Purple Frosting, Purple Cupcakes

So, it wasn't hard to make purple frosting at all. I bought some frosting and some food coloring. And Tim made the cupcakes. He made purple frosting and purple cupcakes too!




Elizabeth thoroughly enjoyed her party. Thanks to everyone who came.

Potty Time!

Elizabeth is not learning to use the potty. For several months now, she would play at going potty. She would climb up on the toilet, wait, say "all done", then make unholy messes by stuffing as much toilet paper as she could into the commode.

I wondered aloud to Hubs when would Elizabeth start using the potty?

He had a hunch that one day, when no one was watching, she'd secretly slip away to the bathroom and sort it all out.

He was right. Elizabeth did just that.

She's been having success using the bathroom, wearing her Big Girl Princess Panties, and she's even spent an entire day dry. She's also creating opportunities to strip buck naked. She's been streaking in the library. I thought most girls waited until sorority rush to do something like that.

Got your horrible coffee, right here

Tim brewed a pot of coffee for us Sunday morning. He poured the coffee, added the cream, and was interrupted by a crying baby, demanding his attention.

"The coffee needs sugar." he told me as I cruised through the kitchen.

I fetched the sugar from the dining room table (it had been left there by the company we had the previous night) and added it to the coffee. I emptied the sugar bowl. I was then interrupted by a crying baby, demanding my attention.

Tim went to refill the sugar bowl. I thought it was a terrific kindness after I emptied it. I busied myself with calming a crying baby and returned to my cup of coffee once the baby was calmed. I returned to Tim tipping in another spoonful of sugar.

"I already put in sugar!" I cried, much too late to save the coffee from sweetness overload.

Tim groaned. "Well, your coffee will be very sweet and mine will be horribly sweet. I added another spoonful to your coffee and two spoonfuls to mine." He chivalrously offered me the remaining coffee in the pot to cut the sweetness in the coffee and try to salvage the cup.

"I'll just add more cream to mine."

Tim pulled out, not creamer, but soy-milk. We have soy-milk because Annie is allergic to cow's milk. The carton of soy-milk and the carton of creamer are roughly the same size. While some people out there claim to love soy-milk lattes and the like, soy in coffee is not a taste Tim nor I prefer. Tim moves so quickly sometimes. I couldn't act or speak quickly enough to keep him from dumping in additional sugar and I couldn't keep him from dumping in a liberal dollop of soymilk to his coffee.

It was a horrible cup of coffee.

Husband is Brilliant

We have a television. We keep it downstairs in the basement. Our basement is the family room, and computer area, and the laundry area. We switched things around to make it more family friendly, and that meant the cable was no longer hooked up to the TV. Husband said he could get it working, but he'd need to find the right length of cable.

For about three months, the only thing I've seen on the television are Elmo DVDs and Barbie's The Princess and the Pauper. No news, no soap operas. No "Dancing with the Stars." I forgot about programs geared toward adults. I forgot that Bravo will run all the episodes of a season of" Blowout" in a single day. I didn't miss it. The television was for the benefit of the children.
Husband hooked up the cable last night. I didn't realize how isolated from the world I'd become. A news program was on.

"Ooh, look. There's a hurricane?"
"Yeah, it's about to hit the coast of Nicaragua."
"Have there been a lot of hurricanes this year?"

Stay at Home Mom

My husband and I were discussing the future a bit...where we see ourselves, what we'd like to do, how we would get from here to there...and we started talking about after we raised our kids (with the plan being for me to stay at home until the youngest no longer needed me at home be it kindergarden age or college age). I just assumed I'd re-enter the workforce since it would help financially, when I mentioned this, I found out that my husband and I were thinking different things.

My husband said, "Your job is raising the kids. That will take years. After you are done, you can do anything you want. Work or not work. Take a class. Babysit grandkids. Please consider keeping up the work of taking care of me. But I consider it my responsibility, my gift to you to let you do anything you want to do after you've raised the kids."

What a generous gift.

When Daddy's Away The Girls Will Play

The Husband is away on another business trip. He left yesterday afternoon. Annie had a hard time settling to sleep with him gone and seemed at loose ends when she woke up. It seemed that a crucial fixture of her sleeping and waking routines was missing. Daddy was away at work.

We'd gotten too complacent with routine. We were allowing the man to keep us down! I decided a wild crazy week of baby party was in order. I scooped up the girls and took them to the supermarket for juice, milk, cookies,jarred food, diapers, and hot dogs. Freshly stocked for a wild week without the old man keeping us down we walked to Starbucks. I got coffee, prayed Morning Prayer, and Annie stood by my table pointing out various things.


Other plans for the week include a NINO meeting, playing with the cousins, a trip to Burke Lake Park, and maybe some other fun baby-friend time.