School Days

While I was picking up Audrey from school the other day, I noticed that there were pictures of animals that the kids drew up on the wall.  From afar, I could see a bunch of scribble-looking kid drawings and one that I could tell was a dog.

When I got closer, I noticed that the cute little polka dotted dog was Audrey's!  (I realize it looks like it says "bop," but Audrey flipped the paper after the teacher wrote "dog" on it)

On another wall, there was a posterboard where the teacher asked the kids "What makes you angry" and wrote down their answers.  Audrey's was "When Bridget jumps on my bed."  There was also a self portrait hanging up - of course she is wearing a red dress, but I'm a little concerned about the green hair!

I was trying to get a picture of baby turtle Charlie next to baby turtle Kaitlyn so you could see how tiny she is.  I thought Charlie was tiny until Kaitlyn hatched!

I got the proofs back from the girls school pictures and they turned out adorable!  I am glad that they are so cute because I will probably use them for Christmas pictures - last year I couldn't get my butt in gear to go to the photo studio so I never even sent cards out. :(

There's not much else going on around here.  The weather is cooling off and the girls and I are going to decorate for Halloween this weekend - I've already been asked "Is Halloween tomorrow?" a billion times.  It's going to be a long month!

Andy never got to finish putting up new drywall in the laundry room before leaving on his 3 week business trip, so I asked Papa to come over and help me get it ready so I could get all of the laundry room contents out of my dining room and also so Andy wouldn't have to worry about it when he got home.  I surprised Andy with it, so I couldn't post any pictures until he found out, so here are a couple of pictures of that project.  Audrey was begging Papa to let her help him paint, so he handed her the roller and after about 4 swipes, she said "I'm done." and wouldn't help anymore.

Here is the finished product.  This color is the one I bought to paint the kitchen with.  It was kind of yellowish when it was still wet, so I figured "Oh well, at least it's just in the laundry room."  When it dried though, it was so pretty!  I can't wait to do the rest of the kitchen.

A couple of days before Andy got home, I started the dishwasher, went upstairs to put the girls to bed, and came back down to find half of the kitchen flooded.  So, after Andy came home last Friday, we had to go dishwasher shopping.  While at Lowe's, we discovered that the dryer that matches our new washer was on clearance plus 10% off, so we ended up with a new dryer too (that's the old one in the picture above).

Ballet started back up last Saturday and Audrey was very excited to see her friends from class.  She hasn't seen them since May but they all remembered each other and were so chatty and cute.  I waited until 7:30 the night before the first class to see if Audrey's ballet shoes still fit, and of course they didn't.  I had to make a late run to Payless and was so relieved that they had her size.  The other mom's were talking about they had to go out and get new shoes too because their girls were up to a size 9 - I had to buy Audrey 12's!!  In her defense, her feet are in proportion to her body.  She still towers over the other girls in class.

Bridget got to hang with Daddy while we were at ballet today and she was so excited to be able to run errands with him.  She ran and got her shoes and ran over to me in the kitchen and said "Where Daddy's purse?" :)

I snapped this the other morning because she looked like a little baby while she was sleeping.  Then I tried to wake her up and she said "No, let me shleep a while" and rolled back over.  Definitely not a baby thing to say!  (Side story:  this same morning, Audrey was wide awake at 5 am and hopped in my bed and talked my ear off, so I put the TV on in my room for her so I could try to get a little more sleep.  There isn't much on at that time, so I put it on Sesame Street.  This led to a million questions including "Is Snuffleupagus a woolly mammoth or a mastodon?" What 4 1/2 year old asks that??  I gave up on trying to go back to sleep at that point!)

Speaking of babies - the turtle eggs in our yard hatched!  Andy texted this photo to me on Friday morning:

He found 4 eggs total in the nest, but this is the only little one that made it.  The other 3 eggs were dessicated.  He brought her in to hang out with Charlie and she is much smaller than him.  I call it a "she" because Audrey named her Kaitlyn.   So... meet baby Kaitlyn!

You Sick In The Head?

I mentioned in yesterdays post that I was feeling a little achy - by late afternoon I had a 102 fever and was sweaty and shaky.  Luckily, the girls were happy with cereal for dinner because that's all I could handle.

After they ate, I put them in their jammies and put Nick Jr on my TV so I could lay down.  I was so achy that the breeze from the fan hurt my skin, but when the fan was off, I was super hot, so I put the fan on and lay with one leg outside of the covers.

Bridget came over and jumped on me and Audrey said "Bridget, Mommy isn't feeling well. Leave her alone."  Bridget sat next me and said "You sick?  Where you hurt, your head or your tummy?"

Me: "My head.  I have a fever."

B: "You sick in the head?"  Then she went and got one of her baby blankets and put it over my head.

Me:  "Bridget, I'm not dead.  You don't have to put a blanket over my head!"  She scooted the blanket down to my shoulders and patted my back.

B:  "Your head hurt?  Let me see."  She put her finger up by her mouth and cocked her head to the side and said "Hmmm..."  I told her that she has to feel my forehead with her hand for a fever and she just looked at me, patted my back again and resumed watching TV!

Audrey brought me a blanket too.  "This one is purple and soft."  I felt bad telling them that blankets weren't helping and only making it feel like it was 120 degrees in the room!

Luckily, my fever broke overnight and I was able to go to work today.  I think it's all because of the TLC that I got from my girls! :)

Happy Birthday Andy / Picture Post

Today is Andy's birthday but unfortunately he is not home.  He has been in Richmond for the past two weeks helping with hurricane damage clean up.  The girls are excited for his birthday none the less and had to put on "party dresses" when they got up this morning.

Audrey keeps talking about how we need to decorate the house, but I told her that we had to wait for Daddy to be home to celebrate (which will be in a couple of days).  We ran to the store this morning and I let her pick out some cake mix (white fun-fetti cake with chocolate fun-fetti icing) and we are going to bake and eat a cake for him!

Since I've been single-momming it for the past couple of weeks, I've been trying to keep the girls somewhat busy on the weekends so we don't kill each other.  Last Saturday, we went over and had dinner with the Bryant's to celebrate cousin Dylan's 2nd birthday.  Bridget found the safety goggles from the boys Handy Manny tool bench and wore them for most of the evening, including while she was eating.  Safety first!

Labor day started out with playing dress up.

Then we went over and grilled out with Grandma and Papa.  The girls had to say goodbye to Otis, who is now living in St. Louis with Great-Grandma because Gus didn't like him.

Mom texted me this picture of Gretchen and Otis at Great-Grandma's house.  I think they are going to miss each other!

Yesterday we started the day out with a wagon ride.  We just did the small loop in the neighborhood and either they weigh a lot more than they did this spring or I am really out of shape because I had to take a couple of breaks while pulling them up a hill!

We found what we assume is Charlie's mom under a rose bush while we were checking the garden.

Later, Aunt Tina stopped by so I could have a much needed break from the girls.  I just ran to Kroger but it was still nice to do that by myself!  I think Audrey is getting a little bit tired of hanging out with me too because when I told her that Aunt Tina was coming up, she ran and sat at the top of the patio stairs and waited.

Tina ended up staying for dinner and we sat on the patio and drank wine.  We had dinner and a show as the girls serenaded us with Disney Princess songs.

I think Tina may have brought over the plague that her kids battled all last week.  The girls are fine but I am now feeling a little achy.  I'm hoping it's nothing or that it will be over with by the time Andy gets home.  We miss him!

Quote from Audrey just now "My life is good, but why are we all crazy?". Good question baby.

Long Time, No Blog

Sorry I've been an absent blogger.  I feel like all of my free time is spent cleaning the house and doing laundry and such. Only the cool kids wear their Ariel shades inside Kroger.

 Last weekend, I decided to take a break from domestic duty and took the girls to go see The Smurfs.  I used to LOVE the Smurfs when I was little but I wasn't expecting a lot from the movie.  Well, I was wrong because it was really cute!  Bridget was a little fidgety towards the end, but Audrey laughed loudly at the appropriate parts and loved the fact that there was a basset hound in the movie!

Audrey still likes pre-K.  Her teacher asked me if I was aware of her flamingo obsession (uh, yeah) and said that every time Audrey paints or draws or tells a story, it has to do with flamingos!  She also told me that Audrey is always playing with the boys during recess and after school.  Audrey told me the other day that one of the boys was trying to kiss her.  Watch out Daddy!

Tina found out that the local kid's salon was looking for kids to get free haircuts from their trainee.  Who am I to pass up a free haircut, so I signed Audrey up!  She got a couple of inches taken off and the lady was supposed to frame her face with the sides, but it doesn't look any different.  She needed the trim though, so it was worth it for a free trim!

While we were there, we asked if one of the other stylists could squeeze Bridget in.  Her bangs were getting long and the back was all different lengths from her baby hair coming in.  Here is a before shot where you can see how long it was getting ,but it was scraggly.

And here is her new bob.  It is adorable, but it makes her look like a big girl. :(

Cutting her hair must have zapped all of her energy.  She fell asleep in the car on the way home from the salon at about 6:20.  I carried her to the couch and around 7ish I tried multiple times to wake her up.  I eventually carried her upstairs, put her on my bed and stuck a pull-up on her.  I figured she would either wake up right when I was getting ready for bed or at 4 or 5 am.  Well, I had to wake her up at 7:15 to get her ready for daycare this morning.  That girl crashed for 13 hours!!  I wish I could do that

Happy Birthday Amos!

It's hard to believe it, but our baby is 1 today!  Happy birthday to my big boy!

Last weekend, Audrey's homework was to draw a family tree.  I tried to explain to her that she was supposed to draw in the circle stickers, but she had a different interpretation.  It's hard to see, but she took an orange crayon and drew arms, legs and a head using the sticker as the body.  You can kind of see the eyes above the stickers.

This weekend she had to decorate a letter "M" for Me.  I made her sit with me and pick out some pictures of stuff that she loved.  This is what we ended up with.

I think Audrey likes school because yesterday she told me "Mommy, I am SO good at pre-K!"

The girls are no longer scared to hold Charlie.  Now they hardly leave the poor little guy alone!

We had two birthday parties to go to in the neighborhood yesterday.  The first one was a kids party and I had to snap this shot of the two tiniest water balloon toss players - they were so cute!  Needless to say, they did not win, but Bridget did win the dance competition!

And for some more cute Audrey-isms:

I bought the girls a mylar balloon at the dollar store, and as she was whacking me in the head with it, she said "Man, I'm sure going to miss this balloon when it pops."

"How come you can close your mouth and your eyes, but not your nose?"

While Bridget was giving her a big bear hug "You're my best sister in the whole world! OK, now let go 'cause someones gonna get hurt."

"Why does Daddy sleep in your room?  Can he not get a girlfriend?"