"SPRING" (their words, not mine) Break

Burr! Does anyone else think this is cold - even for spring?

For our spring break we are celebrating with three sick girls (and I thought BOYS were babies when they were sick - OY!) including a double ear infection for Miss El - who is the only one who has been taken to a professional. The rest remain undiagnosed.

Yeah Spring Break!!!

The Flood With No Rainbow

There was only one small handful of chocolate chips left in the whole house this morning, and they were gone before 8:30. I guess I should have seen that for what it was, a very bad omen, and gone straight back to bed. But I didn't. Here is a little rundown of the day - mostly in order...

We had a fist fight all of the way to school - not most of the way, mind you - all of the way. The replacement for our broken window came in. Brad went and got it - what has it been - only three months or something - he brings it home, puts it in and we realize that the grid on the inside is the wrong size and doesn't match the rest of the windows (they will measure our grid again, reorder it, and call us when it comes in). I was supposed to go Visiting Teaching this afternoon but the poor little girl I visit is sick with that nasty head cold everyone seems to be sharing so kindly. I offered to bring dinner into her and her girls and while she tried to talk me out of it I insisted - and I'm glad because I really do love her - but that doesn't mean that I am going to be able to pull it off! Okay, so my oven has been broken for days ($150 and a couple of weeks shipping time and we should have the new part for Brad to install - failed pilot less ignition thingy) but I decide that my VT girl needs some chicken noodle soup and homemade bread (tomorrow is Anna's third Birthday and I'm also going to need an oven for cake). LUCKILY my new neighbor, who just moved from Texas, was kind enough to let me use her oven so I got started on making bread and soup (cupcakes tomorrow). The kids are in and out and asking for this and that. We have an incident with an entire banana being smashed on someones foot and then "wiped off" on the carpet. World War Three over homework. Let's see - oh yes, in my chicken noodle soup I like to have the healing power of lots of good veggies but my children REFUSE to eat good veggies so I usually blend them up with a stick blender. Well the stick blender busted so I decided to use the REAL blender. I couldn't find the top. I decide to hold a lid over it. Guess what? It was steaming hot and as soon as I pulsed my blender (we have one of the old fashioned one speed on/off blenders that has a jet engine in it) it SPEWED carrot, celery, onion, mint, garlic - ALL OVER my appliance garage. It truly looked like cooking day at kindergarten after Little Timmy projectile-vomited all over everything. BUT the piece-de-resistance was this...

Tanner came down and casually announced to me that the toilet was clogged. Mind you, we have these amazing-powerful-super-ultra-mega-flushable-toilets. You've seen the commercial on TV where the guy is flushing everything he can get his hands on to try to clog the toilet and it just won't clog? Well those are the toilets we have here - and while I have to say that they are SO much better than the toilets we used to unclog twice a day - literally - my persistent children still manage to clog them once or twice a month. My reply was simply, "Okay. Just leave it alone and I will take care of it in a little bit." So I'm just making my dinner and blah blah blah - when all of the sudden I hear splashing on my ceiling. I ran upstairs and there it was - a huge flood of water running everywhere!!! Luckily it was clean - but still - NASTY! I start throwing rags down and slopped over to shut off the water valve. Then I announced at the top of my lungs that children are no longer allowed to use the toilets in the house - they will have to start sharing the back yard with Suzee. As I am trying to clean up the swimming pool, the kids start yelling downstairs - "THERE IS WATER RUNNING OUT OF THE LIGHTS!!!" And sure enough - water was running out of two of the lights in the kitchen - luckily not near the food - BUT STILL - and the worst part is???

There was no rainbow. No promise that it will not happen again... Tomorrow even.

Invention of the Venting Blog

Some day I am going to write a book about all of the things in life that aren't fair and how to twist them around for one's advantage. It will be written right after the book, "3478 Reasons I Never Wrote A Book" (don't look for that one on shelves anytime soon either!) Until that time I have decided to create a new blog that is about my observations, annoyances, ideas, and such. So, for those of you who just don't get bored enough reading about my life... try reading about my thoughts! Scary.

The new address is:
accordingtoperfectlyimperfect.blogspot.com

The Sweetness of Ella

When Ella was little we used to sing a song to her that we slightly revised to make it fit our situation. The song was "Hey! Did you happen to see the most beautiful girl in the world? And if you did she was Ella Rhinehart - YES! If you happen to see the most beautiful girl in the world - tell her I love her - tell her I need my Ella home." This morning when I was doing Ella's hair I was singing that to her again and she looked at me and said, "Mom I wish I was older than you - do you want to know why?" Of course I wanted to know why, so she told me. "Then I could do your hair and sing a nice song to you!" I just love that little Ella Bean.

Anticipating Summer...

These are just a few of the reasons I am SO excited for spring and summer...

AAAHHHHH!

Push Pause! I Need To Go Potty!

Tonight my beautiful girls were playing together in the living room. One of them would stand on the coffee table and another one, standing on the floor in front of them, would hug the table-stander's legs while the third daughter would shove the table-stander - sending both the stander and the hugger hurtling into the couch (and hopefully not breaking any bones or windows - although it is a miracle they were both spared). All of the sudden Anna yells - "Push pause! I need to go potty!!!" then she grabs and runs. Push pause? I guess maybe we need to watch a little less DVR-ed TV. But hey! At least all of my children are potty trained! Push pause indeed.

Mom's Cooking Show - Hooray for Yeast!

Yeast is just cool. It eats sugar, gets fat, blows up, and makes delicious bread and rolls and scones and donuts and...

This is what we affectionately call "Mom's Cooking Show". It takes place at the counter facing the dining room and we all get to "help" make something together. Today it was bread. The girls were thrilled that the bread got so fat and then we got to punch it down and make it small again - and the real miracle is that even after we smashed it down, it got fat again. Hooray for bread! You know, maybe Ma Ingalls had something with all of that "home ec-ish" stuff. It sure provides a lot of entertainment - and in the meantime we get a delicious treat and a WONDERFUL smell. They should make a candle that smells like fresh baked bread. Yum. So go get some yeast and make some bread or cinnamon rolls or scones or WHATEVER and bring it over for me to try.

Hooray for yeast! Now let's feast!