Happy Birthday to me, part 1

So a couple weeks ago I was attempting to tackle my piles of laundry. I was actually making progress. ... I was down to my last batch. I went in to the laundry room to change the batch and realized there was water standing in the bottom of the washer. It had quit in the middle of the cycle. Oh dear. I called my mom... she told me to see if I could at least get it to spin the water out. I could, so I went ahead and dried it. Then I told Chad I had a great idea of what to do for date night... go shopping for a new washer! Yea!! So fun.

I spent the next several hours looking on-line at information on washing machines. I narrowed it down to a GE something-or-other. We dropped the kids at a friend's house for a couple hours, with a bargain that we'd bring pizza back for dinner. Then we went to 2 stores. I didn't get the GE something-or-other. I ended up getting a Samsung something-or-other. I LOVE it! It is faster and cleans better than my old one. And it spins the water out better, cutting down the drying time. We are going to get the dryer in a few months because my old dryer is still functioning.

So this isn't exactly what I was hoping to get for my birthday, but, as it turns out, I love it. Oh, and Claire loves it too. Last night she discovered that she can open it and put her baby's clothes in it, and push all kinds of buttons and it will make all kinds of exciting beeps. So Chad went ahead and turned on the "child lock" feature. (I hope I can figure out how to turn that off when I do my laundry today.)

A new post

This new post will just be an overview of the last 3 months of craziness. Long but with pictures.

--2 soccer games, 2 nights a week for 6 weeks. Good thing they had fun, and Caleb got to be much more aggressive (which is a good thing in soccer).

--First grade is going great--Caleb loves math and recess.

--I'm doing a preschool co-op for Natalie. She loves it, and it gives me time to get some errands taken care of with only one child in tow.

--We all got a stomach bug. On different nights of the same week. I was SO tired by the end of that week!!

--Claire had swine flu, and fortunately it was a really mild case. No one else has gotten it, yet. (Knock on wood...)

--Claire is mostly potty trained. Hooray! The others were well past their 3rd birthday before they were. It is so wonderful, although I do spend more time in public restrooms than I would like to.

--Halloween was fun. Caleb was an indian. Natalie was super-girl. Claire was going to be a clown, but that was the weekend she was sick, so she didn't actually didn't get to go, which was sad for me because I'd made her a really cute costume. Sorry I didn't take pictures.

--Natalie turned 5. She is such a girl. And spoiled, which is mostly my fault. I made her cake, and used fondant for the first time. It was fun.

--Chad and I celebrated our anniversay--8 years! I'm so glad we got married because we are a great team. For our date that weekend we went out to dinner and then to the high school football game. It brought back a lot of high school memories for me. Weird. But we had lots of fun.

--I planted a few things in a garden this Spring. We got a pumpkin, some zucchini (is there anyone in this world that CAN'T grow zucchini?), and some carrots. I'd planted lettuce but none grew, I think because I planted it too late. Anyway. We got some HUGE zucchinis.

--My mom made this adorable tutu for Claire and she loves it! She puts on the leotard and the ballet slippers... the whole 9 yards. She cracks me up.

--Natalie is taking violin lessons... We've started on the "Twinkles" and she's loving it. Caleb is taking piano lessons and has already had his first recital, where he played "Old McDonald."

Thats all I can think of for now.

P.S. I am horrible at taking pictures. On the rare occassion I remember to get the camera out the pictures just aren't that great. Sorry. But at least you can tell my kids are cute.