Blonde Moment Monday

• How is it Monday already? One minute the week was dragging by and the next minute the weekend flew by leaving me wondering how it went by so fast!
• But that's okay because tomorrow we leave for Hawaii and I am SUPER EXCITED!!!!!
• (can you tell??)
• (Although I have to admit I started writing this post before today and now I am literally counting down the hours before we leave because I'm getting so excited. So no, the time is not flying by now)

• Although it has been a rough past few days, we did get to enjoy the unseasonably warm weather while fighting our colds.
• After a few stops to run errands, I promised Ryder frozen yogurt at one of my very favorite places, Red Mango. I used to stop here for a treat during my lunch break when I worked at a dental office around the corner quite often. In fact this was a pregnancy craving that I developed, so it was funny being back here with Brynley in tow!

• Scot was even able to break away for a bit to enjoy a treat with us!
• Ryder was beyond excited not only to have his best friend join him, but to get to eat dessert too. All in one day, he must have wondered what the special occasion was haha.
• He kept calling his frozen yogurt "frozen ice cream"

• We made a quick trip to Lowes to get a few things, and Ryder had to ride the lawn mower ("tractor"). It was hard to get him to get off of it, so I bribed him with going to look at the seeds and flowers to pick some out that he would want to plant.
• In trying to teach him about seasons, I have been reminding Ryder that Winter is coming to and end but that Spring is right around the corner and we will start seeing lots of pretty flowers bloom.
• He picked out a packet of seeds with blue flowers. Did you expect anything different haha! I was actually surprised they even carried blue flower seeds!

• I also forgot to mention that Tucker went to the vet a few days ago and had his first dental cleaning. He will turn7 years old this June and his breath had gotten out of control. And to think I used to brush his teeth twice a day. Boy my children truly take up all of my time now!
• He did great but ended up having two teeth extracted, and I had to give him canned dog food
• He was pitiful when I picked him up from the vet, but very happy about having canned dog food!

• We spent a lot of the weekend indoors to ward off getting any sicker, and to enjoy the time we had left before going away for a few days.
• One of Ryder's favorite games to play now, other than Mommy's phone of Wii is to line these bowling pins up and then race into them, knocking as many over as he can!
• When we got home from Lowes the other day, I realized the seeds Ryder picked out were summer flowers and that meant we had to wait to plant them, so instead I let Ryder go ahead and plant the grass seed in his frog buddy.
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• I got all of the materials we needed to plant our grass seeds, and reminded Ryder that it was almost Spring, which was why we were planting because it was time for things to start blooming.
• He just seemed excited about the part that he got to plant something!

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• And in just a matter of days, he started to grow hair!
• For some reason Ryder calls this guy a pickle haha

• I made these Greek Quesadillas that I got from Jenny @ Practically Perfect and they were so yummy!
• In fact, they were super easy and I loved packing them with fresh veggies rather than just cheese like I normally do. I asked Scot to pick up some whole wheat wraps and he came home with these flour tortillas instead, but to make them healthier like the recipe, I will try them with whole wheat next time.

• I used the leftover spinach from the quesadillas and made a fresh spinach smoothie with some other ingredients I had on hand.
• It was super easy and yummy, but next time I will add coconut milk and probably not greek yogurt, since it came out a bit thicker than I would have liked.
• It still tasted great, but I wanted Ryder to give it a taste and he just wouldn't because he saw me add the spinach in. (Don't tell him the Green Machine smoothie he loves to drink has spinach in it!)

• Despite fighting a cold, Ryder was a good boy for me the past few days and I tried to do fun activities with him on the days that he didn't have preschool.
• At his request, we had "Train Day" and practiced writing the letter T.

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• Then we made a train out of a shoe box that I had and I drew a quick train track that he could play on. My initial thoughts were to use the toilet paper roll and make a really cool train, but he insisted on using it as "binocolars" instead!

• And where was Brynley the whole time we played?
• Well she was loving her play kitchen that she got for Christmas and spent the whole time rolling around and opening and closing the door to her oven.
• She's getting so big isn't she?

• Yeah, and then she decided to copy what Ryder was doing and have some fun of her own with his train and train track! (Oops)
• Lets just say Ryder was less than thrilled when she did this, and we are starting to see some major sharing issues already.
• So I have two celebrity tidbits to share:
• #1 Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo are having a baby! Kind of ironic that both he and Jessica Simpson are having babies at the same time don't you think?
• And #2 Everyone's talking about Jennifer Lopez and her nip slip. I watched some of the awards and I don't think it existed. I'm thinking everyone was just wishing for it to happen!
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• So Saturday I decided to make a healthy sweet treat from a recipe I got fom one of the speakers at my MOPS meeting one day
• Chocolate cupcakes made with Bob's Red Mill cake mix, canned pumpkin, and mini chocolate chips
  
  
  
• The lady who shared this healthy recipe with us warned us that the batter would be extremely fudgey and sticky, but I wasn't prepared for just how sticky!
• The cupcakes came out okay and were just what I needed to fool me into thinking I was having a sweet treat
• However, I think next time I will adjust the temperature and use the chocolate chips throughout the batter and not just to top the cupcakes!
  
  
  
• I started packing days ago for Hawaii, but as usual I am a procrastinator and know that I won't completely finish this process until the very last minute.
• Good thing I married a man who is very Type-A and keeps me in line!
• Well I hope you had a wonderful weekend and I will try to do my best to post at least one picture of Hawaii.
• Happy Monday!