Weekend catch up

Almost time to go back to school, friends.

Not me, necessarily.  I don't teach until September 2, but my meetings start on August 25, so here I am blogging away while the photocopier prints 800 copies of a speech for the next 20 minutes.  I have been working from the copy room for 2 hours this morning making thousands upon thousands of rainbow-colored copies and sending eleventy billion (that's the actual number) emails. And YES there is someone who makes copies in this department, but I have a really idiosyncratic method of gathering my materials, and it doesn't translate well to instructions.

I want to go to the pool this week, so I am trying to cram a bunch of work into this 60-degree (WHAT THE FREAKING HELL?) day.

We had another sensational weekend, starting Thursday night at the pool where Jack and Harry dove and belly flopped and I lounged in the sun reading and staring at Facebook on my phone.

Thursday night, Beatrix discovered her preferred dinner spot.

But I am her favorite spot after the kids go to bed.

Friday we slept in and had a relaxing morning before packing up the kids and the dog and heading to my parents' house for a couple of days.

As you can see, Beatrix was super bad in the car.

So was Cooper.

And she continued her reign of terror when we got to Pekin.

On Friday night after the kids went to bed, we drank several French martinis, and I was tipsy.  So tipsy that going to bed, I woke up ALL OF THE BABIES including the dog.  Ben slept with the dog, and I slept with Dorothy and Cooper who were both very kicky.  But we discovered that the dog sleeps beautifully and doe snot need to use the bathroom and has no accidents if she is on Ben's face and shoulder.  SCORE.  I knew those separate beds were brilliant.

On Saturday, we bought life insurance from my best friend since first grade.

Dorothy thinks the rug in my parents' living room is the Big! Red! Mat! at the Little Gym.  Pretty cute. She banged her drums, galloped around the perimeter (a 16 month-old galloping is about the cutest thing in the world) and did a few forward rolls, too.

You know I love zoos, so on Saturday, we went to the Peoria Zoo, where Ben has never been, even though he went to college in Peoria.

Of course we enjoyed some zoo lunch because these kids have to eat anytime anywhere.

These things NEVER get old for us.

Jack has the hand of a gibbon.  Duh.

H and J fed the giraffe.  He's 17-feet tall.

Jack looks shirtless in this pic, but it's a cute one.

Dorothy and Cooper could not get enough of this wheel thing that they turned to make electricity.

Queen of the world!

SO SWEET.

 

Even though we went out to dinner with a friend, I went to bed much soberer and slept in the bed NEXT to this crib all by myself while she slept, too.  Ben, though, shared a bed with Beatrix AND Cooper.

Beatrix liked my dad and vice versa.  My parents' Chihuahua / Chinese crested (Gizmo) was not thrilled to meet her, though.

Dorothy had some breakfast cream cheese behind her ear.

We decided to go to Ben's parents' for lunch on the way home.  Beatrix was just so bad in the car.

I mean really, what are we going to do with her?

Despite a 2-hour car nap, she could not get her shit together to walk to the park.  The only thing she COULD muster the energy to do was to lie in the shade on some down-spout-dampened grass and snore.  I read my book.

Still, she maintained consciousness for a couple of pictures.

 This is what everyone else did while Beatrix lazed in the grass.

 She might actually be asleep here.

She resumed her mischief making as soon as we got back in the car. 

Dorothy got a little cranky, so I kept giving her Oreos (MOTY), but she is rear facing, so I had not idea the mess she made until we pulled into the driveway.

And then we took everyone to the pool mainly because we didn't want to make or clean up dinner.

Dorothy LOVES to go in the dog's bed.  The dog is cool with it because she thinks Dorothy is a 23-pound chewy treat.

Last night I made the word's best cookie.  Here's the recipe:  Picky Palate cookies and cream peanut butter cookie. You should make these.  Probably right now.  But you might have to make a store run for pudding mix and white chocolate chips and maybe some Oreos to crush up because you can't crush the Oreos that your kids are counting on being in the pantry, KWIM?

I was at work for 10 hours today and now I am finishing this up at 9:40 with a dog sleeping on my feet.

If fall semester started tomorrow (which it DOESN'T), I would be totally ready to teach it!