The Easter Bunny must be REALLY tall.

I am almost too tired to blog Easter but I wanted to get it down before too much time had passed.

We have been going and going ALL weekend. My mother came down on Thursday so help with the kids which was wonderful. For two days prior to that, my Aunt Pat came down to help. It's wonderful to know that when you need them, family is there to help. The Trump women are doers. They cannot sit still. They HAVE to be doing something. I honestly don't think I have EVER seen one of them sit down and relax. So while my Aunt was here every single piece of laundry got done. Dishes were done and beds were made. Children were happy and entertained. Mama completed an enormous amount of work. It was simply fantastic.

My mother ended up taking the children back to Annapolis with her since we were going to go up the next day anyways. Mark and I actually had a night off. We had dinner with the Roeder's and watched "The Kings Speech." The next day we slept in and ran errands. We got the oil changed at Wal-mart while we walked around the store, holding hands, collecting things for the Easter baskets. It was nice. Very nice. It's nice to know that when the children aren't around we still have so much to talk about and we really enjoy being with each other. Before you start to roll your eyes and gag (too late?), we aren't the kid of couple that is all rainbows and sunshine all the time. Stress takes it's toll and these date nights are wonderful but, more than that, necessary.

Saturday night consisted of watching Star Trek, setting up my father's speaker system and "helping" the Easter Bunny build baskets. When I say it was a perfect evening, please believe me. It doesn't take much to make me happy.

You think they got enough?

It chirps when you hold it. It was really more for Mama.

Shiny eggs that I got at Goodwill for $.49!

Grandad and his buddy. Look at them holding hands!

In the Trump family (my mother's side), we have a tradition of hiding eggs under pillows and in shoes. This has to be done in the middle of the night so that the child will wake up and find the eggs but not discover the Easter Bunny placing them there. It got a little hairy last night when George stirred numerous times. In the past, my cousin Aaron and I would try to stay up super late in order to find the Easter Bunny laying the eggs under our pillow but we would never succeed. EVER. We had intricate plans on how we would stay up but they never worked. Plus the eggs that were placed under our pillows were hard boiled so we usually ended up making a mess that night just rolling over in bed. The adults found this hilarious. Now I know why.

The next morning George was up before anyone (of course), found numerous eggs and was already on a sugar high by the time we all got up. Breakfast consisted of candy. A crapload of candy. So.much.candy. The hit of the baskets were these Zsu Zsu battle hamsters that ran around and drove Henry insane with happiness. Yes I said battle hamsters. They are ridiculously cute. We spent the morning watching the children play and then went to my Aunt Phyllis's house in Warrenton, Va. where we ate some more. At least it wasn't more candy.

 Mark and I were sent outside to place the eggs for the egg hunt. At first that consisted of us just throwing the eggs anywhere and then the guilt kicked in and we decided to get a little more creative. Some of them ended up in places a 5 year old would never be able to reach. That Easter Bunny is tall, let me tell you! Henry could not have cared less about the egg hunt. It was super humid and the air conditioning was out so the little Buddha baby was HOT. Hence the peter-pantsless pictures. That's just how we roll.

We drove home and collapsed. I wish I had the day off tomorrow. I need to vacation from  my vacation. I also wish George didn't have to go back to school tomorrow. I love having that little man around so much. I am just being selfish though.

Tomorrow we go to talk to the teacher about bullying. I will try to maintain my composure. We will see how that works.

@#$%# Dog

Someone has been listening to mommy too much. SOMEONE has a potty mouth. You tell me who is who.

Let's get this story started.

The dog, Ada, has many other names. Before all the animal lovers get upset, there are two things you need to know.
            1) I have a HUGE potty mouth. I try to keep it under control around the children but that doesn't really work. I like to blame it on my sailor father. I feel like cussing is an art and I practice my art on a daily basis. Now, I do try to control it around the little ones but I DARE for ANY parent to tell me they haven't let one slip once in a while.

           2) Names for dogs. Sigh. I love my dog. She is wonderful around our kids, she is extremely disciplined (if she hasn't gotten out of the house and in that case she runs for it) and she is super lovey. STILL as with any other animal we have, we always have some weird names for our dogs. Our bulldog was named, Kaiser Sensei but mostly we called him dumb dumb or Sir stinks-a-lot. We called our cat, Pouncer, "Satan." So on and so on. These names come from love and nothing else.

So anyone who has been in Virginia that past few days knows that the weather has been pretty, well, rainy. Ada (a long-haired German Shepherd) goes outside to frolic in the rain. When prompted to come inside, she immediately shakes the wetness everywhere in our small house which is where I freak out. I then tell her to go "night night" (her crate) so I might be able to control the amount of damage she is about to do but it does not help. Due to the small size of our house, she runs to her crate hitting every white wall and upholstered surface on her way there. At this point I have gone nuclear to which I close the crate door on her and mutter under by breath "#$%# dog."

Apparently I have said this more than once in the past few days.

Today we asked George to put Ada in her crate. As he puts her in he mutters, "@#$@ dog." Mark and I look at each other but we both know where he got that from.

Do you laugh or get upset?

We laughed until we couldn't breathe anymore and then told him we would like him to try to find other words to describe his emotions. Mommy obviously has a problem doing this.  Do as I say and not as I do.

Parenting FAIL.

Light Georgisms

So I won't forget...

1) Today, when I asked about school, George stated that he drew Texas. When I asked why he said, "I like Texas because it's big and you were born there mommy." As my heart melted, he proceeded with "but I also like Germany a lot more because Daddy is from there." Sigh.

2) I made a tex mex casserole tonight that consisted of rice, beans, meat and cheese. George proceeded to take an HOUR AND A HALF to eat said meal. "Eat" is a little liberal. He would bring us the bowl tilting it towards himself making it hard to see inside. We caught on to that pretty quickly...cuz we are smart like that. He then decided to smush the rice down to the bottom to make it look like he ate more then he had. Again, we caught on because of the smartness. Oh that boy.


Henry update: Crab crawled at 8 months, walked at 15 months and 1 day, REAL crawl at 16 months. This boy is just going to do what he is going to do on his own schedule. We are just going to sit back and enjoy the show.

Seacrest out.

Tuckahoe Plantation

Or Tuck-ah-hoe, as it was spelled on several old headstones on the grounds. This is Thomas Jefferson's boyhood home but that's not what drew me here. What drew me (and, consequently, my family and The Roeders) was the farmers market. I don't know how they called it a farmers market. It consisted of a board that stated when certain meats would be available, about 3 cartons of eggs and some wool. I like farmers market eggs but that's certainly not going to make me drive 30 minutes to a farmers market when I could get them at the farmer's market down the street. The meat was interesting. The meat that was available today was lamb. Now I love lamb but as you walk in to the farmers market (before seeing the sign) they had these cute little itty bitty lambs fenced in with several people standing around petting them. So when you walk in and see the sign you wonder "Do I get to pick one and have them slaughter it? Is this how this works? Will my child EVER speak to me again? Will he ever trust what food I put in front of him?" We teach our children that meat comes from animals and that they have to die to give us this food BUT it's a little hard to explain that to your child while looking at the cutest version of a specific animal. I mean, come on.

So after we went into to look at the "farmers market," we walked out and went to look at the "menu items." When we walked up the woman said, "These are Tiny Tim and Fozzy Bear." COME ON. You named them????? I couldn't help myself. I said, "You, ummmm, named the farm animals??" She automatically got what I was saying and went on to say "Well we don't usually name farm animals but we are going to be using these as show animals so we went ahead and named them." Oh ok, gotcha, that kind of makes sense. I still don't want to buy the lamb.

Besides the disappointment that was the farmers market, the plantation was absolutely beautiful. We could not have picked a better day to go see it. The spring flowers were in bloom. The sky was clear and sunny. The temperature was mid-sixties. There was plenty of room for the kids to run around...or toddle. The children were in GREAT moods. It was just perfect. Between Laurel and myself, we must have taken about 1000 pictures. I am going to let the pictures speak for themselves. 

It was a wonderful day!!!

Here are some random photos for the grandparents: