Kaylee putting balloons and VIP signs on all the chairs for her birthday party with her friends. :) It ended up being a nice low-key affair, since out of the half-dozen or so girls she invited, only two could make it, and one had to leave early and the other had to arrive late. But the girls had plenty of fun anyway. :) (And it was much easier on the birthday girl’s parents’ nerves than the mass chaos we had braced ourselves for. LOL)
Today was Kaylee’s 9th birthday! She took mini-donuts to school for her class, and then we celebrated at home this evening with gifts and a chocolate pie. :)
Happy Birthday Kaylee! Hope it’s a fabulous year and all your wishes come true! :D
Mark hogs the TV enjoys relaxing in front of the TV most evenings, so mornings are my time to catch up on watching the shows I’ve TiVo’ed. Sometimes this requires a creative balancing act to block the blinding sun glaring in from the high arched windows.
Top of tent perched on back of desk chair. Loop on bottom corner of kids’ play tent attached to hook on mantle. It reminds me of the beginnings of some crazy balanced tower in a Dr. Seuss book . . . “and the bottle’s on a poodle, and the poodle’s eating noodles”. . . “Fox in socks, our game us done, sir. Thank you for a lot of fun, sir.” :)
More items from our excavation of Kaylee’s room… a Minnie Mouse princess lamp that she got as a birthday gift a few years ago, and a stuffed frog that was Mark’s once upon a time. It was a totally unplanned coincidence that these ended up on the coffee table together. :)
Mark grilled us hamburgers for lunch. Love that the meat company of the patties we buy shares our name. :) Too bad we don’t get a cut of the profits. ;)
Unearthed during a clean/purge/sort of toys in Kaylee’s room, this was a souvenir from one of my trips to Epcot Center – I think probably the one Mark and I took during my senior year of college? Or maybe one with my family when I was in high school? He’s one old dragon either way. ;)
Continuing my tradition of absolutely terrible Easter morning photos… the kids race around the family room collecting eggs. They had scoped out the location of most of them while Mark and I were sleeping in (they actually let us sleep!), so it was mostly just a matter of memory and speed.
I love Matthew’s creative choice of egg-collecting basket.
(That would be his bicycle helmet, if you can tell in my lovely blurry photo.)
Love this shot taken near the end of our traditional very simple Easter egg dying. It’s not about the eggs, but just enjoying time together. :)
Kaylee was playing with these pom-poms while watching TV in my room, and emerged with this very sparkly hair and beard. It cracked me up that she looked like a glam-ified version of one of the dwarfs from Snow White.
Or, alternatively, a disco version of Mary Tyler Moore…?
Wildflowers Kaylee picked for me when Mark took her to the park this afternoon. I wanted to take a picture of her holding them, but as she was showing them to me, she noticed an absolutely microscopic little bug on one of them, and she wouldn’t touch them after that. ;)
Dug out the sewing machine today for the first time in aaaaaaaaaaaaaaages. And what did I sew? Why, a few elements for an upcoming digital scrapbooking kit, of course. LOL I have to admit is was fun to sew just for the heck of it … not worrying about having to size anything or sew straight … even being deliberately sloppy. Heck, I was even happy when the machine jammed and the thread broke – it made a much more interesting mess! :)
Kaylee, stretched out on the floor, just kickin’ back and chillin’ out. Doesn’t seem like a deliberate act of defiance, does it? But, um, yeah, this was her response when told it was time to start her homework. Context is everything. ;)
Kaylee, being my test model. I’m having focus issues with my camera. The mess in the bedroom was not the intended focus point. :b Hopefully, it’s just that I inadvertently changed a setting somewhere, and not that there’s an actual problem with the camera that will need a repair.
Took the kids to the park on this very WINDY day. Various little patches of tiny wildflowers are scattered in the grassy areas. So pretty. :)
Mark zonked out in the recliner after spending the day hanging out with a magic acquaintance who was in town for the day.
Mark decided last night to tackle a rather large backlog of old account statements and such we had that needed shredding.
I think we ended up with four of the large bags and three or four of the small bags stuffed full by the time we were done. What’s funny is that un-shredded, the paper probably would have only filled about half of one of the large bags.
Any guesses as to what’s been added to the mix here?
Shredded CD’s! So sparkly! :)
We had apple pie for dessert tonight, Matthew’s favorite. He decided to be adventurous and throw a few fresh cut strawberries on top. :)
{Excuse the blown out flash pic. I only snapped a couple of quick shots – I wanted to eat my pie too! :) }
Not nearly as much fun as trimming a Christmas tree. Today it was time for more yard work. Mark mowed while I tackled the low-hanging branches on our tree. It turned out to need a lot more work than I originally thought. But you can actually walk under the tree now!
We only had a small pruner, which was way undersized for the job. I anticipate some very sore hands and arms in my future.
Today was spring picture day at Matthew’s school. I noticed something odd about Matthew’s shirt when he got home.
Can’t tell? Maybe this will help…
He’d had P.E. the class before the picture session, and no one noticed until afterwards that he had his shirt on inside out. LOL Can’t wait to see how these pictures turn out. Still, I’m sure they’ll be nothing compared to this one…
Yep, folks, this is my life. ;)
Took Kaylee to a fashion diva birthday party at a mall salon today. They wore sparkly costume dresses and the staff did their nails and hair and makeup. Kaylee got this twisty up-do. I thought maybe she’d end up with some extra waves or curls when we took it down, but it was just a big tangled mess.
And as she brushed it out, it turned into a giant Gilda Radner-esque frizzy poof.
She’d just washed it right before the party and didn’t want to wash it again, so we sprayed it down with more of her conditioner/detangler and combed it out. At least her hair was extra soft afterwards. :)
Mark and the kids went to Young Magician’s Club this morning, and then stopped at McDonald’s afterwards for lunch. I had to laugh when the kids came walking in with these Carmen Miranda-esque Happy Meal box hats on. :) (The current Happy Meal promotion is for the movie “Rio”.)
A relaxed Friday evening. The kids watching “Short Circuit” on TV, Matthew also flipping through an “Oblivion” video game guide book, Mark hunting in the pantry for a little evening snack.
Just Matthew, chillin’ on the floor. Done with his written homework, procrastinating going to start his sax practice and free reading. (In case you were wondering, the mark on his left arm is ink from an accidental encounter when borrowing a pen from a classmate at school. I kept doing a double take every time I caught a glimpse of it the rest of the evening.)
I’d been meaning to cut Kaylee’s bangs for a few weeks, but I never seemed to remember at an opportune time. Since she continually just shoves them out of her face when they’re too long, I hadn’t realized just how long they’d gotten!
She was completely uncooperative about keeping her head up when I was cutting, so I basically had to guess on the length, and they came out a bit shorter than I’d intended. But she was happy with the result, and I’m sure they’ll be back in her eyes again before we know it. :b
We finally got a semi non-windy day, so today was Weed War Part 2 – granular weed ‘n feed treatment . These are a few of the abandoned toys I dragged up onto the patio out of our overgrown jungle of a backyard to clear the way for the spreader. I have a feeling most of the poor toys I found out there are not going to be salvageable.
I just happened to slouch down at just the perfect angle this afternoon to catch a glimpse of this reflection on my webcam. It’s the window above our front door. I love that it shows up as this vibrant purple. (No, the sky wasn’t actually purple today.) The photo is terrible, but it’s the best of my many attempts, none of which included the surface of the webcam itself and the tiny reflection both in focus. :b
{I so wanted to title this post “The Purple Door Window, but it wouldn’t let me do a strikethrough in the title. I guess it’s ok; it wouldn’t have made sense to anyone who doesn’t watch “Being Erica” anyway. LOL}
Typical Sunday – newspaper piled on the floor after Mark finishes reading and clipping coupons, while Kaylee will have wandered off somewhere with the comics. :)
On Saturday we often try to make a run to the bank so that the kids can put money in their savings accounts. Saturdays are double stamp days, earning them more points towards little gift cards and such. Kaylee was her usual cooperative model self this morning. :b
I have never fried an egg in my life before today, a fact that Mark found incredible. I don’t cook much to begin with, so why on earth would I fry eggs if I don’t eat fried eggs? I mean, I have one once in a great while if Mark cooks them, or if eggs come with my meal at IHOP, but I don’t remember ever having eaten one before I met Mark, and they still really aren’t on my list of favorite foods, so why would he think that I should be proficient at making them? Humph. Bah. Pffffffft. :b Anyway… wanting me to make him some breakfast, after he got over his incredulity, Mark talked me through frying him up some ham and eggs this morning. It cracked me up that the food, along with preheat indicator in the center of the pan, made this giant happy face.
