Brownies

So now that we live in Columbus, GA, I had to get a membership at Sam's Club. Now if you know me well enough, you know that I love me some brownies and ice cream. And I'll only buy one kind of brownie mix- the Ghirardelli mix from Costco. Since I knew there would be no Costco in Georgia, I decided to stock up on brownie mix- so I bought 24 mixes. However, I've been having a hard time using them. The closest Costco is in Atlanta, but I won't have a membership anymore anyway, and I feel like I'm just hoarding them so I can have the comfort of knowing that I still have plenty of brownie mix. But I finally decided to make some more with some help from Erik.

And some help from Mr. Alligator. While we were still in Washington and the packers were packing up our house our neighbor watched Erik for us. When I went to pick him up that afternoon, he was holding this alligator, and he's loved it ever since. Thankfully Claire had two and graciously gave Erik this one (which is good, considering he practically refused to let it go)

One of the girls that Kent worked with in Washington made Melanie a bright pink blanket before she was born. And Erik quickly took a liking to that, as well. I got tired of the pink blanket, so I took him to the fabric store to pick out the fabric so hopefully he would carry that around instead of that bright pink blanket. After I cut the scraps, Erik would get the long strips and play with them as snakes. He would even get other scraps to use as blankets and pillows. It was actually really cute.

Hello again, Mr. Alligator.

The apartment seems to be getting smaller and smaller while we're waiting for our house to be built (which seems to be going painfully slow, especially since we'll drive by, and what do you know? The house [which is a slab of concrete] looks the same as it did 3 days ago...). It's as hot as sin here, and so going for a walk is out of the question. So I try desperately to convince them how fun our deck out back is. It's tiny. But it will have to do for now.

Melanie seems to like it enough.

First Day of School

Yesterday was Taylor's first day of school. He goes all day now! I'll miss him, especially since he's getting to the point where he's helpful and fun to talk to, but it will be nice to have structure again. And to be able to go grocery shopping without people giving me looks of sympathy as I drag my 2 carts through the supermarket (I refuse to let my kids walk).

And then today was Erik's first day of preschool. Honestly, I have pretty low expectations for a preschool. Mainly I would like them to teach my child that he can't flush random things down the toilet or dump flour everywhere. Except I don't think they'll do that. Maybe I can just hope that he learns that it's rude to take things from other children. And to not eat his boogers.

And here's a picture of Melanie, who's not going to school. She's actually just drooling on herself right here. But she's still cute.

So when I'm getting ready to pick up Erik from school on this same day, Taylor's school calls me to let me know that Taylor really isn't feeling well. Normally I'd tell them that he's probably fine (he can be dramatic at times), but since he never even went to the nurse's office in kindergarten, I went to pick him up. Upon entering the car, he promptly threw up everywhere. Which then made me 10 minutes late picking Erik up on the first day. Now I'm sure they think I'm that mom who's always late. Awesome.