Summer March Fools

We had a glorious summer weekend 2 weekends ago.  And now today is a perfectly beautiful March day, and it makes me grumpy.  Grumpy because we had our flip flops out and now we are digging in the coat closet trying to find gloves again.  Or rather, the problem is, we are not digging for the gloves.  We refuse to believe it is still winter and consequently, we have been dressed inappropriately for 2 weeks straight, and freezing ... which makes me grumpy.  BUT, finding these pics makes me happy.  And they were only 2 weeks ago.  Didn't even have to fly to Florida to leave our coats behind.

Ben missed the whole weekend, so maybe he is less grumpy than we are about it.  And there was a great milestone in that Elliot made it across the monkey bars for the first time that we have seen.  Quite a feat and we are proud.

Julia has a theme song right now.  Not surprisingly, it is Lady Gaga.  And probably also not surprising is that it is called "The Edge" ... "I'm on the Edge, the egde, the edge, the edge..." you get the picture.  Everytime I turn around, she is LITERALLY on the edge of something.  Like the bed 3.5 feet off the ground, or the couch, or the stairs that go straight down, all 13 with no breaks, or on the slide at the playground, where she sat, on the edge, for a good 10 minutes.  At least she is getting balance.  

Print My Blog!

It happened.  It finally happened!  I printed my blog into a book.  It dawned on me sometime in 2008 that I would really hate to lose access to my blog -- or to have to pay to view my content.  And I am only medium to low on the tech-savvy scale, so I could very easily have deleted the whole shebang with an errant keystroke.  And so in 2008, I set out Kassi and Ben to get me a copy of my blog, in any format --didn't care if they printed it on a dot matrix printer screen by screen, I just wanted a copy, somehow.  (I didn't do this myself, my screen time was erstwhile spent blogging of course.)

They put in the hours.  With several websites that offered the service.  They put in calls to tech support.  They tried at various times over the last few years.  We came close on occasion, but no cigar.  Too many posts.  No way to import.  No way to organize.  Blah blah blah, always something.

I was bitten by the bug again and set out to try it myself.  Now I am not going to harp that if you want something done right, you need to do it yourself and that I am the only genius able to figure this out -- truly, I think it was luck of the timing and that technology finally caught up to what I needed.

And so I present to you:  www.blog2print.com .  And wow, was I skeptical.  I mean their website really leaves much to be desired.  And their interface is terribly clunky...but clearly intuitive enough for me to easily maneuver.  Really, after a couple of clicks, it said to enter my blog address.  I did and it created a sample book.  Easy Peasy.  Did a few different trials to get a sense of pricing.

Next question is are they legit?  Cuz these books cost a lot of $.  Think like $75 - $125 if you have a lot of posts like someone I know.  And I had to do it in 2 volumes.  But I smartly waited until the first one arrived.  Hard cover and pages all shiny and glossy like a yearbook.  I did not change a thing on the layout...didn't want a masterpiece, just the posts and didn't want to go down the rabbit hole of over-editing.  Even with their standard layout, it turned out great, IMHO.  And it arrived 2 weeks earlier than planned.  And so, they were legit and they earned my trust and $ to order the second book - which will arrive in April.

They are not paying me to write this post.  They should be.  If I was a better blogger, they would be...but I am sharing for those other blogger mamas (or their husbands who need gift ideas) who might be in the same boat as me.  Only after I ordered all my books (and now I do get spam from them) did I see they have a "refer a friend" and get some kind of credit.  So if you want me to email you the link I'd be happy to get some credit, but won't need a new book myself until next year.

Happy Memory Making.

Invention Invasion 2012 - Vehicle House!

Angier's Invention Invasion was last week.  It is like a science fair, but for inventions.  The inventions do not need to actually work.  Your parents can help, but help must be disclosed.  We are so proud of Elliot.  She came up with the idea and all the attributes.  Introducing the AMAZING, one-of-a-kind:

V E H I C L E  H O U SE!

It was formerly the helicopter house, but then she started adding everything under the sun.   The helicopter lifts your house up until the airplane wings can take over.  It has a boat on bottom so it can land in water, and wheels so you can drive it if you want, "like a duck boat."  It saves you time packing and you can fly anytime of night to go see your family and land your vehicle house in their yards.  There is a garage underneath, so you can take your own cars with you so you do not need to rent one.  Elliot wants to sell it for $16 Million Dollars.

Her first "customer" asking about the project.  

Now who is going to help us invent "Fruit Man"?  Samantha wanted in on the action and describes "Fruit Man" as a robot made out of fruit who can do anything, including driving the Vehicle House and cleaning up all the gunk under the dining room table and applying your sunscreen.  

Dance Bounce Dance

Made my first trek to the Waban library last week.  It is quite bright and airy!  A surprise for such a churchy-castley looking building.  Went there to see Elliot & Sam's hip hop jazz class.  Which seemed to be more Ballety than anything else, but fine by us.  They love it.

The girls practicing their graceful leaps over colorful scarves.

Pigtails for Julia!

Playing with the new stamps set from Auntie Shannon - thanks!

We also crashed a birthday party at a bouncy house place called Monkey Joe's.  It was only a sort of crash, since Elliot was invited by the birthday boy.  There was no mention of siblings on the invitation.  When I looked up the directions and learned it was a 40 minute drive from our house and would shoot the whole afternoon, we quickly regrouped and thought we'd bring the whole family.  (I do love me some bouncy house action!)  And if it didn't look like we could blend in, we'd just sneak Sammy & Julia out and go to McDonald's.  (Sam's request).  The host family was nice and said it was no problem...we even offered to pay for the extra kids.  Then Samantha took off like a shot and had more fun than Elliot at this venue.  Then our clan proceeded to eat an entire pizza amongst us, sit front and center next to the birthday boy (who was probably wondering who some of us were).  And then when Sam saw Elliot getting a carefully metered for invited guests only goody bag, she ran over and asked for one 17 times while I was trying to whisk her away before the parent relented and I sheepishly apologized again.  And, in all that fun...the only pictures I managed were of the back of Julia's head.  She loved it too.

This and That

We have been in our house for almost a year now.  We can hardly believe it.  And yes, we still have boxes.  As I walked into my office just now, I was struck with what would be a good bumper sticker to slap on the door:  "Less Shit. More Zen."  Because that is exactly what this office needs!  Kinda temped to scroll open that window and just start shoving things out to the ground below.

The kids are up to some amazing things these days.  Like last night how they paraded for 35 minutes rearranging only 3 items of clothes apiece into better and better "party outfits".  I am not sure what party they think they are going to that would not result in arrest for indecent exposure for their creative applications.  Think, shirts on your feet, underwears on your head, and a whole lotta mooning and being extra "hilarious".

Samantha takes a couple of dance classes a week.  Ballet, and hip hop/jazz.  She has an amazing memory for some things.

Julia is very proud of herself most of the time.  And she should be.  At 13 months she is toddling around like a 2 year old and very vocal.  We can't quite understand her, but she yammers away at us all the time.  And usually with a finger pointed and some high pitched pteradactyl screams to boot.  She loves her nanny, Patty, and we do too.  She also loves stealing any remote, even more than phones.  Julia has laser-like radar for when there is trouble and danger.  Say she is in the den with Ben.  I come downstairs and leave the safety gate open in the other room.  She drops her remote and just starts determinedly toward the open gate.  Like a little Stepford wife with those swirly eyes.  It's not like she heard it or can see it, she just KNOWS it is open and goes for it.  Ditto for bathroom doors and still with the toilet seats.  Clearly she does not get enough pool time if she is always trying to take a dip in the toilet bowls.  So if you come to our house and we walk in on you in the bathroom, it's because we now have to live with all bathroom doors closed at all times, regardless of occupation.

Elliot is planning her July birthday party already.  Did we mention she wants a "Lady GaGa" party?  But then she thought we should actually have a Katy Perry party this year, so we can give out outfts that they can wear next year to her Lady Gaga party.  Heaven help on on this one.  I am also starting to collect ideas for a CD we can burn to give away and what songs will be appropriate and not get us kicked out of the neighborhood.

Samantha ice skating.  If you look at the people behind her on the left, that is a more accurate version of what it looks like to take 4-5 year olds ice skating.  And if mama can't skate so well herself, well its a grand old time.

Oscar night!  And, cousin Zoe was over, helping put every dress up dress on Samantha at once.

Elliot fishing for condiments for dinner.  She is becoming quite good in the kitchen.  Actual good ideas, no joke!

In the penalty box at the ice rink.  Voluntarily.

Elliot chose this to wear to the elementary school pot luck.  She laid out 2 piles in her room. dresses and accessories.  ALl those Fancy Nancy books have now caught up to us.

EVERY.SINGLE.LEFT. SLEEVE of mine has oatmeal/yogurt sludge on it.  Because I can't resist scooping up this little lady after I am already dressed for work and she is finishing breakfast.  It's worth it though.  I probably should make a better attempt at cleaning it off though.  I'm an SVP after all.  

Peek week at Samantha's tap class

Sam is our latest sleeper.  And she has taken to waking and then sweetly inviting me to come eat breakfast with her in our pajamas so I don't get food on my work clothes. (see a theme here?)

Julia's hide out.  Between two couches.  Where she can carefully peel off strips of kleenex and eat them like potato chips. - maybe her favorite snack of all time (kleenex not chips!).  

No Plans Weekend

I was behind in readin everyone else's blogs and then thought, well if I had that much time to spare, I should have been posting pictures of my pretties!  So here are some randoms from past weekends as I hustle to shuttle us off to "International Pot Luck" night at the PTO.  But, what is so international when the school is mostly WASPs?  Our "international" contribution?  Green Bean Casserole from a Thanksgiving recipe.  And the girls are going to wear flamenco dresses...because they want to.