Interpretive Art

Matthew came home from school armed with a flurry of Valentine's Day projects. He was very proud of this particular art piece. He has insisted that it stay on the fridge for everyone to see.

I was struck speechless.... well speechless before the repressed snickering as if I were a 7th grade boy.

This is supposed to be a flower. All the other kids made round circular flower shapes with their tissue paper. My son makes something that looks like a vagina with eyes.

If you look carefully up towards the right of the eyes you will see a little tiny person he drew. I am unsure why this little tiny person has climbed to the top of the creepy vagina flower. I'm a little afraid to ask.

I bid adieu to you Douche

I was getting the girls dressed one morning when I distinctly heard Matthew calling Darth Vader from his Star Wars Lego game a douche. His exact words were- " He is such a DOUCHE!!!"

Ummmmm................... My bad.

He totally got that from me. Douche is probably one of my favorite swear/ but not really a curse word. It can be changed and twisted in so many ways. Douchenozzle, douchecanoe, doucher, douchebutt etc. *** Sigh***

This is probably a horrible thing to admit, but I'm going to miss using the word douche. But I really can't take the chance that Matthew will someday call someone a douche on the playground someday. So I need to clean up my language a bit. Or at least get more inventive with kind of/ almost swear words.

Most precious little Valentines ever

Matthew's whole class made giant hearts to package themselves as little valentines to their parents. It was so freaking adorable to watch all the kinder kids march out of their classroom dressed as little living valentines.

Phoebe went nuts on Valentines. The more hearts, cookies, candy and valentines the better. She practically ripped Matthew's giant heart valentine off of him and wore it for a big chunk of the afternoon.

Intermittently she'd declare - " I your valentine Mom-Mom!!" And every time she said it, I practically melted into a pile of sentimental motherly goo. I am so insanely blessed with these amazing little kidlets.

A portrait of Mommy

Phoebe decided to do me the honor of drawing my portrait on her magna doodle.

She drew with concentrated precision and when she finished she proudly revealed her picture. She happily pointed out my arms, my legs, my eyes, my nose, my tummy and last but not least- my nummies!!

Disproportionately huge breasts on this poor little stick figure of a woman. I actually felt my back start aching just looking at the picture. Poor little stick figure mommy. I feel for her. I really do.

Always the Lady...

My dear little Phoebeezy. Parties hard and crashes even harder.

That's my girl. ;0)

Birdie Going Goth...

She's embracing her darker side. Being a baby sucks and life isn't fair....she's so emo.

The alternative version of her newfound look would be that she got ahold my mascara and decided to make a snack out of it.

Toe-may-toes / Tah-mah-toes. Let's not split hairs here.

Birthday Party From Hell

Yesterday we were invited to a giant birthday party for Matthew's little friend Hayley.

Hayley invited the entire kindergarten class to her house. The party was complete with a temporary tattoo station, face painting and a giant jumper. It was as close to kid heaven as you can get.

Matthew was having a blast.... up until about an hour into the party when he started heavily coughing in the jumper. He ran up to me gasping for a cough drop. Just as I dropped the cough drop into his mouth his little face turned bright red and he spewed vomitty water/cough drop/corn dogs in the living room. It was actually quite an impressive distance. His pukage got a good three feet distance.

It was mortifying. I'm trying to clean up the floor and comfort Matthew while all the other parents stared at me with mouths agape. I get Matthew calmed down and clean up the floor. Then we go to track down Phoebe.

Ahh.... dear little hellion Phoebe.

Phoebe was in the jumper and refusing to get out. Literally sat at the furthest corner of the bouncer crying and refusing to budge.

I wait and I wait. There is no way I can climb in there. My back was hurting like a mofo and I had nowhere to put Birdie without her screaming because she refuses to let me put her down.

Phoebe finally climbs out after a good ten minutes of protest. She then refuses to put on her shoes and then she decides to collapse on the ground screaming, "NO LEAVE HAYLEY HOUSE!!! I NO GO!!!!" Hysterics continue.

People are once again looking at me like I've grown an extra head.

Matthew starts crying saying he wants to go. Phoebe walks two steps and collapses screaming again about the injustice of it all. I take her hand as she collapses for a third time.

As soon as we were out of sight of the house and partygoers I locked my arms under my Smelly Cat's armpits and dragged her the rest of the way to the car.

I think it is a safe bet that we won't be invited to any more birthday parties for a long time.

Oy.

Gingerbread Day!

Gingerbread day was a huge hit.

I made massive batches of gingerbread for the day. Each child got to cut out their own little gingerbread men. Then I formed a giant gingerbread man and took all the trays down to the cafeteria to be cooked.

After recess the kids trooped down to cafeteria to scoop up their cookies and the cafeteria ladies told them that the giant gingerbread man had jumped out of the oven and run away.

The class then embarked on a man hunt for our giant gingerbread man. The teacher had scattered flour and sugar about on the playground and halls for the kids to follow his trail.

While the kids were searching for the gingerbread man I snuck down to the cafeteria to get the him and I hid him inside of the classroom for the kids to eventually find. It ended up being a really fun day. The kids were so delighted and had an awesome time trying to track down the gingerbread man. It was absolutely hilarious to watch the kids on their man hunt.

Phoebe and Beatrix even got in on the cookie decorating action at the end. Phoebe was in frosting heaven. By the time we left the school her entire face was covered in icing.

Beatrix Conquers the Slide

Where has the time gone??? My little Birdie has officially conquered the slide all on her own.

She climbs up the stairs and slides down the slide on her tummy. Repeat and rinse about thirty more times and you've summed up our afternoon at the park yesterday.

She was so proud of herself and is getting so big. *** Tear*** My baby is getting bigger every day.

Stomach Flu

Last week we were all struck with the worst stomach flu of my entire life. I couldn't walk more than ten steps before wretching into a bowl or the nearest sink. It was awful.

I started puking in the afternoon. Within an hour Matthew had started throwing up all over the hallway. Three hours later Phoebe sat up in my bed and spewed all over.

There wasn't a single blanket, sheet and towel that wasn't puked on. It was up-chuck insanity.

Phoebe didn't quite understand what was going on because she's really only ever had the stomach flu once before when she was much younger. Phoebe decided that the puke bowl must be to blame for the puking. She would start to gag and hold down the vomit so Kevin or I would run over to her with the bowl and she'd start screaming- " No bowl!!! No bowl!!! "

It was so awful. I felt so horribly for my little kidlets. I'm just thankful Kevin rocked the Super Dad role and that we're all better now.

My Wee Tired Birdie

Little Beatrix was so tired she actually zonked out on Abbey's giant dog bed.

She is so stinking adorable. I am one lucky Mama.

Christmas Day!!!

Matthew woke up so excited Christmas morning.

Phoebe shockingly didn't want to wake up. She slept and slept and even when she woke up she wanted to lounge in bed. My little Smelly Cat refused to get up and we had to wait quite awhile for her to be ready for present time.

The kids had so much fun unwrapping their presents. I had the best time with them that morning.

Suckily enough, my Christmas went downhill fast. By noon I started vomiting and shaking with chills and a fever. I crawled into bed and didn't emerge except to throw up some more or head to the bathroom.

Kevin rocked the Super Dad role. He played with the kids and kept them as busy as he could. In the end we all ended up hunkered down in the big bed watching movies while I dozed in and out.

I have declared that the fact that the kids didn't catch this ugly flu bug from me was my own mini Christmas miracle.

Christmas Eve!!!!!

Christmas Eve was lovely. The kids were adorable for the most part.

We spent the evening at my In laws house and it's always a lot of fun. Tons of food and lots of people. The kids were in heaven playing with relatives and surrounded by presents.

Phoebe unfortunately had an absurdly disgusting poop accident on her pretty dress that night and Beatrix cried when anyone she didn't know got within two feet of her. So all in all, the kids held up better than I ever even expected.

The kids were so tired by the time we got home that they all went straight to bed without even batting an eye. Matty fell asleep before I could finish The Night Before Christmas and Phoebe passed out still wearing her purple ugg boots.

Matthew's Class Christmas Party

The Party was a huge success. All the kids dressed in jammies, watched snippets of the Polar Express and then we made cute little train cakes. It was a ton of fun and Matthew was over the moon.

Three class parties down..... three left to go.....

Dancing Kidlets

Ewwww......

Last Sunday I woke up to a feverish Matthew, mysterious throw up in the front room and Phoebe and Beatrix puddle jumping in dog pee. Beatrix even had a few chunks of throw up in her hair.

It was horrifyingly disgusting.

I threw the girls in the bath and scrubbed them down. Then I scrubbed down all the floors. It was the worst morning wake up call ever.

The good news is that compared to all of that, pretty much anything else feels like a cakewalk.

An Almost Cheerio Emergency

Phoebe stuck a cheerio up her nose.

I don't know what she was thinking or even if she was thinking.

She started to freak out when it didn't come right back out. I tried to see if I could reach it with some tweezers but it was really jammed up there.

I woke up the baby from her nap and gathered everything up in preparation for an afternoon spent in the ER. As we were literally walking out of the front door, Phoebe sneezed and a massive chunk of cheerio mush went flying out her nose.

Crisis averted for now. My fingers are crossed that she has learned her lesson about putting things up her nose but I'm not counting on it....

Our Official Santa photo for 2010

Matthew was incredibly excited to see Santa. He had an insanely long list with detailed descriptions for exactly what he wanted this year for Christmas. He also apparently felt the need to relay several school stories to Santa.

Phoebe was excited until we actually got there. Then she refused to go within 10 feet of Santa. Instead she attempted to hide out in the moving bear display and cried every time Santa so much as tried to look at her. Now that the terrifying part of seeing Santa is over Phoebe is painting a very different picture about her visit to Santa. According to her, she said hi to Santa and told him she wants a doll with curly hair like her. Ummmm..... ok. Maybe in a world of total delusion that's what happened.

Beatrix was on Santa's lap for all of the 15 seconds it took to get a picture. She was fine as soon as I scooped her back up.

All in all, it was as successful as I expected. After five years of motherhood I've discovered that it's always best to have low expectations of these sorts of things. That way I'm just ecstatic that Phoebe didn't break the moving bears and I got two out of three kids in the picture. And we got soft cinnamon pretzels afterwards. Pure awesomeness.

Miss Poopy McPooperson

Last night Phoebe had diarrhea. The first time she made it to the toilet. The next two times she didn't even come close to the bathroom.

She didn't actually tell us she had any accidents. I walked into my bedroom and it reeked of poop. There were towels all over the floor and I had a total- "What the freaking hell?!!" sort of moment.

I start cleaning up the towels only to discover Phoebe had pooped on the rug, then she took all the towels out of the towel closet to try to clean it up herself. Every towel we owned was covered in poop.

It was beyond disgusting.

The icing on the cake was that Phoebe was actually super proud of herself for trying to clean it up. All I could do was smile and nod and remind her to try her best to make it the toilet next time while I tried to keep from barfing.

Lucky me got to spend a big chunk of today shampooing my bedroom carpets.

Awwwwww....

Today we were working on homework and Matty turned to me very seriously and said, "You know what Mom?? I think my favorite holidays are Christmas, Valentines Day and Mother's Day. Because I get to give you presents and be your extra lovey boy. "

Awwww.... Matthew is without a doubt the sweetest little Momma's boy and I love every moment I can soak up with him.