Holy Crap! Someone else cooked dinner!

Tonight Alex & Maryssa worked together to cook our family dinner.

Did you get that? Read it again.

WOOOOOO!

Here is what they set out to create:

And here is what dinner looked like:

It was really good, and I didn't even have to do the dishes (thanks, Pete!)

Let's hope this is a new trend!

Em

Birthday Party #13

Having birthday parties for kids is a parental responsibility that we all have a love/hate relationship with.

On the one hand, you're happy to see your child grow, get older, smarter and progress through the next phase. You feel proud of them (and yourself) for making it to these milestones and you are happy to celebrate with them.

On the other hand, they are growing older, and they'll never be 2, 6 or 10 years old again. It's sad to see those days pass. Pride in your child is often overshadowed by the knowledge that things are changing and will continue to change regardless of your desire to keep them just like this for just a little bit longer.

Also, throwing birthday parties is hard work. And doing it for a set of twin girls throws another layer on top of that.

This year, the girls turned 13 and requested (with much begging and pleading) a sleep over. Thinking that this would get me off the hook for other activities, I agreed. Not knowing that what they meant was a sleep over PLUS all the other normal birthday activities.

I'm pleased to say that this past weekend we survived an invasion of eight 13-year-old girls for an overnight party that included an Amazing Race-themed scavenger hunt, make-your-own pizza dinner, cake and singing, movies and assorted girl-style activities.

I'm still recovering, and the girls will probably never catch up on their sleep. But we made it through and now all I have to do is wait an worry until they are 14 and goodness only knows what will be required of me then.

Em

A for Effort?

The girls are home for the Summer. Remember Summer break? How awesome it was to be home doing nothing? I remember not having to do homework, sleeping late and watching movies all day.

Well, my girls get a lot of that, but I also make them do a few chores every day. Nothing difficult or strenuous, mind you, just things like empty the dishwasher, or fold some clothes. And mostly they do a really good job.

Except yesterday.

Yesterday, they folded an entire basket of DIRTY clothes and dutifully delivered them to my room (they were all mine and Pete's clothes.)

I can understand the mistake - their chore was to "fold clean laundry" and I wasn't very specific about exactly where said clean laundry was. However, there was clean laundry IN THE DRYER that they did not touch.

I'm not sure if I can give them an "A" for effort or not. I'm thinking more of a C+.

Em

Technology marches on

Last night there was a Bourne movie on. So guess what we did? We watched it (you can't not watch a Bourne movie.) Then there was another one on after it! So we watched that one to.

You know how at the end of The Bourne Ultimatum, Jason Bourne gives all those classified documents to the lady CIA agent, and she goes inside and sends it in so that she can expose the bad guys? Well, do you remember how she does that? She FAXES it in.

So as she is sending the document, Alex who is sitting right next to me says, "What's that?" and I said "It's a fax machine." 

And then she said, "What does that do?"

So there you have it folks. Fax machines are officially OUT. The next generation has never even heard of them. 

Related: I'm feeling a little old today.

Em