Punk'd

When our doorbell rang at 2:00 this morning, it took me a minute to decide if I'd dreamed it or not. After I convinced myself that I'd really heard it, it took another minute for me to figure out that a burgler wouldn't have rung the doorbell. I realized it could be a neighbor needing help, and got up to check.

When I peeked out the front window, it took yet another minute for me to realize what had happened. It all looked so ghostly in the streetlights, and my brain couldn't figure out what I was seeing. By that time, the perps (or twerps?) were long gone.

My brain had woken up enough at that point to remember the sprinkler system, and I went to the garage to turn off the timer. I had no intention of cleaning it all up right away, and knew that the sprinklers would turn our TP wonderland into a soggy nightmare. I went back to bed chuckling, and dreamed of Charmin.

As we cleaned it up this morning I told Batman that really, it's cosmic payback. Who knows how many yards I rolled as a teenager--I lost count long ago--and cleaning up dry toilet paper on a sunny Saturday morning is a small price to pay in return.

But I don't want them to do it again.

Well, it's about time

What have we been doing around here? Let me share, with a little help from Special. She's been keeping notes on my phone, and they're too good to keep to myself.

On December 18 Special was in a Christmas program at school:

"I had a program in December 18 2008. It was called A place in the Chrismas Choir. I was an elf. And There was 5 dogs. I hade Fun." (Yes, she spelled "choir" correctly.) (Genius!)

The next day, we got a sprinkling of the winter white stuff, and here's what she wrote: "It snowed at Texas, it was so cool." (It was cool indeed, unless you were driving in it.)

A few days later we left to go see Pop and Baba for Christmas. It was a long, long drive, but completely worth it. Special had this to say: "We want to Tenasse in 21.2008. At 11 O Clock we were thar. The next day we got to deckrate the Chrismas tree it was cool and are casins were thar we had fun." (Okay, the spelling there was not so great, but she got the Tennessee accent right anyway--we definitely had fun "thar.")

Christmas dinner with the casins, I mean cousins.

Number One had a big accomplishment last weekend: she ran a 3K! She finished in 25 minutes, and was quite proud of herself.

For my birthday last weekend we tried a new pizza place near our house called Pizza Fusion. They have soy cheese, so it's our new favorite--plus their breadsticks are little bites of heaven.

With bellies full of pizza and root beer

More pictures are posted here: http://picasaweb.google.com/larfamily/Christmas2008#

And since I've started a new semester of school and work is still busy, expect Special to be taking over this blog completely any day now. In fact, let me see if she has anything else to add here:

"Jumpy is weird. He licks his but. He is only 4 years old. I am 7."

"What I lick is nobody's business but my own."

All she wants for Christmas

She lotht her tooth in her thandwicth yethderday. Eating bagelth ith hard now.

It's the place to be

(overheard at the downtown Greek festival last Saturday):

I don't like Greek festivals. I don't want to go.

You ordered them each a whole gyro?! They'll never be able to eat all that!

I don't like gyros. I want a hot dog.

Wow, I was wrong. They can eat a whole gyro. I was hoping for leftovers.


I had super fun! When can we go again?

That's a shame

On Saturday we went to the school's Fun Fest, their yearly fundraiser for the junior and senior classes. Batman was scheduled for a turn in the dunking booth, and the girls and I along with their friend NeighborGirl visited as many booths as we could, smashing pumpkins and fishing for candy and taking a run through the maze. Batman not only got dunked but also "pied," which means "covered with shaving cream."

The girls all spent a lot of time (and tickets) at one booth in particular, trying to win a goldfish. They were all eventually successful, and after dropping NeighborGirl off at her house we went home and put both fish into a nice big vase. We then went out to dinner, and then on to Target where we bought goldfish food (among many other things--it was Target, after all).

Sadly, the little fishies didn't live long enough to be fed. When we returned, they were belly-up in the vase, staring blankly with their cold, dead eyes. We ceremoniously took them into the bathroom and sent them on their journey into the afterlife. RIP, George and Tiny Tim.

This is more fun than homework

My friend Karla tagged me for this meme--take the 6th picture from the 6th file in your My Pictures folder and post it. So here it is, taken almost exactly two years ago: Number One hula hooping it up in the driveway.

She's outgrown those pants and shoes, the sleeves on her sweater are allllmost too short, and the hat got lost last summer; we've replaced all the landscaping in this picture (mostly because the neighbor's cat killed it all) (he has since disappeared) (although not by my hand) (but I did think about it).

Happy Tuesday, and may your hips never lie.

Special birthday

My baby is seven years old now. We still treat her like a baby (and she still acts like one sometimes), and I can hardly believe she's so grown up. Her birthday was last Wednesday, and as an added bonus that marked the third anniversary of our move to Houston. It doesn't seem like it's been that long, but time flies when you're falling over with fatigue.

(How telling is it that the only page I tore out of Lucky this month was not an outfit I had to have, or a picture of the latest shoe trend, but an article called "New Secrets to Disguising Exhaustion." I can't decide which I want more for Christmas: Guitar Hero, or an $80 Laura Mercier eye serum.) (The Botox will have to wait until my spring bonus check.)

ANYhoo, here are pictures of the happy birthday girl. This was taken at school, clutching her birthday breakfast:

Here she is on her birthday call from Pop and Baba:

After opening her gift from Pop and Baba, I'm not sure which of them was more excited about the Easy Bake Oven:
And here she is at her party on Saturday, blowing out the candles on her musical note cake:

This was after we took her and three of her friends to see High School Musical 3, and obviously after the gift-opening--see the tissue explosion in the background?! She had a very happy birthday, and I hope this year goes by slowly for us all--I want to savor seven as long as I can.