Valentine's Day 2012

Jim and I turned to each other somewhere in the days before the big V-day this year and said, "Have we been married long enough now that we can... not.... do Valentine's day?"  This cracked me up.  I love it. 

Other things I'm loving right now:

www.pinterest.com and the super cute (and easy) valentine box idea it provided for Jack.

This little thing

Bird tracks in the driveway snow

Stumbling upon weird and sort of nerdy photo ops at the local theater. And then internally chuckling at the way the ewok guy is constantly mothering over the soldier guy at left during picture taking. "Your chestplate isn't straight, honey."

The pretty ingenious compromise I witnessed when two siblings can't agree on whose turn it is to slide. 

And random showcasings of baseball enthusiasm.  Learned at school.  During the off season.

I hope you had a terrific Valentine's Day!



Bedtime Stories With Emma

Welcome to "Bedtime Stories with Emma".  I'm thinking of making this a regular entry.  What do you think?

Tensions Are High

My iron is a scowly pants.

My gray wrinkly shirt hangs around crying all the time.

Mr. Lint Roller is getting the silent treatment from Mrs. Starch.  Maybe he shouldn't have gone off and gotten himself a mistress. 

You see, the situation is dire.  Things are bad, and I've started to wonder,  "What's gone so very, very wrong in my little ironing world?"

I think I know.   

It's this ugly guy.  What a plain jane ironing board cover!  It has no spunk.  No flair.  It brings no happiness to the lives of its fellow ironing cohorts.  It causes dissension. 

So what is the answer?

Winning Danavee's giveaway would pretty much do it.  I need a new and beautifully handmade ironing board cover.  Little hearts, rainbows, and songbirds would suddenly appear at my ironing station.  Schlager  make me your finest with yo bad, crafty self!

Life would sure be better. 

Dance For Your Papi

Saturday is 'cleaning day'.  Music gets turned up loud at our house, and people go to town on their respective chores. 

Everyone's busy, in theory.  Jim's paying bills.  Jack is groaning upstairs about not wanting to clean his room.  I'm elbow deep in toilet-scrubbing-land somewhere in the house. 

And then there's... Emma.  NOT doing chores when she thinks no one's looking. 

Dancing for her papi.

This girl doesn't feel accountable...

Man Vs. Tree

Normally my husband is the guy who can fix just about anything.  It's a very handy talent, and he ends up feeling manly.  It's a win-win situation...

On a related note, this year we assembled our Christmas tree and just like every year, it seems, the tree was deciding to be temperamental.  The mid section of the tree would flicker out for no apparent reason.  Flash on.  Flash off.  Finally, one night the lights in the middle just quit lighting altogether.  Having no middle lights was frustrating, and it just would never do.  We just kept putting off the fixing though.   Christmas time is busy after all.

But last night was Christmas Eve.  And the last thing that Jack said before committing to bed was, "I bet Santa will fix our Christmas tree lights.  He's magic."

And so... yes.  This situation had NO CHOICE but to be remedied. 

'Santa' went in with his sleeves rolled up.  Santa worked hard, used his magic, and as a result, today was a day decorated by a beautiful, fully lit tree.  Yessss.  Santa was looking especially rugged and manly.

This is the lighting situation tonight.  Um.



The Musicals

Emma was recently in the church nativity play.  She was the donkey.  You should know that she was not donkey-like at all.  I've never seen a donkey steal baby Jesus's thunder.  The pictures below show it well... getting right up in front of the microphone, making googly eyes at Mom and Dad the entire time.  A wave or three thousand.  It was cute. 

She looks like a gangsta donkey.  I'm just saying...

Anyway, it's because of the donkey performance that I feel compelled to post the next - a preschool performance the next night. It's slightly better in the way of "singing" and "saying lines" and "acting like you have some sort of assigned part in a show."  And it's less, "I'll be here all night. Tip your waiter." 

Jack also had a musical moment about a week back.  It was less public but oh-so-equally wonderful for his mother. 

It was the "first day of Christmas" for additional 51 seconds after that, but I did some editing... 

Merry Christmas!

20 Questions, Emma (Age 4)

Emma will be four in four days!  Wow!  How did that happen? 

This week I asked Emma 20 questions.  I hope to remember to ask these questions every birthday and see how her answers change.  But here are her words at just four days shy of turning 4 years old. 

1.  What is your favorite color?  Pink, purple, and orange.  And blue.

2.  What is your favorite toy?  Boots, Dora's monkey.

3.  What is your favorite fruit?  I don't know what my favorite fruit is.  Maaaaybe it's bananas.  I like banaaaaaaanas.

4.  What is your favorite show? Astro Boy

5.  What is your favorite thing to have for lunch?  Ham and cheese sandwich

6.  What is your favorite outfit?  My leggings and black boots.



7.  What is your favorite game to play?  Super Mario Galaxy when I be Yoshi or Luigi. 

8.  What is your favorite snack?  One cheese sack.  No, that's not what it's called.  It has squares on it.  (Me:  A cube?)  Yes!  One cheese cube.

9.  What is your favorite animal?  Kitties.  Orrr you could call them kittens.

10.  What is your favorite song? My rock n' roll Christmas song.  (More commonly known as Trans Siberian Orchestra's  Christmas Eve in Sarajevo).

11.  What is your favorite book?  The bad baby who unrolls the toilet paper (More commonly known as No, No, Yes, Yes by Leslie Patricelli.)

Emma's drawings of people in her family.  Reliably the same.  Reliably cute. Every time.



12. Who is your best friend?  Skyler, at school.  He's really little.  I'm bigger than him.  He's always hitting me.  And telling on me.  I do nice things for him and HE TELLS ON ME!

13.  What is your favorite cereal?  Froot Loops

14.  What is your favorite thing to do outside?  Play on the playground

15.  What is your favorite drink?  Orange Julius

16.  What is your favorite holiday?  Thanksgiving and my birthday.  I'm so excited for my birthday.

17.  What do you like to take to bed with you at night?  I want to talk about my birthday.

18.  What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast?  I just said it.  Froot Loops!

19.  What do you want for dinner on your birthday?  Cake.  Cupcakes.  And cake.

20.  What do you want to be when you grow up?  A space girl that goes in space.  All the way up.  To Mars...  I mean, the moon.

Emma sings this ALL. THE. TIME. 

What is this song?  Anyone?