No More Playing Oatmeal

Right about the time Molly was born my Mom got us a bunch of oatmeal so we could set up an oatmeal playing station at our house. Lucy first discovered this at the library when we went for story time. My Mom came with us one day and saw how much Lucy loved playing in the oatmeal, so decided we needed out own at home. It was great for a while and both girls have loved playing in it.

The oatmeal box used to be upstairs in our dining room, but I got tired of always having to clean up the mess, so moved it downstairs. I've recently decided that our oatmeal playing times are over because I'm so tired of cleaning it up! The box that it's in was pretty much completely full when we started with this game and now it has next to nothing left in it. The girls just dump it out wherever they want and I get to clean it up. So, it was fun while it lasted, but we're no longer playing oatmeal in our house!

Not Caring More Than Caring

Some days I'm really good at caring about cleaning up and putting everything in it's place. But, on the day I took this picture, and on most days if I'm honest, I just did not care. Basically, I didn't care more than I cared. This is our living room that is basically the play room. It stores our kitchen and laundry set. The Doc McStuffins station. The table and chairs, high chair and doll cradle. Next to the piano is a cube storage bin that has books, puzzles, musical instruments, and several other toys the girls play with.

I just get sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo tired of cleaning it up, just to have it messed up five minutes later. (No joke on the five minutes later.) So for now, I'm choosing to be okay with the fact that my house is messy because I just don't care more than I do care.

My Keys Are In The Car

I had quite the morning one day last September that I've never gotten around to writing about, so here you go!

One Thursday morning I dropped Lucy off at preschool and went to the bank. I usually go through the drive-thru at the bank, but this time had business to take care of that couldn't be done through the drive-thru. 

I got out of the van and opened Molly's door. I saw her shoes and toys on the floor, and also saw a book fall out onto the ground. Of course, I thought to myself that this would make a great blog post - all of the stuff that Molly throws on the floor during a car ride - and wanted to take a picture of it. I threw my bag and keys on the van floor and got my phone to take a picture. I then proceeded to get Molly's shoes on and grabbed everything to head into the bank. 

I went about my business in the bank and Molly was being very good while I waited for the teller to help me. For whatever reason I started thinking about my keys and went to look for them. They weren't in my bag. Molly didn't have them. They weren't around my wrist or in my pockets. So, I picked up Molly and headed outside to see if they were in my van. I had a sinking feeling they were, and I was right. My keys were on the floor, OF MY LOCKED VAN, where my bag had been. I'd thrown my keys in, along with my bag, when picking up all the toys that Molly had thrown on the floor and forgot to make sure I had my keys before closing the door. 

I now had to figure out how to get home! I knew that we had a spare key in our shed and if I could just get home, I could use the spare key to get inside. I had to get home because our new dishwasher was being installed that day and I wasn't quite sure when the install man would arrive, but I knew it was sometime in the morning. I was waiting on his phone call for that information. I wasn't too worried about getting my van home because my Mom was coming into town sometime that day and had a spare key to my van, so could help me with that part.  

I could call Ross, but he wouldn't be able to help. He was halfway to Cabool for work. 

The bank is only 1.2 miles from our house, so I thought I could walk home. But, that would be a L-O-N-G walk with a toddler in tow and I'd probably have to carry her most of the way.

I was about to cry when I thought of calling my neighbors to see if they could help me. Cindy is a professor at Missouri State and Mike is a pharmaceutical sales rep. Their schedules vary and I remember seeing both of their cars at home when I left, which was only about 15 minutes before all of this happened. I tried calling Cindy first, but she didn't answer. I called Mike and I could tell he was a bit surprised to hear from me. I explained my situation and he said he would be there in five minutes to get me. Thank God! Especially since he said he was just about ready to leave for work, heading to Cabool of all places. :) 

I was so happy to see Mike pull into the bank parking lot! I rode in the front seat, with Molly sitting on my lap (totally illegal!), and no joke, as Mike pulled into my driveway the dishwasher install man pulled up to my house. I had never received a call from him saying he was on his way, so this was all absolute PERFECT timing! 

I got the spare key out of my shed and got us all in the house and the dishwasher was installed. 

So, the story continues........

My Mom came over, literally right as the dishwasher install man was leaving, and took Molly and I up to the bank to pick up my van. I'm so thankful that she had a spare key! I got back home five minutes before the roofer shows up to look at a few spots on our roof. And to top it off, right as he comes to the door, Molly went to the door to greet him wearing no clothes or diaper. (She was in a "I'm going to take off my diaper stage at this time.)  

This was certainly quite the day and ever since then I have been very, very anal about my keys. I double-, sometimes triple-check to make sure I have my keys before closing my van doors. 

Rain Boots

It was raining here one morning and I had Lucy wear her rain boots to the gym. She looked so cute in with them on, especially with her flowered pants and pink, tutu skirt. I just had to snap a picture!

Rapunzel's Hair

Lucy got a Rapunzel doll last fall for finally pooping in the potty. Rapunzel has really, really, really long hair and I should have braided it and made it stay braided once we got her out of the box. I didn't, and because of that her hair became a big rat's nest. It was really bugging me, so I decided to try and fix it. I found some posts online about using a mixture of fabric softner and water to easily get tangles out of doll hair, so tried it. I didn't think it worked as magically as some of the posts said, but I did manage to get all of the tangles out of Rapunzel's hair. She lost quite a bit of hair, but she didn't seem to mind. ;)