So much to say.....and so little interest in typing it all out!  

I have to share a few funny things that the kiddos have done lately....if nothing else. 

As you know...I recently had a minor surgery.   My house is in a total state of disarray right now.  2 kids, 1 husband and 1 dog and NO ONE to clean up after them.  It's kinda scary!

Okay...not QUITE that bad..but close.  I've picked up a little (very little) and the kids are fairly good at picking up after themselves.....after I remind them two or 3 times.  That just leaves Jade and Cricket...and as Cricket only has a couple of toys and doesn't make much mess, I guess that means this entire mess is Jade's fault.    Yep...sounds good to me!

Annneeewayyy......back to what I STARTED to say.   Our house is on well water.  I love well water, for the most part...but this water tends to be a bit...."dingy".  It leaves a dingy residue in the toilets, etc.  And while I was down with my surgery (and I'll admit....I'm not the best at keeping up with "toilet cleaning") the toilets got a bit...well, dingy.  I finally got tired of it and cleaned them. ( WOW! I know I know....bear with me.....I know this toilet cleaning thing isn't all that big of a deal...considering it took me about 5 minutes total..to clean 2 toilets...but I'll get to the good part in a minute, and it is WORTH IT.)   The kids were gone to their GG and Papa's house when the urge hit me to clean the toilets.  And when they did come home...at least one of them recognized all of my hard work.  Matt came looking for me...and he had a question for me... concerning the sparkly toilet.  He said, "Mom, did you clean the toilet?   How did you do it?  Did you use MAGIC???  Because you had to use magic to make it THAT clean!"   Yup....made me feel like a terrible house keeper/mom/wife/human being.  But it also made me laugh like a crazy person.

Shailynn has already written letters to Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus, Rudolph and Clarice.  (For anyone not aware of the "goings on" at the north pole, Clarice is Rudolph's girlfriend.   By the beginning of July she had written each a letter and colored them a picture.  She IS expecting return letters...since it isn't their BUSY time of year! 

I love my children!  REALLY, I do. 

Although..........

By 10pm last night I was ready to strangle two very short people.   I love them dearly…but they were seriously trying my patience…plus I was well beyond tired.  By 9:00pm they were grounded for 2 days.  By 10:30pm we had bumped it up to 3 days. Shortly after that….they were out of bed again…but this time I couldn’t do much about it.  Matt had FINALLY lost his tooth.  (Why doesn’t that ever happen at a convenient time?)  Soooo, what ensued was an all night ordeal.  And unfortunately I have to take credit for at least part of it…..although I really don’t want to.  You see, when Shai lost her very first tooth…it was a VERY BIG deal.  Our baby had lost a tooth.  And believe me, it isn’t that we weren’t JUST as excited when Matt lost his first tooth….it just so happens that my explanation must start with the first tooth Shai lost.  The tooth fairy thought it was a really big deal too, and did something that seemed like a really COOL thing at the time. (hindsight leads me to issue warnings to any parents of young children!!)  She left a note for Shai about how exciting it was to lose her first tooth, keep brushing, yada yada.  Shai, of course, LOVED the letter…and expected one each time.  So, of course she got one, regardless of the time of day or night she lost the tooth and the amount of sleep the Tooth Fairy had to lose in order to write these letters. And then Matt started losing teeth too.  I remember one week I think we had 3 visits by the tooth fairy.   For some reason, I was VERY tired that week. 

My children get very excited when the tooth fairy is coming.  And they both have VERY BIG hearts.  And if the tooth fairy leaves THEM a letter, then they MUST leave one for her too.   And then there is the thing about leaving cookies and milk out for SANTA.   Shouldn’t we do something like that for the Tooth Fairy????   Of course we should.  So we always do.   It’s just nuts.  The Tooth Fairy must really LOVE stopping at our house, late at night. 

So it took a MILLION years for them to get everything together for the Tooth Fairy last night.  And it took them FOREVER to go to sleep.  I even snuck in to read their letters to the Tooth Fairy (You never know what kind of vital information they might hold) and accidently woke up Shai. So I tiptoed back out and read my book in the living room.  It seems Matt left her Apple Juice, and pennies, in case she needed to buy things in Tooth Fairy Land.  And he had LOTS of questions for her, such as, “How do you get in?” and “How do you get the tooth without waking us up?”  Shai left her an Apple and play money and told her to feel free to take a nap, watch TV, use her lipstick, etc.   (The kids thought it funny that the Tooth Fairy had so much to do while she was here that she didn’t have time for a nap or to watch TV!!!) Eventually they went to sleep.  I’m guessing the Tooth Fairy showed up somewhere between 4am and 4:30 am …b/c I didn’t climb into bed before 4 am.  (I had an urge for apple juice and an apple, myself, and I had a couple of letters to write of my own.)  At 4:30 am Jade raises up in bed….I was just drifting off…and says, “Are the kids awake?”  His way of saying….get up and go check on the kids.   I get up, the lights are all on and Shai and Matt are running all over the place.  I asked the obvious question….WHAT ARE YOU DOING UP?   They smiled…very excited little smiles…and told me they were looking for Fairy Tracks!

So I smiled, told them to hop back into bed.  I climbed into bed beside Jade and told him, “They were looking for fairy tracks.”  He grunted okay, and we all went back to sleep!