Little Happy Things (rather a long posting)

This is layout week, and yesterday was really busy & stressful & my eyes were wiggin' out from staring at the computer ALL DAY LONG...but right now I have no work to do & the girls are playing happily together, so I get to take a minute to update you all on the little happy things of this week.

On Wednesday I bought lighting. Recessed lighting for the living room (YAY!), a new chandelier for the dining room, and a chandelier with a dimmer switch for the bedroom. And, even better than buying it, HH INSTALLED the bedroom chandelier & dimmer switch THAT DAY! It'll be a while, I think, for the rest of the lighting, because he is dreading having to work through the insulation & mess with wiring. But in the meantime, I love my new chandelier. And we tested out the dimmer switch & liked it, but that's all I'll say because a lady never tells ; )

(Please ignore the maternity clothes that weren't put away properly under the bed...and the lack of crown moulding...Rome wasn't built in a day, you know.)

I won a giveaway! I won a book, and a coupon for free Yoplait yogurt (Now that all four of us are eating yogurt, we go through it like nobody's business), and a Yoplait yoga mat (which I TOTALLY need & am excited about, even if it does say Yoplait on it)! The giveaway was on the Super Healthy Kids blog. Amy has lots of good ideas & I find it helpful & inspiring to be reminded that some people are trying to actually nourish their children still. So refreshing.

I never got around to posting about Muffin Tin Monday on Monday, but we did it, and I wanted to share it because it was the "all about me" theme.

So for Chick:

• blueberries because she has blue eyes,
• a fruit cup because she's sweet,
• a cheese "2" because she's 2 yrs old,
• chocolate milk because at our house that is a special thing & she's special,
• fettucine because it looked like her white-blond hair (spaghetti would have been a better shape, but I only had wheat),
• and lastly, peanuts because she's a little nutty sometimes. : )

And for Monkey (She didn't get a muffin tin, but she did get "all about me" foods):

• blueberries because she has blue eyes,
• banana because she is a Monkey & that's her favorite food,
• fettucine because she has an Italian name,
• and 10 pieces of cheese because she's 10 months old.

I have some simplified Bee costume plans tumbling around in my head...thanks to all who have offered suggestions. I hope to get to start work on it next week, so stay tuned.

The last little happy thing is actually a collection of happys. I just KNEW that people kept having kids for a reason. That reason, of course, is that eventually they get old enough to work. Well, finally, I now get to sit back & live off the sweat of my children's brows.

Specifically, Chick washed dishes the other day, and is ALL ABOUT setting the table (though clearly we need to work on the technical details some more). She also tells me sometimes that my hair looks pretty, and she looks after her sister ("Monkey! No, honey! Don't climb up on that!").

And Monkey has learned to share her sippy cup with me, as well as to put things away (yesterday she got into the box with the spice packets & was strewing them around on the floor...but then she put them all back in! Plus she helps put blocks in the block basket when we're cleaning up). And she gives great sloppy open mouth kisses, and you can never get enough of those.

And, if all of that wasn't wonderful enough--Chick has been sleeping in until 8:30! Monkey wakes up to nurse at around 6, but then we both fall asleep in my bed & even though she wakes up before me she just looks around, lays on my neck, scratches my teeth, etc...but she does it quietly so that I can "keep sleeping."

So, despite being congested & sniffly during layout, and having a teething baby & a messy house, there have been some lovely little happy things this week to get me through.