Another Week Gone...

Yes, nestled under the early 80's brown tile
awesomeness that is my kitchen counter
sits my new dishwasher.

What? You want text too? But I thought a picture was worth... oh, nevermind. Here:

Yes, those are push buttons. And a dial.

Geez! You people are insatiable! Doesn't the above picture make the first one look all the more fabulous? You still want more? Fine. Moving on.

I'll share some of this week and last week, since I kind of glossed over it due to my dishwasher being defunct.

That and my children were behaving like banshees.

First of all, as mentioned earlier, I was very proud of myself for finally being able to put Grace's hair in pigtails. Turns out, the hair bands I got from Claire's were horrible, I just didn't know any better as I'd never used any before. The cheapie ones from Target are much easier to use. Unfortunately, just because I can now use them doesn't mean I'm very good at it.

Poor Gracie. Luckily, we didn't go anywhere in public that day. I'm afraid after a few minutes in my styling chair she resembled "Darla" more than "darling".

Um, pardon the cheese in her mouth. This was the
best I could get last week. Trust me.

Darla from "Finding Nemo"... or Grace with headgear.
You choose.

I've also apparently been in denial about the fact that Mark is not going to be an infant forever. I was putting his socks on and realized they no longer fit. Something inside of me started to whimper, and my brain tried to reconcile the image of my baby boy with the reality of another stage just around the corner.

Sometimes when you're a mom, you can go for days without really seeing your children. You only see a short person needing another cup of milk, a good face washing, or a three hour nap. When I saw this little foot, which would soon be catapulting my baby to full time toddler status, I made sure to stop and look. And, of course, take a picture. Because even though it had been a miserable week with the two tyrants, I didn't want to forget.

Yes, he's barely outgrown them. No, I did not take them
off. He wore them all day and was none the wiser.

There are some things I would like to forget. Or at least not repeat any time soon. Last week, I entertained you with the picture of what Grace discovered during what I like to call "naptimes" and she likes to call DOOMs (Destruction On Overtime Missions). We recently put a shelf above Mark's changing table and Grace discovered it.

Self.  Explanatory.

Thankfully, I caught her before any major damage was done. She was told not to climb on the changing table again, and not to get into any items on the shelf. Due to my diligent discipline techniques, and stellar ability to be consistent with this discipline at all times, the incident above was not repeated. It was trumped.

When I walked into Mark's room, I found this:

No, the white on the backboard and front rail
is NOT a bad paint job.

A split second later, I saw THIS:

It's very hard not to smile when you see the Joker
from Batman beaming at you with pure Desitin joy.

And then I walked out of the room to keep my daughter from seeing me CRACKING UP.

And to grab my camera.

I'm pleased to announce that there was also a bit of this during the ordeal:

This is her "uh-oh, I think I may be in for it" look.
Did I mention she does get in trouble for this stuff?

Since the sun was shining, my new dishwasher had been installed just hours earlier, and even I can relax enough to know that sometimes you just roll with it, the next logical step was this:

Did you see mom's face when she caught me
with all that white icing?

Sometimes you just gotta have a little fun. Gracie and Mark had a blast, and Grace even showed her brother a trick she'd learned from dad the year before:

When we're older, we're going to be really great at
that "LifeSavers and Toothpicks" game!

Here's hoping that you didn't find yourself or your loved ones in any big messes this week. If you did, I hope that in the end you just smiled and had some good clean fun!

My little angel.