Too Much of a Good Thing? ... and other Spring happenings...

OK, so Avery has been our big eater around here. She has been eating a ton of food! Don't ask me where the fat and calories go on her body. It is really not fair. She definitely gets her metabolism from Wes. She has especially been eating a lot of food at lunch time. Here is an example of what she ate the other day. I started her off with a piece of left-over pizza and a whole orange. She finished that and was still hungry so I gave her another piece of pizza. She was still hungry so she ate 5 baby carrots with Ranch dressing (more on that later). She wanted more carrots, so I gave her 5 more. Doesn't that sound like a lot of food for a girl who just turned 5? Several days before that I started her off with a large tortilla with melted cheese on it, half of a banana, and one and half clementines. She wanted more clementines and asked to peel them herself. One by one, I gave them to her. I kept asking her if her tummy was full, to which she kept asking for more, "Please, I am still hungry." I also told her that I would set some aside for her to eat later, thinking she just didn't want anyone else to eat them. She ended up eating a total of 8 whole clementines! She wanted more, but we didn't have any. I hesitated putting this story on the blog. Wes thought that it wasn't wise of me to give her that many. But, how could I say "no" to clementines? I mean really, we aren't talking candy or ice cream. We are talking healthy fruit here. She didn't have any stomach problems or anything. What do you think? Was that a bad thing?

After clementine number 5.

Back to the Ranch dressing, a couple of weeks ago I gave the girls some carrots to eat (which I have done many, many times). Avery asked if we had any white stuff with salt she could dip it in. I asked her if she was talking about Ranch dressing. She said, "Yes, that." Ha! She obviously got her salt and pepper mixed up and thought the dark dots in Ranch dressing was pepper. She went on to tell me that she had tried it at preschool when they had veggies and Ranch dressing during "V week", and she loved it. This is an example of positive peer pressure because Wes and I have offered her that several times before. In fact, she always used to eat her salad with no dressing (like me) until Wes finally talked her into using Italian dressing (like him). She was thrilled when I told her she could also eat Ranch dressing on her salad. It took her peers eating it to get her interested in trying it. Whatever!

Abby has been eating better too. Both girls were good eaters until around 2 and then they became picky eaters. I think it was definitely part of their terrible twos phase, because they both got much better around age 3. Abby has been our slow eater lately. She is always the last to finish. At preschool she is often the last of all the preschoolers at "Lunch Bunch" to finish eating. I don't make the girls eat everything on their plate. In fact, I will often ask her if she is full and wants to get down because she is taking so long. She usually tells me "no" and gets mad if I try to take her plate away. She does that, but then just sits there with food in her mouth, not even chewing it. Can you tell it drives me crazy?

Mmmm! Grapefruit!

Abby has cracked us up recently with the phrase, "in THREEEEEE days". It started when Avery and her where playing dress-up and Avery wanted to wear the boots Abby had on. She asked Abby when she could wear them. Abby replied, "In three days!" They laughed about that for a long time which means Abby kept repeating it and still uses that phrase to this day to answer any question regarding time. Do any of your kids do this? Once our girls realize they have said something funny, they become a broken record, constantly repeating the "funny" phrase. It usually is funny the first time, but, to Wes and I at least, it gets old pretty quick. Not so for Avery and Abby, they always get a kick out of it. Another phrase that Abby loves which cracks our teens up is "Bow-Chicka-Wow-Wow!" They saw this on an advertisement for the Chipmunks movie.

We are the proud owners of 2 lady bugs. We would have 3, but one passed away, or was murdered. It just depends on how you look at it. Yes, these lady bugs are our only pets. We do really want a dog someday soon, but with us being gone so much with all the youth trips, it is really hard to think about owning a dog. Avery and Abby found our first two lady bugs in our back yard and immediately put them in their bug catchers. We found another one today at church to take the place of Abby's that died. Who knows if it died of old age or of not being well nurtured. I looked online and found that you can feed them moistened raisins. Also, if you moisten a paper towel they will drink the water out of it. If anyone has any other advice about how to keep them alive, feel free to tell us. We have had one of the original ones for about 3 1/2 weeks.

On the first day that we the original lady bugs, Avery came to me and said, "I don't think there are any boy ladybugs." I told her that there were, in fact, boy ladybugs. She looked at me and with an attitude said, "But mom, did you know they are called LADYbugs?" OK, does she think I am stupid? "Yes," I said, "I know they are called ladybugs but, you have to have boy ladybugs and girl ladybugs to make baby ladybugs. Thankfully, she did not ask for any more details about that. She is simply replied sheepishly, "Oh, right," and giggled a silly little giggle.

We had a terrific Easter. Wes and I dyed eggs with the girls a couple of days before Easter. Abby mostly like coloring all over them with washable markers. Wes' parents, Granny, and Dad came over for an Easter meal on Sunday after church. We had a Easter egg hunt later in the afternoon at church. After that, we came home and hid eggs for the girls in the back yard.

I forgot to get a picture of them in their matching Easter dresses, but here they are before they open their Easter baskets from Nana and Granny.


Abby is serious about hunting for eggs. Look at that determined face.

Is it bright, honey?


Abby at her third egg hunt at her preschool. She looks a little more relaxed and less determined here.


Abby and all her preschool classmates.


Avery was nice enough to stop and pose while hunting for eggs.


Avery and all her preschool classmates.

This past weekend I had a fun "girl's weekend" with my good friends Lauren and Alexis. We usually try to get together every 4 months or so. This time we went to Lauren's house and had a good time, shopping, eating out, watching TV and hanging out. We always spend a lot of time just catching up on each other's lives. I cherish these times and feel so blessed to have such good friends. Lauren and I go all the way back to 7th grade and we got to know Alexis in high school. Amy, who I have been friends with since 6th grade, would join us on these "girl weekends" in years passed, but she is now a missionary in Paraguay.

I have found an enjoyable thing for the girls and I to do together. Bike riding! When I was younger I rode my bike all the time. We moved to Abilene when I was going into the 6th grade, I thought I was in heaven living next to ACU. Do you know how much fun it was riding on all those sidewalks on campus? It was amazing! I highly recommend this product to those of you who have little ones. Wes' Granny gave us this bike trailer and we have used it many times. Originally, I was thinking it would be great to carry just Abby around, since Avery has her own bike. I have actually pulled both of them more than just Abby. It is great exercise and the girls have a ball. Abby likes to yell things at me like, "Don't fall, mommy!" or "Pedal mommy, pedal mommy!" This usually comes at me while I am trying to take a short break and coast down a small hill. She also often yells, "Slow down, mommy!" Most of the time we just ride around our neighborhood, but on Saturday I wanted to take them to a park in Sherman that has many paved paths. The weather was perfect, I was ready, but there was one problem. I couldn't get the bike and trailer to fit in my car. Wes had his truck out of town. I ended up taking the front wheel off of my bike an unscrewing the trailer off the bike. I managed to do all that and pack Avery's bike in as well, with no help. I was pretty proud of myself. I won't tell you how long it took. We had a nice picnic at the park, played on the playground for a while, and then took off for a long ride. We started off with Avery on her own bike following Abby and I. I am sure we were a sight. I don't look so great with a bike helmet on. Ha! I was surprised how well Avery did. She only fell once and we rode all over the large park for quite a while. I kept thinking she would get tired, but she didn't. The only reason she stopped was because I kept asking her if she would ride with Abby. I didn't tell her it was because I wanted to go faster.


I know it has been a while since I have posted. Hopefully that gives you an idea of what has been going on around here.