Alida

I love you.

You always make me smile.

 

"Mother, I have a very big head to go in this hat."

Things I will Miss About Here

Waiting for the school bus in the morning.

 

Where we pause and talk while we wait.

 

It is one of my favorite parts of the day.

 

Even before we get out the door and we're still attempting to wake up.

 

Or even after we get out the door and we're still attempting to wake up.

 

The day ahead, and I get to hang with these four for twenty minutes--one of my favorite parts of the day.

Four Hours

One Saturday morning recently, the boys were scheduled for a Boy Scout outing, the girls to go to the movies with their friend.

 

I was waiting for a tree to fall, or someone to fall ill, or an ill timed house showing.

Instead, they all ventured out into the world, and for four hours, I sat an drank my coffee and binge watched Netflix.  Four hours is amazingly refreshing.

The Happy Life of Nicholas

Wins an art award.

(again)

He tells me his teacher makes it mandatory to enter the competitions, so for this one, he just grabbed something out of a folder and handed it in.

 

Man, I wish life worked like that.

Early Release

I'm used to the end of school flurry of events now that have nothing to do with learning.

But the last text here was a new level of wonderment.

Please bring the folder back on Monday, unless your child is not returning.

As in, if your child will not be attending the last 3.5 days of scheduled school, please just drop the folder off in the office.

Because not only do I have to battle the argument that the last day of school is optional.  (it's not)

I will now have to battle the argument that the last week of school is optional. 

 

See that "No Service" message at the top?

Other things I won't miss about living here--no cell service most of the time in our house.

Things I Won't Miss About Here: Monsoon season

Three roof inspections later, the right guy finally fixed our problem.

 

There is no pan under the AC in the upstairs.  There is now at least an overflow shut off valve.

 

Waiting while the cable people argue that those aren't their wires.  Um, yes they are.

The county flatly telling me: we'll clean up the tree mess.  I can tell you it will not be a year, but I cannot tell you it won't be a month before we get to it.

 

That the top of this pole was just taken down, and the cable box re-attached to the broken pole--brilliant.

Drilling the Eyeball

How I found her at the school when I went to pick her up

She had something embedded in her eye.  Off to the optometrist.

He couldn't get it out.

He gave us three prescriptions and told us to come back in a week, if he couldn't flick it out then, then we'd have to drill it out.

No matter what happened for the next seven days, there were at least three different conversations each day about drilling Elaine's eyeball.

Offensive debris gone upon return.  Elaine's flood of relief at not being drilled into was obvious.

The doctor: Oh, I'll need to be more careful when I talk about these things.

Uh, yeah.

 

Far more tears were shed at the annual physical visit the next week, when we learned that Alida is sorely in need of eyeglasses. Back to the optometrist today for both of them.

Facepainting, Homemade style

A couple of weeks ago, I had to go out of town for work.

The day before, the girls came down laughing so hard at themselves, until Elaine when blank with seriousness.

 

Alida: What am I?!

Me: You're a cat.

Alida: Yes!  I have no idea why my ears are on my forehead!

 

Elaine: And, what do you think I am?

Me: (blank stare with wild thoughts)

Elaine: Exactly.  (clearly mad at her face)

Me: A panda?

Elaine: No

Me: I've got nothing.

Elaine: I'm a monkey.  I was supposed to be a panther, but that didn't work.

(Oh, a monkey)

Me: Um, what kind of paint is that?

And two days later, in a different country, I found this, and I smiled.

Time With Grandma Airplane

While I was out for work, Grandma Airplane came along to help the kiddos.

And they made a pretty cool cake!

And spent some time outside.

 

And went to the school art show!

 

And the girls had their end of the year dance at school.

Ha, dance.  right.

 

Thank you grandma for always stepping in when we have the scheduling disasters.

My Day Before Mother's Day

Oh, that is why we woke on Saturday to no power.

 

It was noon before I could get out to buy a cup of coffee, take the girls to their sleepover, get Ben donuts.  But, I failed at getting Nick Internet by then.

 

They had to fix the power, which happened around noon.

Then the internet later, which happened around 6:00.

 

They did unblock my driveway after I went out and complained.  Hostage with no power and no coffee made for a pretty sour Saturday morning....

My Mother's Day

Funnel Cakes with the kids.

Perfection

Happy Mothers Day

Thank you.