mouse in the house

the freezing rain has brought us a house guest, but he's not much trouble, he is quiet and fertilizes our lawn.

all the days

it is no secret that kids love singing. esther margaret likes to combine hymns and broadway tunes (surely goodness and mercy/tomorrow from annie).

light club

as with all projects and renovations at the echols household, the idea comes about 12 hours before it begins. this time, we needed to replace lights over the sink. that turned into adding recessed lighting, which turned into "why is there a crack in the ceiling", which turned into having to replace drywall, which then turned into refinishing the ceiling and replacing the pendants. re-wiring, re-painting, re-everything. we are very, extremely, crazy lucky that jeremy is so handy. and handsy. just kidding. i did not lift even a paintbrush during this time. i even timed it so our housekeeper would have to clean it up. it took jeremy about two weeks.

next he is replacing the ceiling in the foyer and refinishing the floor in esther the messter's room. i think.

ni hao

i am under a deadline, which is why i am inextricably thinking about things which have no relevance in my life.

esther margaret watches a couple of tv shows, and ni hao kai-lan is not really one of them. but she ends up watching this a couple of times a week, normally because it coincides with a time when i have to take a shower, fold laundry or reply to email.

kai lan is a little chinese girl whose friends include hoho (a tiny monkey), tolee (a koala bear), lulu (a rhinoceros) and rintoo (a tiger). the authority figure is yeh yeh, her grandfather. i find this show confounding for many reasons.

first, where are her parents? yeh yeh puts her to bed so maybe she is an orphan? and why does she not have any human friends? she and yeh yeh are the only humans on the show. they interact with ants, dolphins, even the sun and yet there are no other humans. why.

and why do these other animal children not have parents either? if kai lan goes to see if tolee can come on an adventure, she always finds him in a one room tree house. and tolee is always wearing house shoes and matching hoodie, it makes me crazy. if he had parents, he would not be leaving the house like that. while we're on that note, why does he wear clothes but rintoo and hoho don't?

all of her friends seem to be male except for lulu, the pink rhinoceros who floats around with a red balloon tied to her horn. i guess if she is a tomboy it explains her horrible outfit choices consisting of red high tops, orange and yellow board shorts, an embellished blue muscle tee and an insane traditional chinese hair cut.

i'm pretty sure em will have to stop watching it soon because i almost can't handle it. getting out of the shower one more time and hearing tolee whine or kai lan talk about someone's feelings will take me over the edge.

on a different note, esther the messter, who is super sensitive to insect bites, got a bite right between her eyes last saturday. the top half of her face swelled up so much, she spent the rest of the weekend looking more like her mongolian descendants.

punkin with a pumpkin

jse carved a cowboy small pumpkin for esther margaret this year, she loved it!

chick chick chick

i think blogger is a dying breed. that's what i hear about facebook too. i guess i will be posting until it takes its last breath.

we have all been doing well, although i would like to get more sleep.

homecoming weekend, a satisfied katie's custard customer.

 doesn't she look so old?! heartbreaking but true. we rode the train at lion's park

 inside evan's rocket ship on a trip to austin to meet up with family

 the only one eyed passenger that can fit in her car

 unpacking at the swartzs last week, we found these two budding rock stars

 a quick pump in her swimsuit before bed

 with cousin hallie last night, em couldn't tear her eyes away from pinocchio

*it has started to happen, em's indoctrination to blue and gray. i have tried other colors but think she looks like a tiny clown. i will continue to try, but gravity is hard to defy.