This and that

When we were looking at houses, Bjorn really wanted a pool. My problem with the pool was I was nervous the kids would get into it when I wasn't around and that shit just scares me. So we started only looking for houses that had a separate pool fence so that it was separate from the rest of the yard. That meant the kids could have a yard and still have a separate pool. The first house we put an offer on did have that already. Then that fell through and we fell in love with our house. It didn't have a separate pool fence, but it looked it did at one time. So we made a deal with ourselves that we would add that fence.

So we did! And it looks great. Now I can open the door to the backyard and send the kids out to play without having to supervise the pool area. We were also able to padlock the pool with a combination lock. I feel better already. Now we need to find some toys to put in the new fenced area.

This picture is evidence I have the coolest mom ever. We had tickets to see the supremely hilarious David Sedaris at SMU a few weeks ago. I stopped to pick up mom and we prepared drinks to put in our purses to have at intermission. She's just awesome. And so was the show.

Also awesome? These guys. The other night, we had a terrible thunderstorm so they both converged in our bed. I snuck out to watch the news about Bid Laden and came back to this picture. I think I love them more than ever. Plus, sleeping children are sometimes superior to awake ones that stand over me in the bathroom stall asking if I'm done yet over and over and over and over again.

Said thunderstorms produced a ton of rain. Our creek is a major artery during times of storms so Meggie and I went down to check it out. Check out her little fashion statement, too. Who doesn't wear a striped dress with striped pants of a different vintage with a raincoat to match?

Glasses

Andy got his first pair of glasses yesterday. He looked really cute. I'm glad I took a picture at Wal-Mart when we picked them up as they are already lost. Seriously, Internets, how is that even possible?

We have been retracing our steps to the Subway where we ate lunch, the couch store where we stopped to realize we should hold off to afford the better leather couch that we really want to the outdoor play place where we looked in vain for just a little bitty wooden playhouse to go in the backyard instead of the massive play structures they seem to sell. Nothing.

I am hopeful the furniture place will eventually find it tucked under something or the unfriendly lady at the play place will find them on one of her play structures (no answer from her today either because its Sunday or pouring down rain).

He looked pretty darn cute in his glasses, too. He's got an astigmatism, which isn't that big a deal, except one eye is stronger than the other and you need to balance those out with classes or run the risk the weaker eye will stop developing normally (apparently bad). Fortunately, on the advice of the opthamologist, the glasses we just a little over $100 so we can afford to get another pair if we have to. I may wait a week though and hope the others show up. I'm glad I didn't invite in the special lenses. I figured he wouldn't hold on to this first pair long. I had no idea it would be THIS short.

Egg drop soup

Andy's school had a really neat project last week. They were to take a raw egg and somehow make a 7 inch by 7 inch by 7 inch container to house it safely. The container would then be dropped off a ladder by a teacher to see if the egg survived. Bjorn and he worked on it and had several different cool designs. The one they finally settled on was a square box filled with fruit loops. They practiced by dropped it out the game room window into the driveway (downside, now he knows the game room windows can be opened).

I am happy to report that his egg survived. It was all pretty adorable. You could tell the girl containers because most of them were heavily decorated with colors and other appliques. Some designs were quite clever. The most common container was Tupperware followed by a box. Many kids violated the size rule, but hey, it's kindergarten and not a science project so no eliminations. Many of those didn't do any better.

Bjorn wanted to know how many survived and you really couldn't tell except some kids were crying (I presume their eggs broke) and on some, you could really hear the smack when they hit the ground so you just knew it didn't survive.

Kitties

Before Bjorn and I had been married a year, we got two adorable kittens that came to live with us in our rental townhouse in Alexandria. They were small and hyper. They made a ton of noise and climbed on all the curtains. But they were ours, an earlier decision in our marriage and we loved them. They were my babies before I had babies. Sadly for them, they became somewhat second class citizens when the kids arrived, but they still loved us and now there were more of us to love them.

I am sad to report that one of them, Coltrane, died last weekend. The whole thing is sort of surreal. She's just gone. She had been ill with a bladder infection a few weeks earlier, but since then, she'd put on weight and was becoming more adventurous again. Then she had an attack of some kind and died on the way to the emergency veterinary hospital. My sister Mary, the vet, says it's almost certainly unrelated. I will miss her.

When in Roam

When we moved it, I put a gate on Meg's door to keep her from getting up in the night falling down the stairs trying to come to our room. Eventually, we started opening the gate at night so she could wake up and go to the bathroom, or more likely, come to our room. So when I steam cleaned the carpets a few weeks ago, I took the gate off and put it in the attic. Now she is free to roam the house after I think I've put her to bed. I find I miss that gate, but she's going to have to grow up some time, I suppose.

This is her asleep in our bed. She'll sneak past us and I'll find her asleep there.

Lately, I find she's sneaking out after I tuck her in and I'll find her asleep in random spots. It almost looks like a crime scene.


Here she is asleep in between the kitchen and breakfast room.

 

Asleep in her room but on her chair wearing a leotard.



Shocker - asleep in her own bed.



Asleep next to Bjorn. So cute.



Here is a tease - she was faking being asleep which I didn't know until I took the picture. She then gleefully jumped up to see herself in my phone.



Coffee and other hazards

Last Monday after spending the weekend in Washington, D.C., for work, I eagerly began a conference call with a guy in Boston when I spilled coffee on my laptop computer. I didn't freak, it WAS an important call, so I just slowly dabbed up what I could and kept going. Afterward, I called my IT person who is the nicest, most nonjudgmental IT person I've ever met and explained what I had done. "Oh. Oh, my." That's how I knew I was screwed.

Per her advice, I unplugged the battery and all the keys, dried the board and waited. In the meantime, I went to Best Buy and bought a new computer.

I needed one anyway. My little Acer laptop wasn't really appropriate for every day work. I had bought it as a personal computer a couple of years ago, but converted it to full-time business use last year when we moved and I started consulting. Now that I've gotten a permanent gig working from home, I needed to upgrade to something bigger and better. The new computer is beautiful and gorgeous -- mostly the monitor, of course. It's huge. Bjorn convinced me to spend the extra $59 for the super big HD monitor which makes a difference. At first, it was almost too bright, but now I've sort of gotten used to it and I really love it!

So to bury the lead, I now have a permanent gig, working from home, traveling occasionally. It's a totally awesome set up doing a project I really like. The only downside of working from home is getting disconnected when I'm on my own all day so I've asked to be included in staff meetings and I'm making a point to stay in touch via phone instead of e-mail. The perk is I have no commute, except to take the kids to and from school really, which gives me a lot more time for the rest of my life. It's also incredibly flexible in terms of the kids. I am super excited that Andy can actually do swim club this summer. In prior years, I was always working so he could never really go. I do miss the energy that comes with an office though so I'm going to find some interesting coffee shops where people congregate just for the social aspect of getting out once in a while. I also found out a neighbor just took a job working from home three days a week so I will have a buddy on the block to become my work water cooler.

Fortunately, I've been able to get about 4/5 of the keyboard keys back on. Typing is a mess still as putting these keys back on is like rebuilding an antique clock -- lots of small pieces that have to be painstakingly put back together.

Milestone

Meg is no longer a baby. That's been true for some time now, but the signs are all over right now. Recently we moved her out of her Britax Roundabout car seat for a booster seat. I wasn't in any hurry particularly, but after she threw up last time due to strep, the smell was sort of imbedded in the straps and I realized I was just done. She loves her new seat. It's a Graco booster with a little pink. It's adorable.

There are other signs, too. The changing table and crib sheets are in the garage to give away. She is mostly only in diapers at night now so her diaper trash can is mostly unused. Her sippy cup to regular cup usage is about 80 percent. When properly motivated, she can pick out her own clothes and get dressed, often wearing the shoes on the right feet.

Now don't get me wrong, I am thrilled with her progress and that she's getting more interactive and interesting (and opinionated) by the day. I am thrilled that I will not be pregnant again or have another baby. But my baby is growing up and I'm not exactly sure how I feel about that.

Fashionist

My poor kids have inherited my fashion sense. Look at young Margaret wearing her faux Ugg boots with her swim suit. I offered her Crocs but she chose these instead. Meanwhile, I think I need to feed Andy more. He eats, I swear, but those ribs showing are a little disturbing.

Strep, again

Meggie Meg has a case of strep. I prefer it to some of the other options, like an evil cold that can't be treated, stomach flu or an ear infection but I'd rather be watching a new episode of Glee about now instead.

She had sort of a low grade blah yesterday and by last night, she was warm with fever, snoring like her father and generally feeling unhappy. That was all not great enough, but then she threw up a couple of times. Throughout the day, her fever came and went but she never quite seemed on the upswing. Tonight, naturally, was Andy's open house/math night at school starting at 5 so I never got her in to see a doctor. I decided that I'd take her to minute clinic for a strep test, only to get there too late to get on the wait list to see the nurse practitioner. I know, right? So we ended up at an Urgent Care down the street where we got the diagnosis.

That was all well and good. The doctor was nice, facility clean and the exam room had a TV (they all seem to here, it's nice). We were on our way back to CVS to fill the prescription when she started throwing up in the car. Then she threw up a couple more times in the parking lot. I must say, things to love about Texas. A lady in the parking lot came over to help me. She gave me a bunch of napkins and found a bag for me to put her clothes in. I didn't really need it, but how nice. Also nice? Bjorn met us as the door and promptly got to work cleaning the car and car seat. It really does take a village and I love it.

Honey badger don't care!

I must say, if all nature videos were this nicely narrated, I would watch it all the time. Hilarious.

Ranch trip

Jennifer and her baby. She's a regular Angelina Jolie.

Bjorn and Andy on the four wheeler. It was so. much. fun.

The Super Moon. On the clear night out in the country near Brownwood, it was pretty magnificent.

Dad and Andy after climbing the cliffs not far from the house. Andy absolutely loved climbing. Dad and I were cringing and giving him all sorts of advice and he just did it his way and it worked out.

Dad helping Andy shoot the .22. Andy declared that shooting guns with Pop was more fun than playing Wii. That's some seriously high praise from the six year old.

Bjorn mowed around the house and fence line, killing the stickers that are a real nemesis down there.

It was a little dusty down there. It was very dry, the river was low and there was a burn ban in effect so no outdoor fires or s'mores. This time.

Dad and Andy walking through the take out spot on the Colorado River. Normally, there's a river there and not a dry bed. We still had fun skipping rocks in parts that had water and chasing frogs.

Like I said, the four-wheeler was a ton of fun. The roads are still hard to find and in some cases, hogs have torn then up, so I couldn't go too fast, but it was still good fun to tool around on them. I usually had one kid with me which meant I was even more alert than usual.

We also found time to kayak upriver, spotlight animals (we saw seven deer the first night and two armadillos; five deer the second night), cruise around in the jeep, chase wild turkeys (we counted at least 10) and watch college basketball. It was a fun trip. Looking at the pictures, I'm reminded how much we did. No wonder I'm tired!

Reason #3948 for why I hate carpet

I really, really hate carpet. It's a pain in the neck to keep clean, especially this off-white carpet that adorns half my house. With moving in trauma to the carpet, the frequent cat throw up, regular child messes and Andy's recent bout of nose bleeds, it's time to get it cleaned. I haven't done this in ages so I started asking for quotes. So far, the lowest has been about $400 to clean just half the bedrooms, family rooms and hallway. And that's before I added on cleaning the back staircase at $2 a step. This is a necessity due Andy's nosebleed the other night where he left a trail of blood from his room, down the hallway, down the back stairs and into our room. I swear we don't beat him. Much, anyway.

At these rates, I might have to suck it up and rent one of those carpet cleaners for $50 from the grocery store. I haven't tried to use one since circa 1995 when I moved out of my apartment in Alexandria, Va., and headed for life in the big city of Washington, D.C. My apartment there in Woodley Park had ancient hardwood floors. Sure, I could get a splinter going to the bathroom, but at least I didn't have to vacuum.

So has anyone tried getting one of those do-it-yourself carpet cleaners of late? Am I better off sucking it up and hiring someone at that price? Bjorn's Blackberry is about to implode so we've been thinking of getting him an iPhone, partially so he can follow the NCAA tournament on his phone and stop using mine. Which is better? Bjorn + iPhone and us cleaning ourselves or hiring professionals and no iPhone?

Blackmail photo

The great big bed

When we moved into the new house, one of our first orders of business was buying a new king-sized bed. With two little kids, it was impossible to have one of them in addition to us in the queen-sized bed and not wake up with bruised kidneys due to tiny, but powerful little arms and knees that seem to find the most sensitive spot to kick you at 3 a.m. after visiting complaining of a bad dream. 

So far, it's been mostly a good thing. We actually like cuddling with the kids (most days), but the best part is being able to pull them into bed with us and going back to sleep instead of having to constantly return them to their beds. I know, I know, we're supposed to break them of this habit and we will. Eventually. 

When Meg comes down in the middle of the night, she never just comes by herself. Instead she almost always brings some sort of accomplice in the form of a lovey (or multiple loveys) with her. I changed the sheets on Friday and this is what I found that had probably accumulated over a week. 

This morning was unusual -- we had both kids in bed with us (usually just one and usually just Meggie). Andy fell asleep on our bed with his head on the foot of the bed. Meg started in her own bed, but woke up screaming something around 3ish having rolled over on her Elmo book that makes noise.

Genealogy for dummies

So we have a new favorite show in this house. Well, I have a new favorite show and everyone else kind of likes it. It's NBC's Who Do You Think You Are? which is sort of a reality genealogy show. I know, right? How dorky, except it's kind of cool. So the premise is you get these "celebrities" and they work with professions to track down their family history.

We've done a fair bit of research in our family so I am familiar with the process and the search. My only real complaint is they make it seem so easy sometimes. Sure, it's a piece of cake when Rosie O'Donnell walks into the Canadian library and the researcher has her information and pulls it up like that. In the real world, you spend eight hours going blind trying to read cursive handwriting on microfiche until you finally find something, anything useful. Still, it's cool to watch. My sisters, mother and I are all into it.

Texas declares indepedence

This weekend, we all went down to Washington on the Brazos, Texas, to celebrate the 175th anniversary of the signing of the Texas Declaration of Independence from Mexico. My dad has, well, we have an ancestor named George Washington Smythe who signed and they were inviting ancestors of the signers to come to the event. Some of it was a little corny with people dressed in period garb, but a lot of it was actually really cool. The best was on Sunday when they did a roll call of all the signers and family members stood up and were recognized. We had good representation with 14 people from our side and another 10 or so that we met there, but some families seemed to have dozens. It was really very moving to see as well as hear the individual stories. The favorite part for the kids? Playing in the pool at the hotel with my sister. Figures.

All of us getting ready for the roll call (thanks to Frances for taking the group photo and providing the blanket that we stole).

Mom helping Meg play on stilts. This was part of the kids section that focused on toys and entertainment kids of that era would have had.

My favorite photo -- dad with a bouquet of meat as we got ready for lunch.

We did it!

So a few weeks (months?) ago, our town was considering rezoning our neighborhood from the elementary where Andy goes now to another about twice as far away. Both are excellent schools, but it would be a bummer for Andy to have to switch. Worse though, he would likely only be one of a few to actually make the move. The other kindergartner in our neighborhood would likely apply for an "in district" transfer and stay because he had an older brother in second grade. I could have done that for Andy, but in a few years, Meg would be coming along and then I'd have them in separate schools. I hated that it would split up the block with kids in different schools. My schedule also allows me to ride my bike or walk to pick him up and I wouldn't be able to do that any longer.

Anyhoo, good news, we fought and we won! Check it out. I even managed to get myself quoted in the newspaper.

Yep, he's ours

Overheard last night as I was making Andy's lunch for today:

"Andy, why didn't you eat your lunch today? I see you didn't eat your sandwich or your grapes."
"Oh, that's because I was too busy talking."

Gifted

Andy's school sent something home a few months ago saying that they'd already picked who they thought from his class was academically gifted, but that if I wanted, I could have him tested. I usually opt for things like that mostly because I'm curious to see the results.

Last week, the results arrived. They were interesting to see.

Ability
CogAT- 93 percent (gifted is 95 percent and higher) (note to self - figure out what CogAT stands for)

Acheivement
Reading - 65 percent (yeah, that one's way below 94 percent)
Math - 96 percent

Then we move on to the Qualitative where he had "0 areas" in the Standard Score teacher survey (he would need two areas out of five to be in the gifted range).

We did get a nice note that he's "not recommended for placement at this time.

I'm glad I had him tested though. It's interesting to see that he does have an aptitude for math, which naturally made Bjorn thrilled and me glad that he's got Bjorn's genes on this one. His reading isn't great, but then again, he's just started reading so it makes sense. I have known kids who were reading chapter books at age three so he's definitely not there.

Still, I really dislike that schools label kids with advanced aptitudes as being "gifted." Something about it doesn't sit right with me, as if the others aren't gifted, too. Course, it could be partly because my kid is just above average.

Tube top weather

After two weeks with consecutive ice storms, this week has turned out to be gorgeous. High temperatures in the 70s, partly cloudy and breezy. Hard to argue with that. The water in the pool is probably still 40 degrees, but it's warm enough that I'm thinking of a time where I might actually get to use the back yard again. Jubilee!

Meanwhile, in rant mode here, what's with Texas's crazy conservatives these days? I find some of this stuff just absurd. So they don't want kids to have access to information on preventing pregnancy in schools and they don't want kids to have access to family planning clinics outside of school and they want to take away access to abortions.

It seems their only advice is "don't do it," but when that fails (because it will), then they want kids to also have babies, thus likely limiting their educational and financial prospects. It seems to me the best way to avoid abortions is to teach kids how to NOT get pregnant in the first place. This is going to turn me into an activist, I'm afraid.

Super Bowl/Winter XLV

Hey, did you hear, the Super Bowl was in Dallas this year? I know, right? Who knew that? It also managed to coincide with the worst winter storm that's hit the area since the local TV station started covering meteorology in 1989. So that was last week, complete with four missed days of school. Cue this week and we had another, albeit more minor, ice storm that led to another missed day of school yesterday. My current work from home situation is handy for days like that in that I'm set up to do work already and can target special Yo Gabba Gabba sessions for times when I have a conference call. What's less than handy is having everyone home and in my space.

We are truly lucky to have a great neighborhood though. Last week and yesterday, we called each other to let the kids take turns playing with each other and our respective houses to give each other a break and keep the kids busy. I knew Southlake had a good community and was really family oriented and in this respect, it's absolutely true. We picked right and it's so far been pretty awesome.

Several dramatic things have been happening in the kids' lives. Andy has had his first break-up with a girl. That's right, he's six, but his school girlfriend gave him a talk last week about how she wanted Bart (Andy's BFF) to be her boyfriend instead. It was rather crushing for the little guy. He's clearly not really emotionally sophisticated to get all of this, but he likes her and doesn't really get it, especially when the break up means she and her new boyfriend can play blocks together and he can't. I'm trying to be cool, but it's hard to see his feelings hurt.

On a positive note, this kid is really putting the pieces to reading together. My children's author crush on Mo Willems continues as we love reading the Elephant and Piggie books. I didn't really get them before, but now that he's reading them to me, they're actually pretty clever and far, far better than most of the other early readers out there. If you have other favorites, bring 'em on. I need variety.

Margaret is also growing leaps and bounds. She's a bootiful princess and prides herself on getting dressed by herself (some days) and wearing a variety of shoes, dresses and hair accessories. It's adorable.

Both kids are getting into bike riding, which is awesome except for the subfreezing temperatures here. Andy has a bike with training wheels and we love riding the figure-eight of our block around and around. He's got the training wheels on still, but I love to watch it. Plus, I get some exercise myself and I tote Meg in the bike trailer and we ride with him. I just love that.

The great Texas snowpocalypse of 2011

So we've had some unusual weather here in North Texas this week. Freezing rain, thundersleet and snow on Monday night created a frozen ice rink throughout the area -- too much for the one salt truck in town so school has been closed since Monday. I finally got out yesterday, Thursday, after several days and it was still icy everywhere, like at Andy's school below. Yeah, I think they made the right call.

Last night and this morning, we then got four inches of snow which has been a lot of fun as the temperatures warmed up a little and it's been soft and beautiful unlike the frigid teens and ice of before. All the school holidays have taken its toll, mostly on me trying to keep everyone entertained and fed. Poor Meg has come down with a good cold in the middle of this though.

Bootiful birthday princess

I have no idea how it happened, but I have a very girlie girl, a very girlie girl who just turned three. Both are shocking facts for me right now. She got tons of clothes and dress up items for her birthday, including two poufy dresses, patent leather shoes and wings from my mom, a whole trunk of dress up clothes from Jennifer and fancy plastic jewelry from Tia. Just adorable. I need to count my blessings that I can get away with giving her a bunch of clothes for her birthday this year. She got a few toys, including some Play-Doh from Fafa, Candy Land from me and a wand from Mary, but by and large it was clothes and new bedding for her bed (not that the new bedding kept her in her bed overnight; she still ended up in my bed sometime between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. this morning....)

I am loving that she's turning to be so interested in girl things. Certainly I gave her plenty of opportunity to play with Andy's Thomas the Tank Engine trains and Hot Wheels cars, but she's very interested in clothes and princesses right now. I did get her Beauty and the Beast which we watched last night. Musically, it's not my favorite Disney show, but the message is clearly a good one. Belle is strong and smart and the Beast (eventually) seems to truly care about her and her happiness and not just be into her for being beautiful or having a pretty voice. That Prince Eric from the Little Mermaid is such a wuss and it's all about Ariel giving up everything for him and he's barely even interested in her as a person so long as she can sing.

Two weeks later

With Meg's birthday in TWO days, it's time to finally upload the rest of the pictures that are suitable for public consumption. Mom has also told me I need to update the header on here so I need to catch the kids in a picture together looking as adorable and un-evil as they can be. 

See? Wouldn't it have been great if they actually sat on the floor and watched the movie for more than 10 minutes? I would have been a genius.



This is how the party really was.

This is his buddy Barrett at school.

There are his other buddies and his part-time fiance. Note the kid in a three piece suit complete with a tie. Apparently there wasn't any particular reason for it, just because. Man, I love little kids for that kind of stuff.

Civics lesson

So I've gone and gotten involved in something political. Funny that Bjorn who loves politics doesn't get into this while I who mostly hate it am all in the throws of it. What's happening is Southlake is doing some school rezoning right now. They have built a new elementary school on the other side of town and they're moving the elementary school kids out of a joint elementary/intermediate school into the new elementary school and making the other just an intermediate school. That makes perfect sense, but while they're at it, they're also looking to "rebalance" the enrollment at some of the others and apparently my block is low-hanging fruit so they're looking to move our 27 kids who are currently within walking distance to one school to another, bigger school down the road. Both are excellent schools, but it would stink to have just started here and have to move. A bunch of neighbors have met and we've started a petition. Take a look and see what you think. Don't sign it unless you live in Southlake (I know you were dying to, right?) Also, yes, I know there is a typo in it. It kills me that it's there and I can't fix it. Something about how it's unfair to change a petition after folks have started signing it, but still.

Next up is attending school PTO and school board meetings. It's going to be interesting, that's for sure. Let me know if you have good advice for this stuff. I've contacted the local newspapers and we're starting a letting writing campaign, but I am sure there are lots of good ideas out there.

Party pictures

Andy at school wearing the crown they gave him. I gave out cupcakes to his class and everyone sang Happy Birthday with the phrase "Eat more chicken" from Chic-Fil-A at the end of every refrain. Why? Because they're five and six year olds. His teacher said it was totally organic so the marketers should be thrilled.

Mom got him a fireman outfit. Awesome! Excedpt the bullhorn actually makes awful noises. It may need to "break" her shortly.

Here is his party before I totally lost control of the group.

Well, that went...okay

We had Andy's birthday party yesterday and it wasn't quite a Bataan death march with eight screaming six year olds, but perhaps not that far off. I had this great idea that we'd have a half-sleepover, which we'd be to at another kids' house before where the kids come over for a few hours in their pajamas for pizza, cake, games and a movie. I scheduled three hours thinking all but the movie would take 1 1/2 hours, then they'd graciously and happily watch the movie for the remaining time. Their parents would show up and the children would graciously leave having had a wonderful time.

It mostly went according to plan, however, they had no interest in the movie. That meant I had another 1 1/2 hours to entertain kids while were getting increasingly tired and rowdy. Uh-oh.

So here's what worked:
1) Having a party at home was nice. I had all my stuff and didn't have to schlep it somewhere else.
2) There was a little more room for error. When a kid claimed he was allergic to tomatoes, I could substitute yogurt. Course, I had to do that for eight kids, but that was fine. I was home; I had it.
3) I invited the parents to stay for a glass of wine. That was nice to get to know them a little better.
4) Lots of outside help. With Bjorn, Mark, Margareta, Dad and Elizabeth, we almost had enough adults to go man to man on the children.

Here's what didn't work:
1) It was at least an hour too long. If it had been over at two hours, everyone would have been happy (mostly me). But that last hour was where the problems started.
2) I bought Costco pizza because it's good, but the kids had no interest in good pizza. They wanted plain cheese Domino's/Red Baron pizza that looks and tastes like cardboard.
3) Eight kids was probably too many (10 really if you factor in Meg and my niece Emma who are three). I had 100 percent acceptance which I wasn't counting on. Six (four?) probably would have been better and more manageable.
4) Make it a single sex party. I invited my nieces and our good friend whose daughter is also in kindergarten. They played nicely with each other mostly, but there were two little girls from Andy's class and one in particular seems to play Andy and his BFF Bart off each other. Andy was in tears at one point because they said he wasn't their best friend anymore. Course, Andy did refuse to play the game they wanted to on the Wii.
5) No Wii should have been allowed. Only two kids can play at once and there was competition for it (see no. 4).  
6) It actually rained yesterday so we couldn't send the kids out with a flashlight to look at the creek or anything and blow off some energy.

Meg's birthday is in 10 days. I am totally doing something more low key than this for her. And next year? I think I'm going to Chuck E Cheese.

The sleep monster

Hey, look! Another post about my kids' sleep habits!

Little Meggie is my challenge in the sleep department right now. We have a nightly ritual of fighting with her to go to bed -- she's liking to stay up late and we're trying to make her go to bed earlier. After frequent requests (demands) to "rub my back!" and other things that she shouts from her gate, she eventually goes to bed. But this whole thing can sometimes take hours. I read somewhere that it helps if you let them think they're pulling something over on you, like sleeping with a toy they're not supposed to or sleeping in a chair (see picture above).

Of course, she starts out sleeping in her own bed and then sometime between say 3 a.m. and 6:30 a.m., the little sleep monster comes down the stairs, goes to Bjorn's side of the bed (thankfully) and climbs in with us. The worst part about breaking that habit is that we love it. On the one had, wouldn't it be nice to get an uninterrupted night of sleep? But then, she's just so adorable and cuddly! And on weekends, her climbing into bed with us means she'll stay in bed dozing until sometimes 9 a.m. Over New Year's weekend, both kids slept until almost 10 a.m. Seriously, Intranets, I haven't been able to sleep that late since sometime in 2004. It's heavenly.

Santa

My cousin had a fancy Christmas party and sweetly invited the children (nice as she was to invite them, I won't do that again. Far too fun of a party to waste it keeping kids from smearing mustard on the white bookcases). She even invited a Santa who was adorable and so totally gay. Of course, he also totally relished the part he was playing and seemed to really enjoy himself. Here's a picture of all four kids together in one frame with Santa.

So Blogger is still giving me trouble uploading through Internet Explorer. I had to go to Mozilla to get the picture upload function to work. On IE, it keeps trying to make me go through a Google "Cloud Picker" and then tells me my photos failed to upload. Weird.

Nice

Well, hello there, Internets. Meet my new friend, Damn You Auto correct.

(Thanks, Frances!)

Photo fail

I have some cute pictures to upload, but Blogger has changed it's format to some sort of "cloud" and it's rejecting all my file upload. Is this happening to anyone else?

My boy can read, ya'll

I know! How awesome is that? It's exciting! And, dammit, is shortly the end of spelling what we don't want him to hear.

Andy was sent home with a few very short books to read to us over Christmas vacation. That ends tomorrow so naturally I pulled those out tonight (along with his lunchbox from 2 1/2 weeks ago including some moldy apples. Yum!) He had a very short book on building a snowman, but he read it. He'd never seen it before and, sure, he struggled with a few of the words and had to sound them out. But he actually sounded them out (normally he gets frustrated with me and quits) and finished. I am so proud.

In less than two weeks, my boy turns 6. Dang, time hasn't flown necessarily, but six years? Come on, universe. That does seem awfully fast. I've made the executive decision to host a "half sleepover" for seven kids. The idea is they come over in their pajamas, play some games, eat pizza and cake, tear apart the house and watch a movie. My sister pointed out that the other parents should be psyched about the party since they might be able to go to dinner and a movie in that time.

So now that I've got to come up with some games. Ideas?

And now, I present some unrelated holiday pictures.

Cousin Frances et al with Mom, Dad and Elizabeth.

Dad and Margaret.

Dad presiding over a family meeting. Note the thing on his head along with the wine on the table. We know how to do a business meeting right, people.