The Grouchy Version of Me

I've noticed that pending unemployment makes me easily bothered by a wide variety of smallish things.  

Here are some things that have been bothering me this week:

1.  There are too many Clementine oranges in those bags.  Who on earth can eat that many oranges before they go bad????

2.  Goodluck Johnathan doesn't seem like a sensible name.

3.  Why don't parents teach their children how to blow their own noses?

4.  Put your paper in the recycling bin, people!  

5.  There was no real development of the relationship between Lucy Honeychurch and George Emerson in A Room With a View.

6.  The house inexplicably smells like garbage.

7.  Printer ink is outrageously priced.

8.  Kids get too many goody bags these days.  Enough with the goody bags!

9. The word paparazzi is dumb.

10.  Why must they market Activia Yogurt so that every time you see someone eating it, all you can think about is how it's going to help that person's digestive health?

Two Scoops

I forget what these scoopy things are actually called, but Clara and Trevi can get some pretty good rallies going these days. Tonight was a bit on the cold and blustery side, but that didn't deter them from going out post-bath-and-shower to get in a few tosses.  And, no, they don't usually stand two feet apart while playing. This pic was taken while they were in the process of discussing their previous consecutive catch record.  I think it was 14.  Not bad.  And scoop season is just beginning....

Sweet Clara Jane

The world has revolved around Trevi this past week, and I've got to hand it to Clara.  She has been the picture of sweetness, and eager to help in all of the birthday type stuff.She's been blowing up balloons, wrapping things, helping her brother with his Thank You notes, and taking toys out of their (excessive and Fort Knoxish) packaging. 

On top of that, there are all the other great helpful sister things she does every day, like:

• helping to interpret Lego instructions

• rebuilding broken Lego structures

• tidying (I just say, "Clara, can you please work your magic on the living room?" and it's done.)

• pouring Trevi's cereal in the morning

• laundry consolidation

• story reading (when Trev brought home a Charlie and Lola book from the library today, she read the whole thing with an English accent!  She's good, too!)

• general entertainment and jester duty

Thank you for all you do, Honeybun!

He's Six!

I don't think I've ever documented our family tradition of hanging streamers on the Birthday Kid's bedroom door, the night before the big day. Trevi was especially excited to wake up and walk through his streamers this morning.  

They aren't black and blue for any particular reason, by the way. It was just all I could dig up in the gift wrap bin in the garage.

And, after walking through the streamers, there were presents, balloons, a birthday sign, and an adorably enthusiastic sister waiting in the kitchen. 

Fruity Cheerios for breakfast and the birthday has officially begun.

I actually took these next photos yesterday, when Trevi randomly chose to wear a shirt which made him look mindblowingly cute, and also way too grown up.  Our baby is six years old.

I followed him around the backyard while there was just enough light left to go flashless.

How I love this boy.

Six will be full of new adventures, discoveries, and inventions. This is going to be fun.

We love you, Manny!  Happy, Happy Birthday!

Animal House

What a fabulous day for a birthday party!  Among the guests were most of Trevi's classmates, a hamster, a hairless rat, a guinea pig, a scorpion, a tarantula, an iguana, a tortoise, a rabbit, two roosters, and a few pythons.

Trevi wore two of the pythons.

One snake was too big to handle alone.

Whiskers were blown out and cat was eaten.

De"cat"pitated? (sorry) :).

And there were presents.  Lots of them.  But, alas, Trevi did not receive a Public Storage unit for his birthday.....

The sun shone on us all day (it's officially Spring now!), and it was just lovely and cute every single minute– how awesome are Kindergartners? 

Afterward, we had a yummy dinner out with the family (thanks, G&G!), and came home to the oh so wonderful news that the health care reform bill passed!!  Today gets an A++.

Cat cake

Trevi's birthday party is tomorrow (two days before the actual big day - SIX!  Holey moley!) and he requested a cat cake.  So that's what I've been up to.  

The whiskers are the candles.  Cool, eh?  

Thank goodness he's turning an even number, or the asymmetry would have given me a headache.

Springy!

Warm weather must make Clara soft. That's the only explanation I can come up with for her willingness to take shots on a goal filled with a table, a chair, and a brother, and not complain even once about the impossibility of scoring.  Ah, Spring.

Plate wall #2

I've been picking away at hanging these plates for the past few days now, and finally have something that feels close to what I'm aiming for.  The second wall (on the right) didn't come together as easily as the first (which I loved), and I ended up needing to shuffle around both walls to try to get the balance right.  I also made the mistake of checking on ebay for some "mid-century modern" plates, whose prices are a far cry from my Goodwill gems, and I found a few that I am trying not to dream about too much.  Okay, just realized that I am dreaming about plates. Perhaps getting a life is in order. 

Light (with a shout-out to Tara) :)

Drawn out to the living room by the gorgeous afternoon light, Clara looked so sweet as she worked away on her multiplication.Now that we've sprung forward, the long evenings hold so much promise.  Homework first, though....

Mancakes

It doesn't get much better than Sunday breakfast covered in maple syrup and served up by this guy.

Cookies and Catch Up

Clara and I spent our afternoon on cookie booth duty, where she and her fellow Brownie sold the heck out of every delicious variety.

I've noticed, by the way, that at this time of year I tend to bring up Girl Scout cookies almost daily in casual conversation. Especially Samoas. And I want to say that I'm not joking about being able to eat an entire box of Samoas in one sitting.  I mean, I've never actually done it, but I am 100% certain that I could. Easily.  

Since I have nowhere to be in the morning except home in my jammies, I decided to stay up late tonight (extra late due to springing forward) and fill in some missing blog posts from the past couple of weeks. 

After all, Sunday morning is the reason Disney Channel was invented.  

Playing "Guys"

Ah, the awesomeness of the old Fisher Price toys.  Notice how, in this photo, nobody looks angry or violent or vindictive or weepy or bossy?  It's the toys.  They have magical powers.

Trouble right here in RIF City

With a capital 'T' and that rhymes with 'P' and that stands for Pink.

I understand the history behind the name, "Pink Slip", and I totally get that we don't need carbon copies anymore, but I think it would be cool if they could print the things up on pink paper just for the heck of it. It would be more colorful. Slightly less crappy.

For some reason, I had it firmly in my mind that I got an initial RIF notice last year, and was subsequently saved before the May 15th deadline.  I looked back in the blog, though, and discovered that I never actually got RIFfed.  I guess I just felt RIFfed, because of being displaced and all that.  In any case, I was not so lucky this time. And, apparently, there are 21,000 other teachers in the state of California who feel my exact pain.  That is sick. SICK.  

Man, the cash they could have saved on the paper alone....

So, I'm a teensy bit concerned about the future, and am practicing uttering the phrase, "Would you like fries with that?"

Goodbye, Moomoos :(

We said goodbye to our sweet cat today.  What started last week as a sore paw turned out to be cancer that had ravaged her little body.  Such a sad, sad day.

Let them eat cake!

Here's a new one:  getting a cake at a birthday party.  No, not a piece of birthday cake– an entire, humongous cake for each birthday guest, to be "decorated" as one of the party activities. In Clara's case, the finished product was a chocolately mass with inch-thick frosting and gummy worms and jellybeans and m&ms and six kinds of sprinkles.  To take home.  Seriously.

What is a sugarphobic parent to do?  I spent the drive home from the party figuring out how to break it to Clara that her cake was headed to the Staff Room at school, where it would be devoured by ravenous/stressed teachers in exactly twelve nanoseconds. 

However, since today happened to be Papa's birthday (and also Ariana's), we decided instead to get out the maple leaf plates (only for the most special and Canadianest of occasions) and eat cake.

Now, what to do about the goody bag full of candy?

Mowing

Pardon the overexposure here (must. read. camera. manual), but doesn't Chad look cute in his little plastic bag shoe protectors and straw hat?  And the fact that the grass is actually dry enough to mow speaks volumes.  Oh, the rain lately.  I feel like I've been in some bad scene foreshadowing something bad in a bad movie. Sun is appreciated.

Still building

I do realize that I've blogged a bajillion times about these cool blocks, and at least ten bajillion times about the amazing creativity and building skills of our visually and spatially gifted offspring.  So, I figure another blog or two can't hurt.

Saucy

Helper boy always wants to assist in the kitchen, and opening cans is his new favorite thing.  So, ya, this is photographic proof that we don't make our spaghetti sauce from scratch around here. Busted. Then again, it takes Trevi about as long to open the can as it would take us to grow some tomatoes and garlic and peppers (from seed), then stew and chop them and simmer them in a pan with some red wine and herbs and stuff, so, really, the Hunt's pictured above basically is homemade.  And it's got the added zing of a little BPA.

Haircut!

Clara has been trying desperately to grow the required ten inches of hair to donate for Locks of Love, but it just wasn't to be.  I'm afraid that along with giant teeth, a love of symmetry, and a stubborn disposition, she also inherited slow-growing, easy-breaking hair from me.  Yesterday, she finally decided it was time to tame the scraggly ponytail.  

So cute! And a sunny day with blossoms on the trees to top it all off.