Tanner's 1st Birthday

Today was my baby's 1st Birthday. What a wonderful day to celebrate! We had a small little pizza party since today is his actual birthday and his party is on Saturday. So he opened a couple presents today. One being a big yellow dumptruck he loved making the brummmm, brummmmm sound, a little train, a semi truck, a big blue ball and the most adorable checkered shorts & shirt outfit. So excited to see my little guy smile and play. Happy Birthday my Sweet little boy! (Mommy's a little sad he's growing up so quick, this 1st year went by way to fast.) I'll have to post some pics after his party on Saturday.

Snow

About 8 inches so far and still more a fallin. Karlie cried this morning when she got up and saw all the snow. I asked her what was wrong and she said, "I can't ride my bike anymore in the driveway". I felt so bad for her. It's like giving us a big present "spring" and then taking it away "snow" and saying ha, ha. Only I don't care for this joke very much. Happy winter everyone. :)

I'm moving!!!

That's it I've had it with the weather I'm packin up & leavin. I called my brother & told him to make room for me because I was movin in. He laughed at me. Just kidding, but seriously, what is going on. It is ridiculous!!! I don't know whether to say Merry Christmas or Happy spring. Adam told Karlie it was beautiful, and she said no it is not (with her hands on her hips). He told her we could build a new snowman & then she was OK with that. How is it possible to go from 65 to a blizzard with in a day. Minnesota stinks right now!

Crayons

Being a mommy is definately not dull most of the time...OK never. :) Today's questions dealt with Tanner as he turned around and looked at me with a blue mouth. Curious, are crayons OK to eat, if so how much, are blue ones better tasting then the other colors, does blue crayon come out of clothing, etc. Today Tanner ate crayon...you guessed it...blue. :)

Spring!!!

Spring is here!!! Busy we have been. It's just so nice to be able to go out and smell that fresh nice air. Today the kids and I hit the swings, played in the sand (OK Tanner ate most of it), and broke off all of the dead flowers from last year in my flower beds (Tanner tried to eat those too). Then we went for a walk around our 2 mile loop. It was a lot of fun listening to Tanner & Karlie in the stroller. She feeds him one Cheerio at a time. She said, boy this is grea mom, Tanner is being so good he's not even fussy today. Karlie likes to bike with the cat Nala. She holds her under the armpits while she bikes with the cats feet dragging. Puts her down and I think now the cat will run away, but she doesn't. I don't understand...I wouldn't be within a 100 yards of Karlie if I were a cat, but Nala seems to love it, she comes back for more. I'll have to get a pic. It' quite a sight. Tanner sat & looked the cat over good, stuck out his hand and as soon as the cats nose touched his hand he whipped it back and tried to get away. Pretty cute. I'm so gald springs here, did I say that already...

On another note, my big goal is to do a 5k run by June 7. My cousin Cathy & I were emailing each other and decided to sign ourselves up. Don't know what I was thinking at first, but now I'm so pumped to be doing it. Motivated, I sure am, and training hard. It will be fun to run it with her and Jon.

Tanner James (Trouble) & Karlie Ann (Trouble) Gustafson

Well, that became Tanner's middle name yesterday for sure, just for fun. A regular day is how it began. Got up and got the kids ready for church. OK, we were a few minutes late. It seems like we always are when we try to go to the early service at 8am, but if the kids are up we try to go to that one otherwise the 10:30 service is longer (with 2 kids doesn't work well) and then we have to rush home for nap time.

Anyway, Karlie didn't want to be quiet today. So exit we did & went down to the bathroom to have a chat about being quiet and I had mints in my hand that I had tried to use as a bribe during church (this I'm not ashamed of; it usually works) so I told her she was being naughty and threw the mints in the toilet and flushed them, then told her if she wanted any more she must be quiet through the rest of church she would get more after church. Basically she wouldn't listen and this was my drastic measure to get here attention. So back up to church we went, only 10 min. left, as soon as we get in she announces to my mom like 3 times (grandma, mom threw my mints in the toilet & flushed them) as I tried to cover her mouth with my hand to muffle it. Talk about embarrassing. You know everyone heard; how could they not with only the pastor doing the talking. After that she was quiet for the rest so she got a mint.

After sunday school, at home we placed Karlie's little marigold in a cup in the bay window (they planted them at sunday school so it's freshly watered). You probably know where I'm going with this one. I was in the kitchen talking to Karlie (about listening-shocker isn't it) and it was much to quiet so into the living room I went & wound my little man Tanner with a black mouth, black hands, and 1 black foot (the one missing a sock) digging a ruler into his sisters freshly planted marigold. She's hollering "he's eating my plant, he's eating my plant". I picked him up, stripped him down, and washed him down. Then picked up the big pieces of mud, vacuumed up the rest, then scrubbed the rest out of my cream carpet. Obviously, the people who had the house before us had grown children when they put it in.

While I'm doing this I hear something clatter in the kitchen...that would be sister's lunch of meatloaf loaded with ketchup. Tanner decided to pull the placemat down. So off I go to clean that up. I turn around from that and Tanner's got his box of wipes ripping one after another out of the box. So I ask...was there a full moon or something. Tanner is usually my calm one, which he was very calm while he did all of this. The rest of the day was very quiet, but after all this I don't think it had anywhere else to go. At least later on when the kids are big I'll have some really good stories to tell. Remember the time you ate your sisters flower...

Snow Painting

Well, since I don't know when the snow will go our family's making the most of it. We went & rebuilt Frosty and then we did a Leatherback sea turtle (Nemo) one day. Adam went & got a little sprayer from Menards and we mixed water & food coloring up and painted the turtle green. The next day we changed it to a dinosaur, and made a new snowman & a baby snowman, and painted them pink. The color last all day long & then soaks through so tomorrow they may be purple. This ended up being a great idea just to be able to go outside and do something different & keep Karlie busy and having fun with something new. To fun with the snow until it finally leaves us. :)

CriCut

I got my Cricut Expression today!!!!! I'm so excited. It's for my scrapbooking. Adam got it for me for my Birthday. Now I can do all kinds of fun stuff at the push of a button. WaHooooooooooo for me!!!

Snow, Snow, Snow

ENOUGH ALREADY!!! I've had it with this wretched snow and now we just got more. I was so happy & cheery two days ago when it was actually warm out, I could see grass, and Karlie & I went for a walk in the driveway. Well, she rode her bike & I walked. It was like WAHOO!!! the end is near. I could feel spring coarsing through my veins. I want to smell the grass growing, hear the frogs start to croak, and the sound of those big thunder storms with lighting filling the sky. I want to be able to take the kids outside and play. No more cold & dreary weather & no more feeling like we're cooped up in the house. If anyone has any ideas on how to keep the sanity and not go stir crazy please let me know. Maybe a MN Snow No More Help Group should be started. :) Please no more snow!!!

Today

Grandpa's surgery went well, but he's in a lot of pain right now. We'll see if he gets out tomorrow from the hospital. Other news...Tanner is now walking!!!!! On day it was just a couple steps, a couple days later it was 5 steps, a couple days after that 10, and yesterday he really didn't crawl that much at all. It's so cute to see him teetering back & forth. He's so cautious. The moment he feels himself swaying he sits down. Pretty cute. Off I go to finish his invites for his 1st birthday party while he's sleeping.

My Grandpa

My grandpa is one of the sweetest people I know. I will forever be known as grandpa's little sweetheart even though I'm not so little anymore. :) He has called me this since I was just a little girl so he is very special to my heart. The family is heading down to Duluth today to be with him during his knee replacement surgery tomorrow. Please keep him in your thoughts & prayers for me.