Stop the presses! I just got back from the grocery store, and I managed to leave the store using only my bring-along bags for $130 of groceries (after $50 savings). What an accomplishment, huh? In all seriousness, it annoys me to no end to have 10 or more of those plastic bags each week to add to my “collection”. When it was diaper central around here, I was able to do away with 3-12 plastic bags per day depending on what the critters ate that day. At times I even found myself running out of them before the next grocery trip. Now I’m lucky if I can actually use 2-3 per week. My cat-themed bag bag (a.k.a. plastic bag holder) is a joke now because it supposedly only holds 80 bags. Yes, I have well over 80 bags in storage here, and this is after taking several loads of plastic bags to the grocery store recycling bin.

Instead of this scene in my home (this is not my actual bag bag and no cats were harmed in the making of it.)

I’m starting feel like this is it’s starting to look at home.

Annie loves to draw pictures and then gives them to people. Her teacher has said that most days each child in class will have some “gift” from Annie in their cubbies by the end of the day. Mimi is the recipient of many of these pictures as well, and she has even gotten used to demanding certain qualities from these drawings. Yesterday in church Mike and I overheard a conversation. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this conversation, but it still tickles my funny bone.

Mimi: I want you to draw me a picture of princesses, of you and me.
Annie: Ok. (Annie promptly begins her assignment.)
A couple of minutes have lapsed.
Annie: Here you go. This princess is you, and this princess is me.
Mimi: I don’t want to be that one. I want to be this one.
Annie: No, Mimi. Look. This princess has shorter hair like yours, and the other princess has long hair like me.
Mimi: (Starting in with her piercing screeching sound that could put down a whole S.W.A.T. team.) I don’t want to be that one. I want to be this one.
Annie: (Always the peacemaker, unless she’s not getting her way.) Okay, Mimi, you can be the princess with the long hair.
Mimi: Good. I like this one the best.
Mimi: (Mimi then shows me the picture.) Mama, I like this princess. She’s the princess with the one eye.
Mommy: Wow, Mimi, that’s a fabulous reason for wanting to be like someone. Because she’s got one eye. Can we call her Cyclops?
Mimi: ??

The other time I heard a conversation similar to this was while we were out to dinner with some friends. Annie, once again, drew a picture of princesses. This time there were 3 of them, Annie, Mimi and the friends’ daughter, Z. Apparently, Z chose to be the same princess as Annie, and an argument ensued. About a minute later Annie was tattling on Z to me for not choosing the princess Annie drew for her. How do I respond to such an injustice?

Not much in the way of excitement around here. Mike had/has a cold/cough. Annie was kept home from school yesterday to clear up some cloggage. And Mimi is still Mimi, loud and as off-key as ever.

I did take some quick pics of the growing garden upstairs. All the plants are prospering and flourishing. We even sampled some of our lettuces for salad the other night. Tasty! We are a little disappointed, however, with some of our greens not being reds yet. So far all the lettuces are still green, but we can’t complain since they are all edible and delectable.

The tomato plants are growing nice and tall. Mike had to tie them up because they were getting awfully droopy.

The peppers are a bit slower at sprouting, but they seem to be growing healthily.

These are the smaller lettuce leaves that we left to keep growing.

What was considered salad-worthy now resides either in our intestines or in some waste depository. Nice visual, huh? See the cuttings?

Can’t wait to be able to add some ‘maters to my salads. Mmm, love me some ‘maters.

Last night Mike and I finally got around to syncing his iPod to our Mac. Up until now he’s just been stealing my iPod if there are new songs he wants to listen to. So now he and I have the same music on our iPods, and there will be no more excuses for him to abscond with my precious, music player. He’s also gotten into the nasty habit of snatching my iPod fm transmitter for the vehicle even though I bought him one of his own for Christmas. In his defense, his fm transmitter requires some installation procedures. I told him last night that a goal for this week is to install his transmitter into his truck, so that I can permanently keep mine in my own car. In fact, he still has it in his truck.

Anyway, the point of bringing this up is that I synced my iPod after we got Mike’s all set up. All of the junk that was on his iPod is now on mine. I just happened to look at mine before putting it away and noticed a picture of Mimi on the preview screen. This piqued my interest, and I quickly discovered that syncing my iPod with Mike’s resulted in a bunch of old, home videos now being on my iPod. I was nearly brought to tears when I watched Annie and Mimi when they were wee ones. I can’t believe I had almost forgotten about those videos. I also can’t believe my children used to be such young babies. Here’s the video that really pulled on my heartstrings last night. Maybe it’s the baby fever I’m forced to feel for the next 2 years, but I just couldn’t stop watching this. Oh, I must apologize for my baby voice. Boy, do I sound like a 13-year-old, or what? Annie’s voice sounds like a chipmunk, so cute! I couldn’t help but laugh at how Annie steals Elmo from Mimi while being the doting, big sister. Notice how Mimi eyes Elmo for the rest of the video while probably thinking, “Give me back that chew toy! If I could get out of this thing, you would be in big trouble.”

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Meet Sam. Over a year ago Sam began his growth but was soon bagged in favor of other projects. The girls, Annie especially, have been begging (or bugging) me to finish making him on a monthly since. When I discovered the sack in which he resided while cleaning out the craft room he looked so sad, lonely, faceless, and in pieces (literally). I decided at that time that he needed to be completed. Fortunately, there wasn’t much else to do other than make his legs, tail, and cheek puffs and to assemble him. The job only took a couple of hours of my time. Now look at him. Sam is a happy, healthy, stuffed cat that can’t hold his head up on his own. And the girls love him to pieces (figuratively). Mimi has been carrying him around ever since, and Annie is demanding another kitty so that she has one to carry around, too. Isn’t Annie such a wonderful big sister to not even question that the first kitty would belong to Mimi? The only complaint I have about Sam is that he was like trying to frost a chocolate cake with white icing. That white stuffing shows up everywhere, and Sam is a lint trap.

As promised, I have some pictures and stories to post about our adventures in the Dells. We left Thursday around lunchtime and arrived around 3:00 allowing us a couple of hours of play before dinner. The place we stayed at housed 4 families easily and had a large kitchen and eating area to dine in for each meal. It really turned out to be a very inexpensive mini-vacation. The resort we stayed at had 3 separate water parks, an arcade, laser tag, and 3-D miniature golf. The first night was “guys’ night out”, and they took advantage of all the dry play areas listed above. The 2nd night was “girls’ night out”, but we weren’t that keen on doing any of those things. Instead it was nice to just be without kids and to sit around and chat. On our night out the guys took the kids to the arcades and mini golf. Prizes were won, and we are now the proud owners of several boomerangs and a whoopee cushion. After 3 water-filled days we headed home on Saturday afternoon.

The girls were in water heaven with all the kid-friendly areas for them. They were both at first a little chicken to go down any slides longer than 3 feet, but Annie soon realized how fun they were. Mimi needed a lot more coaxing (or pushing) to convince her, but by day 3 she was lovin’ all the big kid slides. I was a little apprehensive to go down any of the slides since all of them had signs posted that said “Pregnant women should not ride on the slides.” I did, however, decide that two of the slides would be okay for me since you rode on tubes/rafts to go down. That’s a good enough shock absorber, right? Enough about the details, now on to pictures.

Annie coming down one of the “big girl” slides.

Daddy is so mean.

One of my favorite sections was the “lazy” river. The girls enjoyed it, too, and demanded that we go around at least 2 times each trip.

This was one of the highlights of the parks, the wave pool. They had a mild one that was kid-friendly and a more aggressive one. The girls loved them. Annie showed us that she could voluntarily go underwater in the mild wave pool.

Mimi finally braved the “big girl” slides and couldn’t get enough after that.

Here we are coming out of the “Fantastic Voyage”. The girls were really scared at first to ride this especially when they saw that we had to go up 3 stories to get to the top. Both of them were shivering the whole way up.

Our “illegal” visit to the hot tub. Apparently, children are supposed to be 6 or older to be in the hot tub. Rules are meant to be broken, right? At least for a photo op.

Taking full advantage of the water-proof camera.

Annie’s turn underwater. Yay for her!!

The water-proof camera also had video capabilities, so it was appropriate to record a ride down the slide.
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Annie’s a pirate.

Mimi’s a pirate.

Of course, the men could not keep their hands off each other. Disgusting!

Tune in tomorrow to meet Sam!

In case you were wondering about the lack of updates the past few days, we were in the Wisconsin Dells this weekend. We yanked Annie out of school on Thursday and Friday and headed up for 3 fun-filled days of water sliding with 3 other families. The picture-taking duties was left up to one of the other families since they have a completely water-proof camera. Once I get the disk of pictures promised to us, then I’ll post more information about our adventures.

In the meantime, enjoy a video of the girls ice-skating on Wednesday evening. We have tried to make a habit of using the open-skate time to our advantage by letting the girls practice ice-skating each week. They really are making marked improvements.

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And after ice-skating.

Once confirming that we are, in fact, adding to our little family, it is was immediately evident that my craft room would have to become a nursery. This news saddened me a bit because it would mean all my craft tools/supplies would eventually have to be banished to the dark and dreary basement. Odds are that I probably would never use that stuff again. However, last night it occurred to Mike and me that our nurseries of past were really only used for sleep time which means that all that is really needed for the new nursery is a crib and dresser/chest of drawers. I went without a changing table for Annie and never used the one I put together for Mimi, so why get one this time around. And baby lovin’ (i.e., cuddle, rocking, or comfort time) can be done on the upholstered rocker which now resides in our room.

This sudden insight led to the conclusion that I could keep my craft room, just on a smaller scale. I have not organized this “craft” room since moving in, so I thought last night would be a good time to get going. My hope is that it will also motivate me to start crafting again. Mike keeps hassling me about the fact that I have not even begun a 1st year scrapbook for Mimi. For shame, I am a terrible mother!

Viola! Feast your eyes on the new and improved craft room. Mimi insisted on being part of the “photo shoot”. The 8-foot-long craft table is now up against the window. I have an idea of how I will hide the unsightly clutter below the table, but I have to find out what gender the mystery baby is first. Mimi wants it known that she is displaying her “pet” panda bear.

The “changing table” is now a craft cabinet; you can see it behind Mimi. Those pink fabrics may need to be replaced with another color. We shall see. You might also be able to see some plant progress in the background. So far, the sproutlings are all growing successfully. The pepper plants started sprouting this weekend, too.

The empty space behind Mimi is where a crib will go. Unfortunately, we rid ourselves of all things baby after moving away from NC. We will need to start from scratch now including getting a new crib.

This wall is where the baby’s dresser will be located. Please disregard the mess in the hall. That’s what I’ve cleaned out of the craft room that is either garbage or garage sale stuff. The little, sailboat light switch cover will probably get replaced (it came with the house).

Of course, I can’t leave the room completely as is. It will need a coat of paint (despite Mike declaring last night that “we’re not going to mess with all that.”) and a few other decorating touches. I will post progress as it gets completed. I have another month or so though before I can hopefully find out the sex of this little one growing inside me.

This is what I found on the stairs while going upstairs to put the girls down for their naps today. Annie said all the babies wanted to have a sleepover. Of course, I couldn’t resist capturing the moment before it disappeared. Notice how baby #4 has a black belt (Annie loves tying bows onto things these days) and #5 has a pacemaker (poor thing, and so young).