World Citizens

Guess whose grandparents just got back from a shopping extravaganza!

Look at all these reverent girls! Oh, then look at Heidi and Molly.

Emily shows off her "Mulan" hands.  Molly shows off her belly button.

Heidi tries to escape. This picture shows off their personalities too well.

Ni Hao!

In case you were wondering, Emily has not taken off that lovely 

necklace and bracelet set since she got it on February 5th.  

Happy Easter!

Easter snuck up on us this year!  We had to hurry to get all the decorations up and dye the eggs in time for Sunday. Thank goodness Safeway had a buy-one get-one special for 18 count eggs.  Now the only tricky part will be eating them all . . . 

We weren't too creative this year.  For the most part Emily just wanted single colored eggs and Molly wanted only pink eggs.  You'd be surprised how many eggs fit in these bowls.  Molly is very efficient and did 7 at a time!

Heidi was kept a safe distance from the dye.  Sorry Heidi.

Here are the girls, Super Model, Prince Valiant, and Daredevil, getting ready to follow the jelly bean trail to their baskets and to find their eggs that the Easter Bunny hid.  The girls were super finders this year.  I only found one that we missed today!  We hope that's the only one we missed.

How cute is this?  Three little dresses all ironed (wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles) and ready to go.  This might be one of the last times I can find matching dresses for everyone now that Emily is so darn tall so I had to do it!

And here we are at church.  It's a good thing we took a photo because we can remember this was the day that Heidi didn't have to go on the hallway once! As you can see I was sucked into the polka dot theme too.  Thanks, Target!  Notice Molly's "shiny red shoes", as she calls them, that are Emily's size and that she loves, loves, loves and wears with everything.  I tried to offer alternatives, like her white sandals, but it just wasn't happening.  At least I got her to take off the multi-colored easter egg socks that have been paired with the shoes lately so I consider it a win for me (and obviously Molly considers it a win for her that she made it to church in the shoes).  

You Can Win!

It's true, everyone's a winner, but isn't it fun to get something once in a while? Can you tell me which movie Emily is watching?  If you can correctly name it, you'll get a prize.  Really, I'll send you something fun.  Here's a hint - this movie was sold out at Target and I had to rent it. HOW did I not get to Target in time?  

The purpose of this post is to show off the latest in hair accessories - pipe cleaners!  Emily's request for this morning's hairstyle was "Gretel hair that sticks straight out."  For those of you not up-to-speed on your Sound of Music references, Gretel hair means braids and called Gretel hair after Gretel Von Trapp who is 5 years old, quite a lady, and a friend to all - at least to the girls at my house.  Pipe cleaners make stick-out Gretel hair possible - and oh so desirable!

Notice that the Gretel Hair is still sticking up and they haven't fallen out completely.  Sure, it looks a little crazy but also, It's 6:00!  Frankly, I'm impressed, especially after two playdates at two different parks and "relaxing time" with Molly in their room.  No relaxing is ever done during this time but the girls know they can't come out of their rooms until I come get them. It used to be called nap time but since they both quit napping last summer they get mad if I say the word nap.  Sigh.  I'm going to have a write a new dictionary.

Here are all three girls at the first park this morning when they were still pretty clean.  Emily is showing off the braids, Molly is showing off her fluffy yellow hair without any clips, bows, or accessories of any kind, anywhere at anytime, and Heidi is showing off a head full of potential.  

Ta Dah!

Done!  Well, it was actually done a few days ago but I wanted to post a clean photo.  The cabinet painters had a marathon session on Saturday and by seven that night the kitchen was done!  I was very happy and ready to go to bed and dream about the time it would be put together again but Scott had a great idea.  Why not go to Home Depot, rent a carpet cleaner, clean up all night long and then we'll be done!  I was not as jazzed about trying this but I was looking forward to moving everything back into place so we did it.  

Somehow the girls, who wake up when the neighbors roll over at night, slept through the vacuuming session -  a true miracle.  We finally hopped into bed at 3:30 when the floors were clean, the dust was wiped and the rooms like they hadn't been bombed.  Staying up so late reminded me of being in college again but way, way less fun!  OK, it was kind of fun to get everything done.  It was NOT fun knowing that the girls were not going to let us sleep in.  The fact that we'll have three teenagers at once is somewhat less scary knowing that they're finally going to sleep in! 

So here's Scott doing his best teenage girl impression (I guess it would be a better teenage girl impression if he were texting instead of talking) in our new kitchen.  The white makes everything look so, so much bigger and I love pretending the kitchen is gigantic.  The blue on the walls is, luckily, NOT this scary in real life but I have to admit, even I think it's a little, um, blue.  Now the fun part.  I have to shop for some accessories to tie in the floor with the rest of the kitchen.  Any ideas?

Sticky Goo

The tile demo was surprisingly easy.  I guess builder-grade material is good for something.  Two guys came over with what looked like yardsticks with jack hammer heads.  They popped tiles out for a few hours, cleaned everything up (THANK YOU!!) and then put a pool of sticky goo all over everything.

This is what it looked like this morning when I woke up.   I have to say I loved the color and was sad to see it go, but not that sad. 

 

This is what it looked like five hours later.

This is what it looks like with my toes.

As Lola would say, I completely love it.

A Tuscan Kitchen

Luckily the subway tile backsplash is not actually pink but, as our tile guy called it, "very, very white."  The tile guy was very fast, clean and polite, even if he kept trying to sell me tumbled stone tiles instead of the white ceramic ones. I had to tell him I was sure that was what I wanted about five times.  

I guess he's just used what I call a "Tuscan Kitchen".  This is the kitchen that all the model homes have that evoke in some way beautiful Tuscany.  These kitchens are lovely, just not what I want.  Also, I'm sure there are no Tuscan kitchens that in any way resemble these model homes.  (I wouldn't know, as I understand there are no houses to rent there.)

See if you can find my favorite toy - Marbleworks!  It was in the pantry and had to be moved for the floor demolition that will be shown on the next post.

Hallelujah!

Cue the angels, mermaids, sparkly fairies, etc!

 

My Favorite Things

Aside from raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, these are a few of the things I cannot live without. (If you are invited appear on a "favorite things" show, make sure it is the OPRAH show and not the Laurie show.  The gift bags on the other show might be a better haul.)

My favorite store in the world.  If they had a better grocery section I could do ALL my shopping there.  I actually found an outfit to wear to Scott's office's formal holiday party at Target this year and I didn't feel out of place with all the fancy ladies there.  

Thanks to earplugs I am now able to sleep in the same hotel room with three kids.  I can still hear them if they need something but I no longer wake up when they roll over.  I am a much happier mom.

Sudokuing is my way of relaxing.  Scott calls it "doing nerd puzzles."  He's right.  

I got my Dirt Devil Sweeper Vac for my birthday and I am happy every day because of it.  Mine is silver, to match the hairs that show up more and more every birthday.  Perhaps I should get a yellow one now, to match what I keep dying my hair.

This, along with the Clorox Bleach Pen works as well as the ads claim.  I use it for dishes, cleaning the shower, taking marker off the new furniture, etc.  LOVE.  The Tide Stain Stick does not work - at all.  

For Christmas Scott gave me this cool ipod docking station.  I carry it all over the house and the girls and I play DJ.  May we recommend our favorites?  They Might Be Giants, Ratatouille and Hairspray soundtracks, and ABBA.  

Victoria's Secret IPEX No Wire bra.  Silly name - I think it sounds like a robot antelope - but GREAT bra.  It makes me look like I'm not a 13 year-old boy.  

HOW did our grandparents live without the Dish DVR?  I am trying to figure out how I'm going to get it to Girls Camp this year.  

This is the best lotion I have ever used.  It's even better than Eucerin.  I have a real problem with dry hands.  My hands are often so dry that I can't touch certain fabrics because my skin attaches to it like velcro.  The overnight cream (that I use not just at night) makes this problem go away for a while.  The Target knock-off is almost as good and much cheaper.  

Clinique's black honey lipstick looks a little scary in this photo but don't be scared!  It's not "long wearing" but it doesn't taste gross, doesn't cake, doesn't bleed, looks good on EVERYONE and matches EVERYTHING!  I buy two at a time during Bonus week.  

I'm really enjoying the favorite things blogs.  I'm tagging Monica, Kristen, Paige, Erica, Stacey ES and Stacey DW.  Have fun!  (Hopefully your products are sold at Target so I can buy them.)

Counters?

We left the bathroom and went downstairs to see the progress.  Emily looked at the counter and said to the man installing them, "Hey, why did you cover up the paintings?"   She thought we had already completed the new look for the kitchen.  Darn it.

Island Style

For FHE last night we painted the plywood on top of our kitchen island.  It's just going to get covered up anyway tomorrow (fingers crossed) so we might as well have some fun with it.  

Here's the before shot.  Notice that no cupboards are open and it still looks like a model home. That's because we spend all day upstairs in the bathroom.

And the after!  It was so fun that I might think of other projects to paint - like a giant Chinese armoire.  Stay tuned for that photos one.  It's happening this weekend.

Cleaning Tips

Even when we have a kitchen sink again, I'm thinking of always serving lunch in the bathroom. I stick the big girls in the tub and (for now) Heidi in the high chair.  If Molly and Emily spill it just goes down the drain! (Heidi, as soon as you don't steal everyone's food you can go in the tub too.) 

At night we clean the tub by cleaning the girls IN the tub.  It really is handy.  I give everyone a cloth and they wipe everything clean. I'm recommending it to any busy mom who always wanted to say, "Get in the tub so we can eat dinner!" Talk about multi-tasking.

For lunch we had pizza cooked in the toaster oven, sweet potato sticks (Have you tried these? They're from Costco and I'm WILD for them!) and blueberries.  It looks like maybe Molly had a sour one in this photo. Emily has a "I ate a sour blueberry" look too but she is really just doing her supermodel smile.