One of those days

Kate woke up crabby again this morning. She has this screech that is reminiscent of the most annoying sound in the world. It's not the way you want to start your day. Breakfast was messy and slow. Claire was late getting down for her morning nap, which did not set us up for success in getting to JC Penny's on time for Christmas pictures. My sister and Tempie were already there when we arrived 10 minutes late and missing a shoe. I had mistakenly dressed the girls at the house in their full outfits, including Claire's cute cute black patent leather shoes with bows. She kicked one off in the house and I thought I had picked it up when I went back inside for the last time, but once we arrived at the mall, it was nowhere to be found. Don't even ask me how peeved I was; she had never even worn the dern things. And did I mention how cute they were?

The pictures went surprisingly well, given that we had 3 children under 2 1/2 all climbing over one another, and fighting to try to eat the candy canes my sister had brought as props. The only way I could get Kate to smile was to say "whack" several times. It's her new favorite word. (Last week's favorite was "lickety split".)

As I collapsed the stroller to stuff it into the trunk, I noticed that Kate had stolen all of the Christmas picture brochures from Penny's. And the ribbon that had been tied around the plastic container.

On the way out of Penny's, I decided to stop at In 'N Out Burger, because 1) yum, and 2) it's a bit of a drive from my house and therefore I rarely get to eat there. By then it was pushing nap time for both girls, and Claire was letting me know about it. Kate's nose was running like a river and she was begging loudly for a hamburger and 'fetch fies' with ketchup and mustard. I sang songs to the girls as we waited in the drive-through line. We got to the first window and after I paid, the girl gave me a sheet of stickers for Kate. Awesome. No, really. I mean, McDonald's hands out crazy things in their Happy Meals. What is wrong with some nice football stickers?

Anyway, I sucked down my chocolate shake and handed fries to Kate all the way home. When I pulled Kate out of the car, I noticed she had stuck all of her stickers to her tights. Later in the afternoon, Claire would eat several of these stickers. I fed the girls quickly and put Kate down to bed. She talked and/or screamed for approximately an hour before it quieted down. With the house finally silent, I turned on the TV to watch last year's final episode of Battlestar Galactica again, and noticed that the cable is still not working. It's been spotty for 2 weeks now, but usually just in the morning. Today it is just plain not working. Which is why I was going to watch BSG: I thought the box might fry itself sometime soon, and when we get a new DVR, we will lose all of our shows.

On a positive note, I just searched the car one more time and found Claire's shoe. Yay! There's nothing cuter that a baby girl in black patent leather shoes.