Our new toy

We got a new toy for the backyard. The kids love it! Fun!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Career Day

Yesterday was Career Day at Carroll Elementary. Isaac has wanted to be a policeman for a while now (probably about 2 years), so of course that is what he dressed as. I think he looked so cute!

Safety Town

Last Friday I was able to accompany Isaac's class to Frisco Fire Safety Town. It's a really cool place. It's attached to the central fire station, and was created as a place for kids to learn all kinds of safety related things. They have classrooms and a large outdoor "town" designed to look like Frisco. It has streets with working traffic signals, Walmart, Frisco City Hall, a tollway entrance, houses built by local builders, etc. (all miniature, of course). First Graders that visit Safety Town learn about traffic and pedestrian safety in a classroom setting, and then have the opportunity to practice what they learned by driving jeeps around the "town". The whole place was quite impressive, and the kids had a BLAST!

The Host

Great book! I highly recommend it! You should read it!

4 Year Old Portrait

I took Noah to get his 4 year old portrait done today. They all turned out so good, I had a hard time deciding which ones to pick. It seems like every picture they took captured a different expression, and all of them were ADORABLE. I tried my best to pick a few that showed his personality - the Noah I know and love. Don't you just want to squeeze him?

Mother's Day

I always dread Mother's Day. For some reason it always makes me feel incredibly guilty that I'm not a better mother. Despite the guilt and dread, it usually ends up being very pleasant, because David spoils me like crazy! This Mother's Day, all I wanted was a family picture. So, last Tuesday, we headed over to Picture People. It was an excruciating experience (my kids don't like to cooperate), but the picture turned out pretty good (by the way, ignore the crappy scan, my scanner doesn't do well with dark colors).

Then on Saturday, the real spoiling began. David went to the grocery store so he could get everything needed for breakfast and dinner on Sunday (he said it wouldn't be very nice if he made me buy the stuff he needed). Then he took me out to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, which is when I bought Twilight (see previous post) - Barnes & Noble is right next to the Cheesecake Factory. Then Sunday morning I awoke to waffles with fresh strawberries and fresh whipped cream (my favorite breakfast meal). Yummy! The rest of the day was great, too. David pretty much did all the work, so I could take it easy (and read). Thanks David for making me feel loved. The kids were also very sweet (at least they tried to be). Isaac made me a coupon book at school. He got to pick what he wanted to write on the coupons. They were, "I'll watch Noah and Emma for 30 minutes", "I'll make lunch", "I'll set the table", "I'll give you a back rub for 10 minutes" and "I'll vacuum". I redeemed the back-rub one on Sunday. All in all, it was a great day!

Lack of Self Control

I love to read, but in all honesty I rarely do it. The reason is simple. Once I start a book (assuming I like it), I often get absorbed and can't put the book down until I'm finished. I seriously have NO self control. This can be problematic, since I have 3 young children, a house, etc. that need to be taken care of. Well, for a while now I've wanted to read The Twilight Series by Stephenie Meyer. I've put it off, because I just didn't want to get "sucked in" (no pun intended), beyond my control. Well, Saturday night I bought Twilight (the first book). I stayed up until after 1:30 a.m. reading, because I just couldn't put it down (even though I knew I had 9 am church, and I don't do well when I don't get enough sleep). Even after I got into bed, I couldn't stop thinking about the story, and honestly didn't sleep well because I really wanted to know what was going to happen. I made it through church and then finished the book Sunday afternoon. I couldn't wait to start reading the next one, but since it was Sunday, I had to wait until the next day to go buy the next two books. David suggested I order them from Amazon (cheaper), but I told him there was no way I was waiting that long. He gave me a lecture (sort of) about not being a "binge" reader. He suggested that maybe I would enjoy them more if I just read a little a day, and then I wouldn't be mad at myself for getting nothing else done, ignoring the kids, etc. I didn't listen. Monday morning I headed back to Barnes & Noble and bought the next two, New Moon and Eclipse. I basically didn't put them down (except when I absolutely had to) until I finished (sorry David). They were very good! Captivating. Now I have to wait until August for the next one to come out, which seems like a long time. I feel really sorry for the people who've been waiting much longer than me. :)

By the way, purely by coincidence, Stephenie Meyer was in Frisco on Saturday (I think on a book tour for her new book, The Host), and when I went to Barnes & Noble on Monday, I noticed that there were autographed copies of some of the books. I got autographed copies of New Moon and The Host. Kind-of cool.

Bag Tag

Lori tagged me to "reveal" the contents of my bag. This is pretty scary because everyone (including me) thinks it's a trash can... So, here's my list (in no particular order, since there is no order, particular or not, in my bag).

1. Chapstick - Giant watermelon Lip-Smackers and 1 regular ChapStick
2. My sunglasses
3. Empty Ziploc quart size bag (this had wipies in it, before I used them all at Baskin Robbins this evening).
4. Pair of pants and underwear for Noah (just in case)
5. 2 diapers (size 4 Pampers Cruisers for Emma)
6. 2 hairclips
7. Toys: (there's so many of these, I decided to list them together)Kids Meal toy from dinner at Arby's tonight, Emma's purple purse, Winnie the Pooh board book, 2 necklaces, a pop-up thing that looks like an eyeball (from Gattitown), play cell phone
8. Wallet (I can't even begin to imagine how long this list would be if I listed everything in there)
9. One Fruit by the Foot and one Fruit by the Foot wrapper
10. One Kleenex (unused)
11. Trash - 2 sticker backings, a BUNCH of fruit snack wrapper pieces, a couple broken crayons, piece of a sucker wrapper
12. Stickers
13. Pen
14. Planner (I NEVER use it, though)
15. Checkbook
16. Pediatrician appointment card
17. 4 receipts
18. Band-Aids
19. 4 old batteries (AA)
20. Feminine hygiene product
21. Baby Powder
22. Sun Screen
23. Teething Tablets (haven't used those in a while)
24. Hydrocortisone Cream
25. Antopiclair (a rash cream I used to use on Emma)
26. Hand Sanitizer (I'm gonna need this after going through my bag)
27. Nail Files
28. Lotion
29. Black bag that holds the last 9 items
30. Dum-Dum sucker
31. Plastic bags (for messy diapers, etc)
32. Plastic thing that hooks onto napkins to make them into a bib (Emma won't keep it on, though, so I don't know why it's still in there)
33. David's insulin
34. Dramamine

And here it is laid out on my couch in all it's glory (how embarassing!):
Now for the fun part. I tag Helen and Nikki.

Am I a Bad Mom?

Noah loves to watch movies. He is very dramatic and often acts out the movies he watches. He memorizes lines from the movies, and then repeats them all day long (usually at random times, so that if you didn't know it was a line from a movie, you would have no idea what he is talking about). He goes through phases where he picks a certain movie and wants to watch it OVER and OVER and OVER. His favorite thing to do when watching movies is hold a toy that goes with the movie (Thomas trains when he's watching "Thomas", Lightning McQueen when he's watching "Cars", one of Emma's Ariel dolls when he's watching "The Little Mermaid", etc.). Well, right now he's into watching the movie "Aladdin". He LOVES princess Jasmine, and has told me, "Mommy, you are Aladdin and I am Jasmine". I tried to explain that it would be better the other way around, because he is a boy like Aladdin, and I am a girl like Jasmine. He doesn't care, though.

Anyway, what does this have to do with the title of my post? When I picked up Noah from preschool today, he had a small Princess Jasmine doll in his pocket, and was so excited to show it to me. He asked me to put it somewhere safe, so he wouldn't lose it. I explained that it didn't belong to us, and he had to leave it there. He was sad, so I offered to take him to Walmart to buy a Jasmine toy with some of his birthday money (he has a ton). Here's what he picked out:

FYI: He doesn't seem interested in the different outfits Jasmine came with (he had me put her in the outfit that looks most like what she wears in the movie, and left it at that). Emma, on the other hand, keeps trying to take her clothes off and re-dress her.

So, would you let your little boy buy a Princess toy? Do you think I'm ruining him for life? Or (like me) do you think it's not a big deal?