We're Home!

Just a quick post tonight to say we made it home from our weekend in Arlington. We got home about 5:30pm, after taking a slight detour when the freeway all of a sudden slowed way down (we happened to be right near an exit -- for New Waverly -- that we could take a different route home). I'm sure it was longer and perhaps the freeway would have started moving again, but it was definitely more scenic!

We had a nice weekend visiting with some of Brian's family. I will share more details and a few pictures hopefully tomorrow! It's going to be a busy, busy day (and a busy week)!

Late Night Catch-Up

Okay, I know I should really be in bed right now, seeing as how I have to get everyone up early and ready to drive up to Julie's in the morning. I've been trying to finish up a few last minute things and wanted to post the "news" of the day so I wouldn't get too far behind. :-)

First of all, here is a picture of the girl's new dresser that I promised to post:


Next, tonight was Open House at the elementary school. So many people! Parking is just crazy at an event like this where the whole school attends at the same time. We visited Hannah's class first and then McKay's two classes (he switches teachers halfway through the day). I took some pictures of Hannah at school recently, but I hadn't had the chance to take any of McKay. So here he is sitting at his homeroom desk:



And this is his homeroom teacher, Mrs. VanZandt. She teaches language arts and is expecting twins in a month or so.




This is McKay with Mrs. St. Angelo, his math and science/social studies teacher in the afternoon.



When we came home from Open House, I was trying (not very successfully, I might add!) to get the kids ready for bed when Courtney & Hayley came running upstairs all excited. They produced this water bottle with a pretty good-sized frog in it.



Courtney and I had seen a little lizard inside the back door earlier today and we managed to "shoo" it back outside. I guess she and Hayley decided to go outside (in the dark, no less) and try to catch something. When they opened the back door, they saw this frog on the steps so Courtney grabbed this water bottle and managed to catch the frog all by herself. (It seemed like the frog was plenty big for the water bottle opening!) She was so excited that she left the back door wide open when she came running in. :-) (And I might add, she is not wearing anything below the waist as she had recently gone potty and failed to put her pants back on. So not only was she outside in the dark, but she had no pants on.)

I tried taking a close up of the frog in the bottle:


We let the frog go after a few minutes and McKay decided he'd rather not use that particular water bottle anymore, so it went to the recycling bin. :-)

Before I quit tonight, I'm going to try adding a little video clip of McKay playing the piano. I don't know how well this will work:




He is playing Fur Elise, and I think you can tell he has most of it memorized by now (especially the first part, which he often just repeats over and over, forgetting to keep going with the rest of the song!). This is just part of the song -- he had set a timer earlier and it went off before he finished, so I cut off the video there (plus the first part is cut off since he repeats it). His piano teacher and I are working on his piano "posture" and trying to get him to curl his fingers more, but he is doing well! (Hannah is too -- if this works, I'll try to get one of her too sometime soon.)

I probably won't post anymore until we get back from our weekend excursion!

The Best Laid Plans...

So today has been one of those days where I didn't quite get done what I had planned to. The main culprits (besides, you know, the usual 4 kids): e-mail and a book. My goal this morning was to first hurry and drop off the applesauce muffins at McKay's class for their "Johnny Appleseed Day." Here is how McKay dressed up this morning for this event:

He decided not to wear the pot on his head, but hook it to his belt. And he planned to wear his jeans, but we haven't got him new ones yet and when he put on last year's, they were so tight he could barely move in them. His teacher sent this picture of their class today:

Anyway, the girls and I dropped off the muffins (they are yummy! - I will put the recipe at the end of my post) and came back home. My next goal -- easily accomplished, I thought -- was to get the kitchen floor vacuumed and mopped and the downstairs vacuumed. I first got distracted with several e-mails that came in all of a sudden regarding some toys the kids wanted to sell on the on-line classifieds.

Then there's the book part. I've realized why I don't usually read books "for fun" -- I don't get anything else done! Our Relief Society is starting up a Book Review group and I decided to try it. This month they picked the book "Beauty" (by Robin McKinley) which is basically a more grown-up version of "Beauty and the Beast" than you get in the Disney movie. It sounded interesting to me, so I checked it out from the library and started it yesterday.

My problem is that I have a hard time putting books down and just reading in little intervals. So I pick it up, thinking I'll just sneak in a couple of pages and before I know it, the whole morning is gone. There I was, standing in the middle of the kitchen with book in hand, somehow thinking that the floors might magically clean themselves (they did in the story, anyway!). I didn't even bother to go sit down -- that of course would be akin to admitting that I was not going to get any work done. In the end, I did finish the book and I did enjoy it, but I'm suffering the consequences now that it's 10:30pm and still much to do before bedtime.

I did manage to get the kitchen floors cleaned this afternoon, but when I finished it was too late to start the dinner I had planned because of Cub Scouts, so we ended up ordering pizza.

The girl's white dresser finally got delivered today -- hooray! I'll try to take a picture of it tomorrow. And tonight it was Cub Scout Pack Meeting and McKay earned his Wolf badge -- another hooray!

He also earned a couple of belt loops and several arrows.

Well, I'd best be getting on with my work (posting here is another "luxury" like book reading that I will glady choose over chores).

Here is the recipe I promised!

Applesauce Muffins

2 C. flour

3/4 C. sugar

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp. salt

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 C. applesauce (the recipe calls for "unsweetened," but I've used regular and they turned out good)

1 stick butter, melted

Line 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners. Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt in a medium bowl. Whisk to blend. Add the egg, applesauce and melted butter. Stir until just blended. Spoon into muffin cups. Bake at 375 for 18-20 minutes.

Little Mermaid

The girls have watched a couple of videos lately that involve mermaids (Barbie Mermaidia and a Backyardigans episode) and the other day Courtney borrowed some of my scrapbooking specialty scissors (and a star punch) and set to work making her own mermaid:

She did this totally on her own -- I was pretty impressed! She even got the sea shell "look"! She really enjoys coloring and cutting and gluing, etc. as do the other two girls. McKay has never enjoyed it -- he was just moaning the other day about how much he hates art at school because in his opinion he is "terrible" at art.

And I had to share this picture of how Courtney watches some of these videos:

Honestly, I don't know how a person can watch TV upside-down and really enjoy it, but she does. Personally, I think I would get a headache. (And she doesn't stay like that for the entire show, but I sure see her little feet sticking up over the couch a lot!)

I mentioned last time that we are going out of town this weekend. Brian's mom and sister are flying in to Dallas for a short visit with his other two sisters up there. Brian has also needed to meet with an accountant in Dallas, so we decided to take the kids out of school for a day and head up there for the weekend. We have Open House at the elementary school Thursday night, so the current plan is to leave early Friday morning (Brian has a Friday afternoon appointment with the accountant). On Saturday, we (the "girls") might head over to Canton, which is famous for its huge monthly craft "trade fair" (flea market). I went once with his sisters several years ago.

I hate for the kids to miss school, but I also know that they will be just fine. McKay will also miss baseball practice and his game on Saturday, so he was a little bummed about that.

I'll end tonight with my sweet baby showing me her I-just-woke-up-from-a-nap face:

Good night!

Gone with the Wind

I have to tell what happened during church today. I had been asked to play the piano for the musical number in Sacrament Meeting. I chose an arrangement of a medley of Primary songs and I really had to practice it. (That's good for me!) I was pretty nervous about making mistakes.

We got to church a few minutes early, and I propped up the piano "lid" and set my music in place (four sheets that I spread out). When it was my turn to play, I walked up to the piano and found my music all over the floor. I should have taken the hint that there could be problems. (You can probably guess where this story is going.)

I started playing and had only played a few lines when the air conditioner kicked on and blew the music right off into my lap. Uh-oh. (Our building is notorious for having a really good air conditioning system -- we are always cold!) It flustered me a little and I had to completely stop playing as I hurried to put the music back up, but I didn't know how to keep it from blowing off again. So I turned and tapped on the sister's shoulder who had just spoken and was sitting on the stand (they are a new family in the ward) and asked her if she would come hold the music for me. She did and I was able to get through the rest of the song without anything else major happening. Whew! I did get a lot of nice compliments afterward despite the "technical difficulties."

They also announced today that they are creating a fifth ward in our area (right now there are four). The changes do not affect our ward boundaries at all, but the other three wards are being affected. It does mean that there will now be three wards meeting in our building, so starting next week, we will be meeting at 8:30am instead of 9:00. That is going to be tricky! I don't know if everyone will get the message, so I bet a lot of people still show up at 9:00 next week. We will actually be out of town next Sunday. Brian's mom and sister and flying in to Dallas, so we decided to go up for the weekend and visit with them while they're here. (I'll write more about that later.)

Time to go clean up and start getting kids ready for bed!

Bike Rodeo

What a busy (and hot!) Saturday morning! (At least compared to our usual Saturday mornings.) McKay had a 9:00am baseball game this morning. His team won (although technically they don't keep score). I didn't get any pictures today. I took the video camera this time instead of the regular camera, but it wouldn't turn on so I hope the only problem is the battery needs to be charged. Probably a good thing this game, because McKay never made it on base. He did hit the ball once, but got thrown out at first. It was coach-pitch this game since the pitching machine wasn't working.

We came home from the game and left right away for the Bike Rodeo at the elementary school. The kids really wanted to go. The school district police department runs this event -- they register the kid's bikes and have a few little courses set up for the kids to ride through (weaving through cones, figure 8, practicing hand signals, etc.). Then they have free hot dogs and drinks. And as we learned last year when McKay's bike got stolen, it's a good idea to have bikes registered!

Brian, McKay and Hannah rode their bikes to school (I think it's about a mile there). We thought it would be good practice for Hannah who is always begging to ride her bike to school now that McKay is riding his every day. (But I'm not ready for her to do that just yet.) Then I drove the van with Courtney and Hayley (and Courtney's bike in the back).

Here are the kids lined up for the first riding course (weaving through cones):

And McKay taking his turn (still wearing his baseball uniform!):

Some pics of Hannah and Courtney on their bikes:

Courtney doing the hand signals:

A close-up of McKay:

And when I looked at this picture of Hannah, my first thought was that she looked like a Vulcan from Star Trek with pointy ears:

And finally, here is Hayley (who was sad she couldn't bring her bike -- but it's a tiny one with no brakes and she hasn't learned how to pedal yet) while we were eating our hot dogs (she ate two minus the buns!)

Now we are enjoying a quiet afternoon inside where it is air conditioned. The kids are trying out some "new" old computer games (older games I just bought from the online classifieds), Brian is listening to the BYU football game (we don't get the channel this one is televised on) and Hayley is napping! I need to go practice the piano some more. I am playing the musical number in Sacrament Meeting tomorrow - yikes!

Apple Fest

This morning I was able to go to Hannah's class for a couple of hours to help with the 1st Grade "Apple Fest." Basically this was just several little apple-themed stations around the classroom that the kids rotated between. They needed a few parents to help with some of the stations.

Here's a picture of Hannah sitting at her desk (with the apple she had to bring):

And here is a picture of Hannah with her teacher, Mrs. Eagleton:

I'll admit that one of the reasons I agreed to go in to help (which always means finding someone to watch the other girls) was so I could just get a "feel" for Hannah's classroom and teacher. I have been feeling a little "disconnected" with her class as her teacher doesn't send a lot of notes or things home and Hannah doesn't tell me an awful lot about what she does. So it was good to go in and just be in the classroom for a little bit.

My station was the paper plate apple tree project (which was mainly coloring). Hannah was excited for me to be there. Here is another picture of her with her friend Elise, who is in her class and happens to live across the street from us.

Friday is usually school T-shirt day, which is why they're wearing the same shirt. I'm glad it's Friday! Happy weekend to everyone!

Time Flies

Wow -- where has the week gone already? I've been meaning to post something, but the days just get away from me. It seems like there has been a lot going on this week around here. Not big stuff, just lots of little stuff and running here and there and everywhere.

Such as...
(Sorry if this is way more detail than you ever wanted to know about life around here... :-) )

Monday I decided to try taking Courtney & Hayley to story time at the library. We have never been to the story time at this new library. I went quite a while ago to the old library once -- probably when Hannah and Courtney were little -- and just remember that it was a "disaster" and I vowed I wasn't doing that for a long, long time. I finally decided to give it another go with Courtney and Hayley being a little older. We went to the Preschool Story Time (for ages 3-6) and they both seemed to enjoy it. Courtney was quite talkative in blurting out answers and opinions everytime the librarian made a comment/question about the book she was reading. They even got a little snack and got to make a cute little dinosaur craft.

Monday is also busy with piano lessons for McKay & Hannah right after school. The teacher is quite impressed with Hannah's self motivation so far (she works ahead on her own in the book) and tells me we need to work with McKay on not being so lazy in his posture while he is playing (he slumps and flattens his wrists).

Monday night for FHE we announced our new allowance plan for the kids. We gave McKay & Hannah allowances last school year but stopped over the summer. Courtney has been begging to get some money of her own, so we are trying a slightly different approach. We presented them each with a "family contract" that they had to sign (along with Brian and me). It listed their obligations (follow the family rules, keep up with homework/piano practice, do chores as assigned, etc.) and our agreement to them (how much they get paid, we provide food, etc.). We'll see how it goes...

Tuesday was a preschool day, and also the first time that I have had a couple of hours with no kids at home! Wow! That has not happened since McKay entered our lives almost nine years ago. I dropped Hayley off at preschool (another Mom's turn to teach this week) and was a little worried that she would turn all clingy on me like she does for Nursery on Sunday, but she was just fine and so excited to go.

My two free hours were spent mostly at the chiropractor's office for my monthly appointment. (The first time I have had a doctor's appt. and not had to make arrangements for someone to watch kids!) My back is doing pretty good these days, as long as I'm careful about what I lift and keep up with my stretches and exercises.

After I picked up Hayley from preschool, we made a quick stop to meet a lady and buy some girl's clothes she had listed on the local online community classifieds (yep, I'm still buying and selling stuff!). They were some little Halloween outfits from Target (they have different designs every year) and were a good price, so I picked them up for Courtney. She was so excited she wanted to wear them the rest of the day.



Since Courtney got Halloween clothes, I went ahead and bought the other two girls little Halloween shirts as well. (McKay just got a new shirt for school pictures -- they did have Halloween boy shirts, but there is no way he would wear them as they were more the spooky/gross genre and not cute like the girl's.)

Speaking of Halloween, I also bought a Halloween costume for Courtney from the online classifieds. It is a "bat princess" or something like that and both Courtney and Hayley tried it on. Now Hayley thinks it is her costume and begs me for it every day. (I had to lock it up in the closet for now.) I guess we are thinking about Halloween a little early around here!

Today I took Hayley in to JCPenney for her 3-year-old pictures. Courtney came along, of course, and after pictures we walked down to the indoor play area in the mall so the girls could play for a minute (some friends from church were also meeting there to play). I bought her a simple little dress for her pictures -- she did great and the pictures turned out cute so of course i had to buy a bunch to get lots of different poses. Here she is later in the day with the dress she wore:


Also today I got to try out my new floor cleaner. Yeah! I've had a Hoover FloorMate for several years to clean our tile floors and it has gradually been getting worse in its ability to clean (and a couple of small parts are broken). So I ordered me a new one that came yesterday and got put to use today. It worked good -- here is Hayley trying to push it around after I emptied out the tanks:



Courtney had great fun with the box it came in and turned it into a rocket ship. She decided to color almost the entire interior of the box!



I have also been working on my "donation" for our RS Enrichment tomorrow night. We are doing a service auction and we are supposed to bring an item or talent to auction off (with points that are earned from a questionnaire). I decided to put together a book of favorite recipes and include a plate with a few brownies and cookies. So tonight I made our favorite Gingersnaps -- Courtney and Hayley shared the honor of licking the beater:



McKay had Cub Scouts tonight and Brian's been working late (getting ready to move out of his office into a cubicle with everyone else - bummer) so it's been busy, busy, busy!

Now I've got to go tackle the huge sink full of dishes and the toys all over the floor and try to finish up the recipe book and make a shopping list and... you get the idea. :-)

Listen to the Bells

Okay, that is kind of a corny title tonight but it's the best I could come up with. :-) Let me explain it...

Our Primary chorister recently asked the kids if any of them played instruments that they might be able to play as part of the Primary Sacrament Meeting program (which I think is in November for our ward). McKay said he plays the piano, but since it wouldn't really work for the kids to play the piano during the program, she asked him if would be willing to play a song on the "bells" (xylophone). He was very excited and agreed to do it.

Today she brought the small xylophone set to church for us to take home. (Her older son has played percussion for several years in the band and they had this set at home.) McKay is going to be playing the Primary song "Listen, Listen" which is very short and simple. We brought home the xylophone and McKay couldn't wait to practice:

He has the song pretty much memorized (it is only two lines long) but still needs to practice so he is confident enough to get through it even if he makes a mistake or two.

Hannah volunteered to sing a solo in the program, but as there weren't many solo "spots," she instead will be singing in a small group. I think they are doing the first verse of "I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus." She is definitely the best singer in our family.

Hayley picked out her "holiday" dress to wear to church today because it was "so pretty" and she wanted a big fluffy skirt to twirl around in. So I had to take a picture (of course!).

She is doing pretty good in the toddler bed. She did take a nap in it this afternoon, although she had a hard time getting to sleep tonight. She has still been getting up at least once during the night, so we'll see if that trend continues.

I've come to realize that I am quite dependent on this little computer of ours and its Internet connection. Brian had the Internet and our server (where all our files are stored) disabled for a while this evening while he worked on some stuff on our server, and I was trying to finish up some stuff before bedtime, but kept realizing "I can't do that without the computer!" Things like check over my calendar for the week (which I keep on-line, so Brian and I can both access it during the day), see what library books are due tomorrow, work on copying some recipes for RS enrichment this week (files are on the server), etc. It's amazing how much we've come to rely on technology.

It's shaping up to be a pretty busy week! Maybe I'd better go print out my calendar so I have it just in case...

Play Ball!

Today was McKay's first YMCA baseball game of the fall season. He could not wait to get out there and play! He missed the first two practices because of rain, so yesterday was finally his first practice. In the van on the way there, he kept saying things like, "I can't wait to get a bat in my hands."

He has a different coach this season and the coach suggested that the players get gray baseball pants, black belts and black socks to go with their YMCA yellow shirts. It wasn't required, but we decided to get some for McKay so he could feel more like a "real" baseball player. I didn't get any close-up pictures of him at the game today, but I did get a couple of him in action. Here he is playing second base:




And here he is during one of his at-bats:



He hit the ball every time he was at bat today -- he has really improved in hitting since he first started playing. His first hit was a pop-up fly that was caught, but with his other hits he was able to get on base and eventually score a run. He also got a defensive play in tagging a runner when he played second base. He was excited!

It was quite hot and humid at the game (and of course I forgot the sunscreen), but we did take a jug of water that got emptied fairly quickly. Here's Hayley getting ready for a big drink!


McKay was not the only one to have an exciting day. Hannah was excited because she got invited to a last-minute birthday party for her friend Anita (who she knows from church and school). It was to be a pajama party from 6:30-9:00pm. That is past her usual bedtime, but pajamas parties call for an exception. :-)

I don't know how many times she asked me this afternoon if it was time to go the party yet. When I picked her up, she told me how much fun she had doing a "makeover," getting her fingernails painted, going on a treasure hunt for a little hand-sewn skirt for her stuffed animal, etc. When I got her in bed, she said, "It sure has been a big day for me, huh?"

And Hayley had an exciting day because I decided to let her try sleeping in the toddler bed that's in her room:




I've mentioned before how she climbs out of her crib all the time now, so I guess that means it is time to move her out. And we already had the toddler bed in her room (not being used). She was excited to get in it, but not surprinslgy, also got out of it many times before falling asleep. (It's much easier to get out of a little bed than climb out of a crib!) Hopefully she will get used to it. When I went in to check on her, she had a pile of books on the floor next to the bed, plus another pile between her head and the side of the bed --and she didn't start out with any books. :-)

My biggest worry is that this transition is going to disrupt her naps (and she is currently taking good naps almost every day). She told me tonight that tomorrow we are going to "sell the crib". I don't know about that, but we will at least get it taken down before too long. That's going to be kind of weird to not have a crib up anywhere -- it's been up since McKay was born.

We are watching the BYU football game on TV right now -- we realized we actually get one of the channels that a handful of the games are shown on. Brian was able to assemble a couple more pieces of furniture for me today -- a white bookcase for the girl's room and the sewing table that will go in our room. Now the big question is if we can figure out how to actually mount my sewing machine in the table. :-) I think I will end up having to go to a fabric store and trying to find the right mounting hardware for my machine.

Time for me to quit for the night!

Getting Replaced

Last night at bedtime Hannah told me that she wanted to read all the bedtime stories. So she sat down with Courtney & Hayley and read them the stories they had picked out.

I don't know if I'm getting permanently replaced as the bedtime-story-reader (my guess is probably not quite yet), but it was good to see her want to fulfill that role. She is a great little reader! The only problem she has when she reads out loud is she tends to mumble a little and read fast, like she forgets that people are listening to her.

Hayley was up again during the middle of the night (about 3:00am). It can be a little unnerving! She climbs out of her crib and comes in our room, then squeezes in the space between our bed and my nightstand and stands there and whispers ("Mom!" "Mom!" over and over). Since she whispers it takes me a little while to wake up and figure out what is going on! Then no matter what time it is, she asks me if she can either watch TV or play on the computer. :-) What a silly girl. I am thinking about moving her out of the crib sometime soon.

Time to go for now!

Best Friends

I had to share this cute picture I took today of Courtney & Hayley. They really are great friends and play together well (most of the time, that is!), especially when Hannah is gone to school. Today they were just laughing and giggling at lunchtime so I had to get out the camera. When Hannah comes home, sometimes the three of them play together and sometimes Courtney will choose to play with Hannah over Hayley, but for the most part they all play together well. I've also noticed that they hardly ever ask to invite friends over to play, because they always have each other!

I'm sure there is more I could write about tonight (like Hayley getting up at 3:30am or Hannah really losing her lunch box or Courtney telling me she got in trouble at preschool but her teacher said she didn't), but it's very late (another late-night grocery shopping trip tonight) and I still have to make sure I'm ready for preschool in the morning!

Weaving Webs

We have a couple of spiders in our front yard that like to put up some pretty impressive webs. It doesn't bother me so much until you accidentally plow through the web and get it all over you (sometimes they stretch across the sidewalk or porch).

This morning was Hayley's preschool group at our house and when the moms came to pick up their girls, we all noticed a really big web near the front door (but up high enough so you didn't have to walk through it). It is pretty amazing to think about a little creature making something so elaborate. So I tried to take a picture, but didn't expect it to turn out very well. Here is the best I ended up with:

I have one more week teaching Hayley's preschool group (actually only one more day since today is already done!). Today we talked about the shape of our bodies and I tried tracing the girls outlines on butcher paper. Then I let them add their face and color in what they wanted.

It was harder than I thought to get the outline -- especially their heads! They kept moving around and their long hair made it hard to trace. But it turned out okay and I think they enjoyed the activity.

Speaking of Hayley, I am having a growing problem with her eating habits. She is constantly sneaking snacks out of the pantry (I am actually considering trying to lock it somehow) and then she won't sit and eat very much at mealtime. She'll take one or two bites, announce she's "done" and leave the table. She also tries to sneak food with her away from the table and eat it while wandeirng around the house. Definitely something we need to work on.

The other "problem" I have been having with Hayley lately is she is waking up early (6:00am or before) and wanting to play. This has started since she learned how to climb out of her crib. I really can't make her go back to sleep (although if it gets closer to 5:30am, I am going to make her get back in bed), so I guess we just have to learn to deal with it!

McKay rode his bike to school this morning for the first time. We'll see if he wants to continue riding it as his regular mode of transportation. It is good exercise for him. Hannah of course wanted to know why she couldn't ride her bike too, but I am not ready to let her ride, even with McKay. I don't know if she is a confident enough rider to deal with all the bike traffic there is on the pathways.

It will be time to go pick up Courtney pretty soon, so I'd better get busy with some chores!

Stair Cleaning at your Service

Yesterday morning the kids all got up extra early -- of course it would be a Saturday! Hayley came in just after 6:00am and said she needed to go potty (she is quite proud of being able to get out of bed by herself these days). I have been trying putting her in just underwear at night the last few days instead of a Pull-Up and she has been doing really good! Anyway, I noticed the game room light was on and I thought she had turned it on before she came in to get me, but I found out later McKay was up extra early for some reason and was on the computer.

I tried to go back to bed for a little bit. Brian had to get up extra early to go to an Elder's Quorum service project (they were putting siding up on a sister's house). Before long, the other girls were up and I lay in bed, imagining what kind of trouble they were all getting into. When I did get up (about 7:30), it wasn't too bad. The girls had mostly gotten into snacks that they really shouldn't eat first thing in the morning. I found McKay watching our vacuum cleaner instructional video tape. He has watched it before (quite a while ago) and it just strikes me as so funny (and odd!) that of all the things he would choose to do or watch on a Saturday morning, he would pick the vacuum cleaner video.

Naturally, since he had watched the vacuum cleaner video that morning, he started begging me to use the vacuum cleaner to shampoo the stairs. I have let him do this before, but I'll admit I was reluctant to agree. You might think that's nuts since he's offering to clean the carpet, but my reluctance stems from the mess I envision getting made in the process and the battle I know will ensue later when it's time to put everything away and clean up (something McKay really dislikes doing).

He begs me and begs me and finally I give in on the condition that he promises to vacuum the stairs first, practice the piano and clean everything up. Easy enough, he says. So out comes the vacuum and all the attachments and the girls are ready and willing to be his helpers. They decide that McKay will spray on the soap suds, then he and Hannah will "pat" the suds down with sponges while Courtney is in charge of turning the vacuum on and off as they do each step. (I think later Courtney and Hannah switched jobs.)

I think the main reason McKay likes to do this is because of the spraying aspect of the job. He thinks it is pretty cool. I really don't think they get the stairs all that clean -- they certainly don't scrub the tough stains or anything -- but I'm sure they're better off than they were before.

While they were working, McKay and Hannah decided that they should start a family stair-cleaning business and go around cleaning people's stairs. They even came up with some long fancy name for it, but I can't remember what it was. If only they were this excited about any other cleaning I ask them to do. :-)

(And, not surprisingly, it was a bit of a battle to get everything cleaned up and put away. Initially, they just threw all the pieces in the closet and I made them put them away correctly which they weren't very happy about.)

So, if you ever need your stairs cleaned, you know who to call!

Later in the day, the girls had ice cream cones for a treat and Hayley asked me for a spoon. She started eating the ice cream off the top of her cone with her spoon -- I guess she is not big on licking from a cone!

And a final picture for tonight is of Courtney after her haircut this afternoon. I cut McKay's hair and decided to also do Courtney's since it gets so easily tangled the longer it gets. I maybe went a little on the short side, but it's not terrible and it will grow. I just barely make the cut when it comes to hair cutting (if that!).

Look Who's 3!

Yesterday was Hayley's 3rd birthday! All the kids were excited. Except for my birthday in August (kind of a "boring" birthday as far as the kids are concerned), we've had a birthday drought for a long time! (All the kid's birthdays are concentrated in the fall/winter.)

Back to the birthday girl... yesterday morning I took her (and Courtney) to Toys R Us to pick out a toy with some birthday money she received. Because it was her birthday, they even gave her a balloon. When I told Courtney where we were going, she immediately burst into tears because she didn't get to pick out a new toy. (Courtney has a very hard time dealing with jealousy and feeling left out when she perceives that other kids are getting something she doesn't or winning a game that she's not, etc.) Courtney finally stopped crying when Hayley agreed to let her help choose the new toy.

A big toy store can be quite overwhelming for a little 3-year-old girl! So many choices! Everywhere she looked, she would say, "I want that!" We finally went with a couple of proven favorites around our house -- My Little Pony and Littlest Pet Shop.

The girls had fun all afternoon playing with the new toys (Hannah joined right in when she got home from school).

We got the Hello Kitty cake made during the afternoon. It was actually quite easy -- one of the easiest cakes I've done, I think. I always add the birthday kid's name and age somewhere on the cake and thought it ended up looking a little funny on this one (since the Hello Kitty design doesn't include a mouth), but the most important thing was that Hayley loved it. (I have learned to let go of some of my perfection when it comes to things like this because the kids don't notice the flaws and they don't care if it's not perfect!)

Hannah burst into tears the minute she came home from school and saw the cake (we had a hard time with tears yesterday!). She was upset because she apparently really wanted to help me make the cake (which I didn't know) and I did it while she was gone to school.

We had to eat an early dinner (Hayley's choice of homemade macaroni and cheese) because McKay has baseball practice. He missed last week's first practice because of rain. As we left the house, I made some comment about how it wasn’t supposed to rain today and it was nice and sunny outside. As we drove over to the YMCA, however, I noticed that all of a sudden the clouds were getting quite dark and we could hear some thunder as we pulled up. We made it out to the field to talk briefly to the coach and found out that there had been some lightning already, so there could be no practice for at least 15 minutes. We sat in the van to wait, but the thunder and lightning continued and then the rain started pouring down, so there was no practice again. McKay was SO disappointed --he really wants to play baseball!

After Daddy made it home from work, it was time for presents and cake.

Hayley was excited to open her presents -- and the girls could hardly stand it that they couldn't do it for her. All three girls just squealed when they saw the big "Littlest Pet Shop" playground playset -- they all enjoy playing with the little pets. She seemed really excited about her presents and it was all we could do to pull them away for cake and ice cream because they wanted to start playing with the new toys.

(McKay is going to be mad at me for including this next part, but I'm going to anyway!) McKay said he wanted to light the candles on Hayley's cake all by himself, so we let him try. He really hasn't had much experience lighting matches for campfires or whatever. He had a hard time getting the match to light at first, and then while trying to light the first candle, he held the match pointed down, so the flames came right up to his fingers quickly. He instinctively dropped the burning match onto the table, which we all hurried to blow out. So he tried again, after I explained how he needed to hold the match pointing up. He managed to get all three candles lit, but then when he blew out the match, he also blew out the candles at the same time! So we went for a third try. This time, as he tried to light the second candle, he held his fingers too close to the already lit first candle, got burned a little, and again dropped the burning match on the table. By that point, he was in tears (more tears!) and said he is never going to light a match again. I felt bad for him – I guess sometimes we put too much pressure on him and expect him to know how to do certain things when we really haven’t taught him how to do it properly in the first place.

When it was finally time to blow out the candles, Hannah and Courtney again could hardly contain themselves to keep from helping her. After several blows, Hayley got one candle out, then another, and then she started working on the last one. She was having some trouble, so she finally let the girls help her finish it off.

As soon as the cake was eaten, the kids raced back over to open up the new toys. Even McKay couldn't resist the Littlest Pet Shop playground!

And I learned that when I have to compete with new toys to try get kids to go to bed, the new toys have a definite edge. :-)