Random acts of silliness

Hannah is extending her literary works to include satire. I laughed when I read this story that she wrote last Sunday, do you think that she is making fun of her little sisters?

Beautiful Pink

Once upon a time there was a beautiful pink princess. She lived in a beautiful pink castle. She had a beautiful pink horse that she rode all the time. Her beautiful pink horse was named Beautiful Pink. He was a beautiful pink horse with a beautiful pink horn and beautiful pink hooves and beautiful pink wings. One day Beautiful Pink said, "Beautiful pink princess, I want to make my beautiful pink hooves into beautiful pink school glue to give to the beautiful pink school children." So he helped the beautiful pink school children with beautiful pink school glue and the beautiful pink princess married a beautiful pink prince and they all lived beautiful pinkily ever after. Sometimes I wonder where she got her sense of humor, until I have an experience like I did today. We had a total of 8 kids playing at our house today, and only half of them were ours. I love to see our children playing and having fun, but after 3 hours we were ready to send the friends home so that we could hear ourselves think again. As one of Johnny's little friends was going out the door he said, "now I won't have any friends to play with." Without hesitation, and little compassion John said, "you can play with your nose." Surprised at the randomness, he broke into laughter and left with a smile.

Still feeling crafty

The craft bug has hit me hard lately. I think that it may have something to do with the fact that April is only two short months away. I know that once Spring is here (ie: birthdays, yard work, children wanting to play outside more.) I won't have as much time to work on all of the unfinished inside projects that have been haunting me since before Christmas. One thing that I have wanted to do is make Maddie's and Lucy's room a little more interesting. I have decided that I am going to let my kids paint their own rooms when they 12 years old, I know that I am thinking waaaay too far ahead, but it is also giving me an excuse not to worry about painting their rooms now. So in the mean time, I have convinced myself that I can get away with decorating their rooms cheaply and easily. I found these awesome flowers at Target, 24 flowers (if I remember right) for $20. They look like they are metal, but they aren't.

$20 still seemed a little much for me to spend on plastic flowers, but they are pretty durable and there were plenty for the M and L's room, a playroom project (I'll show that soon), and a few left for Hannah's room. I am surprised at how much character they bring to the room, especially when they are spray painted coordinating colors.

Oh, I took Lucy's crib down a few weeks ago and sold it on KSL classifieds. We have had to do a bit of mattress shuffling, and buying, to make sure that everyone has a place to sleep. I can't wait to get started on Lucy's bed, it is in the basement ready to be refinished, but I think that I will have to wait until it is a little warmer outside for that project. The paint stripper is pretty toxic for an inside job.

I also had an epiphany about pants a few weeks ago, I realized that I didn't know how many pants each of my children had, and Hannah was running out mid-week. Since I do laundry every week, they only need seven pairs of decent pants at most right? Some of my kids have more and some have less. I decided to get hooks with 7 pegs for each of them so that I could keep track of the amount of pants they have and need throughout the week. (p.s. this wouldn't have worked well during potty training, I would have needed 3X as many hooks...and pants.) If we have too many then I can cut down and simplify, and I won't be tempted to buy more than they need. Plus I don't have to fold them, bonus! Lucy loves hanging up her own pants. Eventually I want to get rid of the chests-of-drawers and make some closet organizers for each of them, but that's a project for another month.

My favorite boy

I often tell Johnny that he is my favorite boy, it has only been recently that he has started asking "but what about dad?" I'm pretty quick with answers to tough questions, and I immediately told him that dad is my favorite man. I still have a little more time to figure out what my answer is going to be when Johnny becomes a man. I'm going to need it. Tonight I thought about this again as I was tucking the kids into bed. I sang a song to Maddie and Lucy, and the feeling came to me that I should sing a song to Johnny before bed. When he was four years-old, I would sing to him often, but slowly the routine changed and three short years later I was startled by the realization that so much time had passed since I had sung to him at bedtime. So I sat beside him, and ran my fingers through his hair like I used to, singing "Jesus once was a little child" (one of his favorites), I couldn't help choking up a little bit at the realization that he is growing up. A few more years and primary songs at bedtime just aren't going to sit well with him anymore. As I try to figure out how to be a mom to my only son, I hope that he still continues to throw his arms around me a few times a day and tell me he loves me.Johnny's sense of humor is growing every day too, he takes on the job of being the only boy so well. A while ago I started noticing that he never looks in the mirror when I do his hair in the morning, even though I always do his hair in front of the mirror. One day, I realized that I could do his hair pretty crazy, and he wouldn't even notice, so at the last moment I decided to accessorize it with one of Maddie's cutesy flowers. It actually took a few seconds after finishing for him to notice, and if it wasn't for the big grin on my face, I think that it would have taken longer. since then he pays much closer attention to how I am doing his hair. I love this boy.