The exploreum

Over the weekend I surprised the girls with a trip to the exploreum center. Audrey and Kylie have been before on field trips, but Sophie has never been.I have to say I was nervous about taking them by myself, but they were really very good and we had a fantastic time. 

Learning about gravity

Audrey playing the stringless harp

No idea what this thing is called, but it's awesome!

 And no I did not tell them that it was educational.

The 100 workout

At the beginning of summer I told my family that I wanted to get in shape. They were very supportive, but trying to exercise with three kids around just wasn't working out so well and my plans kind of fell by the wayside. I decided I would try again when the kids were in school and I had some free time to myself. Since school has begun I've been riding my bike around the neighborhood in the mornings. I'm not sure if it's helped any yet, but I'm sure if I keep it up then eventually it will.
A few days ago I was trying to catch up on some of my favorite blogs and ran across something interesting. Leslie over at There's More 2 Les mentioned that she and her husband were starting the 100 workout. I've never heard of it, but thought it sounded interesting. 

I've decided to give it a try. I am making one slight modification though. The running. Right now it's 99 degrees and humid where I live (hello...fall? Hurry up will ya?) so I'm going to substitute running with bike riding. I would love, love, love it if some of you decided to participate along with me. I have a hard time staying motivated and I think if I know some of you are doing it along with me it might help keep me motivated. Any takers?

Sometimes you just need to remind them

Yesterday my husband had a few small errands to run. Kylie asked to go with him and he of course was fine with that. I mean a nine year old is generally pretty to handle right? Then Sophie found out that her sister was going somewhere and asked if she could go as well. My husband looked at me with one of those looks that clearly said, "Help me out of this. Please. I can't handle more than one kid at a time." So what did I do? Why I did what any good wife/mom would do. I looked at my baby, smiled and said, "Sure honey, you can go with daddy. Why don't you go ask Audrey if she would like to go as well."   The look on my dear husbands face was quite similar to the look a man gets when he's playing catch and accidentally catches the ball between his legs. Did I feel guilty? No. For one reason my children are (now) pretty well behaved. I knew that they would not give him a hard time or do anything wrong while they were out so he had nothing to fear. For another reason with his work schedule as it is the kids really don't get to see him or spend much time with him. That's right I wanted to give them a bonding experience. 
So off they went. Apparently it was a good trip because I only received three phone calls during the hour they were gone. Note to self, next time hide hubby's phone before he leaves for optimum fun. When they made it back home before I even had a chance to ask how things went he said, "Honey I think every time you take the kids somewhere by yourself you should get a medal. Really. I know they are good kids, but I don't see how you do it. They make me a nervous wreck." I told him that I really didn't want a medal, but that a new purse or  shoes would do just fine every now and again. "Absolutely, you totally deserve it." was his response.
Mission accomplished.

Keeping the tooth fairy busy

Yesterday morning when I sent the girls off to school I crossed my fingers that Audrey and Sophie would lose a tooth while they were gone. Yeah, go ahead call me a crappy mom. That's okay, I totally agree with you if you do. You see I hate dealing with loose teeth. It grosses me out big time and I always make my husband be the one to pull the teeth around here. The bad thing about that is is he's rarely home to do it. He works 13+ hours a day and when he gets home at night Audrey and Sophie are already asleep. Anyway, when they left yesterday morning they both had a tooth dangling and I just knew they would fall out during lunch. Nope, didn't happen. I thought surely it would fall out during dinner, but that didn't happen either. I knew at this point that I had to do something otherwise they would end up coming out during the night and they would swallow them in their sleep (trust me this happens. Kylie did it about 3 or 4 times when she was younger.) I took a tissue and wrapped it around my finger and told Audrey to bite down on it. She did and her tooth came right out. One down, one to go. I tried the same thing with Sophie. The little stinker bite down alright. She bite down on the wrong side of her mouth and nearly took my finger off! She ended up panicking and I told her we would deal with it in the morning and I sent her to bed. Around 9:00 my husband came in from work and I guess Sophie heard him. She jumped out of bed to show him her loose tooth and the next thing I knew she was showing me the tooth in her hand. Thank God!

By the way, she is wearing the same nighty Audrey wore when she lost her first tooth. It cracked me up when I was looking at the pictures and realized that.

After her tooth was pulled she went right to bed and fell asleep. The tooth fairy then sat down and composed a "so you've lost your first tooth letter" for Sophie and gathered up some money for the little snaggle tooth girls. Then the real fun began. Here's just a reminder of the kind of bed the girls share:

How lucky we are that the tooth fairy can fly right? I mean, I would sure hate to be the one to try to smuggle not one, but two teeth out from under those pillows way up there without waking up two little girls. I mean, call me crazy but that sounds like it might be a little hard to do. Luckily all went well and this morning I had two very excited little girls.


My lame attempt to get a picture of the snaggle tooth kids.

 I still can't  believe that not only did my youngest start kindergarten last week, but she lost her first tooth too. Hopefully now that she's got this milestone behind her she'll slow down a little and let me enjoy having her be little just a bit longer. Something tells me that's probably not going to happen though.

Mommy scores bigtime!

In the early years of my marriage before I had children my husband and I would often go to antique stores or thrift shops in our spare time. Mostly to look for cool little nick-nacks or the occasional piece of furniture. I tried to go a few times when Kylie was small, but quickly found it was just more trouble than it was worth going to places like that with a child. Over the years I would read on various blogs about someone going into one a second hand shop and finding a great deal on something and I would think that it would be so cool to do, maybe one day I can try it.
Well my friends that day arrived today. My husband now has Wednesdays off and he told me about a new shop that opened nearby (I think it was a goodwill store, but I'm not sure). I told him that I wanted to go and check it out so off we went. When we got there I was far from impressed. Instead of having racks and shelves everything was in a bin on tables. A complete mess and most everything looked like garbage. We walked around for a minute or two and I told him that I was ready to leave. He said okay and as I was walking towards him to go I saw it. An American girl bitty baby doll. I picked it up and couldn't believe my eyes. We have a couple of them already, but this one looked ten times better than ours. No marks or scratches anywhere! I checked around to make sure there weren't any other little treasures (there weren't) and hurried to the register to pay. Now, does anyone want to guess how much this set me back?

I paid a grand total of............wait for it.................




                                                 .50! 

My husband actually asked me if I really wanted to buy it because it didn't have clothes. Silly man, we have suitcases full of bitty baby clothes already! So have any of you tried thrift stores? If so what are some cool things you've found?

A tiny little project

A few years ago right around the time Kylie started kindergarten she began an annoying little habit of uttering the phrase every mom hates to hear. I'm bored. It was like fingernails on a chalkboard to me and I cringed everytime I heard the words come out of her mouth. In part because it was annoying, but mostly because I remembered saying it constantly when I was a kid. I just knew that if my mom heard her say it she would die laughing and say something about coming full circle or something. So I basically banned those words from my house. I told the girls that anytime they said they were bored I would give them something to do that would keep them from being bored. Like clean closets. Occasionally they will slip up and say it, but generally all I have to do is give them a look and they stop. 
Well guess what? Today I found myself muttering that I was bored. Not good. With the girls in school I'm kind of at a loss of what to do during the day. My house was clean and I didn't really have any errands to run so I decided I needed a project to do. I hopped in the car and drove to Hobby Lobby. First of all let me just say, it's so weird to be able to just decide to go somewhere and do so. Usually I have to get at least one little person ready and then deal with carseats. Second, I think this is probably the only time I've ever been to Hobby Lobby and not had to say, "Don't touch that!"  I have absolutely no idea what I want to do, just that I want it to be something small I can do before the girls get home. I go into the section where they have unfinished wood and I spot one of those wooden containers with a lid. I decide to decorate it for Kylie's room. In part because she tends to collect crap stuff all the time and I thought it would be a good place for her to put it. And also because she likes to pick on me for always buying little decorative boxes for her and her sisters to keep in their bedrooms. Anyway this is what I made:

Nothing fabulous of course, but it matches her room and helped keep the boredom at bay for a while. Now I just need to figure out what to do with myself for the other 178 days the kids are at school.

First day of school

Well I knew it was coming, I just didn't realize it would be here so soon. The day that we go from this:

To this:

Even though autumn doesn't start until September it looks like our summer is officially over. The girls began their first day of school today. I was very good and did not cry (yet) and they all left with happy smiles on their faces.

2nd grade



4th grade



kindergarten

They all three got out of bed this morning without any protest (yes, I know by the end of the week they'll all be whining about waking up), ate breakfast, got dressed and then they all had to sit down and watch Curious George. Watching Curious George has become a bit of a school morning routine around here.

Then it was time to load up and head out the door.

But I had to take a few more pictures first. Obviously.

Yes, even at the bus stop.

And now I am experiencing the strangest thing ever. Silence. A sound that I have not heard in my house in almost ten years. Right now it's a bit unnerving, but I'm sure that in the days, weeks and months to come I'll come to look forward to this time. For now though it just feels strange and wrong.