It's my brother-in-law's birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAVID!!

It is also my buddy David's birthday. He's older than I am, therefore he is ancient. Hee hee!!!

Today was quite the interesting day.

I sort of sleep in this morning. I try to be up on Fridays no later than 7:30am, but this morning I just couldn't get up. So I slept in till 7:50. It seemed to work better, actually. Instead of having the time to laze around and putz my way through the morning, I had to get up and get moving. I also got my coffee made before I got Grace up, and that helped as well.

Mmmmm coffee.

I managed to get out of the house right at 9:05am. Perfect timing! Last week I was just a few minutes late to art class, and the teacher and the other mothers looked at me like, "And where have you been, Missy???" Plus the teacher had already explained what we were doing that day, so I was a little lost at first.

This morning we were a couple of minutes early. I dressed Grace in her new Hello Kitty t-shirt, which she promptly took off as soon as we walked in to the classroom. At least it was going to stay clean!! I stick her in one of Kurt's old white t-shirts because it covers her entirely, since the art teacher isn't bright enough to buy washable paints for the kids to use.

The project for today was "snowmen." Actually I believe she referred to them as "snowpeople," which I thought was far too politically correct that early in the morning. We were given pieces of sponge to dab white paint onto blue paper. Again the teacher spoke to the children way over their heads. She told the kids that they could either paint one great big snowman vertically on the paper, or they could do a snowman-family horizontally on the paper, or they could cut the paper in half and do two snowmen that way.

The 18-month-olds responded by chewing on the paint-soaked sponges.

This woman is a nut-hole, she really is! She spent a whole long time explaining that she was going to have to cancel a class so that she could attend a workshop that she's been dreaming of for years. Now I get that she's excited about it, but the build-up she gave us made us think that she was getting the Medal of Honor from President Bush or something! Sheesh!

At least the projects are fun to do. I get into them with Grace; she does the painting of the large areas, and I do the detail work. Most of the moms disagree with me painting with Grace, but I get bored just sitting there. I never got to do a whole lot of creative things as a kid; I didn't like art class back then because I felt like I had to compete, and I certainly am not an artist. Now that Grace is in a baby art class, my inner artist comes out a bit and gives me ideas on how to make a project really cool.

After art class, we headed to the bakery to get some coffee and a scone. I loooooooooove scones. I was so bummed because there weren't any scones last week; I asked my "boyfriend" why they were all gone, and he tried to tell me they're a breakfast item, and it was nearly lunch. Hmph. They had plenty of scones today!

We also went to Costco with my new friend AS and her little girl. I actually behaved myself and did not buy a book. Shocking, I know. But they had a tiny selection of books today, and nothing really grabbed me. They had a cookbook all on casseroles, but I need a new cookbook like I need more books in general! I love casseroles, though. If you know of a good casserole recipe, send me an email.

Mmmm casseroles.

Once we got back home again, I needed a nap. I had grabbed Grace out of the car, opened the trunk so I could bring in my Costco purchases, and then headed in the house. I got so involved with getting Grace down for a nap (she's still using her crib as a trampoline) so I could nap for a bit that I totally forgot about my Costco stuff in the trunk. Thirty minutes later when I got up, I realized I still had a bag of frozen chicken in the trunk.

Oops.

Fortunately it's only about 50° today, so it's not like the chicken had thawed.

Then it was time to wash the cars. They hadn't been washed since Kurt left on his deployment, which is nearly 3 months ago now. The cars were filthy!!! I had to go over both cars twice before I got most of the dirt off. I think the truck is still a little dirty, but it's hard to wash. Besides, aren't trucks and SUVs supposed to have a bit of dirt on them to look "manly"??

The finished masterpiece!