Remember those long days of summer?  Where you had day after day of ‘nothing to do’ and how great it was?  There was plenty of time and all of your friends were around to ‘do nothing’ with you?

Two weeks of jammed packed fun and my kids are headed back to school. Two weeks isn’t even long enough to get bored.

While I’m thrilled to be sending them it’s a false start.  They start tomorrow.  Cori goes for an hour tomorrow and then doesn’t go back until NEXT Wednesday.  The other girls go tomorrow and then have short days and no school on Friday. Then they go for two weeks and two days before their first ‘break’ when they get four days and three weeks off.

The good news?  Because of Chinese kindergarten I have FIVE HOURS a day with no kids home.  What to do?  I’m sure I’ll figure something out.

I have four girls. We’ve had lots of Barbies funnel through our house (and leave decapitated and in a body bag garbage sack).  I can’t believe I never knew what I just learned today.  I’m going to share the secret of ‘fixing’ Barbie hair. You know how the hair in the box looks perfect?  How if your kids would just leave it alone it’d be fine?  But moments after taking it out of the box (which takes scissors, pliers and a good 30 minutes) they’ve ripped out all the hairbands and usually gotten it wet already?  Then what you have is a tangled, fizzy mess.  I had a Barbie for a cake and it needed a makeover hair-wise.  I wish now I’d taken before and after pictures.  But I didn’t- sorry.  Anyway- I washed the hair with dish soap (Ajax I think) and then rinsed it and then I diluted some Downy in some water (probably 1/3 cup of water to 2 Tablespoons of Downy- but I just winged it) and then dipped Barbie’s hair in the water. It absorbed it really fast actually- and then I gently combed it out.  It very quickly smoothed out and I could ‘do’ her hair- which I used diluted elmer’s glue to hold it in place.  Give it a try- let me know if it works for you!

Okay- that may be a little dramatic- but did I get your attention?

So I was kissing Steve and had to literally ‘come up for air’.  Mostly because I can’t breath out of my nose because I’m so congested.  It shows how much he must love me to kiss me even when I’m sick. Of course by then I was laughing so hard that he didn’t get any more kisses…  so romantic.

TMI?  Sorry about that.

In other news my sister is here visiting and we’re going to live it up at IKEA today.  Crossing our fingers that the kid play place has openings since we’ve got 5 kids in tow (and 3 of mine are at school!)

This weekend I’m going to the Casual Blogger Conference.  I guess if any type of blogging defines me ‘casual’ is it right?  Lately I blog once a week on a good week and twice a month usually.  I won tickets (I’m too cheap to pay for tickets even) to attend.  I’m actually VERY excited. There are all sorts of classes on fun things that I want to learn about and socials with other bloggers (many of whom I already know) and I got a hotel with some friends for Friday night.  I can’t tell you how excited I am to have some ‘me’ time and spend time with friends and use my brain for something besides figuring out how many loads of laundry I do a week just to ’stay on top of it’.  (Answer?  Minimum of 19 depending on how many times a day how many people decide to pee their pants.)  I get to dress up and wear make up and jewelery and only worry about myself.  I’m calling it a ‘business trip’.  Then I giggle to myself.  Really it’s not- it’s a vacation where I get to pretend to be a grown up..  Shh.. don’t tell anyone.

I felt very productive- even though my house looks completely neglected.

I made this cake:

Then I delivered it with the assistance of Megan (and even though I wasn’t really wanting to bring her with me it turned out she was a great assistant!)

I coached my last soccer game of the season (yay!)  I don’t have a picture of that though.

I started painting my bathroom. I hung wallpaper and did the first coat where the wallpaper wasn’t.  (Is it wallpaper or wall paper?)


What? It doesn’t look painted? These are the before pictures. I’ll paint the after pictures shortly.

I also cut Ashley’s hair.

Before:

After:

Are you noticing that Ashley can’t get her picture taken by herself? Yeah- me too. Good thing she was an only child for almost 4 years huh- those might be the only pictures she’s ever in by herself.

So how was your weekend? Did you do anything fun?