But first, the drawing:

Jeanette, you’re the winner! Can you please send your address to me at owonderfulwonderful@gmail.com? I’ll send you this:

Junks I Collect! (Paper Balloons)

A new favorite discovery: the octopus creature cup

Now for the rest of the weekend update:

1) I declared shorts a contraband item. I was tired of arguing every single morning with the boys about wearing clothes appropriate to the weather (“Go back upstairs and come back down wearing LONG SLEEVES! LONG PANTS!). I was fed up with seeing them shivering and blue-lipped in the 40 degree weather. I demanded that they take every single pair of shorts out of their drawers and hand them over. And then I hid them. Of course, it’s going to be 70 degrees today.

2)During Saturday’s round of a zillion and one errands, I got alarm clocks for the kids. They were so excited,  they set them all by themselves the minute we got home.

3)On Sunday morning, Chloe/Cute-But-Rotten-Dog #1 escaped. By the time I found her, she was busily chowing down on something that smelled distinctly fecal.

4)Later that afternoon two of my children went to a roller skating party. I got lost on the way there. It was the first time they had ever been on roller skates. My daughter had a wonder/terror/joy-filled grin on her face the whole time. She clutched me as if she were drowning, but still managed to fall more than a few times. As we staggered back to the car at the end of the party she declared, “Roller skating is not my thing.” THANK GOD! because my back is killing from trying to keep her upright. I wish I could have taken a picture, but as I said, I spent the whole time trying to keep my girl from cracking her skull open.

5)I got lost on the way back from the skating party.

6)An hour later I got lost on my way to pick up the boys from their piano lesson. This is with my GPS and Siri to boot. (More on this sad state of affairs tomorrow).

7)As he was toiling away on his term paper, my oldest son suddenly piped up at around 10 pm Sunday night to say, “Hey! I have to bring in my edible cell project tomorrow! We have to bake a cake and make it look like a cell.” I sent Colin to the 24 hour Harris Teeter to buy a cake, which was transformed into this:

8)I went to bed a little after 2 am. Shortly thereafter the alarms on the kids’ new clocks started going off. Every two hours.

9)And finally, just as I knew she would, Chloe threw up in her crate overnight. I wasn’t expecting the added bonus of dog poop, however.

Now there’s a fine way to start your Monday morning.