Monkeys and Sharks and Hybrids...Oh My!

What a crazy busy weekend we had! On Saturday was the official soccer meeting to start the season. Paige's team is the Monkeys and Piper's team is the Sharks. Piper is playing with her same coach from the fall and her good buddy Jozie. Paige is playing with a few of the teammates from Piper's old team that weren't old enough to move up to the next division. Games start in two weeks! I will post some pictures of them in their uniforms when I get them.

The bulk of our weekend though was car shopping and tonight I drove home my brand new car! Since moving up here we have become increasingly more crunchy, and really wanted to do our part on reducing our carbon emissions. We switched all of our lightbulbs to the compact flourescent ones and we decided to make the big plunge and trade our 12 mpg gas guzzleing SUV in for a Toyota Prius. I am still a little in shock right now. We bought the Expedition before we had kids and thought we would be having three so we needed the big car. Well, we are stopping with two and with our busy schedule I am driving a lot more so we needed a change. It is silver and very cool!

10 Years Ago Today....

I met my future husband. I remember vividly the night my friend Julie and I went over to his mom's house on a Friday night after we had just gone to Olive Garden to celebrate her birthday (a day early). Julie grew up across the street from Bob and has known him her whole life. He pried himself away from some geeky computer game and came out and talked to us for hours. I was so impressed that he stood in the doorway near me almost the whole time. I of course later found out it was because he had a big hole in his shorts and was too embarrassed to walk by us. When we were leaving I caught a glimpse of his tattoo on his leg and asked what it was. The only word I caught was Mickey and thought it was fate that he would have Mickey Mouse on his leg and I was such a Disney freak! I walked out of the house, turned to Julie and said "I am going to marry that man." Well the tattoo isn't Mickey Mouse it is the Mickey's bee from Mickey's Malt Liquor so I guess it wasn't fate after all, but I love him anyway.

Happy St. Patrick's Day ( a day late)

We had a very busy day around here so that is why the St. Patrick's Day well wishes are a day late. The girls went to my parents' house for a sleepover and Bob and I headed to downtown Portland for a book talk by Frank Warren who runs my favorite website Postsecretcom. If you haven't been there, go! People send him their secret on postcards. I love reading all of them and it makes me feel a little more normal every week.


The little part leprechaun I married likes his corned beef and cabbage so we went to McCormick and Schmicks for dinner. Bob talked me into not getting the chicken and pasta dish I have had there before and getting the Filet Mignon because that was what I really wanted. I could barely cut into it, it was a completely cremated cow on my plate. I sent it back and ordered the pasta instead.

After that I talked him in to just going and sitting in a few cars since we are starting to think about getting a smaller, earth friendly car. With gas up around $3 a gallon again and my 12 miles to the gallon beast that I drive, it is time. My top pick is a Toyota Prius, but I was also considering the Corolla or the Matrix. Our sales person was a really nice lady that reminded me of Bob's Aunt Sonja. I ended up driving the Prius and it was really nice. Of course on my test drive I got honked at and almost rear ended twice because I didn't want to hit and kill pedestrians. I will remember that a night where everyone is drunk on cheap green beer probably isn't the best night to drive a strange car.

We tried to go to a movie, but it was sold out at Cinetopia and when we went to the regular theaters, it was so overrun with teenagers that we decided we were too spoiled to go there and just went home and rented a movie.

All in all we were in bed before we usually go during the week! And Bob was up before the girls would have even been up to get us. I had visions of sleeping in late, but when you go to bed so darn early you don't need to sleep as late I guess.

We've Got Another Holy Child

Well after a few months of begging we gave in and took Paige to get her ears pierced so she could be like her big sister. I really stressed the pain aspect, but she wasn't backing down so off we all went to Claire's-the mecca of all that is girlie. She picked out exactly the earrings I wanted her to have ( I love how a three year old mind is so much easier to control than a five year old one).
Her huge smiles quickly turned into a pout and then into tears, but after she got a sucker and a few more glimpses at her new rainbow daisy earrings she was happy again.

Please ignore the boogie in her nose, but it wouldn't be Paige if she didn't have at least one bat in the cave.

Top Banana

This week Piper has been the Top Banana in class. We had to create a board with pictures of her life. We did this all weekend long! All the hours were worth it though because I think it turned out pretty darn cute. Today she got to be the teacher and lead circle time. It was the quietest circle time ever. My usually talkative in the she never shuts up sort of way has decided that she is now shy and refuses to speak to the teacher at school. The teacher in me was cringing, but I was still beaming with mommy pride.

The Princess Choir

For the past eight weeks the girls have been going to a Princess choir class ofered through the Parks and Rec with two of their best friends Corinne and Renata.

They learned the songs from Snow White. Last Saturday they held a mother daughter tea with really bad tea and cookies, but some fun activities. At the end the girls all performed. It was very cute to see all the little girls in their Princess dresses. Piper knew every word to every song, and Paige sang a few words here and there and played with her dress and showed her panties to the whole audience. Let's let her get it out of her system now at 3 and not when she's 13.

Another One Bites The Dust

The girls got new pets a few months back. Paige picked a kitty (see post below) and Piper picked fish. We went to the store and she picked out a Beta and the man at the fish store said that she could have some Tetras in there too because they are fast swimming. Yeah right.

We came home with Otto the Beta (she got the name from the book Fish Out of Water), and Nemo, Coral, and Genevieve the Tetras. Well Genevieve bit it within 24 hours so we got her body out and took her back to the fish store and tada a new Genevieve was had. Things were going great until Piper couldn't find one of the Tetras. Well Bob found it (or what was left of it) sucked into the filter. I guess we managed to get either really slow Tetras or a really fast Beta. She was okay with it and decided that it was Genevieve that had died. Nemo and Coral held on for a while until she came bouncing down the stairs to turn her tank light on and then the awful scream came. Another one down. I got that out and we had a small funeral for it in the downstairs bathroom. I was really hoping that Nemo would be able to make it alone, but who was I fooling.

Last weekend the girls were downstairs coloring when we got up. I came down and Piper happily said "I turned on my fishtank light." Great job! I went to look in the tank and saw the awful sight of Otto swimming round with a lifeless Nemo in his mouth! I quickly yelled for Bob to get downstairs and we all gathered for yet another fish funeral. Now we are left with just that SOB Otto the fish killer. He's lucky he is pretty to look at and that Piper still loves him.

The Newest Member of Our Family

Well, I am going back in time a little bit to introduce our newest family member. Daisy arrived in December and we just all love her so much. We had been wanting to add a kitty to the household so I was searching the pounds for one. I wanted an older female that was declawed. I personally think declawing is very cruel and would never get it done, but if there was a cat out there that already had it done, well then I was okay with that. When you have just refurnished your entire downstairs, you get over the meaness factor pretty quickly.

So we searched and searched with no luck and then I heard from a neighbor that another neighbor had a little declawed female cat show up on their doorstep that had no tag, no microchip and no return phone calls after several flyers had been put around the neighborhood and in the Vet's office. I thought why couldn't that be me? Turns out our neighbor couldn't keep her because with 4 kids and a yippy dog, Daisy stayed under the couch all day long so we said we would take her. It is technically Paige's cat so she got to name her (from an approved list that I provided) and Daisy was the winner.

Here is a picture of her dressed up in one of Piper's baby sweaters. Bob did it and she was just thrilled.