Cookie time

E's had these boxes of Girl Scout cookies sitting in the dining room for a week now. It's time she starts delivering. She has three weeks to turn in all the money.

Temari

These are some of the temari balls E makes to sell at the Women's Exchange. She's already sold four since she and her friend, A, joined the group last fall. She had A over the other night to teach her how to make them, too. They've been working on creating some Easter-colored balls.

Pink Shirt (and everything) Day

Yep, this is how L went to school today. It's Pink Shirt Day to raise awareness about bullying and attempt to prevent it. L wanted to go to a party store last night and buy a pink wig, but instead we decided to re-dye the pink stripe in her hair so it's brighter. She wore the pink shirt she bought for the day with a pink shirt underneath it, pink pants, pink earrings, a pink hat and pink gloves. Of course all her underwear and socks were pink and she put on her pink high-tops. She wanted to wear a pink sweatshirt, but it's way too cold for that today. L wanted to be the kid with the most pink on and she said she thinks she was. She's lucky pink is her favorite color and her wardrobe is full of it. One of her teachers gave her some M&Ms for her effort.

Play with me

When Muffles wants to play he'll lay down on his toy and wait for us to engage him. B was playing with him the other day and I thought it would be a good chance to capture a photo of him up in the air. When he's excited, he can jump at least two feet off the floor (Muffles, not B). I must have taken 30-something pictures with Andy's "good" camera and the closest I got to Muffles flying through the air was this, with his feet planted firmly on the ground:

B kept laughing because the camera would flash second after Muffles landed on the ground ... every time.

Poetry project

Talk about busy work! L's English assignment was to write 11 poems on a single subject. She chose toys. The poems were all different (one was a haiku, one a limerick, one alliteration, etc.) Then she had to find a "creative" way to display the poems. L attached each poem to a toy and filled a "toy box" with them. She had been working on the project throughout the weekend and tonight was crunch time - it's due tomorrow. I heard from other parents that their children had all the poems written in class and I knew L still had about six to write so I started panicking yesterday afternoon that she was already behind. She spent the night at the computer and cranked out the remaining six poems. All that work and each poem is worth four points. Creativity is worth 10 points. The entire project is 70 points so I guess that is a decent part of the grade.

Here's L with a baby doll that she used for her limerick. I found it at the Economy Shop and we were going to throw it out because it's dirty and I thought it would work great for L's project. Kind of gross, I know.

Finally putting the lid on this project.

So sweet

Maybe it's a little creepy to sneak up on your kids and take pictures of them sleeping, but he looks so sweet. How can a mom resist?

Pilgrim's got talent

Here's L performing her magic act at the Pilgrim Talent Show, with help from her assistant and friend, D. The girls spent the afternoon together and practiced the act (and painted their nails and chose semi-matching outfits). The magic act was pretty funny, but she did have a few good tricks. D also sang a solo and L performed a solo on her flute. What a couple of talented girls.

Bunny slope

E and her BFF, A, went skiing with the Park District tonight. They left Oak Park at 5:30 p.m., drove to Chestnut Mountain Resort in Galena, took a beginner ski lesson and then skied until leaving early in the morning Saturday and getting home about 5:30 a.m. E took these pictures on her phone and she didn't get a decent one of the slope. It was the first time that either of them had skied. On a scale of 1 to 10, E gave the trip a 7. She said she would do it again, though.

Concert & pizza

L had a band concert tonight. The "uniform" is to wear a white shirt and black bottoms. So what does she wear? A black and white striped dressed, pre-appoved though by the band director. This is probably the third band concert she's worn that dress to. She likes to stand out. After the concert, she slipped the dress off and put on her new Blackhawks (Toews) jersey I bought at the Economy Shop - it costs $65 new and I got it for $2.

Here she is in Forest Park as we were on our way to the restaurant to order a pizza. Not sure what kind of pose she's doing. Anyway, as we were crossing the street, a guy yelled out, "Go, Hawks!" L thought that was pretty funny. Of course, he saw the jersey because she wasn't wearing a coat. It may be February, but the temperature was in the high 30s so she thought she'd be fine without it. It was windy, though, and she was wishing she had her coat on the cold walk back to the car.

Hump daaaay

L shows off her newest shirt.

'Snow' much fun

What a Monday. The kids were all home from school. I had to drive to the orthodontist twice - once to get his braces off and again in the afternoon to get his bottom retainer. And it snowed all day. We got about another six inches. L, though, had a great day off. She had her neighborhood friends, sisters E and B, over since about 11:30 a.m. and two other neighborhood friends, siblings M and L, came over around 1 p.m. All day they were in and out of the house to play in the snow. Here they are on one of their many treks to the parking lot at Irving where they were working on building a snow fort:

E was supposed to work for two hours at the Women's Exchange, but they called early in the afternoon to say they were closing the shop for the day because of the snow. (She did get some good news this weekend that four of her temari balls sold at the shop for $10 each. The shop keeps 30 percent so she gets $7 per ball!) She was supposed to read a few chapters of Hemingway's "Farewell to Arms," but kept procrastinating. She watched all kinds of crazy TV shows (bad tattoos, a reality show of a veterinary in Michigan, a guy who builds fancy treehouses, etc. - you get the idea), she played games on her iPhone, she texted her friends. She did everything except read. When Andy came home from work (after E spent the entire day nonproductive) I sent her out to sweep snow off the front steps. She did it, and left a little message in the snow:

The left side of the front sidewalk says "winter" in Japanese. The right side is a peace sign, a heart and her signature smiley face. She'll apparently do anything to put off that reading.

B's before and after

This was B before his orthodontist appointment this morning.

And after with his braces off! The water bottle is filled with an assortment of candies he wasn't allowed to eat when he had the braces on. When E got her braces off, the doctor gave me a bottle of sparkling apple cider. They've since upgraded to a bottle of white wine, a nice surprise.

A sign of spring

B's friend, B, who slept over Friday, brought these daffodils as a Valentine's present for me. He also brought me Frango mints at Christmas. And sometimes when he sleeps over, his mom will drop off dinner for him and B. I like this kid.

'I'm going to keep this forever!'

L spent the night at her friend, J's, "other" house in Naperville Friday. J's dad picked L up around 9 a.m. Friday and brought her back about 10 a.m. this morning. Before they left, J handed L this Valentine. On the front, J made a paper tardis from "Dr. Who" and when its doors are opened, there's a picture of L getting a kiss from David Tennant, L's favorite Doctor. She told J she loved the Valentine and plans to keep it forever. "I can tell everyone I got kissed by David Tennant!"

From my Valentine

Flashback

I was sorting through some photos this afternoon when I came across this photo from a family party in 1998. E was just over a year old and playing with her cousins C and D. E looks a little miserable - maybe because her scrawny little arms are being pulled out of their sockets - but her cousins look pretty happy. Perhaps it was E's subtle way of telling us it was time to go home? And check out the look on Aunt Allison's face.

Dinner by E

E surprised me by making dinner last night. I had chicken thawed out for dinner and she came home from school, flipped through a magazine and found this recipe for chicken roll-ups she thought sounded interesting so I told her she could make it for dinner. She made some linguine and salads to go with it.

It was a tasty dinner, but we decided that next time she should add fewer green onions and more basil.

New hideout

We're not sure why, but ever since we moved this little cat house to a different part of the living room, Muffles has been loving it. He sits in it all the time and overnight he put a golf tee and a sock inside.

Stromboli?

It's nice to see L's science project is finished the day before it's due. She might be going for a record for most glitter glue used on a science project. She decorated it last night and put in a kitchen cabinet overnight so the cats wouldn't mess up the wet glue. I was a bit skeptical when I saw she called it a stromboli volcano. Isn't that a pizza dish? Andy looked it up on the computer and it does exist. Let's hope it ends up getting her a decent grade.

And more snow

Our back yard is quickly disappearing under the snow. We had at least another two inches today. I had to point out to the kids how much snow has accumulated on our little table. L was ready to go wipe it off, but E said it's too pretty to destroy.

World's smallest pencil

L pulled this pencil out of her backpack when I insisted she clean it out and toss the papers she no longer needs. She even demonstrated that she can, indeed, write with it. Sometimes that girl is unbelievable.

He loves me

August usually hides during the day and at night he tends to keep to himself. I've been telling the kids that during the day, when they're at school, he'll rub against my leg or brush my hand to pet him. Today I was making my grocery list for the week and he jumped up on the notepad and began rubbing his head against my hand. When I took time to pet him, he licked my hand.

Six more inches

We got six more inches of snow last night and it's suppose to continue snowing (lightly) today. Andy got quite a work out before heading off to work this morning. Here's the before shoveling picture:

You can hardly tell where the sidewalk is.

Yearbook T-shirt

L brought home her T-shirt today for being on the school's yearbook staff. She's part of the advertising group. She also came home with a mystery - someone taped a box of Jolly Rancher chews to her locker with an unsigned note that said, "Happy Valentine's Day, Lindsey." Hmmm.

Chopstick lesson

Worn out

E got home from the Japanese Fest about 5:30 p.m. last night. By 7 p.m. she was sound asleep.

Japanese Fest and lots of visitors

E was at the high school last night till about 8:30 p.m. setting up for today's Japanese Fest and today she went back at 9 a.m. to continue the work. B had his friend, B and IB, sleep over and at 11 a.m. their friend, L, from Ohio made a visit. We only learned he was coming home a couple days ago and fortunately the only plan B had was to go to the Japanese Fest, so they took L along. Here's a pic of the boys before they headed to the school, after lunch at the neighborhood's favorite hot dog stand, Pete's. His last visit was on this birthday in November.

L had her friend, J, sleep over last night too. That's a total of six kids in the house; Andy and I were seriously outnumbered. L went with J and her dad this afternoon to skate at Millennium Park in downtown Chicago. She got back just in time for us to run to the high school and check out the Japanese Fest. We were hoping E's shift would be over, but she had to stay and help clean up. She didn't get home till about 5:30 p.m. Doesn't she look happy to be cleaning up?

B and his friends went to the Japanese Fest to get credit for their Japanese class and somehow brought home two more boys. We broke that party up pretty quickly and B was able to spend some time playing video games with L alone before he left around 6 p.m. First, though, they went with IB back to Pete's so L could get a milkshake. They certainly didn't let the snow (about 6 inches, I'd guess) stop them. They look like they're having a good time.