Happy Quick Takes Illustrated

The week is done! We're about to head to Houston for a mini reunion with some close high school friends, some of whom I haven't seen in about 5 years. I'm not excited about the 7 hours of driving, but I'm super excited to see them (and their kids- we have kids now, crazy) and we decided it was more hassle to stay overnight than to just drive back after it was done.

I fear I'm picking bad times to blog because all you're getting is the "holy crap I have so much to do and I'm tired and I miss my stay-home husband with all the free time and the doing of all household errands and tasks." There's been good stuff too- lots of it, actually.

There's the love notes JP leaves for me. I found this one the morning after I worked until 2 a.m. and he'd left at 6 to swim:

There's the Biscuit, who is just awesome. Fierce. But awesome (and still snuggly when she's tired, and she gives the best hugs). Claire is always busy- always on a mission- and she completely dictates the play with her big brother. Landon suggests something, Claire marches off to do something else, and Landon follows behind with, "oh, okay Biscuit! let's do that!" It cracks us up.

It's also increasingly difficult to get her in the camera frame. She moves fast!

She also likes to help. Here her plastic soup pot made its way in to the dishwasher and she was trying to close it up for me.

The $30 water table (her 1st birthday present) continues to be an excellent investment. Both she and Landon LOVE that thing, and we love sitting on the back porch, in the shade, watching them splash and play without having to constantly redirect Claire from doing something dangerous (she always finds something).

(love)

Yesterday Landon's daycare class put on a circus performance for the parents. It was awesome. Landon pulled off the great feat of being a non-creepy clown:

(cute, right?)

and then all the kids performance "tricks" they brainstormed after reading various story books about going to the circus. There were elephant rides (low table decorated into an elephant; the teachers helped the kids climb on top and then the kids stood on the elephant's back and did tricks); jumping through "rings of fire" (hula hoop with taped on flames); jumping over an "entire line of trucks!" (wood block with toy trucks taped on); jumping over fire (wood block with flames); balancing acts (balance beam and balancing foam bricks on their heads); and a disappearing act (totally adorable).

The best part was the teachers taught the kids to exclaim, "the show must go on!" any time they messed up. It cracked us up and now Landon says it at home if we drop food on the floor or otherwise make a mistake in our routine.

Lastly, and not directly related to my life, but something that made me oh so very happy this week. New York passed the Marriage Equality Act. I could say a lot about this, but basically, two consenting adults can now get married and receive the whole host of benefits the government affords that status. It will never fail to infuriate me that this isn't a given in all 50 states, particularly mine, but rather than get on a "sometimes I can't believe I live in Texas" tangent, look, a rainbow empire state building:

Yay!