When a child opens a door, her parents want to jump out a window

Am I really about to tell a story about door handles? Yes, yes I am.

A few weeks ago, we had our "looked cool in the 90's" round shiny brass doorknobs replaced with the oiled-bronze beauties pictured below (what does it say about my life that I am so excited about new doorknobs?).  

Since then, we haven't gotten a full night's sleep.  Pink, who was formerly being kept in her room by one of those toddler-proof door locks, can escape from her room at 2am now, and does every single night.

 In my last attempt to save my sanity before I go buy another round doorknob and re-attach it to her door, we are starting a sticker chart today.  See those cute beds?  Every night she stays in bed all night, she gets to put a sticker on one.  Six nights in a row, she earns a lollipop; twelve nights, she gets lunch at chick-fil-a; after a full 30 nights, she gets to go to a hotel.  

The first two of these incentives I understand - she loves candy and those weird nuggets and fries, but that last one I was surprised about.  After some intensive questioning (which is hilarious, since this 3-year-old doesn't really reason yet), it turns out that hotels are fun because:

* you get to watch tv in bed

* they have a pool

* everyone sleeps in the same room

So does this mean that if we work and try and finally get Pink to sleep through the night in her own room for 30 nights in a row, we will completely undo all that effort in the reward? 

Never a dull moment in this parenting game....

Happy Earth Day!

Earth Day!
Torment the bullfrogs...

 Torture the children with a hike in 90-degree humid weather...

Tell Dad about it later!

The big catch up post

It's been almost 4 months since I posted any pictures or any substantive family nonsense (is that an oxymoron?). If I set myself up to chronicle the last 4 months in depth, I'll never do it, so here is one big catch up post and a fervent hope that I might stay on top of our lives a little bit better.

Christmas, 2010:
We continued our tradition of having Santa bring the presents on Christmas Eve.  So much more pleasant (to me) than an early-morning trashing of our living space.  There were plenty of presents to go around, including a very unusual necklace for Red.

January 2011:
After 5 good years, we said farewell to our trusted Labrador Elvis.  He went to live with Red's grandparents in Pennsylvania.  It is an ideal arrangement for everyone - Elvis was slowing down and getting stressed about the rapidly increasing speed of Pink and Blue, and the grandparents, who lost their dog last year, got a well-trained companion. In typical fashion, I didn't take a single picture to commemorate the handing off of our beloved dog, the visit with the kids' great-grandparents, or the car (dubbed "snowflake") rented to take us all on this grand 2500 mile adventure - not even New Year's Eve in Nashville, and a visit to a life-sized replica of the Parthenon.

At least I remembered to pull out the camera a few weeks later when we celebrated Pink turning 3 - or maybe it was her father who had the good sense to take some pictures:

February, 2011.
This month was full of ice and snow, and one major holiday. Which Red and Green celebrated by taking a painting class...and giving the paintings to Pink and Blue for Valentine's Day. Yup, we are an original bunch. But what we lack in originality, we may make up for in ability to follow directions. Note how much our paintings look like the prototype, seen over Red's shoulder.

March, 2011.

Regardless of any wagers taken to the contrary a decade and a half ago (or perhaps to spite the wagerers), we celebrated 15 years of marriage in March.  We attended a Devotchka concert with friends, and, as might be expected of a smallish indoor concert venue, the pictures taken are kind of dim. Lack of photographic evidence notwithstanding, we are still happily married. 

April, 2011.

Apparently, when the sun comes back out, so do the cameras - and the crazy ideas.  I came home from a Friday-afternoon doctor's appointment to find my family frantically throwing clothes into suitcases for a "surprise vacation".  We drove way into the night, and didn't tell the kids where we were going until the next day.  "Bat Cave" and "Hotel Pool" were enough to sell it.

Whew... I feel better now.  I am sure there are a few things I missed, but at least we don't have a gaping hole in the family record.

A big thanks to anyone who made it through all this!

What happened to this blog?

Sometimes, the smallest events can really change my attitude about everything.  Take, for example, the last post on this blog.  I put it up a couple of days before we left town.  It was, for the record, a picture of Red's feet as he fixed a minor leak in a valve on the back of our refrigerator.  One that we discovered after coming home from a week to visit loved ones in Utah at Thanksgiving.  I meant to post something humorous about leaky fridges and and my live-in-handyman.  Of course, I didn't get around to it before we had Christmas (and all of it's associated chaos) and then left town again for a week.  A week from which we returned to a true flood.  A lift-the-carpet-to-dry-it-out kind of flood that leaves a particular texture to hardwood and stains that need to be painted over on walls.

In the midst of cleaning it up and eradicating the sour smell of wet house from the air, I lost my blogging momentum - and my ability to write witty things about small floods.  I blame the sound of the fans and the creeping suspicion that our house might actually not like us very much.  Or at least, not like being left alone.

I've vowed to change (not a vowed like my marriage vow, which I take quite seriously indeed, but more like my "eat less chocolate" vow, which only applies on days that I designate), and I will catch up and keep writing on this blog; if only so that my children will have some written record of what they did during their childhoods. But I'm not writing about floods.

A New Game!

Anyone willing to play, "Write a funny caption"?

I'll tell you tomorrow what's going on in this picture!

Our Two Snowmen

November 21, 2010. Sandy, Utah:

December 21, 2010. Dallas, TX:

Hope that wherever you are, and whatever your weather, you're welcoming winter with a smile!

Elf on the Floor

For our family, this is the first year that the children really understand the Santa aspect of Christmas. Blue has known for a while that he's a guy in a red suit, but the idea of a naughty and nice list and not beating up your sister equaling presents is just sinking in.

To help the "elves are spying for Santa" story along, we've made a big deal about rustling bushes in the backyard, and have even had a couple of elfin visits. Our first elf visitors took away the letters to Santa that we left in our stockings and replaced them with candy canes and books. This morning, we had another reminder that the elves are watching.

Sometime during the night, small, pointy footprints appeared on our windowsill and floor, and little packages of candy were placed in our shoes. When Red went to put on his work shoes this morning (poor guy, he's the only one not on vacation this week), he couldn't find one, and everyone was very shocked to find it in front of the fire place.

Here's Pink admiring what a midnight frenzy and some washable markers can do:

I think Blue might have been onto me, but once he saw his beloved York peppermint patties, he forgot to delve deeper into the mystery of the footprints: