The Course of True Love Hardly Ever Runs Smooth

Through some unlikely alignment of the planets (namely sleepover birthday parties and Girl Guide camp), two of our three pups were away tonight. Unfortunately, a combination of scheduling problems with the respite provider and a nasty, wet-cough/laryngitis virus decending upon Gillian yesterday forced us to revamp our date night from this...



To this...





Yup, nothing says "I love you" like rolling paint with your hubby!!

The lavender paint, "Posies" is for Ellery's room and was selected to co-ordinate with her Christmas present:



A couple years ago, when we put E and C into separate bedrooms, Ellery moved into the guestroom which had been decorated for, well...grown-up guests. Now, at 10.5 years of age, Ellery was eager for a room that "expressed her personality". My greatest fear is that her newly loud and obnoxious room does just that. Not my choice of palette, but cheery yet assertive colours also speak to my oldest's disposition.




The orange, "Agent Orange" if you ask DH, "Aurora Orange" according to Behr, is for Gillian's room. Against much advice to the contrary, I'm painting Gillian's room bright orange with lots of white trim. It's a very unusual choice for a bedroom, but orange is Gillian's favorite colour and it's the only colour she can reliably identify by name and the only adjective that she will use in conjunction with a noun (usually fish, as in Nemo, but other nouns too!) Anyway, if Gillian finds the colour as hideous as my husband and the nice man at Home Depot who works in the paint department think she will, it just might encourage her to "use her words" to tell us to repaint her digs.

Not too much knitting with all the painting and kid activities, but I did finish a small Clapotis using Maggie's lovely hand-coloured yarn.

So This Is What They Mean By "Tweens"...

I went out shopping with my oldest this morning. E is 10 years old, needed new "undergarments" and had a gift card for La Senza Girl. This is what we came home with:



LaSenzaGirl's pre-teen bra, available in dozens of colours. It's slightly fancier than what I wore under my wedding dress many years ago. In fairness to E, she did select a couple serviceable sports bras (purple if you can imagine) This bra was for "under her dressy clothes" and it was considerably less "Frederick's of Hollywood" than many of their pre-teen selections.


The same store was clearing out Webkinz at half price, so Cheeky Monkey (renamed Zee-minkey after a favorite scene from a Pink Panther movie) came home with us.




On the way to swimming lessons we needed sustenance. Ellery's selection was a donut with multi-coloured sprinkles (a "Hawaiian donut" depending upon where you hail from) Revolting to anyone over 10, huh?




So, this morning was pretty much an encapsulation of life with a pre-teen daughter. Tarty undies, stuffies and sprinkled donuts...sometimes almost a young woman, sometimes just a teeny little girl.

Last night was E's first "youth dance" at the neighbourhood community centre. It's very tame and well-supervised, but it's still a dance. Ellery went with a gal-pal and had a great time. They primped for an hour (after delivering newspapers) before heading out to the big event which consisted of hanging out in a rec. centre eating chips, drinking soda and DANCING WITH BOYS. My baby actually danced with a couple boys from her class.

I am so not ready for this.

The First FO of 2008...and other tidbits...

A pretty basic little pullover for Clare. It's made from Lily Chin's Chelsea, an interesting blend of merino, cotton and acrylic that is strangly lofty without being bulky. I rescued 4 balls of each colour from Haley's Last Chance Sale at Knitomatic last season.

Our New Year's Eve celebration involved kids and cupcakes...red velvet cupcakes from the mix purchased at Target. Have you ever seen such a revolting-looking batter. After putting the cupcakes in the oven, Gillian petted her dog before I could wash her hands. Haley looked like she had suffered a traumatic head injury.





And speaking of frightening red velvet creations:



This is my husband's response to the kids' inability to hang on to the TV remotes. He firmly attached all of them to a large block of wood, which he first lovingly covered not with red velvet, but red suede. The photo doesn't do it justice, the bright red suede is quite "eye-catching".


Oh, and one final Christmas present...a Wii! I'd purchased it before Christmas, but it would have so eclipsed any other present from any other relative that it seemed cruel of me to unveil it Christmas morning. Ellery invited her friend over for pizza and Wii this evening. DH and I have lost Friday date night forever.