Easter Treats on Friday

Humoring Momma While
Picking Out Colors

Last year, the day after Easter, I went to Target for 50 percent off Easter baking goods. I got this awesome bunny head pan for $2. I have waited almost an entire year to bust that baby out...and Friday was the day!

Xander has a bit of a cold and is a grabby little monster, so Ainsley and I waited until his nap to make the treats.

Doing the sticks. A keen eye will marvel
at my Roger Waters TShirt

I've become an old pro at making Rice Krispee treats. For my other busy Momma friends, I've found  it's much more manageable for you to make treats that are certain shapes if you break the recipe into thirds. Then Ainsley gets to pick multiple colors for her Rice Krispie treats. This particular time, Ainsley just *could not* decide between blue, green, purple, and brown. Thirds is easier because all of the items easily break that way... 2 cups cereal, 1 T butter, 3.5 oz marshmallow. But I love my kid, so I broke out the calculator.

Testing the Quality of the Purple

Then I got distracted by Draw Something: "Are you done with math, Momma?"

Silly Billies

Ainsley's job was to hand Momma sticks and help put them into the bunny heads. She proved moderately successful at that job...except for the stick we had to discard because she decided to put it between her toes.

Each batch made 6 bunny heads with a little left over. Ainsley, of course, was more than willing to test each batch. She, also of course, found the blue to taste best, as blue and yellow are her favorite colors right now. She was actually allowed to pick any color for the treats and yellow was one of her choices, but I vetoed that as a waste of coloring. I have to say I was pretty surprised at the choice of brown.

1) This is how X sits sometimes.
HILARIOUS.
2) What happened to my BABY?!

After Xander woke up, we decided to let him help decorate. Mostly Ainsley fed him sprinkles and he ate them. When we tried  to get him to put M&Ms on the treats he was all "Fool, why in the world would I put this M&M on a treat if I can just eat it? You are crazy people."

He ate about 4 M&Ms and then punked out to go watch Chuck and Friends on Netflix. Ainsley, on the other hand, was ALL about decorating some Rice Krispie treat bunnies!

Bunny noses and bunny eyes

I told Ainsley to give the bunnies pink noses and eyes that matched (though really I knew I didn't need to tell her that. We're on the same wave length, my lil' one and me). Every treat she decorated got blue eyes. My kid loves blue...she's obsessed. I did have to let go of my Mommy OCD issues in that she absolutely refused to put the M&Ms face side down. When I was telling her for the second time to put the words face down I had that moment of "Why?" in my head... I wasn't selling these. They weren't for show. Who cares? I'm pretty proud it only took me 2 times to come to that. (Plus, I put icing pupils on the bunnies to hide the M&M lettering anyway...my will be done. Buahahahah!)

Cuteness. 

The treats turned out pretty well. I had some green left over so I decided to try making a little Easter basket with M&M eggs. It turned out alright. I have to say, I think the sticks seem unnecessary, but I also think the kids would beg to differ. LOL.

Deliciousness at
the Speed of Light

After dinner, the kids bust into the Bunny Treats. Ms. A attacked her treat. Xander ignored it for a bit, then used it to drum for a while...and then somehow he managed a bite...discovered the deliciousness and It. Was. On. I still haven't tried one, but the wee ones seem to approve.  It took them quite a bit of time to eat their treats...they laughed and chewed and licked and had a generally good time. And then Xander started playing peek-a-boo with his. The cuteness became overwhelming. Video evidence below. Ainsley, of course, felt the need to perform for the camera...so have fun with that.

The Rice Krispies treats of our labor

Please to enjoy: The Stewart Children in Rice Krispie Treat Peek-a-bo

Forks and Common Sense

Forks!

Mmmm quesadilla!

A couple days ago, Xander stole Ainsley's fork.  He'd been rocking the finger food his whole life...but suddenly, he decided, "Screw that noise. I'm grown up now."

So, now he's all eating like a human and stuff. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

He's pretty close to being bottle-free as well..now that we've introduced juice (well, 1/2 water, 1/2 juice) into the equation, he's more amenable to the whole situation.

I can rock a sippy cup too, WHAT?!

Other things you may notice in these pictures:

1. This is yet another picture of Xander eating.
2. Xander is growing hair.
3. I still haven't figure out how to get my phone to take a good picture.

Common Sense and 2 Year Olds

It's like she knows she's going to be on the blog.

This morning, while I was fiddling about on FB, I hear Ainsley throwing a proper fit.

A:  MOM!!!

Me: What?

A: MOOOOM!! Come heeeeere!

Me: (comes here) What?

A: I can't get this!!! (she motions to her books and her baby bathtub which she's been using as a barcalounger to make her reading more comfortable)

Me: What are you doing?

A: (squeals in anger) I want this and my books in the libing room. Here, carry my books.

Me: Make two trips. Take your books in first, then come back and get your bathtub.

A: (grins, happy) Ok!

So, if you were to ask my husband...and well, anyone...I have little common sense. But using what little I have to help my daughter made me proud.

Xander's Birthday

The Spread

So, in June, we had Xander's first birthday party.  As promised, I'm here to report on the festivities...and show some of my sister Alysse's awesome pictures.

First, I must thank Aunt Sarah for letting us use her home..there's no way we would have been able to fit all our friends and family in Casa Stewart.

A metric crap-ton of
awesome people

Please note the beauty that was the taco bar. I think I may have to have taco bar at every party. Mmmmm!

So, we held the party on a lovely Saturday in June. I was very excited for this party and its outcome for two reasons: 1) I didn't get drunk (unlike Ainsley's first birthday, when I pushed myself too hard and raided Aunt Sarah's cabinet) and 2) I wasn't pregnant.  Before you get all judgy (though really, anyone who'd read this isn't judgy), I didn't know I was pregnant at Ainsley's party. I found out five days later, but it definitely explained the stress/need to drink!

Outdoor Fun...and a SPRINKLER!!


As always, Grandma Fitzgerald arrived with chalk. Ainsley and Kaelynn both enjoyed playing with the chalk. Of course, Aunt Jill had to get in on the action, too!

Aunt Sarah provided a sprinkler for some backyard fun.  All the kids loved the sprinkler immensely. It was one of those wacky sprinklers that shot water everywhere...so much fun!  Ainsley ran willy nilly; Faith and Ripley enjoyed the sprinkler.  I think Kaelynn was less enthused. Either that or she was showing her sass-face for the camera!

Friends and Family Are Cool!


So, just like Ms. A, Xander took a big ole nap during his party. Grandma Ballay got her baby hoggin' hands on him, and he passed right out!

CAKE!!

Alysse said Sean was looking
at me in this picture. *grin*

So, for Ainsley's birthday, we ordered from Halls Takes the Cake, which makes delicious...and very expensive cakes.  They messed up the flavors of hers, so we had a discount on file that I'd forgotten about.  We took advantage of that with Xander's cake and it was awesome.

Unlike his sister, Xander was willing to Tear. That. Cake. UP!  I kinda knew he would, Xander enjoys playing with his food.


Presents!


Xander, of course, was showered with lots of presents.  The hat that Grandma Fitzgerald got him was a big hit with the crowd, and he seemed to not mind wearing it.  Sean was in charge of Xander's presents this year, and he did an excellent job. I was particularly thrilled that Xander got a Cookie Monster doll instead of the standard Elmo. Well done, husband.

This is exactly the
kind of cute you can't handle.

 All in all it was a great party, and we were happy so many people could come out and celebrate Mr. Awesome's birthday. Now, I just need to write those thank you cards!

THE POOL!!

So, Laura Romano got Xander a little pool for his birthday.  Today, now that I have a few things moved off my plate, I was able to dig it out for them.

Watching Ainsley OCD out

At first, Xander didn't want to have anything to do with it. I put him in an there was screaming. Lots of it.  So he hung out on the side of the pool for a while.

The pool has these blow up butterflies that velcro to the sides of canopy thing. Ainsley, of course, fixated on placing and removing them over and over and over.  Xander watched and occasionally messed up her groove. He got in trouble for that from Miss A.

Then I let the dogs come out, and they were thrilled to have such a fancy water bowl. Boomer and Sadie got to hang out for a while, but they ended up annoying us by barking like idiot dogs at the neighbor's Jack Russell terriers.  Annoying Jack Russell terriers. 

In the pool!

At least Sadie's embracing the pool made Xander more amenable to it.

At one point, Ainsley decided it was time for them to dry off...so she got out her towel and started drying herself and Xander off. I was able to get the towel away from her before she threw the towel into the pool.

Ainsley decided to smell the flowers on the porch...and requested I take her picture while she was doing it.

"I want picture, Momma!"

Ultimately, the pool was a big hit with a little boy.  I got a lot of pix of his cuteness.  

Ainsley, of course, threw a *huge* fit when we put the pool away: "WANT POOL!!!"

The Twilight Hour

Since summer has come, I've had weirdly sporadic free time to play with the kids. One such time is what I call (in my head and now here) the Twilight Hour. After the kids get up from their nap, they play for a bit. Then a couple hours later, while Sean's making dinner, the kids and I will sometimes play in Ainsley's room. I call it the Twilight Hour b/c it's normally right as the sun's setting when we do this...

Mostly the play involves me lying on the floor while the kids jump and crawl all over me like crazy chilluns. The other night, though, I brought my phone in the room with me and captured some cuteness.

Ainsley Is Daring
One of her new things is Ainsley's desire to jump off of things.  Notice how meticulous she is about climbing and jumping. 

Xander Mimics His Sister
In the eyes of Xander, the only thing cooler than Ainsley is NOTHING.  After she abandoned the bike jumping for some serious puzzle playing, Xander got his big boyness up on the bike.

Ainsley Is a Crazy Person
I'd like to point out that at not point in this day did Ainsley get a Scarfacian pile of sugar, but this still happened.

Xander's First Birthday Celebration....and Then Some

This past weekend, we had Xander's birthday party. I'll blog and post pics from it later—I didn't take a single picture, so I'm relying on my family to share theirs. Alysse took pictures as part of her present, so I know there'll be some kick ass pics to come.

But on Xander's birthday proper I had to work. So on my way home, I picked up some Dairy Queen and returned to my brood bearing gifts. Xander celebrating his birthday with hot dog and french fries and ice cream cake.

He quite enjoyed smearing the ice cream around in his tray....training for Saturday, I suppose. Once Ainsley saw I was taking pictures of Xander, she demanded her 15 minutes of fame.  Mostly it involved her jabbing at the camera and giggling insanely.

Now that Xander is a big boy, I decided to serve him dinner on a plate as opposed to on his tray like always. At Saturday's party, Reece Merritt came—he's 3 months old. I held him for a bit and had several "awww baby!" moments. But tonight, while Xander ate his meal relatively unattended and moderately cleanly and Ainsley ate solely unattended and cleanly, I had a moment of "ahhh."

Ainsley, again, got in on the picture taking when she noticed Xander was having his moment in front of the camera. I think it's pretty awesome that in this picture, she's 1) stolen Xander's birthday present bugs, 2) she's lined up said bugs, 3) she's insisted on a picnic that she's promptly ignoring.

Also, I've noticed that I post a lot of pics of my kids eating. That's weird.

Trip Out

BUGGY!

Today the kids and I ran some errands.  While I was in Muncie for class, they were crazy wired and gave Sean a mondo headache.

So, since I needed to pick up a few things for Xander's birthday party and needed to return some things to Babies R Us, we ventured out.  Ainsley was very excited to ride in the back of the BRU buggy. Xander was very excited to chew on his wet wipes.

When we went to the party store to get the stuff for X's party, the cashier gave Ainsley a balloon. I declined a balloon for Xander, and clearly that was a mistake.

While Ainsley was outside with Sean, Xander made quick work of attacking the balloon. I watched him grab at the ribbon for a while before I ran to get the camera.  When I came back with the camera, I was able to record this:

This is Xander's first crawl up on the couch, which is littered with Ainsley's dress-up paraphernalia.  Notice how gifted he is.

Once he got on the couch, I gave him the balloon and this hilarity ensued:

The funniest/scariest thing: while Sean and A were outside grilling, I was inside making the sides.  One second, Xander was crawling under the coffee table, grabbing at a toy. In the time it took me to stir the rice and reheat the corn, Xander had crawled up on the couch and made his way onto the end table.

We're so in for it with this one...

Chasing

So, it's been a rough week so far...and it's only Wednesday.  In an attempt to just relax and let it all go, the kids and I decided to play.

Xander has been big into following Ainsley and me all over, so we decided to make a game of it.  We spent about 15-20 minutes, running and chasing one another. Mostly, Xander is chasing A and me.  I apologize for the volume of my screaming, but he was really encouraged by the screaming.

Also, notice that Ainsley refers to Xander as a "monster." LOL!

I find this video to be pure joy...so I'm sharing it.

MY PARK!! Part Deux: Parklectric Boogalo

Action shot!

 As many of you know, I've been busy—hellabusy.

I had just submit my IPFW grades today (with 40 minutes to spare!), when I realized that the zoo that I'd promised Ainsley after her nap wasn't going to happen.  I needed to walk, so I decided to take the kids to the park.

When Ainsley woke up from her nap—before we even put her glasses on, she said, "Let's go park! Let's slide!"

Swingin'

"Sure! Let's go!" I said. I gathered up our jackets and the stroller and got us out the door.  Ainsley wanted to walk, so I had her hold onto the strap and walk alongside the stroller.

As we passed random people on the sidewalk or working in their yards, Ainsley would say, "I going PARK!  Come on!"

Once we got to the park, Xander decided that he should continue his mulch eating festivities and Ainsley revived her love of the slide.  Oh, by the way, Xander can now crawl up stairs, which makes the playground a bit more hazardous.  JOY!

My ZOO!

X, Aunt Jill, A

This week, I bought a zoo pass.  To initiate the pass, my sister Jill came to visit and take advantage of "guest" status.  This is not Xander or Ainsley's first trip to the zoo, but Ainsley remembers this one pretty well.  We went on Friday...and all day yesterday all she could talk about was "my zoo!"  Clearly, the selfishness is still alive and well in Ms. A.

We took lots of pics at the zoo...and X and A are now at the age where I'd have to sacrifice a goat and recover the Titanic to get them to look at the same place at the same time.  Because we were at the zoo and there were goats there, I considered it (I hate goats, btw), but ultimately decided it might get my pass revoked to assault zoo animals.

Alligators are awesome.

The FW zoo is bigish, so we only hit half of it; we avoided Africa, the new section, as we always start there, the kids poop out, and we never make it to the rest of the zoo.  So, this visit gave us a few random exhibits (penguins, sea lions, otters), Australia, and Indiana (basically a farm).  It was a chilly day, so many of the outside exhibits (monkeys, for example) were closed; the penguins and otters mostly just stood around. The sea lions were huddled in the one area of their tank where the sun was shining.  They had their snouts and fins in the sun--it reminded me of sunning cats.

Ironically, we didn't consider
naming either child Joey.

Australia was much more successful.  When I was single, I used to take a lunch and go visit the zoo.  Africa had yet to be redone into the awesomeness it is now, so Australia was my favorite part--especially the kangaroos.

So clearly, my love of all things kangarooy has passed onto my children.

FISH

I think the kids' favorite part of the zoo was the Great Barrier Reef exhibit.  Ainsley has always liked fish; our trip to the Georgia Aquarium last year was quite the hit.  She continues to really enjoy them.  I think she could probably sit and watch the fish all day long.

I'm glad for this discovery. When we're at the zoo in July when it's hot hot hot, we can hang out in the air conditioned Great Barrier reef indefinitely.

Xander was particularly enchanted by the fish.  He was only one month old when we went to Georgia Aquarium, so the only thing he really cared about then was boob.  It was fun to see him stare at the fish.

FISH part deux

Xander has been upgraded to the stroller sans car seat carrier, by the way.  He seems to not understand that he can sit up.  Right now he's all just chillin'. Maybe that's just how Xander rolls then.

*side note* Xander is so big now he's going to get to move into his big boy car seat for his 1st birthday.  We're gonna have to get a convertible one so that he can remain rear-facing until he's two. Interesting juxtaposition: Ainsley moved into her car seat about a week before Xander was born. Technically, she probably shouldn't have been in the seat because she was only 19 lbs, but I was not going to buy a second carrier seat for her to use for 1 month. 

This close to kangaroos.

So, why do I love the kangroo exhibit, you ask?  Because if the kangaroos deemed it so, they can come right up to you!  The partition in the exhibit is basically some poles with some plastic wire connecting the poles.  The first time I went to the zoo, the kangaroos were really active and hopped back and forth across the trail that we were on; it was awesome.  Today, like most of my visits after, they were laying around in the sun.

Wondering where
The Doctor is....

We went to the zoo on a Friday afternoon--the first dry, sunny Friday in a long time.  So there were lots of people there, and , of course, school field trips.  The largest group of children were from a school that was either Amish or Mennonite.

Two things happened with this particular group that I found worth sharing.

Insert "dingo at my baby"
joke here.

1.  I don't know if this is a racist statement or not (I'm hoping it's more ignorant than racist), but I have to say I was surprised to see black members of the group--adults and children.  Jill asked me about it, and I honestly had a moment of, "Well, of course, why wouldn't there be?!"  Living in Indiana, I've seen my fair share of Amish/Mennonites, and up until this weekend, all have been white. So, I did a little research (cause that's how I roll) and found out that because most Amish come from Swiss roots, it's more rare for there to be African American Amish and/or Mennonites.  But as the site I read indicated (and I totally had a big fat duh moment as I read this), the belief system is being embraced by a variety of ethnicities.

The kids teasing the dingos

2. The kids were kinda monsters.  Well, actually, the kids were kids; they reinforced the fact that I really only like my own children and those of my friends.  At one point, Ainsley and Xander were looking at kangaroos.  Three boys came and stood directly in front of Xander's stroller.  I almost had a moment (and I fear that as my tenure as zoo member continues, I may still have a moment), but instead, we opted for a "play through" mentality. I think it was the wiser choice.

Photo Op Challenge

Jill and I tried really hard to get the kids to pose for pictures with this train.  Xander had his moments of smiling for Momma and Aunt Jill, but Ainsley was On. The. Move.  Hence, this photo montage.

Walking with Jill

Ainsley really enjoyed crawling around all parts of the zoo. I'm quite looking forward to taking her there in the mornings to wear her out before naps.  Well, after my summer class is done, of course.

Funny Story
So, the peacocks were really loud--and adamant. They probably cawed every 20 minutes.  The first time they cawed, Ainsley asked, "What's that?"  I told her I wasn't sure (at that point, I wasn't).

The second time we heard it, I figured out it was a peacock, as they were all over the zoo.

Peacocks are loud.

Again, Ainsley asked: "What's that?!"
Me: "It's a peacock sweetie."
Ainsley: "What's wrong?"
Me: "He's probably talking to the other peacocks."
Ainsley: "He misses his mommy."

Well, alright then.

Zoos are tiring.