Mr. Tea

Back in April, we spent some time in California with Craig's parents and also his Aunt Nona & Uncle Miles who were visiting from Ohio. While we were there we visited a little tea house in a beach town where we had a blast despite the curious yet unmistakable crabbiness of the owner, who also happened to be our server. The girls were in love with the tiny spoons and absolutely loved having their own teacups filled with milk. (Don't worry--in the interest of not being left out, they drank half of my pot of chamomile tea.) It was a really cool experience, and even the guys had fun even though they claim that the only reason we were there was that we made them come.

Some Days

I can truly understand and appreciate the need for opposition in all things. If everything were easy and simple all the time, I recognize that I would rarely (if ever) stop to think about the amazing blessings in my life...I fear that they would be much too easily taken for granted.

Thank goodness there are days like yesterday with a motivated 3-year-old who keeps busy by filling a sippy cup 3/4 of the way full with Nesquik, and then leaving the fridge open with tell-tale clues that she has been snacking in the sour cream, and then hiding in a corner with a medicine syringe trying to lick off the last few drops of tasty antibiotics, and then sneaking away to put gel in her freshly washed hair. Those kind of days are exactly what I need to remind me that most days I have it pretty good.

What a blessing that those few rough days so nicely help us realize the sweetness of the great days.

What a Girl Needs

Ever wonder what a 5-year-old carries around in her purse? Allow me to enlighten you:

1 watercolor paintbrush
1 half-pack of strawberry-banana gum belonging to her sister
1 blanket for a dollhouse baby
1 pillow for dollhouse baby
1 small stuffed puppy with bunny ears
1 sparkly wallet
eyeshadow
lip gloss
1 peseta, former Spanish currency, belonging to mommy
set of play keys
mommy's old cell phone
daddy's old cell phone
toy cell phone ("It's me, Ariel. Wanna come out and play?")
1 pass along card
1 Littlest Pet Shop octopus, belonging to her sister
1 hat belonging to said octopus
1 baby picture of herself
3 Hello Kitty lip balms
3 tubes of Burt's Bees Natural Lip Gloss
1 drum stick
1 plastic key
2 gum wrappers
1 flower barrette
1 quarter, 2 dimes, 2 nickels, & 17 pennies
1 strawberry scented plastic kitty cat
1 Cinderella necklace
12 shells, belonging to her sister...

and most importantly:

the missing keys to my parent's townhouse where we are supposed to be going swimming this weekend.

Something About Sundays...

In our house, Sunday nights used to be chock full of things to do. After getting the kids to bed, we would play Boggle or watch TV or pay bills or talk or...something. No matter what it was that we were doing, it was always a time to look forward to and squeeze the last precious drops out of the weekend before another difficult week started again. It was a perfect time to stay up way too late and be together. Alone.

I fear that those days may be over. For the last two Sundays, one or both of us have fallen asleep on the couch around 9 pm, effectively ending all activities for the night. The first time Craig got up and staggered off to bed but somehow I managed to stay asleep out there all night. I woke up early Monday morning in wrinkled clothes, unshowered, with my teeth unbrushed, face unwashed, and my contact lenses scratching my eyeballs. The second time it happened, I fell asleep out there by myself. That Monday morning I woke up in wrinkled clothes, unshowered, face unwashed, with my contact lenses scratching my eyeballs. (Amazingly, that time I had had the foresight to brush my teeth before laying on the couch "for just a minute.")

I haven't quite been able to figure out what is going on, but I have a conjecture. Recently the dynamic of our entire Sunday has changed. The day starts off innocently enough, but the new normal is for Craig to leave semi-early for church meetings, which means that I am usually the only parent home to get 3 kids bathed and dressed for church, feed them lunch, pack their snacks, find their shoes and break up their fights, all while trying to decide what to put in the crock pot for dinner. Then there is 3 hours of church and then dinner and cleaning up dinner and getting kids ready for bed (which can be, on and of itself, quite a tiring ordeal.) It's pretty exhausting. Meanwhile Craig is at church for about 6.5 hours and at the end of the day, he is also exhausted. Once the kids go to bed on Sunday night, the only thing that either of us want to do is close our eyes. And that's what we do.

Since we had a special shorter church meeting today, sans children, I'm actually still awake, even though it's past 9 0'clock. (This is also in great part because Craig let me sleep in and take a nap. Miracle of miracles.)

I have to hope that one day we will figure out our new routine in a way that will allow us to recapture some semblance of our Sunday nights, because starting a new week with clothes in the dryer from last week's laundry is just that much more depressing when I don't have the memory of a fun Sunday night to spur me on.

Oh well, I really shouldn't think about it too much right now. I need to wake Craig up off the couch so he can brush his teeth and crawl into bed.

Such Devoted Sisters

Sisters, sisters...

...there were never such devoted sisters.

Never had to have a chaperone, no sir...

I'm there to keep my eye on her.

Caring, sharing...

...every little thing that we are wearing.

When a certain gentleman arrived from Rome,

She wore the dress,

and I stayed home.

Lord help the Mister that comes between

me and my sister...

...and Lord help the sister

that comes between me and my man!