Thankfully picking flowers and catching ladybugs has become a new favorite activity while waiting for her brothers to finish various practices.
Unfortunately, we will have to find a new activity soon due to over picking and the fact that every lady bug in the field will have been squished to death.
I don’t have much of a blog post today because I spent the time I should have been writing at the grocery store.
You can blame my children.
I do.
After school around 4:30 yesterday I had a hankering for some cookies or ice cream. We didn’t have any at home so I asked the kids if they wanted to go to the store to buy some cookies. (They of course, would not have had any until after dinner while I would have stood in the pantry and shoved a handful into my mouth while cooking dinner).
In answer to my cookie question, they said, “Nope. Don’t really feel like cookies right now.”
It’s this answer and their love for science fiction which has me questioning the if they were possibly switched at birth.
So, I had to wait until dinner was over, showers were complete, and story time was done before I could go to the store.
And in case your wondering…my cookies AND ice cream were worth the wait.
Spring break is over today but we had a busy week doing a lot of kid chosen activities.
*First haircut
*Went to see the movie “Tin Tin”
* Trip to the zoo
*IKEA trip for lunch and closet supplies (OK, so not all trips were kid chosen)
* 3 days of half day soccer camp
*Having a friend over to play
*Dinner & Painting Class for Mom with her friends
* Watching 3 Netflix movies
* Eating green St. Patrick’s Day pancakes
* Making Rainbow cupcakes
* Lunch date for mom and dad (Believe me when I say the kids enjoyed this one too)
*Everyone in family to see “Big Miracle” movie (Drew Barrymore, John Krasinski movie about saving three whales – comes highly recommended from our family)
* Dinner at In & Out
Yes, it was a good break.
But if any one of my three wake up tomorrow morning sick and can’t go to school, I will not be pleased.
Last night Derek and I took the kids to the Olive Garden to eat.
Right now my sister is seizing at just the thought of eating in that, so called, “Italian Establishment.”
I, however, have kids and count their endless salad and bread sticks as a lifesaver.
So we go to the Olive Garden.
We were having one of those meals where it seems as if your children have never eaten out before.
They seem to lose all concept of appropriate restaurant behavior.
Touching each other constantly. Clanking their silverware together. Arguing over crayon colors. Sitting on their feet. Talking loudly.
(Of course our third reason for going to the Olive Garden, behind the endless salad and bread sticks, is that everyone else is talking loudly. But let’s move on.)
We were almost through our meal, you know the point, when you just want everyone to finish eating as fast as they possibly can. You are already planning how to throw everyone in the shower in record time, limiting everyone to five minutes of reading time, turning off the lights, guiding a little one to bed, guiding her again to her bed and making some sort of threatening statement about not visiting the zoo the next day IF YOU DON”T STAY IN THIS BED.
Anyway, we were at that point.
When it happened.
To some other parent.
While spooning some pasta into my mouth, the restaurant fire alarm started to go off.
Near the exit door a mom was looking just as frazzled as us and looked mortified that her daughter had just made the alarm go off.
I could feel her pain.
Almost.
Derek and I just laughed and said to each other, “Well at least our kids have never done THAT!”
I’m pretty sure everyone guessed from this clue that we had a Mary Poppins 3rd birthday party.
And if you have a Mary Poppins party, you have to have a Mary Poppins hat.
1 – Go to Target and buy a $1 bin Easter hat.
2- Do nothing with the hat for days since your daughter insists on doing her best Minnie Pearl impression.
3 – Confiscate the hat when she’s not looking
4 – Deny you have any knowledge of the hats whereabouts
5 – Take off pink ribbon
6 – Spray paint it black
7 – Glue on some fake cherries and flowers from the dollar store
8 – Find the hat and present to your Mary Poppins obsessed daughter.
9 – Delight in her joy of wearing the hat and singing,”Let’s Go Fly a Kite.”
I apologize ahead of time for the fact that you will now sing this all day long 🙂
Go here to see the Mary Poppins party activities
One of my February goals was to make my daughter a skirt or dress.
I settled on a skirt since that seemed to be an easier project.
Half the coverage, half the work, right?
I followed the instructions from the sewing blog MADE and I think the skirt turned out fairly well for a first try. I didn’t bother making a tutorial because, “about this, and cut about that much,” didn’t seem like real effective directions.
We added the pink leggings since this outfit would have been a bit chilly to wear to recess without them. She is proudly accessorizing with her school birthday crown (and a pterodactyl).
And what did this sweet munchkin tell me immediately after putting on this skirt which I worked on for over an hour and which made me extremely proud to make?
“Thank you Mommy. I love you. Thank you for working so hard on this for me?”
Nope.
It was…
“Now make me a dress please.”
“I’m 1…2….Free!”
I knew this would happen.
I knew it was only a matter of time before someone in our house lost some hair.
Apparently my daughter has inherited the need to cut hair when she sees it.
My love of hair dressing started with Barbies.
Every Barbie I owned had short hair after several visits to my salon.
I was years ahead of G.I. Jane.
Then there were my sisters.
Poor innocent victims of my obsession.
My sister Amanda had a head full of curls. Anything I did to her hair really went unnoticed.
This was not the case with Kelly and her thin straight hair.
She would climb up on the chair and let me cut away.
She let this go one for years.
Until she was in 4th grade.
That year I took it a little too far.
Or, a little more accurately, a little too short.
With fourth grade class pictures looming the next day I set about cutting Kelly’s hair. There was no give like Amanada’s hair. I think her bangs were roughly two inches long when I finished them. Not good when there is four inches of space to fill.
I found Caroline’s handy work one day during naptime. Since naptime is now quiet playtime I just let her be when I heard doors being opened and closed. Apparently, she found the scissors in the craft room and went to town.
I really can’t be angry.
I mean, after all, you can’t fight DNA.
My six year old has been asking for months to create a piece of wall art similar to this one.
I have stalled and stalled on it because 1) it would take a good amount of time to complete and 2) I couldn’t quite decide what the best way to make a frame for it would be.
But the since this project was on the list I was forced to make a decision and begin.
We looked around the garage and found this old Halloween decoration which was broken.
My husband add the ears which were previously the mummy arms while old metal coat hangers became the base for the antlers and the nose.
Using a mix of half Elmer’s glue and half water, Andrew and I paper mached strips of newspaper onto the structure.
Over the course of a week we put on four separate layers.
After a trip to the craft store to choose his colors, Andrew painted his gazelle with a combination of orange, coral, black, white, and blue colors.
There was a minor debate about where this piece of art should hang. Andrew suggested my bedroom which I quickly thanked him for but declined. My thought was for it to go in his bedroom room. He quickly declined that offer. We finally settled on an area in our playroom above a doorway.
Andrew’s already talking about making a water buffalo for the living room and an elephant for his sisters’ room.
I’m thinking I’m going to have to introduce him to the idea of small sculptures.
Look who lost his two front teeth?
He is quite excited about this development,
though he is even more thrilled about a new trick he acquired as a result of the loss.
Now I always know where he is in the house since all I have to do is follow the whistling.
I took my kids and one of their friends to the dollar show on Monday.
It was President’s Day and the place was swamped.
I had to drop the oldest two off and have them stand in line while I parked the car.
Several movies were already sold out so we made contingency plans in case ours was sold out by the time we got to the ticket counter.
“I only want to see Tin Tin if Arthur’s Christmas and the Muppets are sold out.”
“I really want to see the Muppets but will go see Tin Tin as my second choice.”
“I already saw the Muppets and Arthur’s Christmas so I want to see Tin Tin.”
Thankfully we didn’t need to come to a concensus since our movie was still available.
I ushered us all into the building only to find the concession stand line was enormous.
Not really a problem for us until my son’s friend said, “I want to buy something.”
I left the two of them to stand in line together while I found seats with the youngest two.
Thankfully we got great seats and were settled in no time.
But the 9 year olds didn’t come back.
For 30 minutes!
I was starting to get a neck crick and strange stares from the people behind me since I kept turning around to look for the boys.
The theater was packed by now and I was having to fend off desperate moms and grandparents who were looking for extra seats.
Finally they returned when the movie started and I was able to enjoy the movie.
That is until about three fourths of the way through the movie when my daughter had decided she had seen enough and wanted to leave. I was able to use my mom negotiating skills and convince her to sit on my lap for the next 20 minutes. Some talk of candy when we got home might have been whispered several times.
After the movie I got everyone to the car and congratulated myself on a successful outing. We rarely go to the movies so in my mind this was a nice treat, especially getting to bring a friend along.
As we were driving away I heard the friend say, “I wonder why the movies were so crowded today?”
My nine year old volunteered, “Well, it’s Presidents Day and kids don’t have school. Their parents probably took them to the movies because they didn’t know what else to do with them.”
After hearing that I can assure you that I know exactly what my children will be doing on the next school holiday.
It starts with CHORE and end with an S.
Oh, and me?
I’ll be on the couch watching Parenthood reruns.
