You Know You Have a Lot of Kids When There Are Only Four People Home and the House Feels Empty

The youngest resident at Casa Twipply Skwood turned a year old last week. We didn't have a party, and I'm not a big cake fan so I'm not that great at making them. This did not go unnoticed by baby, apparently.

I did go hog wild with five and a half sticks of butter though, so it tasted better than it looked. Still, the baby was only interested in was the candle and nothing but the candle.



This tastes a lot like wax.


You want me to eat WHAT?!?! I thought I just had to eat the candle!



Sure. I can sit here and look cute for a picture. But I am NOT going to eat this cake.



Okay, I'll taste it.



I'm eating it! You told me to eat it, so I'm eating it!


Can I be done now?



I'm going to put my foot in this cake if you don't get me down from here



Yay! We're done!


That's a wrap.



So yeah, she hated the cake, and so did everyone else's arteries. In fact my Boy kept saying that he wouldn't have to worry about his AP World History exam, because the butter would kill him off before the day of the test. Needless to say he ate his fair share.

One first birthday down, one high school graduation to go! Tune in text time I get my act together for another exciting episode.

Chores R' Us...Or Chores R' Her at Least. I'm Not Really Such a Great Housekeeper as it Turns Out.

I've tried different programs for becoming a better housekeeper. I've tried the Fly Lady, I've tried Motivated Moms, and I've tried lists from Pinterest and trying to tackle one room a day. But the truth is, no matter what the program something else always seems more pressing.



The Beeb on the other hand is very devoted to her chores. She makes sure that as many pieces of clean laundry as possible are unfolded and grace the floor before being refolded and put into drawers.

She's committed to a perfect filing system for the CDs. She makes sure her filing is kept up to date at all times, especially if someone has needlessly put the CDs into that funny little bookshelf looking thing.



She goes through the diaper bag meticulously. She likes to make sure there's enough diapers, chomp on any paper she finds, and chew through any plastic. Also, she likes to make sure no cold packs have been left in there.



She's taken it upon herself to make sure all the items in the kitchen cupboards are spread out around the floor each day...



and that she helps with unloading the dishwasher. Only unloading though, never loading, regardless of whether the dishes are clean or dirty. And only onto the floor, obviously.



Often these chores have to be done multiple times a day. It's an ambitious job for someone who's almost a year old, but somebody has to tackle the housework around here. It obviously can't be left up to me. Happy almost Mother's Day to everyone!

It's the Teeniest Bit Stressful Having One Graduate High School and One Turn a Year Old Within Less Than Two Weeks of Each Other

In fact, it's more than a little stressful. So much so that my title hardly even makes sense.

Around here we've been trying to figure out how to get The Sweet Pea to college. The Beeb had roseola. I've been trying to plan the The Beeb's first birthday party AND order invitations for The Sweet Pea's graduation.

We got Zumba for the Wii, so now not only does it call me fat and clumsy and a poor parent, it lies to me about being a good dancer:

But, what can you do? It's way better than joining a gym.

Meanwhile the Beeb is getting bigger. Here she is when she turned ten months looking all studious:



Don't let that fool you though. She is only seconds away from eating the book. Not innocently mouthing it, not sucking on it a little, not teething on it a bit. She's about to bite off as many morsels of the made-for-destructive-baby pages as she can possibly chew up and swallow before someone makes a mad dash to rescue the poor book. Books that survived both the Sweet Pea's gentle care and even the Boy's rough treatment are now crying for mercy.

She's also learning to walk as a means to an end. The end being to make us all smile and coo, of course. She's otherwise not really interested.

Here she is walking between The-Guy and Older Gal:



Last but not least, she's saying several words. The first word is "Wawa," which means water and cup and perhaps even, "I'd like to try your beer." She also says, "bawa" meaning both bottle and "I want that."

Her most frequent word is "BAOW!" which as far as I can tell means bottle, but also means book and "Let's torture the cat!"

That's the update from here. Hope all is well with everyone.

We got a Mardi Gras baby. So now it's like danger alley around here. As if it werentn't Already.

Freshly bathed baby - one of my favorite types!



Baby is now outnumbered seven to one. Grammy and Grandpa are visiting! So that means two more people are here who think it's unacceptable to suck on the soles of shoes.

Of course, there are four more feet around the house, so possibly we'll have better luck at keeping her from the paper, penny, and glass eating.

I forgot to mention way back during Mardi Gras that I got the baby from this year's Mardi Gras King Cake! It probably slipped my mind because I was terrified of the incredible danger. It's so dangerous that the Mardi Gras baby doesn't even come inside the cake anymore.



Here it is with a penny so you can further appreciate the actual scale of the incredible danger:



You have the option of putting it in yourself if you want to take your life into your own hands, but I just asked if I could pocket it and take it home.



So now we have two incredibly dangerous babies in the house.



In any case, happy spring! I hope everyone managed the dangers of Mardi Gras cake!