Jelly Bean Negotiations

When we brought home gobs of candy from Easter, I was left with the dilemma.  What do I do with it?  Let Mal eat until he barfs?  What should our candy regulations be in our home?  Obviously, I don't often buy candy, etc.  We've been doling it out as dessert after meals, and the occasional bribe.   Really, just kind of random.

Today, when Malcolm came in to Elliot's room while I was feeding her, he sheepishly asked in a tiny voice with eyes averted if he could have some jelly beans (his favorite of all his Easter loot).  I said, "Hm... what are you going to do to earn these jelly beans?"

He had no idea what I was talking about.  So I told him, if he gave me three kisses and three hugs, he could have three jelly beans.  He agreed right away.  After Elliot was finished, he held up his side, so I did too.

Later today, he asked for four jelly beans.  I asked him what he would do for them.  I suggested he could clean up his cars, he could sing me a song, or give me kisses.  He told me he wouldn't sing for me, "just kisses".  Then offered "three kisses and four jelly beans".  That was way too cheap.  So we settled for two kisses, two hugs, and four jelly beans.

I wonder if I could start some potty training with all this jelly bean negotiating?

Easter 2014

We had Easter at Jordan and MiQuelle's house this year.  MiQuelle's parents and some of her siblings/nieces/nephews were there too.  I totally underestimated how easy it would be to take pictures of kids finding Easter eggs.  So you pretty much get just Malcolm, since he was the one I was following around helping find eggs.  It was a ton of fun and Malcolm got more candy that he could ever need!  It was fun finding eggs with him.  Especially once he found out there was candy in some of them.  Then he was all about finding more eggs.  Between Jordan and Kell, and the eggs her family had brought, plus the real dyed eggs we ate for dinner, there were hundreds of eggs to find!

Last Week's Pictures (Sort of...)

Have you read Harry Potter?  There's plenty of magical and impossible things that I'd love to have in those stories.  Like Apparating.  Man that would save time!  What I most find myself wanting lately though, is a Time Turner, from book 3.  It always seems like I never have enough hours in the day.  It feels like even if I got up at 5 am and went to bed at midnight, I'd still never have the house work done, the errands run, never have a shower, and never have the amount of play time or alone time I want to have.  I feel like life is slipping away all to quickly.  Like my brain is in a thousand places at once.

It's all about to get worse because we plan to very shortly start tearing up our kitchen and re doing it.  Not a full new cabinet/layout/etc. remodel.  We are tearing out the ceiling and the cabinets over the bar, and then repainting, new lighting, new ceiling, new backsplash, and new range hood.  It's not just the kitchen either, really.  Because we're tearing out the ceiling and cabinets, we have to repaint the wall that goes ALLLLL the way down the hallway.  So if we're repainting that, we're repainting the hallway, the dining room, the kitchen...  I'm really going to hate paint here real soon.  But it'll be so awesome when it's done.  It's partly that my mind is on the remodel that I can't get anything done.  I spend too much time reading about DIY everything, and picking out tile, making a game plan, etc.  It's already consuming!  But hopefully by the end of June, we'll have a brand spanking new kitchen and dining room and our house will be pretty much as perfect as we can get it without anything more major.  I'm excited and full of dread all at the same time.

Well, now that we've had that little tangent, here's the photo dump from my daily phone pictures from the last couple of weeks.  Well, almost all of April, really.  I brought up the Time Turner because I was thinking about how much I want to blog more often so I'm not doing a whole month at once.  If I could just go back an hour each day, I could blog AND get adequate sleep.  :)

I've been trying to not be such a crazy instagram poster with multiple posts a day, so some of these will be new!

This kid and Canydland.  He asks to play it everyday.  You gotta watch him close too, he cheats. :)
 

Afro got up here to catch some flailing arm pets.

Post haircut.  I did it while he watched TV on my lap.  It's not perfect, but good enough!

first baby smile caught on camera!

"Your back hurts mom?"  He asked as I was laying down by the tub.  Because yes, yes it did. 

Broke out of her swaddler!  We've since incorporated a second "batwing" swaddle underneath and she stays stuck.

Ryan sent me this while I was at work one saturday.  He cleaned out the fridge.  It looks AMAZING now, and there's so much room!

Playing with multiple layers of photo shop and filters on my camera.

Her eyelashes! (and baby acne and flaky skin--it's since cleared up mostly)

Weird that it's down this far in the order, but this is also post-haircut.  Love his little naked self.

Ryan took the kids to Costco to buy shampoo, but they didn't have the kind he wanted.  So they brought home flowers instead!

Malcolm wanted a sandwich from the heel of the bread.  He called it the "Weird one".  "It's a weird sandwich Daddy.  I'm having a weird one!"

After Elliot's doctor's appointment, we took the car to get an oil change, and walked a block to Este Pizza for lunch.  My favorite pizza!  Really, the only pizza I every really want to eat.  I'm not a pizza lover.  Except Este.  Malcolm and I shared a soda with two straws.  When I told him we were sharing, he literally started taking turns.  He'd drink, then say, "okay!  It's your turn mommy!"  And after I'd had a sip, he'd drink again, then tell me it was my turn again...

mmm pizza!

Since we were downtown, we stopped at Liberty Park to play.  It was such a warm beautiful day.  I miss living down here by this park.

Good morning!  Only the cutest baby ever.
 

Got the patio set up before Elliot's blessing.  Unfortunately it was rainy in the morning, and then too cold to be outside.  We crammed everyone in the house anyway.
 

The awesome curl Malcolm woke up with.

Our for ice cream after an errand downtown.  It was even past Malcolm's bedtime, He doesn't know how good he has it sometimes!

One morning, I put Malcolm in the bath.  It seemed pretty warm,  but when I asked him if it was too hot, he said now.  He was ready to get out sooner than normal though, and his skin was all flushed and hot.  So warm, in fact, I didn't put his clothes on, gave him a popscicle, and sat him down in front of the TV with a fan blowing on him.  He now thinks he needs to watch TV and eat popscicles after every bath. 

Elliot in her blessing dress. Two days before the big day I figured I ought to make sure it even fits!

He's always lining up cars.

A rather hot day at the park.  The only toy was a pretty big kid one.  He climbed this little climbing wall over and over though!  Made me proud. ;)

We keep having bouts of wonderfully warm weather.  We had a picnic with Daddy during his lunch break that day, too.

Blessing dress, day of.

She always ends up in my bed in the morning two days after a night shift when I can hardly get up.  Ryan will bring her in when she wakes up so I can feed her while trying to de-zombify. 

Tummy time on Mommy's tummy.

Did you know crayon can write on carpet?  Neither did I.

He he he!  Copy Cat.  

Water color.  Another thing Malcolm asks to do every day.

I liked this one because he used the car in the wet paint and it left tracks all over the paper. 

My cousin Mallory was in town from Virginia and we met up with her, her sister, mom, sister in law, Laura, and Brenna for a giant playdate with all our kids at the park!  We tried to get a picture of all of them together.  Malcolm participated as he usually does in group photos.  Kellan was also only sort of willing to lounge up top in his shades.  (just barely visible behind Bridget)

Baby toys are so fun!

More cat snuggles.  He doesn't realize she's not that interested.

A belt in our car broke, and it couldn't got out of park, so we had to have it towed to the shop.  I thought Malcolm would love to see the tow truck.  He just cried and cried because "The guy is taking my car!  It's not broken, it's mine!"

We went out to dinner one Friday night, and then wandered the mall nearby.

"I"m a butterfly!"

Getting a drink from the outdoor faucet.

I got off work early, and got to sit on the patio with this beauty watching Malcolm play in the dirt before the sun went down.
 

I made these two "cards" from pictures I took in the sunset that same evening.  The next day was Easter.

Look at her!  Starting to fill out!  Also kind of looking like a boy... 

This was the funnest bath ever!  It was a very full tub, even for Malcolm.  After Mal got out, I put Elle in and she was practically swimming.  I'd just hold her head and let her body float and drift.  She kicked and moved in the water and LOVED it.  I may get a fish child yet!

 Caught some pictures of her chatting at me in her car seat

Don't you just wanna eat her up?

 Easter dress.  Kevin and Lisa gave us this when she was born.  I thought it was perfect!  It fits her lengthwise, but she couldn't fill it out.  :)

I woke up one morning to Ryan calling to someone out the front door.  I peak outside to see a woman and her daughter get out of a car in front of our house.  Ryan's lover and their love child?  This was surely poor planning, I'm totally home!  Jk.  Her tire was totally blown, and Ryan changed it for her while she walked her daughter to school down the street.  He has a speedy car lift that takes like 3 seconds to lift the car high enough to change the tire.  It took him like 5 minutes.  He's so nice!  Love him.