Keeping Busy

So back to my previous post...

Our weekend get-away to Houston was wonderful. We got to see Kyle's high school friend, Dan, get married to his beautiful bride Ela [and she IS beautiful]. Kyle & I hadn't been anywhere overnight without kids in 5 years - when I was pregnant with Davis (who turns 4 1/2 next week). It was nice - for a change - to be able to go somewhere & not worry about melt-downs, nap-times & loading up my purse with a dripping sippy cup & a handful of fruit snack packets. Although the fruit snacks would've come in handy during the 2+ hour long ceremony. :) I had to settle for a twin pack of these little-bitty mints (a restaurant freebie from several months ago).

I really was knee-deep in robots. Brett turns 7 in a couple weeks... and I have made every single one of his Birthday Party invitations, every year. Also Davis's past 4 Birthday Parties, and Libby's 1. :) It's what I do. And I can't bring myself NOT TO. Even when I get made fun of or ridiculed for always trying to "one-up" people. :) I've already heard it twice & I've only handed out the invitation to 3 people. And I'm expecting one more to accuse me of that [her initials are M.F.]. But here's the deal... I actually walked up & down every single aisle of U.S. Toy (like the size of a Sam's Club, but filled with party goods) and found ZERO robot stuff. None. If I were to FIND a robot invitation, I actually considered buying it - because quite frankly, I'm super busy. But they didn't have ANYTHING robot (did I mention that?). So... very fitting for a robot, I had to scrap parts to make robot invitations. I bought the silver mirror board, all the brads, google eyes & the clock stickers [with hands to fill in]. I had so much fun designing the robot in my head & finding parts for it all. (Libby did NOT have fun exploring the entire store with me... I'm too ashamed to admit how many random things I picked up to hand her that she either tossed or I ditched in a random spot in order to pick up something else) Anyway, these were so fun. The head, arms & legs all swivel on the brads in order to tuck into the envelope, but when the kids get them they can "set up" their robot. Cute, huh? And please tell me you'd know the party was at 4:00 & not 12:20.

Lastly, yes, I have headed up a sting operation trying to shut the doors on someone who I noticed was selling artwork of others, but claiming it to be their own hand-painted art. I have dedicated over 12 hours of searching online for the REAL ART & REAL ARTISTS in order to prove each piece & get it removed. So far I have been successful identifying ELEVEN pieces!!! Finally the administration is on to them & has begun their own investigation further removing about 10 more pieces. It's a tough thing to do... blindly search the internet for art pieces whose titles have been changed & whose real artists' names I don't know. But luckily art is "my thing" & I have a photographic memory to boot. I am so proud to say I proved 11 as fakes... with each one that I found, I got a little rush. I felt so Nancy Drew! I loved it... and loved knowing a thief couldn't make any more money on it.

So there you have it... the things that kept me busy this week among a zillion other things. :)