Mommy? What Kind of Rock is This??

When I think of bats, I think of adorable, cuddly creatures with itty-bitty fuzzy heads and perky ears.

Until I see one up close and personal. Omg they are butt-ugly, creepy, freaky flying things that I want nothing to do with. Perhaps it's the fact that they have teeth. Things that fly... that are furry... that have wings attached to pink bony forearms... that have teeth. No thank you.

But... the bat is the un-official mascot of Austin, I say Hooray for these weirdo mammals/freaks of nature! Let's go to BATFEST!

We saw bat hats, bat toys, even batmen wandering around... however, no real bats. We knew the bats come out at dusk, but arrived downtown at 5pm and were in no shape with the 95+ degree heat to torture our kids into staying 3 hours until the bats emerged from under the bridge. Still, without watching the bats fly, we had a wonderful evening experiencing something new. Complete with picnic in the park. While we were snacking under a beautiful pecan tree, Ava was exploring and collecting rocks/acorns/twigs, she brings me a black rock and is so intrigued by the shape. Which is wonderful, because it's not a black rock Ava, it's dog shit. In your hand. All over your hand. Hard black crusty dog shit. Mmm. Delicious. Now put that down and finish your pb&j.

Dozens of kiosks offered very unique items, I found my mother's birthday present too! Hi Mom!

There were also plenty of kid friendly activities:

Real ponies! Oh gosh! Let's ride!

YeeeeHaaww

Beautiful day with fun sights and activities for our girls. More sweet memories made today. :)

Italian Goodness and Little Woodrows

A couple of weeks ago Lindsay set up dinner for the girlie's at Buca. I was really pumped because I love the food and the atmosphere and the frozen peach Bellini's. Dinner was delish. Apparently the coffee/bailey's was the best on the planet... "woo hoo! fun stuff!"

I didn't try it but by the excitement exhibited, I totally should have. Will next time.

After din din, me, Brittany, Rachel and Lindsay went to Little Woodrow's. We found a good spot, tucked away in a booth and chilled with a few beers.

Good times ladies!

My Lovebugs

Upside down story time.

In the dryer.

Mac-n-cheese or pretty barrettes?

Nothing can stop Joey from loving me.

Ava's friends gather around for a bedtime story. Why are Elmo's eyes so damn big? How does the poor thing blink with no eyelids? Makes my eyes water.

Both girls. Tiny bench. Try to look cute. Smile please.

Not so much.

Wet sand flea.

Such a fun week! See ya!

Nerd Powers Activate! (August)

You recall Nerd Powers Activate! ~ well here's the August edition.

I'm home now and in my jammies after book club. It seems I was the only one who read the book this time around. Thank God too, because I'm the one who picked it and how awkward would it be none of us read it. Not awkward enough though, because we all would have still had happy hour and still split a whole crap load of food and still had fun like we always do. I'm lucky I even finished the book, the Olympics were on every single night and I kind of read with one eye and watched Phelps with the other.

Ok, that's all I got. Real exciting. I'm off to eat more of that damned popcorn Annemarie got me hooked on. Annemarie, this is like the 5th box we've eaten in the past week. Thannnnkks for telling me about this popcorn. This popcorn which I SWEAR has traces of cocaine or some shit because it's FABULOUS and BEAUTIFUL and CALLS MY NAME IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. I'm a popcorn freak now. Never have I so enjoyed popcorn. I can't tell you the brand because that means I will spend more time looking for it on the store shelves cuz you might buy it all and less time cramming it in my mouth as fast as I possibly can without taking a breath.

oh. the book is These Is My Words, Nancy E. Turner... if you are aimlessly browsing at Barnes and Noble and can't make up your mind. It's good. Almost as good as my popcorn.

Under The Big Top!

"Ladies and Gentlemen! Children of All Ages!" (cue the theme song!)

The Circus came to town! What amazement! What Joy! OH BOY!

! after every sentence!

My Life is Worth Living Again

Since I was a small kitten, Yellow Ball and I have had an amazingly strong bond. He was always with me, constantly providing me with faithful love. Until one day when he disappeared and left me alone, and sad, and with a broken soul. I searched for months and months, soon realizing my search was in vain. Never would I see my beloved Yellow Ball again.

Until yesterday.

Here is a tribute to you Yellow Ball, with our song.

I would die 9 times for you.

Joey

The Kids Were Resisting A Rest

Hopefully this morning will be the first and last time Ava will ever sit inside of a police cruiser. My friend Kristin's hubby is a police officer and he was kind enough to let all of the kids check out his cool car!

Before leaving, Ava typed up a report of the mornings activities.

Thanks again Kristin & Chris!

Someone's Having a Birthday Today :)

Happy Birthday Toni! Have a great day. :)

The Bloods, The Crips, The Hummingbirds

Y'all remember my Sparrows/Gang story right...

I have zero hummingbird feeders in my back yard, I know, I'm terrible. We just don't have a deck built yet, hopefully soon, so we have really no where to hang them from. Poor excuse I know. I spotted some hummingbirds the other day...they are probably Mommy's looking for food to feed their tiny, fragile newborn hummies (cute word I made up for newborn hummingbirds) and hopefully I'm not personally causing tiny, fragile newborn hummies to die a horrible starving death from my lack of available feeders.

I was outside in the back reading on Sunday and saw 3 of them flitting about around my maple tree. I was shocked because I've never seen them in my yard. I turned around and watched. Let me tell you they are mean little suckers. Incredibly territorial. [My dad had a gorgeous back porch and he used to have at least 30 of them at his feeders at one time, all trying to drink. I remember they make little hissing noises when they are pissed off. That will happen when 30 itty bitty mouths try to drink from 3 feeders.] Anyway back to my back yard. There they were, flitting around and sticking out their small puffy chests, flying back and forth. Yelling at each other, I'm assuming. I wonder if along with the Sparrows, Hummingbirds have gang initiation too? I think I will get some feeders so I can document their possible gang activity. They could use their sharp beaks to stab each other in their rapidly beating, microscopic hearts... or all of a sudden fly backwards and ram into a rival hummingbird and knock the wind of him. That would make for a thrilling post wouldn't you say! OH! Maybe I can set up a web cam like that guy did with the baby Eagles in his yard. I'm going to Home Depot. I've got a lot of work to do.

Bucket Head and The Cowgirl

Ava and Grace went completely nutso the moment Terry arrived home from work this evening. Although that's nothing new, the noise level in the house went up about 300% and insanity took hold of the girls. Grace ran around with a pink pail on her head (Ava enjoyed banging on it when she ran by) and Ava wore my necklace and bracelet and found a cowboy hat and yelled: "Howdy Pardner" and "Let's Get Ready For Our Guests!" Ummm, OK! Let's!

We sat on my floor in our bedroom and took pictures. Ava was 'country' dancing up a storm and Grace was running in and out of the bedroom squealing like a piglet. Don't mind the fact that Ava has no pants on. She's lucky she had a shirt on, today was, um... how should I say... C-R-A-Z-Y.

Night Night!

Dong Dong, Someone's at the Door

I knew it wouldn't be long before I was blogging about the Olympics. No, I'm not talking about Michael Phelps. Yes, he is totally rad and wins Gold in every flipping race, and Terry and I loudly cheer him on every night. I wear my cheer outfit and bounce around my pom-pons.... uh, that's a different type of discussion for a later time.

I would rather discuss a topic a little less mainstream than Swimming and Michael Phelps.

Trampoline.

That's right. We turned on the Olympics a little bit ago and sat stunned while we watched the introduction to the 'Olympic Trampoline' event. Um... I am a little bit concerned with what head honcho decided to include this event to be shown on such world scale. It's cool and shit in your backyard if you are 13, but not so much being 30+ and jumping too and fro in front of the bazillion peeps that are watching The Games.

Perhaps the Trampoline athletes didn't quite have the talent to join their country's counterparts in the Gymnastics Floor Exercise, because clearly that's where they belong. If you are doing triple flippy flips, double tuck and rolls and 3 and a half twisty ties, (or whatever the technical names for the skills are) you belong on the floor, not leaping around on a bouncy net.
The real gymnasts on the floor should get ALL the credit. They are on the floor having to run to gain speed to catapult themselves into the air. Trampoline-ist's have it SO MUCH easier when they get that kind of height to perform their twisty ties and flippy flips, and landing them too!

My astonishment with the Trampoline Event becomes even more apparent when China readies their Trampoline-ist to take stage. Dong Dong is his name, folks. You read me right.
Dong Dong. How in the hell did he get through life with that as his name? Do Chinese children not make fun and torture their fellow classmates when they come across a totally awesome name like that? I guess Dong Dong gets the last laugh, because as of right now, he's totally dominating and double-bouncing the asses of of all the other athletes.

End of the Week Recap

Wednesday morning I met Julie & Sheridan (and Julie's friend Sara and her daughter Natalie) for a morning filled with sprinkler park fun! All the girls had a blast, jumping, running and splashing around. Grace was hilarious, she was loving the freeeeezing cold water and would just hold her head directly in the water stream, never caring she had a face/mouth full of water afterward. Ava was a little more timid and was shocked by the cool temperature of the water. She just played 'around' the sprinklers. I'm not even sure she ever got wet... All the while I was IN the sprinklers chasing the littlest of my rabbits around, making sure she didn't drown or get trampled by another wild child.

Thursday morning I met some of the playgroup girls at the play scape at McD's, and all of our kiddos burned off some extra energy...we had a little lunch then headed over to see my sister at the salon. The girls caught up with their Aunt Nana and Grace and Ava played hide-and-go-seek with Zach in the backyard of the salon. After all of that we headed home for some very welcome naps. I did my due diligence by reading more of the book of the month, or I might have taken a nap. Uhhh... I can't remember which. :) The 26th is coming up quick... gulp.

Fast forward to Thursday evening. Julie hosted a CAbi show at her home and I went to check out the goods, and of course mingle with friends. The clothes were adorable, their fall line, I bought a beautiful little black jacket... I will have to wear it in about 4 months when it's cool. :)

On my way home from Julie's I called Terry to see if the power at our house was back on. A transformer blew about 5pm when I returned at 9, it still wasn't on. Terry had put the girls to bed in just diapers and shorts. Well, Grace wore that, Ava on the other hand told Terry she would get cold if she didn't have on a shirt for bed and so she wore regular jammies. Smart cookie. The power finally returned at 10:30pm. Thank the frickin' Lord. Everyone slept fairly well, you forget how much you take power for granted. It's a little bit of a necessity, ya know.

Enjoying a very late dinner by candle/mag lite. Ahh, romance. :)

Friday morning we went to my grandma's to play. Before we say good-bye, Ava always takes a stroll down the sidewalk with her great grandma, and I take a pic every single time. Grace is now old enough to hold hands and join in the fun.

On to tonight ~ my good friend Yvette hosted a purse party and I attended, to again, check out the goods and to see her new place as she has recently moved. So cute Y! It had been a long time since we've hung out, and we enjoyed the evening. I tackled my urge to go nutso and found some restraint...no purse for me.

After I left, I went to go see Tropic Thunder with Annemarie, some of you will not agree, some will, but I LOVED THE MOVIE. I love Robert Downey Jr., and Jack Black and OMEGA I nearly peed my pants every time they spoke. Annemarie thinks I'm a nutjob. It's nothing new. I can't wait to take Terry to see it, it's hilar.

Toodles. It's late and I need to spend some time with my darling hubster. He's been a doll letting me get out this week with friends and taking a break from it all. (No school the month of August)I think I'll make him breakfast and let him sleep in the whole weekend.

Get the Cryogenic Freezers Ready

10 signs you are aging - at least in my household.


# 10. There's Gas-X in your medicine cabinet.

# 9. Wrinkle cream is used every night. I double the dosage recommended.

# 8. 1:00pm feels like 1:00am when you have 2 kids under 3.

# 7. You go nowhere without concealer.

# 6. Bedtime comes right after your children go down. 8pm.

# 5. You throw your back out while playing golf. Terry.

# 4. You get neck spasms when playing in the lake. Kara.

# 3. Cereal choices are made by fiber content.

# 2. You don't know how you ever hit happy hour 4x a week.

# 1. Staying awake past 11:30p to watch the Olympics is pure torture.

Sagra - Cuba Libre - Pangaea (Good Times)

Melissa is in town from Minneapolis and she and Annemarie invited me out for dinner and dancing Saturday evening. Looking for a fun new place, we decided on Sagra. A lovely, quiet Italian bistro. Delicious food! Delicious drinks! Good times!

On to Cuba Libre for a few drinks before looking for a place to dance. After a while enjoying each others funny stories, we ran into Dana and some of her girlfriends. They joined the party and we all shared a free bottle of champagne. Me and Melissa are huge champagne lovers so this was great! :)

My shutter decided to malfunction on this one...

Now we were in the groove to dance and left for Pangaea to shake-it! This place has dance floors everywhere (we chose 5 foot wall to dance on!) and great music, loud bongo players, go-go dancers... tons-o-fun!!!

Had a great night ladies! xoxo.