We arrived at church Sunday morning almost on time :)  We sat down during the opening song.  As Miri nestled into Daddy's lap, he quickly realized that she did not have any panties on! Oops.  I guess during the Sunday morning rush, I had forgotten to put panties on her.  I quickly took her out of the chapel and put one of Weston's diapers on her.  Luckily, the diaper fit!

The other day, as I was making bread, Miri came into the kitchen and asked what I was doing.  "Making bread!" I said.  To which she replied: "How cute, Mom."  I chuckled.  Yes, how cute.  Mommy is trying to be the domestic goddess and make bread.  Yes, how cute.  Nina later came in and started cheering me on as I kneaded the dough:  "You can do it Mom!  You can do it!" 

Nina seems to be my number one cheerleader at times.  I made a lavender wreath this week.  As I was attaching the sprigs of lavender together, Nina entered the kitchen, glanced at the wreath, and said "Lookin' good Mom!  Lookin' good!"  Positive reinforcement, even from a three year old, is so helpful.  :) 

Nina had a yellow party at preschool last week.  So, in preparation for the party, I made a dress for Nina out of an old yellow pillowcase I had purchased at Goodwill last year.  She was so excited to wear her pillowcase dress and she looked adorable.  I thought to myself, "Oh there are only a few more years left of making pillowcase dresses. Soon, my girls will be too old and too "cool" to wear pillowcases :) 

I have been trying to brighten my attitude about the amount of time I spend in the kitchen. I decided to pretend that I work in a cafe or restaurant for several hours a day.  This is my job.  I should not feel bad or annoyed that I spend a big chunk of my day washing dishes, preparing food, cleaning counters, sweeping the floor, cleaning up spills, taking orders, dealing with unhappy customers, and doing it over and over and over again.  This is my job.  Be grateful you have a job, right?  For some reason, thinking this way has actually helped my attitude a lot! Mind power can make a dismal task seem not so dismal after all :)  And hey, I always wanted to work in a restaurant!    

I think they should have a game show or competition called "cooking with children."  The challenge would be to make a nice dinner, while your baby is screaming in the background, your 3 year old is trying to "help" you cook, and your 2 year old needs you to wipe her bum, get her blanket, hold her on the couch, get her princess dress, read her a book, get her crayons...and the list of needs goes on and on.  The challenge would be to actually cook the dinner, take care of the kids' needs, and not completely lose it!   Anyone who is up for the challenge can come to my house on weekdays, Monday thru Friday @ 4:00pm.

Miri is a little bit slow when we are walking.  What do you expect from a two year old, right?  Anyways, sometimes I will tell her: "Chop, Chop Miri!"  It's my nice, fun way of saying, "Hurry up!"  The other day she responded with: "I'm chopping it!"  Daddy, then said: "Double time it Miri!"  She responded: "I'm doubling it!"  She is so cute.

As we were walking home from Safeway the other night, having rented "Catching Fire,"  Nina looked at the sky and said excitedly, "It's a pinkset!!"  She was referring to the sunset :)

Daddy brought home leftovers of pizza and soda pop from a work meeting Tuesday evening.  Miri helped Daddy bring the food inside and excitedly told me, as she jumped up and down, that Daddy brought us medicine!  Medicine!  Medicine!!  I want some Medicine!  She was so excited! I don't know where she got the idea that orange soda pop is called medicine :)  So, we all drank a little "medicine" with our pizza.    

Nina finally said goodbye to her dirty old bandaid that she had taped to her finger for several days.  Last week, Nina got a paper cut.  Oh my, you would have thought it was the end of the world!  She screamed on and off for about a half hour.  I gave her a band aid and told her if she lost it, she would not be getting a new one.  So, Nina kept track of that bandaid so carefully.  It fell off a few times, but each time, she found it and had me tape it back to her finger.  Over a few days, the band aid got dirtier and dirtier and was falling off more frequently.  Then, finally, Nina lost her precious band aid.  She screamed and jumped and threw herself on the floor...over and over again, yelling "I want my band aid!!!  Find it! Find it!"  I wondered what had gotten into my sweet Nina.  She's not one to throw long tantrums.  Anyways, I took her to her room for a nap...I am sure she was tired.  But before she got into bed, she found, peeking out from under her blanket, the dirty old band aid. "No!!" I thought to myself.  She grabbed it, but I took it from her and said it was time to throw the old band aid away.  That caused more screams and kicking...but we got through it!  She quickly fell asleep after all that and hasn't mentioned the dirty old band aid since!

Miri calls herself different animal names depending on what she is wearing or how she is feeling.  If she wears stripes, she says she is a zebra.  If she wears green, she is a frog.  If she wears white, she is a cloud.  Is she is wearing black and white, she is a cow.  Last night, she charged me...like a bull.  She does this quite often when I am sitting on the floor.  It always scares me.  So, last night I told her not to do it because Mommy is a gentle butterfly...to which she replied in the biggest, roaring voice she could muster: "I AM A GORILLA!!!"   I laughed so hard.

Miri also has this new thing where whenever I call her a princess, or a sweetheart, or a cutie, or a flower, she will reply with: "No!  I'm not a sweetheart" or whatever it is I called her, "I'm a garbageman!"  And then she will laugh and laugh.  

 

I woke up this morning surprised to find my arms wrapped around a sleeping child curled up next to me.  "Who is this little one?" I thought to myself. (You know that half asleep state, where everything seems confused and strange.) I started panicking, thinking I had fallen asleep with the baby and worrying that the blanket was covering his head. The child was so still.  I quickly checked for signs of life.  Yes, the child was breathing.  And as I came to my senses, I realized the sleeping child was Nina.  Oh, my sweet Nina.  I have no memory of when or why she got into bed with us.  I asked her about it later, and she said that she had had a bad dream.

Nana (Chris' mom) is visiting us this week!  The girls were super excited to see her and gave her big hugs when she arrived.  We had a picnic in the park, played frisbee, fed the ducks, played on the slides, went to the ice cream shop, and had pizza for dinner.  All in all, it was a super fun day for the Mees! Tomorrow, we are headed to Sedona! 

The Mystery of The Missing Toothbrush:

It seems like Chris' toothbrush always winds up missing.  So...where does the toothbrush go?  Well, last night before I put the girls to bed, I noticed six toothbrushes all lined up neatly in a row, resting their heads on Miri's pillow, with Miri's blanket tucked perfectly around them.   Six of them.  Tucked into bed.   Mystery solved.

 Miri has taken a fancy to bread crusts.  She doesn't eat them, but plays with them.  She will sit at the table for quite some time playing with her bread crusts after she has eaten the "good" part of the sandwich.  The bread crusts go on all sorts of adventures...they sing...they dance...they fall in love.  Who needs to buy toys?

Weston just fell asleep on my bedroom floor! He was roaming around my bedroom, playing with everything he could get his hands on and then, after rolling in the clothes for a bit, he just fell asleep.  Huh.  How adorable :)  I love babies. 

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