Never thought I'd say this

"I'm cleaning. Go watch TV." Every once in a while, I get the cleaning bug and decide that our house is disgusting and needs to be scrubbed to a shine. So I have vacuumed the downstairs (and lamented my horrid vacuum cleaner) and mopped the kitchen floor. I would not recommend the Method O Mop.
I don't think it gets the floor very clean and I certainly have to scrub like crazy to get stains off. The cleaning fluid smells nice though--ginger something. I should have stuck to the poisonous Swiffer Wet Jet. We're going to Target later so I shall see what we can find.

Tonight we are working at the Shaohannah's Hope "Show Hope" booth at the Steven Curtis Chapman concert. Mark and Kimberly-- Snickerdoodle and the Crab are going along with 2 other AWAA families, one of which I have met-- The Wait for Kate and the other who I have ordered bows from-- Sara Beth Bows! To be honest, I thought it sounded like a fun opportunity and I have listened to very little SCC other than the over played "When Love Takes You In" adoption song. I think it will be a good time.

One of the things I hoped for and prayed about more than anything was that that we would have good neighbors when we moved into our new house. At first, the prospects looked kind of slim as our next door neighbors on one side don't speak English and the house on the other side is empty. Then the house across the street finally was finished and we met the family who bought it-- a dad who's a teacher, a stay at home mom and their 2 year old little boy! Yay! They have come over to play a couple of times already and Maggie and their little boy, Jake, have drawn all over our driveway with sidewalk chalk. I feel good about the future of this neighbor friendship.

Here are some random pictures as the weather has been really nice this week. We've had lots of sun and warm temperatures. I am SO READY for spring. I am done with cold weather and sick of my winter clothes. Plus, Maggie has a ton of new clothes that she needs to break in!

A word of warning. This is what happens in the morning when your kid goes to bed with a ponytail and wet hair. Not a pretty sight the next morning. And no amount of wetting the comb would calm it down.


Riding the bike. Her legs are still too short to reach the pedals.

So it's really more fun to push it.


Our neighborhood also has a very nice playground that we discovered this week. There is even a little gravel path from our street over the the playground. I don't think Maggie's quite ready for the monkey bars.

I tried to show her how it was done but my arms are essentially incapable of holding my body weight. I miss being a kid and flying across the monkey bars and scrambling around the jungle gym.

Looking like a big girl climbing up to the slide.

After the sidewalk chalk attack. I know this is way overexposed but I thought it was so cute!