A Photographic Interlude

My two little nuts on the Fourth of July, complete with glo necklaces and cakey face.


No, she's not shy. Why do you ask?


Lily in her latest favorite dress. She calls it "the one with the sprinkles on it."


Jack showing off his latest ensemble: 1 black t-strap shoe (on the wrong foot), a diaper with PJ top, a pencil and a pink binky. All the toddlers are wearing this now. The one shoe look is a completely modern take on the whole Michael Jackson one glove thing. Don't you love his sweet little knock knees?


The birthday girl during a frenzy of gift opening. I can't believe she's 5!

Oskar gets in on the birthday action.


Lily's Big Birthday Party. 13 kids. I don't even want to talk about it except to say that it's over and everyone had a great time.

So that's a brief photo essay of what we've been doing for the last few weeks!

Cookie Monsters

No explanation is needed for this post other than to say that the kids were eating butterscotch chip cookies during these photos, and they are both little hams. Enjoy!

When Papa Is In Charge

This has been a very long week. Monday: hours spent dealing with the neighbor's (pretty serious) family problems. Tuesday hours spent waiting to see if those problems would be resolved without incident, to no avail. Wednesday: dentist appointment, ballet class, ballet photograph, and, in between, more hours spent waiting to see if the neighbor's problems were resolved without incident (they finally were). Thursday: Jack woke up early and really cranky and Lily refused to get dressed in outdoor clothing until 4 pm. Friday: hours spent organizing the office, shredding bank statements going back to 2000, organizing all of my knitting supplies, cleaning the living room, family room and kitchen, doing all of the laundry and running out to Wal-Mart for a few things. (Normally, I wouldn't have so many duties on a Friday, but a lot fell by the wayside this week).

No, I did not clean under the couch, but I had reason to move it out to look for Jack's binky and there was remarkably little debris under there! It's like the gods of the Undercouch are giving me a break after the last horror show.

Anyway, enough griping about my week. Now I'm going to gripe about when my husband is in charge of the kids.

Fact the first: Never let a 2 year old and 4 year old play in the garage unattended. This is what will occur, I promise you:



Jack found a paint roller loaded with Killz, which Jim had rolled up in a plastic bag and stored in the garage. Much painting fun then ensued. We tried scrubbing, but the paint dried too quickly.

Fact the Second: If you are dead set on getting out the wading pool in the middle of April, don't let said kids play around it unattended. This is what will occur:



They removed most of the sand from their sand table, and made mud in the driveway.



Someone threw giant rocks in the pool and ripped a hole in the bottom.




Lily took a bucket of bird seeds and threw them on the porch stairs, in the driveway and all over the back yard before Jim caught her.

Fact the Third: If said children are allowed to play in the pool, they will get very, very cold. Several neighbors will also comment on how early you are letting your children wade in a pool in their swimsuits. I'm just waiting for CPCS to show up to investigate the incident.

I want it on the record that I did object to the swimsuits and pool. I was told in a tone that brooked no argument that: (a) 65-70 degree weather is warm enough to swim in a pool; (b) it is an old wives' tale that children can get sick from being wet and cold; (c) it is also an old wives' tale that being wet and cold can lower a child's immunity and make him more susceptible to catching a cold; and (d) if the kids feel cold, they will tell him and get out.

I also want it on the record that when I took Jack in to get changed into dry clothes for his nap, he said "I get chilly outside with Papa." That accounted for his blue lips and uncontrollable shivering. Here's a picture of the kids later today -- please note that Lily is wearing a WINTER jacket.



During this time period, Jim also let our 8 and 10 year old neighbors come into the house with Lily to play Wii unattended. I have no problem with him letting the neighbors play at our house, or play Wii if he's with them, but I do have a problem when a toddler and young kids are allowed to roam my house at will with no supervision. Even the best behaved kids can get into trouble at that age.

I know I should have stepped in and supervised the kids, but I worked so hard yesterday, I asked for and was allowed some time off from kid watching. I should have known it was too good to be true.

In between all of the mischief and naughtiness, the three of them did get some home improvement work done. We have three new bird feeders:



Jim made this one!



We bought this one last weekend. Can anyone explain why all of the red coloring disappeared from the feeder?



Jim made this one, too!

Jim removed a portion of the vinyl siding and the wood looks pretty good. It turns out we have some nice cedar shingle under the vinyl. We are thinking about removing all of the siding and having the house painted this summer.

Now for the Cute and Funny

I like to balance out my posts with a good one about the kids after I bore you non-knitters with my knitting stuff, so here are some cute shots of Lily modeling the new sweater her Grandma Deeds made for her. One photo also features the matching purse (somewhat stretched out by the pounds of change she poured in there from her piggy bank). Also, it's hard to see, but she insisted on posing with two of her Barbies in a couple of the photos.






That was the cute, in case you couldn't tell.

This is the funny -- here are a few things that the kids said this week that I found amusing:

Lily, talking about how God filled up the rivers and ponds: "He must have used his mother's garden hose!"

Jack's stock response when asked about school: "I play with friends, I play with fun mag-a-nets, I play outside, I have 'nack, I play with fiahfucks." Translation: mag-a-nets = magnets, 'nack = snack and fiahfucks = firetrucks.

Jack, talking about an upcoming trip to North Carolina: "I go walk with Papa to the rainmoo. Papa show me the rainmoo." Rainmoo = windmill. Of course, Jim isn't going to North Carolina, and the "rainmoo" is actually at the home of Jack's other grandparents! He's a little confused. I doubt he remembers the last time he visited North Carolina, but he sure remembers the "rainmoo" in California!

Lily, explaining why she doesn't cry when I drop her at school now: "I don't have to cry if I don't want to." Too bad she didn't feel this way for the last six months.

Finally, time to make fun of myself a bit. Remember that one time that I complained about Jim? And his scraping of cream cheese and two olives? Remember how annoyed I was? Well, I guess I believe in karma because yesterday Jim had good reason to be annoyed with me. He called me at about 8:30 (shortly after he left the house) and asked me to put the steak tips in to marinade. The catch? I was supposed to look on the internet to find a recipe and make the marinade myself.

As some of you may be aware, I am not a good cook. In fact, I can barely make macaroni and cheese from a box. Baking? Love it. Cooking, on the other hand, usually leads to me setting something on fire. Anyway...I was not thrilled about having to find a recipe and put together a marinade, but I agreed to do it and hung up.

Within about 15 minutes I completely forgot about the conversation. I'd like to blame my heart medication or lack of sleep. One or both of them probably contributed to my forgetfulness. If I'm being brutally honest, however, I suspect there was some element of a subconscious passive-aggressive desire to forget about it! Either way, I did not give the matter a second thought until Jim arrived at home and told me he was going out to start the grill. I didn't even remember it when he mentioned the grill! Then he asked "Did you remember to marinate the steak tips?"

Oops. He seemed a little annoyed and he said with a sigh, "I suppose I can try to marinate them while the grill is getting ready." He did and they tasted great.

Later, as I was telling my mom about the incident, she told me you can marinate steak tips in Caesar dressing. Umm, that would have been easy, even for me! I mentioned it to Jim and he said with a tone of annoyance "I know, that's what I ended up marinating them in." Good to know. Perhaps he should have mentioned that option to me instead of suggesting that I hunt down a recipe and make marinade from scratch.

So, seeing it from Jim's perspective, he probably has even more reason to rant about me than I have about him. Although, I would like to mention that those two olives? They're still in the fridge and no one has made a sandwich out of them to date.

My Kids, Let Me Show You Them

Jack, eating an apple in his pajamas and winter hat.





Jack, reading Curious George, his current favorite, tied with Richard Scarry's book about vehicles. He has hot cocoa around his mouth.



Jack, so pleased to be sitting with Papa!



How could the child that put together this highly coordinated outfit (black tights, pink skirt and white t-shirt all match colors in the fleece top) put together the outfit below?



I personally enjoy the way the pattern on the tights clashes with the pattern on the skirt.



My pretty, cocoa-smeared girl!

Eeeeek! What's Under My Couch This Week?

My mom commented to me the other day that I hadn't posted about what was under my couch in several weeks. Four, to be exact. This is what I found today:



Unbelievable. The list is so overwhelming I almost don't want to post it. Here it is:

Magnetic pen
Fire truck ladder
4 children's books
2 magnetic fish
2 small firetrucks
Frog pull toy
1 glass
3 sippy cups (empty, thank goodness!)
21 items belonging to the Littlest Pet Shop
Word Bus game board
Jewelry box drawer
Toothbrush
1 pair of socks, 2 other, non-matching socks
Pajama top
1 of Jack's navy blue crocs
1 of Jack's brown shoes
Yellow plastic ball
Orange rubber ball
Plastic bread roll
Spinner ball from a baby toy
2 accessories for Mr. Potato Head
Jesus action figure
Small plush dog
2 pair sunglasses
Toy drill
2 construction vehicles
Jack's hard hat
Jack's "guy"
Small magnetic drawing board
Scotch tape
10 Lite Brite bulbs
2 non-matching Polly Pocket shoes
2 Hot Wheels
Wooden box lid
Plastic screw
Large Lego piece
3 coloring/activity books
Toy spoon
Gold Mardi Gras beads
Kitchen magnet
Magnetic doll's outfit
Plastic Tepee from Lincoln Logs
Metal tin
Cat ears
3 hair elastics
Plastic dinosaur
Multicolored rubber ball
2 pencils
Polly Pocket "Belle" doll
Ratchet tool
Plastic Mickey Mouse straw
Ambulance stamper
Coaster
3 Caribou game cards
Baby teething ring
1 Crayon
1 pen
Plastic shade pull
Nail clippers

This is what it looked like when I was finished:



In other news, I found $2.18 in house change today. I'm saving up to buy some yarn!

Easter

Here are the Easter photos!







Above, Jack and Lily dying Easter eggs.









Photos from Easter morning. I love Lily's excitement when she found out the Easter Bunny left her a Littlest Pet Shop toy. Jack was less excited until he found the candy. I couldn't get him to pose for any shots except the one shown here.

Lily was so funny the night before Easter. She told us that she had to leave the Easter Bunny a note and a picture. With Jim's help, she wrote out the note herself. It said "Dear Rabbit I love your eggs." She drew a picture of herself and the East Bunny with hearts around it. She told us she had to leave the note in our bay window so that the Easter Bunny could see it from outside. She left the picture by the refrigerator so that the Easter Bunny would know where to look for the eggs she made. She then placed an Easter Basket )that Jack made as a school project out of a paper plate) in the other window and told us she needed to put carrots on the window sill "because the Easter Bunny will probably be hungry." She made sure the empty Easter baskets were placed in the window as well. Then she said very seriously, "Do you think I'm forgetting anything?"

She told us she hoped the Easter Bunny would leave her a note (he did) and maybe even a picture of himself (he didn't because his identity is a secret). She was so surprised when she saw her toys -- a small plush puppy, some Disney Princess lip gloss and the small pet shop toy. "How did the Easter Bunny know I would like these things?" I wonder....

Jack got a Fisher Price fishing boat complete with life preserver, fishing rod and fish and a Captain. It plays a song when you put the Captain in the driver seat, which Jack loves. We know this because he played the song repeatedly and danced to it.

I gave the kids much less candy than last year. This year, there were a just a few jelly beans, a couple of marshmallow chicks and some chocolate. Still, the kids had enough to jack them up for the entire day before we cut them off. Jack was literally shoving multiple chocolates into his mouth at once, and we had to take away all of his candy to prevent him from making himself sick.

We did have a couple of candy SNAFUs, all my fault, I'm afraid. I put the chocolate bunnies in the guest room closet with all of the other Easter stuff, forgetting that the main steam pipe for the entire house runs through that closet. When I pulled out the bunnies, they were melted flat into the bottom of the box! Jim ran out that night to replace them and ended up going to 5-6 different stores. He was only able to find one, which we gave to Lily because she specifically asked the Easter Bunny to bring her one. As it turns out, Jack would have had his confiscated early on any way, so it was better that he didn't have one. You can see her holding up her replacement bunny in the photos above -- she was very excited to get it.

My second mistake was buying something called Snickers Cream Eggs. For some reason, even though the word "Snickers" was emblazoned across the package, I thought they were chocolate filled with cream. As soon as Jack began to wolf one down, we saw that, amazingly, they were filled with peanuts and nougat. You know, like a Snicker's bar. Who knew? I'm not sure why they call them "cream" eggs, but I should have known better. We had to confiscate those before Jack ate any more because he's too young for peanuts. He ended up eating a Twix-like candy that Jim bought in Switzerland (he was there on business a couple of weeks ago). That was the candy we had to confiscate to prevent him from making himself sick. He consoled himself by eating jelly beans until we took his whole basket away from him and put it out of reach.

It turns out that when Jack is on a sugar high he runs around, screams and throws things. When Lily is on sugar high, she talks nonstop and demands that you play Littlest Pet Shop with her all day long. For those not in the know, if you play pet shop with Lily, it means you must sit next to her and make periodic comments about her play, but you CANNOT touch anything or try to take part in any way. Jim and I put in about 3 hours each of this today. We are very tired.

In other news, when I told Lily she needed to let her "old Dad" have a break, she informed me that "Papa is not old. Grammy and Granddaddy MAY be old, but Papa is not." I told my mom and she was relieved to know that Lily only thinks she "may" be old.

Those Crazy Rabbits!

For your enjoyment, some pictures of the kids being crazy tonight:







The kids got into my work clothes closet (in Lily's room) and came out wearing my high heeled shoes. Lily demanded that I take a picture. I know my feet are big, but these picture makes it look like I wear small sloops on my feet!



Next, the kids came out wearing "costumes." Jack is wearing cat ears and Lily claims to be dressed as a fairy.





Here is Lily posing with the cat she made. She painted it at her friend Bella's birthday party, which was held at Plaster Funtime. I dont know if you can tell, but there is a glittery top coat sprayed on it, so it's very sparkly.



Lily arranged her dolls and demanded I take this photo. I love how her pose mimics the pose of the dolls.