love of self.

so this morning, after the girls got out of the tub for the 4th time- they gave me a little mood brightener. lauren is still not dressed (a.k.a nakers) and she wedges her foot into a too small easter shoe. (picture drizzela from cinderella trying to fit into the glass slipper). she finally gets it, (though her foot is bent in half)puts her hands on her hips and says (insert shrill voice here) "i am NOT going to marry you anymore, claire. i am going to marry myself!" i am giggling out loud at this scene, thinking that something about her 1 shoe-ed, naked self feels so superior that the only option for marriage is herself!! anna scoffs at this and says, "lauren, you just don't get life." apparently from 3 to 5, you figure life out. that gives us a little time to inform lauren that sibling marriage is not the best choice. i am guessing michigan law will back us up.

we are on the move!!

well, early saturday morning we got our 2nd offer on our house- and this one appears to be a go!! they have inspections on wednesday and we need to close by august 9. i am feverishly trying to find a place for us to go while our house is being built. i woke up early this morning- ready to find us a home, sort and organize and find storage rental all in one day. i went thru 1 house today and it could not have been nastier. seriously, even if they paid me to live there- i would not. after 1.4 minutes in the house these shrill, involuntary noises started coming out of my mouth. it was so bad. anna summed it up by getting back in the car and saying, "well, i dont think THAT is a good fit!" ditto. maybe tuesday will bring more possibilities.

i just returned from another rental option- i told brian that i feared a tiny piece of my soul would die every time i walked into it. we have elected to steer clear of the soul killing rentals.

happy (belated) 4th of july

ipod woes

so, i just got a new cell phone that can also work as an ipod. the problem is the earbuds that they sent me are too big for my ears. i am not kidding. brian even tried to cram them into my ears and it is not working. i am hoping that over time my ears will stretch out, like when people put bigger and bigger earrings in to stretch out their lobes. with enough persistence, i am hoping to have earbud ready ears in no time!!

van conversations

here are 2 conversations the girls had yesterday on the way to and from swimming lessons....

claire was once again recalling an incident from last year in which a boy pushed her down the slide at playworld.

claire: "yesterday, that boy pushed me so hard. i dont not never want that boy to push me again. right anna? right, anna? right, anna?"

anna was not listening (mainly b/c we hear the same story every day)

anna: "that's nice."

claire (outraged): " that IS NOT NICE. THAT HURTS SO BAD. DONT SAY THAT, ANNA! (mumbles ) i am mad at you."

anna ( who is never wrong and is now sporting a smirk):" weeelll, it is nice if you want to go flying fast and land in a pile."

the next conversation was about the pacifiers that we sent to disney for the sad babies. emma was inquiring when she could get hers back. (nuts to the babies) when anna had to give hers up we told her she could have it back when she got married. she informed me that she no longer would want them back and i said that was a good idea b/c moms and dads dont use pipies anyway. she said, when i am a grandma great (great grandma) and i move into one of those really small houses (sunset manor), i will want it back then. i asked why and she replied...it will give me something to do there. i love that girl.

beware of altered blog.

to those of you who are confused by the following post entitled war of the hart's....my husband altered the content to make it look as though i was the perpetrator and not the victim. try to look past his statements, as i deny them but have no time to re-type this.

war of the hart's

for the past several days, my husband, who is usually passive and a peacekeeper, has been waging war with me. Unfortunately, I started the war so I am totally to blame. today, for instance- i got into my vehicle with my half a dozen children and the van was near 200 degrees. i had not had any caffeine yet and based on the behavior i had witnessed in the morning, the outing did not look promising. after the usual fight about seating and whose day it is and was and who will sit in which remaining seats ( you get the idea)- we are off and out of the subdivision. i realize that though the air is full blast- i am not cooling off. in fact, i feel as though my insides are burning up. i consider driving us all to the e.r. and then i realize that brian, my devoted and loving husband, has turned my seat heater to high. if i hadn't done the same thing to him several times in the last couple of days to start the war, he would probably feel bad reading ths. the tricky thing about those heaters is that you do not realize they are on until you feel like one of those rotisserie chickens. after being victimized for several days by my spouse (and b/c i am not one to back down from a good prank challenge, expecially when i started it) i decided it was time to get even. this may not seem fair since i started the seat heater prank and got my husband many more times than he got me, but i like to torture my husband with pranks, at least a little. while i was cleaning the girls room, i found anna's pebble collection. i took 5 smallish, not too sharp, pebbles and placed them under the sheets on brian's side of the bed. usually brian works on his computer until the wee hours of the morning- so i accepted the fact that it would be a late night, but worth the wait. i even skipped my dose of ambien to be sure i stayed awake. a few minutes later brian came and sat on the edge of the bed to set the alarm clock. i thought it would be over right then, but the comforter was still covering the rocks and he did not seem to notice. in he crawled and nothing. i say " you are a bit to close to me, can you scootch over to your side please?" over he goes and nothing. i am struggling at this point to keep my giggles quiet...but i quickly realize this is not turning out as i had hoped. there he lies on his stomach- ready to drift off. i am thinking, "he is so skinny, there is no way he cannot feel that." finally i ask, "are you comfy?" he whips his head around and says "why?" i start chuckling and he is not amused. he questions me a few more times about what is so "frickin" funny and because i am a vault- i tell him not. he lays back down and finally feels a pebble, then finds two more. he replies "you put rocks in my bed". that was it. what a let down. i had much, much higher hopes of how this prank would turn out. no drama, no thrashing around, no uncomfortable groans. nothing. shoot. maybe next time. p.s. in the morning i found the remaining 2 rocks on the carpet. i makes me feel better to think that during the night sometime he was digging around to see what was poking him in the thigh. i will cling to that.