Clean Rooms

yesterday, a friend of mine came over and helped me clean up my kids' bedrooms. it had been a while for the bedrooms. i think we found about 15 pairs of pants under andy's bed. he always seems to need more pants and now i know why. it's so nice to be able to walk in their rooms and not be afraid of stepping on a lego or breaking some toys. andy was at school, but emmy was a big help. of course i had an allergy attack from all the dust. i got really stuffy and my throat got scratchy. blech. anyway, i now have a garbage bag full of toys they don't need and clothes that are too small. we really need to get rid of more toys. emmy's toy box won't even close. andy doesn't even have a toy box. i'm sure we could make him a toy box. that would be lots of fun. and maybe we could build emmy a table so she can have tea parties in her room. that would be splendid! and then i could post pictures on here to show.

new topic:
i've come to realize that i have a basket fettish. i love them. everytime i go to a thrift store i have to look at the baskets. i don't even need anymore baskets, but i got one the other day anyway. emmy got one also. i like to have baskets on hand for when i need them. yesterday i was glad to have some small ones. andrew now has somewhere to keep all his rocks and emmy has something to hold her porcelain tea set she just got. i didn't realize how many rocks andy had 'til we picked up everything in his room. i don't understand why he likes rocks so much. they don't seem like pretty rocks to me. just basic rocks. i guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

History Repeats Itself

i was in the living room and i heard emmy crying and saying "owie". i thought maybe andy was bugging her, so i went off to see and solve any problems. what i found made me laugh. emmy was alone in her room and she had successfully tied herself to her bed. she couldn't even raise her arms, poor little thing. luckily she was easily released by me. immediately i remembered something that had happened to my brother, samuel, years ago. he had handcuffed himself to his bunkbed. unfortunately he'd dropped the key and his "spare key" so he was trapped. he yelled for help, but he woke up my mom. her room was right below his. she slept during the day because she worked at the hospital during the night. she was so mad that she'd been woken up that she went upstairs to yell at samuel. she laughed, which of course made us all curious. she got him down, but then wanted him to rechain himself so she could get a picture. samuel didn't go for that.

Opening Gifts

i realized that i never showed pictures of the kids opening their gifts. here's emmy on christmas eve night.



every year the kids get new jammies on christmas eve.

and andy opening his.

bowser!

i think he likes them.

here's christmas morning. andy was excited to get a boba fett blaster. it goes well with the storm trooper blaster from last chrismas.

emmy didn't wear her jammies that morning for presents. she wanted to change right away.
here she is opening some paints.

here's the grandparents' tree. this was before all the gifts were under it.

i didn't take any other pictures there. we were too busy opening gifts.

Back in the Swing of Things.

the holidays are over. we partied, ate, played games, and partied some more. derek had his birthday. he seems to think he's so old. he still seems young to me.

speaking of seeming young, i got called "miss" yesterday. it was a nice surprise since i usually get called "ma'am".

anyway, back to derek. i think he's just great. sometimes i can't tell him how great i think he is. years ago he asked my why i married him. i was sarcastic and told him that i figured since nobody else was signing up i figured i'd better. now it's become a joke between us. sometimes he'll say "thanks for signing up" to me. it always makes me laugh.

derek is a good daddy. he's loves our children so much. i know he wishes he could spend more time with them. when he is with them he's very fun. this morning he tickled emmy for about 15 minutes, of which she loved every minute. i finally had to tell him to stop. andy loves it when daddy picks him up after school. then he gets to "work" with daddy sometimes. it really makes andy feel special to know that daddy thinks he's special.

i guess what i'm trying to say is, i love derek. i'm grateful he signed up to marry me. i'm grateful that he works to so hard to give us a nice life.