Rain boots

Somebody decided to dress himself yesterday.

(and no, it wasn't raining)

A clean house

I don't wear perfume everyday, but sometimes it is nice and sometimes I even remember to put it on. Today, I remembered and spritzed on some perfume just before I headed downstairs to feed the kids.

I met George at the top of the stairs and we held hands as we began counting the steps on our way down - a bit of a morning tradition. As we started down the stairs, George announced, "Our house smewls cween!" Translation: "Our house smells clean."

Our house very rarely smells clean, so it only took me a moment to determine that he was probably smelling me. I said, "Oh, I think you're smelling my perfume."

He insisted, "No. Our house smewls cween."

I easily relented, "Okay." But, since I relate a clean house with the smell of Clorox and Windex, I'm not sure smelling like a clean house is exactly the kind of perfume I want to wear.

Teeth

Evie lost another tooth! She barely has any teeth left to bite with.


We also went to the dentist last Friday. All three were good patients, but we are gearing up to go see an orthodontist about Evie's tongue thrust which has led to several issues including an open bite and advanced plaque buildup on her lower front two teeth.

Don't worry. We'll get her all fixed up!

Sometimes it sucks.

Meh.

It's Friday afternoon.

It's 70 degrees and sunny outside.

I'm stuck inside an office.

Boo.

Surprising Birthday Gift

I actually heard this advertisement on the radio this morning --

If you know someone who is about to turn 50, here's a gift that's sure to surprise--A colonoscopy!

It'd sure surprise the shit outta me! Literally and figuratively. Seriously, if you know someone who is about to turn 50, please, please, please do not get them a colonoscopy.

Blowout: With After Picture

I got my hair cut and colored yesterday. It needed it. I headed over to the salon right at 5:00 and didn't leave until 8:00. While this is rather mundane, I was impressed that two people dried my hair at the same time.


That's teamwork! Seriously, hair and hands and brushes were flying everywhere!

Has anyone else ever had that done?

And the results:

Electronics

There was a ginormous storm that went through the area last night. But before that, the Santa Ana winds blew through and knocked our power out. The winds even knocked down the lamp in our front yard. There were over 23K people in the Metroplex without power.

Turns out, my side of the street went out, but not the other side of the street, or the block behind us. It is so weird. I swear we have weak power lines or something because our side of the street loses power more often than the other side. I can't explain it.

However, I can tell you that my children are bored without electricity. They refused to play with any of their toys and insisted that only "electronics" would make them happy. Seriously?! WTF? When did my kids become "those kids"? They were annoyed that I wouldn't let them play on my iPhone, but the battery was running low and I had no electricity to charge it , and besides, I was using it to see if a tornado was headed our way. They seemed unconvinced by my reasoning.

I tried to tell them to pretend that we lived in the Old West before everyone had electricity and things like television, computers, and video games, but Luke just rolled his eyes and announced, "That's bor-ing." I raised my eyebrows, and responded, "Okay then. Go do whatever you want." Apparently, his desired activity was to continue to whine and complain about how bored he was. He really does have a tough life, right?

So anyway, we all went to bed early -- all of us -- because there was nothing else we could do. More storms predicted for this evening, but I'm crossing my fingers that the power won't go out again.

It was lovely

Sooooo . . .

you may not have noticed . . .

but . . .

I've been on VACATION!

Yes, it was wonderful. No, I did not want to come back.

We went to this little town in central Texas called Fredericksburg. There are over 30 wineries close by, tons of shopping, lots of cows and goats, and more fresh air than I could gulp! We all had a lovely time sharing a house we rented with some dear friends of ours who have a daughter who fits perfectly into our stair-stepped children.

Chillin' at the Wineries

Playing in the backyard of our rented house included, chasing a dog named Petey, playing with horseshoes, riding on a tire swing, playing in a sandbox, playing soccer, spotting deer, shooting BBs at Diet Coke Cans, building a fire, and roasting marshmallows.




There are so many pictures that I don't have on my iPhone. Yes, I actually took my real camera. Getting the pictures off of it is always a challenge when it comes to my laziness. The pictures of the flowers were beautiful and the kids just had so much fun running around in the fresh open air. And all that fresh air hit them like a brick and they looked like this when they finally crashed each night:


It was a wonderful trip and culminated in a lovely birthday for my sweet hubby yesterday.

Bizarre: Updated

And now something truly bizarre. I don't know how people think of this stuff.

241543903

Click on the number above to see. I don't think I could adequately describe the weirdness of this, but I promise it won't hack your computer or anything like that.


UPDATE:
Apparently, this is a website where people post pictures of themselves with their head in a freezer. Super weird.

Here's the information that explains (somewhat) 241543903:

ABOUT 241543903

Nobody knows when and where 241543903 started.

From a quick Google search, the when can be determined to be within the past few weeks. The oldest 241543903 on record with Flickr is 241543903 by san pedro glue stick . There’s a twist to the meme, sakebalboa’s 241543903 also shows someone with his head into the freezer (incidentally the same freezer, fridge, room as san pedro glue stick), alas the title of the entry is it’s cold, head in the fridge, and it is only tagged 241543903.

The blog entries with instructions do not appear on the blogosphere till much later, on April 10, 2009 and April 13, 2009: both stating the same text:

TAKE A PHOTOGRAPH OF YOUR HEAD

INSIDE A FREEZER. UPLOAD THIS PHOTO

TO THE INTERNET (LIKE FLICKR). TAG THE

FILE WITH: 241543903. THE IDEA IS THAT IF

YOU SEARCH FOR THIS CRYPTIC TAG, ALL

THE PHOTOS OF HEADS IN FREEZERS

WILL APPEAR. I JUST DID ONE.

Pretty clear, pretty easy, pretty flexible.

Where’s your 241543903? Life is not a spectator’s sport, participate, have some fun.

Movie Advice

Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.

My favorite advice from a movie.

Do you have any advice from a movie that you keep in mind?

Ode to Angela

I'm a couple days late, but I plead insanity (of life). Please forgive my tardiness, Angela.



We hope you had a wonderful birthday and that you are on the road to health.

Lots of love,

The Professional Mother Family

Movie Quote 92

Bakc again, after a fully day of movies on the couch, you know I have something to share. So, here's Movie Quote 92:

Christ, is that blue soup?

I seriously love this movie. And I can get Chuck to watch it without any arm-twisting at all.

Lazy Day

Aside from taking my two precious dogs to the vet (and spending close to $500 on vet bills), I spent the entire day on the couch watching movies. Call me lazy; I'm just fine with it. I kept thinking that I should have been doing laundry, cleaning the kids rooms, wrapping up some loose ends at work, or any number of things that likely need doing. Still, a little R&R needed doing too. I think our big accomplishment of the day is going to be baths for the kids. Yay us. At least I have another day tomorrow to catch up with all the things that I let sit today.

I hope you all are having a wonderful day, enjoying the rain, loving your family, and making your life wonderful.

Much love to you all,
Me.

Picture day

Today is picture day for Luke and Evie's school. I'm pretty sure the kids didn't brush their teeth this morning.

Good thing these pictures aren't scratch-n-sniff.

Library Card

To earn a Cub Scout belt loop, Chuck took Luke to get his first library card. How exciting! He was sensitive enough to document the process for me while I was at Evie's soccer game. And here you go!

While I was watching this sweet girl ride the pine . . .


Chuck was watching Luke do this . . .





Chuck actually picked this book out. It is called Sammy in the Sky. He had Luke tell me about the story.

Chuck started it with, "Tell Mom what your book is about."

Luke responded with a brief answer, "It's about a boy and he has a dog named Sammy."

Chuck prompted him further, "What happens to the dog?"

Luke answered again, "He gets sick."

I groaned "uh oh" in my mind, and and responded with a dawning realization of doom, "Oh no. That's not good."

Chuck smiled with a wince, but continued to prompt Luke, "How is he sick?"

Luke's sweet voice said, "First he doesn't run as much as he used to. Then he can't walk."

My eyes widened at this part of the story, and I bore my eyes into Chuck.

Chuck shrugged his shoulders and laughed at the situation as he asked, "And then what happens?"

Luke spoke softly, "He dies." For all his craziness, he is a very sweet boy.

I gushed how sad it was and hit Chuck on the shoulder for obvious reasons. I mean, couldn't he have at least glanced at the book before they checked it out?

Soooo . . . my point is that I don't recommend "Sammy in the Sky" as a book unless you're trying to help your kids through the loss of your dog or pet. Geez. Way to go, Chuck.

Movie Quote 91

Movie Quote time! It's been a while, but I've been saving them up for you! We watched this last night:

"I tell you Joey, every fucking lawyer on the face of the earth oughta be killed."

And the one that I think will give it away:

"The firm encourages children."

A slower moment.

You know I always have a picture, an antecdote, a story, or a rant to share, but today is a day to take a moment and slow down. There are several people in my life that are going through tough changes these days, and so I found this poem very insightful today. I needed it. I assume you guys probably need it too, so enjoy.

I prayed for change, so I changed my mind.
I prayed for guidance and learned to trust myself.
I prayed for happiness and realized I am not my ego.
I prayed for peace and learned to accept others unconditionally.
I prayed for abundance and realized my doubt kept it out.
I prayed for wealth and realized it is my health.
I prayed for a miracle and realized I am the miracle.
I prayed for a soul mate and realized I am the One.
I prayed for love and realized it's always knocking, but I have to let it in.
- Jackson Kiddard

Much love to all of you this Monday morning. This is going to be a wonderful week!

Scooby-Doo

The kids are loving Scooby Doo. It helps that it is the only show that they all agree on. Praise the Lord. George thinks it is hilarious and will give you a verbal recap of the episode whenever it cracks him up. This video was taken after he had been going on and on about something funny. I was too late to capture his story on camera, but I got a little something out of him. Enjoy and have a very happy Friday!

The Gauntlet

If you look to the right, you will see two measuring tapes: one for me and one for Chuck.

I've have thrown down the gauntlet.

Please feel free to heckle as much as you want so that we will stay motivated.

Luke's First Reconciliation

We are Catholic, in case I haven't mentioned it. I try to stay away from talking about religion and politics, but this is my blog so whatever.

Anyhoo . . . Luke celebrated his first reconciliation (first confession) last night.


I was so emotional, it was pathetic. All of the children they sang the sweetest song during the service. They were all solemn and respectful. There were three priests hearing confession and you could tell that they were kind and patient with each child. My heart almost exploded with the sweetness of it all.


Evie and George were also pretty respectful during the service. They were quiet even if they were a bit restless.


Chuck and I are so proud of Luke. He confessed his sins, which he told us, and which consist mostly of disrespecting his parents. The priest gave him his penance - to do something kind for his mother. Score!

After his confession, he was given this medal.
He is so proud of it and we are so proud of him!

We showed him how proud we are by giving him a silver cross necklace from James Avery. I was worried that he would lose it. It's the nicest thing we've ever given to him, I think. Chuck put it on him and I think we're safe that he won't lose it because he can't take it off.


P.S. My hormones are clearly out of whack because I am tearing up at every little thing, including commercials. Sheesh.