Mama's Having a rough day

We officially christened the new car today...filled the gas tank for the first time, got the permanent license plates, and added a giant scratch on either side courtesy of the Y parking garage.
Not my best morning.

Later in the day, I took the kids to U Village, just to get out of the house.  I told them we could get a treat, thinking I'd get a cup of coffee and they'd get a cookie.  Somehow they talked me into 3 ice cream cones at Molly Moon's.

Okay, it had been a rough day, it didn't take much convincing. 

Cecily has decided that she doesn't like ice cream cones (probably has something to do with her last one falling off & landing in her lap), so she got a cup and managed to stay fairly clean, Parker not so much.

Carpool!

This is the whole reason we got the mini-van.  I'm carpooling! Four kids in the car, no big deal.

Sleeping...

Our whole family has been fighting a crud the past few weeks, and the kids haven't been sleeping well.  Which (somewhat) explains how Parker ended up falling asleep at 9:30 pm with music playing, door open, no pillow, and the lights on, reading a book.

More Ballet photos

There isn't much for Parker to do during Cecily's ballet classes, so I end up with a thousand photos like this:

But I also occasionally get a good one:

Zoo Trip

The last day of MWB we went to the zoo.  It wasn't raining when we left the house, but it was once we got there:

"Mama, can we just go home please?"

I let them play in the Zoomazium for a long time and they actually had a great time, but the walk back to the car was pretty torturous. 

That time Parker nearly gave himself a concussion...

Midwinter break tend to mean stir-crazy children and cranky Mamas.  So, this year, I made a concerted effort to get a quiet time for both kids to give them a break and save my sanity.  

Wednesday afternoon, I finally got the kids settled in their rooms for quiet time and the house was quiet!  So quiet, I thought that they had both possibly fallen asleep.  All of a sudden, the quiet was broken by a GIGANTIC THUD, a pause, and I-think-I'm-dying crying.  Parker had somehow jumped/fallen off his bed and smacked his head on the floor (hard enough to make the whole house shake a little).

The next day, he showed me what he was doing when he made the big boom:

Anyone else think sliding backwards & upside down off your bed is maybe a bad idea, or is that just me?

There doesn't appear to be any permanent damage, but we'll see...

Happy Valentine's Day

 This year, between the two kids and the three classrooms, we had 75 Valentines to sign.  An hour in, Parker had signed exactly 2.  At which point I remembered that handy tool Gary gave me for Christmas to use with my Silhouette, and half an hour later, I had a hundred personalized stickers!

It still took us several hours to get them all sticker-ed, but not as long as hand-writing them.

In the seven hours Parker was at school, I think he had 4 hours of party and 3 hours of actual class (which must have mostly been lunch & recess).

Some Random Photos

Now that I have a decent camera on my phone, and I'm on Instagram, I'm not doing such a great job of updating the blog.  But, the rest of the family's not on Instagram, so here are a few random photos from the past few weeks:

Parker wanted a photo of his "orange mustache"

More ballet class:

"Mama, take our picture, we're matching!"

More ballet:

Parker found my camera and actually got a few good shots of Cecily:

I see these photos and I'm reminded of how much better a real camera is (even when used by a five-year-old) than my phone camera, but the phone is just so darn handy.