THIS HAS BEEN A WEEK! **Post fueled by COFFEE

Oh my goodness!  Not only has the week flown by, but I haven't been this busy (or productive) IN FOREVER.  Up by 5 almost everyday.  In bed by midnight.  2 speaking engagements.  Textbook workbook revisions.  Pedagogical professional development.  Cub scout meetings.  Hockey practices.   Gymnastics.  Dance class.  Volunteering in Jack's class. This routine is taking a toll on my FACE which is a wrinkled mess and on my eating habits which are great until I get home from work at like 7 (I HAVE BEEN WORKING UNTIL 7) and then I am starving and eat everything in the house as fast as I can.

I've been drinking caffeine agin, even

And the weekend!  It doesn't promise to be any easier.  Football tournament all day Saturday while Dorothy stays home with me and I try to clean the house and pick up my grocery delivery.  Hockey game at the crack of dawn on Sunday.  Pumpkin carving.  Watching the Cubs.  Kiddie party at elementary school.  Grown up party at the golf course bar.  OH MY GOD.

Made these for the Cub Scout meeting in our basement.  They were PERFECT.  (Also I used a large bag on M&Ms-- no silly cups for me)

And Ben made Kool-Aid.  I didn;t even know we had Kool-Aid.  Let alone a Kool-Aid pitcher!?!

Dorothy got to wear her Halloween costume to school and to dance class:

And the boys had PICTURE DAY! (And I cheaped out and bought the $8 picture package and I feel pretty good about it).

Dorothy and Cooper made a fort in their bed last night and slept together on the bottom bunk.  ADORABLY.  Obvs.

Cool down, cow poke.

 Like Dorothy in the above picture, I have had the kind of day that just makes me want to snarl.

Ben and I had a stupid fight this morning where we were both passionately entrenched in our positions AND totally sure that the other person was a stupid baby over-reactor.

Then I had to run errands with both Dorothy and Cooper because Cooper didn't have school today (conferences) and take Beatrix to get a bath.  Then we had to go to a million-hour opera (it was 45 minutes) at the kids' school because Harry was one of 15 kids on the stage (and then there were more kids on a riser and then the rest-- like Jack-- sat in the audience, some in costume (like Jack), and he guilted me into going even though I knew I would have to kid-wrangle the WHOLE TIME.  Then we went to the library and had to leave abruptly after Dorothy PUNCHED A KID IN THE FACE.  To be fair, the hovering share-police moms at the train table made me want to punch someone, too, but we can't hit our friends. (But he's not my friend, she told me, which I KNOW).  In short, the library freaking sucks and why don't my kids want to play with their trains at home?  Why is it just the cold and flu season commie library trains that look cool?  Also, NEVER LET YOUR KIDS BRING THEIR OWN TOYS TO THE LIBRARY because other kids will want to play with them-- or in Dorothy's case will look too closely at them (seriously-- the kid she socked was looking at Stuffy Tuffy like he might want to take them (Stuffy has a fluid gender identity)).

To cheer myself up, looked at these pics of us celebrating a Cubs win on Saturday:

 (the first thing the boys did was email their Brewer-loving friends to gloat)

 5-year-old hockey is the CUTEST HOCKEY.

 Dorothy is cool with our return to hockey as long as she can accessorize with woodland creatures-- wait til you see her Halloween costume.

 HE WAS SO SWEATY when he came off the ice.  My kids NEVER get sweaty at sportsball (ha!  they get their try-hard genes from me, obvi), but they sweat buckets at hockey.

 Cooper also had a pool party for one of his friends yesterday.  He got out of the water approximately 64 times to tell me that he was hungry and then ate 5 pieces of pizza.  Ok then.

 Dressed for the opera.  Dorothy kept asking why Jack was wearing his toy.  HA HA HA (but she didn't notice that Harry was, too??)

 Cooper schlepped all of Dorothy's shit across the street and then she walked in the door of the school office where I was signing us in for the show and insisted he hold her coat (I don't have anymore hands, he said.  Just put it on the carseat she said, draping it over all the other stuff she already made him carry) so she could scamper onto a chair and look at the dirt hole where our house would somewhere be on the framed photo of the school when it was first built.

 You can see Harry because he's the only kid in a coon skin cap.  The best part of the whole show was when the elixir saleslady said to the love-sick male lead, "Cool down, cow poke."  I immediately started saying that to Cooper and Dorothy, much to their chagrin.

 A minute after I took this pic they both fell out of their chairs and started crying.  Best audience EVAR.

Quick snaps

 Dorothy is kind of scared of our front porch decorations, which is super funny to me, especially since she draws what look like crime scenes all over the pavement.

I made an apple pie that was delicious.  But!  It's just not totally pretty.  Don't worry-- I will keep working.

 MINI MEATLOAVES= the kids' new favorite food.  Even when I call them meat muffins.

 I finally cleaned out Dorothy's closet so that she only has weather-appropriate clothes.  But that doesn't stop her from putting them together in truly horrifying ways.

 Dorothy finally started her ballet hip-hop class that she has been DYING to start.  It was predictably adorable, especially the hip hop portion because they made the cutest little faces while they were dancing.  Also, I am a sucker for her pink Cons.

After class, she came home and very seriously colored the first position coloring sheet her teacher gave her.  At least 6 times a day, she asks me to help her put her feet in first position.  It's adorable overload around here.

 Back to living the hockey life.  So help me, my kids are eating those horrid "Uncrustable" PB sandwiches and probably will be all freaking season.  But last year, I gave them Culver's and Little Caesars.  So maybe it'll be a win?

FINALLY took her to the doc for her 3-year well-child visit a mere 5 months before she needs her 4-year visit.  Oops.

 I chaperoned a field trip for this guy at a science expo-- it was fun-ish.

 The little kids had no school on Fridays, o their school held a fundraiser at a trampoline place and we went of course because everyone took their kids to the trampoline park instead of dropping them off at school and enjoying a leisurely morning of grading papers or reading books or writing books or doing laundry.

But the kids had a great time.  AND IT'S ALL ABOUT THE KIDS.

A weekend that really felt like a weekend and a pretty Mondayish Monday

When I got a text from a friend inviting us over on Friday night and when that encounter led to follow-up Sunday plans, I knew we were finally going to have a weekend.  Since school, started, we have had these crazy Saturdays and Sundays that pretty much just consist of us running around town and around our house buying shit and cleaning shit at a frantic pace.  But last weekend, we made time to just hang out with our favorite people.

Especially Ben, the asshole.

It started out simple enough-- Ben was looking for OSU/UW tickets to take Harry to the game.  But he soon discovered that these tickets were selling for way more than face value, which I always think is dumb.  Usually by game day the prices have gone way down.  Not this weekend, though, because this was an important game and a night game-- the only home night game on the schedule.  In the course of looking for tickets, Ben discovered that his friend had a ticket.  For Ben, who decided to go. After a whole morning of coaching sportsball.

That left me with all 4 kids and no one to hang out with since all of our friends were either going to the game or tailgating or both and babysitters were nowhere to be found at such a late date. 

This pic pretty much sums up how I feel about that:

 The kids and I packed a snack (and a book for me) and headed to our favorite indoor trampoline and playset place.  I have no pictures of Harry because he was in the back room playing basketball and soccer with some older kids he befriended.

 Then I took them to see the movie Storks.  WHICH WAS TERRIBLE.  AND SO EXPENSIVE.  $40 for tickets.  $46 the first time I went to the concession stand and another $8 when I ran back out to pick up the kids' pizza and bought Cooper the popcorn he was whining about. (You can order pizzas and they give you a beeper and page you when the pizza's ready-- so, so, so easy and no dinner mess to clean up at home)

 We came home and put the little kids to bed and then Jack and Harry and I flipped back and forth between the Cubs game 1 of the NLCS (yay!) and the Badgers (bummer!)

Sunday was another funday because we went to see a Badger hockey game in a sweet suite with friends.

 We also went out to eat with those friends but I have no pictures of that because I was throwing a tantrum as nonchalantly as I could in front of 2 other families because Ben ditched me with all the boys while he and the other 2 moms went ahead to the restaurant to have wine and get a table and the dads and I waited in line for autographs.  On the heels of Saturday, that was just too much for me to deal with.  He ended up canceling our drinks and apps because I threatened to leave but then I really wanted to stay so we did and it was awkward.  But who doesn't have horrible whisper fights with their spouse with friends around?

As you can see, Cooper got a horrible rug burn on his nose/forehead by flipping off a couch onto a beanbag chair.  Oops.  The incident happened at our friend's house Friday night, but the funny thing is that he did the SAME THING in our basement earlier in the day.

 After school yesterday, Dorothy and Cooper braved a 75-minute line at a new donut store in town to try what "everyone" says are the best donuts in town.  I still like Greenbush the best, but I am a traditionalist.

Usually on Mondays, Ben comes home and I go to work.  But yesterday, I waited around for the big boys to get home and took Jack with me downtown because I got to accompany his Bear Den on a capitol tour. It was lovely.

And he was so sweet and well behaved at my meeting-- not a single peep once he had the wifi password.  This is probably exactly how he'll look in college only taller and with cooler tech.