Thursday This & That

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I’m really digging these “This & That” posts. I realize some of you will actually be reading this on Friday – but I’m sliding it in here, and it is still Thursday on the west coast! And since I feel like we’re traveling at warp-speed, these kind of updates just seem to fit into our life right now.

  • Speaking of “warp speed,” after many weeks of J. hinting that he would like to see the new Star Trek movie, and many weeks of me slightly resisting (well, maybe more than slightly – I think my response was usually, “I have no desire to see that movie. None.”) I finally gave in last week on our date night, or was it the week before? Whenever…we did actually go see Star Trek.  And as we were walking out I asked him, “Are you going to gloat all weekend if I tell you I really liked that movie?”  Yes. It was good. And I thoroughly enjoyed it. There I said it.
  • Woot! Go Lakers…that was a beatin’!
  • Whoever invented Skinny Cow Ice Cream Sandwiches is a pure genius. And I really should buy some stock in the company as often as I’ve been investing in their product. But, (and I know this is not something you would ever expect to hear from me) skip the chocolate ice cream ones – the vanilla ones are far superior.

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  • Thanks to everyone who contributed to Em’s Jog-a-thon. I went to the Pride Assembly last week and she was the #1 jogger in the entire school, not just the k-garten, the whole school! She was awarded a $100 Tar-zhay gift card. And no, Mommy has not “borrowed” it. Yet. She has purchased a Littlest Pet Shop toy and a new Webkinz and is going to “sell” the rest of the gift card to mom, so she’ll have some spending cash for vacation.(Gah. I had a cute little pic of her getting her award but I was blurring out so many of the little faces and t-shirts, that it isn’t even worth putting the photo up. But trust me, she was so cute and so very proud – as are we!)
  • Oh yeah – spending money. We are going on vacation! In three weeks we are going to go to Maui for a week. After much deliberation and research we decided that Hawaii is really the best bang for the buck – even though we had to use a lot more of our airline miles to go 4 hours to Hawaii, than it would have been to go a good 8-9 hours to the Caribbean. Don’t ask me. I can’t explain it. I can say that I am thankful for a very smart hubby who figured out how, with AmEx points and airline miles, to get us a very sweet trip, for very, very cheap! And I guess I am thankful (?) that he travels a lot for work which racks those points and miles up!
  • He is traveling as we speak I write. Four cities in four days. Quite a whirlwind crazy trip for him. Come home soon, please, Daddy.

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  • I had a “horrible Mommy” moment this week when Addikins burned her hand on the stove. Between her cries of anguish and my huge blanket of Mommy guilt, it was a very long night around here on Tuesday. She is fine, in fact the little blisters are nearly gone already today. Whew.

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  • Em was a lovely, lovely swan in the end of year dance recital yesterday. The lighting is horrible in the little studio, and I brought the wrong video camera, so I’m not sure what the video looks like, but I’ll have more on that soon.

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  • We have Em’s musical on Saturday. Dress rehearsal was today. Um. Yeah. It should be very interesting. Let’s just put it that way. I’ll definitely make sure I have the right video camera for that one!
  • And my sister is coming tomorrow! Today? Well, 12 hours from now she will be touching down in L.A. We are looking forward to a relaxing fun weekend just hanging.
  • I just pulled the banana bread she requested, out of the oven. It smells so good in our house right now.

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Fun weekend wishes to all of you, too!

What do you do with a thunderstorm?

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Thunder. A little bit of lightning. And an even smaller bit of rain. Funny how the girls know what an earthquake is and what to do if we are in one, but have no idea what to do with a thunderstorm!

I so miss thunderstorms. We are lucky if we get one a year here in SoCal. But today as we were leaving a friend’s house, we got a little taste of one. (It is still kind of rumbling, but no real rain.) And Buckley, Em’s little friend, was so excited. “Hey! Do you know when we have a thunderstorm we get to have hot cocoa, popcorn and watch a movie?!”

So what are the girls doing right now? Yep. Drinking hot cocoa, eating popcorn and watching a movie. And I’m having a nice hot coffee. It is the perfect afternoon.

Do you really think Miss Caroline would miss her lead swan for the dance recital this afternoon? Probably not!

*Sigh* You are probably right.

Crafty Tuesday

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Why, hello there! Just digging myself out from behind the sewing machine over here.  All of the costumes are done and just waiting for the musical this weekend. Can I get a “Hallelujah?”

Plus, I finally got Addie’s little pillowcase dress sewn up. She had it on for exactly 1.5 seconds, so photos of the dresses actually ON the the girls are still coming. But here is the finished dress…

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It is a really small pink and green checked seersucker. It is girly and cute and looks really sweet on her!

But the REAL project around here the past two days has been our playroom/office/craftroom.

So the story. We had our desk on the big wall of the room, which also has the outlet that is controlled by the lightswitch. So for awhile, we had an extension cord for all of the desk stuff (phones, computers, etc.) that ran across the doorway to another outlet. Not optimal.

And then, we had the great flood of ’09 and I had to rearrange the cords to get make sure nobody got electrocuted and therefore the lightswitch did not, in fact, turn on any lights, but would shut our computer off if it was on. It was very inconvenient.

So this weekend, J. went in to rig it all back up properly, and he innocently suggested that maybe I would like to move the office and craft area back into the little nook area – otherwise known as the “black hole of toys.”

First, I LOVE to rearrange and organize rooms, but I’m not really able to rearrange many of the rooms in our house now because we have lots of windows, and most of the rooms have really only one “way.”

So, of course, I had to accept that challenge! Plus the toys have been needing a good whittling down for awhile, and we are having a garage sale in a few weeks, so perfect opportunity. Three garbage bags for the tag sale, and one garbage bag to recycle later, and we are getting close to a finished room. Again.

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The new layout leaves a lot more room for the girls to actually hang out and play.

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And it also tucks all of my stuff back into this little area, full of beautiful natural light. I love it!

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Of course, I’m not doing any real close-ups of my area yet. I’m going to tackle that tomorrow (today). But I could possibly even put up a little curtain and hideout back there. Maybe I shouldn’t have put my sewing machine away so quickly, hmmm…

What about everyone else? Any good crafty stuff? Any Clean House projects? Let me have ’em!

More Thursday ‘This & That’

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The weeks just seem to jam all together and I don’t get a chance to jot down all the things I want to write about, much less write actual coherent posts. Or maybe by the time Thursday rolls around, I’m really only able to think in bullet points. At any rate, you get another Chaos ‘This & That’ update today.

  • The toe. Thanks for all of the advice, I knew I could depend on the internet to answer my questions. I did call my doctor just to talk to the nurse, and she suggested I have an x-ray, just in case. Since I broke my big toe right after J. and I got married all those years ago – and still have problems with it, I gave in and dragged the girls to the doctor on Tuesday. It is indeed, nicely broken, but clean and the bone is not displaced – so I should have full use of the toe in a few weeks. It is taped together and I’m hobbling around a little bit – but it looks so much better than it did earlier in the week. When I removed the tape the nurse just stared at it and kept saying, “Oh My God! Oh My God! How did you do this again?”  Um. Yeah. It was not pretty the morning after, even worse than when I took the photo for all of you to share in my anguish.
  • Since I haven’t been able to run this week, (apparently those toes – while not appearing very useful – do indeed have a little say in the forward movement of my body) I have been extreeemely crabby. Well, that and other unmentionable reasons that seem to sneak up every single month on me. You’d think I’d learn, but no. I sit and try to figure out why I am so grumpy and impatient, and then wake up, “Oh! Yeeeaahh.” That is probably the reason.
  • Despite the toe, the crabbiness, and general ever-present chaos, I agreed to a playdate yesterday. Em asked if she could invite Avery over and Addie asked if she could invite Avery’s little sister (also named Emma) over. Totally reasonable. Then Em asked if she could invite Audrey, too…and since the four musketeers have to stick together, Peyton as well. Well….yes, I suppose so. And then she says, “Mom? Can girls have a boy for a best friend?” I told her “Of course they can, Daddy was my best friend before we got married.” She smiled, “Good. Because I like Buckley and I think he is one of my best friends too. We should invite him, because he might feel bad if Peyton comes but he doesn’t get invited.” (Peyton and Buckley are twins.) Sure. Why not.

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  • So I had seven, count ’em, SEVEN kids to feed and entertain yesterday afternoon. And you know what? It really wasn’t that bad. I’m not saying I want to go all Jon & Kate, and fill the house with 8 kids, but we had a really fun afternoon. And then they all (except 2 of course!) went home.
  • I realized after the playdate that our afternoon was exactly what I had hoped for when I envisioned being a stay-at-home mom. I hoped that the girls would bring their friends home after school and be able to hang out. And for their friends to feel comfortable at our house, and think it is so FUN, they just don’t want to leave. And maybe there might even be some homemade cookies for them to munch on. Ok, so there definitely WERE NO cookies yesterday, but we’ll work on that part of the vision.
  • And I also realized that although I complain about the constant chauffeuring and volunteering, the projects I get roped into doing and the hectic social calendar (the girls’ – not mine!) – secretly (or not so secretly now, I guess), I LOVE this. I love this gig. Even on the absolute worst day, it is one more amazing day I get to spend with my babies. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Crafty Tuesday

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Painting and sewing, sewing and painting. But, none of it is what I would call exciting or photo-worthy.

I finished the 20 tunics last week and I have three more for this week. Didn’t get to Addie’s little dress, and she is quite upset over it, but I guess she’ll live. I love how all of you knew exactly what those types of dresses were called though! Pillowcase dresses. I love it. Hopefully next week I’ll have  Ad’s done to show you.

Over the weekend we all went to help paint sets for the church spring musical, and I also have some homework. I’ve been painting the map of Paul’s second mission tonight. Complete with Macedonia, Crete and the whole Mediterranean area. It is truly a work of art. Like I said, not really “photo-worthy.”

I do have a question for my nurse friends and veteran moms out there. I must add a disclaimer here though, if you are drinking your morning coffee or eating anything, or are easily disgusted – you might not want to look at this.

Ok, ready?

Really?

Here goes…

What do you think?

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And no, not “she seriously needs a pedicure.”

Do you think it is broken? And there isn’t really anything they can do even if it is broken, right?

And excuse the blood, I just took the bandage off of it, apparently it has not stopped bleeding from about five hours ago. That probably isn’t good either, huh?

Now you know – no more wondering where my graceful girls get it from. I actually managed to have a “run in” with the table while I was trying to whisk a whiny Addie off to timeout.

So I’m off to mix some more paint, and whine about the incredible pain in my toe. Show me the GOOD craftiness you have today, won’t you?

And they all lived happily ever after.

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Once upon a time there was a fair maiden, who at the ripe old age of two, got her very first bike from her grandma, Queen Debby.

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Our Princess E. was really quite interested in the trike…

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…but preferred to be pushed around on said tricycle by King Daddy, and didn’t really ever get the “hang of” pedaling the wee bike.

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Time went by, another princess, Princess A., was born into the family and the princesses’ aunt, Duchess Meesh, decided that it was time for Princess E. to receive a “big-maiden” bike and pass along the trike to Princess A.

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This time it was Queen Mommy who ran along beside Princess E. and tried desperately to help her steer down the right path. But even with the training wheels, Princess E. never really seemed to be too interested in bike riding.

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More time went by, (but no more princesses were born into the family!) and Princess A. was given a “big-maiden” bike complete with training wheels by a friend, and Princess E. started to ride her own bike fairly well.

So Queen Mommy removed the training wheels in hopes that her Princess E. would learn to ride sans-training wheels. But, alas, Princess E. just took over Princess A.’s new bike (which still had training wheels on it) instead. Occasionally Princess E. and Queen Mommy would take her training wheel-less bike out for a “run” but it usually ended in the Princess madly exclaiming, “BUT YOU PROMISED YOU WOULDN’T LET GO!” And she would return to the second bike that still had the training wheels.

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Then one afternoon King Daddy coaxed the Princess into easing through the courtyard BY HERSELF with NO TRAINING WHEELS. And it was decided that the “big maiden” bike was just simply not big enough. Our princess had grown two very long legs. And knees…that kept hitting the handlebars.

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So a new, even bigger “big maiden” bike was purchased. And it just seemed too big for the Princess. So the training wheels went back on this newest bike.

But ‘lo – cousins and friends from villages afar, and schoolmates who live nearby, were all learning how to ride their bikes. And that may have just been the push that our Princess E. needed.

Last week, it finally clicked. First, on the training wheel-less bike. Princess E. finally understood the glorious feeling of the wind in her hair as she biked round and round the park. Only stopping when it was mandated by Queen Mommy “time for bath!”

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And yesterday, King Daddy was yet again able to coax Princess E. into trying her new bike without training wheels.

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And now…she can officially ride a bike…

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And they all lived happily ever after. (Until her first big crash, at least.)

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The End