Mothers Day Eve

 Moments before we took the above picture, Ben looked around in a panic as we were leaving the park and said "Oh my gosh-- where's Dorothy?" and he wasn't joking.

HARRY PUKED ALL NIGHT Thursday night and stayed home miserable on Friday.  I had to keep the babies upstairs all day so he could languish on the couch.  It was hard to keep Dorothy and Cooper occupied all day.

 Mostly they just trashed the place.

 Baby Teletubby

 Cooper pushed her on the swing, and she crashed into him.  They both thought it was HILARIOUS

 Happy chewer

 Cream cheese hair

 Brought donut holes to soccer.  She has never experienced anything so awesome

 Except maybe the swing.

Took a day off but am back. You missed me, didin't you?

 Last night, I was at school until 10:30 pm because we had our department speech contest, and it's my job to plan and judge it. This means one super late night a semester.   I love the speech contest, and this was my 20th semester participating in it.  As a TA in Comm Arts100, I entered my students and watched them compete.  As a TA in other courses, I judged the semi-final rounds of the competition, and as a course director, I have been working behind the scenes to select semifinalists and do other backstage work ever since.  

The contest also has personal significance beyond professional growth.  Shortly after we first moved here, I got engaged to Ben late one night after a CA100 speech contest.  I was all excited because my student placed third, and I stayed after the final round to meet with my advisor, the man who is now my boss.  When I pulled up to our apartment, I saw Ben pacing back and forth in the window, and I thought he was nervous about me coming home so late.  I walked inside, and he said, "Oh, I have a surprise for you," and he handed me a People Magazine.  I was stoked because I was too broke for magazine subscriptions back in the TA days, and I was happy to have some new reading material for the gym.  Imagine my surprise when I looked up from my magazine to see Ben in the middle of our living/dining room down on one knee and holding an open box with a gorgeous diamond solitaire ring inside.  He had champagne and roses stashed in the fridge, and we stayed up way too late laughing and calling everyone we knew.  (It was a long time ago, so we had no FB or Instagram.  Pretty sure I was still excited about my pink Razr).

I think about that sweet proposal every semester when I stay late on campus, and I am not the only one.  Driving home from work yesterday, Ben realized that fateful night was exactly 10 years ago yesterday!

He met me at the front door when I came home and had roses and champagne waiting to celebrate our ten-year engage-a-versary!  HOW SWEET IS THAT?   I took a picture of the flowers this morning in the middle of our breakfast mess.  Cooper saw them last night and was excited to show them to me with an adorable TA-DA when he woke up.

 And crabby Dorothy had fun with champagne box all morning.  She's currently using it to chill Cooper's trains.

 We are done rearranging our room.  We decided to go with a hotel motif-- and I have to tell you, IT IS AWESOME.  Finally Ben does not have to sink into my too-soft mattress, and I don't have to feel my arms falling asleep under me on his too firm mattress.  He can go to sleep with a single sheet, and I can burrow under a sheet and 2 blankets.  No more SIDE of the bed because we both get the middle. When Cooper and Dorothy both need to sleep with us, there's plenty of room.  Just generally amazing all around.

 Except the room is a teeny bit squished and we have to have an electrician come drill a bunch of holes in the wall and ceiling to move our cable jack.  But otherwise?  Excellent sleep.  And Ben said to tell all the tongue-cluckers to give him a call-- he would love to talk about our sex life with you.  Awkward.

 I think I have mentioned that Ben and I spend a ton of time volunteering at the kids' school and are actually the co-presidents of the Parent Teacher Organization, right?  Well this week is teacher appreciation week, and I signed up to bring bagels one day for a breakfast and brownies another day for a lunch.  Then Ben  and I organized a student/teacher lunch and Ben brought in all the food and supervised all the lunch periods another day.  That's a lot of volunteering this week alone.  WELL, I tell you all this so you can share in my annoyance when I tell you that I was 20 minutes late with my bagels, and another mom called and YELLED AT ME to bring them because they didn't have enough food.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Yell at the 350 other parents who do NOTHING why doncha ya?

Anywho, Jack licked the brownie bowl because I am a raw egg risk taker.

 Speaking of, I have not tried these cookies yet, but the dough is amazeballs.  Chocolate chip oatmeal peanut butter:  Basic oatmeal chip recipe only use 3/4 cup butter, 1/4 cup water, and 1/3 cup PB.  I used Ghirardelli dark chocolate chips.

 Dorothy liked them.

 Cooper has been sick with general crankiness and a 99.4-degree fever all week, and now sweet baby Dorothy has it too.  SHE IS A LITTLE BEAR.  But a cute one.  (And her hat is the Paddington Bear collection for Baby Gap, which is so fitting today)

 No real reason for this picture except to show that Cooper has hockey hair and is getting tall.

Gratuitous Kid Vid

I went to the reader's theater presentation in Harry's class, and it almost killed me with adorableness. My speech friends will miss the blocking and cool book tech and random singing, but everyone can appreciate the cute.

My favorite part besides the khakis that are just a bit too small is the accent.

THE ACCENT.


He completely reminded me of his two-year-old self.  And he's almost as squishy.

Not very essential essentials.

That's the only photographic evidence I have that today exists.  A text message of the half-assed grocery list I made and forgot.

Top half is from the regular store for teacher appreciation events at school (also need stuff to make brownies for Thursday), and the bottom half is crap I need from Whole Foods, plus dish soap.  Such a strange list of stuff but you know what?  IT IS ALL ESSENTIAL.  And we have been out of olive oil for like 3 weeks and butter is not cutting it anymore.

TODAY IS A DAY.  Which would have been a more effective sentence had I not capitalized everything in it.  It's just been so busy.  Tons of PTO events going on, all of the end-of-semester details that pile up on me because 30-day months really screw up my timeline anyway and the end of the semester comes with so much crap and grading and meetings and emails.  Gah.

And we will be on a beach and then at the happiest place on earth in less than 3 weeks and I still need to buy all of the things.  Hats for the baby!  Swim suits for the baby!  Dresses for the baby! T-shirts for the boys!  A maxi dress or 2 for me!  A Vera Bradley cross body bag! YOU KNOW, the ESSENTIALS.

And our new bedroom furniture comes tomorrow which means I need a duvet for under the cover (ours are all maxed out right now), a dust ruffle, a handful of throw pillows and the time to go get all of those things.

When I write it all put, nothing sounds very essential.  Ah, perspective.

EDITED TO ADD:  Solved the baby swim suit and maxi dress issues just now on the interwebz.  

Keeping it classy

We classed up the neighborhood all day today.

The little artists installed a super ritzy gallery. 

Most of us wore our jammies all day, but that didn't stop us from going outside. Where Dorothy played with a cap gun, a classy, classy act on so many levels. 

Then she came inside, took off her pants, and ate a hotdog.

This was dessert

Worst ingredient list ever

But it's not like we let the baby eat it

Oh, shit.

If I cared, I would order these pictures correctly, but Ben made KILLER margaritas, so...

Today was cold. At least, it was cold at the soccer field where I sat for 2 hours watching Harry play.

The kids were not very cold at the zoo.  BECAUSE THEY ARE CRAZY.

Harry and Jack really wanted me to take them to the zoo during nap time so they could finally play on the playground I never want to chase Cooper through because it features a 10-foot climbing structure.   As Jack said, "We never get to go to that playground.  This is a big opportunity."

We had a morning soccer game (Jack) and practice (Harry).  Then we went to the zoo.  Then  Harry had a soccer game.  Then we went grocery shopping, which sucked worse than usual, mainly because we went to a new HyVee instead of Whole Foods and spent almost as much money on way worse stuff.  And Cooper got a minor head injury from a check out lane wrestling match.  And now, MARGARITAS and fajitas.

Zoo.  I took this from the vantage point of my warthog.

Morning soccer practice.  She is dangerous on this playground.  In the time it took me to help Cooper (also dangerous) up the rock wall, she scaled the stairs and was at the top of the jungle gym.  OOPS.

Cooper.  I love him so much.

Sweetest kid in America.

Monkeys.

ZOO PLAYGROUND MECCA

??

Again, ??

Best photo bomb ever goes to the little sister in the background.

If I don't wake Cooper up in about 10 minutes I am going to really regret it at 7:00 when I am ready for him to go to bed, but he isn't

Last night, we went bedroom furniture shopping and finished that horrific chore (seriously you guys shopping for furniture with children IS THE WORST THING TO DO WITH CHILDREN-- I would rather take all of these idiots to the symphony! Or to a 5-start restaurant! Or on an airplane-- oh, yeah-- doing that in 3 weeks) just in time for dinner.  The children freak the freak out if they don't eat dinner by like 5:25 AT THE LATEST, so we had no choice but to take them to the closest establishment we could find.  Which was a Culver's located mere steps away from the furniture store.  

 Nothing classier than a baby eating fast food.  SHE LOVED IT.

They were too cool to sit with us.  Whatev.

Cooper relented and joined us at the baby table where he lovingly fed Ben his fries (that he dipped in ketchup)

Immediately after that gourmet meal (that Ben and I did not eat because fast food? That shit is BAD FOR YOU said the PARENTS OF THE YEAR), I took Harry and Jack to math night at their school.  It was super fun (I mean it-- no sarcasm there).

This morning I hauled the babies around the neighborhood so I could exercise before nap time because I had more important things to do during nap time.  But the only way they will stay in the stroller long enough for me to burn 375 calories is if I take them to the park afterwards.

Cooper brought  dish towel to the park, and I didn't know why (and he couldn't really tell me) but it was to wipe off the slides!  Because they are always wet in the morning!  HOW CUTE IS THAT?

Pigtails.  My favorite.

The park is his happy place.

We went to the grocery store from the park, Cooper lured home with the promise that he could push a little cart.  Holy hell.  That is always so fun for him and hellish for me.  Also, he bought a bag of chips, some goldfish crackers, a pack of cookies, and a random loaf of wheat bread, BTW.

Dorothy did a little ottoman cooking while I threw together some chicken noodle soup.

Nap time WAS for more important things.  LIKE MAKING S'MORES BARS

We are in the middle of a big room re-do.  And it is CHAOS.  I hate chaos.

But I like pretty new bedding!