Tennis anyone?

N has just started taking tennis lessons. She does tennis clinics during the weekend but had her first private lesson this week. She was so excited to have a one on one with the tennis pro. Here are a few pictures from her lesson. I realize that they're a little blurry. I might need a new lens to get pictures of her moving that fast.

Do you have to be so chemical free?

Okay, so I'll be the first to tell you that my kids eat junk. We eat at Chick fil a three times a week. We're not the healthiest people on earth. But I do try. I don't buy body products that have parabens or sls. I buy snacks from the health food store that don't have hydrogenated oils, msg, trans fat or corn syrup. I try to get my kids to eat fruit and nuts instead of the junk. However, I have one child who lives off of meat and apple juice.

Well the other day we were at Walmart. N was begging for laughy taffy. Her begging turned into crying. I told her that she couldn't have the laughy taffy but that I would take her to the health food store to get a treat. Through her tears she yelled at me, " Why do you have to be so chemical free"? I thought I'd never stop laughing. I know I run around saying, " Don't eat that. It has so and so in it." But I didn't think anyone was listening. You'd be glad to know that I didn't give her the laughy taffy. She got starburst instead. Hey, my nerves can only take so much.

Lessons from the apartment complex

When my husband was offered a job in another state we knew that we would want to wait to find a house. So, we looked online for apartments.  We went ahead and put a deposit down on an apartment that we had never even seen. When we arrived, I was delighted that the apartments were new and that we would be moving into a unit that had never been lived in.  Apartment living is definitely not like being in a house. It is MUCH smaller. You can hear the neighbor every time they slam their front door. And the biggest outdoor play area my kids have is a small patio. Still we are getting used to this whole apartment thing. I just wanted to share a few things that I've learned from living in an apartment in the few short months that we've been here.

#1   You can call maintenance to hook up your dryer vent even if you're not a single mom.

#2   It does not mean that you are a bad wife or mother when the maintenance guy walks in and looks surprised to see how messy your place is.

#3   You can break just about anything and maintenance will fix it.

#4   You may gain weight because you feel the need to eat lunch with your husband three times a week just to get out of the small space that you now call home.

#5    When you are on the bottom floor and you have tenants above you, it will often sound as though they may actually fall through their floor right into your living room.

#6    One room can serve many purposes. Workout room, dining room, school room and living room.

#7    Just because the fire alarm goes off, it does not mean that you must run out of the building with your children because the whole building is on fire. It could mean that you turned on the wrong burner on the stove and the burner had a plastic spoon on it.

 #8   Your outside cat should not actually remain an outside cat in an apartment complex. Especially if he has a tendency to bring dead things to your door.

#9    You should never take your children with you to meet the new neighbor. You never know. You may have to explain some heavy topics to your kids when your neighbor introduces you to her girlfriend and goes on to tell you of how they want to have a baby.

#10   It may not be a good idea to let your kids play at the apartment complex park. Your kids could possibly look at the building next door to see the stripper on the third floor in her panties. True story.

I ain't gonna paint no more

Reading to my kids is one of my favorite things to do.  We try to get to the library pretty often. We got some really great books this week. Amelia Bedelia, Fancy Nancy, Some Swell Pup, and many more. We just happened to get I Ain't Gonna Paint No More by Karen Beaumont. I originally picked it up because the kid in this book reminded me of the kid in I Wanna Iguana and I love that book. This book is SO cute! It's about a little boy that feels like he just has to paint. The problem is that he doesn't want to paint on paper. He wants to paint his body.

 My kids have been running around saying " I ain't gonna paint no more no more, I ain't gonna paint no more." I love to hear their sweet little giggles as this little boy paints his whole body.  If you've never read this to your little ones, you need to. This will definitely be one that we have to buy.