I'm just sayin'

Mormor is a bad influence. We've always known it, but here's my proof--Buddy has started adding "tootie" or "poopie" after everything he says. Thank you, day-care-best-friend. Anyway, we had several chats about it this weekend, culminating in him getting mad and saying, "Well, Grandma said I could say it!" HUH?! And then last night, he told me he'll just wait until he goes to Grandma's house and say it there.

He also decided to try and open a Christmas present because "Grandma told me I could!"

And then last night, after we made our gingerbread house and family, I asked him if I could have a bite of his gingerbread man (which he was busily chomping). He said, "Sure! Eat Sissy's." Nice.

As CBC put it, he's full of it, "literally." (Her favorite new word :) )

And then my dear, sweet daughter asked me, "Do you think Santa is going to bring me what I want this year?" She has written a nice letter to Santa and taped it to our living room wall for all to see. I said she'll have to wait and see, to which she added, "'Cause last year, he just gave me random things." HA! Good one, Santa :)

Beware of kangaroos

One more entertaining thing about Buddy--he is deathly afraid of the kangaroo monster that he thinks lives in our house. Seriously, I have no idea where this comes from, but he fears that the kangaroo comes out at night and will get you if you don't hide. The kangaroo will also get your toys if you don't hide them. Buddy feels like the refrigerator is a pretty safe place, so he's been hiding toys in the fridge to protect them from the kangaroo. And last night, as I was laying in bed and he was going downstairs to tell Superman good-night, he turned on the night light and told me to cover my head so the kangaroo wouldn't get me. I tried to reassure him that I wasn't worried about the kangaroo, to which he replied, "Mom, I'll keep you safe from the kangaroo. I won't let him get you. It's okay, you can go to sleep." Love that crazy kid, but why a kangaroo? I can't wait until we go to the zoo!!!

Sickness, part whatever # we're on now, plus a heart murmur

After enjoying (?) so much time together all week, it had to end with somebody getting sick. Two somebodies, in fact. Superman started Saturday morning by throwing up. CBC followed soon after, and she continued into the afternoon. Of course, being the great mother that I am, I told her she was probably okay after the first occasion, and told her we would still go to swimming lessons. After watching her puke all over the floor on our way out to the car, I figured that was probably a sign that she really wasn't doing too well :( Superman is still not feeling that great, but CBC seemed just fine yesterday evening. I've spent much of the weekend just trying to keep the kids from beating each other, and convincing them to leave Superman alone. It has been eventful, to say the least :) I'm starting to feel like we're cursed this fall because we've all been so sick.

The really interesting thing about all of these doctor and urgent care visits is that we learned CBC has a heart murmur. The urgent care doctor noticed it at the strep throat visit, so we followed up with the pediatrician on Black Friday. She said it's a Still's murmur, which is nothing to worry about. Still (pun unintended) kind of gives me the creeps!

Once there was a snowman

Buddy has been singing "Once there was a snowman" all week long. For those of you who are not familiar with the lyrics, they go like this: "Once there was a snowman, snowman, snowman. Once there was a snowman, tall, tall, tall. In the snow he melted, melted, melted. In the snow he melted, small, small, small." That was this past week in a nutshell. Monday morning Enumclaw School District was cancelled because of snow, so I worked at home while CBC played out in the snow all day. Then came Tuesday with more snow, with school AND work cancelled! We kept Buddy home, too, since it was his birthday, and we had more fun in the snow. And then the same thing happened Wednesday! It was a seriously weird week, especially since winter hasn't even technically started yet! The rain melted after that and it became a more normal November.

After having Thanksgiving on Thursday with almost all of Superman's family at our house (super fun with cousins!!), and then Black Friday shopping most of Friday (and, boy, did I do a poor job of finding the deals, but I sure had a great time!), I think we have had enough together time for a while :) We might all be looking forward to school and work tomorrow.

The pictures are from various snow day adventures, with my favorite showing Buddy enjoying snow for the first time he can remember.

Growing up is hard to do

Well, our boy Buddy hit three years old this week! We celebrated for several days (for various reasons), which convinced him that his birthday is at least four days long. Now that he is a big boy, he no longer allows kisses without wiping them off, nor does he appreciate being called a baby. At least he still likes hugs! I swear, he grew an inch this week, and his vocabulary grew proportionally. I made cupcakes for his home birthday party (have no idea why the picture shows sideways), he took Oreos to school, and we ate a castle cake for his family birthday. He got some seriously awesome Cars pajamas from Mormor, a puzzle from Miss Anne, and toys from the rest of us.

This week has really brought to my attention how serious he is about growing up, and how much he reminds me of CBC at this age. My favorite? When he's mad or doesn't get his way (which happens often), he says, "You're not my best friend!" CBC used to say, "You're not invited to my birthday party!" when she was mad. My kids make me laugh so hard :) I much prefer those statements over several potential others, but I just wonder why not being a best friend or not coming to a birthday party mean so much to them. Too funny! AND . . . Buddy is obsessed with puzzles. He can handle 24-piece puzzles with no problem, but he also likes doing the two United States of America puzzles we have--and he does them by himself! Pretty impressive.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BUDDY!

Who, Nelly!

This is a plug for antibiotics . . . and a lament against winter. I can tell it's coming because I've already had my annual nasty cold, Buddy got pneumonia, my brother's kids all have walking penumonia, and now I have strep throat. All within the last four weeks. After being on antibiotics for two days, I finally feel like I'm going to live! If we could all have the immune system of CBC . . .

Sports

I know I've said this before, but CBC is a natural athlete. Sports just come so easily to her--which is both a curse and a blessing. She tends to goof off during the practices which drives both the coaches and her parents nuts! Here are some fun soccer photos--her against 5 boys, and she can whoop their butts. Hey, where did that short kid in the Superman pajamas come from?!

Fun pics of kids

I was going to enter the kids into the Gap casting call this year (same thought as every year but I never actually do it), but I couldn't take any pictures without red-eye. I still think the kids look really cute, though!

More pics from Halloween

Just call me . . . Peter Parker

Spider-man and a Blue Heeler came to our house on Halloween this year! It was so fun! CBC's costume was home-made, as usual, which meant it wasn't that great, as usual :) I have to tell you--I have the perfect daughter for my imperfectness! She is such a good person, and so intrinsically loving. Even when people didn't know if she was a rat, cat, dog, or a mouse, she thought it was fun that she was a mystery animal. And next year she wants to be a vampire dog. Gosh, I love that kid! And Spider-man was very insistent that we call him Peter Parker. He was so cute! We didn't have a mask for him, so Superman painted his face repeatedly for all of our Halloween parties (4? 5? I can't even remember how many we went to now!). Buddy thought it was awesome. And they looked so cute!!

We had a church party, school parties, Enumclaw party (so cool! especially the black-and-orange plastic eggs search with the lights off! Check out the Demon Dog and flying Spidey pictures), pumpkin patch/corn maze, and actual trick-or-treating. We are completely candied up, and had an absolute blast. One of the highlights was me taking a day off and living it up with the 2nd graders at school! We carved pumpkins, did fun pumpkin estimates, and had a costume parade. CBC's friends thought I was super cool because I was able to carve some of the un-ripe pumpkins that were too hard for anyone else to do. At least I improved my girl's standing in school :)

Too funny--we finally went to carve our own pumpkins and one was completely rotten. So of course my kids stabbed their fingers into the mash. So gross!

Please can I open it?

Since I couldn't post the "wanna piece of me?!" video of Buddy, I'm posting this one instead. Tell me he has not learned how to work the system (and by "system," I mean "Mom and Dad") :) Enjoy!

Food and boogers, but not together

I have to share this because it's such a phenomenon! Those of you who have shared a meal with us know that Buddy is not a good eater. The kid seriously survives on one meal a day, which always makes me appreciate his school's food. Anyway, to our complete surprise, Saturday showed us Buddy's ginormous appetite--two bowls of cereal and three pancakes for breakfast, an entire grilled cheese sandwich and fruit for lunch, and then macaroni and cheese and two bowls of ice cream for dinner. Seriously, I was shocked. I figure he must be making up for having the flu the weekend before!

And we've recently realized anew that OCD lingers on . . . we've been really appreciative of friends who have been giving us hand-me downs for CBC. That girl grows so fast that it's hard to keep her in good-fitting clothes. We're always buying them too large and then suddenly they're too small. Anyway, CBC has been more careful lately about whose clothes she's been wearing, depending on whether the giver has "picking" issues. Eek, that's all I can say.

Trying to post the video of Buddy playing with Spider-man--you can hear the evil laugh and "wanna piece of me?!" but it's not working . . .

Into the deep

Hamsters, tomboys, & superheroes, oh my!

Don't you hate it when you go to save your post and it erases? So happy that happened.

So, starting over--my favorite quotes from this week?

CBC: "I'm half-boy and half-girl. That means I'm a tomboy and I can do whatever I want."

Buddy: Playing with his Superman and Batman toys: "You killed my father!" and "Wanna piece of me?!"

This has been a busy month, as usual. I went on a 3-day weekend trip to Oregon with my sister-in-law--we shopped and went sight-seeing and had an overall great time! (Enjoy the picture of me practically blowing off the coast.) The kids missed me a lot, though, so I tried to make up for it by taking two days off this week to spend with them while Clark was at a work conference. Right before we left, we found out Buddy had the flu and pneumonia, so that was a definite drag for him (poor guy!), but I think Toys R Us, Target, and Chuck E. Cheese made up for it :) Buddy seriously thought Toys R Us was the greatest store ever, and feeding the tickets into the ticket machine at Chuck E. Cheese was a definite highlight. And CBC loved playing the big sister and showing little brother how everything worked.

This month we also were happy to see friends from college--we used to live by them in Arizona and haven't seen them in a few years, so it was really enjoyable to show them our fair city (Seattle, not Maple Valley :) ). It's so crazy to see friends' kids growing up when you remember them as babies.

Now that school is back in, we've started swimming lessons again. CBC loves jumping off the diving board, and just overall being in the water. Buddy walked the plank but couldn't actually bring himself to jump off. I presume he was imaging himself as Spider-man at the time. Or Superman. Or Batman. Or Lightning McQueen. Or Buzz Lightyear. I think I've overdone it with heroic toys :)

And to top it off, CBC decided she wanted a hamster instead of a dog. Of course, this lasted all of a week before she admitted she just wanted the hamster as a warm-up. Good thing Superman held me off from buying one! Now her plan is to learn how to take care of dogs by walking neighbor dogs. Her flier is very impressive.

And the violin came home this week! You should hear my girl play! I'll post a video as soon as I think the general audience can stand it :)

CBC First Day of School & Working on Home

Ahh, the first day of school. CBC was sooo ready for 2nd grade to begin, and she really enjoyed her first week. With only 6 boys in the class and 18 girls, I think her teacher is going to have her hands full! I took the day off and took CBC to school--we went out to breakfast at McDonald's as a family, and then Superman took Buddy to school while I took CBC. Apparently, Buddy cried his little eyes out when he realized he didn't get to spend the day at home with everybody--poor baby (uh, excuse me, poor "big boy!" I have been taken to task regarding that several times this week--"Mom, I not a baby! I a big boy!"). CBC, on the other hand, didn't cry and wasn't even really nervous. She just takes things in stride, that's for sure. I totally forgot to take pictures of her in class (who is honestly surprised?!) and so I had to settle for pictures in front of her after-school program later that day. She doesn't get her violin for a month--"Mom, seriously, I already told you--we won't get it for a month or a few weeks. Stop asking!"

Oh, three more things! After taking CBC to school, I came back to work as Superman's servant on finishing our guest room. He and Morfar laid most of the hardwood, but Superman and I finished the job. Wow, it looks nice!! Then on Saturday, we went hiking (shocking, I know!) on Mt. Rainier--first time we have ever been there, and it was beautiful. AND . . . I stopped drinking soda this week! I had a dental appointment and it really made me realize it's time to grow up and stop living like a teenager. (I also started flossing every night, for those of you who care.) I had my last Diet Pepsi on Tuesday AM and started drinking water shortly thereafter. Yay for my bones and my teeth, but wow, this is proving to be extra hard on my sweet tooth so far. I have really been sucking down the candy. Maybe not so good for my teeth, but at least I'm not sucking down 3 or more cans of soda every day . . .

More pictures from summer

Summer, we will miss thee

How can summer be over already? School starts in one week, and I think we're about ready to get back into the learning groove. It's been a really fun summer, even though the weather in WA hasn't really cooperated. We had about a week of extremely hot temperatures when we all slept in the master bedroom with the a/c in the window, but other than that, it's been off and on rain. I'll have to post some pictures soon, but I wanted to get caught up before procrastinating this any longer.

In July, we combined a work conference in Anaheim, CA with a family vacation by driving to Utah first. We visited Superman's parents and mine, and then Morfar and Mormor traveled with us to California, where we went to the beach and Disneyland, visited some good friends, and absolutely loved every minute of it. My conference was really good, too! Everyone at the beach forgot sunscreen, with CBC and Mormor getting the brunt of the sunburn. CBC's was so awful because she body surfed for 4 hours straight without coming in. I forget sometimes how much she loves water. Buddy had to re-learn grandparents' names, because once again he called them all Grandma. So we have officially switched over to Morfar (literally, mother's father) and Mormor (mother's mother). That seemed to help :) Morfar and Mormor took CBC home with them for two weeks, which proved to be very difficult on Buddy, but she had a great time.

On the way home from Anaheim, we stopped in San Jose to visit my brother and his family, which was an absolute blast. I wish they lived closer so we could see them more often! Two weeks later, Morfar and Mormor drove from their house in UT to our house in WA with CBC, carting a U-Haul behind them filled with furniture and a piano for us. If I haven't mentioned it a million times, my parents are so good to us! While they were here for a few days, Morfar helped Superman put a hardwood floor in upstairs (no rest for the weary!).

Since they've left, CBC has gone back to camp and enjoyed a Mariner's game, bounce houses, laser tag, swimming, etc. Buddy switched daycares, which went a little easier than I had feared. We miss our old school, but now I can pick him up earlier than before, which makes his day a little shorter. He told me he was sad on Friday after I picked him up, and when I asked him why, he said, "I miss Mormor! I want to go to her house." We're glad we'll be seeing them again at Christmas!

We've enjoyed the lake with family, gone to the fair, ridden bikes, played at the park, and did yard work like nothing else. Summer has also shown us what a big boy we have living with us--Buddy's vocabulary constantly surprises me ("Mom, that is so lame!"), he was potty-trained in May, and was bottle-free by July (and, yes, that was painful for all of us). Ever since CA, he is absolutely obsessed with Buzz Lightyear and Woody, and is always shouting, "To infinity and beyond!" while jumping off various items of furniture.

CBC has grown another million inches and made new friends everywhere she goes. She is reading like a champ, too! We have really enjoyed this summer, and I'm a little sad to see it go, but I'm excited to see what 2nd grade in our new school brings us. I especially can't wait to hear CBC play her violin :)

"Eclipse" and "Scooby-Doo"

What do Eclipse and Scooby-Doo have in common? Both have vampires, of course! Here's Buddy's interpretation of Robert Pattinson's Edward Cullen (sorry about the air freshener by his ear :) ), along with his version of "Whew, we made it!" from Scooby-Doo. As you can see in the video, I had to prod him, but he had been doing it all day long on his own. Everyone who has kids or pets knows their ability to stop performing as soon as the camera comes out :)

Equality is in the eye of the beholder

Buddy's new phrase is "NO FAIR!" and he picked it up from you-know-who (and, no, I do not mean myself!). He shouts this all day long now--just for the last three days. "Okay, let's go brush your teeth." "Already brushed my teeth." "Here, open up." "NO FAIR!" It's pretty entertaining until he starts hitting walls and throwing toys. Funny thing is, as a firm believer in individual responsibility, I really value fairness, but understand that it's impossible to implement more often than not. At any rate, I'll be mindful of his feelings about trying to be fair :) Now, if we could only teach CBC about not taking her brother's toys (he does have totally awesome cars), we might hear "NO FAIR" a little less!

School's out, OCD's in?

School ends this week, and CBC couldn't be more excited. Enumclaw has this great summer camp program where the kids get to go on field trips to a lot of fun places, play games, and swim each week. She loved it last year and is super excited to go this year. Even more fun is that she has a new best friend, Hayle, who has invited her to a water park to celebrate her birthday. And the amazing thing (at least to me!)--I REALLY like this kid! As in, she shows up to play, and I don't want to send her home 30 minutes later! She spent about 6 hours at our house one day and we all had a great time. There was no fighting, no crying, no whining, and they played outside almost the entire time. Other best part is that her parents are both police officers (mom is police chief!) so I don't have to worry about CBC when she's over at their house. Now if I could only figure out how to get them to move closer to us. . .

OCD has returned with a vengeance, though in a new form. For the last 2-3 months, CBC has been waking me up at least once every night because she misses me, and is sad she can't see me in the morning, and it goes on from there, culminating in her sleeping in our bed, and/or me sleeping on the floor. In the beginning, it was easier to be patient (and feel sad for her, too!), but I am losing it now. We've tried different tactics, but nothing worked. Her brain just gets control of these impulses and can't let them go, and now I'm fairly certain it's become a habit--that her body just wakes up by itself all night long. Anyway, last night I offered her a dollar (NOT a quarter :) ) for every night she sleeps in her bed the whole night. She told me a dollar wasn't much money (WHAT?! for sleeping?!) until I pointed out that there are ~180 nights before Christmas, which could mean $180 for the dog. That seemed to hit home. And may I say--she didn't wake me up at all last night. Cross your fingers!

Already?

Buddy's new vocabulary word? Already. As in, "I already brushed my teeth" and "I already ate dinner--ice cream now?" I forgot how interesting it is to watch 2-yr-olds start telling those obvious falsehoods that everyone else knows is false. Not sure where he picked up "already," but he is definitely getting mileage out of it. He's no longer into the green shirts, but now his focus is on peeing outside and running around at warp speed. He wanted Superman to play hide-and-seek with him, but it took us forever to figure it out--he kept saying, "I count to three!" until finally I realized he wanted to count to three (which really meant counting to five) while Superman hid. Hard to hide a 6'2" frame in 5 seconds, but entertaining to watch :)

Rat Part Deux

Superman and the kids climbed into the crawl space in search of the rat (or rat family, knowing my luck). The kids loved it and enjoyed seeing all the rat poop and footprints. Superman laid sticky traps (the idea is that the rat will be lured by the food onto the sticky trap, which will be so sticky they then can't escape--supposedly humane, but then the box says to throw the rat and trap away, wrapped in a plastic bag. Hello, rat still alive!!!) and poison. Well, when the sticky traps were checked a day later, all the food was gone and nobody was stuck on any traps. The next day the poison was obviously taking effect because Superman emailed me at work to tell me he found a rat clinging to life. He quickly dispatched it to a better world, and then left it out front for the neighborhood cats to eat. Like that would be a tasty meal. Anyway, when the kids got home, they wanted to see our "catch," which CBC then described as "heartbreaking." I swear, she is such a tender-hearted person. Anyway, she told me she said a little prayer and then told herself the rat was "in a happier place, where he can run and be free." The bad news is that this was much smaller than the rat I saw outside, so there are (were?) at least two rodent inhabitants.

Do you honestly want my $0.25?

Wow, a little extra excitement at our house--CBC swallowed a quarter. Yep, she swallowed an entire quarter. With absolutely no problem. She found one in her backpack, put it in her mouth, and before she knew it--gone! She related the story of telling her teacher thus: "So I went up to Ms. Kitz and I told her I found a quarter and put it in my mouth. She said, 'Go on.' Then I told her I swallowed it and she said, 'We better call the nurse.'" I laughed so hard at both of their nonchalant reactions--teachers must seriously hear everything! Anyway, the nurse called Superman; he called me; I called the doctor's office; and Superman took her to get an x-ray. Shiny quarter, settled right in her stomach. So for the last week, we've been examining her "piles" (ahem!), with no one being the richer. We never found the quarter, so Superman took her back for another x-ray today, and all is well. It "passed" without excitement, and now I can throw that "special" fork away. My co-workers will no longer call her my little piggy bank :) Amazing that OCD girl could put money into her mouth--think of the germs.

SO GROSS!! And yet fascinating. . .

A rat by any other name. . .

How lucky are we?! We have a pet rat! The only problem is, the rat lives underneath our house and surely has more friends than we are interested in taking care of. Kind of exciting, but really not so much. . .

Buddy Boy and the Green Shirt

So, you know how two-year-olds are famous for their stubbornness? As you already know, we experience this daily, but yesterday was a new low (or a high, depending on who you are in the story). Buddy is obsessed with wearing green. He only has three green shirts and he wants to keep one of them on at all times. Well, yesterday, they weren't so easy to find (blame the laundry!) so Superman had to force him, amidst much screaming and carrying on, to wear a different shirt. Well, Superman reported that he cried and screamed so much in the car on the way to day care that Superman eventually pulled over, stripped the kid clean of his shirt, and took him to day care shirt-less. That is how strong-willed my cute little boy is. Can anyone say "trouble ahead?" :)

Garage Sale Madness

So we had our first garage sale. VERY exciting. CBC and I got up early to get everything organized--I had no idea how important this was to her until she started selling :) Seriously, the kid talked to anyone and everyone, encouraging them to buy this and that, marking things down price-wise, and offering them deals. It was very entertaining! My favorite part of the whole deal was when she would comment on our things to people, such as "yeah, that toy doesn't really work that well" or "that toy is really annoying; that's why my mom wants to sell it" or "well, it's kind of broken, but you can fix it really easily." LOVED IT and LOVE HER! She's so much fun! Anyway, we made $100, got rid of some stuff, and happily took two boxes to Goodwill. Super success!

Buddy, though, was not so helpful. He wanted to keep his toys, so he kept getting everything down, playing and scattering toys. He eventually threw (figuratively) a tantrum and threw (literally) toys at visiting shoppers. That was exciting, too :)

Planner Extraordinaire

Superman has officially been recognized for all his hard work in Enumclaw with a title change--he is now the Planner (versus one of two Assistant Planners) for the city! We are so proud of him--he has sacrificed a lot of family time for work in the last 6 months and he definitely deserved this. Super job, Superman!! :)

Potty success and Take Your Kid to Work

So Buddy boy is a success with potty training! And he knows he's successful--he loves to go to the bathroom and then tell you what a big boy he is :) He's also quick at demanding a sucker in return for his good behavior.

In other news, Take Your Daughter or Son to Work Day was April 22nd this year. CBC got to enjoy a half-day at the University of Washington. We put her to work shredding, which showed her office expertise, and then she did an office supply scavenger hunt. She was a pretty cute employee, and it was obviously a highly successful event, since she still couldn't tell anyone what I do for a living, but she could definitely say she wanted to work for the University of Washington!

THE DOG

I kept thinking I was forgetting something when I was writing last night. I forgot to update about the dog! If you're following this blog at all, you'll know that CBC wants a dog more than almost anything else. So Superman had until the weekend of April 24th to report back to CBC--and he said she could get a dog!! (BIG shocker--go Superman!!!) CBC has until Christmas to earn enough money to buy her own dog. We are paying her to do chores around the house, and can I just say that I should've been doing this for years?! Neither Superman nor myself did the allowance thing growing up, so this is kind of a test run, but it's working so well! I get help with the dishes and the laundry and cleaning and everything. Love it! Anyway, she also has to read a book picked out by Superman by Christmas, but if she follows through, we're going to get a dog. So exciting! Now if we could just find the right one. We need a hypo-allergenic dog since Superman is super allergic, and we really want a poodle mix--like the labradoodle or the goldendoodle. So far, I keep hearing they're $1,000 so I'm thinking that's not going to happen. I don't think CBC could ever do enough chores to earn that much money! If anyone has any leads on a poodle mix, please pass them on!!

Buddy using his big vocab and his painting skills

Where does the time go?

How did May sneak up on me? I am somehow surprised by May's arrival, without all the nice sunny weather I am wishing for. I've been trying to eat healthier than normal (which for me would mean eating a vegetable a month or cutting down to 4 Dr. Pepper's a day--okay, slight exaggeration but you get the point). Anyway, I've joined a gym that I visit occasionally (and if any of you have suggestions on how to get by on less than 5 hours of sleep a night successfully, I would love to hear them!) and I go jogging with a good friend at least twice a week during my lunch break, but I am seeing no results at all. Makes me super frustrated, and then apathetic, followed by wanting to go back to my old habits. Ah, whatever.

This post is probably going to be a long one 'cause we've been SUPER busy at our house. Two weeks ago Superman got sort-of fancy tickets to the Mariners, so we enjoyed them (see pics). Kids were pretty great most of the time and it was fun to see them get so excited. Food was good, too :)

Then we decided to dig into another painting project, so we painted our great room (kitchen and living room combo). Coincidentally, the color we agreed upon was "Twilight"--I personally find that pretty darn hilarious. Once we put it on a wall, we realized that was a crazy color for so much space, so we went back and had them darken it. You can check the contrast out between our original wall color and the new one in these pictures. Let me know what you think! All I know is my husband is the bomb and is seriously able to do pretty much anything--I can honestly say I am amazed at his skills and talents. I am also jealous, but being the lackey comes with perks--I'm in charge of Buddy, so I get to take 3 hour naps with him to keep him out of Superman's hair :) I LOVE our new color; hope you do, too! And I hope you enjoy the funny pics of the kids painting. Buddy was killing me in his tidey-whiteys today after church :)

In other news, CBC was picked to be included in a music program within our school district, so she'll actually be attending a new elementary school next year where they will teach her to play the violin. We are so excited!! She and I checked the classroom out this week and enjoyed having some extra Mom/Daughter time. Her OCD has been affecting her again, and manifesting in different frustrating ways. Makes me feel bad for her, and I really need to remember to be way more patient. This new school is a definite blessing because she's been having boy/girl issues with her best friend that have been painful. Those of us who are tomboys can relate to how painful that is--it's not our fault when we can do things better than the boys! She's started reading a Choose Your Own Adventure Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew from my collection, and is really enjoying it. She also jumped off the diving board again in swimming lessons. Fun!

Buddy's vocabulary is increasing daily. This week, he came in from the ride home from school and said "I missed you!" to me before I had said anything else. Absolutely made my day. So cute!! I'm not so great with the video in this blog, but I'll try to put one in that shows him talking. Funny!!! He is responding to something CBC said about him not being stupid. He's doing well potty-training and has found a new love--Trix cereal. This morning, he ate three bowls, which is really a lot for Buddy, who can get by on one gogurt a day.

Last thing--next week is the Mother's Day program in church, and I will be playing the piano for the kids in sacrament. I have a feeling it will be entertaining for all :)