so long, farewell, auf widersehen...

If I had known yesterday when I called to have the car towed--because of what I thought was a faulty starter--that this would in fact be the last time I saw the car, I might have made a bigger deal out of our goodbye. It turns out that the faulty starter was not a faulty starter at all but a dead engine. The car worked on Saturday, but on Sunday morning when the kids and I piled in to go to the Target, it wouldn't start. I guess you can say it died in its sleep. When I think of all the places I could have been left, stranded if the car had conked out at the wrong place or the wrong time, I'm pretty grateful that the old Explorer decided to give out peacefully parked in front of the house.

gooooooooooooal!

Fall, according to Catcher, is finally here now that soccer has started. Catcher's team--team #9 until further notice--was given the 10:00 time slot this morning, which sounds great (vs. 8:00am) in theory, but in reality I find myself with three children dressed and ready to leave the house at 8:30 singing a chorus of "is it time to go yet?" Not yet...

Today we also found ourselves in the position of having a birthday party for two of Scout's friends that was starting at 10:30. She was less than pleased about hanging out on the sideline of Catcher's game when she knew there was fun waiting to be had. But we powered through, and Catcher scored his first two goals (or five if he's telling the story). We made it to the party before the cupcakes were brought out, and that's all that really signifies "party" in a three year-old's mind, so everyone was satisfried. [Yes, I meant to type satisfried; that was for you.]

p.s. Catcher was not satisfried with the photos from this game. He would like me to take more pictures of him, "one right after the other," at next week's game. I'll see what I can do.

pink cheeks, blue lips

On Fridays the sixth graders at Catcher's school sell candy on the front lawn at the end of the day. Today Scout discovered the magic of Ring Pops.

it's a bug

I know what you might be thinking. The sculpture above looks like a moss-colored brain with googly eyes and an orange tongue. But you would be wrong. That, my friends, is a bug. Scout has been working on it for the past few weeks at Explore Arts preschool, and she was finally able to take it home this afternoon after the school's first open house. I had heard all about the bug, and I must say that the final product superseded my wildest expectations. It's made of clay, and it is totally legit--kiln-fired, glazed and all!

Scout also brought home a glitter fish (below) and a hand print. I'm totally impressed with the work and kind of jealous that I'm not aged 3-5. The best part of today, however, was watching her group perform Where the Wild Things Are on their tiny stage in costumes ranging from ladybug to tiger (Scout) to dinosaur.

catcher in repose

This is Catcher hanging out on the front porch after his shower--ironically he came out to watch a rain shower--one evening last week. He may have flashed the neighbors a time or two before I ushered him back inside. I hope no one was offended.

oh, say can you see...

When I saw Catcher's "guys" lined up along his headboard one morning--from left to right that's Franklin 1, Wild Thing, Franklin 2 and Margarita (formerly Sydney)--I laughed quietly (but not that quietly) to myself. I found the arrangement funny because one of Catcher's chores, now that he's a mature kindergartner, is making his bed every morning. I like that he took the time to set up his guys before leaving for school. But there's another reason, the actual reason, that seeing the characters placed just so caused me to laugh out loud.

To understand, I have to tell you that Catcher is learning the Star Spangled Banner in music class at school. He's becoming quite the patriot and insists that we sing it every night as part of our bedtime routine. The other morning I caught him lining up his guys on the bed and serenading them with our national anthem, as Catcher usually refers to it. He then informed me that I would be performing the number for all of them before bed. I missed the part about the "ramparts we watched" and had to start over following Catcher's rules for singing the national anthem before bed. By the end of my third try my throat was getting sore and I was feeling less patriotic and more dispirited. My brain is mush at the end of the day. And it's a pretty tricky song to sing. Luckily my frustration didn't rub off on Catcher, though. I could hear his falsetto echoing through the room after I had closed the door and he belted "and the rocket's red glare..."

funny fuzzy face

This was Scout last Thursday when she got home from Explore Arts Preschool at the Dougherty Arts Center. I think she was a cat. Tillie--that's her finger touching Scout's nose below--thought it was hysterical.

the first day of fall

It all started with a stick. Catcher found a perfect bow-shaped stick on the walk to school a couple of weeks ago, and that stick went with us everyday to and from school until Catcher abused his stick privileges (i.e. he ran with it and thrust it in the direction of Scout) and I had to throw it in the gutter. However, I found his imagination that turned a crooked stick into a bow inspiring, so I found a real (by real I mean fake) bow and arrows at the Target yesterday. I don't think it has left his side yet.

the last day of summer

We could have used this rain months ago, but I suppose it's better to experience monsoon-like downpours on the last day of summer than not at all. The morning was spotty with showers, but the real fun began at exactly 1:00pm--at the exact time I was picking Scout up from preschool. We got drenched on the way to the car (I had left the umbrella and rain jackets at home thinking this rain we were promised would be off and on all day...mistake!). However, as luck would have it, both girls fell asleep in the car on the way home. This left me parked in front of our house watching the rain stream down the front of my windshield for over and hour. Thank goodness for the iPhone so I could catch up on the news (by "news" I'm referring to my Twitter feed) while the umbrella, raincoats and the book I'm reading were twenty treacherous paces away locked inside the house. Eventually there was a lull as the rain downgraded from downpour to steady stream, so I had a few minutes to fetch the rain gear before it was time to fetch Catcher. After we picked him up, and the rain picked itself back up, we retreated inside, dried ourselves and spent the rest of the afternoon watching a movie and chowing on popcorn. It was the perfect summer afternoon.

evening layover

Alex got home from a four-day trip to Charlotte on Monday. He left for Los Angeles on Tuesday. He flew in from Los Angeles this afternoon (Thursday), and he drives to Dallas tomorrow morning (Friday). He has a few busy weeks of traveling in front of him, but he was here tonight for dinner, baths, stories and a quick (but heavy) rainstorm that blanketed our neighborhood.

tea for three

Catcher, the big kindergartener, went home with one of his friends after school today, so it was ladies' afternoon at the house. We had a tea party without teacups and saucers but with dolls and lemon wafers. After the sugar rushed to their brains, the girls quickly turned our elegant little affair into an episode of WWE. Scout wrapped Tillie up in blankets and dragged her across the floor, Tillie body-slammed Scout and the grand finale was a rowdy doll toss. Next time I'll see if there's room for two more at the all-boys afternoon play date.

weekly outtakes

A look back at last week, from the cutting room floor...

limsanity

Image from Refinery29

I'm dedicating this post to my children because I brought them along on my wild ride in an earnest attempt to capture just one item from this year's most talked about designer collaboration--at least until Isabel Marant pairs up with H&M in November--3.1 Phillip Lim for Target. With a line out the door at 7:58am (in Austin?!) as we pulled into the parking lot and scrambling inside reminiscent of my Kate Spade sample sale experience in 1999 New York, I thought twice about my mission. Then again, I had already invested the time getting everyone fed, dressed and to the Target by 8:00am on a Sunday morning...and all that clambering made it seem imperative that I walk away with something.

There was only one something that I truly, truly wanted, and it's almost embarrassing to admit that I was on the Target website at 3:07am looking for that something. Yes, this is the part of the story that I haven't yet admitted, even to myself, because it might make me a bonafide crazy person. Crazy like the people that gather in the wee hours of the morning to shop a Black Friday sale. However, in my defense, I'm a light sleeper and wake several times during the night every night. Last night it just so happened that I woke at 3:07am, and I just happened to have my laptop lying on the bed beside me in Alex's absence; thus, I just happened to click on the Target website to see if the 3.1 Phillip Lim madness had begun. It had. I quickly placed the Mini Satchel with Gusset (in yellow, of course!) in my shopping cart and proceeded to browse the rest of the collection. When I was ready to check out several short minutes later, I found that the bag was no longer in my cart because it had--gasp!--sold out.

It's probably too late to make a long story short at this point, but I'll gallop through the rest of the story as quickly as possible. Kids. Target. 7:58am. Inside. 8:01am. Bag gone. Hear rumors that Target employee is going "to the back" to restock bags. Wait. Wheel kids around in the cart to keep them happy. Wait some more. Promise Starbucks cookies for the little ones. See Target employee coming. No yellow bag on giant cart. Several of the same bag in black and taupe. No yellow, though. Crazies swarm the cart. Undecided shopper quietly places yellow bag on now-empty original bag display. I see it. I grab it (maybe while her fingers are still lightly grazing the handle, or maybe not). Score!

On the way out, I also help myself to the floral print blouse because...why not?

True story, and now you can call me crazy.

p.s. I just happened upon the photo above after the whole shopping extravaganza. Pure coincidence that those are the two exact items I purchased at the store.

jump around

Since bouncing on Scout's bed--I mean mattress, currently--has become such a popular activity, we took our hopping outside this morning to jump on the mini trampoline that I sort of forgot was in our backyard. Kids make funny faces when they're jumping up and down...