I'm on my 3rd glass of champagne so let's see where this goes

It's Thursday. Six days have passed since I last posted and much has happened, most of it work related and unbloggable, but super very good, which is why I'm drinking this celebratory mid-week champagne JP bought me today, but I have pictures for some of the bloggable things, so let's type words that make some sense when grouped together!

Cora has taken over the household. It's like a Trojan horse situation with a tyrannical toddler emerging from a sweet smiley baby.

She's in charge

Sometimes she knows what she wants and she would like it RIGHT NOW PLEASE YES READ THIS BOOK AND BARK LIKE A DOG. YES. NOW.

Other times she has no idea what she wants, but she is quite certain that you ARE NOT OFFERING IT WHY ARE YOU TORTURING ME WHY?

Until daddy turns onto our street and her spidey senses know he is 5 houses away and she stops screaming and rolling and perks up and turn DELIGHTFUL for just enough time for the tears to dry before he walks in the door.

What, me? I just want a hug, is that too much to ask?

I also wanted to take all the tissues out of a box. What? Why are you mean?

On Monday morning we let Cora roam around the house while JP and I got ready and the big kids got their breakfast. I came out to the dining room a few minutes later to find Cora sitting at the real people table with a plate she borrowed from her play kitchen. She's strong and she's a climber; the only reason she's not on the table is because she hasn't thought of it yet.

We enjoyed a family movie night on Saturday. Big Hero Six was super cute, though I'm still genuinely upset about Tadashi's storyline. Cora is too.

The big kids went swimming on Sunday, because they're insane. Our pool doesn't have a heater, so that's basically the melted snow from a few weeks ago.

Cora stayed inside and judged them while I decided to move all the furniture and reorganize all the bookcases, toy bins, and other storage devices in all the rooms of the house.

Just something I like to do about 3 p.m. on a Sunday. JP must love me an awful lot, because he stayed with me until 1 a.m. when we finished putting the bookcases and playroom back together. It looks great now, though we're one trip to Ikea away from perfection.

This was Claire while passing through the kitchen last night. I was making our beloved fiesta quinoa enchilada bake and she was doing whatever Claire does.

Every single detail in this picture is important- from the kitty sticking out of the side pocket in her backpack to the mismatched high heels to the assortment of purses and old lunchboxes all filled with an assortment of tiny treasures, many of them pilfered from Landon, in her baby carriage. She's like a homeless hoarder with great fashion sense. I adore her.

On the same evening I snapped a photo of Landon being extra Landonish. In his free time at his after school program he wrote his own chapter book. Five chapters, 228 words, illustrations, and lots of facts you need to know about animals in the wild.

I flipping adore him too. I'm recruiting both of them as allies against our tyrannical 2'7" overlord.

Today was a really, really big day for me at work. Here I am in the elevator at 7 a.m. with a Starbucks chai tea latte and my hair blow-dried for the first time in many weeks.

This is my game face. Do not mess with me when I have my game face on AND I woke up 30 freaking minutes earlier than necessary to do my hair. Dry hair is significantly overrated. Chai tea lattes on 5 hours of sleep are not.

Now I'm in fuzzy pj's and socks with my game face scrubbed off drinking victory-is-mine champagne and wondering how much sleep I should try to recapture. Given that it's already 11:30, I'm thinking very little, but my 3rd 4th glass of champagne and I don't care.

It's been a really good day. AND I cashed my first check for barre teaching- $25 dollars, woot!- so I'm pretty sure this new Lulu tank my champagne and I are lusting after is totally justified. We'll see if we can remember our credit card number.

Hope everyone is having a fist-bump kind of a week!