Trickeration

In the car this morning, Noelle asked/said the following:

1. "Do all people have mouths?"
2. "From now on I'm going to wash my hands every time I use the bathroom."
3. "Do trains have special doors?"
   

Notice how she tried to distract me by sandwiching an admission of guilt between two completely random questions.

The Age We Live In

I was eating lunch at a restaurant recently and noticed a family (father with his teenage son & daughter) sitting next to me. Shortly after their food arrived, I saw the son bow his head over his plate, but his father and sister began eating. I thought to myself, "Wow. That sure is cool that he is praying for his food...in public...by himself." I then realized that he had his cell phone in his lap and was texting.

Solid Food

We started Jared on solid food a couple of weeks ago, and so far he is doing great!! He's had pears, apples, rice cereal, bananas, and squash. He hasn't made many funny faces, but we haven't fed him the strong tasting stuff yet, either. Right now he eats a small jar of baby food for breakfast & lunch, and a jar of baby food plus cereal for dinner.

Eating watermelon with friends

Wedding Cake

Here are pictures of the wedding cake I made. The bottom layer was red velvet, and the top was chocolate, both with cream cheese icing and fondant. Just FYI, if anyone out there ever needs black fondant, this is the recipe I used. I didn't have to use a ridiculous amount of food coloring, and people's mouths didn't turn black. (And it was pretty yummy, if I do say so myself!) :-)

Chillin' in the Sling

Swim Lessons

Noelle started swim lessons today. She's gone back and forth about being excited about taking lessons and telling us how scared she is. She's spent some time at the pool already this year, which I think helped her be pretty confident once she was in her class. She really enjoyed today and even said, "Man, I did SO good!" as we were walking to the car. The pictures didn't turn out too well, but you get the idea:






Swimming is hard work!

Sugar Detox

So...I (Sarah) have been eating way WAY too many sweets. And if I ever want to get back to my pre-childbearing weight, I had to do something about it. Starting a few days ago, I cut out all sweets and fast food from my diet. I decided to write down some of my experience, so you all could feel my pain.

Day 1: I saw a cupcake on the ground in the Wal-Mart parking lot. The frosting had either melted or had been licked off. I can't tell you how tempted I was to pick it up and eat it.

Day 2: I go to our church's monthly luncheon. 3 words--Chocolate Meringue Pie. Luckily, there wasn't enough of that to go around & Chris was there to hold me accountable. But man, I wanted some.

Day 2 1/2: I was complaining about how badly I wanted dessert. Chris then proceeds to name a list of desserts, complete with yummy noises. He got a big smack on the head. Then he listed more. He got another smack.

Day 3: I've been relying on the "chew gum when you want a dessert" method. I've eaten a lot of gum. Later today: Hannah got into my purse and chewed my gum!!!! Luckily Chris salvaged a few pieces for me.

Day 4: I realize that I forgot to get gum at the store. Urg.

Day 5: I'm making a wedding cake & decorating it for a friend. I've done good not eating scraps of cake and frosting. But it's really testing me. Cake is probably my favorite dessert. I can't believe how many cake scraps I've just thrown in the trash....I have to make sure and cover them with really gross trash so I'm not tempted to get them back out and eat them. (However, I did cheat and have a piece of cake at the wedding....I had to taste and see how it turned out!)

Day 6: Wal-Mart continues to be a challenge. Guess what I'm most tempted to buy?? Pop Tarts. Seriously, I could eat a whole box in one sitting. I know there are foods that are much yummier, I just want pop tarts SO BAD. What's wrong with me?

Day 7: Have you heard the advice, "Nothing tastes as good as thin feels?" I'm pretty sure I can name plenty of foods that this advice doesn't apply to.

Day 8: Today Chris took Noelle to get a snow cone as a treat. I stayed at home with Jared, but was going to have him bring one home for me. As he was leaving, I realized this would totally go against my no sugar rule. Bummer. So I drank some water instead.

Day 9: Does any one else agree with me that there are WAY too many commercials for really yummy, sugary food?

Day 10: I've tried cutting sugar out of my coffee. I prefer it with sugar, but just milk is OK, too. Maybe one of these days I'll drink it black. I figure if I can give myself shots, I can drink black coffee. :-)

Day 11: A few days ago, I made a dessert when we had company. I froze the leftovers even though Chris wanted me to leave them out for him to eat. (I also froze a bunch of cake scraps from the wedding cake.) I told him it was the same thing as a shop-aholic freezing a credit card. It's actually been pretty effective. In the time I would have to zap it in the microwave, I'd start feeling pretty guilty about cheating on my no-sugar diet.

Day 12: I'd say that going without sweets is getting easier. I have a major craving for it after lunch, but other than that it's not TOO bad.

Jared gets the last laugh

Jared's first piggy-back ride...

....turns into a special hair treatment for Daddy!

It's a good thing he's so cute!!

Watch out slow pokes!

Noelle has continued her love for roly-polies. She looks for them and plays with them daily. Even this morning before church, she found one and carried it around the house. We told her that she would have to put it back outside before we left. Noelle agreed. She took it outside and played with it for a little while longer. Then she stood up and deliberately stomped on it! I was stunned and speechless for a few moments wondering why Noelle would squash her roly-poly since she loves them so much.

Daddy: "Why did you do that?"

Noelle: "Because that's where I wanted to step. The roly-poly should have went faster."

Gym-map-sticks

That's how Noelle says it. :-) We enrolled her in a 6-weeks gymnastics camp this summer. She has been really excited to go, but she was also a little scared. (She was afraid of having to do the uneven bars.) I was lucky to actually get a picture of her smiling before class.
But then she quickly adjusted and had so much fun!! We got to watch her from a little observation room. I think I had just as much fun watching.
Balance beam:


We were shocked that she actually jumped off of the end. She did such a great job!! She did many things that were definitely out of her comfort zone.
This was her favorite...a somersault on the balance beam:



Trampoline:

And a special treat at the end!

Mimi, you might not want to read this one!

***Noelle comes running into the kitchen from the backyard***

"There's a huge pile of flies on Hannah's poo-poo, and I was scared of it. Daddy, do you want to come look at it?"

Roadtrip to Carrollton

Mima & Gramps took the 4 of us to the Dallas Zoo.

Noelle did not want her picture taken before we left the zoo.

Mima's friend's neighbor was out of town, so we hijacked her pool one afternoon.

A family of turkey vultures has taken up residence outside of Gramp's office.

Baby turkey vultures.