the lady has standards

and by the lady, i don't mean paula dean...i'm talking about the tooth fairy, my friends. last night, cee lost her 2nd tooth. two down, 18 to go. the girls stayed with their dad last night and we quickly found a couple of loopholes in this whole 'tooth fairy' system, namely communication and consistency. we've gotta patch these holes up quick, or we are gonna get busted. the tooth fairy gives money in *exchange* for teeth, right?! well, trust me, i am right...it says so on wikipedia:

the tooth fairy is a mythical character depicted as a fairy that gives a child money or gifts in exchange for a baby tooth that has fallen out. children typically place the tooth under their pillow at night while they sleep. the fairy is said to take the tooth from under the pillow and replace it with money.

see? wiki knows all, so this must be how it is done.

when i picked cee up today, she produced from the depths of her backpack both her loot AND her tooth. i was dumbfounded. had the tooth fairy forgotten to take her tooth? how would i explain why the fairy took the first tooth and not the second? the first time, the tooth fairy paid three dollars. this time she paid eight quarters.

upon close investigation, i quickly discovered that the backpack protecting the tooth was inadvertently left at school, and the tooth fairy had to think fast so as not to disappoint her young customer. understandable. we do crazy things in times of need.

in an effort to clear the good lady's name, here's our story, and we're sticking to it: the tooth fairy paid half up-front last night since there was no tooth to collect. she is coming back tonight, and tonight only, to check for the tooth. if the tooth is there, she'll pay the difference. wish us luck.

now we have closed the gap of communication between all said fairies involved in the loophole at hand. as far as the gap in the bottom of cee's mouth? well, i sure hope it doesn't close up any time soon because i think it's pretty darn cute!


***disclaimer: it is not easy to follow these instructions, especially when you are only six: "okay. smile. bigger...open your mouth just a little bit so i can see your snaggle! okay, not that much. more. no, a little less. okay that's perfect. now smile with your eyes. no, that's kind of scary. okay. ooooo!! don't move. perfect!" (click & flash from the camera, cheers from me).....she is a trooper and now i know why they hate my camera.

crack kills

this is one of my all-time favorite pictures of cee and jay washing dishes for me. it is about two years old, so they are about two years younger. you can't make this stuff up!

blank

i am blank. i am tired. i have no thoughts that are even remotely amusing to me right now. i am glad tomorrow is friday. i caught a kid peeing behind the bushes today. gross!! i wasn't sure exactly what to do, so i made him go wash his hands. i figured at least if he was going to write his name on the wall,  he may as well clean up afterwards. what would you do? more soon (with substance).

his eyes melt my heart

oh, the way those big brown eyes stare into mine. his eyes are set on me....sweet, gentle, kind, asking. the expression in them melts my heart. but really, it's not me he's after. he wants my bowl of food. it's clear by the drool that rolls off of his tongue and onto the floor. his tail wags, he whines. i give in. and that's why he has...."thyroid" issues. if you saw his eyes, you would probably give in, too. 

I ♥ Faces: Self-Portrait

I took this photo of jay and me during spring break...we were running late for our dinner reservation, but she said, "mommy! stop, let's take a picture!" um, what? stop? okay!

my girls **never** want to stop and take a picture, so i simply couldn't pass up the opportunity. as for the wrinkles, i'll admit....i tried to rub them away. her skin is so creamy, yummy, pure, and soft that there is just really no use for trying to make mine match hers!! :) 

check out all the other fun entries for this week, and congrats to kelly for winning 1st place last week! 

miley and hannah

the girls received some **darling** tall boots from a friend who is always so generous in passing clothes along to us...they both wore theirs today and jay was pretty sure we were going to find ponies to ride since she had on her boots. since there were no ponies to be found, they entertained me instead...

on the way home from a way-too-long trip to home depot, they decided to play hannah montana and miley cirus. they were hysterical! they were singing and having a good old time. they told me i was their limo driver. :) what an honor.

then fun went as it usually does and they started fighting about whose turn it was to sing. they kept threatening to fire each other and then the argument went from who was going to sing next to whether hannah would fire miley or vice versa.

as  far as i am aware, the mom is dead on the t.v. show, and there is no limo driver. so i decided to just stay out of it and cut my own losses. 

allergy monster

okay - my friend emily just coined that term. the allergy monster has struck again! [cough] grrr....

i LOVE spring. i love green. i love to see everything in bloom [sniffle]. i love seeing everything come back to life. i love how the weather is just about perfect every single day. i love to hear the birds chirp...even the ones who have nested in my chimney. allergies are the only downside i can think of that come along with spring. so my mantra for now is directed at my allergies but NOT at spring...

"this, too, shall pass." 

[a-choo]

well wishes

tomorrow, the girls' papa jack is having back surgery. surgery of any kind is never fun, but this is a pretty major surgery. please keep him in your thoughts and prayers for a successful surgery and a healthy recovery. the girls LOVE their papa jack to pieces! thank you so much.

holy trinity - as told by cee

i promised this post last week, but i am just now getting to it. last year, cee asked, "how does this whole Holy Tritiney thing work?" a brief word association explanation - 'we' (as in my girls) are notorious for going in public without shoes and then desperately needing to use the restroom. 'we' have come up with many creative options to avoid "the britney spears", referring to the barefoot-in-the-public-restrooms extravaganza. britney and tritiney rhyme in cee's world.

so my six year old has posed to me a question that has remained sufficiently unanswered by theologians for hundreds years...rendering me speechless and forcing me to say, 'i don't know, but i will talk to teresa and find out for you!' 

teresa is our preacher. she is amazing. she is seriously an angel and she has touched my soul with her ministry. she has been at our church for 2 years. therefore, she came to us when jay was 2 and cee was 4....and they announced to me that they had chapel with miss wanda and 'the new creature!' 

so i asked the creature how i should answer cee's question. she, too, was baffled. we decide a picture would be ample. and this is what we came up with (i {heart} stick people):

after i drew the picture, we went through it together, and then she re-told it to me like this (i have it memorized, it is forever ingrained in my heart):

"so - God made the whole wide world. then mary and joseph got pregnant with a very special little tiny whiny baby by a miracle. then they had baby Jesus. when Jesus got old like you (me, at the feeble age of  33 at the time), He had to go up on the cross and get killed for us because sometimes we mess up and get in trouble but it's okay because that's why He stayed there on the cross for so long. then three days later, God said the magic words and Jesus came back alive! so then Jesus and God made a plan to be the Holy Spirit fairy and they can do anything that they want to, just like hannah montana."

hannah montana aside, i must say that i was floored with her critical thinking skills. at age five. of course i am a very biased mom, but seriously. seriously? 

thank You, God

today i am thankful for Easter. a time when i realize how magnificent life really is, and how blessed we all are. church was amazing and powerful. i was quiet, i listened, God spoke. 

for some reason, this Easter struck me with a tone of liberation. i guess i have been pondering religious persecution lately and i am so grateful to have the freedom to worship as i please and to be surrounded by such amazing people in my church family.

God, You are Good. thank You. a million times over. thank You. 

(amen)

go scion?

i had to take my car in this morning to get a new battery. i drive a camry, and as i pulled into the service lanes at the toyota dealership, i was instantly bummed at the backed up line. usually the service people are pushing cars into the garage and people into the 'lounge' in assembly-line like synchronization. 

not today.

i didn't have to wait too long, really, but the guy who helped me could not stop laughing....apparently my 'group' of cars arrived during the final scenes of the high speed chase in california this morning.

the guy told me how sorry he was for the wait, "but it was a toyota so we were all hanging in there to see who would win!"

pride in your work, pride in your company. love it!!! i am still chuckling. :) 

I ♥ Faces - Friends

does life get any better than 3-d laser glasses? this is my first entry to the i love faces blog. all i know is any friend who will dress up with you and make funny faces in 3-d glasses is a girl worth hanging onto for quite a good while! wish me luck. :) 

big harry

happy palm sunday to all! we didn't make it to church today - we had major hair issues with jay, due mostly to the crazy wind that put her hair into knots. it might have been less painful to just smear some peanut butter in the girl's hair and let her grow dreds. i felt so badly for her!

the girls are laying down on the couch getting ready for night night. since we didn't make it to church, i decided we would watch 'who was Jesus? ' my justification: appropriate in place of the sunday school lesson they would have had this morning. 

as soon as i got it on the channel, it was talking about king herod decapitating john the baptist. woops - not exactly what i was expecting, but the 'damage' was done. 

cee said, 'oh my gosh! that is so horrible! i mean, who would do that? i just can't believe someone would do that.' 

i thought that was a good expression. clearly, she understood that it was a grotesque and cruel act. however, i wondered what was going through jay's head. as i was pondering how to engage her in conversation, she surprised the heck out of me....

'mom! i do NOT like big harry at all!!'

i know she said more, but she totally bamboozled me by calling him big harry! where did she learn 'big harry', or did she just give him that nickname on the fly? oh my gosh. either way, it cracked me up!

and now, 20 minutes later, she has decided that she is VERY upset with big harry and wants nothing to do with him. she said 'God is gonna get him. he better watch it, mister!'

i am so thankful for my girls' faith in the Lord. they have an amazing depth of understanding, especially for their age. later this week, i will post about cee's question from last year: 'how does this whole 'holy tritiney thing work?' let's just say that my preacher and i were both baffled, but we came up with an acceptable answer for her.....stay tuned, and enjoy your week!