Marshmallow Village

So I don't know if you read my fb post today but it read:

"Today I drove home being chased by an army of marshmallow people, who kept putting roadblocks of cars in our way, which Emma had to move with her mind power. All in all, a pretty suspenseful day. Good thing I've learned to drive like 007."

All of which was true (especially the 007 part, I've got mad skills). We have a giant white bubble building in Davenport. Its a huge indoor golfing range. It has been graciously named "the marshmallow place" by my children, who point it out every time we drive by it. A few months after it was named "the marshmallow place" a story began to develop about the joint and the marshmallow creatures that live inside including, marshmallow people, dogs, cats, fish (that live in cold chocolate (not hot or they would melt)), and so forth. They also all have marshmallow houses, and sleep on giant marshmallow beds.

I love when my kids use their imaginations like that, so I ran with it (perhaps a little too far) and today we where chased by a marshmallow army, who were angry because we ate some of their marshmallow babies (they were delicious).

Then after Liam got home we decided to make our own marshmallow men, and their houses.

Okay, so most of us decided to make our own. Fox just ate more of their marshmallow babies.

Kira's

Liam's (complete with marshmallow bird)

Emma's (complete with...spikes?)

Marshmallow village

Oh the joy that marshmallows, toothpicks and poptarts can give to one family...

Rainbow rice

So the other day I found this post on how to make rainbow rice by Share and Remember (actually I found it on pinterest, but I'll give them credit). I thought I looked fun and interesting so on a day when we were bored we decided to give it a try.

Emma chose purple and Fox "chose"(was suggested) blue (by Emma). I put two cups of rice in a ziplock bag, along with 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of rubbing alcohol and 10 drops of food coloring (Neon food coloring gives it the coolest look). Then shook those babies (the bags of rice, not the children) until all the color mixed in. Then we spread them out in pans and set them outside to dry. With the sun it only took about 15 minutes to dry.
Just be careful not to grab it when it's still wet (use a spoon or something to mix it) or the coloring might get under your wedding ring and leave you with a permanent blue wedding band...
Anywho, the kids LOVE it!! In fact, every time they've played with it, I've had to make them put it away, they haven't got bored of it yet. And I love it, because I let them play with it while I get things done and before I sweep, and then we bag up the rice and I do my sweeping. I get all the rice kernels that had fallen (mostly blue ;)) and we are done!! No play-doh getting stepped on and dragged through the house (carpet!)! Awesome!

The kids liked it so much that we had to make Liam some. He chose green.


Emma practices writing her letters in the rice. Fox loves to dump it from one thing to another, and they all love to take army guys and other small toys to hide in the "sand".

Nothing to write about

I really don't have anything real important to write about. So be warned this post will probably have no point. eh, oh well.

Ever have those days (months in my case) where you feeling like you are just floating through life, not really making any significant contributions to anything? That's the way I've felt the last couple of weeks. I know that I'm doing stuff, but I feel like I'm not really getting anywhere, or moving forward. And I'm working on all sorts of things; spiritually, mentally, physically, but they are so minute (a lot of detail work, and not big stuff), that I feel like I'm stuck. A lot of what I'm working on I have to deal with to move forward, but it's still an unsettling feeling for me.

Fox has a new go-to word. It use to be "eat" or "outside". For example, he will say my name over and over again until I finally answer him, and sometimes when I finally answer him he would have forgotten what he really wanted to say and would answer "eat" or "outside", his go-to words. He's new go to word--"taco".

I don't know what it is with my toddlers and tacos. When Liam was 2 or 3 he use to have an imaginary cat that he could "hold in my hands" that was named Tacohead. Tacohead stayed with us for a couple of months, and still occasionally gets brought up in conversations.

And now Fox's new word is taco. He inserts it anywhere that he doesn't know a word. He often has full conversations with me, where the only word I pick up on is taco. He also will repeatedly say my name until I say "what Fox?" Then he'll reply "taco". I don't really know what taco means to him, but you have to admit, it's a pretty fun word to say.

I have a fear of being judged. Really. I do. I fear that people will judge me before they figure out how flippin' awesome I really am, and then they'll never get a chance to... I can't tell you how many people I've judged (I've really got to stop doing that) and then fate brought us together and I found out just how far off my judgment was. I've decided (just barely as I type this) that I should start dress and accessorizing so outlandishly that people wont know how to judge me, and then they'll have to get to know me! Awesome! ...or I should just stop judging other people, and then maybe I won't care anymore if they judge me. 'Cause I'm fantastic...just sayin'.

It's only two weeks until Tony and Fox's birthday. I really wanted to do a sushi party until Tony reminded me that I don't know how to make sushi. No, really I do, but Tony is the main su-shay (that's how you say it when your hip) maker in this house, and he really didn't want to make a bizzillion things of sushi for his own birthday party. Dang. And it was going to be so cute, with candy sushi and everything. Now I have to think of a new birthday party idea. Because just a plain party will never do...

I'm kind of afraid to be my real self, because I'm pretty sure that the conversations/thoughts that I have go on in my head would frighten most people...except those suffering from schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, or people from Jersey.

I'm horrible at keeping fish alive. You think it would be easy, water and food, right? (And never leave your fish infront of a fireplace...poor, poor Spanky) Remember our two fish that we got for Easter? One fish, Hey-suess, decide to commit fishercide and some how managed to jump out of his fishy haven (remember the part where fish need water?). He was found as fish-jerky the next morning. Our other fish, Optimus Prime, is still living!.. but has developed an incurable disease called "dropsy". Optimus Prime now has a gianormous belly because his kidneys are failing and all the food he eats just stays in there (Yeah, the other part, food, not so good at.). So now I just wait for him to die, and pray that he goes belly up before his belly explodes. (Gruesome, but 100% true. I'd much rather find a dead fish than an exploded one)

Ah, I should probably end this post on something more uplifting...but I can't think of anything, so that's it...sorry so spastic and random....

Emma the ballerina

Emma started ballet yesterday. And lets admit it, She's one cute ballerina. Even when doing her ballet pose. :) I adore the pink and skirt and tights and shoes and bun, seriously darling :)

Fox the Pirate

These are from when Bryan and Leah where at our house. Awesome. :) It's a bionicle container...you know, the things lego "bionicle"'s come in?

Dirt biking 101

So I should be downstairs cleaning my stinking house (literally stinking, darn broccoli soup), and doing laundry, and writing out a shopping list, buuut-I'm not. Because updating my blog it much more important...and a whole lot less...cleaning-y.

One of the deals when we went to Utah was that Tony would agree to go, as long as he got to see Bryan (ridiculous, I know). Bryan lives in northern California, so we toyed around with ideas of driving to Utah and flying Tony to Cali. And then Bryan informed us that he was going to Utah the first part of August. Tony hoped on board, and I got an extra 2-ish weeks that I got to stay in Utah (YAHOO!!). When Bryan came out he brought his dirt bikes, which Tony and Bryan rode every day they were together, and which they wanted me to try.

So here I am, looking adorably attractive in my dirt bike get up.

I rode the bike for about 15 minutes, lost control many times, crashed once, then got frustrated, cried, and made Stevie ride the bike the rest of the time while I rode on the four wheeler with Sierra :). (Just for clarification ((and to boost my ego)) I did go out with Tony and Bryan one other time, practiced, and learned to ride like a pro...ahem.)

Even though I gave up on the bike...and cried...we still had an awesome time. Here's Tony and Bryan's tough, manly shadows.
The boys got a wee bit frustrated with us girls...I don't know why...

Did you hear Bryan say "Five minutes? More like 15"?! What a punk ;)

We were a bit faster on the way down...I basically am going to enter into the next four wheeler race I come across.

Iowa City

Yesterday (Labor day) we decided to head to Iowa city to check it out. It was a beautiful day, the sky was so blue with puffy, white clouds that I wondered went we would run into the wall they were painted on :).

We also stopped at the "World's Largest Truckstop" (or so they claim). It's only about 5-10 minutes outside of Davenport. I know you are all jealous. :)
We saw the Hawkeye stadium, once again I know your jealous. I was told before I came out here by a native Iowan that the only phrase I had to learn to fit it was, "Go Hawkeyes!!" He was so right. Although I have yet to buy my yellow and black jersey shirt...I still get weird looks when I go to the grocery store, on game days, without it. Needless to say, it is on my Christmas list.
When we arrived in Iowa city we were starving, so we stopped at a BBQ joint called Bandana's. It was "eh"... Texas road house beats it out, but at least we all looked cute, right?




Afterwords we went to a super cool outdoor shopping area that had tons of shops, a huge playground, and fountain.







All in all it was a successful, fun trip to somewhere we've never been before. Hooray!