Last night Mimi’s school took part in a fish fry. Each year the Catholic elementary school that Mimi’s preschool is connected to (but not officially affiliated with) has a fish fry fundraiser to help raise funds for the school. Mimi’s school was invited to participate in their program. They sang a few songs such as “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” and “B-I-N-G-O”. Mimi really looked like she was enjoying herself and has quite a rhythm for dancing. I must say, however, that this was the first school-related function that I’ve been to where they offered beer and wine.

It’s been almost a year that Mimi has been potty-trained. {Hooray for her!} She had a lot of accidents in the beginning, especially at nighttime. Many mornings the sheets would be wet, or she’d have a couple of #2’s in her pants. Mimi never seemed to mind. We’d go back to putting the “nighttime panties” on her because I was tired of dealing with washing sheets so often. She did eventually show us she could keep her gear dry for several nights in a row. It’s been several months without any accidents accept for the occasional “she drank too much liquid before bed” dilemma, and we’ll find her sheets wet. However, those really are rare now.

A couple of months ago we started letting Lucy sleep with Mimi on the bottom bunk. Of course, Mimi has been ecstatic about this, but Lucy does sometimes sneak back downstairs after a few minutes. The girls usually wake up plenty early enough for school and then wake me up, so I usually won’t see their bedroom until it’s dressing time. The other morning I noticed that Mimi’s sheets had a large puddle right where her bottom would lay. Before I could say anything about it, Mimi announced, “Look, Lucy peed on my bed last night!” My response was, “Oh, really! Are you sure it was Lucy who did that, Mimi?” After a few seconds of me staring her down Mimi finally confessed, “Ok, it was me.” I can’t believe she had to audacity to blame her accident on Lucy. As much as I’m willing to blame Lucy for something, I just knew I couldn’t let her take the fall for this.

For the past few months we’ve been developing a family tradition each Wednesday night: ice-skating. Since our local fitness center/iceplex offers open-skate and is free for members, we decided it would be a great way for the girls to practice their ice-skating skills. It turns out that the girls were unable to sign up for anymore classes until they are 6 unless they repeat the classes they’ve already taken, so we figured we’d just keep practicing with them each week instead (it’s much cheaper this way anyway). The girls do seem to be making improvements each week. We even let me them skate with each other while Mike and I have couples skating. Too bad they never play REO Speedwagon or Journey.

Every once and a while we split up and each skate with one of the girls. Mike was skating with Annie when he asked her if he should grow a mustache. Her reply, “No, it would be too classy. Like a German.” Mike had been doing so well lately not mentioning or thinking about mustaches, but his lovely sister, Sara, had to go and find this fabric to show him. Now it seems it’s all he can think about. Thanks, Sara! Thank goodness the fabric costs $36/yard which is outrageously expensive, and even Mike knows it’s not worth that much of an investment.

Today was Pirate Day at Mimi’s school. Even though it seemed like every other kid in her class specifically purchased costumes for this special day, I just found some miscellaneous items from Mimi’s wardrobe and around the house. Surprisingly, she was not pleased about this particular costume. Mimi is definitely going through a girly girl and princess stage. I tried to convince her that she was still wearing mostly pink, but she kept pulling off her bandana to try to replace it with a headband. Silly girl.

Of course, when I take a picture of Mimi Annie must have her picture taken as well. Below is what she dressed up in just for her photo op. Annie had her first play date with a friend from school today. She didn’t have school today, so we decided it would be okay to invite one of her classmates over. Her friend has a lot of spunk and calls Annie on the phone all the time. The couple of times I’ve had to tell this friend that Annie is busy doing something else she told me to get her on the phone anyway. Obviously, I don’t let a 5-year-old order me around, especially one that’s not mine.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that after church yesterday Annie asked us how old she has to be before she can have a boyfriend. Mike and I were so shocked we didn’t really have a response for her. After a few seconds I told her 37. Where in the world is she getting this information from?!?!?

As a scouting event Mike invited the boys over to launch their homemade rockets that they started making a couple of months ago. Since we have the cornfield in the backyard, they thought that would be the perfect launching site. We filled the boys up with a hardy breakfast first of waffles, bacon, sausage, and eggs. Then they were off to see what kind of success they would have. Of course, the girls wanted to participate, but we decided it would be too dangerous for them and too cold (it was around -2 degrees).

The boys are ecstatic to launch their rockets.

Not without gearing up first. It was c-c-c-cold out there.

Here’s round one with “Golden Boy”. One of the other leaders made this beauty. It was painted solid gold and had the name proudly displayed in large, black letters. They had a stall the first time, but the second time was a charm.

Next up was Mike’s rocket. His was painted yellow and black and was officially dubbed “Big Daddy”.

There was a second launching of golden boy that really turned out nicely, but the video was too long to upload here. You could even see the parachute eject and take affect. You’ll just have to take my word for it. The boys seemed to enjoy themselves immensely. A few games of foosball were played, too.

So that’s what I’m making for dinner tonight. Yum! Fortunately, I had a Chef Boy-R-Dee pizza kit in the food storage and some old mozzarella and pepperoni. Hopefully, those last 2 ingredients are too old. Some of us don’t have the luxury of having a Papa John’s Pizza delivery man for a husband. Hrrmph!

Annie got home from school today with 2 bags of popcorn. Every couple of weeks the kids have “Spirit Day” where they wear their school t-shirts and can purchase a bag of popcorn for $.25. Annie requested to eat her bag o’ popcorn while watching a few minutes of t.v. I agreed that she could for 15 minutes. While she was munching away and gluing her eyes to the tube I asked her what she did at school today. She started to tell me, but then got frustrated and declared, “Mom, I will tell you later. I’m too busy right now!” Well, I never! I had to laugh though and just let her be because it’s funny sometimes to see a 5-year-old act like she’s 15. Or should it be scary?!?