I don't know if this is as funny as it is disgusting.

We have had lots of runny noses around here lately and I said to Noel "go get a tissue." Well, she went straight to the bathroom waste basket, opened the lid, pulled out a soggy wad of used tissue and very proudly wiped her face with it. YUCK.

Birthday Week

Help! I'm addicted to Ebay!

...So I've officially added it to "my favorites," my eyes are fogging over from staring at the screen for hours, and although I've only bid on and purchased one item (so far), I'm starting to abbreviate everything (EUC, NIP...) and use words like "webinar" in everyday conversation. I admit it was craigslist for awhile, but it was a kind of drudgery, like an alcoholic compelled to drink two six-packs of Busch every day. Nothing good ever came of it. I haven't even looked at craigslist since this afternoon!
Gotta run, an auction is ending.

Trevor the politician...or maybe used car salesman

Todd's department at work celebrated its 100th birthday last week and we took the family to a dinner event. The kids behaved very well for the most part. Trevor sat through dinner without too much fidgeting, then it was time for the speeches. The department head (ask Todd for an impersonation of her husky voice if you want a laugh) began the lengthy introductions. Here's how it went: she delivered her punchline, hahaha polite laughter...two beats...Trevor's fake and hearty chuckle (loud) followed by sincere cracking up. And so it went for several minutes. I am just about to fall off my chair thinking about it now.
We did not stay for the speakers.

Date Night

My apologies for no new pictures; the children are adorable and sweet, but somehow we cannot locate the charger for our camera battery. You'll have to trust me that they're cute. Trevor's latest hobby is making great piles of stuff--toys, books, clothing, framed pictures, pillows--piling it all up and calling it something, like a barricade or something, I'm usually too annoyed by then to care much about the creative process. Although I admit I had to laugh today when he took a painting I recently purchased at a used art sale and stacked it on the piled-up couch and called it the gummer. Noel's favorite activities now involve crawling quickly toward the stairs, chewing on electrical cords, putting shoes in her mouth (she also likes the little white thing from the bottom of the toilet), wrapping my purse strap or any other ribbonlike object around her neck. She wouldn't last twenty minutes on her own. She also loves the baby swing (whew, she's restrained) and makes a happy noise when I ask if she wants to swing. She points at airplanes in the sky and waves at everyone. What a cutie pie.
Last week was our anniversary and we celebrated the beginning of our sixth year together by going out on a date. It works like this: You hire a sitter and leave your children at home while you go do stuff you wouldn't normally do with children. We went out to dinner* and then it was a toss-up between going to home depot to look at flooring samples and taking in a movie. We went with the movie. A movie theater is a series of large rooms filled with soft chairs, and in each room there is a different movie which is projected onto a large screen. Sometimes people eat popcorn and drink pop. I might do it again; it's cheaper than a new floor.
*Dinner out is something you can do with children, but it's usually about getting to the end of the meal so you can leave before your 3 year old asks you to take him to the bathroom for the fourth time. I guess Block 15 does have pretty nice bathrooms. Plus minors aren't allowed in the bar area of Aqua, where you can get a fabulous meal off the happy hour menu, plus two beers for Todd and a weird rooibos-infused cocktail for me (not recommended) for under $30.

Not-so-green Confession

I love bleach. Yeah, that's right. Good Ole sodium hypochlorite. I don't use it often because I must have heard somewhere that it's not good for kids (or adults) to breathe or ingest it. But now and again my towels get stinky and I can't think of anything else to do but break out the strong stuff. Also, around about January when everyone's got the stomach bug, I get paranoid and go around and bleach all the door handles and such...as if one day of compulsive cleaning will protect us from months of domestic neglect. But still, my kitchen towels have a nice clean bleachy smell right now and none of us barfed in January.
Don't tell me about the eco friendly alternative that works for you...because I have tea tree oil and I have oxiclean (like them both) but sometimes the only thing to do is pull out the big guns.

I can't even catch up now.

So I'll just summarize and skip ahead. My sister Donna and niece Elizabeth visited for three weeks and helped us move. If anyone needs help moving, I recommend having Donna help you. She also watched the kids a bunch and fed Trevor gelato every day and Noel cheerios. It seems like we did a lot of stuff while they were here, but the time flew by.
Noel has been crawling everywhere and pulling up on stuff and eating lots of food even without any teeth. I'm pretty sure that it's all that sitting and standing that is disrupting her (and my) sleep. Trevor has been saying the funniest things, as usual. The other day as we were walking by our neighborhood cemetery, Todd said "that's where the dead people live." On the way back by, we saw a woman jogging through, and Trevor asked "Is she dead?" The day before that, a baby squirrel fell out of a tree in front of our house. He was really worried about it and fussing over it and then he said "can we have it for dinner?" In case PETA is scanning this blog, I'll have you know we brought the baby to the wildlife rescue center and he's doing well.