Everyday Things

my lil' kitchen helpers

Every time I walk into the kitchen my two little chicas follow behind demanding I put their aprons on and let them help "cook". Today they "cooked" fresh fruit and cold sandwiches ;) They were pretty proud of themselves for scooping the fruit out of the bowl with spatulas and for placing the rest of their lunch on their plates....all by themselves! After they even helped me wash dishes....even though we have a dishwasher....and I didn't want to wash them. Lucky me! Although (almost!) 3 year olds have a way of making EVERYTHING silly and fun and they do provide me with a daily dose of hysterical laughter!

Everyday Things

Christmas Morning and Night

Santa left a special breakfast Christmas morning!

Christmas Eve we spent at my parents house with Nana and Poppa, Auntie Chrissy, Mariah (Cousin), Shaylah (Cousin), Olivia (Cousin), Owen (Cousin), Uncle Josh and Auntie Suzanne. It was wonderful, lots of fun and great food. Thank you Mom and Dad for the wonderful spread, the company and all of the special gifts. The girls had a great time, especially Adia, who just like her cousin Olivia, believes in her heart of hearts that she is in fact a puppy :) Olivia even fed Adia some puppy food out of a bowl (cashews and peanuts). Christmas is always special to me. My parents, even when we had no money, made it so special and wonderful and exciting every. single. year. Thank you for the memories.

Royce and I stayed up late, really late watching a Christmas movie on Christmas Eve night and 3.5 hours later we awoke to the girls screaming, "Santa came!!!! There's presents!!!!!" So up we flew out of bed to let the girls loose and watch them tear open their gifts. It was pure joy for all four of us. About an hour later we all crashed out and caught up on some much needed sleep (thank God!).
















Christmas day we spent together as a family, playing, napping, eating and really enjoying each others company. Royce and I put the girls to bed early, they were spent and Royce and I started a fire. The baby monitor stayed silent but all of the sudden I peaked in the window and on noticed the light peering from the loft (playroom) and Rasa and Adia dancing in circles at about 9:30!! We put their coats and boots on and brought them out to enjoy the fire with us. It was very special even though it didn't last long, I'm glad we did it.

Happy Christmas!

Everyday Things

the weekend of destruction

It all started with me leaving for a half an hour Friday night. When I returned I walked into the house with music blaring at full blast, Royce in the downstairs bathroom shaving and Adia running out with another electric shaver unplugged pretending to shave the locks off the top of her head. Where is Rasa???? I go upstairs and see the light on in the bathroom but the door closed. I open it and all of my families toothbrushes are in the toilet intertwined in a couple rolls of unspooled toilet paper. Ahem....Daddy daycare is in need of improvement!

Episode two started with an unlocked baby gate at the top of the stairs. Saturday morning, about 6 am Rasa hopped out of her bed and quietly made her way downstairs. At some point Adia joined her but we're unsure as to when. Since Royce and I were sleeping peacefully in bed the details are a little hazy. We woke to a sea of silver paint marker on the legs, arms and finger nails of both girls. A camera charger once black now coated in fresh silver paint. New sparky silver drawings on the wood floor under the kitchen table. A house heavily scented in enamel paint.

Sunday morning after the girls and I went out for breakfast I decide to pick up the playroom and leave the girls playing happily and appropriately in the living room downstairs. When I hear screams of glee less than five minutes later I decide to investigate. When I came down there is a sea of white and two girls making snow angels on the dinning room floor. Snow everywhere! Wait not snow....two new big bottles of grated parmesan cheese! I spent an hour vacuuming it up as it melts inside of my vacuum cleaner and the more I try to get it off the floor, the more it seems to spread. The girls are bottomless with parmesan cheese stuck to their butt cheeks. The couch is white and there are trails of it throughout every room and on every piece of furniture.

I'm tired man. I'm tired.

**updated Sunday night**
The girls were running laps around the upstairs and decided to hunker down in our walk in closet. They were playing quietly (will I ever freakin learn??!!!) behind Royce's hanging shirts. I checked on them over and over but they were hiding so I would hear nothing, go in and peek behind the clothes and leave. I got comfy on the couch and thought wow this is nice, it's quiet and I can relax for a minute before they go to bed. A millisecond later, Adia comes racing down the hallway to the loft with tiny quilting pins stuck all over her pull up.
"Oh *(&^!"
What the hell did they get into??
I walk into the closet and behind the clothes is an empty little Tupperware container that used to house about one thousand tiny quilting pins. They. Were. Everywhere. The floors in the closet are distressed hardwood - complete with gaps and knots etc. Each gap and each knot hole was filled with pins. They. Were. Everywhere. I had Royce grab me a magnet off the fridge and that helped with the clean up - those little buggers are hard to grab onto!

I think I got them all. I don't really know. They keep showing up all over the house now. I'm sure I'm going be pulling them out of the bottoms of my feet for weeks.

Sigh.

The girls are only two for like a few more weeks. If I make it out of the terrific two's without a mental breakdown or a drinking problem than I feel like there probably is a God.

Everyday Things

Happy St. Nicholas Day!

Last night Royce and I were up until 1 am making little elves for the girls for St. Nicholas Day. The story is that children leave their shoes outside their bedroom door in hopes that St. Nicholas will come and fill their shoes with coins or candy if they've been good and naughty littles get a lump of coal. I remember being in grade school and having some kids find candy canes and other treats the morning of St. Nicholas and their excitement. Since we follow Advent holiday's I was excited to see it pop up and know that it would be a little taste of Christmas this early in December. Royce and I had fun painting them last night (his version was scrapped - scary monster elf lol!).

Adia came downstairs and was very excited to find her treats. She didn't care if St. Nic was real or not, who made what or where it came from. She was just happy to reap the benefits of it!

Rasa walked down and found her surprise and was very excited! She crawled in my bed with her little elf in one hand and the bag of M&M's in the other.

Me: "Oh wow! Look at what St. Nic left you!"

Rasa smirks and looks at me like duh

Rasa: "This is not from Santa! This is from you, Momma!!!"

&^$?!! Is this going to be a hard sell????

searching for blueberry muffin

Rasa and Adia are really into Strawberry Shortcake dolls right now. I admit to loving them as well because I was all about Strawberry Shortcake when I was in preschool. My sister had Blueberry Muffin and I had Strawberry and I remember hours of play with them and the sweet, sweet smell of their scented hair that lasted nearly as long as the dolls held up.

When I brought home the girls first dolls Adia wanted Lemon and Rasa wanted Strawberry. They were so excited about them. They wanted their little shoes put on and to mess up...I mean comb...their hair. I would fix them back up while Royce would glare at me from across the room reminding me that they are the girls and not my dolls. Whatever.

I was leaving for the weekend a few weeks ago and wanted to pick up a couple new ones so that I could say good bye and distract them long enough to get out of the house without tears. I gave Rasa Plum Pudding and Adia Blueberry Muffin, they hugged and kissed me and said "see ya in a couple days!".

When I returned and settled back in after the weekend Blueberry was no where to be found! For two weeks we've been looking for her everywhere! At one point Adia told Royce she threw her in the garbage. I don't know if she actually did or if she means since we can't find her she must have gotten thrown away?

Last night I was sitting at the kitchen table and they were again asking where Blueberry is:

Adia runs up to me and grabs my hand and says, "Come on! Come on! We need to get Blueberry out of the garbage!" pulling my arm to get up and go outside where the bin is.

I said, "Adia it doesn't work like that. If Blueberry made it outside to the trash then the Garbage Man came and picked it up and she's gone. We can't go get her".

Adia got really upset, started sobbing and yelled "But Momma I'm really worried about her!!!!"

That was the sound of my heart breaking.

Stupid Strawberry Shortcake dolls!

my two puppies....i mean kids

So Mom, don't be alarmed when you look at this. I know I told you last week the only way to keep my house relatively clean would be to kennel the girls. I didn't kennel them - they are infatuated with kenneling themselves (score!).

It actually grosses me out because Lucy is a grungy little turd and although she doesn't spend a lot of time in her kennel and the blanket in there is relatively clean....still....yuck!

Adia believes in her heart of hearts she is in fact a dog. She barks at me when I go outside, she licks everything (yes even still) and now she makes Rasa feed her treats to which she eats them out of her hand (see pic).

Tonight Rasa was crawling in the kennel and Royce (unknowing of this new infatuation of theirs) stopped her. She sobbed and ran through the living room with tears flying saying "I wanna go in the kennel!!!!!" Royce and I laughed and he put her in the damn dog kennel.

Is child protective services coming tonight?

Everyday Things

Everyday Things

Quotes this week from Rasa Bea

"I'm going to have a baby brother. I'm going to call him Number Two"
I swear to God she's never seen Austin Powers!!!

"Adia lets go sit outside on the bench. We're going to wait for my baby brother"
Um I should note that I was home with the girls alone so it's not like she was thinking if she gave Royce and I some time alone.......


Jenn: "Rasa did you draw this picture?"
Rasa: "Yes!"
Jenn: "Is that a lady?"
Rasa: "NO!! It's my momma!" (in a loud and condescending manner!)
Jenn: "Is this you?"
Rasa: "No it's my baby brother! and that's a tiny baby!!" (again in a loud and condescending manner!)
*notice she captured my afro quite well!

This morning Rasa brought me the cap off of a brand new tube of lip gloss. I immediatly get irritated because she's been digging in my purse again and I say, "Go get the rest of this right now!". She says, "I WILL!" and walks away. I reply, "Right now!". She walks back over to me and gives me a teenage attitude and says, "Momma you need to relax!"

I'm dead.

Everyday Things