Picky Eater

This video was taken at dinner the other night.  Pay no attention to the magic wand sticker on her forehead  (put there by me actually) or her drool covered shirt (she insists on pulling off her bibs).

Pine-to-Peak Trail

Yesterday we took advantage of another beautiful spring day and went hiking up near Boulder.  We found the Pine-to-Peak Trail that was perfect for our little family.  It was only 1.5 miles, but for Cambrie's short legs it was just right.  Cambrie was excited to go hiking, but refused to have her picture taken so we had to trick her into every one. 

While it was nice and sunny, there was still some snow on the ground, it was a little muddy, and there was a very strong wind blowing on the west side of the mountain.  It was at least a warm wind, but Cambrie kept yelling at it anyway telling it to stop blowing her hair in her face.  The wind didn't listen.  The hike was fairly scenic, and there was some great views, but the west side of the mountain was pretty bare.  It looks like one of the fires that hit last year affected this mountain.  There were charred trees littering the ground and it was kind of strange. 

When we made it to the top there was a nice bench to sit on, but the wind was at its worst up here so we didn't stay. 

Jeremy has a fascination for sliding down snow covered hills.  He took Cambrie off the trail and slide with her down until the next switch back.  I followed of course, but my balance was off because of McKenzie in the Bjorn.  I'm just glad I didn't wipe out. 

I can't wait until spring is officially here and we get to do more of this.

Snowball fight...spring style

For everything there is a season, and I'm done with winter.  I'm ready for warmth, short-sleeve shirts, no jackets, sandals, and walks outside.  And for that matter, so are my girls.  We are getting very excited around here because this week it has started to warm up!  Saturday we were actually able to go outside and play without frostbitten fingers. 

For some reason Cambrie freezes outside when she's wearing a jacket and gloves, but when she walks barefoot in the snow and has a snowball fight with bare hands it doesn't even faze her.  So that's how our crew spent the afternoon...enjoying the warm almost-spring time air.

Valentine's Day

Jeremy had to work all day yesterday for Valentine's Day, but the girls and I did what we could to celebrate anyway.  For breakfast Cambrie was able to use the red special plate, the red special glass, the pink heart straw, and eat pink heart-shaped pancakes.  You could definitely tell there was a theme this morning. 

She wore a shirt with pink and red hearts on in, and wanted heart hair.  So I did what I could. 

Jeremy came home and surprised us for lunch with flowers for all his girls...and chocolate for me. 

Our mantel looks so "love"ly with the girls' flowers and all of the Valentine's Day cards we received this week. 

We tried to make our annual chocolate truffles, but failed.  Instead of shapely chocolates, I have a pan of chocolate goo.  And while it is still very tasty, it doesn't look pretty.  But after the girls went to bed I still cuddled up on the couch and ate it anyway.  It was a great litle holiday and I hope everyone else had a great Valentine's Day weekend too.

Gifts, goodies, and getting in trouble

This is a random post about random happenings in our house the last few weeks.  Cambrie's Nana and Papa visited the Jelly Belly factory in San Fransisco and sent her a personal jelly bean dispenser.  She's in love with the peachy goodness. 

McKenzie got ahold of a handful of M&M's, and for some reason the blue M&M's just bled all over her face and made an ooey, colorful mess. 

I decided to sign up for the Disney Movie Club to beef up our movie collection a little bit.  We received our first order of six movies for only $30.  I was pretty excited about it and so was Cambrie.  Her 3:00 movies have become even more anticipated (if that's even possible). 

Whenever McKenzie becomes super tired and sad, she has a dramatic way of expressing her feelings.  She puts her head on the ground with her bum in the air, and just cries.  Cambrie saw this once and asked, "Mom, why is McKenzie doing down dog?"  

Every day when I check the mail Cambrie asks if we got a package.  She's obsessed with receiving packages in the mail.  This has been a great week because it's Valentine's Day.  Here the girls are revelling in the spoils from Aunt Lynnette and Aunt Lenesa. 

The most eventful thing that happened this week however, happened last night and we did not take a picture to record it.  Last night Jeremy and I went out to dinner for Valentine's Day.  We got home about 8:30, but by the time I took the babysitter home and the girls were ready for bed, it was about 9:00.  Cambrie was exhausted and started complaining about Jelly not laying just right in her bed.  She started throwing a huge temper tantrum.  I pulled McKenzie into my room to try to rock her to sleep, while Jeremy tried to get Cambrie to calm down.  He was holding her on his lap to make her hold still until her fit was over.  She was extremely upset and was screaming things like, "Help me, Mommy!" and "Let me go!"  We share her bedroom wall with the neighbor next door and I always wonder what he can hear during her fits.  Well, as soon as she calmed down and climbed in bed we heard a knock on the door.  Jeremy opened the door to find a policeman standing on our porch.  Oh goody.  He said that he had been called by the neighbor across the street because he could hear a two- or three-year-old girl screaming for help.  The officer wanted to talk to Cambrie to make sure everything was okay, so I went to get her out of bed.  As soon as she saw who wanted to talk with her she started sobbing and buried her head into Jeremy's shoulder.  The officer just asked if she was okay and wanted to know why she was screaming so loudly.  As soon as he found out that it was because she didn't want to go to bed, he seemed to understand.  But before he left he took down all of our information for his report.  I felt like we were being reported as criminals.  He tried to explain to Cambrie that he was glad she was okay and that if you really are in trouble it is a good thing to know that help will come.  She just wanted to go back to bed and the officer left.  So my question is: have any other parents been visited by the police because your child is throwing a huge fit?  I wonder how many reports like this the city receives, I can't imagine we're the first; although I definitely hope it's our last.

Jeremy's birthday

Happy birthday Jeremy!  Yesterday he turned 29, just one year shy of 30...that seems like a magic turning point of when we are old enough to be adults (not that I'm looking forward to that).  Anyway, he worked in the morning which was perfect because then I could get everything ready for his party. 

I had to wrap his gifts, and as of 10:00, I only had his major gift.  But I thought that it would be a dead giveaway if there was only one wrapped present sitting on the table, so I wrapped some filler gifts too.  The mailman came right after lunch so I quickly wrapped another supplement gift.

For his cake he requested a fruit salad with mangoes and kiwis.  I know it's not your typical cake, but Jeremy's cakes rarely are.  Once I had a bowl full of mangoes, kiwis, pineapples. oranges, and blueberries, I realized that I had no good way to decorate this "cake."  I decided to try and make sugar number to put on top of the fruit.  (I think I've been watching too many decorating shows on Food Network).  I didn't know what I was doing, and my candy thermometer broke last week so I just kind of guessed.  It turned out not so bad.  I made molds for the sugar out of tin foil, and then just poured the extra onto a cookie sheet.  When it came time to sing Happy Birthday and blow out the candles, Jeremy just held a match behind the sugar and blew that out since a candle wouldn't stay straight in the bowl.  I didn't know what else to do with all that extra sugar candy, so I stuck it in the bowl with the numbers too.

When Jeremy got home from work, we celebrated instantly.  I had a feeling he would want his birthday present early in the day so he could spend the rest of the afternoon playing with it.  He started opening his gifts and unwrapped some P90X recovery formula, an orange, a banana, and a grapefruit.  He was very curious about his fruity-lishious presents until he realized the only thing missing from his fruit salad was an apple.  And then he unwrapped...his Apple iPad.   He was so excited.  And yes, he spent the rest of the afternoon playing with it. 

Before:

The banana.

 The grapefruit:  And he's realizing something fishy is going on here.

McKenzie laughing at her dad after she stole his birthday banana.

And the big kahuna...his iPad

I love my husband and everything that he does for me and my girls.  He has more patience than the rest of our family combined, and very often is the only level-headed in the house.  He works hard to provide a living for his family.  He helps me accomplish my goals and only mocks me when I do something really air headed and am able to laugh at myself.  He's working really hard to get in shape and I've been very impressed by his dedication these last few weeks.   And he's the best friend I've ever had.  I hope you had a fantastic day hun.  Love you.

If you Give a Mouse a Cookie

Moms, do you ever feel like you're living in the story, "If you Give a Mouse a Cookie?"  That is totally my life right now.   I think Laura wrote this book just for me.

If you give your children a cookie, they're going to want some milk.  If you give them some milk they'll make a mess and want some napkins to clean it up.  While they're cleaning it up they'll probably get their clothes wet and have to go change them.  When they change their clothes they'll remember that they wanted to paint their fingernails to match.  After you paint their fingernails they blow on them until they're mostly dry and then want to paint a picture.  You'll get out all of the paints, papers, aprons, etc...and they'll paint until their hands, the table, the paper, and chairs are covered with finger paint.  All of the colors of the paint will remind them of their favorite book and they'll want you to read it to them.  They'll decide that they want all of their stuffed animals to hear the story too and set them up along the couch.  Then they'll forget entirely about the story and start pulling all of the cushions off the couch to make a fort.  They'll want you to get a blanket to go on top of it, and a flashlight to see when it gets dark.  You'll go into the kitchen to get a flashlight and they'll follow you.  Being in the kitchen will remind them that they're thirsty and want some milk...chocolate this time please.  When you get them the chocolate milk, chances are they'll want a cookie to go with it. 

I'm slightly crazy

Today I cried.  Do you want to know what I was crying about?  I bit my cheek-twice, and it hurt a lot.  And even though it may not seem like it was a big enough deal to cry about, I cried for a long time.  Now I'm trying to figure out why I cried exactly.  It has been a long time since my last good cry, and I feel like every girl needs one of those every now and then to clean out all of the hormones that we store.  Perhaps I was emotionally exhausted, which is always a possibility when you're the mom of two little girls.  Even if they're being good, it still wears me out.  Or it could be that I was physically exhausted.  Today I ran...a lot...and I'm worn out.  But I really think that it was a combination of all three of those things.  Jeremy came over to try and comfort me while I was crying over my bitten cheek, and he was trying really hard not to laugh at the situation.  Even I was trying to hold back my laughter through the tears because I looked quite ridiculous.  He really was a good husband trying to make his wife feel better.  And now he is at the library checking out a new teen fiction book for me to read and at the mall exchanging a sweater I bought that is too small.  I must be really tired if I don't even want to go to the mall. 

So now I sit at home and try to nurse my tired little legs and tear-worn eyes back to health.  This morning I joined my RAGNAR team for some paced runs with a local running coach.  We did 4x1600 m repeats up and down hills at race pace and faster.  When I ran my first half marathon a couple of years ago, I was at about a 7:45-8:00 min/mile pace.  I felt great.  My morning runs with some friends are at about 9:00-9:15 min/mile.  I have a half marathon coming up in March that I really want to do well at.  I'd love to be at my previous best time.  However, I know I'm not as well trained for this one as I was for my last and I have no illusions that I will be at that pace.  My realistic goal is 8:15-8:30.  But today, I decided to try and see if I had that old pace still in me.  My first mile (uphill) was 8:00.  My second mile (downhill) was 6:42.  My third mile (uphill) was 7:43.  And my fourth mile (downhill) was 6:54.  I felt awesome.  My legs felt good, my lungs felt good, and I was so happy to learn that I still have that kind of speed in me.  By the time we did our warm-up, cool-down, and paces we covered about six miles.  That in itself is a good work-out, but I still had my long run with my McKay Lake ladies.

We've been adding a mile to our Saturday runs each week, and this week we were supposed to run 10-11 miles.  Having only a three hour break in between the workouts, I was very nervous and decided that I would only go as far as my legs would let me.  I was expecting a six mile run for my second workout.  I hit four miles and felt awesome.  I didn't even feel tired, so I kept running.  We turned around at five and I thought that I had this in the bag.  My legs for my RAGNAR race are 5.4 miles, 4.1, and 9.6.  I know that in order to pull off that last nine-mile leg, I will have to train some back-to-back runs to get used to doing that kind of distance at the end of my race.  Today's training was perfect and I was thinking that maybe my legs won't be as ridiculous as I was afraid they'd be.  But all of my confidence was thrown out the window when at six miles I realized I had to go to the bathroom-very badly.  We run on a dirt trail that has no access to any public bathrooms or porta-potties.  There was lots of open space down by the river, and a lot of pot gut holes I could have used.  But I would have been so exposed!  Not to mention the fact that the prairie dogs would have been very upset had I used their home as a toilet.  So I did the only thing I could do, held it in.  It very quickly became painful to run.  I was cramping up and had to stop a couple of times to get everything situated.  The last four miles were miserable.  Every time I stopped to walk, my legs argued that they didn't want to start running again.  My running partner had to run back to pick me up multiple times and probably added a mile to her run.  By the time I finished at a 9:45 pace, I just wanted to fall over from pain and exhaustion.  I should have listened to my gut instinct before the ran began and settled for only six miles.  But I let my pride overrule my body's effort to protect itself and pushed it farther than I should have.  I can be a real idiot.

Therefore, I am sitting at home, laying on the couch, running to the bathroom and crying over my lunch all in an effort to reset my body from the trauma of this morning.  What a way to spend a Saturday.

Behold the bath tub

I love bath time with my girls.  It is so much fun to see them playing together in the tub...when they play well of course.  McKenzie loves splashing, and it drives Cambrie crazy.  Cambrie loves sitting underneath the water as it's running, and it drives McKenzie crazy.  When I lay them down to wash out the shampoo from their hair, it drives them both crazy. 

Cambrie is going through a stage where she wants to wash her own hair.  If I don't supervise she'll first get her hair wet (but really only the ends get wet), she'll lather the shampoo (only on the very top of her head), and she'll rinse it out (once again, only the unwashed ends make it under water).  So we're working on making sure that she washes it thoroughly, but I'm still blown away by the fact that she wants to do it by herself at all.

McKenzie has started drinking the water straight from the tub.  Which normally just results in a lot of choking.  Tonight the girls had a bubble bath (McKenzie's first), and she tried to drink the bubbles.  She gave me quite the disgusted look as she came up, but she was still fascinated by those bubbles.  She didn't know if she could touch them or not, and when she would reach for them she always seemed a little put out that she couldn't hold them in her hand.  Once she got used to them she thought they were great and I had a hard time getting the girls out of the tub at all.

Whenever Cambrie gets out of the tub, she spends a long time drying off.  If she's not perfectly dry she claims she's sticky and won't put on her panties or jammies.  I've tried different tricks for getting her dry-or at least giving her the illusion she's dry enough to dress.  But lately her preferred method of drying off is running around the room in circles.  I just get dizzy watching her.  A couple of nights ago she wanted to run around until her hair was dry....I had to bribe her with an extra bedtime story to get her to stop.  I can't complain too much though, because it works and she dries off. 

My bathtub spends a lot of time looking like this: 

While I'm getting ready in the morning, McKenzie goes through my lower cabinets and pulls everything out of them.  Sometimes she plays with my empty cosmetic bags and fills them with my hair gel, etc.  Other times she drops her treasures into the tub to watch them roll around.  I never know quite where to find my hair spray when I'm ready for it.

Beanbag toss

Yea for another Lowe's craft to keep us busy while Jeremy is at work on Saturdays.  This time we made a little beanbag toss game.  It was the simplest project we've done thus far, and took us less than five minutes to complete.  So when we brought it home we decided to spruce it up a little bit with paint.  My paint collection is slowly growing, but I really only have five or six colors-it's pathetic.  But Cambrie did just fine with the limited selection.  She painted each side a different color and it turned out to be a very cheery-looking game.  So much fun.  Can you see her tongue as she's concentrating on getting is just right?