Easter Sunday Dress

The kids looked sooooo cute in their Easter Sunday clothes. I'm just glad it was warm enough to wear them. There's 4 inches of snow on the ground out there now. Our youngest BECAME a dancing, singing princess in her dress. She LOVED it. She'd been waiting for 4 weeks to wear it since we bought it for a mere $19 at Costco. I would've paid more for to see her smile and dance like that. What a sweetie!

First Graders -- no shame

I was editing down my son's 1st grade music program tonight and came across this clip. My son is the long haired blondie who crouches down and eventually covers his ears when the singing gets too loud for him. He's a shy, timid boy who is pretty quiet. This is how he was pretty much the whole time. The funny part is the boy next to him (to his left...on the right of the screen). No shame I tell ya. And it looks like he didn't mind the taste either. 1st graders, gotta love 'em.

100 mile club

Well, since getting my ipod nano nike chip, I've logged 100 running miles. That's huge for me because I HATE running. I don't loathe it quite as much as I used to, but I don't know if I'll ever get beyond kind of hating it. I only do it to train for triathlons. Otherwise, I would just swim and bike. But, I should hit the next 100 faster than I hit the first.

Easter DAY

So I haven't gotten the pictures of the annual easter picnic off of my husbands camera yet, but here are some from Easter Morning before church. I need to get the ones of them in their cute easter Sunday clothes but those are on my husbands camera still too. So watch for them later.

I Really Really NEED...

Sorry I haven't posted for a while. I've been painting like mad trying to finish illustrating the sequel to the Annie McRae book. Anyway, the other day in the car, my little princess says to me, "Mom, for my birthday, I really really NEED a computer, a phone (cellphone) and a camera to take lots and lots of pictures and see them." Obviously she doesn't watch her dad or I work at all. She loves to be "bigger" like us. She even told my friend that when she's bigger and a mom that she's going to go to meetings (and she was excited about this). She goes to all my board meetings for this Children's Literature conference I help plan. She loves it. I don't know why because she just has to be quiet and play her Leapster or with her toys. Often we go out to lunch afterwards with some other authors and I think that's her favorite part and why she really likes the meeting days. Anyway, then the next day in the car after telling me this about the computer etc., she says "Mom, for my birthday, I really really NEED a brown horse with sparkles. Not a fake brown horse, but a real brown horse that you ride and buy from the horsey store. NOT A FAKE BROWN HORSE! One that's bigger and bigger that you giddy up." She told this to her dance teacher and started crying when I mentioned that we weren't really getting one. She buried her head into my neck and cried as her teacher said, "But horses cost lots and lots of money." Through her tears A replied, "But my mom has lots of monies in her bathroom drawer." Yes, now everyone knows that's where I keep my spare change...all 20 pennies and 2 nickles of it. After giving her the financial reasons, the yard space reasons (all of which she rebutted) I finally convinced her that she could buy a horse for herself when she was grown up and married. This appeased her and she declared that soon she was marrying the neighbor boy. What a little dramatic princess we have.

Crying over spilled milk

Who ever said don't cry over spilled milk wasn't at my house this morning. I had just finished cleaning the floors when my son (trying to put it in the fridge) dropped the nearly full gallon of milk. Our lovely ceramic tile floor (which I'd love to jackhammer out of there) was as unforgiving as ever as it split open the jug. My son grabbed the jug in a confused effort to stop the catastrophe and held it out in mid-air nearly crying b/c he didn't know what to do. I ran over and grabbed the jug, turning it on its side so no more milk would spill. Then I had to tell him to just leave before I said something I shouldn't. The milk was everywhere, undercabinets, baseboards, the fridge. I won't tell you what other lovely sites were behind the fridge when I pulled it out. Let's just say it took a long time to clean up the mess. But my floors are freshly mopped again. So, in the end I didn't cry over spilled milk...but I sure wanted to curse over it. Waaah! Waaah! Waaah!

A Room with Room

Last week my boys wanted more play space in their bedroom (on the floor) so they asked me to restack their bunkbeds. I told them I'd move them if they completely reorganized their closets, drawers, bookshelves and cleaned out under the beds. They enthusiastically began. What a way to get them to clean and dejunk! Nice and easy! It did provide more space and they like the change. It was more of a challenge than I thought it'd be because I forgot I had to add the rails to the top bunk and the ladder. All in all, we were done before dad got home from work and the boys were anxious to show him. The before pics are mid clean out so things are a bit disheveled.