Ten on Tuesday

1. Michael lost a tooth this week. That night I went to "check" on him and he woke up! He knows I often check on him so it was no surprise to see me. I must say that the tooth fairy is sneaky. She is amazing at the tricks she can pull. I do love these unplanned moments that turn into special one on one time with my kids. We cuddled up on his pillow and talked together. After a while he remembered he had lost a tooth. He found his tooth gone and four shiny quarters under his pillow. I loved his excitement and joy and his cute little thought process. We have this tooth pillow that we couldn't find, so we put his tooth in an envelope and wrote a message and Michael signed it. When he found it gone he said, "The tooth fairy took my letter. It's like she's the mail tooth fairy. I think she's going to take it to her castle and read it!"

2. As Michael and I talked I noticed there was static electricity when Michael rubbed his head on his pillow. We had fun rubbing our heads trying to create lots of static AND THEN the cat walked in. We took the pillow and rubbed it up and down the cat's belly and paws. It was like a mini 4th of July. This all happened LATE at night. Everybody was asleep and we were rubbing a pillow against a cat.

(Walking through the crunchy fall leaves and creating static electricity are a couple of childhood joys I never grew out of.)

3. "Chomper" was the king of the fish tank. He was Green terror cichlid and we had him for two years. He was Steven's favorite fish, but he was nobody else's favorite. Chomper was kind of a bully. We could tell he was dying, so Steven flushed him... except he wouldn't go down!  So Steven threw him away. He probably froze at the bottom on our garbage can.

R.I.P. Chomper.

(a look-a-like)

4. Steven and I did some more painting in the girl's room. As we were working together on the ceiling, I commented that, "it looked like people threw darts at the ceiling" realizing as I spoke, the "people" was Steven. We are renting the house that Steven grew up in and this room use to be his room. Besides the Chinese stars and dart holes, I also found STEVE carved into the windowsill. Our own little "If wall could talk."

5. Rachel stood for probably 15 seconds unassisted (though it felt much longer, I was so excited for her). I don't think she realized she did it. She was standing by the rocking chair and got interested in a piece of fluff she found and needed both hands to study it. When she dropped it, she just held the chair and bend down to pick it up. Nothing to it.

6. The last couple of days Sarah has been helping me in the kitchen. She'll come in and start helping me unload dishes or pull up a chair to stir to pot. It's very cute to hear her tell me she wants to help. 

7. It is amazing what planning for visitors can do to a house. I just want you to know my house is super clean, as of now. So the kids are not aloud to eat, play or for that matter, move.

8. Last night I think we had a skunk visiting our back yard. I woke up to feed Rachel and I could smell skunk really well throughout the house. Luckily the smell vanished by the time I was heading back to bed. Could you imagine, a skunk getting stuck in your wall. What would that do to a house?

9. Melissa came over Wednesday and wanted to practice using a marshmallow fondant recipe that she found. We made cakes in the name of Valentine's Day. We both learned a few things along the way, but I must say I am happy with how mine turned out. The fondant was much better tasting than I've ever bought.

10. I sat down and played the piano on Sunday. It's been forever! I am happy to say, I didn't play as bad as I thought I would. I played from the hymn book and children's songbook. It's really hard to be dedicated to practicing, so until I can get back into practicing and taking lessons, I am going to start playing on Sunday's. It really was enjoyable. Jacob was sitting at the table drawing and started singing along to my playing. I loved it.