My Baby Has Got It Going On

Before I had children I used to look at parents whose kids dress like mine and swear that my children would never leave the house looking that way. And I admit, they didn't back when I only had several children. And back when I still dressed them and they didn't care. Then they grew up and got opinionated. And I had a couple more of them.

I used to have some standards. Apparently, I no longer do...

This picture was taken at the bus stop the other morning. I must have been so happy that they were going to school that I never looked at what my daughter was wearing before we left the house. As we waited for the bus, I noticed that Ammy's leggings were too short and her legs were hanging out. Wouldn't be too bad except it was about 25 degrees. She likes to wear these brown leggings with a grey skort with a rhinestone red heart on it.

Then she added this purple shirt over a blue and white long-sleeved shirt. I have a rule that they can wear t-shirts to school in the winter, but they have to wear a long-sleeved shirt underneath. This shirt is Ammy's favorite new shirt in honor of Joe Flacco, the Ravens Quarterback. I bought if for Allie but it was too big and didn't fit her the way she wanted it to (See, she's opinionated). Ammy jumped on the opportunity to snag the shirt. Now she wears it ALL the time. It's very long on her. In fact, it covers up the skort unless she moves a certain way.

Okay, how 'bout them chucks? They were from her Halloween costume this past year. She wears them constantly...with everything. Except for when she is wearing her white fur boots.

Ammy loves Joe Jonas. She had to have this messenger bag at the start of school. She wouldn't use it for the first month of school after Allie made fun of her. Luckily, she spilled a drink in her other backpack and she had to use the messenger bag. She's never looked back.
Put it all together and it's quite a look don't you think? My baby's got it going on!

Hey people, she's my fifth child...I'm just happy she's dressed.

Better Late Than Never

2 Hour Delay

The big kids leave .
The little kids leave.
I'm Free!

I will be back later to talk about my youngest daughter's sense of style.

ICE ICE BABY

The view when we woke up this morning.
The bamboo along our drive way weighted down with ice.The grill with icycles hanging off.

Determined to leave no matter what, it took me 20 minutes to chip off all of the ice on my car. Three days with kids home from school is enough to drive anyone crazy.We had to roll the windows down to loosen the ice. Don't worry honey, I don't have a broken window. It just looks like I do.

We made it out to the grocery store, Michaels for more Shrinky Dinks and Borders for some reading material. It is pouring rain now, but rumor has it everything is freezing and will continue to do so all night. If they don't have school tomorrow someone may have to come and rescue me...or them.

SPT

I resolve to take more self-portraits doing things I enjoy...

Hanging out playing with my daughter, Ammy.

Making silly faces to mess up the picture.

Sledding down our front hill.

Wiping out. There wasn't a lot of snow, but it was slippery.

And some more snow photos...

Allie refusing to let me take her picture. I'll fix her!

It looks like we will get to do this all over again tomorrow. More snow, ice and rain are on the way...GREAT!

It Works!

Clothes inside out and backwards
(spastic 7 year old not necessary)

Fork on the window sill

Spoon under the pillow

= SNOW

No school today!

Valentine Shrinky Dinks

While I was on vacation, I bought several magazines. In Hallmark Magazine, I found an article on mini valentines that you can make with shrinky dinks. It just so happens that I have a ton of shrinky dink paper left over from a project I did several years ago so I decided that we were going to make them sometime before Valentine's Day.

Yesterday, Ammy had a playdate with her friends, Isabel and Oona. She wanted to make a craft with them so we pulled out the markers, colored pencils and shrinky dink paper (frosted ruff n' ready). They sat and worked on their valentines for hours. Allie and Tristan even joined in after the play date ended. I have to say that even I made a few.

I found these little heart containers at Michaels (in the wedding section). Most of the shrinky dinks fit in the container once they are baked. Ammy plans to give each of her classmates a container filled with little mini valentine wishes...a much better option than the cheesy paper valentines you buy in the box. Not that I haven't purchased those cheesy paper valentines for the past 16 years! (and will be for Kellen since he has no desire to join in the fun)

The twins don't have school today so Isabel, Oona and another friend, Annie are here making Shrinky Dinks again! They've been at it for over 2hours and I don't see them coming up for air any time soon. A total win-win situation....they have cute Valentines to give and they are entertained for hours.

If you don't have access to Shrinky Dink paper, you can use recycled #6 plastic according to Cindy at http://www.skiptomylou.org/ (my new favorite crafts for kids website)

You can download templates for the valentines at http://holidays.kaboose.com/valentines-day-coloring-pages.html, http://www.hallmarkmagazine.com/downloads/Give_It_shrinkies_DESIGNS2.pdf or just search for Valentine clipart.

Also, Shrinky Dinks has come out with a printable paper that you can use with your inkject printer. It is available at Michaels; however, they were out of it when I went yesterday. You can print photos and then cook them. I see endless possibilities in my shrinky dink future!

Fishuneral

Today, we had a floater. Tyler's fish, McMuffin, was no longer swimming. We kept hoping that he would come back from the dead like King Titus did, but no such luck.

Ammy and Kellen decided that we needed to have a proper burial for "McMuffin"
We gathered in the bathroom to say our last goodbyes. The master of ceremonies gave everyone a change to speak .

Kellen, a boy of few words, managed to eek out, "Goodbye McMuffin."

Ammy did the honors of pouring McMuffin into his final resting place.

And Kellen gave the final flush.

Goodbye McMuffin. I wonder how long it will take before Tyler realizes that you are gone.

The Lost Art of Letter Writing

Apparently letter writing is a very big deal in second grade.

Recently, I found a bunch of letters that Kellen and Ammy have written over the past month or so and they are too funny. The first couple were written before Christmas to be given after Christmas.

The next letter was the front and back of a postcard that Kellen wrote for his friend, Chase. Chase will be moving to North Carolina in the coming weeks and Kellen is totally bummed.

Not sure what happened to the dude in the middle. Love the faces on his people--especially all the teeth since so many of them at this age, have no front teeth.

I think letters are such a neat keepsake. I used to be a great letter writer when I was growing up and when I was first in college. I used to love getting mail and I saved my letters for years. Occasionally I would pull them out and reread them. They have since been lost in one of my moves, but I still have letters that my grandfather sent me after my grandmother died. He has since passed away, but it makes me happy to have this small part of him to remember him by.

So, that leads me to another resolution for 2009. I plan to send a letter a week to someone in my life. I figure if I put it out there then I will follow through!

Have a great weekend.

Another funny thing I found...I was cleaning the twins room when I found a stack of my checks under Kellen's bed. He was writing checks to his friends on my REAL checks. I wasn't too worried since he wrote on the checks with red colored pencil. If you look closely, you can see he made the check out to Luke for $50,00. When I asked him about writing a $50,000 check he told me he meant to make it for 5 million dollars! Sorry Luke, but today is not your lucky day.

SPT

stands for Self-Portrait Tuesdays. The SPT challenge started at Eleanor's site and I have decided to take part...so what if it's Thursday and I've missed a couple of weeks. The gist of the challenge is that every Tuesday you take a self-portrait of yourself doing one of the suggested topics. I take hundreds of photos and I am very rarely in them...probably because I hate to have my picture taken. Anyway, I am going to try and participate for the remainder of 2009. If you would like to join in the fun, go to Eleanor's site on Tuesdays and link yourself to Mr. Linky (some cool gadget out there) You will be able to see self-portraits of other people that are participating in the challenge and they will be able to see you.

Tuesday, January 20 I resolve to take more self-portraits while trying new things...well, my new thing was taking a photo in the mirror. (and I was wearing a new shirt)
This picture was taken while standing on the bathtub in my bathroom in the hotel.

This is my friend, Kimberly, (maggie's mom) in the picture with me. Both of our husbands are on the governing committee of a construction forum so 4 times a year we get together and play while they are in meetings. It never fails that we get together in the morning for breakfast and we are wearing the exact same thing. It's never planned nor do we know what the other has packed for the trip. Since the weather was so cold in Florida, we went shopping one of the days. We both bought the same shirt and the same capri pants figuring it would be okay since I live in Maryland and she lives in North Carolina. We had to laugh when I opened the door the next morning and she was wearing the exact same thing as I was. We figured we needed to capture the moment before one of us changed.