Zumbalicious

I was lucky enough to take a Zumba class with some of my girlfriends from my neighborhood. Zumba is a kind of a Latin-inspired dance/aerobic class. None of us knew what we were getting ourselves into and we all ended up loving it! I'm going to get evil eyes from the girls for posting this, but it can't be helped. I look the worst of all of them, so I don't feel bad.

Allison,Amy,our instructor Jeannie,Michelle, and Me

The girls thought I was getting ready to take a picture and I was actually filming. Here they are showing off some of their moves.


Our instructor and our class were recently featured in the local paper and online. Check it out for some fun times and a good laugh. Many of you may recognize the girls front and center in the pictures. Aren't they hot chicas! If you haven't tried Zumba at your local gym or community center, try it! It's a lot of fun. Even more fun if you have some girls to be crazy and silly with.

Back in Time

I realized that I didn't take too many pictures over the last four months. Here's a sampling of what I do have. I think a couple of you out there may have some pics of when our kids were together. Email them to me if you have any. (Hint,hint Whitney!)

The kids had to start off the year with matching shirts just like Daddy's. Did I mention that they are both obsessed with their father?!
I looked out my bedroom window into the backyard one day in early March, and found this moment. It was a warm 37 degrees that afternoon and the kids just couldn't resist enjoying the warm weather. ;) They built this snowman all by themselves.
Ana and Lincoln enjoying steamed milks at a local coffee shop. We looked everywhere for a great pie place for our annual "Pie Day" and ended up here before finding a sub-par pie later on. The kids took to the atmosphere and made themselves right at home.

My kids going to their first zoobie basketball game. Our resident BYZoo fanatics showed us the ropes and introduced the kids to Cosmo. Tyse, Emitt and Ollie were nice enough to share their roomy car with us.
Their favorite part of the game was getting to run around the bleachers through the whole game.
One of my favorite winter activities included hours of clean up work. We decided to paint Lincoln's bedroom a more normal light blue color after a couple of years of his Superman blue. It doesn't look like a nice color in these pictures, but it is actually a very nice shade of light blue. Dave covered the floor in plastic and let the kids help him paint. Only one little drop on the carpet, but days of peeling paint off of their bodies. Absolutely priceless!



If Lincoln isn't naked, you may see him running around the neighborhood in an outfit like this.
They still love to take crazy baths together. They rarely sit down in the bath and are normally jumping up and down being silly together. We pray every time they get clean that it doesn't result in a trip to the hospital.

From the Mouthes of Babes...

Well, I've fixed my USB problem and now I just have to find my camera! I just can't seem to get on the ball. Someday I will post pictures again.

In the mean time, I had to share a funny moment.

On Easter morning after some Easter fun, I sat down with the kids and reminded them of the story of Jesus and the Resurrection. Like most anything I teach them, it was short, concise, and to the point. I was fairly certain that neither of them got anything out of it since they were both eating candy at the time.

Well, later we went to my sister's house for dessert. Lincoln, in typical fashion, bolted out of the car as soon as we pulled in the driveway and ran inside the house. I made my way in a few moments later and my sister was just sitting in her front room laughing.

She told me that Lincoln had charged in the front door, and she said "Happy Easter Lincoln", and he yelled (while running past her), "Jesus is Alive!".

I guess something got through to him!

I've started my food storage...

Yes, I admit a lot of things on my blog. And one of them now will be that I am not the most prepared when it comes to food storage, but I am working on it.

What better food storage than a garden? That always helps. Well, my kids decided to help me with that. While I was working (of course), I heard the kids playing nicely with each other and for some reason didn't clue in again. When I yelled back at them and asked them what they were doing in their rooms, they said they were planting a garden. Okay, whatever.

A few minutes later I went to check on them and found that they indeed had planted a food garden...of froot loops. Now, there's a whole story about why we even have froot loops, but we won't go there. Anyway, there were froot loops scattered sporadically throughout both of their bedrooms. And then I noticed, they were wet. Yes, they had watered their garden and they were so proud of themselves. Little fruity colored stains all over my carpet. Fun to get up out of the carpet. It was almost too cute because they really thought that they would grow froot loop trees right there in their rooms. Aah, a child can only dream, right?

Patient Scout

Scout had been experiencing some pain in her ears off and on for about a week, but it was hard to tell if anything was really wrong. She slept great, and only complained about her ears once in a while. The good mom that I am, I waited probably way too long to go take her to the doctor, just hoping that it would clear up.

She was so excited to go to the doctor since she really never goes. She told all her friends that she was going to get a sticker at the doctor's office and would bat her eyes and frown when we asked if her ears hurt. She insisted upon reclining on the bed even though she didn't have to and laid so still as he examined her. At one point, when he was pushing on her tummy she said, "My tummy doesn't hurt, it's my ears." She told him. He promptly moved on. Once he confirmed it was indeed a pretty severe ear infection (another great mom moment), we went and got a sticker, and she was happy. As we walked out the wind hit her ears and she grabbed them and said, "The doctor forgot to take my owie out!" Poor thing thought it was something stuck in her ear.

About an hour later we met Steve and Debbie at the park. Steve questioned Scout about her visit as she ate her dinner.

Steve: "Scout, what did the doctor say?"
Scout: "Doctor said, no more jumping on the bed!"

Well, to us it was quite hilarious. Reading it doesn't seem quite as funny now. It's fun to listen to Scout and her little voice.

The time my heart almost stopped...

Most of the destructive things that happen in my house are while I'm either on the computer or in the bathroom. Licking sugar off the floor, taking bikes apart, and a great many other things that I'm sure I've blogged about. Most all of them have either made me angry, grimace in disgust, or just laugh out of sheer misery.

On Tuesday though, it was a bit different. I'm still not quite sure why. I had been working and trying frantically to get quite a few things done for Dave's gym, my work, and for a church activity. I admit, my parenting skills were severely lacking that day. I was on the computer when I heard the familiar sound of velcro being pulled at. That is the sound of my couch being made into a "fort". Anyone that has heard me complain knows that I hate it when my kids make forts out of my cushions. They are just too big, and it is just a mess. I chose to ignore the sound because I thought to myself, "I'll be done in just a few minutes and I will deal with it then."

A few minutes later I descended down the stairs. I made it about halfway when I saw Scout and Lincoln sitting on a cushion that was on the floor with scissors in hand. The foam and batting of the cushion was visible and the batting was strewn about the floor. I immediately jumped to the worst possible conclusion and from my body came a sound that I didn't know existed. Some sort of moan and feverish yell all at once. Whatever it was, it scared the living daylights out of my kids, who had not seen me yet. They jumped up crying and running every which way.

I got to the cushion and found that thankfully it had only been the batting, and they had unzipped the upholstery (which I thought they had slashed), and didn't touch the foam yet. Is it normal to have terror run through my mind just because of a couch? I mean, I love my couch, but come on! Maybe this story only makes sense to someone that has experienced something like that before. Either way, it was cathartic to write this story down. I was quite upset. And for those of you waiting for me to find my USB cord, you got one of my "Katie stories" instead. Thanks for listening to a poor mom whine.

My name is SCOUT!

Scout just recently learned how to say her name more clearly; emphasizing the "Sc" part of it. A hard to thing to master apparently. She is very protective of her name, and her brother is well, quite determined to bug her most anyway he can. Currently, Lincoln is adding "poo" onto everyone's name and pretty much every word that comes out of his mouth. While I continually grimace each time it happens, or chastise him and the like, it still happens. So, now I try to ignore it. Either way, I'm sure I'm reacting incorrectly. So, while Lincoln continually calls her Scouty-poo and poo-bum Scout, she obviously reacts harshly. The other day when I said "Good morning sweetheart," she scowled at me with her famous Scout-scowl and screamed at me, "MY NAME IS SCOUT! MY NAME IS SCOUT! MY NAME IS SCOUT!". It took everything I had not to laugh hysterically, but I did laugh. That didn't go over well either.