I mentioned to Lulu earlier in the evening that she should take a shower tonight.

We all ate dinner.

I had just finished cleaning up the kitchen when I passed Lulu in the hall, coming up from the basement, where she now has her "own" bathroom.

Me: "Did you take a shower?"

Lulu: "No."

Me: "Take a shower."

Lulu: "I don't wanna."

Me: "You have to."

Lulu: "Why?"

Me: "Because you smell."

Lulu: "Fine."

I've read about this phenomenon, but I never thought I'd actually live it, especially with daughters: never in a million years would have guessed I would be having so many conflicts with them over basic hygiene!

Bean announced to me this morning that she needs a new toothbrush and very matter-of-fact, as to why.

"My teeth are really powerful, so they separate the bristles [quickly]. I have powerful, powerful jaws."

Oh my!

We went to the ballet on Saturday night, as a family, to see "Cinderella" at the Keller Auditorium. I had been given the tickets from a friend of mine, she is a physical therapist who works with the ballet.

With no school on Monday for the President's Day holiday, I set the girls on task to write thank you notes to my friend for the tickets. I wrote out my friends name and address on a 3 x 5 card so they could address their envelopes properly.

For whatever reason, even though I've had her writing thank you notes for YEARS, Lulu has still not retained in her memory the proper placement of the return address label and the where the stamp goes on the outer envelope. I'm serious.

(Sigh.)

But on Monday, she found me as I was sewing and clarified the outer envelope address I'd written on the 3 x 5 card. My friend lives in an apartment with her boyfriend, which I'd written as #317.

Lulu: "So, it's [...recites street address] hashtag 317?"

Me "Errr, yes, you can call it that. But it's apartment number 317. While you know it as a hashtag, it actually was a number sign!"

Teens and technology can make you feel so old, so quickly...

My chops were busted when I bought crunchy peanut butter several months ago. So when we needed more, I switched to creamy-style. Now, each time I get the peanut butter out (months later, because peanut butter seems to last forever) Bean asks when we we will have crunchy.

I can't win...

Bean has been writing on the walls of her side of the bedroom.

I discovered it this morning when I went in to wake her up. I told her, "Josephine, you're not supposed to write on the walls!" to which she answered, "But they are my walls."

"No, they are our walls," Eddie chimed in, "and we're still paying for them!"

Word.

I will add, and I told her this after I admonished her, that her cursive writing skills are most impressive!

We were all very excited that Aunt Dian was coming over to have dinner at our house Friday night!

The dinner table and dining room looked really pretty:

Bean enjoyed hanging out with her Aunt Dian:



I made sure to make coffee for Jeff since he had a long drive ahead of them (they left the house at 1:30 am!) and fortunately I still had an extra disposable to-go coffee cup and lid to put it in for him:

Spotted near home, when I had to take a turn to avoid heavy traffic...