Besties

Gabriel loves his little friend Lila. He carries her picture around the house sometimes and gets super excited when we're going to visit her at her house or when she comes over to our house. Plus they get to see each other at daycare every day. I just love watching them together. She is so sweet to him.

How predictable are we?

Guess what we did yesterday? We went back to the park again of course. How could you not with such great weather? Gabriel still loves the slide.
 

He loves the swings too, but I'm mean and don't swing him for very long. The whole point of going to the park is to wear the kids out, right? And he's not going to get tired sitting down the whole time. So I make him run around and play. We also went on a little adventure looking for sticks. He thought it was really fun.

While we were playing, Frejya was busy flying her kite. She was really good at it - way better than me. And it entertained her for an hour. That's a crazy long time for Frejya to play by herself without needing someone to talk to. I was amazed.

Gabriel watched her for about a minute before he got bored. And you probably can't really see the kite in these pictures, but it's a Spiderman kite. It was a Spiderman kind of day yesterday.

Park day (again)

Now that the weather is finally nice, I took the kids to the park yesterday afternoon. We were there for almost 2 hours and it was a blast. It was nice to actually get the kids out of the house and get some fresh air after all the rainy days we've had. Plus they went to bed really easily last night, which is always a plus. Gabriel is getting more and more active and I end up following him around the whole time.

Like always, Frejya made friends with every other kid that came to the park yesterday. That girl loves to play and can talk to anyone. She doesn't discriminate - boys, girls, younger kids, older kids, dads, moms. Anyone who will listen becomes Frejya's friend at the park. She's funny.

After spending over an hour at the park we were getting ready to come home, but then Greta showed up with the kids so we had to stay longer to let the cousins play. I wish I'd gotten some pictures of them, but it just didn't happen. By the time we finally got home, it made for a much later dinner than usual. But of course there was a fishing pole involved. Because who eats dinner without one?

Family fun

We spent the entire weekend home together as a family. It was so much fun. I actually got some of my organizing projects done and Gabe did a little yard work. Gabriel loved watching him and wanted to be out in the yard with him.

He actually wants to do anything Daddy is doing. Including sitting on the couch pretending to be a big boy.

This picture cracks me up for some reason. He just looks like such a little old man. And the headband is his favorite new accessory. And probably necessary when your house is as cold as ours. It was freezing in our house this weekend. So cold that we decided to build a fire last night. Frejya loved it because it meant she could toast some marshmallows. She almost ate the whole bag. Good thing I realized it before she actually did. A whole bag of marshmallows can't be good for you.

And speaking of big eaters, Gabriel thinks that he needs to shove a whole banana in his mouth all at once. You'd think I didn't feed my kids because they act like they need to eat everything in sight. Good thing we've got good genes.

Also on the agenda this weekend was a family walk. We stopped and saw Gabe's parents and got to see baby Albie. Gabriel loves to give kisses.

By the end of our walk it was dark outside and I got to walk behind these cuties. They were holding hands for a while but I couldn't get a good enough picture of it (not that this one is fantastic, but still better than my other attempts).

I love spending time with my family and feel so blessed to have them. I wish every weekend could be as low-key as this one was.

Happy Friday to me!

I'm so glad I don't have to work tomorrow. So very glad. Especially since my commute to work looks like this:

I'm kind of sick of the puddles. Love the rain. Hate the puddles. And this is what the back seat looks like during the first half of my drive to work:

She's already starting to look like a brooding teenager. And we have so many years left before she actually is a teenager. After I took this picture she asked to see it so she could check what her hair looked like. There wasn't much time for getting ready this morning. We were tired. Another reason why I'm so glad it's my last work day for the week.

So remember how I said on Monday that I was going to make this week so much more productive than last week? Yeah, that totally hasn't happened. I did get one project done that I've been wanting to do. The kids and I cleaned out the game cupboard yesterday afternoon. Gabriel tried to help but really wasn't very helpful. At all. I think every piece from every game we own was on the floor at one point. But we finally got through it and Frejya has really been in the donating mood lately so we were able to get rid of a few old games that never get played. So that made me happy - the less stuff we have, the better. Now if I can just get motivated enough to get through the rest of the projects on my list. Actually it's not motivation that's really my problem. I think it's the path of destruction that my kids leave in their wake everywhere they go in the house. I struggle between wanting to pawn them off on someone else for a full day so I can get everything done that I want to, and wanting to spend every single second that I'm not at work with them. It's a tough choice. And I always choose spending time with them. That's not a bad thing, though. Except probably for Gabe sometimes when he has to listen to me complain about how I hate our messy house.

Ok I'll stop rambling now. Here's a picture of Gabriel's newest discovery. The tv has buttons on the side and he can get a really great reaction out of daddy when he pushes them. Awesome! Let's do it over and over again.

Seriously obsessed

He just can't get enough of this fishing pole.

Monday mashup

So I totally lied about Frejya starting to blog on Friday. We got too busy in the afternoon and then I had book club so it just didn't happen. Maybe this Friday. My weekend was super fun. Did I mention that I love corned beef? I started my Saturday with some corned beef hash for breakfast.

So yummy! And since Gabe hates corned beef, I didn't even have to share.

We hung out with lots of family over the weekend. Here are a bunch of cousins eating dinner together. Paul Paul totally dominated the conversation at that table. It cracked me up listening to them talk to each other.

And Frejya danced with her little cousin Albie yesterday. So funny!

Gabriel has decided that his newest favorite thing is his fishing pole. It's actually Frejya's broken Barbie pole and it has no line on it (of course). He LOVES this pole. He slept with it Saturday night and ate lunch with it yesterday. We can't get him to put it down. Cracks me up.

Now it's Monday morning and I am determined to make this a productive week. My house has really started to get away from me so I really want to get caught up on everything. I started going through Frejya's room yesterday. I want to organize everything and get rid of as much stuff as possible. The clutter is stressing me out lately. But the best part about this week is that Friday is the Cesar Chavez holiday so I only have a 4 day work week. Awesome! And I got a pretty new ring from my sister-in-law yesterday. So starting my week with a new accessory is pretty fun too. Thanks Julie!! And she has lots more pretty jewelry if anyone's interested.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Hope yours was as fun as ours was! We ate some yummy corned beef and cabbage and Frejya made us some rice krispy treats (dyed green of course) for dessert. I seriously think I could eat corned beef everyday and never get sick of it. It is my absolute favorite meal of all time. Gabe won't even touch it (he had spaghetti last night) so I don't really make it all that often anymore. I used to make it every couple months for Frejya and myself. I think she loves it just as much as I do.

We decided on a rainbow craft for yesterday afternoon. Frejya made half-rainbows with paint and then folded the paper over them to make full rainbows. They turned out pretty nice.

 

I'd like to say that the reason we didn't do something more elaborate and exciting is because I wasn't feeling very crafty this week, but I did make this little guy for Gabriel the other night:

So I did have some creativity in me this week, just not for St. Patrick's Day. Gabriel is so obsessed with fish that I really thought he needed a fish toy. Gabe thinks I should make a whole school of them so I may be knitting some more of these this weekend.

And this picture I'm just adding in because I took it and thought it was cute: 

Guest blogger Frejya may be back this afternoon. She really wants her own blog, but instead I told her we could give her a feature on my blog. So Frejya Fridays may be starting later today. And I also found out this morning that she reads my blog a lot of mornings from Nana's house. I'm going to really have to watch what I write from now on.

This totally didn't work

When Frejya was little, I could entertain her for hours (ok probably more like 20-30 minutes - but still, that's a long time for a little one) by giving her shaving cream to play in. She loved to spread it all around in her high chair or on a cookie sheet and feel it squish between her fingers. So by about 5:00 last night Gabriel was a complete mess. I'd woken him up really early from his afternoon nap because Frejya had a little photo shoot that we had to go to and he was finally starting to show his tiredness. Thinking I could totally entertain him while keeping him contained to his high chair so I could cook dinner, I decided to pull out the shaving cream. At first he wasn't so sure about it...

Then he got into it for a second...

And then he tried to eat it...

And even though he thought it was disgusting, he just couldn't stop himself from trying it again and again. So I finally had to put an end to it. You'd think after one bite he would have realized that it was not meant to be eaten, but I guess he really didn't care. It was just too tempting to not keep trying it. So I finally took him out of his chair. And then I made dinner while he cried at my feet the whole time. Fun times.

St. Patrick's Day fail?

After a conversation I just had with Janet, I feel like I need to step up my St. Patrick's Day plans. She was expecting me to do some cool craft or project with the kids (because normally I do fun/dorky things like that with my kids) and I had absolutely no plans to do so. I was thinking I'd make the usual corned beef and cabbage dinner and then maybe let Frejya make some green rice krispy treats, but now I think I'm going to need bigger plans. I guess I'm going to have to start thinking creatively so that we can do something fun. Hopefully there will be a super fun project in our near future. I'll make sure to take pictures.

And thanks to my little sister for making me seem uncool for the 2nd time in 3 days. Good thing Frejya doesn't know about my previously lackluster plans or she'd really want to move in with Janet.

Why do my weekends go by so quickly?

It's Monday again. This was another weekend spent mostly at home because Gabriel was sick. Again. Which made it the fourth weekend in a row with one of the kids being sick. But we made the most of it and Saturday morning Frejya and I made doughnuts for breakfast. They were super yummy.

Gabe was fishing while we were baking. He brought home a couple bass and Gabriel thought they were way cool.

Even cool enough to kiss (and yes this totally freaked me out and I majorly washed his hands and face afterward - I'm still glad I got a picture of it, though).

Also, I thought I'd mention that Frejya spent most of the day with Aunt Janet yesterday. They went out for lunch and Janet even gave her $10 to spend at the store. And Frejya told me how much cooler Aunt Janet is than me and how I only give her $1 to spend if I ever let her spend anything at all. But Janet gave her 10 WHOLE DOLLARS!! She even told me that she wishes Janet was her mom because she's way nicer than me. I feel so appreciated.

Solar system

Frejya and I have been working on her solar system project for school for two weeks now. She took it to school this morning and all I can say is that I am SO glad we are done with that. It was fun building it together but that thing took forever. That's what I get for sticking with our new no-spending plan. We just used supplies we had at home and made it all out of paper mache. I think it taught her a pretty good lesson on being resourceful (at least I'm hoping so). She was so proud of it. And I think it's cool that it won't look like all the styrofoam ball solar systems that her class is full of right now (although there were definitely times during the making of this solar system that I wished we had just bought the stupid bag of styrofoam balls).

On a totally different topic, Gabriel woke up with a fever this morning. This is going to be the fourth weekend in a row with a sick child. I'm glad that the kids aren't getting sick during the middle of the week where we'd be struggling to find daycare options for them, but this is really starting to get old. I would love to be able to actually go do something fun one of these weekends. And tonight's date night, so Gabriel needs to start feeling better really soon.

Hecka fast

Once you watch the video, that title will actually make sense to you. That's what Frejya says at the beginning. I think my absolute favorite part of this is when Frejya rolls her eyes at the end and starts to get out of her chair. Because little brothers are only fun for so long before they just become annoying.

Musical mayhem

This was just about the cutest thing ever. These two played the piano together for a good 20 minutes or so yesterday (which is a REALLY long time for them to both be entertained with the same activity). I'll post a video later, but wanted to share the photos with you now. And some day I will actually take pictures with a real camera and not just on my phone so that the pictures on here won't all be so crappy. I don't see that happening anytime soon, though.

Love them!

Frejya had her DI tournament over the weekend and she did awesome! That little girl LOVES to be on stage. It was so fun to watch. We also got to deal with a little case of pink eye for Gabriel this weekend. It didn't seem to bother him at all, but it was nasty looking. Now whenever he finds a Q-tip he tries to shove it in his eye - that's what we were doing to him all weekend, so why not try it himself? 

So I've been thinking about what to give up for Lent (I've never given anything up before but really want to this year) and I'm debating giving up facebook. I am stealing the idea from a friend, but thought it was a very interesting thing to choose. The whole point is to fast, or cut out things that distract us from God so I think facebook might be a very good choice for me. But can I do it?

And here are some pictures from this morning. I love this kid. And Frejya too, of course. She cracked me up this morning. She spent 10 minutes trying to find a pair of pants to wear. I finally asked if she had looked in her drawer and she totally hadn't. I have no idea where she had been looking for pants before that.