pompadours and poodle skirts

My cute girl in her Jr. High play 

Happiest of birthdays to my Lucinda girl and her twin cousin Camille! Lucy was born in the early hours of a cold, but sunny day in Fujisawa, Japan. Camille was born 30 hours later across the world on the same Sunday evening. We've never lived close to them, but I'm so happy that they're still good friends smile emoticonThey even have matching moles on their necks -- like a sweet promise to find one another heart emoticon

Lucinda helped me out with a rousing rendition of happy birthday to... herself

"Feels like -14" I'm super excited to go out today unsure emoticon

Happy Valentines Day!

The homeschooling group that we're in held a Valentines party for the kids at the Bloomington police station.  The boys were mostly excited to actually be at the police station, haha!  But they enjoyed the treats and games, too.  There are a few kids with allergies so we made these cute little cards with pencils and glow sticks.

They got this book at the library and Phin wanted to reenact the cover:

Happy Valentines day to you!  Hope your day was as sweet as this little face!

just do the thing

Oh my!  It is hard to find motivation in the bitter depths of February -- my friend just shared this and it's perfect 

Here is what I've been doing, instead of the THING

books, books, books

Last November I read the book, "The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up" and I loved it!  I immediately set to work and went through my clothes first.  On one hand, it was very very difficult for me because I do have clothes that I love, but that haven't fit me for several years.  This stirs up a lot of angst, to say the least. But I pushed through and was able to get rid of a lot of things that had made the cut in the past.  I really love her idea of touching each item and asking if it brings you joy.  I am not incredibly minimalist so I am sure that I kept more than other people would, but some of the things really make me happy, so they stayed.  My closet is arranged in a lovely rainbow and my drawers are organized in happy stacks and sushi rolls.  So today I decided to tackle books!  We have books stashed all over the house!

And there were even more!  I decided to go down to subcategories: children's, young adult, cookbooks, music books, and the rest.  Here are all of the adult (not that kind of adult) books out on the two sofas in the library.

And the funniest was finding this cleaning book stuck in the back of the very top shelf!

I ended up getting rid of over 200 books!  Some I was surprised to sell for quite a bit on Amazon and some were donated to bring joy to someone else.

wake up, it's 1984

My six year old just got really mad about something and then hit the three year old. I told him that if he was frustrated, maybe he could hit something else, like the couch. Three year old pipes up, through his tears, "Or the cat!" "No, no, not the cat." I say. He looks confused, "But can we yell at the cat? You yell at the cat when he scratches the door." I am under constant surveillance.