Truancy Intervention

On Friday a letter from Ava's school showed up in our mail box. A bit excited, I ripped the envelope to shreds. Ava has been (or maybe she's done now) taking tests for the gifted program that begins in third grade. This is new territory, so I'm not sure about the process, but delivering the results via letter makes sense.

Unfortunately, the contents had nothing to do with such test results. No, instead it was notice that if my lovely child is late once more I will be going to court. Nice. I know she's been late. I didn't know that she'd been late five times (and except for the time I locked the keys in the running car that was blocking our other vehicle, she's only been 2-3 minutes late) and that six equals legal intervention.

Now, say what you will about it being our responsibility to get her there on time. I get it. However, I wanted her to learn about natural consequences. When you throw yourself madly about the floor and refuse to dress, walk or talk, you have to sign in at the front desk - and here's the kicker - all by yourself. Who knew the natural consequence would be for me (Wade might participate at some point, but for now it's me) to attend truancy intervention meetings once a month at 7:45 am.

Knowing this was a problem prior to receiving the letter, I'd been racking my brain for ways to get her going in the morning. Seven seems a bit early to develop a coffee habit, so I opted for the one thing that consistently gets her attention. Money. She gets fifty cents for going to bed without throwing a fit the size of Texas and fifty cents for being in the car ready to go at or before 7:30. It's working.

After getting over the initial shock, I'm kind of looking forward to hanging with the other delinquent parents.

Cinnamon makes me happy

I'm a big, BIG fan of cinnamon. Provided I had a free week and a huge stash of cinnamon sticks, I'd totally make myself some undergarments and possibly a dress.

A few weeks ago Whole Foods whipped out the old cinnamon scented pine cone. Pine cones are neato and all, but I can't help but wonder who came up with the idea of adding scents to them. Pine smells pretty nice. Why mess with a good thing? I stumped google by asking for the history of scented pine cones. If there are any scholars out there with this knowledge, do share. But I digress.

Walking into the store, you're slapped silly by the fabulousness that is cinnamon. I've always been able to resist the urge to buy the $5.00 pine cones. Until the other day. Ava really, really (because she can't just really) wanted some. So, I totally gave in. She thought I was the best mom ever. And we were both happy.

Guess what? Cinnamon not only smells dreamy (which boosts brain activity), it's bursting with other healthy goodness as well such as anti-microbial qualities, controlling blood sugar and possibly sleepiness if consumed in excess (totally need to try that!).

Eight years and counting

Eight years ago yesterday, Wade and I realized that our marriage license was about to expire. That impending deadline lit a bigger fire under our bums than our five year relationship and my six month pregnant belly. We felt married and didn't really care about the legality of it so much, so we'd kind of put it off.

We had two great friends on call. Seriously. They were ready for that call saying we were finally ready to do it. I looked at the calendar and realized the next day was the day - 11/11/00. Only two numbers - and binary at that - for Wade to remember. I frantically called Tie The Knot Wedding Chapel. Thankfully the lovely lady was able to squeeze us in. Nestled between a 7-11 and slot car racing store complete with barred windows, it couldn't have been more romantic.

Seeing as it was eight years ago, we didn't have a digital camera. And scanning those photos hasn't quite made it to the top of my to do list. It's a real shame too, because there are some doozies.

We'll just pretend this was our wedding photo since it's about that old. You can tell because I look like I'd slept in the last seven years.

And all these years later.

By popular demand

Okay, so maybe not. Just thought I'd post a picture of Luke since he's been left out.

For those of you paying attention, this was the top half of his Halloween costume. This poor shirt has been loved hard and washed many times. His little boy belly sticks out from under it, but he refuses to let it be replaced by something that fits.

Belle saw this and asked where Luke's lips went.

What's up with the tooth fairy?

Ava recently lost tooth numero ocho. She'd been working really, really hard on that tooth and convinced Wade (I don't partake in tooth removal) to give it one last go as she was getting in bed. It made a gut wrenching pop as Wade ripped it from her mouth. Despite the blood (this was one of the bloodiest on record), she was beyond stoked about the tooth fairy coming. I'm assuming that the tooth fairy was somewhat unprepared as the call to take Ava's tooth to fairy land came right at bedtime.


Ava really, really, really wanted the Halloween Kitty from Build-a-Bear. Since it was one of those limited time dealies, we bought it for her and she was earning money toward buying it from us.

Because she got the call so late and had no cash to speak of, the tooth fairy did a bit of bartering. She took all the money Ava had earned and gave her the Halloween Kitty. Imagine Ava's confusion and anger when she woke up the next morning and saw that the tooth fairy had stolen her money.

Trick or treat, smell my feet

I love Halloween. I think family themed costumes are the bomb. We had a couple ideas (my fave was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) that never came to fruition. Instead we ended up with a hodge podge of cute. Belle recycled the Princess Belle costume from last year. Ava created her own Sonic the Hedgehog outfit and ended up with a rash from her make up job. Luke was supposed to be a cow, but ended up a centaur-esque being with the body of a small child wearing a Mr. Happy shirt from the waist up and that of a cow from the waist down.

This was really the first year Luke sorta had a clue. At the very first house we were able to trick a lady into giving us some candy. Upon receipt of said candy, Luke tried to feed it to the lady's electronic dancing cat. So we tried again. And again. After five-ish houses Luke was done. Try as we might, we couldn't get him to get us more candy. Because we're really smart, we didn't realize until we were almost home and saw a few wrappers fly over the edge of the stroller that Luke was staying in the stroller to munch on his candy.

In keeping with tradition, here's the lovely photo I got. Luke was hiding behind the couch being all pissy because I wanted him to wear the cow hoodie. Princess Jasmine graced us with her presence for the occasion.

We like to spread all the booty out and do a photo shoot before we gobble it up. Unfortunately, we didn't get to that point. I thought about posting a photo of the booty most of the booty ended up inside. But after checking out the photos Belle took of my ass, I decided against it.

Try this at home - Cinnamon Streusel Coffeecake

Since happening upon the King Arthur Blog (which might've been mentioned a time or two before), I've become a junkie. This week I made the Cinnamon Streusel Coffeecake. If you click on the link, you're going to see a pretty piece of cake. Though I see many, many people post photos of every step and possibly even the resulting yummy-ness, I can't. It already takes me at least twice as long as it should since I typically have to referee five to seven arguments, put some kind of toy and/or kid in time out and deal with issues surrounding the hunger and thirst of youngsters. So, my friends (I say that because you probably are my friends and I'm not running for President), below you'll see how much we liked this recipe.

Final verdict? It was good. You should make it.

Words of wisdom? Make sure to have LOTS (as in every single one in your house) of clean bowls ready for measuring all your ingredients. And add 1-2 ounces more water to the topping than the recipe calls for.