The sign says it all.

Little brothers can be SOOOOOOOOOOOOO annoying (read that in your most dramatic and whiny almost 6-year-old voice for emphasis).

Just today this little brother has "ruined everything" multiple times, 

has made Mia "very, very, very, very, very, very angry." 

will never, ever, ever in twenty billion years get to play with Mia's markers again, 

and, as the sign states, has been banished from his big sister's room forever.

I give her a B- for the incorrect use of an apostrophe, but even still, she made her point.

My not-so-new anymore bathroom

So on the big demo day for my teeny, tiny bathroom the only instruction I left my husband was to take some before pictures.  In fact, I went so far as to call him and remind him.

To no avail.  (He tends to block out a lot of my very specific and important instructions, but that's another post altogether).

And because I was in denial about the horrificness of the before bathroom and tried to block it out every day of my life, I have no pictures of it anywhere.

And before you go enlarging these pictures and critiquing all the details let me say that it is not really finished.  

We decided to do some of the finishing work ourselves to save a little dough.  

Like that's going to actually happen in any sort of timely manner.

And, yes, I know the woodwork needs another coat of paint, but who has time for that nonsense?

This bathroom is exactly 0.005 square feet.  Which is pretty small for a master bathroom. But that's what you get in a 40+ year old neighborhood.  

We got rid of that awful built-in medicine cabinet fur-down thingy and replaced it with a modern medicine cabinet .

This is my half.  Hello storage, I love you.

 I have a huge crush on this sink.

We raised the ceiling of the shower as high as it would go (it used to be a "steam shower" with the ceiling resting nicely on my husband's head).

I love me some subway tiles hung vertically and I love, love, love me a built in shelf for all my products - I'm high maintenance like that.

 Pebble stone shower floor?  Yes, please.

It's like a little foot massage every morning.
Or something like that.

 I can't get enough linen tiles in my life. 

These babies are 12x24 Emser tiles in chestnut.

 Now that this house is finally completely renovated, I'm kinda ready to get me another diamond in the rough.

(Don't even think about telling my husband that.)

Guess who Mia wants to be for Halloween?

After this, and this, and this, and this Mia is still strangely fascinated with all things Wicked.

And I was all proud that she liked Elphaba the best.  We all want to beleive our child is deep, and independent, and will stand on her own despite what others think, and likes to be different.

(Halloween, 2009)

And I still believe all those things about my sweet girl.

But she still wants a chance to wear the pink dress, and who can blame her?

I'm thinking next week she'll want to be Bride Barbie.

A random sample of everyday life

The children invented a lovely game called "Dig up the front lawn."

Yes, they did destroy a large and lovely patch of green grass,

and no, I don't care one little bit.

They can eat an entire pint of ice cream while simultaneously burning the house down so long as they are getting along and not trying to tear each other to smithereens.

My standards have been drastically reduced these days.  And I'll tell ya, I'm much happier for it.

Father of the year - in a tent watching Snow White before the OU game was even over.

I think I'll keep him.

Wednesday night special

Dinner Menu:

Strawberries served on a kitchen towel

Clothing optional.

What Mia does while the rest of the kindergarteners sleep

Even with her new 7:30 AM wake-up time, Mia is incapable of falling asleep before 10:30.  

I've tried everything.  

It's just not gonna happen.

So what on earth do you do for 2 1/2 hours every night in your room?  

You draw.  And you destroy your room and get your freshly bathed self filthy in the process.

A couple of my personal favs from the past week:

The little man in the corner is saying, "I can't see very well."

Mia insists that the other arm is behind her back.

This is me cooking breakfast :)

Her furniture.

And she lives for words of affirmation (who doesn't).

She comes out of her room 50 times and asks, 

"What part do you like the best?"  

"Look at this for a real long time, Mommy, and tell me everything you like about it."

"Name your five favorite things about this picture."

Sit down and look at this very closely, then tell me why you love it so much."

As a result, her hands look like this the next morning when she goes to school.  (I've learned that the word "washable" is relative.)

And her face looks like this with tears streaming down it and the words "I don't want to go to school today" coming out of her mouth in a very high pitched whine.

It's going to be a long 12 years.

Drama-free drop-off

With all the drama of our first-born starting kindergarten I may have accidently forgotten that our youngest was also going back to school.

It happens.

We completely blew off the open house and forgot to have his back-to-school dinner but I assure you we did not forget to take him.  

Five glorious hours without him at home of learning and interacting with other children?  Yes, please!

Being "lazered" by Bode is the equivalent of a hug and a kiss these days.

I'll take what I can get.

Bode insisted on taking our picture.

Notice the look of sheer exuberance on Andy's face (Thursdays happen to be his day off).

The theme of the morning was, "No tears for three-year-old boys going to school!"

I was not hopeful it would work considering what we went through with him last year.

But wonder of wonders....he did it!  

No tears, no drama, no clinging for dear life to Mom.

He owns Sonshine School.

Two things completely unrelated

This is for Gena:  Proof that your kid does eat something besides Skittles at my house.

And in other news:  Why is it that while I am excitedly flipping through the new American Girl Holiday catalog my daughter is busy shining her rock collection?

Oh, the humanity!

You will be very relieved to know that they now make headgear for your American Girl Doll.  

Having been a headgear nerd myself, let me assure you this does not make it any better.  

I love not camping.

I'm terrified of camping in any way, shape, or form.

So what did I do this weekend?

Why, take 40 college students camping, of course.

I actually went to cook.

And by "cook" I mean "stop at Alfredo's and pick up dinner."

Apparently camping with college kids includes pulling really hard on ropes, throwing random things into camp fires, and consuming large quantities of food.

I'm cool with that.

It does not include sleeping on a pillow-top mattress (or any mattress, for that matter) and 400 thread-count sheets.  

After a little pep talk to myself I was cool with that too.

I am honored and thrilled to be a surrogate mother to these students.  

If Mia and Bode grow up to be just like them, that would be perfectly fine with me.

Packing Heat

Bode's obsession with guns is starting to get out of control.  He can't leave the house without at least one gun in his hand.

And yelling out phrases like, "Mom, how come I can't bring my gun to the bank?" or "But I want to take my gun inside Mia's school," really loud in public are going to end up getting me into some kind of embarrassing trouble that will involve a news crew and the police.  I can just feel it.

Anyone up for posting bail?