Out with the Old

It's been with us for 7 years...through 4 kids and in 4 houses. But, today it left the building. The highchair. Gone..ready to move on to a new home at Aunt Judy's for her new grand baby. Good riddance, highchair. You have been a big help however I will not miss cleaning you. I am glad you made it through all 4 of my kids and still have life. But again...good riddance.

Related? We took a trip to Babies R Us this morning. I really can't handle Jacob clearing out my pantry 700 times a day so we had to go get some lever door locks. While we were there we got Jacob a new booster seat with a tray so we could get rid of the highchair. You'd think that with 4 kids and 3 other booster seats I'd actually have one with a tray but no, I don't. I've been wanting to get rid of that highchair for a while and thankfully today is the day! After moving it a few things came to mind: 1. My table looks smaller with 3 booster seats in the chairs and a large empty space where the highchair used to be. 2. The highchair actually takes up a lot of room. 3. Jacob has a really strong arm as evidenced by the food & milk stains all over the walls behind where his chair used to be. And those stains are MUCH more noticeable now that the large chair is removed.

Feels like a new chapter in our family. One we are excited to get on with. Now if we could just get to the "No Sippy Cups" and "No Diapers" chapters. I actually think the no sippy cups sounds better than no diapers..weird?

Cutest Flower Girls Ever

We had a WONDERFUL weekend celebrating my cousin's wedding. We were so excited to be able to attend so many pre-wedding festivities. The wedding was beautiful and the reception was one of the best parties we've been to. My cousin, Emily, the bride was absolutely stunning and her happiness just radiated all weekend. We were blessed to have wonderful hospitality all weekend from our friends the Shultz's (we met them in MA!). All in all it was a wonderful, fun weekend!

The girls were great all weekend. They handled the late nights and meeting all sorts of people fabulously. They had a great time getting to know Emily's bridesmaids and hanging out with family that we haven't seen in a long time. Emma was very serious about her flower girl duties...we couldn't help but notice during the rehearsal how she carefully placed on petal at the end of each pew. Lily, on the other hand, was much more haphazard about the whole ordeal. I'm sure she did her best, but she was cracking us up during the wedding - she kept looking up at the ceiling, spinning around and just generally fidgeting during the vows. Emma, of course, stood perfectly still for the most part and watched patiently. So different, those two..so different.

Here Comes the Bride

My sweet, beautiful (gorgeous) cousin is getting married this weekend! (She's one of THOSE girls - you know that are as beautiful on the inside as they are on the outside) My older girls are flower girls and are wearing these fabulous dresses that her mom, my aunt, made (MADE!?!) in all her spare time from "mother of the bride" duties. We're leaving early in the morning to kick off the weekend festivities at her Bridesmaid Luncheon. I'm so glad my kids are in the wedding so I get to tag along to all the fun stuff too. It's going to be a super fun weekend and my cousin, Emily, is seriously going to be The. Most. Beautiful. Bride. I asked Lily is she was excited about the wedding and she replied: "oh yeah..and they'll be cake. There's always cake at weddings." A girl after my own heart.

My mom is going to stay home and keep the little monsters. Bless her heart. When she kept them a couple weekends ago Jacob got an enormous goose egg on his head about an hour after we left. So hoping that doesn't happen again.

I'll be back after the weekend with some pics of the cutest flower girls you ever did see.....

Saturday Potpourri

A bunch of random thoughts this snowy Saturday (oh..wait..that's every Saturday lately):

1. This particular snow is great: beautiful to look at and the roads appear to be fine. Saturday activities go on as planned! Yay!

2. Speaking of Saturday activities, I have nearly 300 girl scout cookie boxes to pick up and deliver. That should be fun.

3. How in the world do children who weigh less than 40lbs make so much noise going up and down the steps? Honestly, you'd think a herd of buffalo live in our house.

4. And in other children mysteries: why do they have to run in the house yet in a parking lot when it's freezing cold they will take their time and drag their feet.

5. I'm really, really ready for Spring. I generally don't mind winter but this year I've had it.

6. I'm a sucker for kids books - we had the annual book fair at school this week, scholastic book flyer for Julia's preschool and a used book sale at dance. Needless to say my children don't need any new reading material for a while.

7. Just Dance is still fun. Really fun..hope they come out with a 2nd version.

8. What is with Valentine treat bags? Honestly don't our kids get enough candy in general. Moms..let's get together and end this insanity. Lily's teacher had it right - have the kids bring the box of valentines to school and they addressed them in their writing center the week before Valentine's Day. So she did get a few pieces of candy and pencils but no treat bags. I think all teachers should do this.

The Homework Box

Homework. Those are dreaded words. I think as dreaded by parents as by kids. Emma never really had homework last year - just read nightly. Which we did. Some. Mostly. This year Emma has "real" homework. And by real I mean she has a calendar with some activities to do Mon - Thurs. They take her about 5 minutes (then there is reading to do). She used to love homework but lately it's been a challenge to get her to do her work. She claims to not understand the problems or there are tears involved in finding materials to use for homework (i.e. when I tell her she can't use an orange marker or a scrap piece of paper to write on). Apparently actually having to walk upstairs to get paper is a horrendous activity at 4:30 in the afternoon. I don't remember having so much "homework drama" as a kid. Maybe I did and I just blocked it out.

So I decided we couldn't continue on this path. And while we have all the materials she needs for homework they weren't in one exact place (and by that I mean she actually had to look in 2 cabinets to get things). So today while girls were at school I made "homework boxes." For Lily, whose homework is just reading, I gathered a bunch of easy reader books, an egg timer and a star pointer and put them in her box. For Emma, I gathered a folder of notebook paper, pencils, erasers, a pencil sharpener and some chapter books in her box. I put them in the dining room, away from distractions. When the girls got home from school I showed them their new boxes. They loved it. Lily sat down eagerly to read and Emma did her work without complaint! Emma says, "Meri (her bff) has a homework box. This is great." Yay! Hopefully this will work for at least a little while and we can have at least a few weeks of tear free homework.

It's the Weekend, Right?

Three snow days plus school on Saturday make a for a strange week. Add to that Paul being home all week and I'm not sure if we're coming or going! One thing I do know: Paul and I are going today...going out of town for a kid-free night!! It's actually not a completely leisure trip - we are going to a USGA golf meeting for my dad (golf meeting for 3 hours - how FUN does that sound to a non-golfer? Think I can sneak my ipod touch in & play games during the meeting?) but it's kid free nonetheless. I hope to have a couple hours today to nap in the hotel room and read without anyone interrupting me. And shower without interruption - doesn't that sound blissful? A big thanks to Gagi who's braving it babysitting all our kids. It's probably a good thing the big girls had school today!

Emma starts selling Girl Scout Cookies and cookie booths tomorrow - if you are by Lowe's at Preston Corners stop by and get some!

Have a great weekend!

Future Pop Star

So the video quality on this stinks but here is Lily singing her favorite song. Yes, she's using the Guitar Hero guitar. She loves to perform.

Cabin Fever

So we got about 5" of snow on Saturday morning and now we're going on our 5th snow day. Apparently in NC you get one day off from doing anything for every inch of snow that falls. It's borderline ridiculous now. Apparently there are still areas of our county that haven't seen a snow plow. I have two thoughts about this: 1. All these snow days are just a ploy from the Wake Co. government to get us to spend money. You see all the main roads are cleared and EVERYONE has cabin fever so you know everyone's going to be out tomorrow spending money. Shopping, eating out, movies. The economy will surely be stimulated.

And my 2nd thought (and keep in mind that I was born and raised in the south) is that we southerners are just plain lazy about snow removal. We just assume that the sun is going to do the hard work for us. And I know..we don't have all those plows or snow equipment that they do up North but honestly, we could do better. There are a lot of people living in this area from up north - let them teach us how to do this better. They are all laughing at how 5" of snow has kept us out of commission for 5 days.

I love my children dearly but all this togetherness is a bit much. I'm ready for our routine to get back to normal and I don't like the idea of them having to go to school so many Saturdays. So, fingers crossed that after it's 50 tomorrow and sunny that ALL the snow will melt and we can get back to school on Thursday. And, fingers crossed that the weather forecast is so very wrong for the weekend.