Oh, Yes...I Am The Queen!

No dis-respect intended to the Queen of all things, my lovely cousin Queen Beth of course. However, I definitely crowned myself Queen of my home this weekend.

I am bestowing myself this honor due to everything I accomplished this weekend. Most of what I accomplished had nothing to do with housework, or anything as un-interesting as that. Let's go down the list:

1.) Friday evening after work was "carve pumpkins night" for our kids. Care Bear already had her pumpkin from a field trip she took with her preschool to a pumpkin patch. She had the distinction of picking out the largest pumpkin of anyone in her class; most of the other kids were able to fit their pumpkins in their cubby holes, but Care Bear's had to sit along side the cubbies because as she proudly announced, "It's 20 pounds!!" Feisty informed me she wanted a "little pumpkin just my size" and Anakin was more than miffed that Care Bear had the largest pumpkin of the three.

Our children refuse to do your ordinary run-of-the-mill triangle eyes and nose and toothy smile jack-o-lanterns. They have to do those fancy schmanzy pumpkins that require some sort of artistic ability, of which I have none....or at least I thought I had none. Usually hubby does the carving of the pumpkins because I've never felt that I had the patience or ability to do the kind of carving that our children desire. However, this time, hubby just wasn't getting it together. He was pre-occupied with making mixed CDs and it was already getting late, so I took it upon myself to get the carving going. I ended up carving the girls' pumpkins and hubby attempted Anakin's pumpkin, but it got severely screwed up. So, here is a picture of the girls' pumpkins courtesy of their mama: (they don't look as good as they did at first because they're sagging a little and they decided to get a little creative and color all over them before I was able to get a picture).

2.) Feisty and Care Bear were both in desperate need of haircuts. Feisty, although she is 2.5 years old has never had a haircut. (Don't judge me, please.) Feisty doesn't have a plush head of hair and I kept putting it off because I just wanted it to get long and feared by cutting it that she would look bald again. But this weekend, it was just time. So, while I was at praise band practice with hubby, I had Grandma take them to get their hair cut. (I know that this isn't really something I personally accomplished so it doesn't fit in with the theme of this post, but I had to post the pics of Feisty's first cut that my mom took since I couldn't be there). Presenting Feisty at her first hair cut: (she did wonderfully).

3.) Grandma P (hubby's mom) was in town this weekend from a far off northern state for her bi-yearly visit. Whenever Grandma P comes, she comes bearing ridiculous amounts of gifts for my children, and while this is nice for the children, it is a huge pain for me trying to find space for all their new toys and space in their closet for all their new clothes. Every time she comes, I feel the need to go through their toy boxes and their closets and weed out things to make room for their new stuff, but I never get around to it, so it all just accumulates. In addition, most of the toys she brings include the disclaimer: "adult assembly required" and tiny, tiny little pieces that inevitably get lost within minutes of getting opened.

Anyway, I don't know what got into me this weekend, but instead of leaving it up to hubby to assemble all their new things, I decided to do it myself. Knowing hubby, those new things would sit around for days, maybe even weeks before they got put together, so once again, I took it upon myself. The girls each got a "My Scene" toy: Care Bear got a make-up shop, and Feisty got a coffee shop. Here they are after their assembly (minus most of the tiny parts which I quickly grabbed and bagged up in their little purses before they got lost; they know where they are when they want to play with them):

4.) Anakin got a mega-blocks ship model to assemble which included over 560 itty bitty lego pieces to put together. He wanted it put together right away yesterday and when I told him he should probably wait for daddy to get home to help him he asked me, "Well, can't you help me?" Now, I'm thinking to myself, "Pumpkins I can do; little girly toys I can do; but a LEGO SHIP model with over 560 pieces?! That may be stretching it." But he was so eager and daddy wasn't home yet, so I sat down at the kitchen table, pulled out the instructions and got to work. I finally put it down at 1:00 a.m. for the night, and as I was taking it upstairs to hide from Anakin so I could surprise him the next day with my progress, I ran into the baby gate, dropped it and it fell apart! If I was a cusser, I would have cussed; instead I cried. I was able to salvage most of it this morning and worked on it before work, and here it is: (still got a little left to do, but most of it is done...and I'm bummed this picture is so dark)

5.) Grandma P also got them each flags to attach to their bikes. Care Bear wanted me to put it on yesterday, but I told her to wait for Daddy to get home. However, while she was at pre-school yesterday afternoon, I thought to myself, "What the hey....I've done so many other things this weekend; I might as well give it a shot." And I got it on. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture because while I was taking pictures of all these things, Care Bear was off somewhere on her bike showing off her new flag.

6.) Feisty wanted me to put her flag on her tricycle. However, there was no way to attach it to her tricycle, so instead I asked her if she wanted me to help her learn how to ride her tricycle. So we rode up and down our street, over and over, and she finally got it! She's not a "perfect" rider yet; she still needs my help on hills and over bumps, but she's got the idea now! Here she is on her tricycle, and very proud.

Phew. That was my weekend. In addition, Saturday and Sunday night, I had 12 people over at my house for dinner (pizza one night; KFC the next courtesy of Grandma P). Suffice it to say, I am tired!

So, how was everyone else's weekend? ;-)