Cupid

Valentine's Day...important or not?  Well, if you've given up sugar in solidarity with your diabetic husband, Valentine's Day seems pointless.  No chocolate, no holiday - that's my motto.

But you gotta celebrate anyway.  You know, for the children.  

I made cards for Kitty and Mykey - but I didn't photograph Mykey's.  It's private. (Not really.  I just forgot)

Kitty also made a card for her old fogey parents.  She was still jazzed from the Lego convention.  

And then she made the ultimate nerd declaration with her valentine collection bag this year.  It looked pretty darn good.  

Baby got into the spirit with heart jammies.  She specifically requested I dress her in them for the holiday.  

We had a lunch date.

And blew up ginormous balloons for the girls.

And ate steak for dinner. 

It was a nice day all around.

And then Mykey ripped down the stair railing.  Here we go again...

Happy Valentine's Day!

Lego

Kitty is enamored with all things Lego.  She delights in building her own creations, she saves her money for sets and minifigs, and she frequently has landmines of Lego bricks scattered on her bedroom floor. 

I don't know how she does it - I can only build a tower that goes straight up in the air.  Obviously when they were handing things out in heaven, I didn't get any of the genes that allow you to grasp abstract shapes and building concepts.  My body was already overflowing with all the good looks and charm genes.  Look it up - they're real.

ANYWHO, a Lego convention was coming to Knoxville so naturally we had to go.  Kitty's cousin is also a Lego superfan, so we invited him along for the adventure.  It was a fabulous day!  Those two bounced around like balls in a pinball machine.  I was glad Kitty had someone to run around with.

They built race cars and raced them down a track, they colored with Lego markers, they shopped in the Lego store, they dinked with Lego at different stations, and they were able to meet one of the builders from the Lego Masters TV show.  It was Wayne from season 2 and he was incredibly kind.  He autographed a Lego brick for each of them.  At some point in the chaos, Kitty lost her autographed brick. She was devastated. We scoured the venue and looked between the thousands of feet that were clomping around.  We couldn't find it anywhere.  I offered to go back and stand in line for another autograph.  When I arrived at his table, he was gone and wouldn't return for an hour and a half.  I settled in for the long wait.  After a few minutes, Wayne emerged from behind the curtain to grab his coat.  I asked him if he would mind quickly signing the replacement brick.  He graciously agreed and all was restored.  It was a Lego miracle!

The only downside was that we had to walk in the pouring rain to and from our car without hoods or an umbrella.  Someone didn't plan for inclement weather.  (I didn't get that gene in heaven).

What a great way to spend a Saturday! 

Storytime

I used to take Kitty to storytime at the library every week. Kitty is such an intelligent girl that I decided to continue the tradition with Baby so she can be smart also. 

Baby wasn't as excited about it as I thought she would be. She was mostly just curious about all the other babies and sat quietly staring and gathering data.  I was hoping she would laugh and be animated during the songs, but she really just wanted to observe. 

Here's the thing about this particular storytime: I had to sit cross-legged on the floor.  For 30 minutes! I looked around and realized I was the only mom seemingly having an issue with this contortionist pose. I also realized that I was at least 10 years older than all the other moms.  This is my life now.

Now that I think about it, maybe Baby wasn't interacting with me because she didn't want the other kids to know that she came with the senior citizen.  I'm sure that's it.

It wasn't all bad. I did have a nice conversation with the woman sitting next to me.  I had to limp back to my car when it was over though. My poor old legs.

Sheesh. All this so my kid can learn to read good.  I sure hope it works.

Smiley

Baby has a special way of smiling.

It involves her tongue poking out.

It's pure joy for me.

No Need for School

Our school district builds snow days into the calendar and then we have free days off from school if there's no snow.  Being the perpetual optimist that I am, I scheduled a weekend getaway for one of the Friday snow days.  Surely it wasn't going to snow and we would bask in our free day off from school.

Surely.

Well...I made reservations, we became excited, and then...it snowed and snowed. Kitty missed school for an entire week.  When the free snow day came around a few weeks later, it was no longer a day off from school.  It had been cashed in weeks prior.

But I have reservations!

So Kitty ditched.  And I felt wonderful about it.

We headed to the ol'stand-by of Pigeon Forge.  We ate at our favorite restaurant, we played in the hotel arcade, we walked through a magical light show in the trees called Astra Lumina, and we visited the Alcatraz Crime museum - Kitty was slightly creeped out but was able to do a laser obstacle course so it wasn't all bad.

It was a spectacular weekend and it felt great to be naughty and skip school.

This really worked out for me. I learned a valuable lesson about ditching school.

We should do it more often.