I apologize for falling behind on the blog. The amount of time that I actually have both hands available to me is limited, and I have been using that time to do such ridiculously wasteful activities such as laundry and dishes. I have developed some mad, one-handed typing skills, but I reserve those for things of a shorter nature such as Google searches and Facebook statuses. Again, my apologies for the neglect.

The 14th was Tansy's birthday. Now when you ask her how old she is, she says, "I'm big!" You mean three, right? She wanted a puppy cake, so here is my masterpiece shortly before it plunged off the edge of the table. Just kidding. I did move it to a more secure location after getting the picture. It elicited the appropriate amount of excitement. She spent a good portion of the morning bouncing around saying, "My puppy cake! My puppy cake!" Way to go, Mom.

Of course we also celebrated St. Patrick's Day this past week. We had our traditional breakfast of green pancakes on green plates with green milk. Somehow I missed getting a shot of all of us in our green shirts.

On Saturday, we took our cats back to the rescue. It was so sad. Last Monday, I went to the doctor because we realized that I was allergic to the cats. I had been taking Claritin and Bendryl to the point that my mouth was so dry it was hard to swallow sometimes. She gave me several suggestions about things to do so we could try to keep the cats, but we were either already doing them or they just weren't reasonable right now (how many of you can vacuum several times a day and wash ALL soft surfaces in your home several times a week with four kids under the age of six?) She said that my throat was so inflamed that I needed a prednisone shot, and she started me on Flonase. Now that they are gone, I have been trying to clean all of the allergens out of my house. We really miss them and hope to be able to adopt a dog when we move into our new house, which should be finished this summer.

To ease the pain of losing our pets, we treated ourselves to a day at the Independence Center. We really have gotten used to living in the middle of nowhere. We are so impressed with a mall. A two story mall no less. We got lunch at the food court, did some shopping, took the kids on the carousel, and got some ice cream. Nothing like a little soft-serve to ease your pain. Try it. You'll see.