Just Stuff

I think a lot of this is going to be about one of my older girls, Kaitlyn. First of all, she is quite the artist. She is wildly creative and imaginative. Which can be good and bad. Okay, mostly good, except that I'm always finding little things around the house that she has concocted and left for me to figure out what to do with or clean up.

One thing I do not understand: My kids have a beautiful doll house. They were running out of room so Santa brought the younger girls a smaller Barbie condo. They still wanted more room for their furniture so we have a 3-shelf bookshelf now also donated to the cause. But...for some reason my kids do NOT want to leave the furniture in any of those places. Kaitlyn is the ring leader but they all do it.

So instead I find this:

An empty doll house.

Then I find the furniture - in giant boxes that she has confiscated and done her own remodeling job...

And set up in and on other shelves that were once being used to store other toys and items.

I'll just let you imagine where all the stuff went that was stored here. 

But her creative side is also a gift. She recently painted a picture of a rocket, gave it to her art teacher, who then decided to frame it and hang it in the school!

And then there was her portrait of Martin Luther King, Jr. It totally looked like him!

She also LOVES to draw on all her schoolwork. So far her teachers don't seem to mind. Here is one of her spelling tests. In spite of missing a couple words, she has designed a separate section for her own artwork and left a line for a grade on that portion as well.

Then there's her type A side. Three months before we went to DisneyWorld we told the kids we would be going. She instantly worked up her own list of what to do the morning we leave.

So that is Kaitlyn. Now onto other things.

Recently she received an award before school one morning. Of course when we get there Ashley has no shoes. Bad enough she's in her enormous t-shirt that she slept (and some capris I insisted she wear), but now she can't even cross the street. And for some reason I wasn't able to carry her. I think I had done something to hurt my back. Luckily she has a sister who didn't mind carrying her. And luckily the school doesn't care that I'm bringing in a child with no shoes.

Speaking of Ashley, one day she attempted to make a peanut butter and honey sandwich. Instead she put syrup on a bagel and then realized something didn't go quite right. I thought it was an endearing attempt.

It's recital time, fast-approaching! Picture day was a few weeks ago. This is the first time I've had THREE dancers! Let me just tell you that's a lot of costumes - 7 total! I thought it was funny how high they piled up in my car. They look small here but the picture seems to distort it. 

Here's a preview of their tap costumes.

Mike decided to ride in the MS150. It is a bike ride for Multiple Sclerosis that covers 150 miles from Houston to Austin. He is not a bicyclist (is that what you even call it?) but I was proud of him for doing something hard. He went with a team from his work while we supported him from home!

The little girls went to a birthday party and the Chick Fil A balloon lady was there. Apparently these were the best balloon animals (flowers and butterflies, actually) ever! I thought they were pretty cool too. If only they didn't pop later that day!

And Reagan's made me laugh a bit lately. Yesterday she gathered up some dead worms off the sidewalk of her school and brought them home to bury them in the yard.

One day I told the kids we could go to Chick Fil A. Reagan responded "mommy, sometimes you're the best and sometimes you're just KIND of the best." I looked at her funny and she said "I mean, you're not horrible or anything." Ok I guess I'll take it. 

And the last thing that really made me laugh recently  was when Kaitlyn was torturing Ashley by chasing her, holding out her thumb with a paper cut on it, which Ashley thought was contagious. Kaitlyn kept waving it at her saying "Ooo, paper cut! It's going to kill you! ahhhhh!" Ashley was running and screaming. I kept trying to get onto Kaitlyn and tell her to stop but I couldn't stop snickering about the whole thing. Ahhh, sibling love. What's growing up without a little torture between siblings?