Hey guys. Sorry I never talk to you anymore.

I feel like surely my following has dropped off.  This is a new era, where I don't have time to tell you about stuff.  Especially very smart, poetic stuff.

I feel bad, because someone will greet me and say, "How's life?"  My brain goes blank-ish.  All that is there is, "Oh, dog-walking, homework, food making, dog-walking, homework, food making.  And some stuff in-between."  I keep trying to exercise with Jillian and I fall on the floor yawning with my hearing popping out.  It occurred to me that I may need more sleep, water, food, rest.
I'm positive that on days that I give Lucy a good run/walk, and give myself a good Jillian ripping, and go to the grocery store and cook a meal, I definitely need 2 extra hours of sleep that night.  I'm a floppy dead person at 8pm.

See, this isn't a fun post.

Nathan's going to China again.  So I said, "Dang it, I'm going on a date before I'm paralyzed with sadness while he's gone."  I think it's been 3 months or so since we've gone out (not counting parent/teacher conferences).  It'll be great.

Thanksgiving will be at our house this year.  This will be tricky with a counter top surfing dog tongue.

I just painted a bedroom Limestone gray.  Nathan let the girls pick their wall color when we first moved in, and it's always been bright ocean blue with barbie sticker book pages taped up.  It looks so clean now!  I love clean.  The girls cried when they saw the color I planned to put up, after I'd cut in the edges.  I'll have to give them some pink curtains some day.

We celebrated Lola's 4th birthday with a not-so-elegant looking cake.  

But it was yummy.

Lucy and her baby

And this represents the battle that is my afternoons and evenings.  

No really, some days she does just great and has a very good attitude about the fact that she has 3 times the homework her other sisters get.  A lot of days are tough though.  4th grade is going to be a vacation next year.