Daddy's not gonna be happy....

The girls were in charge of "watching" their little brother while I dried my hair today.....poor little guy. It's hard to be macho when you live with a bunch of girls!

Brooklyn's Haircut

Disclaimer: The red, sparkly, vinyl barstool that you see in this post does not stay in my kitchen. Its home is in the basement and goes with the red tiled bar that I had nothing to do with. They came with the house!!

So, I've finally done it. It was a must. It has taken, oh I don't know, at least a year of prepping. What am I talking about? Brooklyn's haircut. Brooklyn loves her long hair. And she wants it to stay very loooong. The last time I cut/trimmed Brooklyn's hair was a year ago and she was so excited to get her haircut until the first golden locks fell. And then the tears fell right along with the rest of her hair. And after we were done, she cried over the garbage can where her limp, lifeless hair lay.

Well, now her hair is much longer. It's been growing for an entire year after all. But, she wouldn't let me come near her with scissors. Every time I thought we could get a little trim in Brooklyn would say something like," You can cut my hair as long as you don't use the hair cutters." Or "I do want a haircut. Maybe tomorrow mom. But not today."

So last week I just did it. I got her out of the tub and put her on the barstool and told her how fun it would be and that hair cutters do not hurt. We started off pretty well. And this is what she looked like a couple of minutes into it.......

My poor, dramatic little Brooklyn!



I don't know why she hates haircuts, I just know that she does. She hasn't had a tramautic experience with haircuts or scissors or anything. I guess it's just one of those things and I should be grateful she isn't a boy!

This was all the happiness she could muster so soon after her ordeal.

And after all was said and done she saw this. And the tears started again.......

Abby's Skirts

Lately Abby has been very particular about what she wears. I may have mentioned this in a previous post. She is no longer able to wear just in anything. In fact, most days she has to wear a skirt. Not for the fashion statement although she looks darn cute. No, it's for the comfort factor. All of her brand new, hardly been worn jeans "don't feel comfortable".

I don't really care what Abby wears as long as she wears something and her outfit looks fairly cohesive. She's actually gotten pretty good at choosing her outfits. Like I said, most days there are no problems with this system. But on other days we have big problems. Days that I forget to, say, do the laundry. And Abby is left with too-stiff-what-a-waste-of-my-money-never-been-worn-jeans. Well, on one of these particular days I told Abby that I was sure she had one skirt left in her drawer (albeit a little snug) but no leggings. She was just going to have to be a bit chilly until her clothes got out of the dryer. Her response?

"NO Mommy! I can't pull that skirt up. It makes my hands go (sob) sour!"

Sour? Really. That sounds bad.

We ended up just unbuttoning and unzipping the skirt so Abby's sour hands could work better. Problem deflected for the time being!

We were also at Abby's preschool a couple of nights ago for Make It Take It Night. We made windsocks. And while we were at it we were able to quiz Abby's teachers about how Abby really acts at school. They were telling us all about Abby setting the fashion trends with her little friends. Apparently all the little girls have started wearing skirts and coming to Abby for advice about how they look. Does it really start this young? Actually I can answer that myself. No. It starts younger. Just ask Brooklyn!

Trip

Two weekends ago (yes, I'm behind!) we decided to head for Denver. We wanted to get a temple trip in and since we live 4 hours away from the Denver Temple we really have to plan in advance to make it all work out.

Darren took Friday off and we headed up first thing in the morning. Jace did not want to eat when he woke up that morning because it was much more fun to play and giggle instead. I tried nursing him, I tried feeding him rice cereal, I gave him more time to play, tried nursing him again and he would have none of it. So when I said we left first thing in the morning it was really more like 9:00. But do you think my kids really care about time? No they don't. So I said fine. He must not be hungry. Let's just go. Everything ran smoothly until we got to Main Street and stopped for gas. (I'm talking Main Street in Lamar, as in 1/2 mile from my house.)

Well, at that point Abby unbuckled her seatbelt to get earphones for the movie and was having problems buckling back up (she was on the opposite side of what she was used to because of our luggage). So I jumped back there to help. The only problem was that Jace saw me and then remembered he had not eaten yet. I made no eye contact and pretended everything was normal. I'm sure you all know how this story ends up. Well, we got back on the road with a screaming baby and hoped for the best for about 20 minutes before I finally broke down made Darren pull over so I could feed him. For those of you familiar with the Lamar area, we barely made it past Wiley.

Anyway, that was the beginning of it and even after he was fed Jace was mad. Because I am neurotic about my children being in carseats and being buckled up I refused to get Jace out of his carseat and instead headed to the back and squeezed myself in between seats and on the floor of my minivan where my sweet little Jace could gaze into my eyes for the rest of the trip. If you are confused about where exactly I was squished into I will clarify. I was in a very small space in between two seats and I had no seatbelt. No, how could I have a seatbelt when I had no seat to sit on. I wasn't too concerned because I'm fairly certain that if we had had an accident I would have gone no where. Did I mention I had squeezed myself into a tight spot?

The bad news is that I have freakishly poor circulation, a bad back, and a bony rear end that was made worse by the bars I was sitting on (we have an option to have a seat in that very spot.....we just didn't put it in.) The good news is that the rest of the trip was fairly quiet.

That night we took the kids to Chuck E. Cheese's and the girls had a great time. Denver has a few different Chuck E. Cheese's and unfortunately Darren and I think we chose one of the more ghetto ones. But the girls thought it was fantastic.

Here's Abby. She liked trying out the different games.

Brooklyn's favorite thing was to go on all the different little rides they had.

Jace just couldn't handle any more excitement.

After all our fun and games we headed to the hotel. Darren decided to sleep with Brooklyn because she's a wild sleeper and he was worried she would fall out of bed. At home she has a wall on one side and Abby on the other. He was going to use his 7th sense. You know the one that alerts him in the middle of the night of a child about to fall out of bed. Well, fall out of bed she did and woke everyone else up along with it. Usually this would not be a big deal. But I have a baby who doesn't want to go back to sleep in a strange place. So Jace and I were up for a solid hour just looking around. He finally fell back to sleep but was up several more times. Let's just say there are nights when I am extremely grateful to finally see daylight approaching!

The next morning we hit the outlet malls where I got some new, cool, square dishes that are extremely big and barely fit into my cupboards. I feel so hip. And a new pair of running shoes that make running 3 miles feel like nothing. Ok, not really. They'd have to be motorized to accomplish that.

Anyway, for those of you who actually finished reading this long post congratulations, you're at the end! We had a great time and wish we could go more often.

Happy Birthday Darren!

I've been waiting this whole week to blog about my Valentines Day (or I should really say our Valentines Day) and finally sat down to do it. I got out the camera, got my pictures downloaded to the computer and with one quick accidental finger move I've deleted the whole weekend.....and Darren's birthday party pictures that happened a few days ago!
AAAAAAGGGGHHHH!!
How annoying. So no pictures but here's a rundown of our family happenings.
For Valentine's Day I thought it would be fun to do something together as a family. So we decided to have picnic in the living room. We've done this one other time and the girls think it's great and I think it's great when I don't have to cook:). We put an old blanket down on the living room floor, got some Quiznos, put in the Little Mermaid and had a great night. On Monday night Darren and I went out to eat without the kids and that about sums it up! Nothing too exciting but we did at least acknowledge the Day of Love.
Darren's birthday was on Sunday (the 21st) and he insisted we not do anything for it. I obviously ignored his one birthday wish and made him the yummiest chocolate cake with buttercream chocolate frosting. And we even added pink, white, and red heart sprinkles "to show daddy how much we love him" according to Abby. I, of course, agreed. Too bad I can't show you how nice my chocolate cake looked (bonehead move!) but I'm sure you can imagine. Darren was lucky enough to get a nice package of no show socks and I'm not sure who was more excited about it - me or him. I was excited just to find something at Walmart that qualified as a birthday present (and yes I do know that socks are a lame present but keep reading)! Darren was excited because now he doesn't have to wear his socks for 3 days in a row before washing them (and no, I did not know that he has been doing this for months.) For some reason I never realized I only folded 2 pairs of his socks in our weekly laundry. Disgusting, I know. However, Darren just thinks he's being green:) Happy Birthday Darren!!

A little bit about my day....

I just spent the whole afternoon cleaning....or maybe trashing things is a better way to put it! Yes, I've reached the point of no longer caring what goes as long as many things do go. It happened earlier today as I looked around my girls' bedroom and realized there had to be a better way to keep a bedroom clean. Other than the same old routine of -

"Time to clean up your room please."

30 minutes later
(Insert cheerleader mom here) "Let's get going girls! We can do it if we try, V-I-C-T-O-R-Y!"

15 minutes later
(Insert big purple dinosaur )"Clean up, clean up everybody everywhere. Clean up clean up everybody do your share!"

5 minutes later
(Insert getting grumpy mom) "Ok, seriously girls no more playing any games until your bedroom is cleaned up. And now we also have the living room and kitchen table to add to our list of cleaning up."

2 minutes after that
(Insert suprisingly close to insanity mom) "Now, now, NOW! Get going! To the bedroom! No one is leaving this room until it is spic and span!"

"And I mean it!"

30 seconds after that
(Insert calm, apathetic mom) "Oh well, I guess I'll just have to throw things away. I don't care. Anything you really want you better pick up now 'cuz the garabage bag is coming out!"

At this point the girls are in a frenzied state of cleaning and close to panicking......(By the way I do know that I don't win stellar mom of the year award!! But the cleaning does get done:)

Anyway, there have been one too many days like this in our home lately and I got fed up today. So I did go through a lot of toys and weeded out whatever I felt like needed going. There was no rhyme or reason to my insanity.

The grocery basket that came with a trillion food items....gone. Or at least the food no one wants to play with. You know, like eggplant. Seriously what 3 year old even knows what that is?

The little pony with "beautiful blowing in the wind" hair we got from McDonalds....won't be brushing that hair again.

The fake money that was supposed to be a learning experience...trashed with no remorse.

The list goes on but I'll spare you the details. Let's just say I was feeling pretty good with my robotic, anti-emotional dumping of treasured items.

Until about an hour ago when the doorbell rang. And my grandma and grandpa showed up. Not empty handed. Oh, no. We are now the proud owners of 23 strands of colorful, loooong beaded necklaces that came straight from Louisianna.

Thank you Mardi Gras.

Brooklyn's Obsessions

Now that Abby has started Pre-school, Brooklyn has had a lot of time to play on her own. She's gotten pretty good at being able to find things to do. I love that she can entertain herself for awhile.

But she's not so good at finishing up her "projects" or cleaning up after herself. So this (photo below) is a daily occurance at my house. There are varying degrees of, shall we say, "constructive play" all over my humble abode. Brooklyn loves to sit in her closet and find as many small, colorful objects as possible. She gathers these objects and then finds other things to put them in. Baskets, purses, bowls, rubber maid bins (that are, by the way, for the sole purpose of organization. Hmmmm.) Anything goes. And once she has "lots and lots" of itty, bitty things gathered it gets dumped somewhere in my house. And then the game is over. And then I step on these things. Because I can't see where I'm stepping. Because I generally have a baby blocking the view of my feet.

It's driving me crazy!!


This was a lucky day. Her collection actually made it off the floor!






This small object obsession has also carried over into clips to keep her hair pretty. Again, a daily occurrance.




Dramatic facial expressions. Yep. Daily.



Classic Brooklyn.



Did I mention mood swings? Well, they happen at my house and contrary to what my good husband thinks, they are not all by his wife. In fact, I'm more than a little worried about the teenage years. All these pictures were taken within about 5 minutes of each other. If you can't tell I'm about to get yelled at in this next picture. I can't really remember what happened but I do know that I made it much worse by taking pictures during her little tirade!! (And I heard all about it!)

Here I'm being told off. I'm pretty sure she's saying something to this effect. "You don't take pictures of me when I'm mad." Exclamation point.



What can I say? I just love my little Brookie!!