The party

We celebrated Fiona's 4th birthday this Sunday. I'd love to show you pictures, but my camera is off at the Kodak repair center and I don't know how to upload stuff from DH's camera (or should I say, I'm too lazy to spend time figuring it out).

Sunday morning was crazy stressful with baking the cake, cleaning and decorating. DH helped clean, which is awesome. I know I am lucky to have a man who helps so much around the house. At least, that is my mantra which I tell myself over and over again when it takes him 5 times as long to get anything done as it would've taken me. :)

My bf irl came over at one to help decorate. Between her kids and mine all of the straightening up I had done for hours before was destroyed in about 20 minutes, LOL.

At two the other guests started to arrive. I had planned out our 2 1/2 hours as following: 2-2:30 make-overs, 2:30-2:50 pin drop game, 2:50-3:10 bowling game, 3:10-3:30 musical chairs, 3:30-3:50 story game, 3:50-4:30 cake, presents and some free play time at the end. Well, it didn't quite go that way! We were done with the first 4 events by 3:00, so then we went into free play. There was a fight between two girls, and one wanted to leave so we jumped ahead and did the story game early, then went back for a little free play until cake & ice cream time.

It was interesting because the girls didn't play together as a group, they divided up into pairs based on who knew each other before the party. The 4 eldest girls were more or less on their own in two pairs for the whole party. Fiona and the other two little girls sort of played on their own. All in all it was a nice party, just a little strange with the dynamics between some of the girls.

By the time 4:30 rolled around I was exhausted! After cleaning up a little I had to sit down and try to get my head together, as I had an e-conference at 6:00. I managed to get through that, then I was DONE. I went to bed at 9pm!

It was a great weekend and a fun party; now it's back to the grindstone. I have lots of projects due this week so I won't be around much. Lots of love to everyone!

When I was little I wanted to be...

When I was little, up until the age of 8 or so I wanted to be an archaeologist or Egyptologist. I was fascinated by ancient cultures and used to read lots of historical fiction, I even wrote a report in the 3rd or 4th grad about the mummification process.

Starting somewhere are 4th or 5th grade I became fascinated by the law. I watched LA Law all the time, carried a briefcase instead of a backpack to school and planned to become a prosecuting attorney, I even had my school picked out, Gonzaga University in Washington. I worshiped Sandra Day O'Conner and dreamed about becoming Attorney General of the US or sitting on the Supreme Court. I wanted to "put the bad guys away".

Later in high school sometime that dream started to fade and I went through a bunch of different career plans, OBGYN, CSI, astronomer, chemist... I loved science in high school.

When I got to college I had a fabulous history professor who rekindled my love of history and archeology, and encouraged me to pursue it. So I got my B.A. in history, with a minor in anthropology/archeology. The problem was, my only career path was to get my PhD and research or teach. I would have enjoyed that, but I was impatient and a little scared. I worked in the library and loved it, so that's when I started thinking about becoming a librarian. I get to combine pieces of all the stuff I like, so it's really the perfect job for me. :)

Mother's Day

My Mother's Day was mostly lovely. The kids have been itching with anticipation all week. I suppose that is a benefit to them being young, I know in another 5 years they won't give a damn about Mother's Day. But for now, it's right up there with Christmas, except all about Mama.



My dear husband and adorable kids let me sleep in this morning, then brought me breakfast in bed. I got my presents from the girls; lots of homemade cards, a pin cushion that Saskia made me at school, marigolds for my garden, a teddy bear which Saskia bought me when rollerskating INSTEAD OF getting an ice cream cone (which is what the money was for, the darling) and a wooden flower with a picture of Fiona in the middle which she made at preschool. The Paul lugged in his present to me, a patio chair so that I can sit outside and work while the girls play over the summer. As dorky as that sounds, it was really nice. We have no patio furniture and I've been pining for something so that I can let them play outside, as I'm too paranoid to let them out by themselves, yet too busy to stay out for long with them.



Then I spent an hour lounging in bed, drinking coffee and watching America's Next Top Model reruns. At noon I finally turned on my laptop and phone, only to be surprised by another wonderful present, a gift certificate to L'Esprit from my dear friend Cristina, aka HomeSlice! I was in shock, it was such a sweet, considerate thing to do. Thanks again Homey! I have no idea what I have done to earn such fabulous friends as I've made here on MM, but I am so thankful for each and every one of you!



After some time bumming around the Net and MM I made myself get down to business, which was homework. My to-do list by Tuesday: take 2 quizes, write a 2 page paper, and do research for 4 projects. This was the frustrating part of my day. I spent about 3 hours on the research for the first project and came away with little of value. Switched to project 2, found zilch. Took a break, did laundry, and came back to take the 2 online quizes. Did well on those, yay! Had dinner (which DH cooked, because techinically I wasn't supposed to be working today, HA!), gave the kids a bath, rocked my baby in the rocking chair (I can't believe she'll be four on Wednesday!) read to the girls and took them to bed. Got up again and wrote the paper. And here I am. I'm content with the work I did, bummed that I didn't spend more quality time with my kids on this Mother's Day, and full of love for the two little bundles of joy I brought into this world.

Thank you mom and dad

As many of you know, my parents spent the last 9 days with us here in MI. I delivered them to Windsor, Ontario today, where they will hop on a train to sight-see across Canada on their way home to Washington state.

I am so grateful for my parents. They did so much for us while they were here, from babysitting to home improvement to landscaping to buying us lots of stuff, including filling up my gas tank twice. I suppose as a grown up I should refuse these gifts, and part of me feels very guilty for letting them spend so much money on us. But instead I choose to feel grateful, for the love and assistance they have given us.

My parents live so far away, they can't just babysit on a moment's notice (not even a month's notice!) and they can't do things with us more than once a year or so. They make up for it by spoiling us rotten when they do get the chance to see us. I hope that we can make up for it some day, but in the meantime I will just be grateful that I have such wonderful, loving parents.

Thank you mom and dad, you have no idea how much we appreciate you. Not just for the money you spend, but for the love you show, for the kindness, for the acceptance, for the support and approval you give. We love you.

Just stoppin' by

To say hi and catch you up on my week...



I've been a little MIA lately and I apologize for not keeping in touch better. My parents have been visiting from Washington state since last Saturday, they are leaving on Monday. It's been really nice. The girls are getting totally spoiled by grandma, who is giving them oodles of attention and playing with them all the time. I don't know what I'll do when she leaves, Fiona especially is going to be devastated to lose her playmate. She'll probably expect ME to pay attention to her, can you imagine?! J/K... kindof...



My dad has been working around the house, he's the ultimate handyman. Him and DH spent a few days removing black mold (eeewww) from one of the basement rooms that we hadn't been using. They re-cemented the floor, put in new wall paneling and carpet and DH has now set it up as an office for himself. It look great and DH is thrilled! Then my dad worked on my yard for me for a couple of days, he pulled out several huge flowerbeds (someone who lived in our house a long time ago was obviously a gardening fanatic, but I don't have the time to maintain their work and everything was horribly overgrown). So now I have big patches of empty earth that will eventually be sewn with new grass, as soon as I make sure all the weed roots are dead.



My parents are great and we get along pretty well. There have been some minor tensions, which usually manifest themselves by everyone being really sarcastic and snarky with each other for a little while before settling down. It's honestly not that bad, which I'm very thankful for.



Dad has also bought us lots of presents, I think he sees how much we struggle to get by and he feels the need to help us out, which I'm cool with. He bought DH a lawnmower and weed-eater (we didn't have a lawnmower!) and I got a water-cooler (woo-hoo, no more plastic bottles giving me a guilty conscious) an some work on my car done. The kids got new shoes and some clothes.



I'll be driving them over to Canada on Monday and I'll be really sad to see them go. We don't get together nearly as often as I'd like and we'll miss each other a lot.



In other news, Fiona's surgery has healed really well and she is doing great. She is totally obsessed with doctor stuff right now and played surgeon for 6 hours straight yesterday, she set up a hospital in her playroom and had several patients to take care of. For some reason she insists that we call her Dr. Melody, don't ask me why...



Saskia is doing great at school and gymnastics, her teacher pulled me aside Thursday night to say that she is the most diligent student he has, that she keeps trying until she gets it right and refuses to give up. That's so wonderful, because those of you who know Saskia may recall that she is normally a quitter, she usually isn't interested in doing something if she can't get it perfect the first time. So I'm really proud of her for devoting herself to this, even if it is the most expensive sport she could have picked.... :)



I'm at the end of my week off from school, classes start again Tuesday. I'll be going full time this summer so you probably won't see as much of me as usual, I'll be juggling a very full load. By the time August rolls around and I get a month off I'll probably be in a vegetative state... oh well.