random monday

Another week... they just keep melting into each other anymore. Today I started painting my kitchen table. That table used to be so beautiful but it has a sad abused past. It was so pretty when it was new. I was so proud of having a piece of furniture that was brand new and that I had picked out. It was my pride and joy. Then within that first week Megan accidentally dumped a bottle of nail polish remover on it and it stripped the stain on a huge area on the top.

It was as painful as that first dent or scratch that you get on your brand new car. It hurt, but I couldn't do anything about it at that point and Megan felt awful. Getting mad wouldn't have done a thing.... and she's the kind of kid who punished herself because of the guilt. (OK, but yeah inside my mind I was FURIOUS!) Mike tried his best to sand it and re stain it, but it was never the same.

Then I started finding marks on the back of the chairs that I couldn't figure out where they were coming from until one day I saw Matthew whose mouth was at the same height chewing on the back of the chairs! nooooo. Can I have a nice piece of furniture? Please? Who chews on chairs?!?!

So basically I decided I was going to work with the 'distressed top' and paint the legs and chairs black and put a new fabric on the seat covers. So far I've done the table and I'm working on the chairs. I have no idea how long it will take to complete my little project, but in my mind it will look great. I hope to be able to find fabric like I have in mind too. Then I'll post pictures.

On top of that today, I mowed my lawn and decided I'd be mom of the year and make some cupcakes. Megan comes in from being out for several hours and says:

"Oh those brownies look gooood!" (I used my silicon heart shaped muffin tin thing that I have made brownies in before, so surely she was confused.)

me: Those aren't brownies, they are cupcakes.

megan: no, they are brownies.

me: no... they are chocolate cupcakes.

megan again: No.... they are brownies.

me: Ok whatever (I'm starting to get a little irritated and wondering who she thinks she is to start getting an attitude with me.) if you are going to argue with me then you can't have one.

megan: Oh, well they smell and look like brownies.

Me.... after getting so angry I go to get the box out of the kitchen garbage to prove her wrong. "Dammit. They ARE brownies." smart alec.

I have no idea what kind of bird this is, but he's been coming back to the top of our tree since yesterday. He's beautiful, and this is one of the times I'd really love to have a zoom lens. We get cardinals and blue jays like crazy, so maybe this guy is just claiming our tree.

Today should be a more promising day for fireworks. Yesterday we had a steady rain all afternoon all the way into the night. Some people still were setting off fireworks, but it wasn't like it was last year where there was so much smoke from all of them that it looked like fog. The country club usually has a huge display that we can watch from our driveway. Yesterday when I drove by they had huge tents outside like they were expecting a lot of people. Hopefully it was just delayed until today and we'll get to see them tonight.

We ended up lighting some sparklers in the garage. Woohoo.

Yesterday was a nice day though. One of Trevor's friends had called and asked if he and Matthew could come over and play. They were there nearly all day. So Megan and I took advantage of our alone time and went to the grocery store and had Panera Bread for lunch. It may not have been the typical 4th of July (cold and rainy) but it was still nice. I hope everybody else enjoyed theirs!

4th

Happy 4th of July!

How I spent my summer. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

Remember that movie Groundhog Day? Sometimes my days feel like that. Or it looks like I rarely do laundry. Because Matthew is one of those kids who has a daily routine.

Surprise... Reds hat, another Reds shirt (we had to have two to alternate with the other one.) and the familiar sounds of Star Wars coming from the little movie player. I can't tell you how many times I hear that theme song or the song that plays when Darth Vader shows up. You know the one. I do love the little pile of Lego people next to the movie player.

If life had a soundtrack this summer.... it is Star Wars. And the kid follows me around telling me about it. You know, how Luke is really Darth's son? But how Darth started out as Anakin Skywalker, or how Obi Wan Kenobi's name is really Ben? The boys are constantly playing with the Star Wars Legos. When did things get so Star Wars crazy around here? At least when daddy is home he does the best Chewbacca sound. If you want to get every body's attention just do that! Or do that little hand thing that Darth Vader does to choke people with the force.

Can it really BE 65 degrees on a summer day? I mean for real. I feel like I'm going to wake up. Last week I was complaining about being a little too hot. Thank you whoever sent this weather. Can we please have this for a few more weeks?

Another thing that has become so routine is what is actually going on right now. At noon on Wednesdays the tornado sirens go off for testing. As soon as I hear it start I just yell out of habit, "It's Wednesday Trevor!" Sure enough he comes down the stairs at the same time saying, "Is it Wednesday?" He hates those things. Everybody else ignores them. I just hope there's never a real tornado on a Wednesday at noon because I'll be upstairs doing life as normal.

more summer....

Look who had their windows open today! It was GORGEOUS today. Well deserved after having a few hot days last week.

I realized one day when I was watching the photo slide show on my screensaver that I have a lot of pictures of my kids playing outside, but with my across the street neighbor's house in the background. Now their house is nice and all... but it's not my house... our house. So I thought while the kids were out front playing with some sidewalk chalk after dinner I would walk across the street and get a picture of them out in the front. This is before the driveway became covered with pictures, crime scene outlines of bodies and hopscotch.

Matthew drew an army guy, but when he was done put this red line through him. Is this some sort of anti-war protest or something? I just noticed he's about to touch a jellyfish.

Trevor stayed with us for awhile, in fact in one picture you can see the turtle that I drew for him. He ended up going behind our street to a friend's house. It was such a nice evening. One of my neighbors was going on a walk with her little girl (who loves Megan) and her baby boy. She ended up sitting out front with us for awhile. I remember when I was a kid in Phoenix and immediately after dinner my parents would pull folding chairs out of the garage and sit out front. It seemed like people used to do that more often. I brought some chairs out of the garage and we sat and talked for a long time.

Which reminds me of one thing I have to save up for. I think I am one of the only people in the state who does not own one of those circular fire pit things. On chilly nights like tonight I can smell them... and I know people are outside gathered around them on their driveway or backyard deck making smores and having a drink. I'm going to keep my eye out for one.

Another summer day down. We're just doing our best to get through them with as little boredom as possible. Days like today are perfect though.

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I also want to say thank you to people who have called or emailed me after hearing the news about the Yemenia plane that went down yesterday. I've had several people stop by my house today too. People know Mike is in Yemen and heard about it, and checked up on us. Thank you! It warms the heart to know that people think about us. He's fine but my thoughts are with the people left behind.

Some photos to share from the other day.

Today we went to Cincinnati to do some errands. We stopped at Costco and had lunch. We've had pizza there before, but how did I not know that you could order a whole pizza and eat it right there? So for $15 we had a large pizza, drinks to share and dessert to share. (Those frozen yogurts are so big anyway!) Then as we walked around the kids kept eating samples. Today was a good sample day - brats with buns, chips with hummus, provolone cheese, meatballs, brownies, some starbucks type cold mocha drink and juice. We should have stayed for dinner.

Then on the way home we stopped at the library. Megan is going through books like crazy this summer. She's almost done with the second book in the Twilight series, which she's only had for a week. She reads more in one week than I read in an entire year anymore. We stopped so she could put the third and fourth one on hold, and she picked up some other books. She's determined to learn French this summer so she checked out a bunch of books on the language.

The boys are into disasters right now. Matthew went up to a woman who worked at the library (I was helping Trevor look for something, and he took it upon himself to go find help.) if they had books on science. "Because I'm into science. Like weather stuff."

Our library is the best. They have a million DVDs to check out. I got Best In Show, which I've seen before, but LOVE and can't wait to watch it again, Walk The Line, and the Gilmore Girls first season. I never got into that show and everybody who watches it loves it so I thought it would be good for Megan and I to watch over the summer. They have every season. I'm also planning on getting caught up on a lot of shows that I meant to watch before... 24, Medium, etc. Oh, and we also got Charmed, which I thought Megan would like. The boys have a ton of Pokemon videos.... which all look alike to me but don't tell them that.

I have to admit that I am sad that I haven't had a frog sighting since the other day. I miss my friend. We let him go in one of the beds in my yard.

Finally!

This poor kid has been waiting forever for his first tooth to fall out. Everybody in his class lost one this year and each time he'd come home bummed and ask me when his was finally going to come out. Then when this one finally decided to get a little loose it stayed loose for months... like it was teasing him.

Yesterday we were in the car and he screams "MOMMY!" before he said the rest I about had a panic attack because I thought something was seriously wrong but then he finished up after a pause and said, "MY TOOTH JUST CAME OUT!"

I didn't even have to play the tooth fairy thing with him because he asked me this year if the tooth fairy was real. We had a very serious conversation out on the front steps. For the record he still believes in Santa but he heard at school that the tooth fairy is really your parents. I asked him if he wanted to know the truth. I mean, I would love to have that bit of magic with the last little one in our family, and especially the first tooth, but I also didn't want him going back to school and getting laughed at while he vehemently defended the tooth fairy. So I told him the truth.

The tooth fairy here rocks anyway. We stopped doing money since I was always out of cash anyway. (Megan one year got an IOU, and Trevor got a hotel bar of soap which he knew was a joke....) Those weren't stellar tooth fairy moments, but in my defense Megan lost like 4 teeth all in something ridiculous like a week.) Just when I thought I was clear and didn't have to worry for awhile she'd come show me another one she lost. And it's always late at night... when I can't run to the bank or store. Who has kids and carries cash anymore anyway?

So while Mike was here a couple of weeks ago he grabbed a Star Wars Lego kit that Matthew had been looking at and snuck up to the front of the store to buy it while I went to another register with our groceries and the kids. This time I was prepared for when the tooth did fall out and replaced the baggie with the tooth under his pillow with the Legos.

So at 6:00 in the morning after he woke up... I was tiredly trying to put together Clone Troopers and continue sleeping at the same time. Thankfully Trevor put the ship together since he loves that sort of thing.