eat your chocolate and put on lipstick

I'm always late after holidays because I get so busy! Have I mentioned our yearly Valentine's tradition of heart-shaped chocolate chip pancakes? Yes, they look like dessert, but they are indeed our sugary breakfast on the "Love" day. Hope yours was great! We spent V-day in area towns going through antique malls. Oh, yeah, that's my kinda fun! :-)

Then yesterday I rearranged our bedroom and school room...finished that up this morning, which left a great mess of clutter behind. Fred really doesn't mind me rearranging things, so long as he isn't expected to help much. It's just not his idea of a fun evening. Bizarre, I know.

Then my wonderful friend, the Queen of Clean, October (yes, the person, not the month) came over and boosted my house to the immaculate level. (Doesn't that color look so pretty on her??) Oh, yes, it is a gift she has. She's like a whirlwind of dusting and vacuuming. Wow. Amazes me. I'd turn around and then she was sweeping. Turn my back again and she's picking up puzzle pieces. How do you do it, girl? Granted, my house is usually tidy, but it turns a bit chaotic when I'm bit by the rearranging bug, which is often.

While we decluttered the kids played dress-up and modeled for us.

Look at Dash and Liana!! The best of buds! :-)

Don't tell Fred that our son was dressing up like a girl...he might have some issues with that! ;-)

The bigger boys even got in on the dress-up fun!

Surprisingly enough, The Artist is the only one who did NOT dress up... but she didn't want to miss out on the camera fun. And she did take all of our group grown-up pictures below.

Then we got to play dress-up! Actually, I just got to do my "thang" and add some color to my always-naturally-beautiful friend. If I had skin like hers I wouldn't bother with make-up either. However, it is just plain fun to play with it occasionally, so I gave her a make-over and curled her hair.

How often do the mommies get to do stuff like that?? In high school it was a favorite pastime. :-)

Then we were joined by the ever-wonderful Rochelle. I got some much-needed walking time in with Shelly, too. sigh. I really should try to exercise every day. I feel so much more energized when I take the time to get outside...but I hate to be cold. I mean, I reaaaaallly don't like it one little bit. I love to be outside when it's at least 70 degrees...anything below that is just pushin' it.