Hi Ho Hi Ho

It's off to work she goes. Due to the dire financial mess that American Airlines has landed itself in they are trying all sorts of cost cutting measures to save the company some money. One such strategy is to hire a younger, less experienced crew. Rosie was thrilled to find out she had the job

But when she realised what she was being paid and the lack of a benefit package she was less than lack lustre about her new career.

Curly Sue and her sidekick Twirly

Just as the girls were about to go to bed on Saturday night, nice an early, so that they wouldn't be cranky pants on Sunday, they asked me to curl their hair. Since Rosie knew she was wearing a dress on Sunday and was none to happy about it i figured the least I could do was make her hair twirly for her.

Lily will sleep in old fashioned foam rollers if she wants curly hair and when she wakes up she looks like Donna Summer. The girl has CURLS. Rosie isn't in to the whole sleeping in curlers and I can't blame her so we do lots and lots of plaits and she wakes up looking like a flash back to Kate Bush in the 80's.

By the time I was through with both of them it was no longer early and they both dashed off to the land of nod looking like this:

Rosie.

Child is going to be frizzy 

Lily, AKA Ena Sharples. ( you have to be English to get that reference) 

Yesterday when we woke up the Easter madness ensued and the hair was forgotten until it was time to get dressed, in a rush. As I took Lily's rollers out her hair just got bigger and bigger. Child had some many enormous curls and she wasn't happy. I did remind her that it was her idea. I wet her hair down a little and it looked great but she still wasn't happy. We ended up washing it but I failed to get a photo before hand. It amazes me that her long straight as an arrow her can get so curly and stay that way all day until it is washed. Rosie on the other hand loved ehr curls, AKA frizz and was very happy to prance about all day that way.

Why I love Easter

It was no surprise to anyone when Rosie woke up sort of early this morning and announced in a voice, that could have woken the dead, "it's Easter". As we walked down stairs she noticed a couple of eggs on the stairs but didn't stop to pick them up she was more interested in getting to the bottom to what what might have transpired in the living room whilst she slept. Both girls were so eggcited to see Easter baskets with their names on. They slowly started to sort through there loot and one by one opened all the little plastic eggs.
I will explain the hair later.

I'll also explain this hair doo later....this one is a long story.

May absolute favourite part of Easter Sunday is the egg hunt that we do with our friends the "K's". They finally remembered spotting eggs as they came down the stairs and took off running with their little baskets firmly in hand in search of more.

This search kept them busy for longer than expected and before we knew it were running a little  late for my absolute favourite part of Easter.    

Every year since becoming parents our friends the K's and us have done an egg hunt together. We meet over at their place for breakfast and then while we eat the Bunny magically hides eggs throughout the courtyard of their condo complex. Last year we were unable to get together due to a really horrid year. This year, it was GAME ON. We may have gone a little overboard. NAH. We had such a lovely time and ended up spending hours with our friends. We even went out for a walk together, which for my girls was fabulous cos we took their dog.

Brunch

Egg hunt is on

This little chicky made me smile

The pros. They had a 10 second delay.

Full baskets

Don't judge by the face, Rosie did have a great time

Each year we line the kids up and take their photos. 

and family photos

and couple photos...all in the same spot

The motley crew

A look back: 2010

2009

2008 ( bwa ha ha, Such a happy little one back then) Evans face is priceless here. He is probably thinking, someone save me from the howling banshee. 

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I can hardly wait until next year to see how much the little whipper snappers have grown!

Easter must do's or dyes

If you live in the good old USA then you have to dye eggs for Easter. So we did. I had never done this until Lily came along and I can't say I particularly enjoy it. Each year I try and find a different way to do it. Last year we did the silk dyed eggs a la Martha Stewart. They were very pretty but time consuming and not a lot of fun for the girls. One day last week I found an article all about dyeing eggs with Post It Notes. The eggs looked really pretty and the whole process seemed very easy. Easy enough in fact that Rosie could do them by herself. Lily also requested that we do some of the plain old Paas Egg Dye Kit ones, so we did. I think she was concerned that I was going to get all "Pinterst" on her and it wouldn't be fun so she wanted something she could crawl under the table with and do by herself. Hah, was she ever wrong. The Post It Note ones are the simplest ever and she loved them.

Yes, I did take a photo of the eggs because I thought this would be the last time I saw them in one piece.

We made post it note cut-outs in lots of colours and shapes

Lily's traditional egg dye

The cut outs on the eggs.....so simple

Rosie's favourite egg

Lily decorating

All done. Much less mess and much more fun.

Rosie took it upon herself to Post-It the kitchen whilst waiting for her eggs to dry but I must say it's a lot easier to clean up sticky notes than dye! Hope your Easter is HOPPY.

Trip to the beach

The girls didn't have school today. I decided yesterday that it would be a perfect day to head to the beach. I didn't even think of checking the weather, why would I? We live in Miami, the temperatures have been in the 80's for the past couple of weeks and are just creeping higher each day and the summer rains haven't started yet. Shortly after I awoke I checked the local weather: 60% chance of rain. Oh dear. I wasn't going to be deterred. I packed everything up and off we went. I have no idea where the 60% chance of rain happened but it didn't happen on us. We had some clouds but that was a good thing for our first trip to the beach of the year. My skin is as white as four so I really didn't want glaring sun. The water was still a little to cold for us. I was able to go in up to my knees. Lily went in completely and loved it and Rosie went in but went blue but she was having so much fun she wouldn't come out. We spent hours there. The girls were having so much fun I couldn't bring myself to drag them away. They came out for lunch and after about 3 bites Rose begged to go back in the pool. It didn't matter how many times I told her it wasn't the pool she kept calling that. daft child! All in all it was a great day. I can feel a shift in our activities happening, we are definitely gearing up for summer and that wonderful long vacation.
 

Looks a bit chilly doesn't she

Happy girl

Making sandcastles

Lily spent ages chasing Rosie with this nasty looking sponge finger

Still chasing her but Rosie finally wised up and started batting it away with her belly board

I'm not much of a beach person because I really detest sand but with the girls I love it and I can't wait for it to get warm enough for me to go in the water to.

Egg Hunt

Rosie had an Easter party and egg hunt at school today. Her teacher asked a few of us if we would be able to help out. I'm sure lots of exciting and wonderful things happened but it was all just a huge whir of kids and excitement with a couple of 100 plastic eggs thrown in for good measure. I didn't get one photo of the egg hunt, not one. It rained this morning so the kids weren't able to have the hunt on the playing field it had to be done in the outside corridors instead so it was a little cramped but nothing dreadful. Rosie was at the back of the line as we left the classroom so she was one of the last kids to see the eggs. She was a little bewildered by it all because by the time she got to where the kids were all the eggs were gone. What she couldn't see was all the eggs ahead of the crowd. I made my way to the front so I could get some pictures but stopped to help a little boy get an egg that he had dropped under the fence. He then ran towards another one and was yelled at and I do mean yelled at by another mothers who said, "that's hers, she saw it first, give it back". I was dumbfounded. The ground was awash with eggs, they were everywhere and as this little boy went to pick one up this Mother was claiming it for her child. I think I must have stood in the same spot aghast for a good 10 seconds before regaining my composure and looking for Rosie who had finally seen the eggs and was picking one up. Rosie ended up with 6 eggs in her basket, the child of the greedy old bag had a bucketful and the little boy who was admonished probably had 9 or 10. I found the whole experience thoroughly disheartening. Why is it necessary to have more more more? The kids had empty baskets to begin with so even if they only got one egg they were better off than when they started. Once we returned to the classroom I sat with Rosie whilst she ate her snack and then concocted an excuse and left.

Happy little girl with her eggs

Lining up to go back in the classroom

Sweet little girl

Enjoying the Peep off the top of her cupcake

Making sure she eats it all

My mission now is to really make my children understand that they don't need MORE and that the world is not all about them and what they have. wish me luck.

And so we wait

Do you remember the stuffed horse that lives just down the road from my sister and her husband in England. Just in case you have many full sized stuffed horses in your life I'm talking about this one?

The girls and I still talk about it, a lot. Tonight after dinner Lily decided to write to the owners and ask them why they had it.

That isn't some awful water spill all over the letter it is where I hastily hacked our address off of the photo before posting it. I wonder if they will reply. I really hope they do.

Rip Van Winkle

When Jacob and I first started dating I nick named him Rip Van Winkle cos the man could sleep. He went to bed really late, woke up really late and always took a nap. At first I found it quirky but you know what they say about quirky when you are dating it becomes annoying as all hell once you are married.

I vividly remember saying to him, once we decided to adopt, that you cannot spend all your life asleep. I know I won't he said. Nuff said.

The sleeping thing hasn't got any better. The man snores like a freight train. My sister complains that her husband snores, he doesn't. Well he does but nothing like Jacob but my sister is a very light sleeper. I on the other hand, sleep like a dead person. In addition to the snoring there is the choking, the spluttering, the thrashing, and the constant waking up. Really it is no wonder that he is ALWAYS tired. He has no idea what it is to get a good nights sleep.

About 6 months ago things came to the surface again and I wielded my wifey powers and strongly suggested insisted that he get a sleep study done, or else.  As I mentioned the other day nothing in hubby's life is urgent, ever. He finally made the appointment and today was the day that we, together, filled out the paperwork. Seriously, you have to have someone else fill out the paperwork with you because they ask you questions pertaining to when you are sleeping. Obviously all the answers are going to be: how the heck do I know, I am asleep, ask my wife!

You score the questions on a scale of 0-3 with 0 being mild and 3 being severe. with the exception of about 4 questions every single one he had to answer he had to answer with a 3. We laughed so much. One question was: Do you fall asleep if you are the passenger in a car for an hour? WTF? An hour? Try having a conversation with my husband in the car after 15 minutes, No lie, no joke! And then there was: Do you take intentional naps? Yes he does take intentional naps but it's the unintentional ones that are the problem. The ones he takes when I am talking to him or the ones he takes mere minutes after waking up.

The actual study isn't for a couple more weeks. I think it is finally sinking in after filling in the paperwork that he doesn't sleep properly and that he doesn't ever get a good nights sleep. Just because it is normal to him doesn't make it right. Frankly I don't see him coming out of the study with a CPAP machine I think he'll be schlepping a bloody oxygen tank.  It's just a joke honey, just a joke. Hun, hun, jeez, you fell asleep again didn't you?

Life lessons learnt

My week of mothering a teenager comes to a close at 5.55pm today barring any flight delays. It has been a week of life lessons. I love my friend like a sister yet we couldn't be more opposite. I am OCD, she is laid back. Both of us are foreigners in this country so that is huge common ground yet we do not come from the same country. She speaks a kazillion foreign languages, I can butcher 3. I came from a loving family and she wishes she did, I wish more than anything that she did to. Our similarities outweigh our differences and that is all that counts.

We raise our children very differently. I am a parent, she is a friend. She is also a parent but more of a friend. It makes her crazy that I am strict and makes her crazy that she isn't, me too This week I learnt that I won't back down. I will stick to my guns.  I made a few phone calls when teenager went out to the places she went to. She didn't always go to the ones she said she would But she doesn't know that.. I always knew where she was though cos I have radar, it's built in. ( I lost her once but found her by accident)

When you walk into my house and the first words out of your mouth are not hello but, "if I smell like smoke it's because I was just stopped at a red light and the car next to me was filled with smokers and they had their windows down", I will not buy it, not for one nano second. I also will not let on that I don't believe you as you are not my child and it is not my place to whip your sorry arse into shape in one week. When your Mother tells us both that you may not go to a party and as you are telling me where you are going you refer to it as a party on 3 different occasions, I will change your curfew to one that is oh so very early, just to piss you off but I won't mention the party, cos you wouldn't go to one of those as you are not allowed to and told me you wouldn't.

 If you lay down with dogs you will wake up with fleas. I am not naive enough to believe that my girls will not try and lay down with dogs but believe me I will have a heavy dose of flea powder waiting for them and possibly also a good old fashioned flea dip as well.

I'm off to see if I have any grey hairs. I bet I do. I didn't before. Life has a way of teaching you lessons everyday. keep your eyes open so that you don't miss them. Sleep with one open if you must just in case someone tries to sneak out at 4.30 am.

The un-Handyman

A couple of weeks ago the tap in the kitchen started to drip. Hubby did whatever it was that he did and the drip stopped. Last week it started dripping again so he did whatever he did and it stopped dripping. He mentioned something about a new tap but nothing happened. Have I ever mentioned here that nothing about my husbands life is urgent EVER. I love the man dearly and god knows if we were both as nuts active as me our lives would be insane but to get him to do anything, anything at all, I have to light a fire under his bum. Late yesterday afternoon the girls and I came home from a quickish bike ride to find that the tap in the kitchen was trickling, not dripping and not running but trickling and would not turn off. I had to turn the water off in order to make it stop. When I spoke to hubby later on I mentioned it and he said in his usual way, "I'll have to do something about it". Yes dear you will, like TOMORROW!
Today arrived and to my amazement without me saying a word he started working on the sink. I knew he meant business as he took everything out from underneath it and asked me to go with him to pick out a new one. A momentarily heard angels sing.

Have I also ever mentioned that he is the most un-handyman EVER? Oh dear lord have mercy. I am quite good and if I don't really know what to do I have three options, one is ring my Father who can fix just about anything, research the living crap out of it and dive right it or as a last resort call in the pro's. I was planning on doing this job myself but Jacob was also planning on doing it himself and when he offers I take cover and take the kids to higher ground.

The trip to Home Depot went smoothly, sort of. Just one little-ish problem but it wasn't to bad and we didn't get banned for life or anything. Once we got home things didn't go as smoothly but thankfully the 9 year old  who does read instructions helped her Daddy through the whole process and pretty much put the tap together and fitted it into the sink and connected the water back to the hoses without to much fuss at all. They were done in no time.

 Removing the old taps

Working together

Lily hard at work

Connecting the lines

Tada, she did it, well they did it.