It Has Begun

Heaven help us. It has begun.

P.S. - for the record, Zeke is a lovely young 7-year-old boy, so at least she has good taste.
P.P.S. - but unfortunately, Zeke is not quite ready for a relationship. I told Ellie she may need to wait a few years for the boys to catch up in the love department.

Snow Day Hangover

Our snow day hangover includes lots of piles of wet, snowy clothes

lots and lots of piles

as well as a pile or two of tired kids

Need Snow? We've Got Snow.

We've got snow. And lots of it. Well, by D.C. standards. As of 8am this morning, 14 inches and still snowing - looks like we'll have about 16 by the time it settles down. Needless to say, they canceled school. We've had all the basic snow day duties - shoveling (and then shoveling some more), sledding, fort-building, hot cocoa, and then melting near the fireplace. That last part is my favorite.


You can't tell, but that's 14 inches - a couple more have fallen since then

The king and queen of the mountain

Jack built a pretty good slide on the edge of that mountain - and I pretended that it didn't terrify me that he was sliding headfirst toward the concrete sidewalk

We soon had several boys sliding headfirst toward the concrete sidewalk - does homeowners cover that?

Hot cocoa breaks have been essential

Thank goodness for warm fires and cozy couches - now it's time to rest

Fit of the Day

And our Fit of the Day today is brought to you by Jack.

Who threw a fit this morning because ......

as we were heading out the door for school, I kissed his cheek while I was wearing chapstick.

He immediately dropped his backpack, ran into the bathroom, and started scrubbing and scrubbing as maniacally as Lady MacBeth trying to scrub the king's blood from her hands, all the time screaming "it's so sticky!! Why would you do this to me, Mom? Why would you do this?!?" But it didn't end there, because although he was able to remove the sticky residue, he was convinced that for the rest of the day he would 'smell like a girl' since my chapstick was orange scented.

May I extend my most heartfelt apologies to Jack for ... kissing his cheek while wearing chapstick. I can only help that - in time - he can learn to forgive me.

The Screamover

What I learned from Ellie's birthday screamover (since I can't actually call it s SLEEPover since no one really slept, but they definitely, definitely screamed. A lot.):

(1) Did I mention that 7-year-old girls scream? A lot?
(2) They are also way, way messier than any fraternity
(3) Ellie has a crush on Zeke, but Andrea says he's the King of Tooty-Toot-land - not sure if that's good or not - I mean, Tooty-Toot-land doesn't really sound appealing, but he IS apparently royalty
(4) I could also tell you all the cute boys in Mrs. Brown's class if you want to hear about it. No? Yeah, didn't think so.
(5) Even after all of the spa activities, afterwards, they still felt the need to hold a Beauty Club meeting. Which, for some reason, starts with the reciting of the pledge of allegiance (which I'm all about the patriotism), and also must take place in the bath tub (um, what?)
(6) There's really no end to the number of times that 7-year-old girls will change clothes. It's really infinity.
(7) Did I mention that they scream? A lot? And don't actually SLEEP at a sleepover? OK, just checking.



So Ellie turned 7 yesterday, and wanted to invite several of her BFFs over for a spa party and (cue Jaws music) a sleepover. I knew that the sleepover would result in a sleepless night for me, but she was super excited about it, so we went with it. We started the evening with the standard-birthday-party fair of pizza and cupcakes - that's Gracie, Alex, Katie, and either Andrea or Christine - can't tell the sisters apart.

And that's either Andrea or Christina (still can't tell 'em apart), the birthday girl, and Hannah

After feeding the hoard, we started the spa activities - here's all the girly-girls in their spa robes (one girl - Emma - arrived late, and isn't in this picture)

And then...the spa activities began! First, they all had manicures

Yeah, and that's Jack, by the way. He wasn't very happy. He thought they were very loud. They were. After a while we invited his good friend Dubby over to hang with him, and that helped things out - guess he just needed to amp up the testerone level a bit.

Then it was time for the makeovers - I'm not a huge fan of 7-year-olds covered in makeup, but hey, they had a good time.

There was a groovy lounge set up for waiting

Then it was time for presents - which included all manner of girlish finery

Before it was time to pick out dresses for the fashion show

And lots and lots o' accessories

Ellie's favorite thing about this dress? That it made it look like she has "boobies"

That's Gracie

And either Andrea or Christina - you know, I'm going with Christina

And Alex

And Katie

And don't forget Emma

And Alex with the other sister - so if we went with Christina before, this would be Andrea

And last but not least, Hannah

The girls had a great time striking a pose

And even got Otis in on the act

After the spa ladies went home, the girls played a little Dance Wii

And then it was jammie time

We watched a movie

And then some pedicures

And then it was time for sleep - by which we mean absolutely no sleep

Happy Birthday, Ellie!

Pinewood Derby (aka how to be good losers)

It was the annual Pinewood Derby yesterday for Jack's cub scout pack, otherwise known as a lesson in being a good loser.

To be fair, we don't try all that hard to make the fastest cars. Jack prefers cool-looking cars, so we go for a design that he likes (this year, a skateboard that matches his real skateboard) and don't worry too much about speed. And the kids are ok with that (Ellie built one as well). But being ok with it IN THEORY is a lot different than watching yourself lose. But luckily, the kiddies didn't throw any fits and smiled and congratulated the winners and everything. Which is a really good thing, since Jared is out of town, and it would have been hard for me to drag them both kicking and screaming out of the building all by myself.



This year's Pinewood Derby fell on Ellie's birthday, so we started the day with the traditional 'breakfast waffle.' Because I go all out.

Jack's skateboard

Showing off the cars before we took them to get inspected

It's hard to tell, but Jack's car is about to race

All the Bears cheered each other on

In this heat, Jack actually came in fourth - in the four heats, he took each place (second, first, fourth, and then third), but his times weren't fast enough to make the top three overall

But still, it's nice to see a first-place win occasionally

Then it was time to cheer Ellie's car on in the sibling competition

And....third place - she got third or fourth place in each heat - but hey, hers was by far the cutest there - whose else could boast a mermaid driver?

Ellie was a bit disappointed, until the girl next to her told her she had the cutest mermaid car EVER - and then all was good

Stoic Jack

Snow Day "Fun"

Yeah, I put 'fun' in quotes. Yeah, in a snarky way to imply that it wasn't ALL that fun. Only because, well, (1) there was no snow, only crummy ice, and (2) we have had A LOT of snow days, and (3) I'm done with them.

But still, if you MUST endure a no-snow-just-crummy-ice-day, you might as well do it with these rugrats.

Ellie's Birthday Part 1

With all of Jared's travel, we end up celebrating our holidays multiple times, once so he can be there, and then again on the 'real' day. Such was the case with Ellie's birthday. She turns 7 this Saturday, and will (hopefully, if the weather cooperates) be having a fun spa party and sleepover with her friends. But Jared had to head out of town this morning, so we started her birthday celebration before he left. There was the tradition of the birthday trip to the ice cream shop, and then Ellie got to open her presents. She got some clothes, a Rainbow Loom (hello, rubber bands all over my carpet!), and a Barbie Digital Makeover toy (FYI, don't bother - fun, but very glitchy). Now we're all saying our No Snow Prayers so that she can still have her birthday party (aka Ellie's Birthday Part 2).

Happy Birthday Part 1, Ellie!