Spring ON

*Six new posts below - happy spring break reading! :)

My brother Alex came over for dinner the other night - here is part of a conversation.

Alex: So, spring break. Awesome. 

Me: Yep (sarcastically).

Alex: Oh, dude - your kids don't have school or anything. [pause] So, it's not like spring break. It's like spring on. 

Me: [hysterical laughing because he's so right]

We've actually had a good week - its been nice to be on a more relaxed schedule. Since spring break also coincided with springing forward into daylight savings it was nice to be able to adjust slowly and stay up late playing in the nice weather and sleeping in late. We've had a few fun playdates with friends (some planned, some impromptu), had cousins Blake and Bailey over for a sleepover (and Maggie and Rebecca went to Emmy/Boone's), saw the lego movie with the Murray boys and spent 2+ hours at the pediatric dentist (mostly in the waiting room) - the un-highlight of the week. 

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Here are some general spring highlights...some as far back as mid February.

Owen and Rebecca spent a sunny afternoon (in the middle of all of our weird snow/ice/cold rain days) making some sort of Star Wars themed art project. They worked together on it really well.

Here we are with school friend H at "the swing at the big tree" in our neighborhood. (My new strategy with playdates is I try to double up and have a friend of Owen's over at the same time as a friend of Rebecca's because then they each play with their friend and leave each other alone!) *Yes Rebecca is wearing her same pajama-clad warrior princess outfit she donned at the first soccer game.

Spring Owen-isms:

-starting to have very strong opinions about what we do and when - oh boy

-obsessed with playing a new (adult) boardgame we got called Pandemic (more on that later)

-likes to stand really close to Kyle or I while we're talking and thinks he's hiding (even though we know he's there) and then he yells that he's been spying and knows everything we've been talking about (which isn't usually a secret)...

Spring Maggie-isms:

Hanging upside down like the big kids

For some reason I think this picture is so funny I literally almost pee every time I see it - does it have the same effect on anyone else?

Tay pitur Maggie!!! Cheeeeee!!!!!!!

Pretending to be "nigh nigh" on the trampolien w/ me

Yes I did take a picture (or two) before I rushed over to rescue and scold her. She had a half gallon of milk in her hand. Ont milk.

We got Rebeca a big girl bike with training wheels and put Maggie on the red glider bike - she is still getting the hang of it but she likes it. She got up to the top of our driveway the first time, turned it around, looked right at me and said:

I go widdle bit weally fast. 

And then she took off down hill.

Beaming with pride in her own helmet (looks like a ladybug w/ eyes) that she picked because its red - her favorite color because she always gets it right.

Not in pictures but I don't want to forget:

-The best way to describe Maggie right now is that her little raspy voice says exactly what is in her brain at every single moment - its like a movie narration of what an almost 3-year old is thinking and doing (and thinking about doing). I seriously could bottle her at this age - I literally can't stand the cuteness sometimes.

-She loves love "doraboots" and asks for it every time we're in the car. I usually say no and so she says "no, Dora Boots" like she's turning them down.

-She learned this from them - she yells "we did it" every time she or we successfully do anything (that and a combination of "I did it" or "I do it" (an upgrade from Idoey) make up about 60% of what she says.

-She likes to tell other people about things we've said no to or about. She'll say (to Bee or Nana) - "draw o wall...momma say no" (disappointed) or "throw milk...daddy say no." At least we're getting through.

-She whispers to me. Heart melting. I started it by pulling her lose and telling her I needed to tell her something and then I whisper in her year - usually I love you Maggie or something like that. And her response has been to grab me and whisper into both of my ears (she has to do both sides) - but she just makes whipsery sounds, she doesn't actually say anything. But her sweet little sounds and breath right up against my cheek - it doesn't matter - I absolutely love it. It's one of my favorite thing ever. Ever.

-She actually calls Owen Owen (not Oweee anymore). She actually calls Rebecca Rebetta (not Bepbep anymore). This is both sweet and sad.

-She is obsessed with babies - Beau and Annabell (Amy-bell) are her favorites. But she prefers they both just be called Baby. 

-She can say pretty much everything but she is missing lots of consonants:

ousigh, uh-stairs, firefuh(k), onge, puhpuh, choochoo rain, stooh bus, wed...

-She rolled her tent off her bed one day last month (long story but I had taken the guard rails off for a night and not put them back on) -she laughed hysterically and said "Maggie fall down - funny!" - she says everything "fall down" when she or anyone else drops something.

-She is obsessed with my phone and its a constant (loosing) battle to keep it from her. Her favorite thing to do other than delete things and text gibberish to non-existent numbers in far away places is to "watch pitures Maggie" and take selfies. She also likes to say my name over and over again to Siri - I found her one day sitting in a corner in the kitchen with my phone saying "Ahsin Mezder" over and over again to my phone and cracking up because Siri was "confused" (isn't she usually?) and was talking back to her.

Spring Rebecca-isms:

Also pretending to be asleep on the trampoline (with Rose Princess).

 Selfies (makes me feel better about my double chin if she can have one)!

-Made a special valentine for her Daddy and taped it to his locker in the mud room (it had a zip lock baggie full of rocks and dirt because he likes being outside). The best part was she made it several days before Valentine's day and hid it in my desk and when I found it and asked her about it she told me her plan was to take it to his locker "while he's taking a snooze."

-Says she wants to be an Eegy Steegy Ologist when she grows up. Then she giggles. Not sure if its because she knows she's saying it wrong/funny or because she knows she doesn't really want to be one.

-Our littler sneakster crossed a line recently. Kyle went out to get some meet from his freezer (or just admire it) and the meat was not frozen. Figured out that the control in the fridge had been messed with and the temp for the freezer turned way up. Go back a few weeks - I went to grab a drink out of the fridge and noticed a bunch of cookie crumbs in the door of the otherwise very clean and almost empty fridge - didn't have time to investigate but thought it was weird. Well, we figured out (and got a confession) that our little princess had been sneaking cookies (leftover from my IF:Gathering event in early February - yuck stale cookies that I forgot were in a crisper drawer). She accidentally messed w/ the thermostat. We had a big talk about not only the fridge and garage stuff but also about sneaking in general. Seemed to get through. Then the next day she came in the kitchen in a tizzy asking me where the cookies in the outside fridge had gone??? Uh - why are you asking? Were you trying to sneak one? Crickets. Still made I through away the cookies...Ah, children. :)