have girls, will travel

One of the things that I love about John is that he has never been intimidated by taking the girls places. He was the first of us to fly solo with a kid. When A was a newborn, he took them both to Cracker Barrel so I could get a few extra hours sleep. He's taken them to Knoxville and Charlottesville for football games, and done some sightseeing in DC solo.

The other week, he took A down to Charlottesville for a basketball game. It was a mid-week game, so we figured A would be a better companion...since E has real school, can't nap and generally doesn't fall asleep in the car. E was understandably bummed, despite my efforts to have a little date night ourselves.

Virginia had a game last night against VA Tech. We had already considered letting E go to the game because of it being so close to the weekend (and hey, maybe we could get her to sleep in on Saturday)...but our rough week here kind of sealed the deal. The only problem was that A knew that there were fun times to be had with Daddy...so not taking her was out of the question.

Most people might have bristled at the idea of taking 2 kids 5 and under to a sporting event solo. Heck, I don't think I would have done it. But, John?
No problem. (Now if only I could get him to take flattering pictures, he'd be perfect!)

some things never change

A's school is doing some sort of space curriculum right now. Or at least I think they are, because the other night when I picked her up she pointed to the moon and told me she was going to fly there in a rocket ship when she grew up. And, yesterday, she pointed to a picture of Earth on a bulletin board at school and said,

"Mama, dat's the planet we live on. Dat's Earf."

The ride home from school was thens spent discussing the planets in our solar system.

The girls were totally cracking up that there's a planet named "Pluto." And I thought to myself...one day, Pluto won't even phase you. One day, you'll be in your 30s and you'll be driving home with your own kids. And despite your full-on adult status, you'll still giggle at a planet named "Uranus."

Or at least I still do.

winter doldrums

So the entire Slacker family is in a bit of a funk. I don't know if it's the winter weather or what...but all of us are sort of blah right now. E, especially. She's even pulling some old shenanigans when it comes to SAC. And, guess what? A big ole helping of Mommy Guilt isn't really helping make me feel any better.

On the bright side, we had a good weekend last weekend, including going to a fantastic brunch with some good friends. Today, E didn't cry at all this afternoon! And, we've got a slew of visitors coming to see us this weekend, that the *whole* family is looking forward to. So, hopefully things are on an upswing.

Let's hope so. 'Cause these winter doldrums really suck.

men are from mars: little people edition

This weekend, I tried to organize the girls toys a bit. I got a couple of bins to store the rapidly expanding Barbie collection, and tried to tackle The Black Hole of Crap Toys (aka, the toy box). While I did make some progress in my efforts (some relic baby toys did get moved downstairs and some cheap-o and/or broken toys got the boot altogether), I was stymied by the fact that my girls rediscovered their love of the toys that I was trying to remove from the family room...Little People.

I felt like we were kind of over the Little People. We have a dollhouse and all those damn Barbies now...I feel like these three types of toys overlap. But NOOOOOOOOOOOOO. There was whining. And begging. And sure enough, the girls have played with the Little People pretty much every night since I tried to banish them to storage.

Last night after dinner, the girls broke out all of the Little People, and in an effort to get out of any further post-dinner cleanup John joined in on their game. Except rather than just grabbing a figure and start talking in a silly voice (you do that too...right? right?!?!!?), he decided to implement a Little People Draft.

For the next 20 minutes, the three of them had different selection rounds, including one for Little People vehicles. Poor John didn't fare so hot...he ended up with several Little People knock-offs (think: My Little Pony happy meal toys) AND the crappy school bus with all the doors broken off. Alas the three of them had tons of fun, and he taught them valuable life lessons for when they are old enough to join their own fantasy football teams.

Strangely enough, they finished up playing just as I put the last dish away...

boys vs. girls vs. babies

In what will hopefully become a more frequent than annual event, the girls and I spent part of our day off yesterday at a playdate with my old New Mom's Group from when E was born. Just like last year, everyone had a good time. What I found interesting about this time is that the kids naturally segregated themselves this year.

The boys immediately went off and played legos and Wii together. The older girls (E, A and Julia) were dressing up, playing with baby dolls and playing doctor among about 100 other things. The younger girls kind of played by themselves

But, Here are all the kiddos in attendance. (I didn't take this picture...since I, of course, forgot my camera. Thanks, Kelly, for passing it along!.)

christmas 2009: the recap

So, Christmas was a huge success! This was the first year that each girl had definitive ideas about what they wanted. E wanted a globe that played games and a Barbie. A wanted a pink car and a Barbie. For a while we had *no* idea what kind of car A meant -- for her or for her dolls -- lucky for us she was talking about a doll sized one. We also got the girls bikes. But,when the dust had settled and the presents were opened, the early front runner for favorite gift were the mini-Slinkies the girls got in their stockings. Who knew?

The other big gift of the holiday was the Beertender that my mom got my husband. 'Cause nothing says "Happy Birthday, Jesus!" like a ice cold beer at 10 in the morning.

It was also Baby AJ's first Christmas, which was fun. Sure, she had no *idea* what the heck was going on...but she sure was cute!

 

harder than herding cats

I finally got around to uploading my pictures from Christmas, which means two things. (1) Christmas was totally omitted from my 2009 Year in Review collage. Bummer. (2) Expect a series of Christmas Recap posts...starting now!

On Christmas Eve, we went to my parent's house. Some of our family friends came over and good times were had by all. We also attempted to get a picture of E, A, and AJ in their matching Christmas Eve outfits. The best we could do was a blurry picture with 2 of 3 smiling, 0 of 3 looking *directly* at the camera, and it appears that A is looking to swipe AJ's bottle.

 

We're lucky their cuteness totally makes up for it all.

2009: the year in review

2009 was a great year. We went to Disney, graduated from preschool, went to the beach, turned 5, started Kindergarten, and turned 3. We got to hang out with family and friends. And we captured it all in pictures.

 

Yes, 2009 was a good year. I hope 2010 is even better.

coming attractions

For some reason, I cannot sit down long enough to actually write any of these blog posts...but rest assured, the following posts should be forthcoming:

• A round-up of the Slacker Family Christmas (Also titled: If You Give Your Kids Bikes for Christmas, Make Sure You Don't Do it When There's a Sub-Arctic Cold Spell or You Will Either Freeze Your Ass Off OR Have to EndureConstant Whining about Wanting to Go Outside and Ride Them)
  
• The Slacker 2009 Year in Review (Also titled: Damn, These Kids are Cute Year-round!)
  
• Slacker Mama's 2010 Resolutions (Also titled: The BeerTender My Mom gave John for Christmas Will Likely Kill Any 2010 Weight-loss Goals)
  
• I Was a Picky Eater as a Child...Karma's a Bitch (Also titled: Seriously, What Kind of Freaky Kids *Won't* Eat Sloppy Joes?!?!?)

So you have those to look forward to. Let's hope "No cussing" is not a Slacker Mama resolution, because I think this post pretty much killed that dream.