♥

So I've know about the girls valentine's day parties at school for a couple of weeks now. And never mind the fact that most holidays do indeed come at THE SAME TIME EVERY YEAR. But, alas, I wait until two days before to fly into panic mode and decide to finally get things started. And truth be told, it may not have even happened then except that dear Carrie called my on Wed. and said "so what are you doing for the girls parties?" Now, mind you it's not like I have a job and 12 kids underfoot. I basically spend my days cleaning the house and reading. Less cleaning, more reading.
So, hearing the sheer terror in my voice Carrie agrees to meet me Hobby Lobby the next afternoon. That's the day before the party. We spend about 3 hours there with me agonizing over what craft to do. After we collect everything I need to make the cute-little-beaded-heart-in a-mini-shadow-box-with-ribbon-for-hanging craft, I glance over and see that stemmed silk flowers are on sale and oh how about we change the whole thing and do bright-pink-gerbera-daisy-flowers-wrapped-to-a-pencil-with-floral-tape-and-placed-into-a-hand-painted-terra-cotta-pot craft. heh heh.
So, I'm happy, Carrie has her stuff for her baby-food-snow-globe craft and we go to pay. Well, at that point I had no energy to go around the store putting away the mini-mountain of stuff I had changed my mind about so I plop it onto the counter and hope that the poor check out girl sees that as job security and happily puts it away for me. We buy what we need and head for home.
At this point it occurs to me that I also have managed to forget to get the girls valentines to pass out so after school we run to CVS and pick through the remains of what I'm sure were really cute cards. Then I come to my senses and decide the only way I can manage to get all the things accomplished that I need to (which did I mention that that evening I had dinner plans with some friends) was to call in my mom. Bless her heart. She comes to the rescue.
Now, because I have no end to the pain I will put myself through for a good craft, I decide to change it all back to the shadow box. So, I rush out the door when my mom arrives and head to Hobby Lobby to return my flower stuff and recollect the shadow box stuff. Oh. Dear. And who should I meet in the parking lot? Dear Carrie out again for the last last minute stuff she needed. Boy did we laugh.
Okay, recounting this story is making me dizzy.
Here's the end product:


Oh, and 20 of these bag toppers for the ♥-shaped
jelly sanwhiches I made for Emily's class:

Adrian!

Dude! My Monk shops at Wal-Mart!!



Go ahead, ask me how much I love him. I would have hugged him. And stroked his hair. And told him everything is going to be okay. But then I would have remembered he would so not have liked that. So I would have just gone on and on about how he is the smartest detective on Earth and how I am so happy for him that he got the guy who killed dear Trudy and that if he ever gets tired of that Natalie girl my family and I would be happy to relocate and......
I am sooo applying there when my unemployment runs out!

Daddy Daughter Dance

Well, the girls are off with their daddy for their 5th DDDance!
Don't they look so pretty?



I dabbed a little mascara on each of them and a bit of perfume on their beautiful little wrists and daddy adorned them with the prettiest corsages. They are such lovely little creatures. I just love seeing how they've grown.
Grace told Emily she looked like a "lady."
.
Now let's discuss their dresses.
We have decided that clothing is not going to be a hill we're going to die on. Providing it follows our 4 simple rules:
.
1. It must be modest.
2. No peace symbols.
3. It must not imply that becoming a "rock star" is the best thing my kids should aim for.
4. It can't be something that I know they'll get laughed at for wearing.
.
I'm actually not even going to have a battle regarding clothing. Yes, sitting there in the dressing room looking at them in the more traditional dresses they put on for my sake, I wanted so much to say "I'm paying for it, I get to pick it." But the dresses they wanted followed the rules. While they may not be my taste, they are their own little selves. I'll guide them as much as I can and long for the days when it was up to me. But really, does it matter? They thought they were beautiful and that's what really matters to me.

What I wanted:

What Grace wanted (in all it's stretchy glory...):

Thank heavens they only had it in pink. Which was only half as offensive to the senses as the one pictured above. Emily's was actually nice, and since they only had one size left to pick from it looks like she can wear it to maybe her prom.

Jack-AYYYYY!!!!

Had an awesome afternoon at the Jackie Walorski Congressional Campaign Kickoff.

I love this picture of my mom and I with Jackie. And that is my nephew Ben and my friend Anne's daughter Grace whose cute little chin unfortunately was loped off in the rush to get this picture.

Just as we were when we went to see President Bush back in '00, Governor Palin and now Jack-AYYYYY my mom and I were hooting' and hollerin' in the front row.

Poor Jackie, I think I attacked her as she came off the stage. I was afraid as it had been with the president that she was going to shake and run. So I grabbed the poor lady and dear, dear Anne got this fully awesome picture!

After the event we were (because we're Kensingers) having a party to celebrate the party. So guess what Lady Dorkness did. I invited the poor lady for snacks after the event. Yeah, there were only 1000 people to shake hands with and then, oh how about you stop by and have taco salad when your done here. She didn't come, even though I might have mentioned to her staffer that I'd clean my toilets...oh dear heavens! Did I tell her that? Oh no!!! Wow, I'll bet Jack-AYYYY's glad to have me on her side. And making campaign calls for her at that. Can you get fired from being a volunteer? Oh dear...