Splotched eggs, big gulps, photobombing dogs and rocking out

I don't think I shared this earlier but here were our dyed eggs.  Not bad considering the kids did them all by themselves as all 3 adults were on spill, picture or egg preservation patrol during the dying process.

 

In the meantime Catherine (and oddly the cats) have been enjoying the train set.  Matthew is not a fan of sharing but as always we're working on it.  

 There was not much to report from Mom's visit as I had my foot surgery on Monday and then spent the rest of the week at home trying not to go stir-crazy before my appointment on Friday afternoon where I was released onto crutches for purposes greater than going to the bathroom.  Woohoo?

We "celebrated" by going for dinner at one of our favorite restaurants.  Catherine's mastered the straw cup (which makes life much easier)

 But sometimes she just wants the big gulp:

 And sometimes (okay, all the time) she just wants to try and crawl on the table.  Grandma sure got her work out keeping track of her!

 But I managed to corral them for at least one picture:

 James and I have been trying to buy Matthew shoes for a few months without luck.  (I think he's worn his snowboots for probably 2 months straight.  Oops.)  Matthew picked these out for himself and thinks they're pretty awesome:

 Here's one of my favorite times to steal a picture of Catherine (and one of the only times she's sitting still enough to do so!).

 You know, unless her brother is trying to hold her for a picture and then we get this:

 Or this:

 I don't even have words for this one:

 On Amma's last day we headed outside to enjoy the sun and our new Craigslist find (the plastic monstrosity in the corner).  Matthew and Amma also did a lot of egg hunting and apparently I was photobombed by Sky as well. 

 Here's Matthew closing his eyes while Amma hid the eggs:

 And Catherine playing peek-a-boo with me.

 Remember those crazy landscaping "rocks" I mentioned earlier?  Well, they are turning into tiny balls of hate that are making me crazy.   I'm generally pretty laid back about Catherine exploring with her mouth.  Dirt, snow, leaves, grass, most rocks etc. don't bother me but unfortunately these "rocks" are the perfect round esphogus blocking choking hazard for Catherine which means she has laser focus when it comes to trying to find all of them and shove as many in her mouth as possible.  The dogs tracked them everywhere this winter and because they're spheres there's no hope of them ever settling or interlocking to a point where they aren't so easily disturbed.  Anyway, the moral of the story is I hate them and hopefully they're going to go far, far away sometime soon. 

Luckily Amma was there to save the day again and contain the tiny monster for a while:

Unfortunately she headed back to Virginia, but not without some big hugs and cuddles first:

 And now James is left to fend for himself with the wild ones with mischievous eyes as I am still hobbling around on crutches. 

 Who me?

And because there's nothing better than toddler's dancing.  I was looking up the song from the GI Joe trailer because I thought it was pretty cool.  Matthew apparently agrees:

And Catherine working on waving "hi" with Amma. 

Her new favorite time to wave bye is when she's crawled halfway up the stairs (out of my reach of course).  She'll climb up, turn around on the stair (causing me a series of mini-heart attacks), wave bye and then climb up the rest of the stairs.  Just thinking about it again exhausts me.   If she's causing me this many grey hairs now I don't think I can handle her dating.  EVER.