The Snuggie! Order Yours Today!!!

Hey Everyone! If you are looking for that 'one of a kind' Christmas gift, look no further!

It's so perfect you can talk on the phone, pour coffee into a mug and even EAT POPCORN with ease!! It's also just right for cheering on your team at sporting events. And those nights when you want to play a romantic game of backgammon on the floor with your husband....NO PROBLEM!!

I've always wanted to turn my entire family into a bunch of Monks!!



THANK YOU SNUGGIE. YOU'VE MADE ALL MY DREAMS COME TRUE.

Thanksgiving 2008

My sister hosted this year and instead of uploading dozens of pics to Blogger ~ I threw them all into a video... with a fun song! Enjoy!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

'Tis The Season For Tripdaphan Naps! Happy Thanksgiving!

Hi. I'm a turkey. This is my face. It's blue. And red. And a certain shade of pink. And my lips have dirty crusty things on them. Wait. Those aren't my lips. I meant my beak. The top and bottom of my beak have dirty crusty things on them. I was born without eye lashes and have several whiskers poking out of the floppy skin hanging over my nose. I'm also in dire need of a deep pore cleansing.

I'm a turkey. I might not look good. But I sure taste good.

Gobble Gobble.

What's Next? Moving Out?!!

The time has come for Ava to say goodbye to her crib and hello to her big girl bed. Everyone was excited, including Joey, who ended up in most of the pictures. Camera hog.

So, here you go. Her new bed. I know it's hard to tell by the modern look of the headboard.... haha, but the bed's over 50 years old. This was my dad's when he was a tiny tot and I can't help but smile knowing my sweet pea is sleeping where her BooPaw once slept.

Ava was thrilled!

So was Grace, who I found laying down with Ava's bear, giving him kisses....

She puckered up for me too... :)

I also found Joey.... doing sexy time with Ava's frog while holding her beloved blanket in his mouth. Gross.

Hush Little Baby Don't Say a Word

It's a rarity for Grace to wake during the night and need her Mama to help get back to sleep. Last night was one of those rare nights. What made it even more of a rarity was that she was wide awake... at 3:45am. She was grabbing my nose in the dark and yelling nooo! (nose) and patting my cheeks and slamming her face into mine to give kisses. Her eyes were as big as an owl's attempting to adjust to what little light the monitor gave off. As much as I hated being up at that hour, I almost enjoyed it. Having her bash her face against mine trying to give hugs while patting me on the back saying Maaa, Maaaa, might have made me tear up with joy if my tear ducts weren't still asleep along with the rest of my body.

After about 5 minutes of swaying back and forth with her, she yelled Laaa! Which for those of you that don't speak Grace means Light. Duh, don't you get Light from Laaa. ??? That's when I knew she was waaaay too awake to be rocked to sleep, so I just plopped her back in her crib and left the room. She sang and kicked the wall and talked to herself for almost 40 minutes until the monitor went silent.


Holding Grace in the pitch dark listening to her little mouth make cute puckery kiss sounds as she squeezed me tight makes me wish she would do this more often. How can I say no to this little toot?!!

Abra-Cadabra I Wanna Reach Out and Grab Ya

After checking the yellow pages under W for witch doctor and not finding anything, I've made up my mind about something. I need that native American Indian man from last weeks Grey's Anatomy to walk his long hair and wise words into my home and help rid us of our bad luck. He can do a good-vibe dance or sprinkle some good luck dust, whatever he wants, but something has to be done. In the last 9 months we've had a string of crazy, very unexpected events take place.
Untimely events.
Expensive events.
Painful events.


So, imagine the new year beginning and making your new year's resolutions and planning on a great year...January arrives and BAM! All four of your wisdom teeth are in a race to see who can beat the others in shoving their way out of your swollen bleeding gums. No biggie you say... lots of peeps have their wisdom teeth removed. Ok, so we will move to February. BAM! After 12 days of gut wrenching pain and wondering if it's just period cramping or a pulled muscle, you drive to the emergency room at midnight to find out your appendix has in fact, exploded. Now you have an answer to the whole terrible, nauseating, side pain thing. Ok, no biggie. Lots of people have their appendix rupture and removed. Fast forward to May. BAM! Your sprain your back and are out of commission for a week. With two tiny kids pulling and tugging at you and crying to be held. So what... lots of people throw their backs out. Onto October. BAM! You have a vasectomy. That was actually planned and doesn't really count in the whole terrible-things-happening events list, but I wanted to throw it in there because, BAM! You experience a hot piercing, stinging pain, and during the follow-up appointment for the Big V, you find out you have a hernia. And of course it's not the kind that can be fixed via an easy painless laparoscopy, but the more painful, and crappy 2 week recovery kind. Good stuff!

So between me and Terry ~ we have enough bad luck to spread around to everyone. Enter our home at your own risk.

Hey Dude Let's Paint

Little Buckaroo Ranch and painting with Charlotte & Gage...

Nerd Powers Activate! (October)

So it seems I'm on the 'every other month' plan with book club now. There were the Olympics, presidential debates, the election, always something keeping me from reading at night. 2 hours before we met for dinner and drinks last night, I finished October's selection. Most of us agreed it was well written, if not for the events and details that went on and on and on until a positive turn took place and something exciting happened.... or maybe it was just me, I can't remember. I have some choice googling to do now that I'm finished with the book, and a video on YouTube to watch I heard was floating around about the author.

I Got Nuthin'.

Hi. How are you. Good. Good. Glad to hear it. Actually, I don't really care. I mean I do care, but I'm mostly just typing on my keyboard to hear myself type. I've been a little blog post challenged today. and yesterday. and the day before. and before that... Bit of a dry spell.

I just need something exciting to happen. Or something funny. Or maybe amazing. Gimme a few days... don't lose hope in me.

November 7th

Happy Birthday Annemarie! Have a happy day!

Margs with Mel!

That's pretty self explanatory..... Melissa's in town for a couple of weeks, so we got together for girl talk and tasty margs at Jardin! You know you want one, they are so good.

See you again Thursday Mel! :) We're on a roll!

Can I Press REWIND or Something??

The day has arrived people! Both of my daughters are officially preschoolers. Where does the time go!? I woke up at the butt crack of dawn this morning to A. Vote (because I couldn't wait in the 2 hour line on Friday) and B. make sure everything was set for Gracie's very first day of preschool. If I feel as excited and proud as I do today, what will happen to me on their first day of Kindergarten?

I will be the mom who drives her kids crazy, gettin' all up in their biz while they are trying to act all cool the first day of school. Running 10 steps in front of them, squatting on the sidewalk taking a bazillion pictures, yelling "SMILE!" and forcing them to pose in front of the school sign....with their teachers. They are gonna love me when that day arrives.

I'm pretty much devastated knowing the last bit of 'baby stage' has officially disappeared from our home as of 9am this morning. Maybe after Grace gets home today, I will roll her up in a blanket like I did when she was newborn, you know, tucking her arms in and everything, just for one last 'baby' moment with her. Maybe I'll try to nurse her again, 13 months after weaning her ~ I'm totally kidding. I have a joke but don't feel it's appropriate at this juncture. Moving on...

Ava is proud of her little sister and reminds her all of the time she will be in the baby class. With babies.

Bye bye Baby Gracie, be a good girl for Mommy today... and if you see some crazy lady with curly hair peering into your classroom window, pretend you don't know her.

CPS to Aisle Six Please... CPS to Aisle Six.

Where: Target.
When: Last week.
Scenario: Waiting in check-out line.

Grace is chewing her little strawberry yogurt bites and making cute num num sounds and I am unloading my cart. Directly in front of me are two children, probably 7 and 10. Sister and brother. Very hyper children. Laughing, poking each other, teasing, jumping, regular hyper children. Directly in front of them is their mother. Let me rephrase that in a more delicate manner. Directly in front of them is their MAJORLY IRRITATED and ANGRY, STRESSED OUT BITCH of a mother. Is that rude to say? Cuz it's supposed to be.

This woman was yelling at her children who are 1 foot away from her, mind you, yelling at them to 'be quiet' and 'I told you to shut up' and 'if you don't stop acting like that you will spend the rest of the day in your rooms' - she was just lovely. Then she grabs her daughters arm between the shoulder and elbow and yanks her back and forth trying to get her attention. At this point people from other isles and the cashier watching this wacko began to stare, with open mouths, wondering if she can possibly be serious about treating her kids like that... in public.

Then I start thinking... ahhh, ohhhh, I get it! I bet this is some candid camera thing, they are just waiting for an appalled mother to step up and smack this crazy lady down, you know because she's a CRAZY LOON AND WHO WOULD TREAT THEIR KIDS, HYPER OR NOT, LIKE THIS??

I've understand the fact there are whack job moms out there who don't care about their children. Especially after reading a couple days ago a Texas mother was caught bashing her 3 year old daughter into parked cars at a super market and calling her 4 letter words and then threw her into the path of an oncoming SUV who slammed on his brakes to avoid hitting her.

So the mom at Target completes her check out and you know I'm nosey! so I push Grace at full speed after we pay for our items, and try to catch up to this woman to see what else is in store for her kids - then I see them. Parked only a few spaces from me, she has a white Lexus SUV with the back hatch open loading her groceries. She slams it closed and what do I see?
Her personalized license plate.... HAV FTH.

What a hypocritical bitch.

Chocolate is Gross Kids, Mommy Will Eat it for You.

Happy Halloweenie Y'all!

Tiny Tots in Costumes

I had a bit of a cute attack when I dropped Ava off at school this morning. As you can see, Grace found her way back into the front row after being shooed out of the picture frame, 2 times.

(Check out little Dracula, the hair is spiked and everything! Adorable!)

Why'd the Ghost Go into the Bar??

For the BOOS. MUUAHHH HAAAHAA.

Me and the hub carved a spoooky pumpkin tonight! And when I say Me and the hub... I mean I drank wine while the hub carved a spooky pumpkin tonight.

I scrubbed in and prepped Mr. Pumpkin for surgery.

He screamed a little during his rhinoplasty.

Here is Mr. Pumpkin post-op.

Perhaps some wine will help with the pain.....

Turns out Mr. Pumpkin can't tolerate his alcohol.

He was in need of some fresh air after his surgery and alcohol poisoning, so we placed him near the skulls in our ivy... he liked it there. He felt right at home.

Mr. Pumpkin says HAPPY HALLOWEEN you ghoulish fools!

And finally some Halloween puns. Cuz you know I'm a punny girl.

*What do you call a witch that lives at the beach? A sand-witch.
*Why did the game warden arrest the ghost? He didn't have a haunting license.
*What is a mummy's favorite type of music? wRAP.

Scary stuff y'all!!

Costume Fitting

Ava's class is having a Halloween party Thursday and I put her in her costume this afternoon to get used to it and of course dance in it. Anything with a skirt or frilly fabric that might resemble a skirt she goes crazy for. Her hands go on her hips to get jiggy with it, shakin' it like a salt shaker.

Grace is undecided on her Halloween costume this year. She's having trouble picking between The Bunny and The Pumpkin. I will let you know what she decides.

Here she is as The Bunny.

She's not too fond of her ears.

Making sure she can lay down like a bunny....

The Cat squeezes The Bunny with entirely too much force.

Happy Halloween 3 days early!

Halloween ~ Fall Festival

Howl-o-ween :) is right around the corner and how could we pass up taking the kids to a neighborhood festival on a beautiful day like today?! It was warm outside and the girls enjoyed the fresh air and fun fall festivities!!

The Ranch & Opal's with Toni

Yesterday afternoon me and the girls drove out to spend some time at my Aunt's ranch. She is out of town but had an appointment with a farrier to spruce up Dandy's hooves, and we were there to let him in and watch him work. Ava watched him scrape and dig into his hooves and asked a bazillion questions while Grace ran around the barn getting into anything and everything she could... including picking up 2 different types of animal crap, holding it out in front of her asking "what's datt?"

We hung out a while after the guy left and they played while I snapped pics.

They love Diane's piano and play together every time we visit. Tilly is the smallest grown cat on this planet and has a very faint, airy meow. I always try to fit her in my bag when we leave but she always wiggles her way free from my grasp.

Cactus the goat had his head stuck thru the fence and Grace was so excited he couldn't get away and was so willing to talk to her. They had an interesting conversation. It went something like this:

Cactus: "Bleeeeattt" (Pull my damn head out of this damn fence.")

Grace: "What's Datt?"

After we got home I did my best to cover up the Farm Smell that stuck to my body by overly- spritzing with perfume. I then left and met Toni at Opal's for some tasty beverages and fun girl talk. We ate dinner and chitty chatted. Neither of us had been to this particular location and made plans to make it back soon for a Sunday Brunch and carafes of Mimosa's.
Say it with me... Mmmmm.

Good times Toni! :) xoxo

Time For Change

My wish to the December 7th Birthday Fairy or Santa is to bring me a new camera. I love my Point & Shoot, but I am ready for something different. I love taking pictures, but honestly don't have time to use a big fancy schmancy long lens camera. Um... actually I would MAKE TIME to use one, but they are big and it wouldn't fit in my bag and would get dinged up going from the park to Chuck E. Cheese to Target to Bouncy Jumpy World, to who knows where else I find myself during the course of a day. It's just not practical for me at the moment. All I want is a bad ass digital point & shoot. I can make do with that. I have a Sony but I want a Canon. I hear awesome things about Canon from my friends that are very important - up and coming photographers... :) I am slowly falling out of love with my old, tired, worn out, outdated Sony. I hope its not jealous I have another on my mind.

Until December 7th or Christmas.......