love and logic

i can't remember how to love and logic. im the queen of love and logic, ask anybody i could work for the authors. i must find my books and re-read them. this little pistol of mine is just trying to outsmart me, test my parenting skills, prove that i haven't learned anything in eight years and the three children who came before her.

i tell her, "no maggie, no cookies, not now we are getting ready for dinner." she says,

"mmmmm cookies!!" like she is just so happy and how could i say no to that?

i say, "no cookies, its dinner time."

she says nothing, just picks up the bag and walks over to me and looks up at me with her big blue eyes, gives a tiny grin, and then hauls off and smacks my leg.

i crouch down to her level and say very calmly "maggie, no hitting, ever. do you understand me?"

she looks right in my eyes and says "NO."

i grab her chubby little arms and hold them down and try again. "no hitting anyone, ever maggie, do you understand?"

she looks right in my eyes, pauses, thinks a little, and again says "NO."

we do this three more times, and then she says, "mimi hab cookies, mmmmm, and they mine."

what did we learn from this? that i have lost my touch.

tomorrow we will be starting the whole, "uh oh, that's sad mimi..." you know the drill.


***if you haven't read holly's latest blog post, please do, it will have you in stitches.

rock paper scissors

so we spent the day playing in the rocks, as usual when its nice out.



where is molly you ask? oh ya, we were busy playing with scissors, her and i.
i don't know what got into her, but today she was determined to give her hair to locks for love. so we did. i cut an 11 inch pony tail off in one swift chop and took her down to the hair dresser to even it up.


it came out darling, but she looks so stinkin old! where did my baby molly go? although i love how it turned out, i can't help but feel a little bit of sadness when i glance at that long curly ponytail... its just who she always has been, the little girl with long blond hair. now she is this super sophisticated looking big girl. she loves it and is just giddy excited over her new makeover.


as with everything else, mama will get used to it.

oh poop.

oh poop is right. it is never good when you go to pick up your almost four year old from preschool and his teacher is standing in the doorway with a pale face. and then the smell hits you.
oh no.
that is right.
she says, "he's in the bathroom and there is poop everywhere."
well, i look in the bathroom and there is my little blond headed boy buck naked standing in poop, covered in poop. what the heck? was there an explosion or something? i mean, its all over the floor, the toilet, his back, legs arms, feet. its everywhere. and it smells oddly familiar... like rota.
so i just start grabbing wipes. after 15 wipes and not making much progress, i throw the free give away clothes on him and move him to the corner. on my hands and knees i start scrubbing poop off the floor, the smell is overwhelming and the whole school stinks now.
my poor little guy is in the corner, glassy eyed, coughing and cheeks rosy red with fever. i swear he was fine this morning. im so sorry to the other six mothers who will be dealing with this in approximately 3-5 days. its my fault.
i used to be a cool, cute hip little college girl a dozen or so years ago. my biggest concern was finding the perfect outfit to wear to each and every outing i had planned for the weekend.
i now find myself in levis and a sweatshirt, on my hands and knees cleaning up poop for all the other parents to see. my biggest concern now, my poor little boy with those big sad eyes, and how i want to scoop him up and carry him away from this whole mess.

valentine's day.

while i had a lovely weekend at work, not too busy, not too much drama, and lots of cute babies... my husband was forced to stay home and deal with this - sick super sassy magnolia blossom. look how sweet ashton is being, loving his valentine's day goodies while she just sits and yells at him.



after the first "bad boy", if you listen close, unfortunately there is a little bit of a curse word. not sure where she picked it up, but it has been used a lot lately... hoping she doesn't teach it to her older siblings!




and all of them with their loot.

who influences you

my boss made me take a personality survey recently to help better communicate with staff, supervisors and families. what did i find out? nothing revolutionary, things i knew, just kind of put in my face a little more. i have had a lot of that this week!
it says: i am competitive, convincing, strong-willed, enthusiastic, and decisive. i am over sensitive.
these things i know.
who makes you into those things?
i am influenced by my peers: their opinion of me matters, a lot. probably more than it should.

i am influenced by my husband: he is one of the few people i know (my other being a certain photographer friend of mine) that is really not influenced by society. he is in this life to do what he feels is right, what is best for his family, himself. he is completely unaltered by society. i find it amazing. i dont thing i could ever completely be that way, but i am trying. his best quote is "junk in, junk out" (see i listen to you babe)

i am influenced by my children: they make me want to be a better person. how cliche - i know.
they are so good, so pure, it makes me want to be a good example to them.


see how good and pure they look?

i am influenced by my parents: of course we all are, right? my mom is the most giving, selfless person you will ever meet. i dont think she ever had one bite of warm food while we were all living at home. if we ran out of dinner, she would go without. i remember riding in the backseat while me dad was driving her to the hospital, she was being admitted, and the whole way she worked furiously on my handmade halloween costume. et. even when ill, she was doing for us.
she still does for me every chance she gets. i could only dream to be half that selfless.
and my father, one of the smartest surest people i know. he always knew the right answer when i was little. he had a good quote too, that has stuck in my head all these years "little minds talk about people, average minds talk about things, and big minds talk about ideas. always talk about ideas jennifer, and remember who you are." wow, i sometimes stray from that advice, and then regret it.

i am influenced by my brother: he always has a high opinion of me. he sees me through these rose colored glasses, that i do no wrong. its crazy, really. i do lots and lots of things wrong, but no matter what, he has my back. he is the same way with his wife and child (pictured in previous post). he loves completely, no questions asked. it takes me a long time to get to that point, and i always seem to be asking questions.

so i am for sure a work in progress, but i have lots of good examples... no worries.

sweet nothings

i am at a loss of things to blog about, or things you might find interesting to read about i should say. there is plenty going on, just nothing of interest to the whole world perhaps. i have shared how precious my children are and how many times i have goofed up raising them so much you could (gasp) possibly be getting bored of it, so i shall take a small break.
i found these darling little pictures of my sweet baby niece today and thought i would share.
isn't she beautiful? just looking at her makes me grin.

bargain shopping

i love a good deal. nothing makes me happier than finding something for nothing. so you can imagine my excitement when i heard about the possibility of getting a hotel room for nearly free.
my friends cassie and jill let me know about this cool new travel website called lastminutetravel.com, which is having a promotional deal. for 15 minutes a day, for two weeks only, you can book any hotel room anywhere in the world (almost) for 1$ a day. how cool is that? the catch, you don't know when that fifteen minutes will be, so you end up sitting in front of your computer like a zombie waiting for it to happen. this is what my husband and i did on sunday night after the super bowl, we alternated sitting in front of the computer waiting. we did this all day monday, and all night monday night he sat hitting refresh every 30 seconds or so. i was at work and too busy to get much time in front of the computer. it never happened, so my husband told me i was crazy, it was a hoax, and we just lost an entire day of our life waiting for a scam. i felt stupid and so naive, which is totally my nature.
i had worked monday night, so after getting home and getting kids off to school i went to lay down.
i had worked almost 18 hours and was exhausted. 20 minutes into my near coma state, my husband calmy tells me, i think it is happening.
what is happening? he says, the video is playing on that website and its telling us the rooms are all a dollar, we have 5 minutes left.
holy crap!! go back up there and do it then!! so he sits down and goes through the little screens and voila, we have a disneyworld resort for 1 dollar a day. seven nights, seven dollars.
for real.
he said he just sat down and clicked on it one last time, just to see if the website even still worked, or if it had been shut down because of false advertising, and boom, there it was.
i never win contests, never ever. i still cant believe we lucked out like this, so now we can take our family to disney and shave about 1200$ off the cost. woo hoo!!
im going to disneyworld!



with four small children.
hold on... this is a good thing right?