life is right now.
Elli’s basketball team wins the Redmond Parks and Rec championship.
Emma’s Global Reading Challenge Team ties for 3rd at district level:
Ray places first in the fashion show for his age-group [he was the only one there] at Elli’s basketball game:
And also gets props for his amazing photographic talent:
And here is a preview of what March will bring:
Goodbye, February. 2 months down. 10 months to go.
Erin brought it up and it makes me wonder what else I don’t know. This is what my innocent ears look like:
Nope, never been pierced. I used to think I was going to DIE if I couldn’t get my ears pierced, but I wasn’t allowed to get them pierced until I turned 16. And I certainly wasn’t going to pierce them myself with a safety pin. Learned that lesson from my sister, Staci. So I waited {im}patiently until I turned 16 and then had no desire to get them pierced. no desire. Not sure if it’s because I was too lazy or scared of the pain or just comfortable with myself [hardly- at 16] or probably just because it seemed like a lot of work. or maybe i just forgot. But I never got them pierced. And I don’t regret it one bit. I like my plain ears.
But now I’m in a predicament. I have promised Elli that she could make that decision for herself when she turns 12. which is in 2 weeks. And I have just been made aware that I don’t know the slightest thing about earring etiquette. Is there really a size that is appropriate for adults and not for pre-teens? What are the hoochie earrings? I knew I was simple in my beauty secrets, but I had no idea I was this clueless.
Don’t I look hot in them? Damon thinks I look like a pirate. I guess they’re not for me.
I think Elli has a friend who is not allowed to wear large hoop earrings until she is a certain age, but I always figured it was because they were dangerous and you could rip your ear off with them if you weren’t careful. I assumed since these earrings were clip-on, they were fine. But now I have been informed that it is the size/scale of the earring in relation to the age of the wearer that makes it appropriate. so confused.
In all seriousness, please share your rules/guidelines for appropriate jewelry for a 12-year-old, particularly of the earring-variety.
P.S. Erin- no offense taken by your comment or meant in this post. You aren’t the only one who noticed the earrings; just the only one who said something. So- thanks for the nudge to educate myself [and my daughter]. :)
the good:
discovering the snow/late start alert before I woke kids up
extra snuggling with damon
pancakes for breakfast- made by elli
ray: “Mom! It’s snowing outside! We need to call Brooke to come over!”
getting to “sleep” in until 8:58
receiving breakfast in bed
hearing brothers playing together
sisters happy (or maybe NOT hearing sisters mad)
having time to braid emma’s hair
little kids getting to wear their snow boots to school
no snow make-up day on June 22
having emma around to take photos for my blog
the bad:
no chess club
nolan still woke up at 6:55
out of routine: kids forgot to shower, make lunches, nearly late for school
the ugly:
my house after 2 extra hours with kids at home
but today I actually had a little bit of fun. here’s why:
 | Megan (Savannah’s birth-mom) came so she could use the Build-A-Bear gift card she gave Savannah for Christmas. |
  | I was fine with all of Savannah’s B.A.B. decisions for her new bear, Flower. Except for this one: these shoes make Flower look like a “Lady of the Evening.” |
   | While Savannah was with Megan and the girls were expressing their mall independence, I took the boys to Red Mango, a place I could afford to go with only 2 children to pay for. We shared a large original frozen yogurt with blueberries, strawberries and dark chocolate pieces (I totally forgot the Fruity Pebbles!! dang!). After we had eaten the entire $8 treat, Ray has the nerve to say he didn’t like it and wanted a different kind. liar. |
   | This may be the favorite experience of the entire day: riding in the elevator. How long will it take for the excitement of riding in an elevator to wear off? Because my children are still smitten with it. Especially the one at Bellevue Square because it is surrounded with glass. As you can see, the ride is much more fun if your feet are not touching the ground. |
   | The play area is also much more fun if your feet aren’t touching the ground. In fact, for Ray, LIFE is more fun if his feet aren’t touching the ground. (that’s Savannah in the green dress/tights jumping off toward the back of the boat) |
   | If you’re 11 (and 12, respectively), the play area is really lame and totally boring and it makes you feel the need to groan and sigh and ask when we’re going to leave and can I please go buy a jamba juice and, seriously, when are we going to leave?…unless there are cute boys around the same age (see bottom left corner) that are hanging around the boat- then it might be time to pretend like you’re enjoying yourself and climb onto the boat so the boys can admire you(which they did- and I had no idea why she all of the sudden climbed on top of the boat just as we were about to leave…until I saw these 2 older boys in my lens when I was taking her picture…it’s all making sense.) |
  | Nolan made a couple new friends at the play area. And was desperate to bring either or both of them back to our house. After I turned him down the first time, he met this other kid and came over to me (all red-faced and sweaty) and said, “Can he come over? Cuz he goes to church. Can he now, mom?” So funny that he thought that would make a difference and that he actually asked this kid if he went to church. what a missionary. |
   | And, Emma? Well, she had all the little kids asking to play with her (most of them we didn’t even know) and if she would be their friend. Because that’s what she does at playgrounds and environments like these: she crawls around and plays with the babies and little kids and before we leave, nearly every child at the playground is following her around like a groupie. She’s amazing and will be a fabulous babysitter. |
 | For my mom- because i saw it and it made me think of dad- and you. (it’s not one of my kids- just some random kid on the playground) |
And, of course, we went to the Lego Store (bought nothing) where Nolan admitted he wanted to work there when he grew up. And at the end of the outing, both my boys begged me to buy them ice cream because Red Mango wasn’t real ice cream. It’s YOGURT.
P.S. I know Jill’s going to take issue about the complaining of the 11- and 12-year-olds, so I should point out that it was all Elli. Jill was having fun- before the boys even came into the picture.
OK. We have lived in our remodeled house for just over 2 years now. We went from 1.5 bathrooms to 3 full bathrooms, which we thought would be a huge thing for our family of seven. Well, an interesting thing happened when we moved back into our home: everyone still used our bathroom (the original location of our main bathroom pre-remodel). Even Nolan- who gets up at least 3 times each night to go to the bathroom- would still walk past a bathroom and come into our bedroom to use our bathroom. After several months of this, I finally said to him, “Nolan, you know you can use the kids’ bathroom in the middle of the night- right? You don’t have to come into our room every night to use our bathroom just because that’s what you used to do.” “I don’t?,” he said. “Oh.” And that was the end of him using our bathroom in the middle of the night.
For some reason, our family has gotten into using just the 2 upstairs bathrooms. Even though the girls’ bedroom is downstairs, they still come all the way upstairs to use the bathroom. But Elli’s wheels are turning. And one day last week she noticed the lonely, under-utilized downstairs bathroom and she said to me, “Can I shower in that bathroom?” And I was like, “Yes. That’s why we put a shower there. We were hoping you’d use it.” So she showered down there.
And a couple days later she said, “You know the bathroom downstairs, mom? Can it be MY bathroom?” I shrugged my shoulders and said, “Yeah, I guess.” That’s kind of what we had in mind when we remodeled, but it just never happened because no one wanted to use the cold, downstairs bathroom (that used to be home to our kitties). Well, the next day, it looked like this:
And I was mysteriously missing flowers from my “gallbladder arrangements.” Hmmm.
And the next day, it had evolved to this:
Every bathroom should have a marker to write notes to yourself on the mirror. {How did she even discover that my Stampin’ Up marker was erasable on the mirror-surface in the first place?} Sierra- do you recognize the stars?
And yesterday, when all of my flowers were gone from their kitchen home, I went downstairs to check on them, and this is what I found:
I’m not sure what to think- or say. Except this is NOT my style- so please don’t judge.
And I realized my [first] mistake was the minute I told her the bathroom was hers. uh. oh.
