Tree Monkeys

After a morning spent making glycerine soap with the girls and reading back issues of My Big Backyard to them and folding laundry while finishing up watching the first season of Big Love from the library and calling Matt to come home early for lunch because the girls wanted him to grill them hamburgers, it finally stopped raining this afternoon and we could quell our antsies over at the park. I was supposed to be taking photos of this

and thesebut it was a weird afternoon for taking photos of shiny stuff, and I'm not in love with any of them.

So instead, I burned through my entire CF card taking photos of this:

Yep, it's the infamous climbing tree. Today is a special day on the climbing tree, because today, instead of staring up at her sister climbing like a monkey and whining, ground-bound (I'm mean in that I don't give boosts--my playground philosophy is that if you're not able to do it independently, then it's not safe for you to do. If you are able to do it independently--go crazy, kid!), Sydney figured out how to climb into the tree: She's pretty proud of herself, right?

So why would I want to keep taking stupid photos of my stupid one-dollar buttons with this going on just over my head?

Awesome kids.

In other news, I phoned Matt this afternoon in the middle of a big Southern fit because I'd just received YET ANOTHER letter from the library stating that we owed them five dollars because the DVD box set of Aqua Teen Hunger Force had a damaged case. I don't know how often the freakin' library charges us for crap stuff that we totally did not do! We got charged five dollars for a back-issue of Bust with water damage, five dollars for a missing case to a Bright Eyes CD, and fifteen dollars for a board book with the cover torn off. Okay, to be honest, we did do all those things, but we did not damage Aqua Teen Hunger Force! So I call Matt, throw a big Southern fit, and you know what he says? "Let's talk about it when I get home."

Let's talk about it when I get home? I see. So I say, "What did you do to Aqua Teen Hunger Force?" Turns out that Matt, biking to work, thought that he might as well return some DVDs to the library on his way. He's holding them in his hand, hits a bump, drops Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and manages to run over it on his bike. We're lucky we're just having to pay for the case, frak him. Anyway, does anybody know a good pattern for sewing some bicycle saddlebags?