Shades of things to come?

I have been convinced since Josie was first beginning to talk that she would eventually come up with ideas, convince her brothers to try them, and then they would be the ones to get caught....

I am not sure who originated it (probably a little from both children), but Josie found a dinosaur on a craft stick that Andy had created at preschool. I told her it was Andy's and she disappeared down the hallway in to the boys' bedroom where Andy was.
Later I discovered Jim dealing with Andy while Josie waited in her room because she was in trouble.
Apparently Andy was jumping off his bed trying to hit the light with his dino on a stick because Josie was telling him to do it......

BTW

Just because you did not eat much dinner and are now hungry does not mean that I am going to make you a peanut butter sandwich at 5am. Crackers will suffice if you are truly hungry.

Monster Spray cont.

So the blessing is if you are tight on time and your children can't read you can get away with grabbing a can of room deodorizer and not have to alter anything.

I showed Andy the label with the flower (see...it smells so good it keeps the monsters away). I told him it was guaranteed for at least a year and that it was tested and proven to work. He asked if it killed them and yes, monster spray will cause the monster to explode if it gets too close. It does not affect cats so I assured him that any noises he might hear would be the cats.

We sprayed the entire perimeter of the finished areas of the basement and every step in the stairway. The basement reeked of vanilla when we were done.

It was worth it though. Andy seemed delighted that the basement would be safe and he and Josie even went down independently to play.

Monster Spray

For some reason the children have decided that there is a monster downstairs. I do not know if they are possibly hearing the cats or what but it means that they will not go downstairs unless I am with them.

So I am going to create "Monster Spray." Jim suggested using Febreeze or something like that so that the "good smell" keeps the monsters away.
I just need to find a minute or two to alter a label.....

On my to-do list....

We are sort of a week and a half-ish into the semester and I already feel VERY behind.
There are just so many areas to my life...even so many areas to my academic life (working for two profs, taking a class, taking an independent study, etc.) that it is just hard to remember everything.

I know when I was an undergraduate that I would get ahead in one class while I was procrastinating on something for another class.
Lately my problem is that I will have time planned to work on XYZ and then suddenly ABC comes up and has to be done first.

So my to-do list never gets shorter and when I go to do one thing I remember three other things along the way.

I have a confession

I have a secret love of storage containers.

I don't know if it is the idea of having everything neat and in its place.
Or perhaps the idea that if I could find just the right system everything would magically find a place to be.
Or perhaps it is the thought of everything coordinated and stackable and not the mish mash of stuff that I have slowly accumulated over the years....like the idea of throwing out all of the tupperware containers that don't stack or fit in the cupboard and having neat nesting, stackable, and matching containers....only this would be for all of my junk.

It is really difficult this time of year when all of the lovely storage containers are on sale and displayed so prominently.

I win!

When we were visiting my sister's family for Christmas we learned that they play a game called "Yellow Car." It is based off the principal that there are not that many yellow cars out there so when you see one that is not a commercial car you call out "Yellow car." If you see a yellow Hummer then you win.

So right after I dropped the kids off at preschool I happened to see a yellow Hummer.

Does it count if no one was there to witness it?

PreChristmas pictures

So I still have not actually gotten the Christmas pictures off the camera yet. The kids did not have preschool yesterday so I got things done but not the things I had originally planned. I will give them credit in that it did actually snow here but none of it stuck. This is Josie the morning of the Christmas program. I was proud of her because she was the only child in the "Young Twos" class who actually sang. Doug sang loudly (there was another child who topped him on a few songs) and Andy mostly just stood there with the occasional scowl (who knows what he was thinking...he said that he sang). I will give my children credit. It was obvious that they were on top of what was going on as they anticipated moves before their teachers were directing them to do it and none of them got frightened or upset being in front of a lot of people.

Oh blogger....

I have not forsaken thee...I have just been busy, then traveling, then distracted, then sick, then busy again....I have tried my hardest to fail at no fail fudge (which resulted in about 15 lbs of slightly grainy fudge), I have tried to get my house in order for the new year/coming semester and yet still it looks like a tsunami has struck it.
I will return eventually. I promise....perhaps I will even have some pictures to offer.