screw up # 1, 672

I try! I really do, but sometimes I fall flat on my face. M. had been waiting for her friend, Flinn's, really cool birthday party at some jumping place in town. I got the invitation, called to RSVP yes, bought a great gift, googled the address so I would know how to get there and wrote it on my calendars! On the day of the party (according to my calendars) my youngest came home saying the party was YESTERDAY. I was skeptical until she told me the birthday boy, himself, said it was "yesterday and fun and the cake tasted great". I looked at the invitation and yes, I wrote the day wrong. I had screwed up big time. M. was on her bed crying. I felt terrible. I did point out we would have had a conflict yesterday and apologized 200 times but she wasn't rallying. So I called the other mom to apologize and see if we could come over to bring the gift. We went, waited for 15 minutes but no one was home. So we called for a play date the next day! Problem solved. M. had her first official play date with a boy and gave him a really cool gift that they both enjoyed for 2 hours at the park and forgave me. Yipee!!

The very next day I made screw up #1,673- I told M. we would go to the egg hunt with 6,000 eggs on Saturday. Late Friday night I found out I was a week off, the egg hunt would be April 4 when we would be out of town. This time when I told M. I had made another mistake, she just smiled her beautiful smile and told me that it was okay! Thanks for being so understanding of your crazy mom!! She loves you bunches!

Egg hunt in first grade-as good as it gets!

On the lst day before our spring break started the first graded celebrated SPRING! They rotated class rooms and did super fun activities in each. Then after lunch, hunted tons of candy filled eggs. Each child could get 13. It was funny because some kids got 25+ and said how good they were at finding eggs, Mrs. Cotton just replied that they were not so good counting to 13!

After the hunt there were strawberry cupcakes fun "bunny" snacks! Great last day of school!

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

While my friends from Baltimore were here, I pulled M. out of first grade to go to the zoo with them. It is funny because she is a third child and thus has been to the zoo only once, less than 4 months ago. I took my older kids to the zoo yearly at a minimum. Oh well, she got to skip school and head to the zoo with friends for an awesome, spring day checking out all the animals! It was not crowded and all the animals were out and close to us so we really had a ball! There was also a lot of "mating" going on while we were there. The kids were oblivious about it. That photo of the baboons happened by accident. I thought they were going to pose for me but ah, no. Very interesting! Great day outdoors for all of us. M was asleep 10 minutes after pulling out of the parking lot.

Girl Scout Sunday

I have had just a few posts about Girl Scouting lately and I too am getting a little tired of GS! But Sunday was the 98th birthday of GS and we celebrated at GS Sunday. I had to get all 3 girls up, dressed in their uniforms (not successful with any of them on this one, note: no khaki bottoms), and to the 9am service, with a smile on their faces (now I am pressing my luck!). We did get there on time, and dressed in sashes/vests with white shirts. It was a fine service with a lovely prayer for Girl Scouts by our priest followed by the dreaded pictures. I bribe the girls with breakfast afterwards at a local diner. So I said "please smile and I will get you those hash browns, pretty please". Snap. The sashes and vest were instantly off!

What a nice surprise. . . now what do you want?

Just kidding! My husband came home for lunch on Monday and brought me this beautiful bouquet of flowers- from my favorite place, The Farmer's Wife. On his way home he got stopped for not having his car inspected and got a ticket too. But who cares about that. I love my flowers and have them in my dining room. I look at them and smell them many times a day! Such a sweet surprise! Thanks!! I love you too!

PS. my most favorite flower is the peony, available in May!

SWAP meet

To celebrate the 98th Birthday of Girl Scouts my service unit held a swap meet. Out of my 3 troops, only my youngest, Daisys, were excited about it! So on a Saturday morning, after a good month of making swaps (Special Whatchmacallits Affectionately Pinned) with my Daisy troop, we met to do the highly anticipated swapping. The girls were so excited and want to have many swaps to trade. Each year, the hosting troop decreases the time of the event because swapping takes place REALLY, REALLY fast. This year the time was 1 1/2 hours, well 45 minutes into the meet with an opening flag ceremony and welcome, we were DONE! My girls made cute "recycled" (not really) puzzle pieces that were spray painted gold and silver with the words MAKE NEW FRIENDS glued to them. Some of these troops go wild with creativity and effort. We went easy and focused on friendship! "Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other is gold. A circle is round it has no end, that's how long I'm going to be your friend"

The Meaghers are HERE!

We have been waiting for the arrival of our good friends from Baltimore for a month or more. It is their spring break and they are traveling south to visit colleges, go to the ACC, play golf in Pinehurst and visit us! They are 7 and we are 5 so the house will be full of 12 (plus 2 dogs). After arriving Friday night, the boys all went to the ACC, and the girls went shopping a little and out to dinner. We all gathered back at the house later, and stayed up visiting until 1am . OMG I was tired! Saturday, I went to a Girl Scout event then by noon (after the boys hit golf balls, little ones went to the park etc..) we all headed to Chapel Hill for the afternoon. Beautiful day! We had a late lunch at Top of the Hill, which was yummy, then walked around campus. Probably would have stayed longer had we not been chased back to our cars by torrential rain! Everybody crashed on the way home and when we got back! Later we ordered pizza, the big kids went "out" but all managed to be in bed by midnight. Sunday was laid back. The dads took all 8 kids to the Fan Fest at the coliseum for a couple of hours. Then the boys played golf all afternoon while the girls lunched out, shopped, and went to the Bog Garden. Grilled out for dinner and final night celebration (with many bottles of wine!) with great friends! Sad to see you go but had so much fun! See you on Thursday when we go to the zoo! Check out her blog too! diaryofanoverachievingmom@blogspot.com

lunch with an author

My St. Patty's Day keeps getting better and better! Today I had lunch with author Sarah Addison Allen! Okay, it was with about 20 other people too but who cares! It was at our downtown library and the lunch was barbeque because that meal is featured in her book. The library was celebrating SAA's newest novel, The Girl Who Chased The Moon. There was a door prize of a charm bracelet because it is featured in the book as well. I did not win, exactly, but my mother did and she gave it to me!! So I did WIN! Thanks, mom! I love this native Asheville, North Carolina author. Her first two books, Garden Spells and Sugar Queen are two of my favorite "magical realism" books. They are sweet stories with quirky magical elements intertwined. I can't wait to read the newest next week on spring break. Great day and it is only early afternoon!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

One of my favorite holidays!! This is M. before leaving for school. She was ready, dressed in green and wanted to put bubble wrap in front of our doors to "hear" the leprechauns when the come visiting. The big girls did not even care about wearing green. Oh well. The day started out good and will only get better, ending with date night on the town with H!

Finally Finished!

I have finally finished my ruffle scarf!! I bought the yarn when I was in St. Helena, California at the beginning of February. The yarn is variegated in color and you have to use tiny needles and knit from one side to the other as opposed to end to end. So you cast on 658 stitches and decrease to 150 then add back to 658! It took longer than expected, obviously, BUT I love, love, love it!! Yea me!

Knock out punch

Biggest news of the weekend. . . M lost a tooth (#4 but whose counting). She did not however loose it in the traditional way. She has become a wrestler! Yes that is right! She now wrestles. But having grown up in a house full of girls she did not get any practice at home. This is a new sport for her and she does it with a neighbor, A BOY! M has done it now about 3-4 times and really enjoys it! Well Saturday night, while wrestling with Thomas (aka her "boy toy", by her sisters) she got a fat lip and her tooth came out! There was some commotion at first because she thought she had swallowed it but after scouring the rug, the tooth was found! Yippee! She was VERY, VERY excited about the fact that Thomas and she had both lost teeth on the same day and that he had knocked hers out! She told EVERYONE- neighbors, friends, strangers, clergy, and more. Thomas's parents were not quite so thrilled. Oh well, she is a third and we didn't think twice about it! M. left a note for the tooth fairy asking to please leave the tooth because "it is special".

Dr. Seuss Week

Big week in first grade! Dr. Seuss's b-day is March 2nd so the whole week was comprised of Dr. Seuss activities. The kids ate green eggs and ham ("it looked like barfe" according to M), read almost all his books, learned about the author's life, wrote their own rhyming tales and dressed in crazy outfits with funky socks for the Foot Book on Friday. M. had such a good time and really learned a lot. But now she really only wants to wear socks that DON'T match!

Girl Scouts on Thinking Day

We celebrated Thinking Day, where you "think" about girl scouts around the world and celebrate scouting with others at Skateland. Big fun for the little ones especially! My two older girls decided not to participate in Thinking Day and stayed home- party poopers!!