Cinco de Mayo

I know this post is a little belated, but we had a fun Cinco de Mayo party at my mom's house. I made carnitas (my favorite) and we had a taco bar, salads, and fried ice cream. (Now I can say I have made it once and I will probably never make it again - it was yummy but VERY messy!) Then we played pin the sombrero on the cactus and broke a pinata. The kids keep asking when we can have another pinata-they had so much fun breaking it and the candy and prizes weren't too shabby either! Thanks to everyone who helped out with this fabulous fiesta!

Validation

So, I have been a mother for about 5 years now, and every year I have received a flower at church on Mother's Day. Unfortunately, as mentioned in previous posts, I do not have a green thumb and each flower has eventually died. I told my hubby that I hoped the inability to nurture my Mother's Day flower was not a reflection of my nurturing abilities as a mother!
Last year I was determined that my Mother's Day mum would not die. I watered and cared for my little plant as it struggled for life. There were many times when I was sure that it was on its last leg, but it kept going. This spring I noticed a little bunch of flower buds on the original stem of the plant. I was estatic!
Imagine how happy I was when I noticed 5 more blossoms on the newer stems of the plant!! In fact, as you can see the plant is taking over my kitchen table and I don't know where to move it! I knew I wasn't a terrible mother:)

(Fake cough, fake cough) Mommy, can I have some medicine?

Our kids do something that I would have thought to be unimaginable when I was their age: They actually WANT to be medicated! If we lived anywhere besides the ever-so-wholesome Tremonton, I would think that their hoodlum friends in preschool had been slipping them some children's NyQuil in between the eating-the-paste project and the throwing-paint-at-the-other-kids activity. (Incidentally, I'm convinced that's what happens at preschool. I mean, I couldn't do half those projects Claire brings home!)
But Tremonton being the down to earth, homespun town that it is, I'm fairly sure that the kids in her preschool have never even seen a tv show more raunchy than Imagination Movers, so I'm confident that they don't know how to freebase Flintstone Vitamins. Where do I look for my kids' pothead tendencies? Well, genetics could certainly play a part. On one side of my family there is a history of alcoholism. But I don't really think that plays a part here.
As I type here, I have in front of me a bottle of Mucinex Cough For Kids! (Italics and exclamation point NOT added for emphasis! That's the way it appears on the bottle) with a picture of a very happy looking booger dressed in a baseball cap and t-shirt sliding down a slide of cherries. What kid wouldn't want to take a hit of that stuff?! I'm sitting here thinking maybe I should take a swig, 'cause if it makes me feel like an adolescent, hardened chunck of mucus, it's gotta be AWESOME!
Throughout the night and morning yesterday DD1 complained that her stomach hurt. Now when I say 'complained' what I mean is moaning, crying and thrashing the likes of which the wicked of the world on the day of final judgement won't be able to compete with. LW (Loving Wifey), being the worried mother and the tender heart that she is, was worried that DD1's appendix was about to burst or that an alien queen embryo was about to erupt from her chest, but I, being the cynical, skeptical father (otherwise known as BBVD - Big Bad Voodoo Daddy) that I am, had my doubts. I suspected that all she needed was a bit of breakfast. The problem was that while LW was around DD1 wouldn't even so much as look at food, but she did ask for any and all medicines we had in our cupboard.
Later, when LW and DD2 took off with LW's mom to Ogden I had had enough and pulled out the Dad Voice. You know the Voice. It's the one that isn't yelling, but it does convey the sentiment that Dad brought you into this world and will take you out, and it doesn't matter 'cause he'll make another kid that looks just like you! (Thank you Bill Cosby for that line, it's awesome!) I told her that no matter how she felt about the matter she WAS going to have breakfast...now! And, whaddya know, after she ate her stomach pains went away (yay!), but oddly her requests for medicine didn't. Hm.
As for the pictures, these were taken at a recent family trip to the park.

Easter 2009

I am finally getting around to posting some Easter pics. We had a fun and busy Easter, even though the weather wasn't great. The Easter bunny brought each of the girls a new Webkinz toy, and plenty of candy. We also colored eggs and had an Easter egg hunt at my parent's house. DD2 was old enough this year to join in the fun, she loved finding the eggs and especially shoving the candy in her mouth as fast as she could before I could get it away from her! DD1 loves that she is big enough to teach her little sister how to do all these fun things!