Oh, Mannion!

For those of you who get the weekly update email, this will be a repeat, but hey, I already wrote it once, I might as well reuse it. Here are some of the highlights of the events of our last couple of weeks.

1. Chloe went fishing again in her tank, dumped one can of fishfood into the tank, and one all over the floor. She's lucky my friend was over, because I'm not going to kill her when someone is watching.

2. Addie has been the blowout queen. I sat there and watched as the blowout stain on the back of her onesie got bigger and bigger as the rumbles from her bottom continued, helpless to do anything. Worst of all, I was on my way to begin the process of changing this nightmare when I discovered Chloe's fishing trip.

3. Chloe has been dressing herself. The other day she took off what I'd put on her, then reemerged from her room wearing an upside down bodysuit with a turtleneck as a skirt. After her shower, she put the same outfit on again, but put the bodysuit on the right way. Obviously, this was not an accidental outfit.


4. Addie has discovered how to shriek. Loudly. Continuously. She has also learned how to cough for fun. It has replaced shrieking as her favorite sound. I personally would prefer the shrieking.

5. Bracken has finished one of his classes, and all the homework for the other. We actually had family home evening with the whole family. We made puzzle piece wreaths. It was a lot of fun.

6. Ruth relandscaped the front yard. I really felt like I was becoming my mother as I became aware of what a huge project I had unwittingly stepped into. And all because I wanted to dig up and split my bulbs, which was very exciting. Stop laughing. As I dug up my gladiolus and found hundreds of bulbs under the ground, I really felt like I'd found buried treasure. Yes, Mom would be proud.

7. We got the Christmas decorations put up. It was nice to be able to put up the Christmas Village, and discover all the other hidden decorations in the boxes of Christmas village stuff. If there's some decoration you're looking for, but haven't found, let me know. I may have it. I was amazed at how long it took to put everything up. I don't know if it was because I had so much more, or because I had more kids, or because I needed to spend more time finishing the front yard project, but it seemed to be a problem of "more" one way or the other.

8. We had our first date since Addie was born. The girls stayed with Bracken's parents while we went to a Christmas party with friends. It was nice to be able to spend a little time together. Addie was also really good while we were gone, which makes us feel hopeful about future dates. I also got to go shopping by myself Saturday, which was so enjoyable. The process of getting out the door with two is often more daunting than I can handle, and that's not including the whole shopping experience.

9. I turned 31. It was a pretty uneventful birthday. I did go to a cookie exchange that evening. The plan was to get enough cookies to be able to distribute to friends, but they really only got distributed to my family. Yum.