Continued...

Here's a photo of the house yesterday evening. The front is scraped and primed and there are a couple of patches of the blue paint near the far left and far right first floor windows. There is also a patch under the lower right-hand corner of the picture window (far right, first floor) of another color called Bella Blue. It's the next shade lighter on the color chart from Vanderberg Blue. It's almost impossible to see against the primer because it's the same dark/light quality, but it's brighter than either the primer or the V. Blue paint. I think I've decided that it's a bit TOO bright - to seafoam-ish. Our painter said it was "whimsical!" :)

As of this moment I'm fully on board with the Vanderberg. They'll probably start painting the color on the front tomorrow, so we'll see what actually ends up on the house then!



... I'm a mess ...

Paint!

Our house was power washed last Sunday afternoon, and then this morning the painters actually came and started scraping and painting the shingles!! We are so excited!

The color you can see here is actually the primer. They are using the darkest primer since the color we picked is "bold." They mixed in some of the Vanderberg Blue tint, but since it was already so dark grey, it really doesn't look exactly like the final color. Actually, after they left I went out with my paint swatches to try to see what color the primer sort of was because, well, I really kind of like it! And the color it most resembles.... Knoxville Gray!! Can you believe it?! I'm so predictable. Anyway, I haven't decided to up and change colors midway through - yet - but who knows?






This is a patch of Vanderberg painted on the side of the house. I do like it - it looks very green actually and I prefer that to grey - but it is quite dark.

The dithering over the color continues.

Tu(n)esday

Wait! It's not too late for Tu(n)esday! Here are some of our current favorite songs:

Maggie's fave


Kate's fave


Mike's fave


My fave

Too Weird For Words

All right, all right. People keep calling and emailing me to find out if I'm OK because I haven't updated this blog in such a long time! "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated..." My mojo just kind of drifted off there for a little while. I need to track it down and put it in a headlock and tell it to get back to work. I'll get right on that as soon as I finish playing Minesweeper on my iPhone. OK?!

Anyway, I was actually inspired to post by a goofy thing that happened this morning. Around 8 am the girls' bedroom door burst open and Kate came barrelling into our room waving around a monstrosity that she had made all by herself the day before. May I introduce you to The Octopus:



Creative, no? So the moment her eyes popped open this morning, she grabbed her octopus and ran to our bedside to do a little soft shoe jazz dance routine while bellowing a song she made up that goes, "Octopussy Ah, Octopussy Ah, Octopussy Ah, Octopussy Ah! I can say Hello. HELLO! (She stops dancing to make the octopus wave at this part of the song.) Octopussy Ah, Octopussy Ah, Octopussy Ah, Octopussy Ah! My octopus loves me. HELLO!" Jazz hands.

And a good morning to you, too, Madam. I suppose I should be grateful that it was 8 am instead of 5:30.

Want to see something else that will haunt your dreams tonight? Well here you go...

We took the girls to the Science Museum a couple of weekends ago because Mike got free tickets from his work. They had a bunch of displays on the human body, and Maggie was surprisingly interested in them even though they seemed to be a bit over her head intellectually. Later that evening after we got home, she set to work on a drawing and would periodically come over to ask me how to spell stuff. "How do you spell 'this'?" T-H-I-S. "How do you spell 'is'?" I-S "How do you spell 'my'?" M-Y "How do you spell 'blood'?"

WHAT ARE YOU DRAWING?!?!?!



Not only is the subject matter creepy as all get out, notice that the letters are perfectly backwards. You can hold that sucker backwards up to the light and read it perfectly through the paper. What in the hell?! Mike's response: Redrum! Redrum! We're keeping our eye on her. She might need an exorcism. Or she might go to MIT. Either way: weeeerd.

So to wrap up, here are some more fun photos...


Kate feeding some goats at the farm where we went berry picking. She picked no strawberries, but spent the whole time feeding the goats pieces of grass and yelling, "They love me, they love me! The goats love me!"


Charming.

Katie Sez...

... Thank you, Sir!

after Mike asked her if he could take her empty dinner plate from the table.

I asked her if she'd been watching a lot of Marcie and Peppermint Pattie, to which Maggie replied...

... Who is Pepperoni Pattie?

Deep Breaths, Count to Ten

This afternoon, I cleared away most of the furniture in the dining room so that I could sweep and mop the hardwood floors. After dinner when the floor had dried, I put all the furniture back and laid out my brand new rug on the clean floor. Then I went to check my email.

That's when Kate pee pee'd all over my floor and the new rug.

You'll be glad to know that I didn't kill her. I just yelled a little bit.

"Carpet pissers, man!"
"That rug really tied the room together."

Easter, Resurrected

OK, I'm finally getting these Easter pics up here! I really wanted to get them posted before we head down to DC this weekend for Ana's birthday party - one thing at a time!!

We were supposed to go to our friends' house for a huge Easter egg hunt with tons of kids on Saturday but it was rained out so we headed up to NH to Gram and Grandpa's a little early. When we got there, Gram was all ready with almost three dozen eggs to dye, which the girls loved!



Kate was really able to participate in the dying this year. Last year she was a mess, threw a tantrum, and then just ended up eating a popsicle and watching Maggie finish up.



After the eggs dried, the girls added some stickers. They LOVE stickers!



They also got to make some popcorn with Grandpa...



... and have some yummy jelly bean cake that Gram made.



Of course they woke up at the crack of dawn on Easter morning and rushed downstairs to look for their baskets.





Much candy - and not much breakfast - was consumed.





Then we all got dressed. My mom sent these little matching dresses to the girls, which I had intended for them to wear to the egg hunt, but we put them on them anyway. They called them their princess dresses!

Getting dressed up really wears a girl out!



Posing for the cameras - I think they have their mouths full of jellybeans here!



Since the weather turned out absolutely beautiful on Easter morning despite the storms from the day before (they actually had had a little bit of snow in NH right before we got there!), we headed outside to hunt for eggs. The girls thought hunting Easter eggs was VERY exciting!









Even after all the eggs were found, we just stayed out in the yard playing and enjoying the sunshine. The girls took a walk down the road with Grandpa to see a tree that was cut down.



And they plopped down in the damp street in their dresses to look at a worm!



A family photo - I never can look directly into the sunshine when my picture is being taken and always end up either squinty or with my eyes closed completely!



After lunch and a nap, Kate played Mike's drums. She may have some hereditary talent!



Maggie, on the other hand, developed a new obsession with Legos! Like the drums, these also once belonged to her dad.



It was a great weekend!