Catching up

Oh, poor abandoned blog o' mine how I've neglected you. All of my adoring fans have had nothing new to read here for a couple of weeks. Good thing you still love me! I'll get you all caught up so sit back and relax a spell.

And to think, I am toying with the idea of starting another blog. Wonder if I can double-blog? I want to write one that is focused on product reviews. I have a lot of stuff, and even more opinions! I guess it would mostly be reviews about toys and householdy type of things, I'm sure there are a thousand mom-bloggers that review products already. But really, it would be nice to get my opinions out there just so I feel that I have a voice. Now the hard part... what should I call it?

Katie and Andrew came home for two weeks! Loved it! You probably figured that out though because in my last post Katie is in the beach photos. That, and I told you more than a hundred times. Didn't I? Well, I told someone repeatedly and now I don't remember who knew and who didn't. My girls can tell you that I'm famous for that. I tell one of them the same thing five times and I think I told them both.

I'm also famous for saying I'll do something, but then I don't. Even though I do this, I hate it when other people do it! But I tend to say Yes too quickly, then realizing what I just got myself into, freaking out about it, and then ducking out. Usually not very gracefully. I did this twice to Katie and Andrew while they were home.

Their flights got all messed up on the way here and they landed at LAX instead of Ontario. So Katie called me from Washington DC and begs me to pick them up at LAX later in the afternoon. Of course, she was upset because their flights got all switched around and that meant they lost their ride from Ontario to home. To ease her mind, of course I agreed to pick them up. Then I looked it up on the map. No freaking way! The map looked like a tangled ball of yarn and I'm supposed to find my way around in that mess with two little runts in the back seat? Nobody who can help me navigate? No way! Of course, I couldn't tell them that I changed my mind until after they landed and discovered I wasn't there as promised. They had to take a bus to the train station and take a train to Ontario, then my husband picked them up and took them to that airport to get their luggage.

I'm famous for getting lost too; can you imagine how long I would have driven around LA trying to find the airport? I shudder at the thought.

Because the kids never learn, they asked me again. And because I never learn, I said Yes, sure I'll take you to the airport when you have to leave. No problemo! They had to fly out early in the morning, eh, ok, I can do early. I really should have said "define early", but I didn't. By "early in the morning" they meant that we had to leave the house no later than 3:30am. Well, kids, that's not morning! That's the middle of the night! My husband had to step in and run the taxi service again. Mom taxi is quickly becoming Dad-Taxi. I kinda like that!

Lexie is just past the mid-point of her pregnancy. Baby is half-baked! I took her to an ultrasound portrait studio. So cool! She got a good long look at her munchkin, a dvd and some printed photos. This was so much better than the doctor's office, plus she got to bring anyone she wanted. She had a small audience of four, and I was happy to be one of them. Of course, I was paying. She's really doing well; I'm proud of how healthy she is despite her 18ness. Teenagers are so lucky! Fast food, crazy sleep schedules, working hard and pregnant - she's awesome.

I think I'm turning into my mother. This is a good thing, but sometimes a little bit nutty. I'm understanding more of the nutty things my mom does and starting to think they aren't nutty at all. Of course, if I do it, it's not nutty!

My mom always takes pictures of us when we are all together - no matter what we look like! Drives us all crazy, but we smile at her camera even though we know she's going to adore this picture of us looking awful. She's taken pictures of me and my sisters and brother all together when we were road weary, wearing comfy traveling clothes, no makeup, ratty pony tails, tired, or just woke up. When Katie and Andrew were home, Lexie came over and the five of them were together but never photoshoot-ready. Didn't matter. I snapped pictures and gushed over them! And I suddenly understood my mom better, or maybe I'm just nutty.

The little princesses are constantly busy. Libby learned how to go down the slide on her bottom rather than flipping over to her belly and going feet first that way. She lands with a bump, but she keeps going back for more. She can't get up to the top of the slide by herself, her sister helps her with that feat. I always seem to miss it too. Gracie says she helps Libby. Libby says, "Hup".

Libby's vocabulary is growing like crazy! She says all sorts of things, mostly nouns. She is much more verbal than Gracie was at her age, but she's right in there with Katie and Lexie and how they learned to talk. Gracie was my quiet child. How is that possible? She never stops talking and she yells every word!

So, there you have it my adoring fans. The update. I'm talking to you, all four of you!

Life is about to get back to normal around here. We had two weeks of Katie home followed by a week of Daddy home on his spring break. Next week, it'll be back to just me and the littles. I think they will be disappointed with the lack of chaos so I'll have to take them for some fun outings.