My Amazing Teenager

I am incredibly grateful for Paige this morning! She really saved our rear-ends. Lately, she's been coming down to our house on Thursday nights since she has to work weekends. When we take her to work on Saturday she goes home afterward since she has to work again on Sunday. Living an hour from James' girls is extremely less than convenient (I can't wait till we move closer this summer), but we've managed to find a way to make it work.

This morning, it was seriously a life saver that she was here. Lena is currently on her choir tour today to all the schools in town and the library. I made sure she showered last night, I blow dried her hair so it would be easier to straighten in the morning, and we laid out her required outfit. Literally as we're getting ready to walk out the door, Lena freezes in her tracks, and tells me "Oh mom! I forgot! I need a lunch today." Most people would think this was obvious, however she's a hot lunch kid. I don't ever make her a lunch really. I just deposit money into her account every payday and then it's one less thing I have to worry about. Well... She won't be at school today for lunch, i.e. she needed a sack lunch. Ummm... SHIT!

 I've mentioned several times before that neither Lena nor myself are exactly morning people and that she's also terribly distracted constantly. We're always rushing out the door at the last possible moment and pulling up to the stop as the bus gets there (or sometimes after the bus gets there and then we rush two more stops up and do a drive-by shove out let her get on with Luke instead). Even with all my preparation the night before, this morning was really no different than the others. There simply was just not time to make her this lunch that she failed to mention to me in the last two weeks. Coincidentally, she had also lost the sheet that came home with all details I would need. Frankly, she's lucky she had pants!

But I'm getting off track here... At that moment, I was faced with either A) being late to work to make this lunch and then drive her into school OR B) I could wake up Paige and ask her to drive Lena into school. Keep in mind folks, were talking about a teenager here, and her ability to sleep is one that I envy and miss greatly. Typically, we don't have her help out with the kids because she does enough of that at her other home (there are 6 kids in total there). We believe in our house she should be the kid and not a co-parent. I did end up waking up Paige though, this was an emergency after all, and thank the freaking gods she was willing and hell, even happy to help me out of this jam.

I kissed both my girls goodbye and dashed out the door. I made it to work with two minutes to spare thanks to Paige. She's one amazing kid and I'm grateful for her always, but especially today!

There's Never Enough Time

It has been an extremely busy week here in the Nowhere household. We've basically been running nonstop since Saturday. We got our Christmas tree, made cookies, and have been getting ready for the upcoming Nifty Notes concert that Lena is in next week. This required new shoes, new pants, new tights, and she was in serious need of a haircut.

I've spent every lunch break this week running errands trying to get everything put together and by the time I have been getting home, I'm just exhausted. We've been in bed by 9pm every night this week so far.

So instead of going on and on, I'm just going to share some photos instead today.

Saturday we hit up Luer's Christmas Tree Farm in Crown Point. This will also be our
Christmas card photo this year. Speaking of which, I need to get those ordered.

We cut down our own tree. And by "we" I mean James.

The girls decided to fight over who got to haul the tree.

So naturally, we made them take turns.

I don't have a lot of photos from decorating.
We finally learned how to use Skype and had the
Great Grandparents from FL join in the festivities.

And we ran out of lights when we got to the top.

Sunday we made cookies and they promptly ditched me
when I wouldn't let them keep eating the dough.

Sam has decided to help encourage Lena with her reading.
This seems to be working very well, because she doesn't
want him to leave her bed, so she reads longer than required.

Oh, and he wants to go to school.

I Don't Like Cameras...

Lighting Is Everything

This week at Lena's school has a theme for each day to help raise money for Riley's Children's Hospital. They do this every year, which I think is wonderful! I love that they're getting the kids involved and teaching them the importance of helping others. However, it would have been nice if the school had actually sent a note home letting us know about these themes ahead of time.

The last couple mornings around my house have been a mad scramble trying to assemble the appropriate outfit for Lena. Yesterday was sports day so we had to locate her Bears jersey that she got for Christmas. Sorry to say, but the kid ended up going in it unwashed, because she didn't bother to let me know the night before so I could toss it in the laundry. I quickly did a smell and spot check, dressed her up, and sent her on her way. Oops!

This morning she informs me that it's going to Wacky Wednesday. I don't keep a whole lot of insane outfit combinations just laying around (though I suppose she could have worn her Hermione Granger costume if all else failed) but we ended up deciding on a beach theme.

It made perfect sense to both of us that the concept of wearing beach gear in January was about as wacky as you could get right about now. We grabbed her cover up out of the closet and threw on a tank top (figured a bathing suit might grab in all the uncomfortable places if worn too long) and a pair of jeans to keep her little legs warm. I also sprayed her with my Bath & Body Works Passport Tahiti so that she would smell of coconut for good measure.

As an after thought, we recently acquired a massive set of pixie dust glitter that my sister Holly had brought to do art the weekend she spent with us. They had a lovely gold in there that we thought could pass as sun dust in her hair.

I shared the photo below on FB this morning and should have either a) put a disclaimer on it or b) taken a different photo with more light.

Evidently my family thought I was posting some sort of public service announcement, because their comments were asking if Lena had lice! I guess when you're just looking at a thumbnail photo and don't bother to read the caption about putting sun in her hair I could see where you would get this idea. I'll have to make sure to shine a flash light on her head the next time we add glitter.