More Birthdays and New Countertops

Now that school has begun, so have the birthday parties. Olivia was invited to a dress-up party by one of her old classmates, Emily, from last year's pre-school. They are in class together this year and will move on to regular kindergarten together. The theme of the party was a Hannah Montana-style spa/makeover. All the girls got their hair done, nails painted, their faces painted, and "tattoos" (temporary, or Mark would have keeled over). Here she is before the party, in one of her princess dresses.
Here is Emily's mom doing the face painting. She throws great parties. The girls all had a ball.

Olivia kept her flower painting as long as she could, but it flaked off by the next day. She took wonderful care of her Hannah Montana "tattoo" tho, and kept it for a week. She would not let it get wet and kept her arm out of the bathtub by constantly holding it over her head...

Ke Xin scored a 4-wheeler! Actually, mommy bought an old 4 wheeler for $3.44 at the thrift store. Mark looked it over, but declared that it would never run again. Shoot. I threw it out, but kept the battery charger, just in case... (maybe that's how we have so much "stuff" around the house). But then, the very next week, in a case of perfect timing - WalMart put a floor display 4-wheeler on clearance for $20. The problem? It was missing the charger!!!! Problem? Not for the pack-rat Myers family!! So, Ke Xin has a brand new $80 4-wheeler for $23.44. Thank you very much! She loves it and drives it around the cul-de-sac. She's a very good driver. Lately, when we are in the car and come to a red light or stop for traffic in front of us, she waits for about 10 seconds and then starts yelling (really) "Go! Go! Go! Go!" Road Rage at age 3!

I don't post many pics of the dogs, so here they are! Jingle (the fat), Smoochy (the bouncy) and Lucy (the timid). And Olivia, too. They are great little dogs and we love them. Mostly they just sleep on the sofa because I'm running after one, or both, kids. They love to wrestle with each other tho. It can be quite a sight.

Sometimes she's happy, and........

sometimes she's not. Below is a picture after yet another birthday party. There's a story I want to tell first, tho. At the birthday party (dress-up again), the girls were given plain foam crowns and allowed to decorate them. They had jewels, letters and all sorts of shapes (flowers, etc.) they could paste onto the crowns. Most of the girls took letters and spelled their names or the word "Princess". Not mine! She went straight to the top and spelled "Queen". You go, girl!!!!!!!

When we got home, she wanted to play. I wanted to take her picture. I won. Sort of. Below is the result of my ordering her to pose for me. She was seriously PO'd.

You could sit on that lower lip. Talk about pout!


She got over it pretty quickly tho. Thank heavens!!

Both the girls love to dress up. It usually doesn't last long, but it's fun to see all the costume changes. Here are the two princesses (queens?).

Ke Xin is so cute in this little witch outfit. At the time, we didn't know what the weather would be like on Halloween, so I had a warm weather outfit (below) and a cool weather outfit (above). The cool weather outfit became her official costume, since it was rainy and icky Saturday night.

Grandma Sally invited us over for dinner the other weekend. Aunt Karen and Uncle Robert got to see Ke Xin for the first time. Karen is a teacher, so she's great with the girls.

Ke Xin wanted to comb everybody's hair, even mustaches! Grandma Sally's chili was perfect on a chilly night! Yum!

The granite was delivered much sooner than we had expected. We love it. Here is a "Before" picture.

Without knowing that the granite was being installed later that morning, I started stripping wallpaper just because I could. I wanted to see what the kitchen would look like without the grapes. (Yes, Ke Xin loves being naked and drops her clothes whenever possible.)

But then, surprise! The granite guys were on the doorstep. They installed everything in short order and it was beautiful! Here is Ke Xin helping daddy hook-up the new cook top.

And here is our "new" kitchen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was really glad I'd pulled down that wallpaper. You can see how awful the grapes look with the granite. Mark LOVES the new granite. I believe that when he comes home late at night, he just runs his hands over it and smiles to himself. It gives the kitchen a whole new feel. Now we get to start the seach for the perfect backsplash tiles and piant...