It's a Gymboree day

Lola at Gymboree last week...

Since it's the week of leaving for vacation, I'm cleaning out the refrigerator. So, of course, there is no cooking on a week like that! Last night we hit our favorite Chinese buffet and tonight was Red Robin. Last night we took my car for it's 15,000 mile check up. Could it have that many miles already?!

Today Lola and I played at Gymboree and then I worked at getting Grace's room cleaned up and went through her clothes. Why do I always do more than I need to do when I'm just trying to pack? I'm also working through mounds of laundry.

Rich went with us to pick up Grace from school and then we picked up my car. Wow! It hasn't looked this clean in a long time-on the outside anyway! That's a nice perk to get a free car wash with service.

From there we went to Grace's swim class. Hurray! She swam 6 lengths of the pool-some with a noodle, but still very impressive! Her teacher was very proud of her and has moved her to the next level.

Rich went to get new glasses while we were at the pool. Then we all went for dinner and then home for Pooh. Lola either begs to watch Pooh or Bear (in the Big Blue House) these days. Then, after a tough evening of getting them both to sleep, I was able to indulge in my AI addiction as well as "pounce" on Etsy. I found something really cool for Rich that I'm saving for Father's Day. Handmade is the way to go! I truly couldn't get to sleep last night as I was wracking my brain to come up with something I can sell on Etsy. I'm just not that crafty.

Actually, the craftiest I get is when we're heading for a birthday party. I buy gifts in advance when I find things online on sale and get free shipping. So, I most always have a gift for a party. I save all the old bags, bows, ribbons, etc. No, I decided long ago not to save the wrapping paper. I do keep the tissue paper, though. And, my number one favorite thing to wrap in is a brown paper grocery bag.

The last party a few weeks ago was for twins. They like pirates. So, I got them 3D towels-one with a pirate and one with a shark. Grace drew pirate chests on paper and then we glued them on the paper-wrapped gifts. We then took tokens from places like Chuck E. Cheese and taped them on like dubloons. Then I went online and found pirate clip art, which we taped on the packages. I wrote something like "Ahoy Mateys" on them and was done. They came out great!

Another time Grace and I wrapped a few small gifts in the brown paper and then tied them with brown raffia and stamped and addressed them to look like packages. I was very gratified when the thank you note came back commenting on our great wrapping job!

Yikes-didn't know it was so late! One more day to pack and then we hit the friendly skies!

I know it's more fun to see pix on a blog, so I couldn't resist staying up a bit longer-didn't realize Rich had uploaded our recent pix!