Wintry Autumn.

- Today Olivia, dressed in her massive tutu with pom-poms in hand, told me, “I’m dressed up like a ballerina cheerleader.  But really, I’m a spy!”  and proceeded to follow me around squinting one eye in her most spy-like expression.  I was directed to gasp in shock when she stripped off the tutu and threw the pom-poms to the ground and exclaim, “WHAT?!  She’s not really a ballerina cheerleader!  SHE’S A SPY!” 

- My mom was whipping up some cream while Olivia was trying to get her attention.  She asked over and over, “What will that taste like?”  but my mom couldn’t hear her over the mixer.  She said, “Oh, I have an idea!”, then jumped off her stool, opened a drawer, and extracted a funnel.  She put the skinny part to her lips, and in a magnified voice, called, “GRANDMA!  WHAT WILL THAT TASTE LIKE?”  Which effectively procured the attention she was seeking.  And anyway, I thought it was pretty tricky of her to use the funnel as a megaphone.

-  I’m sure we all have them;  those days when we lose our patience extra quickly?  Maybe react to little things more than is strictly necessary?  (For me, it’s especially around Olivia’s bedtime.)  And then, when all is finally quiet, we have to face ourselves.  And feel that little twinge of embarrassment.  Oh, but isn’t that the very worst?

- How is it possible that Thanksgiving is already this week?   

-  This week’s physiology lab dealt with the ever lovely subject of Urology.  Which meant that every student had the enviable opportunity to pee in a plastic cup, not once, but FOUR separate times (over three hours) to test things like pH, check for renal diseases (I was seriously afraid that I’d find out I had some life-threatening illness), measure the volume by pouring it in a beaker, and so much more. It wasn’t awkward or uncomfortable at all.  I was using a heavy amount of sarcasm in the previous sentence. I hear that next week we get to test 10 mls of our own spit!  So much fun!

- I was complaining about my flat iron, mostly to myself, when Olivia told me, “Welp.  You’ll just have to deal with it.”  And I made a sacred vow to never say that to her again.  Because it’s really annoying to hear when you have a legitimate complaint, ok? (No, but seriously, my flat iiirooonnn!)

- The other day, I was telling Olivia a bedtime story about a persistent shark pursuing a mermaid.  The mermaid got so fed up with the shark that she poked him in the eyes (my bedtime stories are pretty riveting!).  As I glanced at Olivia just after the eye-poking, she told me with streaming eyes, “I don’t like this story!”  Except her eyes weren’t crying because she was sad.  It was because she has the most sensitive eyeballs on the planet, and mere stories of eye-poking make her own water uncontrollably.  Even today, I splashed a little toothpaste in my eye while I was brushing her teeth; it burned a little, so I “ouch!”ed and closed it.  Next thing you know, Olivia’s own eyes are welling over, just from thinking about the toothpaste in mine.

- Olivia discovered fallen walnuts all over our yard as my mom and I were raking leaves.  She gathered them all, opened a few, and declared her bounty a snack for any traveling peacocks who might be hungry:

She’s pretty thoughtful like that.

 

Here’s one of her fancy outfits of her own design:

I hereby promise to you that I will no longer take all of my pictures from my iphone.  I thought it was fantastic at first, but the grainy quality is starting to make me feel a little stabby.  From now on, it’ll be a good combination of real camera pictures and phone pictures, I solemnly swear.

And here, I received a bona fide Olivia Scout make-over.  I’m sorry to make you jealous like that, but I couldn’t help but brag.

But, actually, I would like to do some real bragging for a moment, because THIS was awesome:

99/100 on my latest math test!  And this is without the curve added, so it’ll be over 100% when all is done.  Annnd this is my second perfect test score in a row.  Apparently, I am actually good at math?  I know, I’m surprised too.

- Olivia and I couldn’t stand to spend another second indoors on Friday, so we decided to head to the park even though it was blustery and chilly outside.  I’m so glad we did.  We really had the best time.  And I love her.

She made this nest by gathering all the twigs from the bottoms of every tree.  Here she is on a stick-scouting expedition.

- The very next day, we woke up to a world covered in snow.  She ate breakfast and promptly began to beg and plead to play in the snow.  I was like, “No. I’m not doing that.  It’s too cold.”  But then we compromised by her going in the backyard alone while I sat in the warmth of our home, taking pictures through the windows.  Win-win!

She needs snow pants.  Bad.

- It’s pretty much like I don’t even need to tell you this, but, WE WENT TO A MIDNIGHT PREMIERE OF BREAKING DAWN ON THURSDAY!

YOU GUYS.  My roots do not really look like that!  The filter I chose made the light stuff lighter and the dark stuff darker, hence: scariest roots of all time.  I mean, yes, they are grown out a little, but it looks much more natural in real life.  And anyway, here are our big drinks and big popcorn and also my ticket!  What fun! (Even though that big drink made my bladder terribly uncomfortable throughout the movie and I had to take care of business twice.)(I am certain that I’ve never talked about pee on this blog quite as much as I have this evening.)

Alisha, Emily, me.  Poor Michelle couldn’t come because she had the flu.  But never fear, we’re all going together on Friday.  And I will just tell you, I loved that movie.  When going in to those movies, you just have to expect the large amounts of cheesy, the occasionally painful acting, and especially the WHAT WAS STEPHENIE MEYER THINKING WHEN SHE WROTE THAT??? parts that make you cringe for those poor actors’ sakes, and then you’re good.  And then IT’S good.  And also awesome.

In summary, the movie was great.  But I did think it was a little weird how they put my face on the popcorn buckets.

  Will someone please alert these two handsome gentlemen that I am a married woman?  Honestly!