It's Hard Being a Girl

Oh, Buttercup. It seems like some days nothing goes right for her and that she is almost always on the verge of being spitting mad about something. At the ripe old age of 17 months, she has already had at least twice the number of tantrums that Oliver has had in his (almost) 3.5 years.

Yesterday at lunch she threw a massive tantrum because she wanted her milk. I must have been hiding it from her to make her so mad, right? Nope -- her milk was right in front of her. But she screamed and screamed, "MILK! MILK!!!!" over and over . . . and then she started pointing to the refrigerator while she screamed. I finally realized that she wanted me to put her cup in the fridge, so I got up, put her cup in the fridge, closed the door, opened the door, took her cup out, and brought it back to her. Tantrum immediately over, and she started drinking her milk. Whew.

But, she is fearfully and wonderfully made, and we love her just the way God made her. If she were any different, she wouldn't be our Buttercup. :-)

Maybe the Duggars Are Onto Something

When Oliver was about 3 months old, my aunt told me that it might seem like I had my hands full then, but things would get easier as Oliver got older. And then she said something that I thought was totally crazy -- that when her 3 children were older, she had lots of free time during the day because they would play together. She even had time to sit on the couch and read while they played!

Well, as it turns out, she was right. :-) Here I am, sitting on the couch with my feet up, drinking ice water and playing on the computer while Oliver and Buttercup play in the sun room.





































Maybe we should have 3 or 4 more kids instead of 1 more?

Playing Inside

Today I gave Oliver the chance to plan our morning. We had the option of going to Zilker Park and having a picnic, or going to a different park, or going to the children's museum, or going to IKEA, etc. Basically, anything he wanted to do. And he said that he really just wanted to stay inside and play with his toys and his Buttercup. So that's what we did. :-)

After breakfast, Oliver drew and practiced writing letters on the dry erase board . . .


















. . . while Buttercup tried to dress herself.


















Later in the morning, I was in the kitchen by myself and noticed that the house was very quiet. I could hear low voices coming from Oliver's room, and I walked in to find this:







































Such sweet kids!

Curious Buttercup and Oliver Make Pancakes

Last night at bedtime, Oliver asked me to read "a book that I haven't read in a long time." I guess that after 2 months of reading books about sea creatures, he was finally ready to read something else. :-)

So I chose this old favorite: Curious George Makes Pancakes.














After we read the book, Oliver asked if we could make pancakes (there's a recipe on the back of the book and we've used it a few times before). So we decided to have a pancake lunch today!

First, Oliver helped by rinsing the blueberries.














Buttercup helped by repeatedly banging her metal measuring cup against the metal bowl . . .














. . . and sampling blueberries.














Then we were ready to get started!


















I cracked the egg, then Oliver added the milk and whisked the first ingredients together.
































Buttercup amused herself while Oliver was busy.


















Then it was time to add flour . . .


















. . . baking powder, and salt.














Buttercup provided more entertainment while Oliver and I took turns mixing the batter.




































Finally, the batter was ready!














Oliver helped me make a blueberry smiley face like George did in the book.














And the verdict? YUM!

A Few Oliver-isms from Today

Here are a couple of funny things that Oliver said today while Jaxon was at our house:

Me: (pointing to Jaxon's blanket) That's Jaxon's special blanket. He likes to hold it the way you like to hold sting ray or elephant.
Jaxon: Yeah, my Nana made it for me. It's special.
Oliver: Well, I have a special blanket, too. It's my elephant blanket. A nice IKEA lady made it for me.

Jaxon: Hey, let's play SUPERHEROES!
Oliver: No, hey, let's play SUPERHEROES with GUITARS and FLASHLIGHTS!

Me: (after Jaxon went home) Oliver, thanks so much for being such a good friend to your buddy today. You made my heart so full!
Oliver: I did? Is it so full that I can have 3 reward beads?

Busy Week!

We have had a very busy week. I can't believe that it's already Thursday! I feel really out of touch right now since my cell phone isn't working. And I also haven't been taking very many pictures this week because I just haven't had the chance. Not to mention that Mr. Oliver is not really into having his picture taken these days. ;-)

On Monday, we did my favorite thing -- we just hung out at home and played. Actually, we did run a brief errand in the morning, but the rest of the day was spent at home, playing in the back yard. You can see some pictures of us playing in my previous post. Ahhhh.

On Tuesday morning, I took the kids bowling with Oliver's BFF Jaxon! We had such a good time. Oliver and Jaxon's bowling games have really improved since their first time bowling last summer. Buttercup had fun people-watching and trying to pick up the heavy bowling balls.

On Wednesday, the kids and I went to the Y so I could ride the stationary bike (I'm a little burned out on running right now!) and then we all played in the pool.

This morning we got to hang out with Jaxon again while his mom took his dad to the hospital to get his back and leg checked out. Please pray for them -- Justin is in serious pain and may not be able to play with his band this summer unless his back is healed.

I'll post more pictures later!

Backyard Fun

Here are a few pictures from earlier this week!