Quick 5

This has to be quick, folks.  We leave in the morning for our annual Trek To Kansas City To Celebrate The Holidays And Be Embarrassed Out Of Our Minds By The Behavior Of Our Toddler excursion, and I have much to do.

1.  Last Saturday we drove through the snow to my parents' house, where they were watching my nieces and nephews.  The cousins needed a play date.  Alaina and Joya were insanely jealous that they got to spend the night at Grammy and Grandad's.  When I told them it was because Aunt Jamie and Uncle Nick had something to do, and that the kids needed to stay with Grammy and Grandad so they could watch them, Joya replied, "I wish YOU AND DAD had something to do!"  Anyway, it was fun to see them and play for a couple of hours.

2.  I love the evolution of kid art.  Joya is in the early stages of drawing people.  She made this picture, and then wanted to throw it away, because she forgot to draw herself in.  Alaina solved the problem by taking another picture that Joya had drawn of herself, cutting it out, and taping it to the picture.  So here is Joya's latest interpretation of our family:

3.  I volunteered at Alaina's school on Monday and Tuesday morning of this week, which meant the two younger ones stayed home with dad.  They played so well together.  Bria is beginning to embrace Joya's love of dress up.  But while Joya will wear her dresses for hours, Bria seems to prefer the putting on/taking off part of the game, which she needs help with over and over and over and over.

4.  On Wednesday I got my first ever call from the school, telling me that Alaina had a fever and needed to go home.  Of course they called at 1:20pm, which is directly in the middle of Bria's nap.  So I swallowed my pride and called my good friend Leah to see if she could bop over and sit at my house while I ran to get Alaina from school.  She could and did and saved my bacon in the process.  So I picked Alaina up.  She had a temp of 101 at school, but seemed fine.  I'm trying desperately to treat the kid and not the fever, but the school has a no-tolerance policy when it comes to fevers.  So I kept her home from school on Thursday, even though her temp never really got above 100.  She was acting fine.  But this morning her temp was 101 again, so she had to stay home and miss Pie Day, where the kids were going to sample all sorts of pies.  She really does love school, so she's pretty bummed.  But she's comforted by the fact that we are going to Gramma's tomorrow, fever or not.

5.  This little girl loves her spaghetti.  There may or may not be a similar picture of me out there when I was around this age:

Happy Thanksgiving week!

Quick 5

Winter must be cold for those with no warm memories.

~An Affair to Remember (as quoted by Meg Ryan and Rosie O'Donnell in Sleepless in Seattle)

1.  When we got to MOPS on Monday at 9:15am, it was 65 degrees.  When we left MOPS at 11:30, it was 35 degrees.  By the time Lee went outside to grill at 4:45, it was 24 degrees and snowing.  In defense of my meal plan, I looked at the weather forecast for the week and saw that the high for Monday was 54, and the rest of the week was terribly cold.  I just didn't anticipate the fact that we would reach the high at 9:00 in the morning and spend the rest of the day scrounging around for layers.

2.  I volunteered at Alaina's school on Tuesday and got to witness the program the school put on for some veterans.  They had breakfast for them, and each class came in to do a little something.  The first graders had a little poem that they read and then handed out some homemade ornaments.  It was super cute.  Alaina was so excited to "see a veteran."  Apparently I hadn't told her that we see them all the time, and she's even talked to a few herself at church.  The school did a great job impressing the importance of veterans and their jobs on the kids.  It was a fun thing for me to watch.

3. I have spent the last couple of months visiting various thrift and second-hand stores looking for snow boots for Alaina.  I've never had a problem finding what I need, until this year.  For some reason used size 13 little girls boots were no where to be found.  So on Wednesday, the coldest day of the week, I had to venture out to Kohl's to buy her brand new ones.  It's so not our style, but I did have a 30% off coupon to soften the blow.  And I'm armed with the knowledge that Joya and Bria will both wear these boots, whether they want to or not.  But yes, I suppose I'm that mom who waited until a day too late to buy what she needed, rather than being prepared ahead of time.  It wasn't intentional, though.

4.  Does anyone know anything about blowing insulation into the walls?  Lee sealed the two windows in the girls' room because their room gets so cold in the winter.  But we think the problem might be an insufficient amount of insulation in their walls, two of which are outside walls.  We just don't even know where to begin in researching the expense and logistics of that kind of home improvement project.

5.  Apparently I need a vacation.  I have been doing a bunch of scatter-brained type things that are NOT normal for me.  Like using 1/3 cup of flour in the brownies instead of 1/2 cup.  (They're really good, just super gooey.)  Or putting my scripts for the Christmas drama in a place that I couldn't find them when I needed to go to practice last night (they were in my crochet bag OF COURSE.)  Thankfully we leave for Kansas City in a week.  I think I can keep it together until then.

Enjoy the heat wave today!

Quick 5

We've got big news this week!

1.  Lee's company decided to hire him!  Sounds funny, right? Last year his company was bought out, and in January, they let us know that they would be eliminating his department, but asked if he would be willing to stay to help with the transition until the end of October.  Sometime this summer they realized they would need his team longer, so they asked if he could stay until January 2nd.  And now they've realized they still have quite a bit of work for him and his team to do, so thanks to his great supervisor for being a champion for them, they just let us know that they've decided to hire them as permanent employees.  So no more job stress for us!  We can have a lovely holiday season without adding on the extra busyness of a job search.  Thank You Lord!

2.  The girls handled the time change with the greatest of ease.  I credit this to the fact that Joya spent much of Friday night awake and crying like a newborn for a variety of not-worth-it excuses.  Saturday night we tried to keep them up a bit later (I was shooting for an hour, but I'd had it after about 30 minutes) and so Joya must have been dead tired.  Not only did she not wake up at 5:00, but she slept until almost 7:00.  Which should have felt like almost 8:00 to her little body.  And confession: that was so out of character that close to 7:00 I had to go check on her to make sure she was still breathing.  Of course me coming in woke her up, but that was totally okay by that point.  Alaina and Bria didn't seem to care about the time change at all, so I feel like we dodged a big ol' bullet.

3.  Ever heard of unclaimed money?  Apparently there's all sorts of money out there that is sitting in state treasury departments, just waiting to be claimed.  I guess it's old inheritance money or insurance money or something.  Anyway, I read a story on Facebook, so for fun I looked us up.  And lo and behold, we have unclaimed money out there!  I remember getting a letter or a phone call from the company years ago, so I gave them my info and then never heard from them again.  But I got a hit when I did a search on this unclaimed money thing!  And now, once the form has been notarized, we should get enough to buy the van a couple of new tires.  Search yourself out, people!

4. Alaina's dream has come true: she finally gets to rake the yard.  She's been not-so-patiently waiting for the leaves to fall so she could rake them up and jump in them.  I love that she's at the age where getting to do a new chore is a rite of passage and not a drudgery.  She IS six, you know!

5.  Fall fun with the girls:

Here comes the cold!