Conversations with Emma

But first, some background. We are sort of redoing Emma's room, piece by piece. So this weekend we took down the horrible wooden slat closet doors and hung bright pink polka dot curtains (Hubs about died when we saw them. They were clearly Emma's pick, I was lobbying for the teal sheer ones.) We also bought some flower and butterfly decals to decorate her main bare wall.

Emma: I don't ever want to take these flowers off.
Me: We'll decide as you get older.
Emma: Even when I'm an adult and sleeping in this room I still want the flowers up.
Me: Hm.

But what I didn't say was - Girlfriend, you better not still be sleeping here when you're an adult. Your lease runs out when you leave for college.

Forgot to add

I forgot to add how much I adore switching from my summer purse to my favorite fall purse. Which I just did. While sipping my delicious pumpkin pie spice coffee.

Look for this post all over again in the spring when I'm totally over the cold weather and eagerly anticipating sunny warm spring days.

Fall favorites

It rained last night and I wore long sleeves most of the day yesterday so I'm deeming it fall.

I love fall. I love the crisp mornings and cool evenings. I love the break from the hot hot summer, the ability to take a walk in the afternoon without sweating buckets, and being able to take the kids outside in the afternoon. I love the color changes - the bright reds and yellows and crispy browns of the leaves in our neighborhood.

I love trips to the pumpkin patch, scarecrow decorations, carving pumpkins with the kids. I love roasting pumpkin seeds and deciding on Halloween costumes. I love pumpkin spice muffins (something I learned when I was pregnant with Grant), and this year I learned I love pumpkin pie spice cream in my coffee. Even Emma loves how my coffee smells with the fancy cream.

I love lounging in my pajama pants without getting too hot. I love re-falling in love with my favorite jeans, my favorite closed toe shoes, my favorite long sleeved shirt. I love sliding my feet into my slippers for the first time each fall.

I'm already anticipating sipping my coffee in the morning while hanging out in my super soft lounge pants. Wonderful fallness.

Translator needed

When Emma was a new talker, my friends and I joked about how they always needed their "Emma to English" dictionary. Aka me.

Well now that Grant is finally starting to kind of talk, I find I'm needing a "Grant to English" dictionary. Aka Emma.

The funny thing about all of that is that I have clear memories of doing the same thing for my brother. Those lucky boys, having such a doting big sister! And I'm totally sure that "lucky" is the word my brother would use to describe himself. Or that "doting" will be the word Grant uses to describe Emma. "Overbearing" is probably a better word for Grant to use.

It's the Sahara in here

Sand, not heat. Although it is hot today.

It seems like every 3rd step I take is into a layer of sand. It's everywhere and I keep vacuuming and vacuuming and sweeping and sweeping. It's a sure sign Emma is in preschool and she's having a good time outside. It's in her shoes, her socks, her hair, the cuffs of her capris. My car, her bed, outside, inside. Everywhere.

There's a little glitter mixed in too since my mother in law introduced dollar store fairy wings to the household last week. Apparently dollar store wings are decorated with glitter held on by dollar store glue, which is a fancy way to say the glitter doesn't stay on the wings at all. You just look at the wings and glitter falls off. Add into that Grant rubbing the wings on his head, then holding them as he ran through the house, Emma wearing them and leaning against the couch, and you have glitter embedded into the sofa, embedded into Grant's hair, and a trail of glitter on the floor wherever Grant ran with them. We are still finding glitter on our faces and clothes, and the wings have been taking a break in a high place for 4 days now. Hubs still has certain parts of the couch he won't sit on because of the glitter explosion.

Good times.

Mama bank account deposit

Our first MOPS meeting was today and it rocked. It's been 6 months of hard work and two weeks of intense stress for several of us on the steering team, much like fall sorority rush for those of you who have been through it. It all came together today, and when the meeting was over I found myself standing there smiling. I met some great women at my table, I learned something new about my sister in law, I got lots of snuggle from my little niece, and I managed not to make the craft project a total debacle. I'm really looking forward to getting to know my discussion group leaders better as we work together as a team, I'm really looking forward to getting to know my tablemates better as we share a table for the next 10 weeks, and I'm really really really looking forward to my weekly deposit into my mama bank account. I felt filled up after the meeting, and ready face the craziness of the week.

The MOPS slogan is "Better moms make a better world" and after today I totally agree.

This is my coping strategy

We bank (banked?) with Washington Mutual.