Catch-up

To catch up a bit on news, Max had a birthday. He is nine years old! I don't even want to think about it.

His face is showing surprise over a book that Uncle Andy bought him on sharks.

I actually made a birthday cake this time. I decided that Max is old enough to not have theme cakes all the time and he seemed to appreciate the fact that I took the time to make him one. It turned out pretty good--if I do say so myself!

Grandma and Grandpa Arganbright also came to visit.

I have no idea what they were doing in this picture. I was not the one who took it.

After the party, Lucy reminded me that we forgot to color Easter eggs. So I took the last of the eggs, threw them in a pot, boiled them, and the kids dyed them. These are glitter eggs. Afterwards, Dennis told me that according to the directions, we couldn't eat the eggs because the dye soaks into the eggs. So basically, we threw them into the garbage. What a waste.

That was two days ago. Henry has since found a spare egg that Luke saved without our knowing, and he (Henry) smashed it into the ground. It now smells like rotten eggs in our house.

More on smells...during the party, we found out that our basement is flooding  again due to the rapid thaw. We now have rotten egg smell and mold smell in our house.

We celebrated Easter the next day. I put a religious gift in each basket. Lucy got a rosary...

Max got a "Holy Heroes" CD...




and Luke got a cross necklace and Anna got a praying stuffed animal lamb. She loves it. She calls it "Ba Ba Black Sheep." It took us a while to figure out what she was saying and who she was referring to though.

Luke got a bike horn. What a mistake.
You see, Mark and Meagan? Now you don't have to get me back for giving your kids kazoos as a party favor. The Easter Bunny already got me back.

This is the only picture we got of Anna. She got Silly Putty. Also a big mistake.

On a completely different subject, we organized a spot for all of my clay stuff. This may not look like much in this picture, but all of my clay totes and shipping supplies were taking over the house.

That means one big tote and two smaller totes jammed inside the big tote (which never fit and everything would spill out), bubble wrap, corn starch (not shown) pasta machine (for rolling out clay) and shipping envelopes. This is only half-way done--I still have a lot more to put in and more totes to buy as well as shelves. But at least this is a start--it feels so good to have a spot for my "work" without it being scattered all over the house!

I was going to try to end with a witty remark that the kids have said recently, but nothing comes to mind, so I'll tell you about my latest "oops" mistake.
It is our turn to get snacks for Anna's preschool tomorrow and so I went to the store with the kids to pick something up. I was distracted by the kids and in a hurry to end the shopping trip but the list that the preschool teacher gave me was long gone and I couldn't think of one single snack that wouldn't either cost me an arm and leg and nothing that wouldn't give the teachers a lot of trouble in preparing snacks, so I just went to the cracker aisle and grabbed the nearest thing to me.

It wasn't until later that Dennis pointed out to me that I had accidentally picked out this:

In case you can't read the small print on there--it says "Smokin' BBQ". (With flames coming out from behind the words.)

I am really, really, REALLY glad that Dennis happened to read this before me bringing to Anna's class full of 3 year olds with sensitive palates. I can only imagine what the teachers would have thought...

And that's what's in the news!