The Christmas card

I must have taken 60 pictures, over 2 days, of my girls in one of their Christmas outfits for the Christmas card. I wanted to have a really nice picture to send to all my friends and family back home. I had set a nice little scene on the front porch, with Christmas blankets and poinsettas. Rena did the best and seemed to understand what I was trying to do. Rachel and Riley wanted none of it. They wanted down off that loveseat and time to explore. Time to get messy. Time to play! I finally gave up. I drug the wagon around and they all piled in, hair disheveled and shoeless. I finally got a cute picture of them all together, smiling. Not the polished picture I was hoping for, but they sure are happy.

uncomfortable silence

My house is quiet. Very unusual. Rachel has been asleep for 4 hours, Riley is on hour 2 and Rena is at 'the guyses' house. That, in itself, makes me uncomfortable. Not because I don't trust them. It's just that she's out of my sight. And not only that, I didn't actually see her go in the house. Ok, I saw her walk down the driveway to the front door, but then I got distracted. Ok, I'm sure she's there. And part of me is feeling guilt for enjoying this brief moment of restrained freedom. I managed to put all three car seats back in my car, spray the stroller with Frebreeze and put it in and sweep out part of the garage. Now what. The to-do list is overwhelming and I certainly don't have time to start anything new but this blog. Alas, not even that. The doorbell is ringing. It's Rena. Without shoes or her coat. Now the dog is barking, which has woken Riley up. I can't believe Rachel is still asleep. I send Rena back to the guyses house to fetch those things and try to determine if she's come back on her own (highly unlikely) or if they've sent her back. She finally returns with her possesions, hungry and sleepy. Rachel is up now. So much for the quiet.

cleaning fairies

Why haven't the cleaning fairies come to my house. I leave plenty of messes for them to clean up. Just once, I'd like to get up in the morning and the whole house be clean! I'd even settle for just the laundry fairy. I've decided it's just about near impossible to really have a clean house. I swear, I don't know how other people do it. I go into other peoples' houses - sometimes unannounced - and it looks like no one lives there. Where is all their crap? Why are their counters clean? Where is their bread? coffee cups? sippy cups, dried up spaghetti or mac and cheese? where are their dirty rags? where? where? where? I just don't get it. It makes me feel very inadequate. I've spent the last 24 hours cleaning just a few rooms in my house. I held an open house for Pampered Chef and I needed it to look presentable. To do that, my children had to be confined to the upstairs with my husband. Then my husband took them out and drove them around for 4 hours. Within 10 minutes of arriving back home, the place was trashed. The upstairs is awful! I dread even attempting to get that straight. Fairies, where are you!