A Real Dilemma...

Oh I KNOW that this isn't a good idea and that as soon as mom puts down the camera, she's going to yell at Brynn...but ooooooooooooooohhhh it looks like so much fun.

I really love having an older sister.

Oh Mondays...

Oh that familiar obnoxious melody that causes every parent to quickly shuffle the children indoors, frantically close the windows and draw the blinds, and then turn the tv on really, really loud....

Yes, Monday night is when the ice cream truck comes S-L-O-W-L-Y rolling through our neighborhood.

I think the song of the ice cream truck is powerful enough to wake a child from a coma.  It's like the call of the Sirens...but for sugar-addicted children.

So, last Monday I prepared myself, and I prepared Brynn.  "Eat your supper -- all of it-- if you want me to even consider the ice cream man tonight."

When the obnoxious haunting creepy melody could be heard, we gathered up our dollars and went to purchase the least-messy thing he sold.

Yeah, that was a bit of a fail.

A bit of brain-freeze ensued...

But it was sure tasty.

Bathtime soon followed.

The Weeklong Birthday Celebration -- That's Normal, Right??

After the preschool graduation in May, the Princess turned 5 in June!! Ack! To celebrate the day that she was emancipated from my uterus (too much?) we gave her some presents! 



Not my dog, but it is my shoe.



Oh yay! The 'Tangled' tower!

Opening a present from Gavin the Cat.  To add authenticity to it, he also gave her a can of cat food.

 That night we went to Chuck-e-Cheese, where a kid can be a kid, and parents can get a headache.

Parent tip: If you ever find yourself headed to CEC, do your wallet a favor and go online first! They have great coupons that will save you a considerable amount of money, AND they have reward charts for your kids that you can turn in for extra tokens! Yippee!!!

Bonding with a soda and a roller-coaster simulator.

As a result of all the coupons and an excitable grandmother that hadn't played skeeball in YEARS, Brynn raked in about 700 tickets...

Apparently it takes THREE to insert a token.

 After getting 1 of everything at the reward counter, we headed for home!  We had some tasty cupcakes that I forgot to put vanilla flavoring in, and Brynn opened even MORE presents.

And then this happened...

yeah, that might be my dad.

 The following weekend, Brynn had a birthday party with her friends!  She'd requested a water party and thank our lucky stars, we were able to!  It was the one nice day that week. It rained before and it rained after...

Since it was her birthday, she was requesting her skeeball loving grandma to pull her around the backyard to her requested destinations.... "And now -- THE POOL!"

 I was pleased that the backyard ended up looking cute and festive!

Here's Jeremy... preparing for the arrival...

 MORE presents! She is one loved and lucky girl.

 The boys...

Get ready ladies.

It was such a hot party, that the paparazzi showed up.

Asha-in-Action

 And Brynn was still opening presents...

After all the partying, we had taco salads, strawberries, and brownies. 

 I was SO happy that I had hosted a party with a pool, water balloons, a pinata, AND a trampoline and no children were hurt. YEAH!!!

Happy Birthday Brynnie!

Preschool Graduation

Yay! I finally have figured out how to get pictures downloaded with my new camera and my new computer -- so let's get caught up here! 

Miss B graduated from preschool in May. To me, this was an enormous deal and I spent much of the day in disbelief that kindergarten is right around to corner. 

So.............. I documented much of the day.  Here is the almost-5 year old waking up. 

And here she is with her brother eating a celebratory morning waffle on the front steps.  I took about 10 pictures. This is the best one.

 I picked her up from daycare around 12:15 to take her to her very, very last day of preschool.  She thought this would be a perfect opportunity to practice her booty-shaking.  We're both confident that this is an important life-skill necessary for mastering the kindergarten admission tests.

And here is the M&M in the school entryway that she's wanted to take a picture with since the very first day of school nine months ago.  Kudos to me for FINALLY remembering to bring my camera on the very last day. Yeah, I'm a pretty good mom.

And since I'm such a big deal and great mom, I didn't remember to take any pictures at supper that night.  The graduate requested a Big Mac and strawberry shake from McD's, so I reluctantly agreed.  Her dad was all over agreeing to that heart-attack in the making.  The Wild Man (pictured at right) decided to go in the playstation and refuse to come down. It was wonderful.  I had to mom-up and lead the rescue mission.

After the low-cal meal, we headed back to preschool for the graduation ceremony.... Where Wild Man did his best at destroying the joint and causing mayhem.

Why yes, I will take every single toy off the shelf and chuck it on the floor.  Just stare deeply into my precious beautiful eyes and you will not even care about the mess...

Brynn getting her diploma from Mrs. Larson -- quite certainly the most patient and caring preschool teacher in existence.

Here's grandma and grandpa. They really wanted to get a picture with the graduate, but she was too hopped up on cookies and root-beer floats.... So this is what they got instead.

  (I dare say this may be their holiday card this year.)

Oh, and then she came back and Boomer poked his head in the picture! Lucky ducks -- a classy picture with BOTH grandkids. 

He was able to sneak himself a bag of cookies and then he became an angel.

The Graduate and The Cookie Monster

  It really was a wonderful, wonderful year at Brighter Beginnings! I can only hope that she transitions into kindergarten as seamlessly as she did preschool... and that she lays off the Big Macs.

Brynn and Mrs. Larson

It helps to laugh at yourself...right??

The list of airhead things I’ve done recently:

1)      Forgot to put my parking brake on (I drive a stick shift).  I returned hours later and found that my car had rolled into the middle of the parking lot.

2)      Got out of the car without turning it off.

3)      Left my wallet in my desk drawer.  Luckily, I didn’t go to any store and try to buy anything. I found my wallet 2 days later, after not realizing that I had actually misplaced it.

4)      Made a batch of cupcakes from scratch and forgot to include all the ingredients.

5)      Made numerous filings to the court with incorrect file numbers and signature lines containing the year 2010.

6)      Locked the house up even though I knew my dad was staying with us and didn’t have a key.

anybody else out there feeling overwhelmed and brainstoopid? Please share.

Yep, I'm Here.

• I have so much and so little to say all at the same time.

• I have a new computer that I don't quite understand. I also have a new camera that I don't quite understand. There have been many attempts to upload pictures, but as you can tell, there are none to show. 

• work is stressful as all hell. turns out when you ARE the attorney rather than just helping the attorney, things feel a bit different. Oh learning curve, I can't wait until I master you.

• Brynn turns 5 next Thursday. How did this happen? My plans for a simple birthday party are just as stress inducing as a non-simple birthday party.

Bittersweet Sucks.

Several months ago, my daughter started begging me to let her take a dance class.  She practiced dancing, alongside Barbie, every evening while watching "Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses."  It was cute and I thought it might be fun.

I started looking around town at different options and soon contemplated letting her continue dancing with Barbie in the living room.  The tuition costs were a bit above my comfort level due to my daughter's tendency to lose interest in just about everything after a week or two.  The search continued, and I made a phone call to one studio after reviewing their website.  They were already a week in to the session and wouldn't let anybody else join. I cursed them. I became determined.

I stumbled upon the 8th Street Studio of Dance website.  I made a phone call.  They were already quite full for the session - but they would see what they could do and give me a call back.  They did.  In order to let my daughter enroll, the instructor decided to hire a helper.  We were in. Brynn was estatic and I bought the cutest leotard ever (for her.)

We went to the first class and she was absolutely in heaven. She lit up. She smiled the entire time.  Tuesdays became known as "Dance-Days" in our house -- all other days were just the days we had to wait for "Dance-Day."

I'm not proclaiming she's the next star ballerina, but she has found something that she really enjoys and I would have continued taking her to "Dance-Day" until she said she was done.  Sadly, the day arrived early when the studio decided to close their doors after this year's Spring recital.  The three owners had kept the studio alive for at least 25 years and for their very logical and reasonable reasonings -- they had to close.

Today was the Spring Recital.  There wasn't a dry eye in the house.  Stories were shared about how the current students -- now teenagers, college students -- have been attending the studio with these three women since they were 4 years old. I cried about 5 times. I am beyond words grateful that we were able to experience what a dance class truly is meant to be, but I am sad that Brynn will not be one of those high school seniors up there dancing her farewell solo. Her dance instructor shared a quote by Dr. Seuss that has been helping her get through this and it went something like this "Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened."

We're trying to smile in our house... but Brynn collapsed on my lap tonight and started crying. "I'm just so sad that I won't have dance class with Katie anymore!" I agreed with her that I was sad too, but that we'd go to dance class somewhere else and that helped a bit...but then she thought about Katie again and started to sniffle again.

I'm trying to figure out why I'm being so emotional about this - logically, I shouldn't be. We'd only been attending classes there for roughly 4 months. She's still able to take dance classes at other studios. I think I'm sad because this didn't feel like a typical dance studio. It was like walking into a loving home where all your friends were already there and you all decided to learn a new dance and wear some twirly skirts. It was a place that gave Brynn self-esteem. It was a place that brought her such intense joy that part of me is fearful that this magic will not transfer to another dance studio.  It's yet another example that things change, people grow up, people move on and blah-de-blah-blah.

So, I'm firmly in a big ol' pool of bittersweet.