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Overheard today:

Milsie: "How did you get a new house on the inside?"

Ellie: "We just ordered it."

Chess club

The PTA was so desperate for someone to head up the chess club this year that they settled for me. I'm pretty sure that most of these kids could school me in chess, but I am there at 8:00 a.m. twice a month to open up the library and get things set up. The boys love it. Robbie was especially excited to play against someone who's never seen the blitzkrieg today.  

Book Nerds, Part II

Robbie, Jonas and I had a great time at the launch party for book 4 in the Fablehaven series. Brandon Mull is like a rock star for 10 year-olds. Anne and Lisa, I hate to tell you, but I think I just locked up 1st place in the favorite aunt competition. 

Seriously?!

If I didn't have to do anything but sit around and read all day, I might be cool with this. 

A nice funeral

 It's hard to be too sad at a funeral of someone who had a long, good life and faith in life after death. After seeing Verna's body, Ainsley became quite concerned about getting old, and announced to us several times during the funeral that she is NOT having any more birthdays. I wish she could stay three a few more years at least!

Fruit Pizza

Last night was New Beginnings for the young women. We served this:

They're a little time consuming to make, but so pretty, and yummy too. Christianne came over to help cut fruit and assemble them, and we had a great time. Here's the recipe:

Tradition with a Twist

Last year I made Mint Brownies on St. Patrick's Day, and thought they'd be a fun green tradition. This year I took them to my Relief Society Birthday dinner, but as cupcakes. It's actually a combination of the Brownie Cake recipe and the Mint Brownie toppings—maybe I'll add the recipe tomorrow. Just trying to make Rob's food photo prediction come true.

Canon

Our kids don't get out of piano practice on Sundays. We're mean parents. Hopefully someday they'll thank us.

Annette's Carrots

I'm wanting to work on my recipe binder again, so Rob might get his wish of a few dinners this week.

The day we get ready for Sunday

It's almost eleven but my kitchen is finally mostly clean. Going to bed now. My version of the groundhog day routine will begin again soon. I'm not complaining.

The Not-Quite-Daily Photo

I'm just embracing my inconsistency. I do feel like I accomplished something today though, and if I had thought of taking a "before" picture it would be obvious that it was something big. Of course I couldn't have shown my face in public again if anyone had seen the state of the storage room before I cleaned it out.

Since it was an all day job, I didn't fix dinner. We had a nutritionally empty but delicious meal here:

Ellie and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Ear Infection

Ellie woke up crying inconsolably with an earache about 11:30 last night (has ANYBODY EVER had an ear infection during office hours?!). We forced her to take Tylenol, gave her a couple of ear drops and propped her up, hoping that she'd fall back asleep. Half an hour later she was still in massive pain, and she asked Rob to give her a blessing. I went in to lay down with her, hoping to calm her down, but it was not to be. She was awake (and crying most of the time) until about seven a.m. when her eardrum finally burst and relieved the pressure enough that she slept. I called Bryner clinic at eight to see how soon I could bring her in (here's where my sleep-deprived rant starts) and they told me the earliest they could see her was 11:10. So I take a shower, and bathe the girls and sit around holding Ellie because she's so miserable. When we finally got there I notice all these signs publicizing their "acute illness" walk-in hour from 8:00-9:00 a.m. It even specifically mentioned all-night ear infections. So as I'm checking in I ask if this has already started, and it has, but whoever I was talking to at 8:00 a.m. just failed to tell me. I know, not a huge deal, but if you go there, now you know. Here's hoping we never need to use it again! :)

Mmmm...lettuce wraps

I could eat at Pei Wei everyday. I love Mongolian Beef, and the Mandarin Kung Pao is recently a favorite, but the lettuce wraps are a must whatever we order. And if Rob didn't already have my undying love, he'd have it now for picking up the takeout tonight!

Uncommon

We have gone years at times without fresh flowers inside, so who would have thought I'd post two flower shots in the same week? Two words: spring fever.

Unwilling subject

Here are a few of the photos that I could have taken today:

• The freshly fallen (and totally unwanted!) snow.
• The stack of 625 fliers that I designed, copied and distributed at the school today.
• The kids with their great-grandma after school.
• The piles of laundry that didn't get done.

Much to the dismay of photo scrooge, I missed all of these opportunities and was forced by my commitment to the daily photo to take this shot:

We need some photographic evidence of the studying that's been such a huge part of our lives for the past couple of years!

Baby Mikey

The kids were SO excited to tend Michael today. My main job was protecting the poor kid from four overly-eager junior sitters. What a cute baby!

Goodbye mop

Joey has spent the past few months trying to rival Jonas' mop, which has worked out well for us, because we've been able to use a haircut as a threat for bad behavior. He claims his decision to cut it was not based on Rob's harassment or my insistence on combing it, just that it was "bugging him." He claims to feel pounds lighter, and after seeing this pile of hair on the floor, I can see why. He's a pretty good-looking kid either way.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss

Our elementary celebrates with crazy hair, hats and/or socks. Joey had hoped to wear a crazy hat and forgot—I told him not to worry, his hair is crazy everyday these days. Ellie's instructions were "crazy, but not too crazy, because I don't want anyone to laugh at me."

Great nap day

I think Rob might be wrong here. I'm guessing that 1/3 of my daily photos might turn out to be of Ainsley. She certainly wasn't arguing when I woke up from my nap and took this. 

Ainsley can be bought

Last night we went to an adults-only dinner at the ward. They had a ton of these vases from Ikea, and encourage everyone to take them home, so Rob grabbed a couple of roses, and I already feel like I have too many vases in the storage room, so I told him I didn't need any flowers. He quickly informed me that they weren't for me, but the girls were going to think he's the greatest dad ever. And they loved them. In fact, this morning Ainsley said, as she often does, "Mom, I wuv you." But then she added "But I wuv Dad the most, 'cause he gave me that flower." So it's a day late, but here's my photo for yesterday.