Fabulous Four

Our baby just turned four! It's so depressing. I remember when Xander was the oldest at four and I thought his clothes were so big. Luckily Jordis makes me smile and laugh every day, so it helps me feel a little less sad about how big she's getting.

Doesn't she look happy?

Jordis only poses for pictures at HER convenience and she was less than thrilled that she got a black eye the day before. She decided to ride her bike down the driveway from the garage and the training wheels made it tip over when she tried to turn onto the sidewalk. I was on the driveway painting something for her birthday party when she whizzed by me and I knew it wasn't going to end well, but I wasn't in a position to do anything about it. She landed in the grass and the bike landed on her....with the handlebar on her eye socket.

Ten minutes later she was mad that I wouldn't let her back on the bike, so I applaud her stick-to-it attitude. However, when I called the doctor they said she needed to rest, so no more bike for her that day.

By morning she was fine and once Xander got home from school opening presents made her forget all about her injury.

Sometimes I can't believe how pretty she is. I'm sure I'm a little biased. But she has such a sweet personality, too. Whenever we're in public people talk about her cute voice and big eyes, and she always has friends wherever we go. We gave each of the kids one of the laminated cards from Jason's grandpa's funeral and Jordis keeps hers on her headboard. Last week she was kissing it goodnight and she told me "I miss him, he was so nice." She has such a sweet heart. And you have to be careful what you say around her. The other day when she and I were at the mall I was looking at some shoes when Jordis asked if I was going to buy them. I replied, "No, Daddy will kill me if I bring home another pair of shoes" and she cried out, "Oh, no, Mommy, that's so mean!" She's so mature for her age that sometimes I forget she doesn't understand figures of speech yet.

Here she is on birthdays past:

Happy Birthday, Chicky-Boo! We love you!

Spring???

Mother Nature teased us this week with a little bit of spring. She can be so mean sometimes. We tried our best to take advantage of it though.

On Sunday Jason and I both had errands to run.....on complete opposite sides of Columbus. So he took Xan and I took Jordis and we went our separate ways for girl/guy time. Jordis and I were at Easton and I was excited about the prospect of lunch, even if she picked McDonald's. Jason isn't a fan of the golden arches, though I am, so occasionally I look forward to eating there. But not my little girl. She wanted a hot dog. There were only two places I could think of to get one, one being Steak N' Shake, and the other being Auntie Anne's. I tried to get her to go to Auntie Anne's and told her how yummy a hot dog would be wrapped up in a hot pretzel, but she wasn't having it. So alas, I ended up at the Steak N' Shake that I've been boycotting since I was pregnant with Xander six years ago. (They should really know better than to deny a pregnant woman some breakfast food five minutes before breakfast hours are officially over). Anyway, it clearly looks like Jordis is about to seriously enjoy this hot dog, doesn't it?

Um, wrong answer. Ate the applesauce and a few fries and declared, "This hot dog is yuck!"

A few days later it was even nicer, so when Xander got home from school I thought it might be nice to have a little picnic. The grass was really wet from all the melting snow, so we decided to sit on the driveway. First picnic I've ever had next to piles of snow.

It was also the quickest picnic I've ever had because someone saw a bee and it was all over.

A little bit later we attempted a bike ride.

That went pretty well. So well, in fact, that I had trouble getting one of them to come home.

One day this week there were two birthdays in Xander's class and Jordis was sad about him getting treats, so on Thursday morning I took her to get a donut. I'm not going to lie, I really needed an excuse to go to Tim Horton's for coffee. Her combination of short sleeved shirt and fleece pants was interesting, but I'll give her credit for matching. She was feeling quite sassy this day.

And then as quickly as it came, it left again. And now we have rain. And more rain tonight. And more rain tomorrow.

Guess that's what you get when you wish for Spring.

Look Ma, no hands training wheels!

Instead of playing in the water last week at my aunt and uncle's, the kids rode bikes in and around the cul-de-sac. Xander and his cousin Carson are the same age and still have little bikes with training wheels. But cousin Braden is almost seven and rides a big bike with no training wheels. So the very next day Xander decided he was done with training wheels.

I only have two pictures because I took mostly videos, but also because he learned in about an hour. Thirty minutes before dinner and thirty minutes after dinner was the only practice he had.

The next day after he got off the bus, he was doing this....


Now he's going around the block and is a full-fledged bike rider. He's turning in to such a big boy.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

What beautiful weather we had yesterday for St. Patrick's Day! I tried to get a photo with Jordis in our green shirts, but she wasn't very interested. The only decent picture I was able to get of her facing forward is blurry because she kept trying to escape.

After Xander got home from school I made the kids a green lunch...green scrambled eggs with (normal) toast, kiwi and green milk. On green plates and glasses that have some green. They were pretty excited until they saw the kiwi and Xander shouted "I hate pickles!" I made them each try a bite. Xander said it was gross, Jordis said it was good, but neither of them would eat any more of it.

Afterward we went outside to play. Jordis has decided to try and ride Xander's big bike, and she can reach the pedals on it better than she can on our big wheel or tricycle.

Then we painted the driveway and played bubbles, then took a walk after dinner.

It was a great day!

Of berries, bikes, bad weather and brides....in no particular order.

I'm starting with weather first because I'm sick of it. I don't know why it's so hard this year for the weather people to tell us if or when we are having severe storms. They're either popping up out of nowhere, or they tell us they're coming and they don't. My personal favorite is that of last Friday and early this morning, where they say things are weakening or just not coming near us at all, and yet I'm awoken by some thunder and lightning only to discover there's a tornado warning nearby. Poor southern Ohio will have been under a tornado watch for about 20 hours straight by the end of the day if the current watch stays in effect. Luckily the weather was able to cooperate for Memorial Day weekend. It was quite lovely and we had a nice cookout at my mom and step-dad's that Sunday.

At any rate, this rain of late is doing wonders for my plants. The strawberries are a little experiment I was trying with Xander, but then I discovered my neighbor Dena gardens and she offered to start some seeds for me. I'm doing all containers this year until I see if I'm successful, as I don't want to rip up my yard to find I'm not good at growing things. I'm horrible with houseplants so I wasn't expecting much from these. The strawberries are looking great though, and it was fun to watch Xander learn how to plant them, then put them in the sun, and he even helped me water them. I discovered, however, that 12 strawberry plants isn't going to put a dent in my kids' consumption of the fruit. Xander is very proud of the strawberries so I took a picture of them yesterday. The other little plants you see are the ones from Dena that I need to re-pot. They're tomatoes, cucumber and green pepper. One of each, just to see how they do.



Xander also just got his first big boy bike. Jason had told him he could use some birthday money to buy it so they went last week and picked it out. Just so happens that it matches the helmet he got last summer at the Safety Fair. Xander loves his bike and is quite good at it, just got on and took off. He's already riding it around the block and we've been leaving the cars in the driveway so he can ride in the garage on days that it rains.



Nomey has a helmet, too, and insists on wearing it even if she's not riding her tricycle. They even wore helmets to help me wash the car on Sunday.



Other than that we've not been doing much. The kids and I have gone on a few playdates with our MOPS (Mother's of Pre-schoolers) group and I went out for Mexican and dancing with some friends last Saturday night. Something about having two kids and turning 30 has reduced my ability to decide what makes for good "going out" clothes, so I let Jason choose my attire on Saturday. He was quite pleased with the end result and even took my picture. He attempted to go fishing with Xander and his dad last Sunday but that didn't go so well.





Our next big adventure is a garage sale at my mom's next weekend. She already sold some of our baby stuff to a girl at her work, but I have tons of clothes and other things here that I hope to get rid of as well. So please pray for me that it doesn't rain next Saturday, so I will not have spent hours pricing all these things for naught.

Also, Jason's cousin is getting married this weekend, so congratulations Nellie!!! All of you family members making the trip to Punta Cana we hope you have a fabulous time.