He would totally ace the marshmallow test!

He has waited a long time for this.

Evan asked Santa to bring him a squirt gun for Christmas. A squirt gun. In December. I explained to him that if Santa brought him the gun he wouldn't be able to play with it until it got warm outside.

Today it was warm outside.

As soon as he got home from school, he retrieved his "still in the box" Christmas gift and brought it to me to open. Which I promptly did. How did that second marshmallow taste, m'boy?

I, on the other hand, have been waiting a long time for this.

Maybe someday he'll take his Mama to the Oscars....

Spencer's third semester (though he didn't participate in the second semester) of acting class ended this past weekend with a play that showcased all that they learned throughout the past months. Spencer had the role of "Narrator Two" and for weeks he and Daddy have been saying his lines and trying to learn how to deliver the words with feeling.

I was very proud watching him during his play on Saturday. First of all, he is totally the cutest thing I have ever seen on stage. Second of all, he did fantastic! He was one of the only kids that had their lines completely memorized. Their acting coach had the script sitting out in case they needed to use it, and more kids than I would have thought, were scanning that paper for every one of their lines!

I give him so much credit for getting up in front of so many people and doing a fabulous job! I know that I couldn't have done it at his age and would have been mortified if I had to! Heck, I would be mortified right now if I had to! I am not a public speaker. Not one little bit. Since my kid's father makes a living speaking in front of the public - maybe my kids will fall somewhere in the middle of that realm. Though apparently, Spencer doesn't mind the spotlight too much!

He also enjoys the behind the scenes aspect of productions. When the weekend shows of Beauty and the Beast were going on, he asked me on Saturday morning if he could go into work with Daddy and help backstage. Trent said it was fine and we agreed that I would pick him up around five o'clock so Trent would have time to get things ready before the evening production. When I got to the school at five to pick him up, I called Trent to let him know that we were there. He informed me that Spencer didn't want to go home, he wanted to stay and help with the evening show as well. OK. Thanks for calling and saving me a twenty minute trip.

As it turned out, when I was there to pick Spence up, Trent and Spencer were not at the school anyway. They were following an ambulance to the hospital that was carrying one of Trent's students who had an accident involving his knee cap moving to the side of his leg. Ow! Long story short, he couldn't get a hold of the kid's parents and didn't want him going to the hospital alone so he (and Spencer) went with. All was fine with the kid. Parents showed up. Kneecap back in the right spot. But the kid was hopped up pretty good on some painkillers so obviously couldn't go back to the show to do his back stage duties.

Insert Trent and Spencer to take over the job of kneecap kid. Spencer was in heaven! He got to run out on stage between scenes and change the set. He got to work curtains. He got to shoot off a confetti cannon. Seriously - that poor kid's injury was my boy's dream come true!

He got home that night after working at the school for over twelve hours and could not wait to go back the next day. I think the kid has been bitten by the techie bug.

I guess that the kids in the play had asked Trent if Spencer could be in the show on Sunday since he had been so fun to have around. Trent mentioned it to me on Sunday morning and I found Spencer's old Cinderella costume (costume from the musical Cinderella - not a ball gown. Ha!) and gave it to Trent "just in case". Sure enough, the actors persuaded Spence to do it and he showed up in the play in the mob scene near the end.

He seemed a bit nervous because it is a choreographed scene and he had no idea whatsoever what he was supposed to do. The girl that was supposed to be his Mom in the scene just told him to stay next to her and do what she did.

I love seeing him on the stage and I love how excited he is about being up there and how equally thrilled he is about being behind it. On Sunday night when the play was over (hallelujah!) he asked me when I thought Dad was going to be doing another play and when he did, could he work it again? Bitten HARD! I am so glad that he has found something that he really seems to enjoy!

Out of the mouths of babes (and tweeners)

This morning while I was getting Hailey dressed.

Mommy: This shirt is getting small for you. Let me check the tag to see what size it is. (Checks tag) It's a 2T. No wonder it is a bit small.

Hailey: What does "T" mean?

Mommy: It means "toddler". This shirt fits a two year old toddler and it is too small for you because you are a three year old toddler.

Hailey: I not toddler! I am Hailey!



Spencer came into the kitchen today while I was making dinner and said "Mom, can you help me on the computer for a second? I need to google something."

Seriously! Wasn't it yesterday that he was still wearing diapers and sitting in a high chair?

Playin' Hooky

So much for my goal of more consistent blogging....

We started out the week with Daddy home from school on Monday and Tuesday. He always takes the Monday after the play off as a mental health day. He certainly deserves it after spending basically every moment that he is awake at school for the week and weekend before. It was not a very relaxing Monday though - it was basically a repeat of the over scheduled Monday Madness of the week before. Since Tuesday was a teacher in-service day, he decided he still didn't feel well enough "cough, cough" to spend the day in meetings. It was a gorgeous day - sunny and about sixty something degrees. We decided to take Spencer out of school for the afternoon and pack up the kids and head to the Meijer Gardens to see the butterfly exhibit and spend some time kicking around in the children's garden.

I had a hard time getting any decent pictures of any butterflies. They seemed to really be moving a lot. Which is really cool for the kids to see, but hard to photograph. I didn't spend a lot of time trying to shoot them - unlike some people in there that were just sitting on the ground with their cameras aimed at a specific branch for minutes upon minutes of time.

Evan wanted so badly for a butterfly to land on him. He walked around with his arms outstretched the whole time.

I don't know if the kids were hot or what ( it was about 80 degrees and humid in the butterfly greenhouse), but they didn't seem to want to watch the butterflies for very long. They were all more interested in going out side.

Evan and Hailey playing in the beaver house. They would stay in there and play all day if they could.

They love the story time play hut as well. Since it has these windows, they like to pretend they are working at an ice cream place or McDonalds.

We spent a lot of time at the farm. We had never been to this exhibit before - I think it might be new (within the last couple of years anyway). It was so awesome. I bet it is amazing in the summer when the garden is growing. This is one of the kids' new favorite sculptures. They like how the boy is shooting the milk from the cow's udder right into the cat's mouth.

This water pump was part of the farm as well and I tell you, if I had one of these in my back yard, I would never, ever, see my kids. They played with this thing FOREVER! Spencer asked if we could make one at the cabin.

The farm was really cool. Can you believe that blue sky? Are we truly still in Michigan? In March?

Then we made our way back into the regular sculpture path to the giant horse. Can you see Spencer under the hoof trying to get the horse to step on him?

The hill that surrounds the DaVinci horse is one of the kids' favorite parts of the whole place. They run up and down this hill more times than I can count.

In the grotto looking for the dinosaur egg sculpture - another favorite. It was not there though. We are wondering if they remove it in the winter since it sits on the ground. In the summer the kids would not be able to stand where they are in this picture - their feet would be in the little waterfall.

Back to the Children's garden to hang out a bit in the sensory area. Spencer shows off his tongue impression.

The butterfly exhibit is called "Butterflies are Blooming". On the way out Evan asked me what blooming meant. When I told him, he scrunched up his face and said that they shouldn't call it that because butterflies don't really BLOOM! I told him that "Butterflies are Growing" or "Butterflies are Hatching" doesn't really have the same "ring" to it. He was not convinced.

This is always such a great place to go. I feel like the kids learn something new every time that we visit. I love how they are excited about cultural things that some people might think are boring. One of my favorite parts of the day was when Spencer noticed a new part of the park that was under construction last summer when we were there. That is pretty observant for an eight year old boy. Also when Evan saw a new sculpture in the park and was completely overflowing with excitement about it. A new sculpture! A new sculpture! And he used the word sculpture - not statue or rock thing. Sculpture.

I would say it was a day worth playing hooky.

During a morning snuggle...

Setting: Hailey and Mommy snuggling in bed watching Dora the Explorer.


Hailey: (sad sounding) That little animal misses his Mommy.

Mommy: Poor little guy! I bet they will find his Mommy though.

Hailey: I really love my Mommy!

Mommy: You do? Who is your Mommy?

Hailey: Mommy.

Mommy: But, WHO is your Mommy?

Hailey: Aunt Jenny.

This week

We started out the week with a crazy, busy Monday. I had helper duty in Evan's class in the morning. Then after school Hailey and Spencer each started their gymnastics classes. One right after the other. While Spencer was in class I had to take the other two kids to McDonald's to grab something to eat and then go back and pick up Spencer so he could eat in the car while we drove Evan to a different school for his art class. Needless to say, I was ecstatic to crawl into my jammies on Monday night after all three kids were finally in bed.

(Hailey showing off her tattoo to Ella. Try to look past the grain in these photos. The light in the gym is worse than atrocious. This is as good as it gets with an ISO of 1600.)

(I LOVE how she is looking over to see if I am watching her!)

The rest of the week was much more relaxed in terms of scheduled activities, but still pretty chaotic when you figure that I am one parent trying to meet the needs of three children. I have to admit that "play season" seems to go by much faster than it used to. I don't know if it is because I know what to expect or that the kids are getting older. I am sure it is some combination of both of those things.

We have been blessed for the last couple of weeks with above average temperatures that have sent my spring fever off the thermometer. One afternoon Hailey and I picked up Evan at the bus stop with lunch in a bag and we walked down to the beach to eat it "picnic" style. It is still amazing to me how much kids get a kick out of eating anything outside. I am considering eating all meals out doors if it will make them eat what is on their plates without complaint.

(Evan found a cool piece of beach glass. It looked like the handle to a mug or something. Please overlook the grain in these photos as well. One of the downfalls to not shooting in AUTO is when you forget to change your camera settings back to "normal" when the last place you were shooting is a dimly lit gymnasium and you can't see your digital monitor because the sun is too bright on the beach to check for "flashes" on the screen. Oops.)

I don't like to wish time away, but I am glad that this week is behind us. The end of the play season always seems to signal the coming of spring. It will be so nice to have Daddy home to help out with the kids. They have missed him so much the last couple of weeks. Tonight we will get to see if his time away has been worth it as we watch the production.

Two more days....two more days... two more days....

The girl with the ladybug tattoo.

Yep, that's my baby girl.

She is starting gymnastics today and leaving me to wonder when she grew into such a big girl? I swear that it was only yesterday that we were sitting in that poorly lit gym watching her big brother Evan do gymnastics - she was in an infant carrier and Spencer and I would take turns trying to make her laugh and keep her entertained.

She's a big girl now. Big enough for her own activities. Now we get to watch her do her thing. It is your turn to shine Hailey Baby!

Somewhere Ronald and the King are smiling.

Evan decided that he would like to have his peanut butter and jelly on a roll rather than bread today. I have no idea why he called it a "roll" since I usually call them "buns", but I am all for mixing it up a bit - so I granted his request.

Hailey took one look at Evan's lunch and scrunched her face up in disgust and said in her new-bordering-on-sassy voice, "Peanut butter and jelly on a hamburger?"

I don't know if it was the way she said it or what, but Evan and I belly laughed about it for a long time.


Blog note: I hope to get back to more regular posting soon, but I am in the middle of my two weeks of single mommyness. I can barely manage to do everything I have to do, let alone anything that I want to do. Eight more days....eight more days....eight more days.....

Princess Pinkeye

Doesn't she just look miserable?

I was trying to photograph the kids for an ad in the program of Trent's show. I snapped this one quickly of Hailey to check the lighting. Later that day when I was reviewing them on the computer she saw this one and told me "You can't use that one for Daddy's school....my ninnies are hangin' out!"