Kindergarden!

Fancy started kindergarden today. She's been waiting for this day with great anticipation. She was up, dressed and ready to go about an hour before it was time to leave, and she wore her backpack all over the house. She marched right into the building with the big guys, waited to sign in at the registration table, chatted with a friend from preschool, and then off she went with the teacher, without looking back. She did look a bit nervous when the teacher took her hand, but if I know my Fancy, she'll make friends in a heartbeat and have a great day. It's rather quiet around here today - just me and Minnie Mouse cleaning house.

All ready to go. An hour early. :)

So SWEET! She laid on the deck next to Alex and gave him a talk about what she was doing today and why he wouldn't see her. But she told him she'd be back and he would be ok. She also told him to be a good doggie. She loves that pooch!

Requisite group picture. Rella insisted on being Minnie Mouse for the trip to elementary school this morning.

Being escorted to school by the big guys (and Minnie)

Pretty sure that if someone asked her, "Rella, your big kids have finally started school. What's next?" she would say "I'm going to Disney World!"

First Grade!

So I've been trying to do a scrapbook layout of the first day of 1st grade - seeing Hi-Hat off for his big day.  Well, the computer is protesting and has crashed my pages twice, and I'm just not up for making these pages a third time tonight.  My head is pounding like someone is smashing a rubber mallet between my eyes.  I haven't had the "dreaded" mono sore throat, but I've had headaches instead.  AND, my arms are tired.  From typing? no.  From carrying Rella everywhere? yes, but no.   From scrubbing stubborn electric orange ink out of the living room carpet and sofa? yes.  The ink is all still there.  Won't come out.  Tried everything.  Long story that has to do with a small naughty dog.  nuff said.  BUT - I must post at least one picture of the first day of school, because they are so stinkin' cute.  

The report from Hi-Hat was that first grade is great!  He seemed very relieved and happy when he got home (except that he forgot to get off the bus at his bus stop and I had to chase down the bus to retrieve him, with said naughty small dog trailing behind me on a leash but little 2-year-old sister left behind crying on the sidewalk with a neighbor man because I just took off after the bus and forgot to scoop her up with me.  oh my.)

I'm off to find headache relief.  'night.

p.s. Do-A-Dot package exclaims: WASHABLE!  oh, I'm laughing, just laughing! Perhaps package should say - test Do-A-Dots in an inconspicuous place on everything in your house that you don't want potentially stained before giving Do-A-Dots to your child or small naughty dog.

Wet and Sticky

We broke out the 3-lane slip n slide this week (which is still back there, I believe, killing the grass we've worked so hard on. Don't tell Geof.) It was hot, so of course we had popsicles, and as luck would have it, we had bomb pops in the freezer. Not quite the same as the ones they sell from carts outside the Smithsonian, but still good. Made for a happy shutter-clicking mama.

sigh. do i really have to send her to kindergarden?

pass me a napkin

"what's that you say? I've got a little something on my face? Really? I don't believe you."

summer.

Extreme Makover, Mono Edition

So I'm feeling much better. Which probably confirms that this was indeed a recurrence of an old case of mono, probably something I had this fall. Looking back, I did feel really crummy then, but never had it checked out. Just a bad cold I couldn't shake for months...

Anyway, by Friday we were climbing the walls. I woke up Friday morning with ENERGY! Yahoo! Still coughing, but really needed to do something, anything, everything! So I handed out old t-shirts, three rollers and a big sheet of plastic, and the kids and I got to work painting the upstairs office. Remember it's state just one week ago? I couldn't take it anymore, and it was time to make our vision of a kids' art room/school work room a reality.

After a little touch up from me, the room is now a really nice, soft, light, bright shade of blue. Saturday we spent the day at our favorite scandanavian furniture super store. The ENTIRE day.

After some fancy maneuvering, we managed to squeeze everything and everybody into the car. Made for a very interesting ride home!

And now for the before and after. Remember the before? How can we forget?

And now the after...



















wait for it!






















can you stand it?























one last chair to straighten...
























needed to change a diaper - that girl is still not potty trained


























are you ready to strangle me?






















Laura! Move that bus!

Do you hear the angelic choir singing in the background? Isn't it lovely? Nice clean space. Not one bit of snipped paper or tape or crayon on the floor.

On another wall I have lockers! Kids can come home from school and stash their backpacks, and I can stick memos, lunch calendars, school calendars, etc. to them with magnets! The bottom lockers have shelves to hold coloring books, project kits, crayons, markers, paper, etc.

There will be no reason for them to bring home anything other than straight As! :)

Now to find some gigantic pictures to hang on the walls and the room will be all done.

Bet You Can't Guess...

...what I did today!

Bake-Off

I'm having to be creative these days to entertain the kids while we're somewhat home bound. Not how I envisioned our last weeks of summer, but I have mono. So we are making do. Fancy has really taken an interest in cooking this summer, so on Monday I staged a bake-off. I filled the kitchen island with ingredients, measuring cups, bowls, and wooden spoons. I then left it to the big kids to each come up their own cake recipes. I was so interested to see how they turned out! I did not help them figure out what to mix together, other than telling them they had to stick to the ingredients on the counter. Their reactions were typical. Fancy was so excited and immediately started announcing what she was going to use first. Hi-Hat got very antsy about it and was very concerned that we didn't have a recipe. "What if it doesn't turn out right or tastes bad?" But we moved past that and he did enjoy making decisions about what to mix together. He even broke from the counter items and added a container of butterscotch pudding from the fridge. Fancy added lots of cocoa powder so hers would be very chocolaty, and Hi-Hat wanted to leave out sugar so his would be healthy.

Can you tell from the photos who won the bake-off? Hi-Hat's "cake" turned out more like a giant flat biscuit with hits of butterscotch and no hints of sweetness. :) He was not interested in taking a second bite! Fancy's resembled a dense brownie brick. Actually, it resembled a brownie with chopped walnuts, but there were no nuts in the batter. Hmmm - what were those nut things? Little lumpy batter bits? Anyway, she thought it was delicious, especially after decorating with sprinkles and swedish fish. Maybe next time we'll do pizzas. :)

Keepin' It Real

Thought I'd share a few funny photos that show just how much I appreciate you loyal readers out there - all three of you! I would only share these with those I love and don't mind knowing the "real" me. wink wink.

OK. Geof says I am the absolute worst steward of toothpaste E-VER. I get hassled lovingly teased a lot about this. I'm finally admitting that he just might be right.

And this is a relatively new tube, so not so bad... ugh, I am so gross! I couldn't even get the toothpaste to come out last night and had to walk across the bathroom with my tail between my legs, begging for a squirt of his neatly capped Arm and Hammer.

And here's another disgusting photo. This is the "old office." It needs to be turned into a homework/craft project room. It never fully recovered from the basement renovation project, and after I moved the craft supplies and table in there, Fancy took it over and bombed the place. She is a master scissor artist, concocting amazing projects from bits of paper and miles of tape. She's also known for being quite the mess. 15 minutes down the road on a car trip and her portion of the van is indescribable. Any-hoo, this is the result of her owning the place. Whenever I walk by I just shake my head and close the door. But the door is glass, so that really doesn't help. Next best solution is just to retreat to the basement and continue to buy her more tape. She makes great paper purses, megaphones, butterflies and bug keepers.
OK, so you've seen the amazing mess. The kitchen chair has an explanation. There is something jagged on the bottom of one of the chair legs that was scraping the wood floor, so the obvious solution was just to toss it on its side into the office. Those lovely cube-shaped cabinets resting on shelves are supposed to neatly house Fancy's craft junk. I even have nice little boxes that stack neatly inside. I have no idea where the boxes have gone, and all the contents of said boxes and cabinets are jumbled on the craft desk. It really is quite an amazing sight, isn't it? Take some comfort in the fact that Geof cleaned up all the crumpled papers and scraps on the floor tonight, and we actually went to Lowe's and bought shelves for the storage room so we can clear some boxes out of here, AND I narrowed in on a couple paint colors for the room. I have also opted for a family trip to IKEA this Saturday to celebrate my birthday with the purchase office furniture for the kids - desks, chairs, lamps, etc. You know, more surfaces to crumple paper on.

And this picture is keepin it not so real:

I'm trying to find a spot to do some photos of Hi-Hat with his new drum set. This weekend we scoped out the Freedom of Expression Tunnel down at State, because I knew the graffiti might be a great backdrop to his set. Snapped a few with my handy new phone while Fancy took a break from all the walking. Then did some doctoring at home, so the result is not very real. But still fun. Who would have guessed in a million years that I would be digitally scrubbing profanity from behind my daughter's head in a photo? Geof says it was everywhere, but I was oblivious and didn't see it until I got home. If we go back, I'll be bringing some paint of my own along and touching up the walls (because I can still see that H. :)

Random funny:

Hi-Hat has been listening to an incredible amount of music this summer. It's like having a teenage boy in the house - shutting himself in his room and blasting his CD player (except cute b/c he wails soprano to The Connells...). He and his ipod are never far from each other. The other day we're listening to a new Toby Mac CD in the car and he announces, "I really like this flip-flop music!" (he meant hip-hop). And when I told him Grandma B would probably go with him to a Neal Diamond concert sometime, he said, "Neal Diamond is more night-time music. He's not really a rocker anymore." :)

And check out this car that we saw on the road this weekend - right by Providence, in fact.

See it - I'm calling that car jacked - yeeeeeeeah! There was a time not so long ago when I would have followed this car home. That would be around the time I was contemplating a road trip across the country in my new black VW beetle to have flames painted on the hood. Because doens't every up and coming librarian need flames on her car? I'm not a librarian anymore and I drive a dinged up minivan full of tiny bits of crumpled paper.

But I am still wondering about that cool green car...

Free Live Music

Come Watch E.C.O.!

(Hi-Hat's free concert in the yard last night.  He says free concerts are his new gig!  He wants to move the Ludwig to the front yard.  I don't think so.)

He Just Lost It

Woo-hoo! Hi-Hat finally lost that first tooth!  It's been wiggly for a long time (wait, is it loose?  I can't tell.  Maybe?  Well it seemed loose yesterday.  Can it get unloose?  I think it's moving a little...).  Last week it was officially wiggly.  The gross me out kind of loose that gave me the shivers.  And we noticed the adult tooth already coming through behind it.  We told him he was like a shark.  Geof attempted to pull it out once, but Hi-Hat was not amused, so we adopted the wait and see approach.  Yesterday I was home resting and Geof took the kids to Ben and Jerry's for ice cream amidst an afternoon of errands.  As they were leaving Hi-Hat noticed his tooth was gone.  He must have slurped it out with his milk shake.  (And who loses a tooth eating ice cream?  I believe I lost my first tooth biting eating one of those gigantic rainbow suckers that mom told me not to bite because I might break my tooth.)  He was concerned about not having anything to leave under his pillow for the tooth fairy, but Geof told him he could write a note explaining his situation and that would probably work just fine.  Yep!  Hi-Hat awoke to find a dollar under his pillow.  That boy is getting too big for me.

our goal in the ER is NOT to calm you down.

I know I've been absent from the blogosphere lately, and this is just a quick little post, but hopefully I'll get back to more regular posts before too long here.  Busy summer...

Anyway, so last night I ended up at the ER since I had had some scary symptoms surrounding heart palpitations, light-headedness, chest pain, etc.  For now, everything has checked out fine - no heart attack, no blood clots in my lungs.  I will need another test at the cardiologist this Friday morning to look at some asymmetry in my aorta, but for now I'm feeling a much better.

ANYWAY, the point of this post is this.  I rush into the ER.  I'm planted on a chair while Geof checks me in, and I'm deteriorating.  My heart is racing.  My chest is hurting.  I'm getting so light headed I can't hold my head up.  I'm really freaking out.  Someone immediately brings me a wheel chair.  I'm whisked back to a triage room.  I'm immediately hooked to an EKG.  They immediately start taking my blood pressure.  I'm aware of background noise in the room.  Look up to the TV in the corner.  Seriously? Are you kidding me?  Hospital is broadcasting Discovery Channel's Shark Week (Ashley, don't click that) while I'm having heart tests????  How's your chest feeling, Mrs. H?  Hmmm - let me see.  I just watched a teenager get pulled under and thrash around while blood rushes to the surface of the water.  Chest feels great!  More testing.  Let me check your blood pressure again, Mrs. H.  Excellent!  It should be nice and low after that description of how a nurse shark tears apart it's prey.  Seriously?!  Seriously?!  I really could think of nothing else to say except - SERIOUSLY?!