Deconstructing Jen

a week in the life #2

Holy buckets, I actually did this two days in a row. Day 2 of a week in the life of me.

from left to right...

Row 1:
8:00 am yum, berry berry kix
8:12 am ditto
4:11 pm comfy? (sorry this one is out of order)

Row 2:
1:44 pm one at preschool, one asleep, awesomeness
5:06 pm handy jen installs a cabinet lock
6:21 pm umm, seriously don't pick my nose

Row 3:
7:07 pm ben was here
7:12 pm dinner of champions
7:44 pm who's idea was it to paint the house? oh yeah, that guy

just overheard in my living room

Just a little snippet from the living room this morning.

Ben: Elbow!

Evey: that's not Elmo, it's a bone.

Ben: Elbow! (with excitement and pointing at the TV)

Evey: Benny, that's not Elmo, it's a doggy (with a giggle)

Ben: Elbow!

Evey: Benny! That's not Elmo, it's a turtle (with exasperation)

Ben: Elbow!

Evey: MOM! Benny keeps calling everything Elmo!

Me: stiffling giggles...I know sweetie, he'll stop in a couple of months

Evey: with annoyance...okay...sigh

Now about that whole not using their real names thing I posted a while back. Here's the thing. I can't do it. I like their real names too much and I keep having to go back and fix posts where I put it wrong. So we're going back to the real names. Alrighty then.

a week in the life #1

row 1: (from left to right)

10:44 am - Grumpy Pants
12:12 pm - Spicy (that's what she always says about Sprite)
12:13 pm - Yum, Carrots

row 2:

12:37 pm - Peek a Boo
1:32 pm - Target Run
2:03 pm - Cuties

row 3:

2:34 pm - Crashed
5:47 pm - Swimming Lessons
8:12 pm - Watched 101 Dalmatians Too Many Times (yes, that was Sharpie)

so, no I wasn't original enough to come up with this myself, lol. it's a meme I snagged. Here are the rules if you wanna play along

Rules:
1. You must take between 6 and 9 new photographs per day.
2. Your WITL must be consecutive. No skipping days.
3. You must post your photographs at the end of that day, sometime after the last picture is taken.
4. Each photograph must have the time taken beneath and a title, with no other explanation.

picasso or the Peach?

 

I was having a hard time with ideas for Father's Day so I grabbed an idea from Family Fun for paintings for Chris's office...

We snagged some canvases from Hobby Lobby and some paint and brushes and viola.

tiny dancer

This weekend was Evey's first dance performance. And oh my do we have a little Diva on our hands (yes with a capital D). They danced at a local festival and it was so cute. She was super excited. not a hint of stage fright (don't know HOW that happened) and very animated on stage (there's photographic evidence, keep your pants on).

After the performance we stopped and got some cotton candy thanks to her dance teacher letting it slip that there might be some at the festival...way to make the people who pay your salary really happy with you. I hope you can see the sarcasm. Then we grabbed Grandma and motored off for some lunch at "The Blue Place," Evey's nickname for her beloved Culver's. Ben took a little siesta while we ate.

Next stop....wedding extravaganza. Chris's friend Rachael got married Saturday. It was a beautiful wedding at a really cool old church. The wedding was wonderful. They did a little bit in the middle where the bride and groom wrote letters to each other (before the ceremony) and the pastor read them as their vows. It was really sweet. After we made our way over to a cute, quaint, way to small restaurant for the reception. Thank god there was an open bar or I don't think any of us would have lasted more than 20 minutes in the standing room only cracker box with not nearly enough air conditioning. We caught up with some of Chris's old work pals, had a few beers (or vodka cranberry in my case), had a nice dinner and enjoyed a great evening chatting it up, well after we discovered there was a roof top balcony with a wonderful view and an even more wonderful breeze.

Now on to what you really want to see...the pics of Evey's dance performance.

This is the face I got when I asked her to smile. Nice huh?

Bustin' a move...

Belting it out...

ahhh

As she gets older Evey is starting to have such a juxtaposed personality. One day she's having tantrums and taking 15 minutes to put on her shoes and other days she says the sweetest and cutest things. Just now she said...

"Mommy, you have the best music on your iPod!" as she pirouettes around my classroom on a Sunday afternoon.

"Ah, thanks, honey."

p.s. We aren't listening to kiddie music. The last song was Not Ready to Make Nice by the Dixie Chicks and the current song she is rockin out to is It's Still Rock N Roll to Me by Billy Joel. The girl's got style, I tell ya.

raising her right

As I type my husband and 3 1/2 year old daughter are watching Star Wars (A New Hope) because she asked to watch it.

And Dad, if you know about this (and I'm quite sure you do) you can wipe that smug look off your face. *wink*

why does he speak russian?

Ben is so cute these days especially in his verbal abilities. He has just recently started to change the way he babbles and it's my favorite stage. He's past the googoo's and the gaagaa's stage but not quite to the "NO!" stage. It's what I adoringly call the "Russian" stage. The babbles are all consonants and very few vowels. Some favorites are "voot" and "kutspk".

Evey has reached the "why?" phase and I'm about all why'ed out. Here's a taste of our breakfast conversation...

Me: Evey put your shoes on.
Evey: Why?
Me: Because we are going to Amanda's.
Evey: Why?
Me: I have to work today.
Evey: Why?
Me: (Here we go...) To earn money.
Evey: Why?
Me: So I can feed you.
Evey: Oh. Can I have a lollipop?
Me: No, we just ate breakfast. (Trying to head her off before the why...)
Evey: Why? (Denied.)
Me: Because lollipops will make your hair turn purple and your skin turn green.
Evey: No they won't!

real men play paper dolls

And Chris is the ULTIMATE at paper dolls. We have an entire paper village at our house.

Meet the newest member. He's farmer Dan. Also known as the High Tech Farmer.

the serenity is over...

dun..dun..dun..

Ben just pulled up on the coffee table and started inching his way around it. Life as I once knew it is now over. "My baby just became a toddler," she said with a sad sigh.

We now direct you to the part of the ride where you will experience bumped noggins, busted lips, and not being able to have anything on the lower 3 feet of any surface in your house. Good luck passengers. Enjoy your ride.

The pictorial evidence...