So, How's That Teething Thing Going?

That dang tooth is STILL not in!!  And it's only number four!! Oy!! And I cannot seem to use enough exclamation points!!  Yargh!!!

Another Year, Another Post

My new blog book came in the mail yesterday.  I'm not in love with the cover this year (it looked better digitally, I guess), but it'll do.

Included, of course, was my annual book dedication haiku to Lance:

A few random pages...

 

I love my blog books!  But not my hair.  It's going through a rough growing out and super-frizzy phase right now.  Seriously, I thought I hated my hair when I was a teenager because it was so straight and thick; I'd kill for that hair now.  Blasted babies, changing my hair...

And there it is, in its place of honor underneath the picture of Lance and I when we were 16.  Man, I had great hair then. 

Laundry Room Quotes

So I was perusing Pinterest the other day and came across this quote printable that I really, really liked:

(You can find it here if you want your own.)

So I decided that it needed a place in my laundry room.  Sometimes you need a little encouragement like that when you're on your 39th load of laundry.  For the day.  Also, I thought maybe a nicely framed copy of the quote would perhaps detract from the wallpaper that's in there.  Oy.

Yeah, so you're probably wondering why I haven't taken it down yet. I lack three major things: time, energy, and desire.  I figure it's in a room the public rarely sees and I have a billion other home improvement projects in front of it.  That's why.

So I went down to the basement to look for a frame in my frame box.  (What, you don't have a box full of frames?  Weird.)  I found one, plus two smaller frames that matched.  So of course I had to come up with two more quotes about laundry.  Pinterest saved me again, but this time I made my own printables.  Nothin' fancy, but not too shabby, either.

So I printed those up, put them in the frames... and realized that they weren't the types of frames that hang on the wall.

Dang it.

So I improvised with a bit of ribbon

and duct tape.

You can never have too much ribbon and duct tape in the house.  (Hmm... a quote to hang up in the garage, perhaps?)

I finally got them hung.

Cole was pretty annoyed that I wouldn't let him play with the hammer and my new washing machine.  It's hard to be almost three.

And here they are!  I don't know if they really detract from the wall paper, but they do make me happy.

Huzzah!

Teething Baby

Oh what do you do with a teething baby?  One who whines and cries and demands to be constantly held?  I tried throwing her out onto the screened in porch.  She liked it for a bit, but after a while the novelty wore away and she fell back to whining.  And crying.  And wanting to be held.  Constantly.

So then I gave her a cooled pineapple rind.  That hit the spot.  That top tooth of hers is really giving her some trouble - I've never seen a top tooth take so long to come in!  She gnawed the rind down pretty well, considering she only has three teeth. But after a while she got bored with it.  And started whining.  And crying.  And wanting to be held.  And saying something along the lines of "I want some ibuprofen!  Stat!  Oh, and a salty snack, if you have one."

And so I gave her some ibuprofen.  And a nice, cold, salty pickle from the fridge.

And all was well.  (For a while, at least.)

p.s.  I think Tess looks a lot like me when I was a baby.  Do you agree/remember, Dad?

Marcus... Obama?

I found this on one of Spencer's school worksheets today.

Apparently, his name is Marcus.  Funny - he looks more like a Barack to me.

Batman Doesn't Do Church

At dinner tonight Cole leaned over to me and said, "Hey Mommy!"

"What," I replied.

In a conspiratorial whisper he answered, "I'm Batman."

To which I laughed and then realized that this was why Cole is so rotten at church: Batman is not a churchgoing kind of guy.  He'd much rather be out fighting crime and driving the Batmobile.  Instead, he is currently terrorizing the nursery, hitting and pushing kids smaller than him and stealing their toys.  (Yes, I am the mother of that child.  Oh, the joy.)

Well, too bad, Batman.  If there's one soul that needs a little religion right now, it's you.

Productive Saturdays

I like Saturdays that are productive.  Don't get me wrong - sometimes you need a Saturday off to just to relax and do nothing.  But there's something to be said about really getting down to work and marking off a few projects from the eternal "To Do" list. 

This morning we started with pancakes - green, of course.  (We also had our traditional green eggs and ham for dinner, but I forgot to take pictures.)

Tess especially enjoyed them.

Last night we hosted some teenagers and their youth leader from our church.  They were here from Ft. Wayne for a conference activity.  After I drove them to the institute on campus I swung by Menard's to pick up a few things I had been wanting to buy for quite a while: a hedge trimmer, pruning shears, and a window washing squeegee.

Lance quickly got to work using the hedge trimmers.  Now you can see our house number again!

Then I got to work using the pruning shears to get rid of these stupid boxwood shrubs that I have hated since we moved in.  Tess helped by watching me and crying when the hedger was on.

They were like octopus boxwoods, with long tentacles growing every which way.  Yuck.

Yay!  No more boxwood shrubs!  Okay, so the roots are still in, but I figured we might as well wait to pull those out until we're ready to put something else in.  And that probably won't be for another month or so.  I know the weather's all nice right now, but this is Indiana and I don't trust the weather at all.  $5 says it snows at least once again before May.

Mr. Lance helped clean up the mess with our handy-dandy leaf blower.  Jobs like this are so much easier with the right tools.

So, any suggestions for what I should put in?  It's pretty much shady all the time.  I'd love to have something with blooms.  Guess it's time to start doing some research.

After cleaning up the flower beds we got to work on the windows.  People make jokes about not "doing windows", but I have to admit there is something extremely satisfying in squeegeeing some very grimy windows clean.