Not it!

These days, when I say things like "the shoe basket is empty, but surrounded by shoes, please clean it up, girls" to my children, they invariably say, in turn, "I didn't do it!" I don't need that at home, I get enough of it at work.

Yesterday, I was setting up a movie for Sarah to watch while Kate was finishing her homework. When I found the DVDs out of their cases and spread all over the place in the TV room I commented that we all should be more careful to put these things away when we're finished watching them. Sarah said "I didn't do it!" and I heaved a heavy, end-of-the-day-tired sigh. "It doesn't matter, Sarah" I tried (again) to explain. "It just matters that we take care of our stuff, all of us." Then, because it was bugging me, I threw in "I'm so tired of you girls constantly shirking responsibility for stuff." To that, Sarah replied "I didn't do that!"

The Big Par-tay

We traveled to my mountains to celebrate my parents' 50th wedding anniversary and somehow managed to forget a camera. So, I've been stealing photos from other, more responsible participants in the festivities and I will slowly add them here in the way of updates. Here's an adorable shot of Sarah and Ro* at dinner that Friday night. Feel the cousin love!

A Brief Conversation With Kate

Kate: [While getting dressed this morning] Hey, this skirt is actually a skort!
Me: Great, now you can just play with reckless abandon!
Kate: Or with the monkey bars.

Girls' Night

Jeremiah left us all to go see My Morning Jacket with Steve way the heck up in Alpharetta. 'Where's Alpharetta?' you non-Georgian types might ask. It doesn't matter. It's OTP. Usually people just schlep out there to sit in a big, glass box all day so they can enjoy one another's company for an extended period of time on GA 400. Reportedly, though, this venue is very nice. I may never know.

We left a killer birthday party early so that Jeremiah could then leave our house early enough to get to the show. Neko Case is opening! Anyway, we'd explained to the girls ahead of time about how we might have to leave while the party was still going strong and they did, in fact, take our departure in Spartan-like strides. So, because we had to leave to GIANT Waterslide of Delight before cake and ice cream happened, I told them I'd make them cupcakes at home.

And so, when it was just us gals, after dinner, we threw on some Go-Go's (here's an entertaining side note: the Best of the Go-Go's? Jeremiah's purchase), and pulled out all the fun baking tools and ingredients. I had a lot of help compiling the cupcake ingredients, and still more making frosting. (In these photos they're singing "we got the beatERS" and dancing on the chairs). It was decided the frosting should be purple. Here, you'll notice, the frosting has a sickly gray tinge to it. Suffice it to say, there was a minor incident with the blue food coloring that resulted in this particular hue. The crowd was not dissuaded.

Why is Kate wearing long sleeves, boots and a fur vest? She's been reading Neil Gaimon's Coraline, and was also watching the movie this evening, and she felt this attire was her best Coraline look. She did complain of being warm, but was unmoved when I pointed out that her discomfort could have something to do with its being 90 degrees outside. I noticed, later, she did remove the vest. Anyhoo, we finished making our cupcakes and we all retired to the TV room, with a glass of milk, to watch the rest of Coraline together, along with the dogs.

On an unrelated note, Sarah likes to use my camera. Here are some examples of her photographing prowess:
(I'm fond of Chihuahua with Coffee myself)

Yes, We're Still Here

It's been awhile. You know what? Sometimes we're busy! Now is one of those times. I will post real news of the kids again soon, I promise. Meanwhile, know that they are fine, doing very well in school, getting cuter in their sleep at night, tormenting the pets, singing and dancing in the kitchen...it's all continuing but at the end of the day the thought of facing my computer is making me cringe. So, once I build up the will, I'll publish real news, with photos. I swear!

New Cousins

We've been away from home for a week, because we were busy meeting Kate & Sarah's new cousins, Milo and Elliott! Some of us use up nearly 3 years having two children, while some of us are highly efficient and have 2 at once. Milo and Elliott arrived on July 21st, weighing in at more than each of my children upon their birthdays. That's a heck of a lotta baby right there. I was dismayed to discover nearly all the photos I took while we were in Williamsburg came out very blurry, but here are a few.

Jazz hands!

While in Ye Olde Virginia, we celebrated Sarah's 5th birthday. I tell ya, these kids are just gittin' too big ta cuddle. Since turning the big 0-5, Sarah has spent a lot of time explaining to us that she is now very mature. She's been sitting with her legs crossed, drinking with her pinky out and purposely dressing like me, which I think is funny, because I never really advanced beyond the sheer basics of covering all the important parts, in the art of dressing one's self. She poured over "You Can Count on Monsters" because it is a rather long book on the topic of math and she held a dead cicada in her bare hands, just to show us all how very sophisticated she really is now.



As a bonus, we got to visit briefly with the Druekes of Miami. I took a bunch of photos, none of which came out properly except this one of Grandpa Drueke with all his grandchildren:


While we did spend a lot of time cooking and cleaning, in an effort to help the sleep-deprived new parents, we also managed to have some fun playtime. The girls made it to Water Country USA twice, we hit a Bouncy Place on Sarah's birthday, there was a multitude of treats (you can tell by a quick glance at my current largess) and Jeremiah and I got to enjoy the awesome bike trails covering the area. Although Chris and Sonya refused to take us up on our offer to help with midnight baby soothing time, we returned home more exhausted than we've been in quite some time. Even the kids were wiped out. Kate slept until after 9 this morning, which has probably only happened in the past when she's been ill.

Tomorrow is the first day of school, and the first day of our diet to try to reverse what I guess is best described as sympathy post partum weight...? For the time being, don't look at us, we're hideous!

Get Us Out From Under, Wonder Woman...

It's not Sarah's birthday today, but when it is, we'll be in Virginia and I have no interest in attempting to create a requested specialty cake for a birthday girl in a kitchen that isn't my own. So today we sang Happy Birthday and ate some Wonder Woman cake. It was just a taste of what's to come in just 9 days, when my youngest turns five. Yowsa. FIVE.


Yeah, those are Halloween paper plates. Don't hate, it's what we had on hand. Sheesh.