Easter!

Secret Bend in the River

The two highlights of the day - The bullfrog we found that was nearly as big as Shelby's head and the beaver we saw swimming downstream to her den. We named the bullfrom Jake Jack and we named Mrs. Beaver Consuela.

Easter Eggs

Hailey working really hard!

This is what Shelby did most of the time - bossed us around.

I realized when I was looking at this picture that Hailey's hands look EXACTLY like mine. That's so cool. Everyone always says the girls look just like Brian, but that hand is identical to mine and mine is identical to my dad's. It makes me feel like I'm part of something bigger than me to have someone that I look like and for my daughter to have someone that she looks like.

Hailey was having so much fun designing eggs that she was laughing. Actually at this point she may have been dipping her fingers and watching them turn colors.

Finished Project

Despite the girls best efforts to push me over the edge with the event that will forever be known as the "Packing Peanut Incident" the wall is finished!

Speaking

Check it out! I'm one of the speakers at the NANC conference this year. Isn't that cool!

Mommy Date

Shelby and I had a great mommy date tonight. She came to the VOH graduation tonight and was so good. The whole time she was literally vibrating with excitement about how awesome our mommy date after the graduation was going to be.

She was so obedient the whole night and then was so good when we got to Purdue. She was so excited about everything - the drive over, the parking garage, the red tulips, the seeing eye dog we saw, etc, etc. She exclaimed over the amazing glass stairwell and the beautiful princesses at the dance.

We got to go to an Indian dance troupe event that was very culturally interesting. It turned out to be a little more "religious" than I was hoping, but it was a very good opportunity to experience some culture that I'd never seen before. Here's a little video clip of part of it.

My mom has started buying us tickets to event for Christmas present instead of stuff, which we LOVE. We've been able to go to Seussical the Musical, this dance troupe event, and soon Brian will take Hailey to see STOMP. We have really loved my mom's creative Christmas present!

I'll post some more pics later. It didn't start until 8 pm and we didn't get home until almost 11 pm, so I'm pretty tired.

Things That Make You Want To SCREAM!

So we had this GREAT idea about turning one little wall in our kitchen into a huge blackboard, so we can color on it, write our grocery lists on it, and all the fun things that you do with a chalkboard. So I ran to the store on my lunch break, bought the supplies, and then hurried through supper so we'd have plenty of time to get the project done.

I was feeling pretty good about life. I had a great day at work, and I mean like SUPER productive! I had cleaned the whole house on Saturday, dusting, vacuuming, etc and things were good.

Here's a pic of me taping up the wall. Shelby's being my little tape holder.

After we got the wall all taped up I let the girls have a turn with the paint roller. But then I started getting nervous because the paint was as black as tar and I was really nervous about someone either dripping it onto the hardwood floor or backing their butt up against the wall and ending up with a HUGE mess and I wasn't about to have to clean up a HUGE mess tonight.




So I let the girls participate then I kindly excused them to play in the living room.

I worked along merrily, and I realized after the first coat that I had gotten an extraordinary amount of work done without the girls in the kitchen and I silently thanked God that there would be no messes to clean up tonight.

So I ran into the living room to check on the girls and this is what I walked into . . . .

You should really double click on the picture so you can get the full effect of the situation.

Yes, that is 5,000,000 packing peanuts all over the living room floor, squished, broken apart, ground into dust ALL OVER MY NICE CLEAN, NEWLY DUSTED, FRESHLY VACUUMED LIVING ROOM.

Brian had gotten an Ebay box from a vendor obsessed with packing peanuts, and he'd put the box (which mind you was BIG, big enough to fit both girls into) next to the trash. I saw the girls get the box to play with but I had no idea that there were PACKING PEANUTS in it.

When I walked into the living room there were my 2 precious angels, naked as jaybirds (and I still don't know why they were naked) jumping all over the packing peanuts and throwing them up into the air, grinding them to dust, hopping into the pile like leaves, and innocently looking up at me as if to say "Aren't you glad we're having so much fun?".

Have you ever tried so hard to not scream at your kids that you were surprised you could actually keep from doing it?

That was me tonight, and let me tell you . . .what ever you faced today was nothing compared to static charged packing peanuts stuck in every crevice of every chair, stuck to the TV, stuck under the sofa, stuck under the rug, stuck under the dining room table, stuck to the kids, stuck to their bodies, stuck to EVERYTHING.

Whatever budget crisis you faced at work was nothing compared to trying to vacuum 5,000,000 packing peanuts that didn't want to be sucked up the hose and NOT SCREAMING AT THE KIDS.

Whatever flack you received from you boss for something you did not do was nothing compared to getting two girls covered with packing peanut pieces to stop moving so you could get the stupid packing peanuts to stop swirling around the air in your living room and NOT SCREAMING AT THE KIDS.

Whatever bad thing that happened to you today was nothing compared to hastily scrubbing tar black paint off your hands so they could be clean enough to pick up the delicate little pieces of packing peanuts off every square inch of the living room and NOT SCREAMING AT THE KIDS.

So I don't want to hear about it. Your day was not as bad as mine!