Kitty love

I am so pleased with how brave my girls have been with our little kitty.

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 Eliza offered to take a picture of the kitty and me.  Behold.  The kitty and [part of] me. 

Haven't we talked about Eliza's photography skills before?  Because it seems like they're just getting worse.

The service chart

After Eliza's misdeeds earlier this month, my older (and sometimes wiser : ) sister, Krista, suggested I make Eliza her own special chart with places to mark off when she did something good or nice, thus rewarding the good behavior.

Sage was delighted with Eliza's chart, and with trying to help her fill all the squares (aka--"Eliza just smiled at me!  Can she mark off a square?").  Sage begged for her own chart, which, unfortunately, has superseded the second round of Eliza's chart.

Sage's favorite thing to do for a mark on the chart is to make an "invention" for someone.  Yesterday she made a wallet protector by wrapping Eliza's wallet in a ziploc bag, then rigging a yo-yo string so it stretched around the ziplocked wallet; then she secured the yo-yo string by lacing it through several holes of Lily's croc on the other side.

Today she made me...actually I still don't know what it was.  It was something that did some sort of locking up, but it took Sage about 3 minutes to do up the "lock" so I'm not sure it would win the Invention Convention or anything, but it did get a mark on the chart.  And that's what matters, right?

P.S. Tonight Eliza asked for her big dog.  You know, the trash can one.  And then, conveniently, I thought I heard the phone ringing in the other room....

Everything but the kitchen sink

We are down to two kids at home for the weekend, and I'm sorry to say that I've been enjoying it quite a bit.  We jumped at the chance to send Sage to Las Vegas for a quick 3-day trip (down with Aunt Lorene and back with Aunt Danielle), as her cabin fever has become a little much (not so much her cabin fever as the manifestations of her cabin fever, which almost all consist of using "Mom" and "mean/meanie/meanest" in the same sentence, at high decibel levels).

On the morning of departure, I asked Sage to pack her suitcase for her 3 day trip.  This is what I found crammed into her backpack, along with the 3 outfits, PJs, shoes, socks, undies and toothbrush that I requested:

Ruler

1 inch piece of chalk

Washcloth ("for spills" she explained)

Blue belt (that was only used once in the last year)

Pen

3 toothbrushes

3 flossers

1 broken princess comb

Beanbag

Empty toilet paper roll

2 tubes of toothpaste

Stuffed turtle

Jumprope

3 pairs socks

2 rubber bracelets

Hello Kitty watch (not functional)

Purse with mirror and hand sanitizer

Heart pillow 

Basically everything but the kitchen sink.   I hope she survives without that piece of chalk that I snuck out.

Two down

Yey for our second successful birthday party in a week. (First one.)

Today's theme was Under the Sea. 

The kids ignored the water obstacle course I set up and just slip'n'slided.

Homemade octopus pinata=big fat pain.  But it was cute, until it dropped off its string before actually being broken by that noodle.  (We wised up and used a noodle instead of a frying pan.)

You've got to have an M+M machine, regardless of the theme.

Thanks to Becca--photographer and party manager. : )