Day #10--Frances is a teenage girl

Okay--she's not quite a teenager. That won't happen until July 15. But she has all the attributes of the teenage girl, including, most important for this post, an obsession with a boy band.  The band in question is One Direction.  And here I've caught her singing "You Don't Know You're Beautiful" at the top of her lungs, while doing the dishes. Needless to say, she was quite embarrassed.

Day #9--In Which Our Book Problem Continues to Be A Problem

It is probably a surprise to no one that our house is full of books, lots and lots and lots of books. In every room, on nearly every surface. That's a problem, for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that we're being crowded out by them.

So this weekend we developed an intricate, Tetris-like plan that would move furniture around, move books out, and clear some much needed space. (I'll pause here to say that this all began when we realized just how much space we need for Cate's art supplies/paintings/yoga cards, but that's a post for another day).

Here's a picture of Brian packing one of six boxes of books destined for Mr. K's.

 Choosing which books stayed and which books we kicked out of of our home was a traumatic experience. It took a solid week of deliberations and another of week of tripping over boxes before we finally bit the bullet and packed the car up. This doesn't really give you a good sense of how packed our car was, but, trust me, it was.  Six boxes and two shopping bags--dozens and dozens and dozens of books.

So here is where the problem is. We get to Mr. K's (a lovely group of people, well worth the drive to North Charleston, and we all know how much I hate having to drive to North Charleston).  We walk around the store while the staff determined which of our books they could take. We made a pact that we were not going to bring any books back home. That, obviously, would undermine the whole space-clearing project. We were quite reasonable and adult about the whole thing.

And then we saw the books. All the books. All the beautiful, glorious books.

90 minutes later, we'd sold a bunch of books for cash, and spent our newly attained store credit on an entire box of books.  The evidence of our addiction is below. We have a problem.

Frances was exactly as judgmental as you might expect.

Day #8--in which we continue to be bad at blogging

Life at Casa Francis-McCann is equal parts impossibly busy and not particularly interesting.  Which, as it turns out, is not a great combination for a blog. 

If we were a team of superheroes, or a family singing group, or international spies, or jewel thieves, then maybe we would have something exciting to report. Sadly, we are none of those things.  Instead of saving the world from aliens a la the Avengers or pulling off an impressively and needlessly complex heist like Ocean's 13, this week we:

--painted a watercolor scene of a rainy day

--saw Iron Man 3, Gatsby, and Star Trek (well worth the ticket price, though I skipped 3D for the latter two)

--led a book discussion on Sister Citizen by Melissa Harris-Perry

--made eight hand puppets

--managed not to kill our tomato plant; the jury's still out on our sunflowers 

This weekend we will clean bedrooms, and do laundry, and go to the library, and maybe watch some Dr. Who.  It's a full life. 

We're documenting these 365 days with pictures, so ill leave you the pic of the girls currently serving as the homescreen on the iPad.

 

 

Day #7--Mother's Day

(another post from Frances)

i'm back...

Let's keep this is short and simple folks. We, the McCann-Francis girls, decided to take a sweet picture for mother's day. This is the best YOU get (free of charge of course.) This middle-of-a-laugh photo is all we could muster without ripping apart the fabric of the universe with our flowing manes and tantalizing "beautimousity". But anyway, happy mother's day!

Day #6--Papa and the Ants

(this post was written by Frances)

I, Frances McCann, the magnificent documentarian, discovered where the ants inhabiting our car were roosting. On Christmas Eve 2012 we had gotten in a car wreck causing the large hole/dent in our car as seen above. In relation to that, large red ants recently started to make guest apperances inside our automobile, surprising and  frustrating us, but with the help of a private eye investigator, I discovered the ants location, informed my temporary parental units and had my father flush the ants out with the water hose and a bit of ant spray. EVERYONE BOW DOWN TO FRANCES!!!!!

Day #5--Sunnypants Kid

Here's the video that premiered at the fashion show last night. It features Cate and her class talking about the superhero they created, a guy named Sunnypants Kids who fights the harmful effects of UV rays.

Our very own Cate gets to explain what his superpowers are.

Day #4

Tonight I attended a fashion show/silent auction benefitting the MUSC Foundation for skin cancer research. Cate's first grade class won contest for creating a superhero that fights skin cancer. I was at the event to see the animated version of their story, and as PTA president. 

Things I learned:

--Female models look perpetually offended

--Male models look perpetually angry

--Wine and hors d'oeuvres is not an actual meal

--I continue to be bad at small talk 

I'd also like to point out that the McCanns are still barely participating in this project. 

Day #3

The end of every semester finds me sporting this brace. Is there any geekier an ailment than carpal tunnel?

365 Day Project--Day #2

It would be an exaggeration to say that I have the full cooperation of the McCanns. They are a stubborn lot. I'm not above sneaking up on them in their sleep, though.

Here Cate has fallen asleep while reading (for the zillionth time) her Pokemon Encyclopedia. I'm not joking when I say she's memorized nearly the entire thing and talks non-stop about various Pokemon characters and evolutions and powers.

In the background you can catch a glimpse of her other all-consuming passion: art. The brown paper on the wall showcases a life-size drawing she made of herself. This photograph doesn't capture all of the other masterpieces gracing her walls.

365 Day Project--Day #1

My kids (and likely my husband) will tell you that I love a project. Well, they'd probably tell you that I can't stand to be idle and that I come up with insane ideas and then insist they participate.  That may or may not be true.

We're doing this anyway.  A picture a day, for 365 days, documenting the afrogeek life at Casa Francis-McCann. It'll be fun. (The other inhabitants of Casa Francis-McCann may be rolling their eyes.)

To commemorate the start of this project, the girls decided to pose with apples, their current favorite snack. We are singlehandedly keeping the apple industry in business. They both eat 3 or 4 apples a day. (We also go through an amazing amount of milk and bagels and carrots.) Maybe this is why they are both so tall lately.