with sparkles, I think he secretly really wanted pink and was pleased with the sparkles in the white)
-Porter yelling persistently "IT WAS THE FROG" every time he burped or tooted (thanks Landon)
-Having the Spencers come over to play (the day is so much nicer when I have a friend to talk to)
-Bennett chuckling at Porter doing something totally not funny
-Maya pretending to be a baby unicorn for the better part of the morning.
-Me telling Porter to go blow his nose and him quickly blowing it on his t-shirt and looking at me with his puppy dog eyes and saying "oops too late"
-Listening to Porters new praying style where he tells Heavenly Father everything he knows "Dear Heavenly Father I know we can be good, I know the Holy Ghost can help us, I know we love Christmas"...etc
-Playing guess who with Porter and Maya when Maya only wanted to be the girls, of which there are exactly 5, and Porter kept correcting her every time she asked a question that wasn't answerable with a yes or no.
I guess one of my favorite things about having kids is that even the most dull days are still pretty exciting.

RESOLVED

So this year I have only one personal new years resolution:

1. No New Resolutions in 2008! (Now that's a candidate I can support)

No Pressure My Brother 'Cause there's always a Scrimmage

So last year I made two sets of cornhole, a game that pits two friends against each other as they battle for domination with a set of bean bags. Whoopee you might think and you would be right, it's actually a pretty addictive game, so I chortled milk right out my nose when I was browsing the YouTube galaxy and found this little gem by Rhett and Link two of my now favorite enertainers. "A man with a board is a man never bored I say, Hey!"

CUP PIES

So last night I made chicken pot pie for dinner (thank you so much for my cookbook Sarah) and as we're eating Casey says "how about we make mini pecan pies tonight after the kids go to bed". Ever the cynic, I said we only have big (store bought) pie crusts. Then Casey says "we could make pie crust" so once the kids were in bed I whipped out my handy dandy cook book and thanks to Melissa Tates "Foolproof pie crust" recipe we had a success. I must admit I was very skeptical about the crust. I mixed it up and it seemed real wet but it turned out perfectly. Very flaky. And the recipe made so much we're trying pumpkin cup pies tonight!

Sitting at my desk

If you sit at my desk, like I do all day, you will
ocassionally see this picture which is my desktop
image. I rarely see it because I usually have a million programs pulled up and thus you cannot see a thing. The picture is from when we took the kids to a pleasure garden called "Chanticleer" on the outskirts of philadelphia. Why it's called a pleasure garden and what implications that has, I will not pursue at the moment, but regardless, we had a good time. This photo was taken just moments before a screaming squirrel came charging across the field at Porter and I and ran under our legs and disappeared. It launched me into action as I threw my sketchpad at it out of primal instinct (because i'm sure that's what cavemen did when caught off guard by a hungry sabertooth) and Porter just starred at me kind of like he is in the picture. Yup, i'm a wus.

Happy New Year

So it's a time for resolutions and here I am updating my blog. How appropriate. We had a wonderful Christmas. We were able to go to Nana and Grampy's house (after a fairly pain free 12 hour drive-the only painful part was stretching over the carseat so I could nurse Bennett without stoping the car) Our Christmas was a little different this year. We did a memory Christmas where instead of gifts we wrote memorys of everyone in our family and got a small gift that went along with that memory. It was so GREAT. I'm already planning for next year. My mom made each of us a book with all the memories from this year and it's so fun to look through that. Our drive home from Christmas break was not quite as simple it took us around 14 hours because we were driving during the day and the kids kept having to stop (typical). I never thought I'd say it but it was kind of fun to get back to Philly-dephia (even though I woke up thismorning to Casey saying "Crap, CRap, CRAP" I sat up quickly thinking I was late for something only to find there was a roach crawling on our bed *YUCK*) My kids have all had colds but the weather was so nice today (60) that I had to take them out. We went to the park and all was going well until...Maya was building a mulch castle with a little girl and after a while the little girl left to go swing and Maya continued building. This little boy slid down the slide and walked right over to Maya and started kicking the crap out of her castle. Maya being the smart kid she is moved out of the way and stood there dumbstruck. After a second she walked over to me and started bawling. I comforted her and this same little twerp came over and right in front of me KICKED Maya. Well being the responsible adult I turn my eyebows down and say "No No Don't kick" (in a stern voice) and then take my crying daughter (who simply cant understand why someone would not like her) over to the swings to play with her brother. I tell Porter "Maya is sad because someone was not being nice to her can she play with you". Porter immediatly has Maya point the kid out to him and they start playing together. Next thing I know this same kids walks right over and Hits Maya. He's like totoally got it out for her (I swear I'm not being partial Maya didn't do a thing to this kid I watched her the entire time). I move Maya over to my other side and again tell the kid "NO" but he walked around to my other side and is ready to hit her again when Porter steps in between the two of them. Choosing to flee (from a three year old) I hoist Maya onto my hip (I have Bennett straped to my chest) grab Porters hand and we all run crying to our car (Ok I wasn't crying but the kids were and they were saying things like "That boy is naughty" "Why is that boy so mean to us" "we hate the park" "lets never come here again") It was very sad, and they say the weather is supposed to be nice again tomorrow! Oh and P.S. Casey did kill that roach "MY HERO"