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.

Please don’t dump your doll (er, sister) on the floor

We had a really busy weekend with lots of various friends in town, a casual wedding, Mother’s Day, and just general living. Kids were invited to the wedding and were all lined up at the cake table, awaiting their plates, and Drew piped up with “is it your birthday?!” Sweet times.

Yesterday I mostly took off except for accompanying Andy to get his new license plate (which took waaaaay longer than expected since we had to wait so long for the dealer to show up). We were out of bread so lunch was interesting and we had pancakes for dinner. (Therefore today is sure to be better!) We all took naps (I took two) and sat around with the coloring books and other non-tiring activities. I almost pulled out the play-doh but realized in time I wouldn’t be up for cleaning up that mess and kept my mouth shut.

This is Madeline’s last week of school. I honestly am amazed at how fast this year has gone. She’s getting to be such a big girl, writing all her letters and her long name and becoming quite the babysitter.

That one was from Sunday. Here’s from yesterday:

So funny, I know.

(And PS: today’s our 8th anniversary!)

Andy and the fish

I can’t tell you how happy this made him.

Although, it was Madeline holding the rod when the fish bit.

(She has experience.)

It’s hard having a long name

Train ‘em early

(Not really.)

Madeline has been BEGGING me to allow her to hold Arianna while walking around. I always say no.

Here’s the thing, Madeline is c-l-u-m-s-y. And still too little herself. Her arms aren’t strong or long enough for Arianna’s bulk and weight.

But I did agree she could try to hold the baby in my sling and that actually proved to be a good solution. It looked funny though, I just HAD to snap a few photos:

Alternate title: Sisterwearing!

Sister love

I somehow pinched a nerve in my neck and spent yesterday gritting my teeth trying to make it through the day.  So I’ve really got nothing for today except this photo I took sometime last week.

Madeline wanted to hold Arianna and as soon as they were all snuggled, the baby fell right asleep.

Precious.

Oops. Sort of.

So I um, sort of (Mom, don’t freak) choppedMadeline’shairoff.

{exhales}

She wanted a haircut.  I wanted to cut it too, just because it was too long and the tangles painful.  The problem was she kept moving and I had to keep cutting it shorter to even out the sides.  It’s still not perfect.

She likes it… and even though I would have left it a few inches longer, her hair grows like a weed and will be back down her back in a wink.

(And yes, she’s wearing a size 3T dress I got down from the attic for Adelaide to wear. Silly girl.)

Here’s a before photo, just for kicks (also one of my favorite photos from Christmas):

DPP Day 4: Good Morning, Sunshine!

I’m posting today’s photos straight out of my camera. No editing, no cropping.

This was during my coffee hour, after I got Drew out the door to school.

Posted in conjunction with the December Photo Project.

A little country style

I know I haven’t blogged lately — we’re all fine, just busy! And a wee bit braindead (me). There are a few things I’ve been meaning to post about but I’ll get to that later.

Today was hillbilly day at the preschool. (Her 4th of July top sure came in handy!)

(Yes, a cheese stick for breakfast. Don’t you do that in a pinch?)

Madeline’s First Day of PreK

Alternate title: One Very Excited Little Girl

I am not an overly sentimental person, I tend to take things in stride and I rarely cry.

I know there’s been a certain amount of sniffling around the blogosphere about the first day of school, but I have to be honest and admit I don’t feel sad at all.

Madeline has hardly been able to contain her excitement.

She’s been talking about preschool for an entire year, ever since the day Drew started.

Every day she would snatch his bag as he walked in the door and rifle through his folder of crafts and papers, dreaming of her day. ‘Four’ was the magic number, “when I turn four I get to go to school!”

That kind of excitement is infectious.

(And I also have to admit, it was really fun dressing her this morning.)

Madeline and the Fish

I’ll blog more about our weekend at the cabin later, probably when we’re back home. This will have to do for now since we’re leaving this morning.

Madeline and the Fish from Please Pass the Salt on Vimeo.

One of my sisters took these pictures after she got someone to release the poor fish from its hook:

And then one of them dared her to kiss it:

But she didn’t.

(I may or may not have had any influence on that decision.)

(Right after that picture was taken it started flailing around; Madeline jumped a mile and tossed it.)

Cherries!

On Sunday my neighbor came over and invited my kids to their church’s VBS program that runs this week. They’re in the same denomination as us and doing the same program my kids will get at my parents’ church when we visit them next month. (So maybe with the repetition, something will stick.)

Which meant I found myself last night with just Adelaide and we wasted no time in getting to the fabric store. I had finished up some projects before the in-laws were here last weekend, and uncovered my sewing machine in the process. Hello, old friend.

You may remember from last year the pillowcase dresses? Well, Madeline’s legs have been growing like weeds and hers are now too short for that style. (They fit Adelaide though, which is convenient.) So I set out to make her a couple of new, longer ones for this year.

First up, Cherries!

And yeah, I totally bribed her with a mini Kit-Kat for smiling in those pictures.

Up next, Adelaide’s. I’m going to do hers a little differently, stay tuned!