Sofie's coming home this afternoon, and I'm so excited to see her!  Spending the day with just Matthew was great, and we all had a great time, but by the end of the day the house was way too quiet. 

We spend our afternoon near my mom's house, and visited one of my favorite stores, The Container Store!  I've been searching for a washable microfiber duster, with a refill, and finally found one there. Exciting stuff!

We stopped in a little boutique after lunch, and Matthew took my picture wearing this mask. He got frustrated when I wouldn't say "cheese," until he realized it wouldn't make a difference; nothing would make the mask smile!

Matthew's having his first dental filling this morning, wish us luck! 

As the world's slowest scrapper, I actually set a record yesterday, finishing four pages at one crop! I also took a class from Patti, one of the Scrap For a Cure girls, and made a beautiful 6x6 book.

Today we're having a "day of adventure" with Matthew, since Sofie is spending the weekend at a grandparent's house. It's fairly commonplace for one of the grandparents to take Matthew for a weekend, but not vice versa; though I miss her already, I'm excited to spend the day with Matthew.

Don't forget Daylight Savings today!!

Oh, boy...I've once again found myself facing a pile of ironing of epic proportions. This has been my system for several years: let the ironing pile up over the course of 3-4 weeks, spend 2-3 solid days ironing everything (all the while swearing I will never do this again!), then let it pile up again for 3-4 weeks, and so, and so on. This time, though,  things will be different!  I've now accepted, at least for the time being, that this is my system, and will not beat myself up about it :)  The funny thing is, I really like ironing, since what's to hate? It's chore where you get to stay in one place, everything you touch is clean, and you can watch TV!

In the grand scheme of things, letting the ironing pile up isn't a crime, and as long as everyone leaves the house in clean clothes, we're all good. And once we finish getting the house in order, which is very close to being done, staying on top of this will not be a big deal. 

This is truly a rare sight, Sofie napping. After the week she's had I can't say I'm surprised, and it's giving Matty and I a rare opportunity to hang out one-on-one. It's not often he gets to complete a sentence uninterrupted!

Happy Friday!

Today has been all about playing catch-up from the last few days, and getting everything around here picked up, so I can spend this Saturday away, by myself, guilt-free!  Yesterday was spent running all over Oakland getting things done, and getting home in time to run errands here, and working on homework. 

Here is the end result of Sofia's visit to Children's Hospital, four vials of blood taken! It seemed excessive for such a small person, but she seems no worse for wear. She absolutely refused to let anyone take this bandage off, it stayed from 11:00 am - 8:00 pm, and though I'm sure that's horribly wrong somehow, I also know when to pick my battles!

Our other errand, since we were in Oakland, was a trip to IKEA. Sofia and I had lunch there, then bought lamps for the living room. She insisted she wanted meatballs for her lunch, then of course shoved them aside for my lunch :)  It was for the best, I shouldn't eat french fries anyway. Below is what she got for being a good girl for the neuro, and getting her blood drawn. She's been playing on it almost constantly, and is now wonderfully worn out!

In Matthew News :

Every day at school this week the kids have to wear something strange. Yesterday was "Backwards Day", and I'm so happy Matthew was willing to do it! He's been so particular about things lately, and I was worried he wouldn't want to do anything that wasn't "normal". He wasn't on board to do the crazy hair thing on Monday, but since his hair is so crazy on its own, and it's too hard to work with anyway. 

John didn't realize that yesterday Matthew was supposed to wear his shirt backwards, and started to get seriously worried that there was something wrong with him!! Poor John, it was hard not to laugh at him, but I couldn't help myself either. Thankfully he loves me as much as he does :)

I'm so excited, we just received this painting from my grandma, and I can't wait to hang it up! My grandma has been painting for over 60 years, and she's painted wonderful portraits of all of us, this is the first of Sofia. What I love most about this one of Sofia, is it's from one of my favorite pictures of her, it's a great memory from a really fun day. There are other pictures of her from this day on the slideshow; as you can see my grandma painted pants on Sof, so she's not flashing us forever :)

These are the layouts I've done so far with the SFAC March kit, hopefully I'll be able to get a few more done before this weekend. My goal is to finish the kit by Friday.
Well, off to Children's Oakland, wish us luck....I'm not feeling confident Sofia will be very cooperative.

Just when I think my darling daughter has grown past the stage of near constant mischievousness, we have a day like yesterday. She somehow managed to get hold of two boxes of macaroni & cheese, and spread them all over the family room. Later she "stole" three apples from the kitchen counter, and ate a little bit of each of them.

I discovered later that her rampage had continued when I found 7 bananas mashed behind the couch. Fortunately only one banana escaped its skin, so the rest are destined for banana bread. Days like this used to be the norm for Sofia, but lately they are few and far between, so when they happen it's far more emotionally draining, at least for that day. 
A lot of positive things do come from her annoying antics; by the next day I can usually start finding them amusing, and I've gained a broad range of stain removal techniques! From the above picture I will learn how to remove lollipop from microsuade :)

As the saying goes, march in like a lion, out like a lamb. So far we've got the lion part, so hopefully Spring should be mild. It's been really blustery here today, alternately raining and sunny, but the wind has been relentless. The kids keep running to the door to see who's there, just to again find that it's just branches banging against the side of the house. Below are pictures of only two of the many rainbows that have been out today, some were the most brilliant rainbows I've ever seen!

And the day been spent on the run, a pretty typical Monday. I taught art in Matty's class, which is always way more fun that I think it will be; I'm always afraid the kids are going to hate the project we do, but thankfully they're always really excited. Today they sketched from a posable wooden model, then made clothes for their sketches with construction paper. The models were a huge hit, and everyone (except Matty, who's decided he does not like art) finished, a huge relief!!

I picked up my Scrap for a Cure kit, and I can't wait to actually use it!!  The subscription is a birthday gift from my fabulous mom, and I am determined to not let them sit and collect dust. There are so many wonderful women on the SFAC forum, who also post numerous layouts in the gallery, there's plenty of inspiration, and no reason a kit should just sit!!  Here's my kit, and hopefully by the end of the week I'll have most of it used!!