The one time a day my children are angelic

See the wall behind Genevieve? I spent a Saturday when they weren't here painting that room. The very next day they started scratching the paint off the wall. They've scratched "drawings" into the paint (smiley faces, etc), drawn on the wall with crayons, markers pens, pencils, and various bathroom products (like some diaper rash ointment we still have from baby days). There are green hand prints on the wall that I think were made with watercolors.

I'm so glad my children are creative. (Do you know how much paper we have around here?)

Aww!

After School 3

They had Dr. Pepper at Walmart for only $2.19 per 12 pack! *gasp*

Just before sunrise

After School 2

The girls eat a snack and lunch at school, yet they still come home convinced they are on the verge of starvation.


I love new art supplies.

Before School

Sometimes it's fun to have many of a particular toy.

By some miracle we've been getting ready with enough time each morning for the girls to actually sit down and play for ten minutes or so before leaving, and that's with leaving earlier this year because we're carpooling with another family. We'll see if that keeps up next week after I start school.

After School

"Art" is in the eye of the beholder

Many Words

Imogen certainly doesn't mind a monologue, especially when it's coming out of her mouth. We've been playing alot of tetris on the DS lately and I guess it's been on her mind. As Jeremy was trying to fix something on my computer, I got bored watching him and picked it up and began to play. Imogen proceeded to tell me all about her own personal philosophies and strategies regarding tetris (she's never made it past level 5... I've beaten it at level 20). I let her rattle on, completely amused at just how boring it was to listen to her describe where she likes to put various pieces in various situations. I was wondering just how long she would go on when Jeremy finally snapped and said "I think mommy knows all about tetris!" I started laughing hysterically.

I'm often able to tune Imogen out. I know it sounds heartless, but she does feel the need to speak a lot and does not require the most devout listener. I feel it's kinder to let her talk to me than to tell her to be quiet. Often I will suddenly realize she has been talking to me for a while. I'm very willing to have a two way conversation with her, but she needs to get my attention first, which I think she realizes.

Genevieve on the other hand wants to know that you heard her and is perfectly willing to repeat herself as often as necessary to get a response.

"Do you think that if I don't say something, I didn't hear you?" I asked tonight after she repeated herself three times in rapid succession.

"I dunno," she said, completely unconcerned either way.

Oh and Imogen has a strange insect fascination. She recently bought a book at Barnes and Noble about insects. Last night she was flipping through it and came to a page with some kind of velvet ant or something.

"Oh, it's so beautiful!" she said.

"Oh?" I said, "Are you going to be a bug-ologist?"

"What?" she said.

"A scientist who studies bugs," I said.

"Yes. Or an artist who paints bugs," she said.

I guess everyone has their thing.

Yum yum

My dogs and I have a disagreement. To them, if it's left unattended, then it's fair game. To me, the floor is theirs, the table is off limits. Zeus knows well enough to stay off the table unless it's really reeeeally unattended, because getting caught is unpleasant. Monster is more clueless, as always. We try not to leave food laying around but things get overlooked. In this case, what got overlooked was a tub of margarine Joseph had brought to the table and left there for Monster to find. Zeus can eat things carefully, but Monster, having a rather flat and furry face, must smoosh his face into whatever he is eating and consequently, you always know what he's been into. And you can't see it very well from the picture but his face was covered in margarine. I had just bathed him the day before, too. This dog has already had more baths since coming here than Zeus has had in the three years we've had him.

Imogen's latest hair adventure

This is not the first time Imogen has gotten an unplanned haircut because of some disaster. This was the first time it involved this goopy slime stuff that I couldn't get out of her hair, which necessitated in my cutting a large chunk off on one side. She looks cuter with short hair anyway.

Fun at the Zoo

We went to the zoo a couple weeks ago. I, being in the midst of raging allergy season, was perfectly miserable the whole time. I did manage to stop sneezing long enough to shoot a couple pictures.

Fair, to the last crumb

The fair thing has gotten totally out of hand. Today alone, this is what I've heard:

"Can you get me a cup for my cherries, because Imogen had a cup and that wouldn't be fair."

About the parmesan cheese, Imogen said, "Only take a sprinkle because I only got a sprinkle!"

They asked for a drink of my dr. pepper. Previously we established that a sip is smaller than a drink and a drink is smaller than a gulp. So Imogen had a "drink" and handed my almost empty cup to Genevieve and watched her carefully. "Hey! That was a gulp!"

This is ridiculous.

Nightmares

Imogen very rarely wakes us up in the middle of the night, but when she has a nightmare, she wants to be tucked back into bed. I always ask what the nightmare was and she has these really great narrative dreams. Genevieve tries to explain her scary dreams and they are usually only that she saw something scary. Nothing really happens in the dream.

Imogen's first nightmare that I can remember is that a volcano erupted in our back yard.

Another time, she dreamed she put her hand in a cookie jar and pulled out a snake, which then proceeded to chase her around.

Last night she had another dream and I asked her what happened in the dream. "I was playing with Monster and his eyes fell out, and I was scared that I would get in trouble so I hid them under the couch, but you were cleaning up and you found them." Ha! Best nightmare ever!

Cookout

A couple months ago the girls were playing outside and they piled up a bunch of sticks on the back porch and pretended to be camping. I felt sorry for them but not sorry enough to try to sleep on the ground for a night or two so we decided to have a cookout, and then go home to our nice squishy beds. We held it last night at Mary's farm and brought hot dogs and made smores. The girls thought it was the best thing that had ever happened to them.





We got there before sunset and ate hot dogs.




Dave built a fire... you know, just like cave men and pioneers used to do it...





Playing with sparklers.




My camera doesn't like taking pictures with the flash off.



By the time we were on the freeway on our way home, I looked behind me and saw this.

Conversations

Yesterday in the car:

"I'm watching The Sound of Music," Genevieve said.

"Oh, is it past the part where they sing that big song?" Imogen said.

"No," Genevieve said.

Today at dinner:

"Did you know there is a haunted house right here in Missouri??" Imogen told me.

"Imogen's classmate has been to it," Genevieve said. "He almost died there!"

I laughed and said, "I doubt he almost died there."

"Those robots had guns!" Imogen said.

...

Bath time

Before: Cute and fuzzy.



During: Slightly scary.



After: Getting a bit better.

Friends for life, provided nothing goes wrong...

We were in the car yesterday and Imogen said to Genevieve, "Some day, when I get an apartment, you can live with me. You can be my roommate."

"If I know where you live," Genevieve said.

"I can drive you there," Imogen said. "We can share a car."

"If I like your apartment," Genevieve said, noncommittally.

"Well, we can look for a new apartment," Imogen said, in an effort to sweeten the deal. "We can go inside to look and see if we want it."

"We will knock first," Genevieve said.

"And Ben can visit us!" Imogen said.

"If he knows where we live," Genevieve said.

Does she have to poke holes in every plan, I thought.

Moody

I was recently griping at Imogen for having an attitude problem when she had no good reason to be. She's already so moody and temperamental, she's going to be a perfect nightmare as a teenager. She sighed and said "I'm sorry. You should have named me Grouchy." Genevieve spoke up, "Grouchy is a boy's name."

Lazy Sunday afternoon