Sick day

Today I stayed home with Caitrin and Eric. They both weren't feeling very well. Learning from 2 and a half kids ago, you don't leave a sick kid home with a sick dad. The equation just doesn't add up. Caitrin wanted to take a nap in her Cottage... I didn't have a problem with that. We inherited this Cottage from some friend of ours, their girls our grew it so they passed it down to us.
We got her all snuggled in with pillows and blankets. She didn't ask to have any of her dolly's, teddy's, of stuffed animals with her. Oh no.... she had to have the real deal......

What's a cottage without a trusty guard? Adella would be so lost without her kids.

"High Heels" (????)

For Easter, we went out and got the girls their Easter dresses, and of course we had to get shoes/sandals to match. Since Trent has taken a growth spurt every two weeks for the last 3 months, I knew the boy needed some nice clothes and shoes too. When we went to Payless, he saw the Airwalk version of the Converse All Star shoes (and much cheaper too!). He had to have them!! They were on sale so we agreed. Now the girls aren't allowed to wear their shoes until Easter. With Trent, I gave the go ahead just because he needed shoes and they weren't anything fancy.

The other night we went to Wal-Mart. When I say "we" I mean Eric and I, plus 5 kids in tow. And mind you it was around the 8pm hour. Surprisingly we made it through our trip with no one crying, hitting, screaming or knocking any endcaps over. (Yes, this has happened many times). As we were leaving through the "Exit" doors, people were trying to come in, going against the currant. Trent had noticed that it just rained and there were mud puddles everywhere. While the people were coming at us, he seemed to be doing a dance on his tippy toes and what looked like the potty dance.
Kind of annoyed I asked him what the heck he was doing.

In the middle of the crowd of people he cried " I don't want to get my high heels wet!"

Eric and I just put our heads down and pushed through, hoping no one in the crowd recognized us.

Trent didn't want to get the white parts dirty after the rain.

Advice from a (almost) 4 year old....

Since it's spring break here, I told the older two kids that they had to have their rooms cleaned if they wanted to go anywhere this week.
Yesterday when I got home from work all the chores, including their rooms were done. I had a sense of satisfaction.
This morning as I was getting ready for work, I noticed that Tarren's room was a mess again. I kind of scolded her in letting her know that it hadn't even been 24 hours of her room being cleaned and it was right back to where she started yesterday morning. Caiti over heard our conversation and thought she had to chime in.

Caiti: You know Tarren, (with her hands on her hips) when you take things out and play with them, you should ALWAYS put them back. And that way your room will never be messy.

Here's a snap shot of Caiti's room......

She's got the "do as I say, and not as I do" part down really well.

Highlights

I have been promising Tarren a haircut for a while. Time just flies by and I didn't realize that her hair was that bad with major dead ends. She has been begging for highlights since her birthday back in October.I was kind of torn at the decision... Is she too young? Eric and I talked it over and decided that she's a very responsible girl, and does a lot for us in helping around the house. She deserves to be rewarded. She knew of the haircut, but the highlights were a surprise to her. She was shocked. I asked her how she wanted her hair, if she wanted bangs, thick or thin chunks? She didn't know what the heck she wanted.

I informed the lady that I didn't want thick chunks in her hair, a weave would suit her just fine. I didn't want her first highlights to look totally hoaky. Then Tarren asked me is she could have bangs. I, for the most part, don't do bangs with the girls, it's one less thing for me to deal with. But she's old enough to make some decisions in regards to her body/hair, and she's well old enough to take care of her own hair.

And the final result is.......................................

Needless to say, she was very excited on how her hair turned out. Dad claims that she looks just a little bit older, which saddens him.

If only.....

For Christmas Tarren received some sample shampoo and conditioners from Bath & Body Works. She had rediscovered them last week and decided to try them. The particular one she wanted to try out was some sort of stress relieving serum... I didn't pay to much attention to it other than it being in pretty green bottles.

This morning while I was in the shower getting ready for work, I saw the bottles and thought I would try them out. They smelled good.

In our house, we have an open door policy, so Tarren came into the bathroom while I was showering.


Tarren - Mom, are you using my shampoo and conditioner?
Me - Yeah, they smelled good. Sorry, I should have asked
Tarren - That's okay, do you like them?
Me - Sure.
Tarren - Did it take away all your stress?


The thought was genuine and sincere because she knows about my high stress levels lately, but I had to smile and reply "yeah, some of it".

Oh to be 11 years old, and be so naive to the thought of a simple bottle of shampoo and conditioner taking away all your problems. I'm not ready to take away her rose colored glasses, yet.

Go Saints!!

I dug this picture out of my wallet, so it's a little worn. As you can see, we've been Saint's fan for a long time. This is Trenton when he was about 2, close to 3. It also helped that Eric's parents were living across the river from New Orleans at that time.

Note: He is nowhere near blonde anymore... that makes me sad.

Tarren's Recital

Tarren's recital was a little over a week ago. (Just a lil late on posting). This was the first one she had ever been in. The paper called for her hair to be "half up and curly". I called Jonnie in to do Tarren's hair since I never quite learned how to do mine, I always had her. I think it took close to an hour. As I dropped Tarren off at her class room, I ran into one of my nieces, Hannah. You can't tell Tarren is nervous at all.
I didn't get any pictures of the dance routine because I have a camera that would just take really dark pictures. We were in the far back corner, so no matter how hard I tried nothing was coming out worth a darn.

She was given flowers by her Grandma Hart. I absolutely LOVE this picture. With Tarren being 11 going on 25, I don't know a thing about a thing or two. We constantly fight. So when I held up the camera to take the picture, she quickly gave me a kiss. Affection is few and far in between with her, I only pray that it's a pre-teen thing she's going through.