Avery is a very, very talented girl.  When my sister got married a year and a half ago Avery was only four.  I was cutting ribbons a certain length for the favors and of course, “Can I help?”  So I let Avery help.  

She cut 250 feet of pink ribbon into perfect 4.5 inch lengths.  And it only took one show of “Barbie Rapunzel.”  I’m sure that this violates some child labor law, but I swear this girl is the next Martha Stewart.  Now, Avery is not all girly.  Yes, she put jeans on under her dress the other day and found a matching purse so she could dress like “Sharpay” from HSM3.  And yes, she is very observant of who is wearing what, does it match and “How does she do her hair like that?”  But she also has a very quick side to her which I think she learned from Mr. Miyagi. Avery can catch flies.  With her bare hands.  While I would never choose to do this, I’m very proud of her.  She came up to me the other day with this little guy buzzing in her fingers.  “I caught him!  They have to be next to the window, that’s how I catch them easy.”  She has to chase them “around and around around round a round round a round” with her fingers for a while before she can get them, but get them she does!

We (the kids and I) love Miller, despite his horse-like legs and bowling ball qualities of mowing the children over constantly.  Yesterday I was looking at the dog and thinking, “Wow.  Since when did he start looking like shag carpet from my Grandma’s basement?”  Being a licensed barber I thought I’d whip my clippers out and fix him up a little bit.  Anna and Jeff volunteered to help.  We drug the dog outside, grabbed the clippers and decided to start somewhere that wouldn’t be very visible.  Within 2 seconds my clippers were stuck.  His fur was so thick and tangled I couldn’t get through it.  “Bummer!” Anna said.  “But since you have the clippers and stuff out, can you cut mine and Jeff’s hair?”  

Paul came home right as Jeff was almost done.  He surveyed the situation.  “So the dog, Jeff and Anna get haircuts before I do?”

Three haircuts later Miller still looked awful, especially now that he has a bald spot on his side from where I tried to cut his hair.  Since I love him (Paul and Miller are not on speaking terms since the “cable” incident) we’re going to spend more money getting him groomed than I have ever spent on my own hair.  I will post before and after pictures this coming Tuesday… oh how exciting! 

Dumb dog.

We have lived in our house for 10 years, alomost 11. Above picture is the only one I have of our house and it happens to be the day after hurricane Ike! About 5 years ago I realized I had NEVER been alone in my house without a child here with me. So I started paying attention to make sure I was correct in my assumption. I mean, I have been here with a kids sleeping or kids playing in the backyard, so it seemed like I was alone. Or with a newborn, while my husband took the other kids so I had some quiet. But I have never actually been alone in my house with NO ONE but me. In December one Saturday my bigger kids were at friends houses and my husband was going Christmas shopping, I had a bunch of housework to do so my hubby decided to take the 4 littlest with him. It was 5 minutes later that I realized I WAS ALONE IN MY HOUSE!!! FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER!!! I cranked the radio, texted a friend to tell her the news and wished I had something better to do than laundry to celebrate the moment….   Twenty-five minutes later my husband was home with a sleepy baby whose diaper had exploded as he walked into Target. So I cleaned up the baby and put him to bed, husband left with the other kids for a second try, and I am still daydreaming about my 25 minute home alone experience.

How could you not stop by this stand and get some lemonade from these four little girls?  You can’t!  They’re too cute.  We decided that it was finally time to dejunk the garage this Saturday, and while we were cleaning we had quite a few people stop and start “shopping around” what they thought was a garage sale.  Guess we had a lot of crap.
So the girls thought they’d do a lemonade stand, it’s the traditional activity when Mom and Dad are cleaning the garage or having a sale.  It’s perfect for two reasons: