Elizabeth had the day off and so did Matt. That almost never happens at the same time so we went to Epcot together. It was beautiful weather and though it was crowded, we did what we wanted to do and had a really nice time.

Ryan dressed as Donald Duck and met Goofy.

Elizabeth dressed as Violet from The Incredibles (according to her anyway) and met Minnie.

(They actually both met both and Mickey too but these are the pictures that came out particularly well.)

Elizabeth tried on a hat. Her favorite hat, she says.

And Ryan got a choo choo.

•Elizabeth got that rainbow in my room projector from my sister for Christmas. It’s really cool. She left it in my room last night so I turned it on when I got in bed tonight. I think I may need one for me.
•I got all the laundry done today. Then I changed the sheets on my bed and found a stack of stuff behind a door and I have two more loads. Sisyphus.
•Now that the holidays are over and we don’t have any company scheduled for the foreseeable future, I am feeling more motivated to get the house finished. I still have a lot to do. Furniture to buy, things to install, organizing to be done.
•Elizabeth didn’t have school today but we drove past her school on the way to somewhere else. The whole parking lot was full of cars so I began to doubt myself. I checked her backpack when we got home and there was no note from her teacher about no school today like there usually is. My doubt grew. I looked at the official school calendar and it is a day off. (Teacher in-service, explaining the cars in the parking lot.) But I still feel doubt.
•She also has Monday off. She knew this. I did not.
•Have we maybe noticed that I have not been using my giant whiteboard calendar like I did in the old house? It’s in a less convenient spot in this house and I have gotten out of the habit. Clearly I need to get back in the habit.

Tonight, Elizabeth was helping me clean up the downstairs instead of sleeping in her bed like she ought to have been. She took the dog out and I got the vacuum out to clean up the bark chips that keep coming in from outside.

As I started vacuuming, she whistled at the dog (well, she doesn’t actually whistle, she makes a high pitched screech with her mouth and calls it a whistle) and called her out of the way of the vacuum. I told her not to worry, the dog was far too large to be sucked up by the vacuum cleaner. Then I said there weren’t any dogs that were small enough to be sucked up by a vacuum cleaner.

She looked at me suspiciously and said “what about Yorkies? They are the smallest dogs. And what about BABY Yorkies?”

Tonight, I made Elizabeth sit down and do some of her homework. She has weekly homework- it comes home on Monday and it is due Friday. She needs one night and about an additional fifteen minutes to do it. She could finish it in one swoop but she doesn’t like all the handwriting practice so she usually has to finish the second handwriting assignment on a second night.

Anyway, tonight I was reading her the directions (why do they give homework that kindergarteners are incapable of doing themselves?) and I read the part twice that said her homework was due on Thursday this week. I couldn’t figure it out. Why would her teacher make them turn it in a day earlier than usual? Then it dawned on me. No school on Friday. I had looked at it written on my calendar last week and thought “we’ll have to do something fun” but then I had forgotten all about it. I’m just going to be happy that I made her do her homework on Wednesday night instead of waiting until Thursday night this week.