2011 In Pictures...January

I'm a little late getting going on this annual series...and I normally don't include much text...if this wasn't a collage post, I'd have titled it: "The Great Escape, Massacre, & Re-Capture of 2012." You see, Little Man received an ant farm from some dear friends of ours. We sent our $4 to Uncle Milton and checked the mail EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. Including the day we put the $4 in the mailbox. Alas, the ants arrived when Little Man was away spending time with the grands. The instructions were specific...place ants in ant farm IMMEDIATELY. So the little guy missed out.

Fast forward through a crazy weekend...Friday night we began the trek to mama's and got her home safe and sound, though rather late.

Saturday morning brought sweet time at the great-grands as we celebrated Christmas a little late.

Saturday afternoon brought the wedding of some high school friends of ours and the best bridal cake I've ever tasted. (And the wedding was in the church where The Engineer and I attended pre-school together! And where my parents were members when I was a little girl - I can still almost pick the pew we sat in one Sunday when mama gave me a piece of hard candy. Funny what one remembers.)

Saturday night was prep time for a baby shower for a dear high school friend of mine. Mother impressed us all with her mad skills in hosting said shower. (Of course, the shower was planned well before we knew mama would have surgery!) And mama is continuing to recover well.

And Sunday night brought a long trek home. Little Bit has shed her diapers and thus we made six stops during a three and a half hour drive...in the pouring rain. And we touched every bit of every toilet and trash can.

Upon our 10 pm arrival home, The Engineer quickly dis-assembled Little Bit's bed and moved it from upstairs down and re-assembled it in her bedroom. (This is all because we just laid hardwoods in the master bedroom, nursery, and hall outside the master thanks to the lovely dog smell...so the entire house has been turned upside down.) So...while The Engineer is trying to re-assemble the crib, Little Man starts screaming like he's cut his hand off and we rush into the bedroom to find the lid off the ant farm and all the ants scattering as fast as they possibly could....all while Little Man continues to shriek.

The Engineer went for the vacuum. I ran for a large piece of paper and the liner to his lunch box. We wound up scraping the ants up, dumping them in the lunch box liner, tapping the sides to knock them back down and in, making a paper funnel, dumping as many as possible into the ant farm, capping it - thus killing a few a-la bodies cut in half - refrigerating the farm to "quiet" the ants, all while I continued to tap the liner to knock the remaining ants back down...and Little Bit screamed in fear of an ant biting her...and Sister fell apart in tears...finally we returned the living to the ant farm - along with some hair and lint off the floor. It was maddening.

Lessons learned: tape the lid down. Don't let four year olds carry ant farms around the house. Duh.

Hope you have a great night!