Ice Cream Sandwiches, Pudding and...Roofing Tar?

While H went to run errands tonight, the girls had dessert! Here is Rose #1 enjoying a delicious ice cream sandwich. Rose #1 had a good day. I asked her what she learned at school today - "I forgot."
Imagine that you exist in a state of ALWAYS looking for your next sugar fix, but that you are at the whim of a horrible dictator who is always withholding the sugar. This is Rose #2's moment-to-moment existence ("Mom, can we have a treat? Mom, is there any candy? Mom, can I have dessert?"). She is so accustomed to hearing "No" that whenever she hears "Yes," it seems like a miracle. Doesn't she look smug?

Alas, by the time I got to Rose #3, the ice cream sandwiches were all gone. Never fear. Rose #3 got a pudding with squirty whipped cream on top.

Here you can see how she painted herself with pudding including on her dress.

Tonight we went to kindergarten roundup for Rose #2 (OK, it was pre-kindergarten roundup!). She was pretty excited to finally be at Rose #1's school for some reason other than to pick up Rose #1! It is probably wrong to say this but there is much less anticipation and drama attached to taking your second child to kindergarten roundup. I admit it - I did not even listen to the talk by the principal, nor did I take the "parent" bus ride (I guess this is aimed at parents so we can instill the importance of bus safety in our children).

On a final note, I am very sorry to announce the death of the first Fish. H noticed that there were in fact only 7 fish in the aquarium and he quickly located the unfortunate little creature. I could tell you where it was - it involves one of the snails (Gary or Amelia, we can't be sure) - but that would just be too yucky.

On a final, final note, I would like to send out a wish into cyberspace that the insurance adjuster on our homeowner's claim would call me. Tomorrow. And, that he would appear at my front door with a roofing harness, roofing nails, roofing tar (whatever that is), shingles, and a very, very tall ladder. I type this as it rains for approximately the 13th straight hour today. Sigh. Does anyone have extra buckets (for the leak in my roof that I know is developing as we speak)?

June Birthdays!

Tonight was June Birthdays at MND. Rose #3 LOVES Aunt Brenna. She also loves to ham it up for the camera.

Rose #2 understands birthday presents in a big way. Here she is unwrapping her new princess sheet and blanket set from Guppy and Poppy:
Rose #3 is also a June birthday! She got a new Dora book from Uncle Andy & Aunt Tonya. She did NOT want any help opening up her presents.

Here are the June birthdays (all except baby Kate, who was VERY sad tonight because of her 2-month-old shots! I sure hope she will sleep tonight for her mom):

Thank you Guppy and Poppy for the fine June birthday party.

The Fish Have Landed

Today we brought Guppy and Poppy to the Original Pancake House for breakfast for Poppy's birthday. Poppy's birthday was January 17. (We did not mean to take so long to take Poppy out for his birthday breakfast! Other things like Sunday school kept getting in the way.) Here are Guppy and Rose #1 at the restaurant:

Rose #2 likes to sit on Poppy's lap and borrow his reading glasses. Poppy has at least two pairs of glasses - the cheap $10 reading glasses kind, and the very very expensive bifocal kind. I hope that he always gives Rose #2 the cheap ones.

Rose #1 enjoyed the kid menu, which doubled as a coloring sheet. Rose #1 is old enough to keep herself occupied with crayons for quite awhile.

Rose #3, by contrast, can only play with crayons for about 36.2 seconds before she is literally jumping out of her skin. Here she is playing with Poppy:

We had an enormous amount of food. I took a picture of the table after we were done. It was very good (I had the senior plate, which Poppy ordered for me. I ordered his breakfast, which was two sunnyside up eggs, 3 pieces of bacon, and 3 pancakes. The only part of that breakfast I would actually eat is the pancakes.) After breakfast was over, we went to the pet store to buy The Fish. Here are Roses #1 and #3 looking at the available fish. I had to restrain Rose #3 several times from climbing up the fish tanks like a ladder.

Finally I put Rose #3 on my shoulder so she could see the upper level of tanks. We stared at the sharks for awhile. It is easy to get more ambitious about fish when you look at all the available varieties at the pet store.
We ended up getting 5 girl guppies (Rose #1 kept telling me they were tomboys, to which I responded, "tomfish"?) and 3 boy guppies. Guppy, the namesake of these fish, is really hoping that we will have fish babies. Here we are putting the bag of fish into the tank.
I am VERY pleased to report that none of The Fish have died (yet). Also that Roses #1 and #2 reached a compromise about the names of the snails. Rose #1 wanted them to be called Gary and Patrick; Rose #2 wanted them to be called Amelia and [some other girly name]. They compromised on Gary (aka Snail #1) and Amelia (Snail #2).

Waiting For H

Today was a good day. Our power was out due to very, very high winds last night, so I woke with a start at 5:25 a.m. (which is late for me). I always feel dejected when the power is out, and I spent quite awhile trying to find the phone number for reporting outages. It is of course a sign of WEAKNESS to have a paper phone book in the house, so I was reduced to searching for Xcel Energy's customer service number on the browser of my Blackberry. Who knows if reporting the electrical outage did any good, anyway. It took about 1 hour 15 minutes for the power to come back on. Bother...

Fast forward to tonight...After putting the Roses to bed (way too late, I might add) I decided to go through my closet and to set aside items I haven't worn or those that are too worn out for the Goodwill. I came up with two bags of clothing to drive over to the Goodwill, maybe tomorrow. I always feel like I don't have anything to wear, but after surveying my closet, that is of course not true.

In reality I am waiting up for H to get home from his business trip. I have been watching nwa.com to see when his flight will land. It landed at 10:50! It was delayed for "inbound aircraft" in Phoenix. I am glad he is coming home. Rose #3 can now say "Where's Daddy?" She has been saying it a lot. Daddy will be home when you wake up JKML!!

Dinner Without Daddy

Tonight H is in Phoenix, so we had company for dinner. Guppy brought over delicious chicken and noodles, and Aunt Boo brought Baby Kate, delicious broccoli and fruit pizza. Baby Kate is getting so big! Her eyes are open a lot and she was so good at dinner playing with her rattle. She took a little nap on my chest. Here she is resting on her mom's shoulder:
For the first time ever Rose #3 was permitted to hold Baby Kate (under STRICT supervision of course). She thought she was the cat's pajamas. Look at her smile! You can just tell what she is thinking: Look at what a big girl I am!!

Rose #2 never lets a little baby-holding action pass her by. When I was putting her to bed tonight she told me that holding Baby Kate was the best part of her day.

We also got a chance to say "hi" to Daddy on the phone. H is in Phoenix for work. I honestly do not know exactly what he is doing but it involves airplanes. This is the picture he sent to me from his phone.

One of the most alive parts of my day was running through the rain after work. It was POURING DOWN RAIN right when I came out of our building. I had no umbrella (of course) and so I got soaking wet. For some reason the sidewalk I normally walk down was JAMMED with people right when I wanted to go through, so I ended up dodging under people's umbrellas. I felt like I was in a pinball machine!

Since I am a single mom tonight and tomorrow night (at least until H gets home around 10:30 p.m.!) I better turn in. As Rose #3 would say, "Ni Ni."

The Aquarium is Ready

Look out, fish of the world (or fish of the local Petco): the aquarium is ready! We brought a water sample to Petco tonight and the nice fish lady tested the water for us. It is ready for fish! We got a bubbler and a couple of fake plants today. These eventual fish are going to have a pretty posh home, all 10 gallons of it. Guppy is going to bring Rose #1 fish shopping on Sunday. Guess what kind of fish we are going to get? (One hint: it starts with a "G" and ends with a "Y".)

Last night the father of the Roses and I had a birthday dinner (for me) at FireLake http://www.firelakerestaurant.com. H had prime rib and I had walleye. It was a lovely birthday dinner and thanks to Guppy for watching the Roses so we could celebrate my birthday.

Rose #2 has been enjoying her day camp experience at Camp Como http://www.comozooconservatory.org/edu/campfamilyprograms/campcomo.shtml. The class this week is called "In the Dirt," and is supposed to focus on animals that either live in the dirt or that eat insects. So far all we have been able to get out of Rose #2 is that she saw a bunny rabbit. Those dirt-loving bunny rabbits, I tell ya.

Rose #3 understands everything that we are saying. In the car tonight I was telling Rose #2 about how she would go to Camp Como tomorrow, and Rose #3 kept saying "Me?" "Me?" "Me?" Too bad they don't have day camp for almost 2-year-olds...

A Grand Old Day

Today was Grand Old Day, which is a street festival a few blocks from our house. We went to the parade and it was a beautiful day. The parade started at the other end of Grand Avenue, though, so our candy and other "haul" was not as robust as last year! (Oh well. I tried chewing a piece of blue razz Dubble Bubble. It is YUCKY.)

Here we are with the neighbor kids.

Later on, the father of the Roses watched the girls while I went to coffee with a friend. I ordered a very, very large mocha drink. It was too much.

After a great weekend, it is back to work tomorrow. Tomorrow is June 2, my birthday. I will be 27. Again.