Bedtime Story

Tonight Angelica asked me to rock her and tell her a bedtime story that I made up. After I was done, my story following all the approved models where there's a princess named Angelica who has funny adventures, she started her story. It was about Princess Mom. The basic plot line: After Princess Mom realizes that she is sad because she has no family, no house, no food, and no brothers and sisters, she goes to find a witch (witches are slowly phasing their way out of stories that she tells, but we're not there yet) to help her. But the witch is bad and tries to eat her, while talking in an amazingly deep voice for a 4 year old. Then after some confusion and a major pity party, Princess Mom meets up with a rabbit who decides to be her pet. But then the rabbit decides not to be her pet, and Princess Mom is bummed. She sits in the woods crying because she's so boring.

Me: She's boring?

Angelica: Yes. She's you.

Me: I'm boring?

Angelica: Yes. (long pause) Not for real. Just in the story.

Me: Oh, ok.

So then Princess Mom's "Mother God-fairy" shows up and gives her a family and a castle and some food. And the "Mother God-fairy" tells her she is ok. And so it ends happily, if suddenly.

Good-night!

Cleaning Out!

I took advantage of my kids being gone for a few days to clean out the toy room. Nicholas caught wind of it coming and put lots of his stuff into his closet to avoid the possibility of its getting thrown away. Unfortunately (from his perspective), I looked into his closet. After much searching, I found the floor! I now have a huge pile of garage sale stuff--all marked, for the garage sale (which is still 2 weeks away)! That feels nice! They get back today--I wonder how long it will look like this?

Play Day!

I've been working for 3 straight days on unpacking, garage sale stuff, sorting, helping at the XA house a little, and all kinds of other things. Tomorrow the kids are leaving for a weekend at Maw-maw and Paw-paw's house. So I decided that today should be a play day--hey, I can work when they're gone, right? So this morning we walked/scootered down the street to one of our friend's house and all walked to the playground. Then after lunch we went to a local hotel and asked how much it would cost to swim, and he let us swim for free-woohoo! Then we stopped for snowballs. It just doesn't get much better than that!

Everyone is doing so good in the water. Nicholas used to be so scared to put his face in, but after his ocean experiences, I guess a pool seems pretty safe. Angelica used to just sit on the steps and play where she could touch even with her floaties on, but now she was jumping in and swimming around without any fussing! And Julia didn't even come close to drowning herself by forgetting and breathing while underwater. :) Life is good!

Just for Fun

This is a hilarious video of Angelica playing the piano in our house in Africa.

Date Night

This weekend our awesome friends Daniel and Brittany offered to watch our kids for us while we went out on a date. We went to Chili's and sat and ate chips and salsa for way too long (at least our waitress thought so!) and then to a late movie. Had so much fun! I have the greatest hubby!

In other news, a superhero named Terrible Slicer (who only slices bad guys) and Cinderella made an appearance at our house this week.

Home Sweet Home

We made it home! It took 30 hours, but we did it! Two airplanes and a 5 hour layover later, followed by a 4 hour drive from Dallas with kids who REALLY needed sleep, (and a mom who did too, to be honest). Now I have to get our house set back up, which should only take a week! Just now, though, I need some lunch!

Packing Extravaganza

So I'm packing suitcases and I've got clothes in stacks all over my bedroom floor--the give away stack, the pack clean stack, the pack dirty stack, the just got back from the laundry I hope it still fits stack. Julia came in and said, "Wow, Mom, your room is messy!" Also, since we had people over last night until 5am to watch the first NFL preseason game of the year, Nicholas's bed is pulled into the middle of our floor so he could sleep better (our room is further back in the house.) What a mess!

12 suitcases! 1 done, 3 started. That leaves 8 untouched...Boo!