Yay for friends.

We had Chloe's friend Allysa over to play yesterday. Her mom works kind of near us, so we picked her up after the gym and kept her till Jess got off work. She was here for eight hours.



Normally, if I'm watching someone else's kid, I stalk the clock, constantly calculating how much longer until they go home. Allysa is totally different. She's the only child that is truly a pleasure to be around. For eight hours, the only time I heard from the girls was if they were hungry or needed to go potty. They played out back, then they played out front, then out back again. Cora followed them around nearly the whole time, and they were so good to her, always trying to include her. I got so much done yesterday, it was incredible. I hardly had to parent. And my kids were thrilled to have a playmate. I'm seriously thinking about having Allysa over once a week or so - they just get along so great.

At one point, I packed up a basket with some pb&j squares, girl scout cookies and other snacks. I lined it with cloth napkins and kind of made it look special, then included paper plates and napkins and plastic cups leftover from a birthday party. I gave them a jug of apple juice to pour into the cups and share. It was the cutest thing ever - they were pretty impressed. (Especially when they ate the cookies first and I didn't try to stop them. LOL) Chloe brought the emptied basket in and gave me a big hug and a thank you. :o)



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I picked up a copy of Real Simple magazine from the library the other day - February 2009. In it, they show photos that seven photograpers took of their wives, and what the men had to say about their wives. It's not a long article, but gosh, it's neat. To hear what a man thinks about his wife - the way they describe the women they love, it's just inspiring. There's one picture in particular of a mom laying in bed with her three kids climbing all over her, and she looks totally relaxed... it's just such a perfect portrait of motherhood. And it's a great illustration of just sitting back and enjoying your kids. (Granted, the photo was taken when they were on a month-long vacation in Greece. I'd probably relax more if I were in Greece, too.) I'm tempted to steal the picture out of the magazine and scrapbook it.

It's worth looking at, if you happen to get Real Simple magazine or come across a copy of it.

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I'm still going to the gym pretty regularly - 4 times a week, if all of us are feeling well. I'm there often enough now that I'm making friends. It's nice to show up and have someone to chat with and workout with, and maybe sneak in just a little bit of gossip about the perfect little girls with the tight little bodies and gigantic boobs that seem to be there just to show off how perfect their bodies are. LOL I've increased the amount of food I'm eating by quite a bit - I was seriously not eating enough for awhile there - and I'm trying to increase muscle in some areas while running a mile each day to get the fat off of other areas. I'm not sure how successful I am, but overall, I still weigh exactly the same. Funny how that works. Hopefully it's more muscle now instead of fat!

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These are some pictures I took the other day from the duck pond near our house. We stopped there to feed the ducks and walk around for awhile. Cora kept squealing, "Bock bock!" and chasing the ducks. (Bock-bock = chicken. She hasn't distinguished between the two yet.) She'd say "Bock-bock num num?"while doing the sign for "please". Num num is food. She was asking, rather politely, to feed the ducks some more. I love this baby-talk phase. She learns a new word every day, it seems, though no one besides Andrew can understand any of it, and most of the words sound very similar.



Anyway, thought I'd share a couple of shots from the duck pond. I'm so glad it's spring.

And one last picture - sleepy baby just kind of passed out in the kiddie recliner one afternoon. Too cute.