Just Thursday

It's Thursday. Played tennis this morning . . . but I don't really want to write about that. Didn't win. Played well, had fun . . . and, as we tell Big on the Soccer field, that's what it's all about.

Enjoying the newly created car pool that my neighbor and I have set up. For the past two weeks, she's been dropping off and picking up my girls each Tues/Thurs. Now for the next few weeks, it's my turn. I tell you what: car pooling is worth every penny we paid for the new car with more seats. The 'off' days are heaven! So today I played tennis and did not have to worry about who was going to get my kids at preschool. Nice.


The in-laws arrive in the morning. It's just a weekend visit, but we have seemed to find a way to cram a lot of stuff into 72 hours. Football game, pumpkin patch, and soccer are 3 of the items on our agenda. I hope the girls are up for it all. I hope their mommy is, too. I've already thought about keeping Big home from preschool on Monday so she can recover.

We had a play date with a neighbor today, and I left drooling over her house. It's beautiful. She's lived in the 'Hampton for 8 years . . . so she's had time to update and modify her home. Did I mention it's beautiful? I came home to my green sofa and white kitchen and was instantly envious of her lovely decor. I tried to remind myself that we've been too busy moving in and having babies to have time to decorate like she has . . . we will get to it someday. The grass is always greener, as they say.


Enjoyed the play date (after getting over the home envy). Big and her friend play so well together -- and they even let Little participate. I got to stay and chat with my neighbor, who I adore and feel I have a lot in common with. She told me she and her husband are trying for a 3rd child. I told her that I guess Jim and I should go ahead and have a 3rd kid or else we will be one of very few families in the 'Hampton that only have 2. Don't want to feel like and underachiever . . . I mean really. Many of my neighbors just had, are pregnant with, or are actively talking about their 3rd kid. I've heard that "3" is the new "2" when it comes to kids . . . but the old "2" might be just fine with us.


Had left over lasagna for dinner tonight. I'm thrilled that my children have come around to liking Stouffer's lasagna. Yes, the frozen kind. It's a super easy back up meal that I can keep on hand for nights when I just don't feel like really cooking. Both Big and Little gobbled it up early this week, and they were equally as pleased the second time around. I think I have Garfield to thank for this . . . ever since we discovered his cartoons on TV, Big has been in love with him. As soon as I mentioned lasagna for dinner, she was screaming, "That's what Garfield loves!" and then proceeded to eat her entire entree. And Little, in true Little fashion, was super excited because her big sister was super excited. Thanks, Garfield. Maybe I can find another cartoon role model that gobbles up salads, casseroles, and Mexican dishes . . . more non-faves of my kiddos.


Read some of our fall stories to the girls at bedtime tonight. As soon as I opened up and distributed our fall seasonal decor, I uncovered a handful of seasonal books that I had totally forgotten about. I was instantly impressed with myself for putting these stories away at the end of last autumn. It gives us something fresh and timely to read these days -- something that is as nice for me as it is for the girls. "Pumpkin Town" is a favorite, as is "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat". I'd like to thank myself publicly for being so cool and stashing those books away this time last year.


And that's it. Just Thursday around here.

Big Melts My Heart

"Mommy, tell me again what exquisite means . . ."


The girls are in a Sesame Street revival around here. They LOVE that show -- the 'Abby's Flying Fairy School' segment and anything with Murray the puppet, in particular. Each episode has one word that they use throughout to increase preschool vocabulary, and Big is soaking those up like a Bounty paper towel. :)




"Exquisite means that something is very beautiful and very special. Like your sparkly headband -- it's very beautiful and very special, so it is exquisite," I explain to my 4 year old.





"And my Princess bike. It's very special and very beautiful. It's exquisite," she replies.





"You got it," Mom confirms.





"You mommy. You are very beautiful and very special, so YOU are exquisite." As she says this, my face turns to a grin and I bend down to be exactly eye level with my wonderful little girl. I hug her close and give her a kiss.





"You are a sweetie, Big. Thank you for saying I'm exquisite. You are exquisite, too."





I couldn't make this up if I tried . . . she is such a sweetheart, she my heart melts daily just by being around.

Garage Clean Out

Sorry I fell off the wagon there for a few days. You see, we have the in-laws coming for a visit this weekend, and I got all wrapped up in doing some things around the 'Hampton to get ready. Nothing like a MIL to motivate you to clean your house.

Or your garage.

Speaking of -- does anyone keep their garage clean?

We don't. I think it's because it's the one area of our house that I kind of leave to Jim for cleaning . . . and if you've ever seen his side of our bed or his side of our closet, you know how 'clean' our garage stays. (Translation: not that clean.)

About once a year, I get to the point where I can't take it any more. The driveway toys are too dirty, the area where we allow junk to collect has become so overrun with junk we can't use it any more, and the yard equipment has leaked out into parking areas and must be moved to get to bikes. The clutter and the misplaced junk in our garage starts to wear me down, and I have to call for a 'Garage Clean Out' day in our household.

Did I mention we have a 2 car garage and only park on one side? That should tell you the amount of junk that piles up in a year's time. It's nuts.

The last time we did this, look how little Little was . . .

Now about 15 months have passed, and we tackled the job again. This time was a lot more 'fun' -- if you can call garage clean out fun. Both of the girls are old enough to help. And no doubt about it: we put them to work. Everyone worked hard on this project.

Little washed the outside toys.

Daddy hung up big hooks so we could get our um-teen million strollers off the floor. (We have, seriously, a fleet of strollers . . . last count, we had 6.)

And Big walked around with my camera, documenting everything in our house for insurance purposes. Nothing like giving your 4 year old the camera to play with . . . she had a blast and just walking around and shooting everything she saw. Literally.

(That last one is play food from her kitchen, I promise.)

You always find crazy stuff doing this kind of clean out. Big uncovered something I think Daddy wore for Halloween once, and she also managed to find all of her 'swimming' Barbies buried among the pool and beach gear. Little --well, she's so fun. Anything she found was a treasure . . . including Daddy's stud finder, which she called her 'beeper'.

And then there were the paint cans. The lovely woman that lived here before us left us a bunch of junk in our garage in our (at that time) unfinished basement. We had our agent call her agent a BUNCH of times to request that she clean it up before closing, but the only thing she came back and actually got was the darling little 2-seater BMW that sat in our garage until literally a few hours before the papers were signed. The rest of her junk was left for us to deal with. Figures.

The paint cans have been the bain (bane?) of my existence . . . when it comes to the garage, at least. The previous owner left us two cabinets full of partially used -- even full! -- cans of paint. Because we all know that I wanted to use her old, smelly paint to touch up my walls that I had repainted entirely with much better colors within days of our house closing. And because we all know how easy it is to get rid of paint. Yeah, just stick it in the garage to be picked up on Monday.

Um. Nope. It's such a royal pain to get rid of paint. If you have thrown your own cans away in the garbage, I urge you to Google the proper way to dispose of it.

Here -- look at this craziness.

After 3 years of living with this in our garage cabinets, I've now left Jim in charge of getting rid of the paint. And he often follows up on projects like that about as well as he keeps the garage clean.

Something tells me that my paint pyramid tower might still be standing where it is the next time we go to clean out the garage, sometime in 2011.

Anyway, nothing but a good old family clean out going on around here. My motivation has spilled out into the main floors of our house . . . cleaning and putting away my mom's china in our china cabinet, hanging up and rearranging photos on our walls, etc. Like I said, nothing like the visit of family to give you the kick in the pants you need to actually get stuff done around your house.