Today may be my birthday

. . . but I still can't remember how old I am, so don't ruin it for me and tell me the answer.

Miley gets pierced

It's crazy expensive to get your ears pierced these days.  Who knew?  Well I didn't, but we had committed to poking holes in her body so we did it anyway.

But just not her nose.

Miley appeared mostly freaked out the whole time.  I think the technician was pretty sure I was forcing her to do it.  I may have told her it hurt really bad, cause her pain tolerance is not so high, and because then when it didn't hurt so much she'd be relieved and not bawling cause every one else told her that it didn't hurt at all.  So yeah, she didn't know what to think so she turned into a zombie trying to process it all.  ;)

After the double punch, which we opted for after seeing her pale face while just cleaning her earlobe, the tech said something to the effect like that didn't hurt too much.  Her reply, "actually it hurt quite a lot."  ;)  But if you asked her after we left the mall she said it didn't hurt at all, so who knows.

She picked out the sparkly flower.  She's been very good at cleaning and turning them, so she won't experience the fantastic infection like I experienced.  I think I was a great at cleaning and turning, but my memories are suspect because of the blocking out big chunks due to the pain of infection.  Maybe the infection came later.  Oh my crap, I can't remember a thing.  But this is about Miley. . .

Her biggest concern is matching her outfits to her earrings every day.  I told her she got the clear crystals for a reason, but it is still a process every morning.  ;)

When we were leaving she turned to me and said, "Mom, I feel like a teenager now."  I almost pulled those suckers right out of her head right there in the parking lot.  ;)

School's out. . . like a month ago, no actually a month ago

I'm posting what I got people, so here is more stuff from May, when I gave up blogging cause I was busy and tired and my arms fell off.

Here is Jovey's last nap on the way to school.  She got a 15 minute power nap most days.  I really hope that she never stops napping.  Her early morning wake up calls require a nap for her mama to stay sane.  ;)

Jovey felt like such a big kid going to speech therapy at a real live school.  She LOVED it.  She did really well and is extra excited that next year for pre-school I'll 'drop her off and leave.'  Yeah, she made sure to emphasize the leaving part.  Too independent.  I blame her sister.  Her other big concern was not having homework during the summer.  Miss Elaine made a folder of work for her to do, which she is so relieved about.  Yea for homework.  My kids are weird.  ;)

Miley is our little future librarian.  She became her classroom permanent librarian after she impressed her teacher with her library skills.  I don't know what those are.  I'm pretty sure she doesn't understand the dewey decimal yet.  Maybe because she could read and put them in alphabetical order.  I don't know, but either way she was excited to win a reading medal for reaching the goal of 100 books.  We actually stopped counting after we got to 100 so I don't know how many she read in the end.  Bummer.  She had to read books from all different categories and some specific topics, so it was fun.  She found that she loved reading Where the Sidewalk Ends, and The Light in the Attic, also she's a fan of biographies.  It was a good experience.  Her goal to read every book ever written has begun.

Miley's school year ended with a water party with the fire department spraying all the kids and then more water works as we drove away missing her school already.  Oh dear.  Every year.

 Now here we are in summer with these two sisters.  It's a good thing they really like each other and their only complaint about going to school was missing time spent together.

The trouble with long hair

These are Jovey's drawings of Dave and I.  Which is which?  She decided that after the hard work of doing one with all those details that she'd wait and finish the other the next day.  ;)

This is her self portrait.

Check the hair.  Maybe that is why she was too tired to give her Daddy a face, and well anything really.  Her hair is really long, or so she thinks.  ;)

So one morning she comes screaming panicking into my room, at the crack of dawn, of course.  I jump out of bed worried she was dying.  Dave doesn't jump out of bed so fast, so I beat him around the bed to the out of control child.  ;)

Jovey meanwhile turned to me and frantically asked if there was a spider or 'crotchcroach' down the back of her shirt. "Cause it tickles, Mom!"

Yeah, it turns out she wasn't used to having long hair, since I had twisted it the day before, and her hair was touching her back.

Thank you for the heart attack kid.

Paint under my nails

If May had a theme it would be paint.  Lots of painting.

Here Jovey was showing me how she could paint with both hands at the same time.  Ambidextrous, here we come.

I took her advice and totally practiced my left handed painting while doing our kitchen and living room, including ceilings. . .

It saved my right arm some serious pain, but not my neck, cause ceilings hate, well everyone.  It's all done now, the ceiling I mean.  Hallelujah.  Some more trim work to do in the girls room, and closet doors.  Painting never ends.

Because I didn't have enough paint permanently on my hands, we decided to start our summer art projects with a study of Jackson Pollock.  We watched a documentary and then drip/splatter/smeared our way to some awesome art.

It's now hung in my kitchen.  Boom.  And I got to spray the girls with the hose as 'clean up'.  Win.

Then I got a letter from the HOA saying my gate needs paint.  Dang.  They were right, unfortunately.  That was the least fun painting of the month.  But it's done.  And my hands are now red.  It's like a tan, so I'll not worry about it.  ;)

Oh and Jovey dropped a bottle of nail polish in my bathroom.  Shattered.  Turquoise.  Turns out it doesn't come off of grout.  And now I'm ready to do some re-tiling.  Maybe that will be next month's theme?  Or I'll live with it.

Water all the time

This is what our summers are made of. . . water, the colder the better.  ;)

Take my picture

Miley is ALMOST eight!!  So we made her model in the desert.

Her mustache picture. . . it was a tad breezy.

Brit's all about service.  Giving the whiny model a ride through the pricker bushes.

So excited to see more. . .?  Me too.

Here's the model in action. . .