tiffany's spot

I'm downstairs right now, and Steven is upstairs sleeping on the couch. We made cookies yesterday - monster cookies. They are fantastic. I can hear the kids popping the lid off the container and then quickly running away. I know they're in the cookies, they're not half as sneaky as they think they are! I'm letting them away with it. For a little while. Happy New Year!

So Christmas day has come and (almost) gone again this year. Crazy. We spend months planning and stressing and shopping and baking and cooking and "poof" it's over in a few short hours. And by the end of it all, the kids are crabby and over-sugared, the husband is (a little) grumpy and my house is a disaster. I still love Christmas. But I'm very happy to hit the sheets with a new book at the end of the day! Merry Christmas to you all!

"I ate some pizza and some milk. And it went in the waterfall in my tummy," said Tennyson. He's so smart. And sometimes overly sassy about it. The other day Steven told him for the umpteenth time to clean up his toys. Tennyson told him: "Don't be so bossy." Daddy wasn't too impressed. Mommy may have secretly laughed a little. Steven's sick on the couch tonight. He thinks he's freezing cold, so he's wearing layers of clothes and wrapped in a queen sized flannel comforter. He still says he's cold. He feels about 800 degrees. I think it's a flu thing. Jordan - the girl who antagonizes her father by refusing him hugs, kisses or kindness somedays - is very concerned. She's trying to get him to eat supper, giving him multiple kisses and hugs and fetching him pillows. It's sweet. Nothing like the deathbed to bring them closer! I rented The Other Boleyn Girl to watch tonight. I asked Steven if he'd watch it with me. He said he...

I found this on another blog, and I don't know what it is about this cake, but I cannot stop laughing. I'm sitting here right now, laughing my ass off with tears running down my face. I was looking at Twilight parodies on YouTube and I'm burning some major laugh-calories tonight. But I had to share this cake with you so I stole it!

I'm usually the one who tells Steven NOT to scare the kids. You should have seen the heck he got from me the time he told Jordan there was a drain monster. You know. In the bathtub.

Tennyson: Can me have cereal? Me: No. Eat your pancake. Tennyson: But I'm a zombie. Zombies don't eat pancakes. Zombies eat gass. Me: They eat what? Tennyson: Gass Me: Grass? Tennyson: yep. Zombies eat gass. Me: No they don't. They eat brains. Tennyson: They don't eat brains. Me: Yes they do. They pull the top of your head off and eat your brain out. Tennyson: [somewhat worriedly] I don't want them to eat my brain. Me: Then don't play with zombies.

Okay, here's my question. I have three kids of my own, ages 1, 2 and 4. I babysit another boy (he's 5) from 11:30am until late afternoon. They eat rather well at lunch. They'll scarf down sandwich after sandwich. I let them keep going until they run out of steam. Yesterday the two older ones at multiple fried egg sandwiches and scoop after scoop of kraft dinner. Then Tennyson asked for an orange. I gave them all oranges. After the first orange, they proceeded to beg for more oranges. I'm pretty sure they weren't still hungry. I said no. Do you think it's mean to cut them off? Because I know they could sit and eat half a box of oranges without actually being hungry for them. It's like cake - I could eat loads of cake. It's not about being hungry. Opinions?

I'm seriously not impressed with the cold. It's -24 degrees (-11.2 F, according to google) outside. Other things don't impress me either. I took the boys shopping after dropping Jordan off at nursery school. They were fine in Walmart until the very end, when I was ringing up my order and Tennyson buggered off for the door. The door guy said he'd watch him for me. A little embarrassing, but a relief. Sobeys - again, well behaved until checkout time. Then Tennyson headed toward the door. Jordan always goes to check if anyone left any candies in the candy machine opening. I assumed that he had done the same. I called his name a couple of times and then ran over there to grab him. He wasn't there. I checked the entrance. Not there either. I had left Mitchell in the lane with the checkout girl. I was just about to freak out, thinking that he had made it to the parking lot when a lady tells me he had circled back around one of the checkouts. Some days they could just ab...

Lately Jordan has been silly about certain things. In the mornings when I ask her to get dressed she dawdles around forever without actually dressing herself. When I urge her to hurry up she asks for help. Jordan has been dressing, undressing, and changing herself from outfit to outfit since she was eighteen months old. She doesn't need help. The other morning I was trying to get the kids ready to take Jordan to nursery school. She was sitting in her room naked and playing with random toys. I had told her a few times already to get dressed because we were going to be late. She dawdled. She resisted. I told her that I was coming back in five minutes and if she wasn't getting dressed there would be trouble. I came in a few minutes later and she was sitting on the floor, still naked, and crying. She said she needed help. She hadn't put on socks or underwear or anything. "Jordan, you've been dressing yourself for a long long time. I know you don't need help. Do you...

Yesterday I was on the phone and making lunch when the kids started scrapping. Isn't that always when they act up? I tried to shush them, but soon Jordan was shrieking because Tennyson had bitten her. I hung up the phone and gave him a smack on the bottom. He ran down the hall crying and hid in my room. Not so easy to hide when you're crying. Jordan scurried off to the living room. A minute later I went in to talk to Jordan. I figured (as saintly as she is) that she may not be innocent either. "Why did Tennyson bite you?" "Because I punched him." "Do you think that was nice?" "No." "Maybe you should go and tell Tennyson sorry and see if he's okay." " Ok ." She ran down the hall and I went back to making lunch. I could hear them in my room. "Tennyson, I'm sorry I punched you," Jordan said. "That's okay. I'm sorry I bited you." Then there was a pause, and I figured they were hugging. ...

I just started reading this new blog. It's http://offcamerawithtrish.blogspot.com/ . She's an amazing writer (probably because she's a reporter) and her stories about her family and self are fantastic! Check it out.

Writing a novel is kind of hard. Especially since I don't really have an outline and I don't really know what's going to happen next. You've probably all noticed by now that I stick a whole bunch of dialogue in there just to use up some words (and make fun of Steven, just a little). Then there's the writer's block. Then there's writing about my husband. I was trucking along until we had a little tiff the other day and then I felt all grumpy towards him. You know how hard it is to write cute, funny, not-to-mean stuff about your husband when you're a little grumpy at him? It's tough. Maybe tonight he'll bring me flowers and the novel will be back on track. Just a friendly reminder: The novel is supposed to be bad. That's its job. It's not about being good. So as you're reading it, don't think "gee, good thing this isn't her profession," because if I was writing a real novel, which I'm not it would (hopefully) not...

I'm changing my profile picture. I know, the kids are cute. My facebook picture is a picture of Jordan. I got thinking - although right now my biggest role in my life is "mother", I am still "Tiffany". I shall not be dwarfed. Not that it's anything against being a mother. Not at all. I just think that my identity should prevail. Isn't that a gift you can give your kids? I think so. I think it's cool that my own mom is a person, I'm going to be one too. *** I had emotional melt-down last night. Remember the ten days of illness in my home? Well that was followed by Steven trying to fix a leaky faucet. Before I continue, no, Steven is not actually training to be a plumber. He's training for a heating and cooling technician. It's actually quite different. So the fact that he's been somewhat unsuccessful in his attempt to fix that faucet has nothing to do with his profession. We bought a new faucet for the bathroom. He installed it. He so...

This has been a crazy week. Or, last week I guess. The Thursday before Halloween, Jordan threw up. It was about 8 o'clock at night. She didn't stop until 4 in the morning. Then Tennyson threw up once on Halloween morning. Then on Sunday night it was my turn. In the midst of all this, Mitchell got pretty sick. He had a heck of a nasty cough and runny nose, and I realized he was (and still is) cutting four teeth all at once. Last Tuesday, around noon I noticed he felt a little hotter. I'd been keeping an eye on his temperature because of all this flu stuff. I checked it again. It was 40.2. I did it again to make sure and it was the same. The day before he had a 5 hour nap, and that morning he had fallen asleep again. He looked terrible. When his temperature spiked I panicked and took him to emergency. They found that he had an ear infection and sent us home with a prescription for antibiotics and instructions to give him lots of tylenol for his fever. The next day his tem...

Okay, I'm going to write the novel. Not "a" novel, but "the" novel. It's pretty dumb, hopefully a little funny. It doesn't matter. The whole point is to get to 50,000 words before the end of November. The quality of the story is really a non-issue. Editing is not permitted. If you'd like to check it out, go here . I'm not going to worry about chapters, but I think I will post when I hit around 2000 words, just to keep it manageable! I just copied over the first chunk. All my formatting (you know, indents, spacing) disappeared. I'm going to just leave it. If I reformat everything as I move it over here I'll never get it done. My apologies.

Did you see my last post? I copied the info from NaNoWriMo. I'm going to do it this year. I have a big idea. It's going to be stupid, hopefully funny, and probably very bad. If you're nice to me I might even share it with you.

What is NaNoWriMo? National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30. Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved. Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly. Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down. As you spend November wr...

Jordan threw up last night from 8pm until close to 4 this morning. It sucks. She was white as a ghost, and shaking, and dry heaving like crazy. It sucks watching your little girl wretch and dry heave and wish you could snap her out of it but there's nothing to be done. When I was a kid I used to cry before I threw up, during, and after. I hate being sick. Still do, although I hold the tears at bay these days. Jordan? Not one tear. Last night she was snuggled up on Steven's chest looking like death warmed over. I sat beside him and put my face on his chest inches from hers. "Don't puke on me" I whispered. With an evil smile and a mischievous twinkle her her eye she opens her mouth and says "Blech" and pretends to throw up on me. Then she giggled. "You better not throw up on Daddy," Daddy says. Jordan pulls the neck of his shirt down, grinning, sticks her face in the opening and says "Blech" while pretending to throw up on him. Then she...

Last Halloween Jordan was a kangaroo and Tennyson was a dragon. Mitchell was a baby - he did a very good job. This year we're going to mix it up a little. Jordan will be a princess, Tennyson will be a kangaroo and Mitchell will be a dragon. That dragon is going to make it for years yet. I'm sure we can squash Mitchell in it again next year. After all, Jordan managed it two years in a row! Notice Tennyson in the bunny suit? No? Here's a closeup. The happiest pink and white boy bunny ever ! Grandma & Grandpa V joined us last year on Halloween to check out the kids costumes and ensure that we didn't feed the kids too much candy. Of course we didn't. We're good parents. No gluttonous, chocolaty indulgences for our 18 month olds ! This is the kids carving pumpkins last year. Not that the pics are so exciting, but I need to point out that in this picture, Tennyson looks exactly the same as he does this year, while Jordan looks way younger. And here's a pic...

Okay, so I know we have Halloween to look forward to, and then Christmas, and then New Year's Eve. Not that Steven and I won't just rent a few movies and then suck face at midnight. If we can stay up that long. I'm sort of missing summer already. There isn't even snow on the ground yet. I have these plans for kid activities in the backyard this winter, and they should be fun, but a (huge) part of me thinks - "yeah, but then I have to dress them all and send them all out and then one of them will pee/poo/snot on his/her snowsuit and the fun will be OVER. I'll do it. It'll be fun. I guess. I've also got the kids signed up for a couple of things at the library, and I've been contemplating taking them skating once a week to break up the winter monotony. But I really like summer. Really. ***** I think tomorrow I'm going to let the kids carve pumpkins. Well, they can scoop and draw the face, I'll do the carving. Jacob (the little boy I babysit) in...

Today Jordan decided to get out of her shopping cart by pulling the back panel up and out and crawling under it. Of course this resulted in her getting her jacket caught when she slid through and let the panel down. Then she scrambled around on the ground trying unsuccessfully to free herself. I told her I wasn't going to help her because that's not how you get out of a shopping cart. Eventually I relented. She freed herself and somehow managed to pinch her thumb. As I shut the back door of the van she hopped around and shook her hand around while making this 4-year-old trademark whiny noise. "Well that's what happens when you crawl out of the cart like that" I snapped. "Get in the van and buckle up." She did. As we drove out of the lot, Jordan said "Mommy, you're making everything worse !" "Huh?" "Well I got a owie . You're not supposed to get mad when someone gets a owie !" Then I laughed. Apparently you're no...

A picture! It's a picture! I totally stole this from the proud papa's facebook page, because, sadly I have not seen the baby yet. Reports have it that Mommy, Daddy and Baby are home and doing fine, and are expecting a small group of family yet today. Ange and I are going to pounce on them in the next few days - I'm so excited! He's a beautiful baby guys - can't wait to meet him in person! In other news - did you know that my friend Sonya is up the stump? :) Very excited for her too! (Hey - if my grandpa q can use the expression, I can too!) Original Post: I just want to congratulate Quinn & Lyla on the birth of their new little son Caden! He was born yesterday morning. I haven't seen him yet, but I can't wait! When I do there will be a picture or two here for sure! Congrats guys!

It's Thanksgiving Monday. Do I have things to be thankful for? Yes! Even things that sometimes feel like a chore. Come on - we all feel burdened by our blessings sometimes! For example: The kids. I love them to pieces . Itty bitty ones. They are my joy, my sunshine, all that stuff. Yet they're a lot of work. There are days when I envy women who have relatives coming out of the woodwork to babysit for them, take the kids home for an afternoon, or whisk them away for an hour at the park. Our parents all work full-time and most don't live across the street from us so we don't have this sort of thing. There are many days I wish I did. Mitchell is 14 months old. I've had all three kids under my care every day for 14 months. Not saying that we can't dump them on someone from time to time if we have something to go do, but generally when I'm home they're all here with me. You know what? I love it. I really do. As much as I'd love a break, I think I like ha...

My kids do not like to go to bed. They find the idea abhorrent. Except Tennyson's nap - that he's oddly in favor of. I, on the other hand, would gladly totter off to bed at any given time if given the chance (which I'm not. ever). Tonight Jordan tried slipping out of her room three separate times. Each time she says she really needs to tell me something. "Mommy," she said, in this whiny voice with her impish smile, "me love you." She does this baby talk thing when she's trying to get away with something or suck up. She never said "me" like that before, now she slips it in all day. It drives me crazy. I tell her to stop and she can turn it off as quickly as she turned it on. I told her that I loved her too, but she still had to go to bed. The last time I gave her a hug and told her to go back to bed, tuck herself in and not get out again. I heard no more. Then I was walking through the house picking up toys (I used to get them to do it, now...

I know I haven't been blogging much lately. At all. I feel as though I'm on autopilot. Like I'm not really thinking. I get up in the morning, pride myself on showering before the kids wake up, get breakfast, run to diaper gym/nursery school, pick up Jacob (a little boy I babysit), come home, make lunch, muddle through the afternoon, make dinner, eat dinner, clean up dinner, bath kids, dry kids, brush hair of screaming kids, put kids to bed, put kids to bed again, and again, collapse in a heap on the couch and wait for bedtime. Then I (sort of) sleep through the night only to do it all again the next day. It's not that it's boring, there is lots to do. There just isn't a lot to write about. Last weekend I had a fantastic evening with my blogger friends here at my home. I was going to blog about it. Then I didn't. Then a few days passed and I felt as though the window had closed. I used to feel like my head had so much information in it, like I had so much to ...

My friend Tracey has recently pointed out that I wished Lyla & Quinn a happy anniversary, and I wished Angela a happy birthday on Tracey's actual birthday, and didn't mention her. I like to do things late. That, and because Tracey just radiates such untouchable awesomeness and there are no words to adequately describe the immense wonder that I feel in her presence. So Tracey, happy belated birthday!

My house is a mess. It really is. It's not a mess like "there is some mail on the counter." It's a mess like the floor could use a good mop at any time, there are toys everywhere, there are socks and shirts and pants mixed in with the toys, the windows need a good scrubbing, the bathrooms . . . I could go on. And on. And on. There are just not enough hours in the day! My place used to be way cleaner. Last winter I even had a rotation ! I wrote it down! There were certain weekdays where I did certain chores so that everything would be done within the week. Vacuuming and bathrooms were on it twice ! Now I'm sure my vacuum feels as though it's on hiatus. My reasoning? I'm busy. I truly am. I always figured that not having a "job" would mean a clean house, cookies baked, kids happy, painting and coloring in the afternoon. Ha. I take the kids to playgroup three mornings a week. Jordan goes to nursery school the other two mornings. I sell epicure some ...

I am probably the worst birthday/anniversary rememberer ever . Seriously. I use yahoo mail's reminders otherwise my friends and families birthdays would come and go and I'd never even notice. It's that bad. That's why I figure a day late isn't terrible - because with me, it could have been never . Happy Birthday Angela! Angela and I joke that we've been friends since she was born. It's true. We're in the same family, and we grew up a block or so apart. We lived in a little town where it was okay for a five year old to run a couple of blocks to a friends house, so we did. Ange is my mom's baby sister. She's a year younger than me. I don't remember ever not knowing her, and I don't remember ever not being close. We were always at the top of each others lists of people to call when we got engaged, got pregnant, and had babies. For years we called each other each Christmas morning to see what gifts the other received. I still have the urge ...

The neighbors are trying to take down a garage. It's a single car garage, but it's extra long, I figure there's probably a work area in the back end or something. First they dismantled some of the siding and support beams. Then they hooked it up to a truck and tried to drag it. I'm not sure what the plan is - drag it to the dump? I don't think it's very well thought through. Now? Now the garage is a twisted, yet still sort of held-together structure. The solution? Climb on top of it with a chainsaw and start cutting. The guy is out there right now, alternating between chain-sawing and actually bouncing on top of it, while holding a running chain saw, and trying to help it collapse. Now, I'm no carpenter, or wrecker - but this seems like a bad idea.

I could have unfounded prejudices, but if you're a middle aged guy with no kids in tow, maybe don't hang around at the playground. It's a little creepy.

At Island Park. One minute he was there, the next he wasn't. Ange and I (along with our collective eight kids) were visiting at a picnic table. Every couple of minutes we'd count the kids again, especially if we couldn't see them. They love to go around structures and hide in nooks and crannies where they can't be seen. Then we take a walk to make sure they're all in the sand. They know they aren't to leave the sandy area. We checked our troop again. No Tennyson. His favorite play structure is the furthest one from where we were sitting - the old one with the metal slide. I headed over there, chatting to the other kids as I walked by. No Tennyson. I did a loop around the play ground. Still no Tennyson. I went around again to make sure I hadn't missed him. I hadn't. I looked beyond the sandy area into the grass, trees, road. Nothing. Has something like this ever happened to you? It's awful. My first thought was the lake. I hoped to heck he hadn't...

I've been having the oddest dreams lately. I know what you're thinking - no blogs for weeks and now she's going to talk about this. Yeah? Well it's my blog, so deal! Last night I had this dream that started out with a giant mutant spider in a robot costume who was in love with me (or the character I was playing) and followed me out to a parking lot at night and we danced under a street light. I knew it was a giant spider in the rusty robot suit but I played along because I didn't want to make it angry. The dream later morphed into the spider shape-shifting into a girl who lived in this house with me and a bunch of other people. She seemed a little slow, but we were all nice to her because we were afraid of making her mad, and having her turn back into a spider and slaughtering and eating us all. Makes sense right? Our plan? We told her it was her birthday and that we were planning a party for her so she couldn't listen in on our conversation. We then decided to...

It was supposed to be a secret, but Angela told. Yes, it is my 25th birthday today. Feel free to send money.

Sometimes I suspect I'm lazy. Okay, suspect may not have been a strong enough word. I know I'm lazy sometimes. You'll notice the infrequency with which I've been blogging lately. I'll have a day where I get loads of things accomplished - then I reward myself with 7 days of reading. I have this thing about buying books. The thing being that I don't (buy books). I don't agree with buying books. Oh sure, if there's a favorite, or an author I really really like I may buy a book. But it's been a while. I don't buy them because I can generally read a book in about a day. If I start one today before dinner I'll be finished it tomorrow before dinner. I kid you not. Even big ones. I devoured four or five novels last week. I read the last Twilight book in less than 24 hours. They're not even that good. Don't get me started. Okay, a little side note about Twilight. I know it's for young adults, but seriously, the books read like they were w...

Maybe. Apparently I've been a bad blogger. Bad. It's not my fault, really! I'm definitely one of those bloggers who writes less when there is more going on. I commit to blogging more (notice how there isn't some sort of measure?). Aside: Scroll down for another new post. See? Twice today already!

His brother (the Incredible Hulk) freed him from his nap yesterday.

I saw Julie & Julia tonight. I really liked it. So many times I see something that someone else has written, or a fantastic idea that someone else has come up with or invented. My ideas? Zip. I have no original ideas. Side Note: I actually kind of believe that there is no such thing as original ideas/thoughts, but that's a whole other blog post. The premise of the movie was cute (supposedly a somewhat true story). I recommend it. It's a girlie movie, but not a romance, so don't go running over there hoping for romance. There is a certain amount of sex. Don't pretend you don't like that.

Update: Candice has emailed me the "slip 'n slide" family photo from Awkward Family Photos . Click HERE to see it. Yes, Candice does indeed have a darker side! Although, I must say that it does remind me of an "incident" here last summer: I bought Jordan a slip & slide for her birthday. She was a little wary of it, being that the water was ridiculously cold. Daddy's solution? To pick up the child and "bowl" her down the slip & slide. Boy was she mad. He had to suck up to her for quite some time to get that evil glare off her face that day! Original Post: I've been following this blog called Awkward Family Photos. It's crazy. I just needed to tell you that you have to check out this post . It's one thing to love your pets...

Hi Candice!

. . . Where I can't sleep. No idea why. Take right now for instance: it's 4:01am and I've been awake since 2. It's not impressive. I didn't have any caffeine last night, no sugary snacks, had a nice supper at a normal time and went to bed at a decent hour. I didn't exercise too close to bedtime (or at all today for that matter). I fell asleep fine. Then at about 2 o'clock I had this weird half-asleep, half-awake dream where you're awake but you can't shake the dream. Ever get that? I dreamed that an epicure party was still on and I worried that the people hanging out in the bedroom would see Steven's underwear since he had tossed the covers back. I actually "discreetly" covered him back up so they wouldn't notice. After a few minutes I realized that it's unrealistic to assume that there are people in my room at two in the morning to talk about epicure. I got up, had a sip of water, used the washroom (I have to wake up a little t...

A couple of weeks ago I took the kids to Spruce Woods to hang out with some of my friends. No, I didn't take pictures. I'm bad. Check here if you really want to see some! It was fun reconnecting with the girls I used to hang out with all the time in high school. Not that we don't now, but with jobs, kids and responsibilities there is little time left for hanging out on a beach blanket, reading magazines and painting our toenails like we used to! A moment of note: We're sitting on shore watching the kids. Okay, well not "shore" exactly. We're past the shore, on the grass, because we don't like to get dirty. See, we've really grown up. The kids (ages 11 months to 4 years) are entertaining themselves by the water. Jordan comes running off the beach to tell me she has to go pee. Now you have to understand that the beach washrooms are WAAAAAYYY down at the other end of the beach. WAAAYYY down. Of course you know what I'm thinking. She should hav...

Stolen from Lora . First the rules: 1. Respond and rework. Answer the questions on your blog. Replace one question that you dislike with a question of your invention, and add one more question of your own. 2. Tag other people. Now the questions: What are you wearing today? This morning I was wearing my cute short(ish) shorts. I then put on a cute little green tank top but I thought it showed a little too much cleavage for the local playground. Then I switched to a pink tank top because Jordan was wearing all pink stuff (even her underwear, she'd have you know) and I wanted to match her. My pink tank top was a little irritating on my sunburned back so I traded that in for a purple t-shirt. Much to Jordan's dismay. What's for dinner? Lasagna. I must say I make excellent lasagna. Top it off with some garlic bread, and some salad and cheese buns supplied by my mom and a delicious meal was had by all! Let's not mention the Smartie Ice Cream. What would you eat for your last...

We took the kids to splash island today. Halfway through the day, Jordan finally mustered up the courage to hold her nose and duck down under the water. She's never done this before, and was extremely proud of herself. You should have seen her face, her joy/pride/self-esteem/all around happiness was undisguised. I praised her like crazy. It was a big moment for her - her smile was "THIS BIG." At one point, she came up out of the water, dripping wet and I clapped and cheered as I had the previous ten times and she threw her arms around me and said "Mommy you're the best!" ***** The other day I was getting ready to take the kids outside. It was cold and windy out and Jordan had just put on a skimpy little sun dress. I told her she had to wear pants and a sweater with her dress (we don't mind the combos). She sighed as I pulled a pair of pants out of her drawer. "Jordan," I said. "Don't sigh at mommy, it's not nice." She still l...

Steven's building a compost box. He's weird. I know, I know, it's supposed to make nice succulent dirt for my flower beds, but still. Sacks of soil are relatively cheap. Apparently it's about being good to the environment. Today he was out in the garage building this big wooden box while the kids were scampering around at his feet. I came upon them all in mid-conversation , with Jordan talking excitedly about sleeping in the backyard. She's pumped. Steven tried to tease her by telling her that he was building this big box to stick her and Tennyson in. Somehow, through the twists and turns of the conversation, Jordan is now going to sleep in that box in the backyard. She couldn't be happier. She's wanted to tent in the yard with me so badly for a while now. I'm planning on doing that with her, it just hasn't happened yet. She's even more excited now that she gets to sleep in a wooden crate. I almost felt bad when I told her that she was not slee...

Happy Birthday HEATHER !!

... motivation. Lately I have felt so absolutely unconcerned about house and home. I take the kids to diaper gym or the park, we do the odd thing with a friend, or we bum around in the backyard or have little siestas on the couch while the babies are sleeping. I really do have a cleaning list. In all honesty I made it last week to distribute the housework over a week instead of busting my hump like crazy in one or two days. It's a great system, in theory. One hour of housework a day instead of five hours on one day. Then there is LOTS of time left over in each day to do other, more fun things. Except that I find excuses. My excuse right now? I just don't feel like it. Okay, I know that's not a good excuse. I'm feeling house-lazy lately. I'm all for going for walks, or taking the kids for ice-cream, or heading off to the beach for a couple of hours. Then I get home and I couldn't be bothered. It's not like it's a total dump in here, I do what I have to do...