So, yeah. Almost a week’s worth of pictures in one post, for ya. The first one is from Sunday. I have delightful inlaws. They live all the way up in Fort Collins, which is a good hour and a half drive from my house, yet they come down usually a couple of times every month to spend time with us and the kiddos. They drive down here bright and early on Sunday mornings, let themselves in, and fix coffee and breakfast and entertain the kids while we sleep in. There’s nothing better. And it’s so nice to wake up to the smell of breakfast cooking! Anyway, after breakfast last Sunday, Mallory was climbing all over Paul’s dad. Suddenly, she ended up straddling his shoulder, and she threw up her arms and proclaimed, “I’m riding an elephant!” It was SO FUNNY – Paul and his parents and I all just cracked up laughing. This is right at that moment! Even funnier was Paul telling his dad, “Yeah, Papa, and she would know what that feels like, since she rode one at the renaissance fair!”

This is on Monday. We do themed dinners throughout the week, just to keep it fun for the kids. We usually try to do Taco Tuesday, Wacky Wednesday (which is breakfast for dinner), and Pizza Friday. We’re all trying to detox from the holiday indulging, so I’ve added Build-Your-Own-Salad Monday to the lineup, and to my great surprise, the kids are totally digging it. Even Pablo! They’re all eating salad happily, since I discovered Raspberry Pecan Vinaigrette.

Tuesday, as you know, was Nikki and Lexi’s birthday!

I took the two of them over to Sweet & Sassy and (gasp) let them get their EARS PIERCED. I know, I know. Previously, I had decided not to let them do it until they were ten. I figured, I have enough to do in my life without having to dick around with cleaning ears every night and all of that – better to wait until they were old enough to manage it on their own. But SO MANY of their little friends have their ears pierced, and little girls are so danged cute in earrings. And I can’t do $500 birthday parties for my kids, or buy them sequined Ugg boots, or pay for all of them to play soccer. But getting their ears pierced? Yeah, I can totally do that. So we did it. And they were SUPER BRAVE. Nikki did not so much as flinch. Lexi wept a little bit, but it was short-lived.

And here’s another thing I can do for them. I can let them get EXACTLY the birthday cake they asked for. Last week, I asked them what kind of birthday cake they wanted, and they talked about it for awhile and then reported to me what they’d decided. They wanted a photo cake with both of their pictures on it, along with E.T., Indiana Jones, and Captain Jack Sparrow. Along with pink and purple flowers. Thank you, King Soopers, for making my girls the BEST CAKE EVER. They LOVED it.

For their birthday celebration, we picked up a friend of theirs and headed out to Fun City. The kids had a blast shooting foam balls at each other, playing mini-golf, and kicking ass at skee-ball.

What a fun birthday!

Yesterday, we did something else super fun, too – we hit Casa Bonita with a whole bunch of our school friends and their awesome mommies. I have pictures from that outing too, but they’re still on my camera. Afterward, though, the kids and I headed out to see Paul at work. He just transferred to another residency and it was my first time seeing his new office. I thought this was neat – the picture is blurry because I was trying to be sly. It’s the traffic control center for CDOT – every camera in the state feeds to this room, and then out to the news stations.

And today, well…it’s Friday! I don’t think I’ve taken one picture today, because all I’ve done is laundry. Oh, and I went to the dentist at the buttass crack ‘o dawn to get a tooth filled. Super fun. Maybe something exciting will happen in the next few hours. Maybe?