This power must be used only for good...

She's not asleep. She's transfixed. She didn't move a muscle for a full fifteen minutes. Unprecedented.

Closed due to illness

Not us. But the schools system is. For two days because students were dropping like flies from the highly spreadable germs all over the place. I'm glad. It seems like everyone I know (or don't know) has been battling either the flu or the pukes in their family. We did (Emma got it too, by the way), they did, she did, even she did, and them, and she did, and her. And I know there are more of you out there!

Happily, no one around here has had a relapse. So we have been enjoying our time off with staying in our pajamas half the morning, playing with friends, and floam. Lots of floam.

There's never been a better reason to get pregnant...

Did you know that Ann Taylor LOFT has a maternity line?? I didn't! Luckily, Design Mom knew. (And over at sk*rt you can even win a gift certificate (among other goodies)!) The choices for all the preggers ladies just keep getting better.

EDIT: I should have realized the speculation this post could cause. For the record, no I'm not pregnant. But I do hope/plan to be at some point in the future, so I love to find totally hip maternity clothes.

The Wax Museum (and tilt your head a little leftish)

Yeah, I filmed it sideways. I did not consider the inability to rotate it the right way later on. So, anyway...

The Wax Museum was last week for Emma. This was quite the project for a 2nd grader. She had to do a little research on her assigned historical figure, Eleanor Roosevelt, and write a short speech. Then she and her classmates stood like wax figures in the gym and waited for parents and other classes to come and push the "on" button on the floor. She would recite her little speech over and over for an hour as the crowd moved through. She took her role very seriously and did not break character (that of being made of wax) when we told her "good job" and "show Dad how loose your tooth is".

Hanging out with her pal, Harriet Tubman...and the whole class.

Dying Wagon Wheel Pasta

I'm back to human again. Josh and Lydia are getting there. And Ben just barely took us back to the beginning of pukedome. C'est la vie.


So, last month was Ben's 100th day of Kindergarten. At our school they make a big, day-long party out of the event. The now-seasoned students make and eat a 100 foot long banana split, see how far they go in 100 steps, count things up to 100 like crazy, and other assorted centi-festivities. Including making a necklace out of 100 pieces of wagon wheel pasta dyed different colors. Hmmm, where would they get all that pasta? Why, helpful mother volunteers of course. When Emma was in kindergarten I was in charge of green and our kitchen table still bears a few stains from that day. With this bit of hard won experience, I was much more prepared to take on red and blue for Ben.

Here's the directions:

1 box wagon wheel pasta

1 bottle of food coloring

2 T. alcohol

1 gallon sized ziplock bags

newspaper and tinfoil

Put your pasta, coloring, and alcohol in the ziplock bag and shake, shake, shake

Spread out the pasta to dry on the tinfoil which is on top of the newspaper (just for good measure). The original directions only called for one measly sheet of wax paper for drying. Can you imagine? It would soak right through. It would dye your table for at least two years. And counting.

Everyone hates being sick

Even worse than powdered milk is the sicks. The really sick stomach sicks have been dominoeing through our family in a most ruthless manner. First attacking our poor little Lydia, then a few hours later seizing Josh, then a few hours later merilessly hitting me. It was a messy and sleepless night for many in our household last night. But we are faring better today. I've been nursing a bowl of chicken-noodle soup for about two hours now and it's really done me good. Also good has been my good Scott who worked from home today in order to basically take care of us all and afford me many naps. Thank you, Scotty.

A Man of Many Talents

Ta-dah! Josh received these awesome stackable robots from Troy and Dan for Christmas and they have been fun for the whole family. The box they came in had several examples of configurations for the robots, with varying degrees of difficulty. The top photo is an example of "advanced". The bottom photo is "expert". It is much, much harder than it looks to get these suckers to balance. Our very own Scott was the steady hand who completed these two amazing displays. Bravo!

Inspiring...

...that's what this quiet book is.

She's done it again. Cally has fashioned the coolest, most mod-orable quiet book known to man or baby. You can see many more photos of its intricate details here.