my madeline girl

The kids are on fall break this week which means the mornings are easier and the days are harder. Yesterday I asked Madeline if she wanted to run errands with me by herself. (The baby doesn’t count.)

It was fun, I LOVE taking just one kid to do stuff. We stopped for lunch at Sonic. She wanted a corndog and we both tried the new pumpkin pie milkshake. Funny, it tastes like pumpkin pie!

We went to Gymboree to clean them out of $6.99 pajamas and then hit up Walmart. I had several other things that could have gotten done but my van is acting up and we had to make it back for ballet.

(Girlfriend loves her sugar.)

(And ohmyword she looks like me there.)

Today I’m gonna try to catch up on some things – the theme of my life lately is behind, behind, behind or forgot, forgot, forgot.  I’m clearly still looking for my new normal.

Hope I find it!

first day

of ballet!

(I’m still working on editing the photos from the weekend, there were lots.)

small style (handmade!)

We’ve been busy finishing up the school year — which, I have to admit, I have mixed feelings about. Yay for no homework! BUT, I’m a little, um, dreading everyone being home all-day-every-day. This is how it is at our house, “shut the door!” They forget. Arianna gets out. I chase her down. “Shut the door!” They forget. It gets hot and the a/c has trouble catching up. Wash, rinse, and repeat fifty million times. That will be my summer. And also, THE BABY. (Relief!)

(SHUT THE DOOR!!!!!!!!!!!)

ANYway, the only outfit photo I took this week was of Madeline. I think this was from Tuesday. Her top is Garnet Hill, I MADE HER RUFFLE PANTS, and her flips are Havaianas, which were a blog prize a while back from Jo-Lynne.

For more mini fashion, visit Small Style at Mama Loves Papa!

Spain!

There was a geography bee at the kids’ school yesterday and the kindergarteners were supposed to dress up from any country around the world. Madeline wanted to be from “Swisserland” but the only thing we managed to scrape up was a flamenco costume – so she was from Spain.

(Coincidentally, I was born in Spain and today is my birthday.  31!)

Soo cute.

(And a big shout out to my friend G for saving my rear with the dress!)

Fancy Pants

Thursday afternoon Madeline chewed a wad of gum into her hair. I mean, MAJOR SNARL, couldn’t even tell it was gum anymore, it was so worked in. (Sometimes I wonder what universe she lives in, if ya know what I mean.)

By the time we got home from a kids-eat-free supper I was too tired and cranky to deal with it properly and cut the whole thing out. It had to be cut out; when I say “deal with it properly” I mean take the time to do a real cut and style. Instead I just chopped in random layers to hide the place where the gum had been.

Which was fine for school, but we really needed professional help. Grandmommy treated Madeline to a real salon experience today (and I’m thankful to have talented friends willing to meet us on a Saturday).

We’ve been joking that she’s gonna start chewing gum into her hair more often. ;)

brrrrrrrrrr

It has been sooooo colddddd here. Like, colder than Colorado, according to my mom. I mean, highs in the mid-30s and today “feels like” 23. Yeah.

THIS IS THE SOUTH.

[her eyes!]

BUNDLE UP.

#8

eyes

I’m biased; I own it. But I’ve been having some fun photographing pretty eyes and playing around with Picnik. (Premium; gifted!)

Original black & white:

These I didn’t do anything really to except minor tweaks…and she wasn’t crying, I have no idea where that tear came from!

It seems like more than half the photos I have of Arianna are of her eating. BECAUSE SHE’S STRAPPED DOWN.

She was watching me make breakfast in the kitchen one day, politely sitting in her baby chair.

Little Miss Bright Eyes.

And one from yesterday. She’s talking on the phone, see? (And playing the piano… multitasking!)

bangs

A whim, I cut Madeline some bangs over the weekend.

Just somethin’ different. We both love it.

I know it’s blurry

I nearly wet my pants yesterday when Madeline came walking down the hall and I realized Arianna was IN the backpack.

I know that is so completely blurry but I was trying very hastily to get a shot before anything bad happened and didn’t take the time to change from my prime lens, which doesn’t auto-focus. Besides, I was laughing so hard I had tears streaming down my face.

Sadly, that one single frame does nowhere near the justice of Madeline laboring her way down the hallway. And I did give her a little speech about it’s really not safe to stuff real babies into our backpacks.

(Even though yes, they make pretty good containcarriers.)

just cuz

just an ordinary Thursday.

First

day of 1st grade and kindergarten!

Speaking of pearls…

Don’t you play tennis in your tutu and heels?

(Or jammies, if your name happens to be Drew…)

Tuesday cheers

I feel like we’re starting to hit that end-of-summer wall where everybody’s hot and everybody’s cranky. We haven’t had any plans the last several days, just trying to avoid the heat as much as possible – which makes for very long days at home. On the flip side, since I HAVE been home, I knew that the charge from Saks Fifth Avenue, keyed in downtown New York, was fraudulent and was able to alert my bank immediately.

Much as I wish I was, in fact, shopping in New York. Sigh.

Today is going much better. I broke down the co-sleeper that has been residing in our room for the past 9 months and got it carted up to the attic. She hasn’t slept in it in about two weeks so it was high time and I cannot tell you how nice it is to have the space back. I feel like I can breathe in here. There’s one tub of cloth diapers left and once that’s gone, there won’t be any baby traces left in my room. (But there’s PLENTY to be had in the girls’ room. So I’m okay with that.)

CHANGING GEARS.

Occasionally I blow-dry Adelaide’s hair, usually after I cut it. She brought me the hairdryer last night after her bath, and then Madeline begged me to do hers, too. I was wondering if her it would look terrible since I don’t take that great of care cutting her hair – waves are SO forgiving. But it didn’t look half bad! She LOVED her super-straight hair.

Of course, Adelaide had to have her picture taken, too.

Are you a keeper or a tosser?

Madeline’s already asked me about two different toys that I “misplaced” in the garbage bin yesterday.  (Why must she be so thorough?!)

After the tornado consignment sale blew through our house, well, it was one of these times.  Something had to be done.  Ellen (“the girl who watches my kids” – whom we LOVE, by the way) offered to watch my kids (along with her sister) at her neighbor’s pool for the afternoon.  Which meant that it was the perfect opportunity to purge the toy boxes.

And boy, purge I did.  It felt goooooooood.

(I’m still avoiding Madeline about those toys.  She’s 5.  She’s got to forget sometime, right?)

It never ceases to amaze me how different my attitude and outlook on life changes (for the better) when my house is (mostly) in order.  Neither Andy or I function well in the midst of clutter and toy chaos.  I doubt many people do.  And, as I’ve said before, in a small house you need LESS STUFF.

{Sometimes, I put her hair up just to remind myself how beautiful she is.}

{Most SOOC.}

PS: don’t forget Fun Mom Friday is tomorrow!

Back Up and Running

WHEW.

I’m happy to say I survived the No Internet For A Week. No car, either, for three days of it. (We had the timing belt changed and new front tires, water pump, etc. on my van and let me just tell you, that bill was a doozy.)

About Madeline. Last Saturday evening, she came hopping in the front door, screaming, blood everywhere. She had stepped on a piece of a broken glass jar on the neighbor’s “other” front porch. (They have two doors since the house was originally a duplex, but they don’t use the one on our side for usual coming and going. The kids play there but that’s about it.) My neighbor said she had known there was glass on the stoop but hadn’t had time to sweep when she first saw it and then forgot about it.

(One of those unfortunate nobody’s-fault-but-everyone’s-fault-all-at-the-same-time-s.)

I called another neighbor to come help me and we got the cut rinsed and bandaged and then wiped up all the blood she had tracked in.

I didn’t want to open her cut to see how deep it was, but I figured if I couldn’t get it to stop bleeding I’d have to take her in. (Which, let’s face it, alone with four kids on a Saturday night – a trip to the ER was something I did NOT want to do.)

And now, here it is a week later, her foot is almost healed and she was finally able to start walking on it again yesterday. She spent the first half of the week on the couch, bandaged up, hopping around on the other foot (which is sort of like a tracking device since I could always hear wherever she was in the house by all her thudding), being pushed in a stroller or just plain carried around (which got old real fast).

Andy took Drew and Adelaide swimming one day, and since Madeline had to stay home we baked cookies. In her pajamas.

She also got to go (with Adelaide) to a princess party on Wednesday. The report was all the little girls pushed her around in a stroller to wherever they were playing. It was good for her to get out of the house and do something special.

I think she’s standing on one foot in that photo.

Anyway, I’m glad to have my blog back up, Madeline on the mend, a vehicle in good shape, granola still in the pantry… and I’m halfway through The Help, which Sarah lent me her post-book-club copy. It’s gooood. I was glad I at least had something to do while I was living in the dark ages.

The REAL one

Madeline’s officially allowed to say she’s five. (It always annoys me when people say their new age a week early. Call me particular. Whatever.)

A friend of mine‘s 9-year-old has a China doll sitting on her dresser and ever since Madeline saw it, she’s been asking about one. My mom found a glass doll for her, and she got to open it yesterday:

(We have since removed her, um, hat.)

And then these people came over:

(That’s my cousin Evangeline. They live in New York so obviously I don’t get to see her very often.  Which is just sad.)

I didn’t make Madeline take an afternoon nap (being REAL birthday and all), so she and Drew and a neighbor friend made a huge fort out of my living room and I pretended not to notice the mess. We ate dinner with friends at Chick-Fil-A (free kid Tuesdays), and then she got to pick out a “jewelry box” in the makeup-container section at Target. She chose pink and sparkly.

We still had cake leftover from the party so we did that again, too, sans candles. This morning when I asked her how old she was she held up her whole hand. (How did she get this big?!)

So.  We got the 5th birthday properly celebrated.

My first girl-baby is 5

Yesterday I was Fun Mom. (With a little help from Andy.)

We watched some little friends in the morning for their mama – Madeline loves having kids over to play. Later we went to the kids’ museum for a while, which is always a big hit. (I figured we needed a day spent indoors since we’ve been at the pool so much lately. My kids were looking a little pink.)  They played in the water, climbed all manner of heights, pretended to be doctors, hammered and vacuumed, and folded some more laundry.  We stayed until our parking meter had 2 minutes left.

Then Andy texted me in the afternoon suggesting we come in for supper. YOU DON’T HAVE TO TWIST MY ARM!!! So we went to see him at the restaurant. Adelaide fell out of her chair and crashed her head (and it was loud).  (She’s fine.)  Other than that our meal went mostly okay. It helped that it was early and there weren’t a lot of people there (to bother) yet.

She even got a candle in her gelatto:

We rounded out the day by riding bikes at the park. It was the first time Madeline got to ride hers since her party (other than on our driveway). I don’t have any pictures of them because I brought my old camera and the kids were whizzing by too fast – all the photos are terrible and completely blurry.  (Not to mention it was getting dark.)

And yes, she wore those rings (4, to be exact) the entire time.

More fun to come since today’s her (real) birthday.  My sweet sugar-girl.

Splash Bash Birthday-ing

Madeline’s birthday is tomorrow but we had her party on Saturday. Last week the forecast for that day was only calling for a 10% chance of rain, but then it got worse and worse as the day approached. I was really nervous we’d get rained out (and actually drove THROUGH rain getting to the party) but really it only sprinkled maybe 15 seconds (no lie!) while we were all eating, under the covered area. So that was a major blessing. (I was glad that cloud was so courteous.)

Also, I took 162 photos. Yeah.

Here are some highlights:

And, an accidental family photo:

Alternate title: Good Ol’ Pool Party Fun.