Menace

Henry has taken a liking to the movie character, Dennis the Menace. He likes the devil-like, sneaky, pesky behavior of Dennis--not to mention his sling shot, which is super cool in Henry's eyes. So to idolize Dennis in full capacity, Henry insisted on dressing like him too. He was asking for bib overalls for a while, to which I kept replying, "No, you don't have any." Until I finally figured out that he wanted overalls to look like Dennis. I dug out a pair of overalls that Scott wore as a young boy, which are about two sizes too small. They literally are a couple inches below Henry's knees. He pairs his overalls with his cowboy boots, which were also Scott's as a young boy. He found a hat that is also too small, and now we have a life-like Dennis the Menace in our house. Last week, Hen begged for Harrison to dress like Dennis too. So now I have Harrison in overalls that are a bit too big. Regardless, they looked cute as Dennis look-alikes.

Speaking of menace, I am so ready for the season of winter to end. The last few days have been gloomy & damp, but a bit on the warmer side. It's the kind of weather that can make a person a bit depressed. We've spent the last few days watching movies in the afternoon with the shades drawn just because it's that kind of weather. It's the kind of weather that makes you want to bake. I made banana bread on Monday morning (I didn't have any eggs, so I made my friend, TT's recipe which she made for Henry all the time when he had an egg allergy. She just omitted the eggs and the bread turned out great! I also really like her recipe because if you don't feel like banana bread or simply don't have rotten bananas, there are options to turn it into pumpkin or zucchini bread. YUM!) Tomorrow, I want to make sugar cookie dough so we can make shamrock sugar cookies. No, we don't have a drop of Irish in us, but St. Patty's Day is enough of a reason to make sugar cookies.

I have had to be creative with what I am baking these days because my supplies are low and going to the grocery store is a daunting task. I actually don't mind grocery shopping if I can go on a weekday morning. I load up the boys and head to Super Target, which happens to be the only local grocery store that can accommodate my 3 year old and infant car seat--I don't know what they other stores are thinking when they put carts that won't work for mothers in their stores. I like the weekday mornings because it's just me and other mothers who understand, or at least should understand--kids. The store isn't usually too busy and if our list is short enough, we are in and out in a reasonable amount of time.

We were gone over the weekend, and I cleaned the house really well before we left. There is just something about coming home to a clean house that is way better than coming home to a dusty house. But it seems that no matter how well I try to clean the house, there is this fine layer of winter salt and sand that just won't go away. I washed our entry way rugs, but it is just still there. Oh well, soon enough I can put the rugs away. At least the rugs got washed.

In short, it appears that in the ebb and flow of life, we can find shiny spots in moments that appear dull and dreary.