I need a nap.

What a weekend this is turning out to be! Yesterday, Shannon and I went to Cirque Du Soleil Alegria.

It was awesome. Shannon brought her kids over to my house while we were there, and Mike watched all four kids for us. When we got back, the girls were begging for Savannah to have a sleepover. And today, the girls both have friends over.

We have a full house today. I also went to the grocery store this morning, fed all the kids and their friends lunch, and made two batches of slime.

Sadly, I didn't get a wink of sleep last night due to my newfound insomnia. I am seriously ready to crash. Tomorrow's itenerary: nap!

A little bit of spring

I think spring is here! The kids have been able to play outside the past few days and they LOVE it. They were digging in the garden yesterday, and Briana came in to show me this.

I was shocked to not only see our very first worm, but to see that Briana had put her hood up!

We also discovered that my daffodils are starting to come up. Yay!

Last night, Ellie barked at the back door to go out, so I let her out and sat down to dig in to some of my laundry. After a while, I realized that Ellie hadn't been barking by the back door to come back in like she would normally do. So I went to the back yard to see what she was into. And this is where I found her.

It is our sand box that Mike put a tarp on last fall to keep out the yuckies. And he put all that wood on top so the tarp wouldn't blow away. I don't know how Ellie got herself onto that platform, but she could not get back off. I tried shaking her bag of treats, but no. She would stand up, look around and lay right back down. She was stuck! Mike ended up going out there to rescue her. We had a doggie damsel in distress.

Candy stash

I was in my bedroom this morning putting my makeup on. Sydney came in with a big smile on her face. "Hi Sydney," I said, "what are you so happy about?"
"Well," she says, "look what I found in my room!" She hold out her hand and shows me a miniature peanut butter cup.
"Where did you get that?" I asked her.
"I snuck it home from Mamaw and Papaw's house." She says, matter-of-factly.
"Oh." I replied.
"I kept it in my secret candy stash" she tells me.
"Really. Do you have any more in there that I can have?"
"No. But the next time we go to Mamaw and Papaw's house, I'll sneak some home for you too."
"Thanks, Sydney."
"You're welcome."

We've been slimed!

Today we made our slime. It turned out to be so, so fun! We followed the directions, and here is the science experiment portion of our slime. The borax is mixing with the water, congealing into a slime.

After that happens, we pretty much just grabbed as much slime as we could and mushed it around. Briana of course, dug right in.

I gave it a try, but that slime was just so...slimy.

Sydney wasn't willing to touch it at all until she changed out of her Hello Kitty dress. But then she dug in and enjoyed it just as much as the rest of us.

Luck o the Irish

Happy St. Patty's Day!! I had my first run in with a little leprechaun first thing this morning.

It kept spying on me as I was making breakfast! Luckily, Sydney came downstairs just in time and scared it away.

After breakfast, we set up a leprechaun trap.

The girls put some reece's peices under the basket to try to lure the leprechaun in. Then if we caught one, we were going to steal his pot of gold!

Unfortunately, the girls had to go to school and they couldn't watch the trap all day.

I got to go to school today too, for Lunch With A Loved One, and we got to shop at the bookfair during recess. Look what I got!

I was gone from the house all day, and didn't get back until after school. Look at this mess that we came home to!

The pictures on the walls were all crooked, the couch cushions were askew, and look what he did with Briana's shoes!

Even my rocking chair had been tampered with!

Then we remembered to check our leprechaun trap. Guess what? That sneaky leprechaun got away! But, he left a couple pots of gold.

After the girls found their pots of gold, I found my treasure, in the form of a very messy kitchen!

Lucky me!

After the girls saw that the leprechaun had escaped, they took off their shoes and very quietly searched the rest of the house for him. After a little while, they gave up. That is about the time that I started hearing some very unusual sounds coming from upstairs. It sounded a lot like "Yodel-aaa-heee-hoooo" So I went up to investigate. I searched high and low, but I couldn't find anything. And every few minutes, I kept hearing "Yodel-aaa-heee-hoooo!" I tried following the sound of the yodelling, and I finally found this.

It was a leprechaun in Briana's closet! And it was wearing my shirt! And Briana's red cowboy hat! And that leprechaun was very, very sneaky. Every time I would find it, it would sneak away and find a new hiding place. I was starting to get worried that the leprechaun had eaten Briana. So I put out some green popcorn to see if I could get Briana to reappear.

It worked!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Adventures in crafting

Since Mike had gone skiing last weekend, I started crafting up a storm. I couldn't help myself! It all started with this paper wallet that I saw on Martha.

Isn't that cute! And it's covered with vinyl, which is actually kind of fun to sew with. Here's a picture of the inside.

But then I had all this vinyl left over because it only costs $1 per yard at Walmart, so really it would be dumb to get less than a yard. So I decided to make my kids some pencil bags to take in the car when we go to Arizona. I just lined them with vinyl.

And since I didn't have enough projects going on at this point, I decided to make homemade cinnamon rolls. Oh, they were yummy!

Here is Briana licking her lips right after they came out of the oven.

They were delish!!

Yesterday I started having a panick attack while I was thinking about everything that I have to get done before we leave for Arizona. So I went out and got all our Easter shopping done. Phew! Every year at Arlene's house, the kids exchange little Easter baskets with each other (Ernst family: please don't ever start this tradition. It is fun for the kids but a giant pain in the neck for me and my wallet.) I saw this cute idea in my magazine, so yesterday the girls and I put together our goodie bags.

And we glued a cotton ball on the back of each bag for the tail. After I finished those, I made the girls some cute travel journals with some more of my left over vinyl (And I still have a TON of vinyl left!)

I am hoping for some very cute travel stories in these!

What were the girls doing during all of my crafting, you ask? Well, Sydney was sick, so she was mostly resting or watching cartoons. And Briana was busy dressing up like an Egypt person.

Ha ha ha!

Anyway, while I was making the travel journals I was also watching Martha, and on today's show, they made slime. It was so cool! I am going out tomorrow to get some Borax and kool aid and we will be making slime soon!

Gym class

After we finished cleaning the basement yesterday, we played school. We read and did workbooks and the kids took turns being the teacher. Sydney was the music teacher, and we sang the days of the week song. Then it was Briana's turn to be the teacher, and she wanted to be the gym teacher. She wanted to teach us something that they really do at school in gym, and guess what it was? The Macarena. I'm not kidding. And they must have been practicing it a lot, because Briana had that dance down pat. My tax dollars are clearly hard at work here. On a brighter note, there's nothing like doing the Macarena with a 6 & 7 year old to brighten your day :)

My Saturday.

I have something that I would like to share. It is a major accomplishment. We cleaned the basement. If you have seen my basement lately (and some of you have) then you will know that it was becoming quite scary down there. A war zone of sorts. But not anymore! It is a clean, organized environment now. I should have taken a before picture, but I didn't think of that until just now. Anyway, here's the after picture.

Yes! The girls can now play school down there. And I don't need to be on the show "Hoarders" anymore. Phew!

P.S. Sydney just went over to the couch where Ellie was laying and said "Hello, Ellie. We need to have a chat. Why do you go around sniffing your butt every day?" He he he.

Ellie is so smelly

After school today, Briana sat on the couch and turned on the tv. She was going to relax and watch a little bit of cartoons. Ellie jumped up on the couch for a snuggle. I was in the kitchen helping Sydney with her homework.


"Ellie, GET DOWN!" I hear Briana holler. "GET DOWN NOW!!" I knew I had to go see what was going on, so I went to the family room and Briana told me that Ellie is so smelly that it was giving her a stomach ache. Great, I thought to myself. What has that dog gotten into now?


A few minutes later, Briana came up to the kitchen with a sour look on her face. "What's wrong?" I asked her.
"Well," she says, "it wasn't Ellie that was so stinky. It was my feet! They are super stinky!"
I told her she could either use a baby wipe and wipe her feet off, or she could soak them in the tub. Nope. She wanted to soak them in my foot spa. So I brought it down to the kitchen, and as an added touch, I squirted a couple squirts of soap in there to freshen up her stinky piggies. Well, guess what happens when the foot spa gets turned on and there is soap in there? It makes bubbles. Lots of bubbles.



We had bubbles everywhere. I had to make trips running back and forth to the sink with arm loads of bubbles. The floor around her became soaked with bubbles. Briana was up to her knees in bubbles.

But guess what? No more stinky feet.

Quick! Get the hand sanitizer!

My conversation with Briana this morning.

Briana: Is Sydney staying home from school today?

Me: Yes, she's sick and she has a fever.

Briana: Oh.

Briana: I think I might be sick too.

Me: You're not sick.

Briana: Are you sure?

Me: Positive.

Briana: But last night I asked Sydney if she would lick me so I could catch her germs and stay home from school today too.