I won't stop complaining until the snow is gone.

Here's to laying on the beach, soaking up the sun, smelling like sunblock, taking the garbage out with no shoes on, wearing capris, playing at the park, having picnics, riding bikes, sitting on the grass with neighbors, leaving the door open all day . . . I'm so sick of winter!! Oh, summer, will you never come back?

Tyler's boat

Jared and I got a big kick out of this. Tyler got some bath boats from Grandma Moore for his birthday. The one he's playing with shoots water out the back to propel it forward. He likes to hold it with the back pointing up so he can see the water squirt out. This time it looked really funny, though. Watch:

Happy Valentines Day

Joey made these cute frog valentines for his class, and they were a hit. The tongue is a popsicle stick that can be moved around, and he wrote "Hoppy Valentines Day" in the mouth, which he thought was really funny. I got to go help out at his class party, but of course forgot the camera.

Tyler's New Bed

Tyler got this bed from Grandma West for his birthday. He LOVES it. No more crib mattress on the floor! Poor, deprived child . . .

Tyler's Birthday

I really hate doing birthday parties with the kid's friends, so I decided years ago that we were only having family parties. They get to choose what to have for dinner, they get a fun cake, pinata, balloons, and of course presents. I love it and they love it, and so far, no complaints. I'm considering a friend party for Joey's 8th birthday, though. I think 8 will be the only friend party we do, for all of them.
Here's how we decided what to eat for dinner that day:
Me: What do you want for dinner for your birthday?
Tyler: umm . . . toast.
Me: Toast? Wouldn't you rather have hot dogs or something?
Tyler: Yeah! Hot dogs!
Me: Or pizza . . .
Tyler: Yeah! Pizza!
Me: So . . . what do you want?
Tyler: Cake.

We went with pizza

He got cars for his birthday, Thomas underwear (wishful thinking), a Cars pillowcase, and a big boy bed. I'll have to post a picture of it later because he's sleeping in it right now, and heaven forbid I should wake him up. That's always dangerous business. He LOVED his racetrack cake. He was a little concerned that he wasn't going to get his cars back, though.

The pinata, which, as always, was unbreakable and had to be ripped apart by me in the end.

My Adventures in Cake Making

So I decided to get creative for Joey's last birthday and made him an Optimus Prime cake at his request. For those of you who may not know, Optimus Prime is the leader of the good guys in Transformers. He's a red Semi, and this is how it turned out. Kind of pitiful, I know, but I'm rather proud of it anyway. It's like a newborn baby--you think it's absolutely beautiful, then you look back at the pictures months later and realize it was an ugly little lizard.

Then, of course, Jason wanted a Transformers cake for his birthday, too. This time I did Jazz, who is a little white car. No, the cakes don't transform.

Tyler loves cars and racetracks. He wanted Sally, from the Disney movie Cars, and I decided to do something different, so made this race track with Sally (and others) on it.

One large pizza, extra eyeballs, please

Jason was eating pizza for lunch today, and he left the table to go to the bathroom. He was concerned that someone was going to steal his pizza so he said to Tyler, "Bubba, will you put an eye on my pizza while I'm gone?"