I actually just typed this up as an email to my friend, Sara, who is out of town.  But then I decided that since it really is a pretty good summary of our weekend that I should post it here.  I keep meaning to get back into posting stuff, so might as well start now.

We survived recital weekend, but just barely.  Friday night was dress rehearsal from 5:30-9:15.  I didn't realize it would take so long, so neither D or I ate dinner before we left.  Forgot the blanket to sit on to keep her costume clean when not on stage.  Also forgot anything to do to keep busy.  Amy 0- Dance 1.

Saturday I did better, remembered all key items, including food.  I thought it would go faster than the night before because they didn't have to all learn the finale, but we just replaced that with a slideshow, thank yous and awards.  I didn't buy tickets because why would you pay to watch it Saturday if you already were there for most of it on Friday and paid to see it on Sunday?  Well, apparently this is another instance where I was not thinking like everyone else.  Luckily for me when I came back around 7:15 (thinking I would be sure to be there a few minutes before the end) and they hadn't even gotten to the intermission yet(!) I ran into Jennifer Klaers who had an extra ticket and I at least had a place to sit for the next TWO HOURS!  So once again, it was dance from 5:30-9:15.  Keep in mind that there was also hair and make-up time before each show.  Amy 0-Dance 2.

Sunday came and we went strawberry picking out at Silkey's (me, D, E and V) and despite V getting tired of it and quitting right away we picked just over 36 lbs. in an hour.  Making today jam day.

But I digress.  So, with the 2nd day in a row of obligatory nap for Darby, who is not used to going to bed at 10:00 pm and the strawberry picking there wasn't time for much else.  Kyle and the other girls went to the pool because the heat index thingy was 91, but Darby and I stayed home to get her ready.  Once again back to the High School for dance.  This time we had to be there at 2:30.  We brought everything we needed, and my parents and Kyle and the girls all made it there on time, so despite the fact that it was another 3.5 hours of dance I'm calling this one a tie.  Final score Amy 1- Dance 3.

Look what I did!

Ha!  Take that crappy winter-of-everything-breaking!  You may have lasted longer and been colder than any winter I remember, and you may have seen the demise of way to many items in our house, but I declare myself the winner!  'Cuz I made myself a cool new purse!

And no, it's not perfect, but I'm so proud of myself that I'm going to ignore the voice in my head that keeps pointing out the mistakes and flaws and I'm going to use it anyway.  So, ha!  Winner!

Oh, and it still needs a button on the little flap, but I haven't had time to find the perfect one yet, so for right now it's an open top.

To The Love of My Life

Happy Valentine's Day to my amazing husband.  And because our anniversary was almost 2 weeks ago and I still haven't given you a card, Happy Anniversary, too!  

I know it's cliche' but we've been through a lot together.  And I feel like this picture about sums it up.  

Seriously, though, I am completely surprised by how things have evolved so far, but at the same time I can't imagine any way life could be any better.  I distinctly remember telling my mom and dad soon after the wedding that we probably wouldn't have children until we had been married about 5 years.  Ha!  So here we are 10 years, 2 apartments, 3 houses, 3 dogs, 5 kids and 3 cities later...  And I don't think it's possible to love you any more than I already do.  But then again, I think I've been proven wrong once before and this time I'm actually excited to see it happen :)

And in closing:

I love you, Kyle.  Thanks for everything.

It's A Good Thing Somebody's Paying Attention

Today was a preschool day for D so we were out the door and on our way to school pretty early this morning.  D climbed into the van and started doing her seatbelt, I buckled V into her seat, closed the door, walked around the van, got into my seat, did my seatbelt, put the van in reverse and as I was backing out of the garage I heard a small voice yell at me "Hey!  Buck-a!  Buck-a!"  (That's 2 year old for buckle, in case you weren't sure)  Turns out I neglected to strap E into her seat.

Like I said, it's a good thing somebody was paying attention.  

Everyone but the Dog

A sweet family picture so you, too, can be amazed by how innocent they look and how crazy they are! Don't let those adorable smiles fool you! These are the very same children who are responsible for my fast-emerging gray hairs.

Job Title, Part 3: Janitor

So, bodily fluids are, unfortunately, a pretty big part of what I do all day.  I used to joke that I spent all day walking around our house turning off lights and flushing toilets.  I now see that I should never have joked about that.  I am paying for it now.  I am paying for it by cleaning up things from places they shouldn't be at all hours of the day and night.  But, like the blog's name says, you either laugh or go crazy and luckily this time I am able to laugh about it.  Here's what happened one morning last week:

I woke to the sound of yelling and general merriment coming from the "Big Girls' Room" at about 10 minutes to seven, but since they are supposed to stay quietly in their beds until seven a.m., I went to investigate.  (Really, I went to chew them out, because if they wake the twinkies up before they're ready to be awake it makes for a bad day for all of us.)  I walked in to see D lying naked on her completely stripped bed, yelling "I smell like pee!" repeatedly and A changing her underwear in the middle of the room.  Only L is a. quiet or b.  in bed.  I talked to D and found that she had had an accident in her bed, but was fine except for some slight paranoia about a pee smell and moved on to questioning A.

It went something like this:
me: "Anna, what happened to your underwear?"
A: "Nothing."
me: "Then why are you changing them?"
A: "Because they smell like potty."
me:  "Well if they smell like potty, then they must have potty in them, and that's not nothing.  That's something."
A: "No.  Nothing happened."
me:  "Get back in your bed."

The morning progressed. The twinkies miraculously slept through most of our noise until at about 7:55 I heard them.  Since we were right in the middle of getting snowpants etc on and shoving A and L out the door and towards the bus I decided to wait a couple of minutes to go get them.

I opened the door to their room and the first thing I thought was how terrible it smelled, but I figured it was just a smelly diaper or two and I'd get them cleaned up when we went downstairs (we keep all their diapers in the living room because we are hardly ever in their bedroom.)  I walked across the room, opened the curtains, pulled up the blinds and as soon as I turned around I saw it.  V was standing naked in her crib looking at me while her footie pajamas and dirty diaper were on the floor next to her crib.  The top half of her body was clean, but her bottom half, her sheets and the beautiful hand crocheted blanket in the crib with her were another story.  E was fine, but apparently a bit disgusted by how filthy her sister was.

Doing damage control is what my life is about right now and I started in quickly.  I got E out of her crib so she'd stop crying and could play with D.  Then I went into the bathroom right next door and started filling the tub; it was clear Vivi would need more than just a wipe down with a washcloth to get her clean.  I walked into their bedroom, picked up V as carefully as possible so as not to get anything on myself and carried her to the bathroom.  This took 30 seconds maximum.  I walked into the bathroom and what did I see?  A fully clothed E sitting in the bathtub.  And me with only two arms!  What an inconvenient problem when you have more than one child.  I set V down, told her not to move and fished E out of the tub and stripped off her clothes amidst great torturous screams.  I turned around and started working on some of V's filth with a disposable baby wipe, in the hopes of keeping some of the chunks out of the bathtub, but quickly discovered that it was too cemented to her skin to come off with anything that flimsy.  (This is where it gets really gross, you may want to stop reading if you haven't already!)  Keep in mind that it is now about 8:15 a.m. and I (what a way to start my day) wiped dried poop off my daughter's skin with warm water and my bare hand!   Eeeeeeew.

That's not actually the end of my incredibly disgusting day, but that's a good place for a break.  Sorry if you are completely grossed out now.

I Am A Broken Woman

So, back in early November, my laptop died.  Right in the middle of using it the screen went black and it has not been seen nor heard from since.  That alone would be cause for sadness here, but as long as we still have the desktop we'll survive.  About three days after that as I was (literally) running around getting ready to take Darby to preschool I moved a partial can of Kilz primer from our back hallway to the basement stairs.  It was an attempt to keep it from getting spilled.  But you guessed it; it spilled.  A quarter gallon of bright white, heavy-duty primer on our shag carpeting 5 minutes before we should be walking out the door.  Then, a few days later, let's say one week later to be sure not to make this more dramatic then it already is, we had a rainstorm.  Which in November in Minnesota means there was ice.  My van was parked outside (there wasn't room in the garage, a problem we have since remedied) and when I tried to open the driver's side sliding door (coincidentally, on the way to preschool again), the handle came off in my hand.  Damn!  In the house I went to get a blow dryer because I still needed to use that door, frozen or not.  So, I ran upstairs, got the blow dryer and on my way back out to the garage my leather shoe ripped/tore.  I stayed amazingly calm, changed my shoes and we were on our way.  Somewhere in there was a hole in the tire of the van and the monitor of the desktop died.  Yesterday the washing machine was draining out the bottom as fast as it was filling and today our central vacuum wouldn't turn off.  I unplugged it from the wall, but could still hear the canister running in the garage, so I went out and pushed the main power button which did exactly nothing and finally had to unplug the canister from it's power supply.  

Whew!  Do you think it's possible that the universe is actually conspiring against me, or does it just feel like it?