Good news - bad news

The good news:

Avery can get dressed all by herself.

The bad news:

She likes to change her outfit several times a day (and night for that matter). This wouldn't be that big of a deal if she didn't empty out EVERY SINGLE ONE of her drawers in the process.

I got tired of picking clothes up off the floor so I put her dresser in the closet in the hopes that it would deter her. It did, for about 20 minutes. I've resorted to tying her closet doors shut and she hasn't figured that one out yet, I give it about a week.

If she wasn't so darn cute.

On a completely different note:

This girl melts my heart.

RIP JJ

So we, being the awesome parents that we are, bought James a goldfish for his birthday. He affectionately called him JJ and was excited to take care of him. His job was to feed JJ twice a day but I, thinking the fish wasn't getting fed enough (because he looked hungry), took over the feedings.

Mistake #1 - don't put me in charge of feeding the fish.

One day, instead of picking up the tiny flakes of fish food and placing them in the tank, I thought it would be more time effective to shake the little container over the water. This resulted in about a 1/4 cup of food being dropped at the same time. I tried to get most of it out as quick as I could, but the majority of it sunk to the bottom. The next day the tank was murky, so much so we could barely see the bright orange fish. Ben changed some of the water out but it didn't help, so he decided to change ALL the water.

Mistake #2 - don't let Ben change all the water at once.

The tank was all sparkly and clean but we noticed something about JJ. His tail started to disintegrate before our eyes. Within a day it was completely gone. I don't know if you've ever seen a fish try to swim without a tail, but he pretty much can't. The poor little guy would try so hard, only to end up ricocheting off the plastic plant and cut-out pirate ship. He was still able to eat but I was worried about whether or not he was in pain. Ben and I were discussing last night whether or not we should put him out of his misery, but he ended up dying sometime last night anyways.

James is fine about it - he could obviously tell JJ was sick and is anxious to get a new one. Maybe one day we'll tell him how Ben and I, as a collective unit, inadvertently killed his fish. Hopefully he'll forgive us.

Don't judge me too hard

Before I had children of my own I remember being at the grocery store and seeing a mom with her kids. All of the kids were wearing mismatched clothes, their hair was not brushed and there were remnants of their last meal on their little faces. I told myself I would never be like that, I would always have my kids in nice, clean clothes, they would have their hair perfectly brushed and be well-behaved on top of that. Well that perfect vision went out the window years ago. Instead I let my daughter be seen in public like this:

Yes the princess dress is an almost daily habit, but on this particular day she was adamant on the following: pink tights, pumpkin hat and socks as gloves (one purple and one yellow). I was able to talk her into wearing a jacket, since it was cold, but it had to be her pink one and not her warmer white one. Sure we got a couple stares, nothing new there (oh the joys of not looking my age), and quite a few people approached us to ask where they could find such a pretty dress, but other than that is was a fun errand running day. One thing I've learned it to pick my battles and if my girl is happy than I'm happy. I wish I could get away with wearing a princess dress everyday!