Human beans

At dinner tonight Anna Claire said, "There are all kinds of beans and we are human beans." After laughing I said, "We are human BEINGS not beans." And Russ added, "But if we were beans we would be human beans."
We have such philosophical discussions around our dinner table!

Mardi Crawford

Lizzie told me she wants to go to the parade for the holiday that's today. When we were talking about it at dinner Anna Claire, "What holiday is today?" Lizzie said," You know, Marty Crawford or whatever it's called." Russ and I could not make eye contact for fear she would have hurt feelings if we laughed at her!
From this day forth Mardi Gras will be known as Mardi Crawford, at least in our family!

Happy Valentine's!

We continued our Valentine's tradition by having a "formal" dinner to celebrate. Our girls LOVED it again this year. Table cloth, china, crystal, candles, cloth napkins ... the works! We enjoyed our meal together! Russ gave us instructions on how you should act during a formal meal. Anna Claire thought it was fun to keep her left hand in her lap! Our menu was Tilapia and pesto pasta with green beans. We had blueberries and raspberries. For dessert I made a Chocolate chip pie.

A wonderful evening with my family - the best kind of Valentine's day!

Marathon Weekend

Our girls participated in the local marathon! I cannot begin to tell you how cold it was on Saturday morning. 35 degrees with a stiff 15 mph wind - in the shade of downtown buildings!!! Bravely, our girls bundled up and ran mile 26 to complete their kids marathon. Russ ran with Lizzie but Anna Claire ran with one of her friends.

I was amazed at the thousands of other crazy parents who came out in the cold to let their children run in the race! Our friends would say that they would expect Russ and I to take our kids out to a road race in inclimate weather. In our defense, we were certainly not the only ones!

In the middle of Lizzie's mile she asked Russ why this race always had to be in winter!!! Great question!

Cracking me up

This has been a crazy weekend! I went to a women's retreat and spent Friday night away from home. Russ had the girls and they had a fabulous time together!
The girls never have weekend homework so imagine my surprise last night when I was putting the girls to bed and Anna Claire said, "Mom, I'll do my homework in my bed before I go to sleep." What??? She had to read 2 chapters in a book then write a short summary. I told her to work on it and I would check on her soon. I started cleaning the kitchen and she came in about 10 minutes after I put her in her room. She said, "Mommy, can I take a pause from homework? I need to potty." I said, "Sure." Then she said, "My bottom interrupted my homework time, that's all."
I thought I might pass out laughing! Where does she get this stuff from?

Finally...

I realized I haven't posted anything since Halloween. But tonight Anna Claire said the funniest thing and I wanted to pass it along. We were having our family prayer /bedtime story time. Anna Claire said, "Daddy, please don't make this a long prayer. You know, I might fall asleep."
She is too funny!

We saw a set of twin girls at the store tonight and their dad said, "So you have twins too?" Anna Claire yelled, "We're NOT twins! I'm almost 8 and she's only 6." Then the dad said he and his wife are expecting another set of twins in August! They will have 4 kids under 2 years old!!! Russ stared blankly in the distance for a LONG time then said, "I can't imagine what that's gonna cost!" Lizzie said she was happy being the baby! No more babies for her or me!