Flea Market Sunday

The flea market continues to be a source of nothing but frustration for me this year.  I wander around aimlessly, finding nothing to buy, falling in love with only one item that is already sold, or too expensive for me and go home disappointed.

Today when we got home I went insane and tore apart three rooms of the house.  I mean if there is nothing new to buy I might as well mix things up around here and make them so my own things feel new, right?

It's always a huge mess doing this. And harder than hell with three kids underfoot. And makes me wish like crazy for enough money to hire a painter. Nearly 6 years in my walls are much worse for the wear.

BUT! everything feels fresh and new and better. I still have big messes to finish cleaning up but I have some breathing space in here again.

I did buy something this morning - an old basket bassinette. I might have never thought to buy such a thing, but she had displayed quilts in it and I though whoa! winner!

And we all know I have no shortage of quilts to fill it with. :-)

Hapde Burfday Grant!

My Dearest Grant,

Today you are two! (Well, yesterday, but whose counting?)  Look at you just one year ago today.

You did not want a single thing to do with sitting in the hippo for the birthday photo for me.

In fact, you were freaking out over sitting in that hippo.

You were, however, excited about spotting a "jumpy squirrel!"

And about half way through the train ride you realized you were on a train and got more excited about that too.

You are ever curious my boy.

A mama can sit and watch you and just SEE your brain ticking away in there.

At two you are:
Still obsessed with all things wires. And buttons. And outlets. And electronic.
Able to build train tracks and playing with trains
Following along with every.single.thing Samantha does
Involved in many, many sibling squirmishes every day
Trying to count
Starting to identify letters
Starting to dress yourself
Starting to be picky about clothes
Still not in love with bathing
Still a really good eater
Starting to run
Trying to ride a trike
Building with legos
Going to start one half day of PDO this week
Talking up a storm
Sleeping through the night most of the time
Totally REFUSING to give up that nighttime bottle
A BIG boy (in a 3T, weighing 33 lbs and I think 31 inches tall, might have to change that after Monday)
Always, always trying to figure out how everything works
Opinionated as hell (shocker, none of my children are like this, snort)
Saying "oh hi" when you want to be picked up
Still not at all interested in watching tv
Shy and reserved when it comes to most new people


Still my one and only darling BABY!

I am not gonna lie - your birthday is a hard one for me. It represents the day my life really did change forever healthwise and that creeps up on me every year. But I would never give up the opportunity to know you and love you in exchange for going back.

Love you baby,
Mama

Back from 5th grade camp

Welcome home Jack, mom missed you ever so much my biggest dude!

 Last night we went to school to get Jack off the bus after a week at fifth grade.

 I will confess I was a little nervous. Jack can still be a volatile kid and I didn't know which Jack would get off that bus.

 Turns out he had a great time (as I knew he would, but HE didn't know he would)  and he was as happy as a clam.

 By about Tuesday I started to miss him like crazy.

 There was no one to "talk" to me and not just ask me incessant preschool/toddler questions all the live long day!

 Grant insisted he be allowed to "cheese" with Jack, LOL. 

This morning the littles are fighting over who gets to sit next to him.

Hopefully Sammi will chill out a little. She has been seriously dreadful this week. Just AWFUL. I don't have much hope though, as it is only 9 am and already she is knocking over furniture in a tantrum.

Sigh.

Today is Grant's birthday and I will be back tomorrow with a birthday letter and some photos of the now 2 year old Ginty boy!

The day Sammi made letters for the first time

Lately I am supremely crabby. I have been juggling so many balls for so long and I am just ready to drop them all and do something else.  Our car really does need to be replaced (and there is no money for that), my parents need extra help lately, the kids have all these needs, my little business has all these needs and just BLARGH.

Today I have been ready to lie down in the yard and just give it all up.

Sammi and I had a little afternoon rest with some crappy My Little Pony movie and then she asked me to help her write some letters. She first wrote an S on her own.

Then I showed her how to do the A and the M and off she went.

And in those moments who cares about the stupid balls you are juggling? Instead you just cry a little because WAY TO GO SAM! and remember that tomorrow is a new day. (With less balls to juggle you hope and slightly better news.)

What the ducklings are up to

Our school district is the only district in the St Louis area that does a week long sleep over camp for their students. They go in the fifth grade, and since we advanced Jack, he left for camp yesterday.

He is in the same school district I graduated from, but since I didn't start there until high school, I didn't get to go to 5th grade camp. I am so excited for him! My classmates were always talking about it. He was having some jitters yesterday, but his teacher is supremely awesome and I am sure they are having a great time.  (I did a little googling yesterday after we dropped him off - the campground was built in the 1930s as part of Roosevelt's new deal. Even cooler!)

This morning Sammi got her weapon of mass destruction, err cast, taken off.

She is a bit distressed about the state of her very black fingernail and repeatedly asked me to wash it off.  The Dr suggested some fingernail polish to cover it up, I think I will give that a try.

And while we were busy doing that, Grant decided to poop. ON ME. In a doctor's office. Yea, good times! LOL

Flea Market Sunday

In between chauffeuring the children all around and having a birthday party I made a few garage sale stops.

I had Dave make a hole in that Jack-o-lantern so it could go on the witch where her skull was missing.

I think I am going to use this as a Halloween tablecloth on the foyer table.

Meow. The two at the top are interesting, I had never seen them before. They move.

The lady asked me what I was going to do with this. Bwhahahaha! Lady! I am sid the science kid.

I have never seen printed glasses as mugs? They are big. Oh great, the T key just broke all the way off, this should be fun. LOL

A very vintage chicken costume (One cannot type vintage without a T you know)...

That has a cloth mask. Those usually creep me out, but the chicken is not creepy.

The plastic elves on the other hand? CREEPY. What do I keep picking these birds up for?

Well, you will have to sort the rest out since a certain small person is now hollering that she has pooped. Oy, what a glamorous life!

Grant turns 2, a cookie monster party

What a week this has been. I am SO GLAD it's over. Today we had a cookie monster party for Grant's second birthday. I am not going to lie, I have been in a M O O D all week, and I do not feel like this is my best party effort here. I had one disaster after another with the cookies and the cake and I have been without my car all week so just going and buying it was not an option.

The cookie wreath turned out exactly as planned. This doubled as a bean bag toss for the kids. We just took it down and hung it up outside and let the kids throw bean bags through the hole.

Cookie monster tissue balls (and all the crap on top of my fridge where Grant cannot reach it).

It bugs Jack that there is no mouth. It bugs me too. I didn't even want to put ANY ICING on this thing, but I could not find a pan. So I had to cook it in the skillet. When I had to flip it twice it cracked apart. The eyeballs are an attempt at hiding some of that. I had no way to make black icing for a mouth so he looks like Grover or something. But whatever, the kid is two.

The bean bags I made for the toss.

Favors.

That hard to see bunting says COOKIE!

We also played pin the cookie on cookie monster.

And we had a cookie decorating station.

Grant's favorite part was sticking all the cookies on cookie monster. He was quite proud of himself when he got them all up there. Not the game as it was intended, but who cares? He loved it! Win.

His face says "Why is everyone singing loudly at me?"

Never mind, the singing's fine if cookies and ice cream are involved.

And balloons too!

He is in L O V E with his noisy presents which included things with lots of buttons and wires! He loves some wires!

So, that's what I have been doing all week. Yesterday while I was burning up the second batch of cookies and ruining the cake, Grant pulled half the letters off my laptop keyboard, so now I am missing some rather important letters.

I work and blog from this lap top, so this is a serious bummer.  Hopefully I will find my way back here a little more often this week. :-)