Valentine's Day and Some Presidents

Sister Katie was in town last weekend for Tiny's baby shower.  Allison, Meghan and Trinity joined the 3 coolest siblings ever for dinner.  

February 10th was a major mail day.

Wellie sent some little heart cakes to show her love.

Abby and Papi sent the best card ever with toddler Disney princesses on it.  

Aunt Shirl sent a new outfit.  Our girl loves clothes.

YaYa and Bob bought this little swan sweater that was perfect for party day at school on Friday.  

My dear mother bought a hot glue gun and some tulle at Hobby Lobby and made these two 1st grade teachers super fashionable for their party.  I tied my heart scarf like an ascot because I really wanted to turn on the fanciness.  

On Saturday Abby and Papi arrived with more gifts.  

Cupcaking immediately commenced.  

Trinity and I are big spenders.  Actually Robby and Meghan are.  They went to stay at the swanky 21C Hotel in Louisville and eat at Proof on Main.  We went to stay at their casa in Carmel.  That's right, we left G with T's parents and spent a romantic evening in the lovely Northern suburb that is Carmel.  We went to see Hail, Caesar!  which I really enjoyed.  Then we had a super romantic dinner at Red Robin.  We ended the night in Robeghan's upstairs living room which is equipped with HBO, current issues of People magazine, and a tiny refrigerator that holds Blood Orange San Pelligrinos.  I was in heaven.  

The next morning we enjoyed an early breakfast at Cafe Patachou and then came home so Patsy and Eddie could get on the road to brave the winter storm that was coming.  

They were playing the Disney Princess Cupcake game and G cried when she saw us and told us to go away.  It's nice to be missed.  

I had the day off of school to celebrate the Day of Presidents.  I saw on the morning news that Conner Prairie was hosting all kinds of events for the holiday and encouraging children to come dressed as their favorite president.  

I delivered on that one.

Thanks to YaYa and Bob's recent trip with Caroline to Springfield, Illinois, I am the proud owner of a Lincoln hat and beard.  They are replicas, don't get too excited.  

This was G doing her best impression of the tall man before he gave The Gettysburg Address.  So stoic.  Bob took us to Gettysburg on a not so fun family vacation back in the mid 80s.  I memorized the address then.  Why?  Because that is what cool 3rd graders do.  Or at least ones who score in the 90th percentile on ISTEP.  Boom!  I was practically a child prodigy.  

Here she is impersonating Lincoln before NEVER.  Did he ever smile?  History does not show it.  

We met Mrs. Fillmore.  Her husband was kind of a forgettable president.  I didn't mention that.  I thought it might be construed as rude.  

Face in a Hole!

Here is G swirling her victory flag after she totally swept the costume contest.  I was shocked that there were hundreds of children there and only mine was in costume.  Again, you're welcome G for having such an awesome mother.  

Face in a Hole!

You didn't think I would take just one, did you?

I have bragged on my childhood intelligence substantially in this post.  I usually have to have some self-deprecating comment or photo.

I give you...

something to haunt you in your sleep.

Those bushy brows really do the trick.  I'm basically a man.  

Happy Birthday, George Washington.

I'm old Abe.  

Bed Bugs!!!!!

Not really.

After my long hiatus, I figured I had better grab some attention with a catchy title.

My puter was not allowing me to download photos.  It kept claiming some nonsense about being full because I have like 10,000 photos downloaded.  

I may start calling this thing Hal.  

I did nothing and then today it let me download 30 pictures.

So here I am.

Back to bed bugs.  A child in my gaggle of 26 babies did have bed bugs.  My first instinct was to climb up on one of the $5 IKEA stools that my babies sit in for guided reading groups.  Then I realized that I might be too hefty for such light Scandinavian hardware.  So I did the next best thing.  I screamed for Avery, our darling custodian.  He assured me that my room would be "disinfected" which in school terms means "We will spray your room with Lysol and vacuum."

He then handed me a roll of plastic trash bags and told me to bag it up.

My bestie Marinda found this to be hysterical.  She came out into the hallway to document this, as she is a part time photojournalist.

Now getting 26 six year olds who can sometimes struggle with zipping their pants to put their coats, hats, mittens and backpacks into a large plastic trash bag is much like herding cats.

Ironically, I led a herd of shorthairs and longhairs across the Rockies back in 2009 without losing one, so the kids were in good hands.  

Step 1:  hold the bag and DO NOT ENTER MY CLASSROOM UNTIL ALL IS BAGGED.

Step 2:  Open bag.

This was a challenge because this is even hard for me.

 Step 3:  Now stuff and twist

 Here is a shot of the nonsense in action.  

Now is there any scientific proof that generic plastic bags stifle the spread of mattress lovin' parasites?  Probably not.  

But I felt better.  

We survived!  

2 weeks later and no problems.

I pray that will continue!

Back at the ranch G has still been posing by our back door.  

We went for a nature walk in Robby's hood and G insisted we play hide and seek.  She found her uncle and father rather quickly.

G had her first play date with Kate.

Kate is her BFF from daycare.

We took them to a little boy's birthday party who is in their class.

Gus is too cute!

G became intoxicated on apple juice.  I never gave her juice and Kate kept heading to the cooler and getting more juice boxes for the two of them.  I pray this is not an early indication of their future high school antics!  

Surviving January

I loathe January.  Christmas is over and it's cold.  Resolutions, new beginnings, blah, blah, blah are not my thing.  I just always try to survive the month without having loungewear permanently tattooed to my body.  So far I have not been that successful.  We have had a few highlights, though!

We went to Family Day at the IMA and the theme was Dance! Dance! Dance!  Since we have a blossoming ballerina on our hands, we could not miss this opportunity.

My darling yogi Erin led kids yoga.  

They had ballerinas sitting for still life drawings.  

I proved that my art skills are identical to those from 3rd grade in Mrs. McNeal's art class.  I just need to add a name and frame.  That woman terrified me.  This drawing gives me the sads. It's just so bad.  It's a symbol of January angst.  

 G got her harping on.  That verb has a totally different meaning here.

 Trinity and Genevieve were master architects.  She definitely has more of a career either operating a wrecking ball crane or a bulldozer.  

G was invited to mermaid Lydia's birthday party.  We went to Target for a gift and this just seemed appropriate.

Another example of how strong my genes are.  This was a variation of pin the tail on the donkey.  Genevieve won by putting the sunglasses on Barbie.  

The precious birthday girl patiently watched my child open her prize for winning the game. 

She won lip gloss (thanks Tara) and Susan was a sport about being her model.  

Mostly this is how she behaved.  

She doesn't quite get the idea that not every party is for her.  

After  that we left her at home for Uncle Robby's birthday party. I look homeless.  I have no words. 

Robby chose Noah Grant's in Zionsville for his dinner.  

Mother finally got a portion of food that she could handle.  She has turned into her mother and exclaims each time that she is served food, "how am I supposed to eat all of this?"  

35 years young.

That means I have 5 more months until I'm 37.  Geesh.

This very dark picture shows Dad was there too.  You know he paid for it all.

We played in the snow.

For 10 minutes.  G had no gloves so she is wearing Trinity's socks on her hands.

She needed hot chocolate.

I have resorted to a sticker chart for my child in the mornings.  i made that in 2 seconds so all of my OCD readers can cringe at the mess.  I couldn't do any better if I had spent 20 minutes on it.  G gets stickers for putting on her clothes, shoes, and brushing her hair and teeth.  That means letting me do all of those things without trying to kick out one of my ovaries.   

We still go to dance once a week.  

She loves it.  I am tortured by how often she comes over to me in 45 minutes asking for a snack.