High Hopes

Hiiii-aiiii hopes! Pie in the sky-aiii hopes!

I am prepping for our first road trip of the summer. We have tethered my laptop to my phone so I can continue to work while we drive. Nice. We moved Scrunch and her booster to the third row so I can sit in the back with Squishy and Porkchop. It will be easier this way to keep him from "pinching her arm fat" and passing out snacks in rapid succession.Remember when I said that I was never going to let my kids eat in the car? Bwahahaha. How bout if I don't let them eat off the car floor? (For more than two meals in a row?)

Not only will it put me in closer proximity to hopefully disrupt any pinching, biting, teasing, licking, and general annoyances kids inflict on each other while driving before they even start, but my hiding in the back seat will also make it less apparent when I take a "break" from work and set to knitting. This is where the real preparation sets in. Forget about preparing kid approved camping meals and packing for a trip that will include photo ops at the aquarium, camping for two nights, and then a hotel stay and beach party. What really needs to be addressed is not what I should wear, but what knitting should I take and which books should I download?

I feel like a spit wad. Chewed up, spit out and left on the sidewalk to dry. Only waiting to be stomped on and stuck to the bottom of a little boy's sneaker where I will cling for dear life as he runs through the playground bark on his way up the slide. Playground bark is itchy. 

Do you follow? 

Me neither.

But aren't you glad you stopped by anyway? Don't you feel better about yourself? 

"I'm not as crazy as that Mayor. She's losin' it." 

You're welcome.

In other news...

We finished painting the bathroom only hours before the barbecue. We had a pretty good turnout. It threatened rain and we had to move everything inside. I only wanted to freak just a little bit. 

Scrunch was intent on singing the Hebrew alphabet for The Bossman. Hint, hint!

Le Menu...Chips and guac, baked Brie and crackers, fruit with dip, brisket sandwiches on ciabatta rolls with carmelized onions and fixings, spicy coleslaw, baked beans, chips, s'mores, and peanutbutter cup homemade ice cream a la Ellie for dessert. There were so many leftovers we had more friends over Sunday night and more s'mores. 

Prior to the weekend my children had not experienced the ooey, gooey joy that can come from a marshmellow, Hershey's, and a box of graham crackers. They have now had their fill enough for an entire summer. We're going camping this weekend to ensure marshmellow overload. Porkchop is happy. Food on a stick on fire! Bazinga!

Do you watch The Bing Bang Theory? So funny. That's what the barbecue was like. A little bit like a cast party. Juuuust kidding. They aren't that bad. All I will add is.. go ahead, marry a nerd. They are employable and make good husbands. They are also great for family-friendly, cheap fun. Like the eclipse last weekend. 

Welcome to Summer!

I spent three hours making giant bubbles at preschool Adventure Day yesterday and the dog is still hiding in the closet not because it is cooler in there, but because he's sure he won't survive another blast from a water pistol. Poor Jed! It's gonna be a long summer.

We started a Summer Fun List on Sunday afternoon on the chalkboard, but Scrunch erased most of it within the hour so she could color. I went to town adding to it. Because so help me, we are gonna have fun dammit! We are going to have so much fun the kids will be begging us to put them to sleep in the evenings. I know I start begging for sleep about three-thirty in the afternoon.

Crossing barbecue off the list is in progress.

"Why, yes babe, why not invite your boss and a bunch of work dudes and their families to dinner at our place after one of the busiest weeks ever?"

"And while we're at it let's repaint the hallway leading to the bathroom they'll use and rip up the carpet to finish the flooring."

Oy. We might need to revisit the definition of fun.

Next week we'll start getting the hang of it with a trip to the Monterrey Bay Aquarium, camping at Big Sur, and a beach party! After a week at home it looks like we're probably headed to Portland for a week and then three days later we make our exodus to Zion for a wedding and to catch up with some family. It's gonna be nuts! And fun, so help me! And hey, it's summer! You reduce laundry by wearing your swim suit for three days at a time and survive it with naps in the car.

2012 Summer Fun List

• Jump on trampoline
• Geocaching
• Make ice cream
• Play in a fountain
• Practice face painting
• Go bowling
• Make popcicles
• Ice cube boats
• Make fans
• Make stepping stones
• Pick berries
• go to the Swap Meet
• decorate a big box
• go fishing
• backyard tin foil dinners
• build a sprinkler course
• Christmas in July
• write letters
• county fair
• Treat Tuesdays
• Craft Day 
• road trip
• Color Run
• Summerfest
• barbecue
• Monterrey Bay Aquarium
• go canoeing
• practice French braids
• pedicures
• sew skirts
• learn jumprope rhymes

Signage

You can tell what's going on at our house usually by the sign in the window. For weeks it was, "Hands are for hugs, NOT hitting!" You can also tell how long we've slacked off on having FHE because weeks turns into the sign staying up for months, even once the tape is peeling and it keeps getting caught every time the sliding door opens.

I need to make and new sign anyway- just special for Mom.

"Your kids are  4 and  2!!!! They are normal. You are tired."

Sometimes I forget and I expect them to act more maturely, more like 6 and 4. When they act their age I am surprised and frustrated, and that is dumb. It is me, not them.

I spent a large part of the afternoon with E6000 and then filling a black garbage bag with toys. Man, I was ticked. Mostly because it's not like they had been neglected. We went for a long walk, made smoothies, and then they were naughty. So frustrating!

I hope Scrunch isn't traumatized by my stuffing her pink kitty into the garbage bag. It was a stuffed kitty. I'm pretty sure Porkchop will be totally fine. My attempt at teaching empathy fell flat when he laughed as I chucked his phone with my full force so he could watch a prized possession burst into a million tiny pieces. Nope, he didn't get it at all.

"Shhhmash!!"

The kid only has like three intelligible words and one of them is "Shhhmash!!" Awesome.

What is 'Love and Logic' speak for me to go back to my kids and say, "Sometimes I suck at this. Here are your toys back."?

Gah!

Good news! is I get to practice again today. AND I can leave this sign up all year, AND I did not put Porkchop in the washer.

Birthday Wishes

I want to tye-dye shirts for a family outing. I want to go on this family outing, but I also want to stay home, sleep in, and laugh at the kids playing with their walkie-talkies all weekend. I want to plant a window box on my back patio. I want to catch up on work and maybe a few 'extra' hours for a few 'extras' in my wardrobe. I want to jump on the trampoline with Porkchop. I want to finish weaving a pot holder with Scrunch. I want to bake banana bread with the six pounds of quickly ripening bananas sitting on my hutch. I want to sort quilt blocks for the swap and start laying out my quilt. I want to go 'test drive' a new sewing machine. I want to score big time on some patio benches, even if it means sanding and taking on another project. I want to finish painting the bathroom mirror and hanging the wallpaper. Nowhere on this list do I want to fit in vacuuming, wiping down counters, cupboards, or bathrooms, or moping the floors. Mostly, I want to be okay with that.

I hate how much I had to force myself to go outside and play all afternoon rather than clean. It's been a banner of a week and I am behind just about everywhere. I did it, though. We went to the zoo.Although Porkchop missed most of it while hanging out with Papa at the snack shack. We had our traditional Mongolian barbecue for lunch and came home. I let Scrunch and Porkchop out of the car and they went inside while I untangled Juju from her five point harness. Before I was able to get in the door, they had unwrapped all of his presents. Kind of heartbreaking and hysterical at the same time. We spent the rest of the day not doing anything on Mommy's list and then had macaroni and cheese (from a box) for dinner. The kids were happy. I tried to pretend I was not going to freak out and start twitching over the state of my house. I did only okay with that. Before he turns eighteen, I want to be totally okay with that.

Happy Birthday El Nino! Named for the havoc wreaking hurricane of destruction left in his wake. At least it's a cute wake.

And a Very Merry Un-Birthday to my Dad! Whose taught me that a house is just a house without the people in it and nothing is more important than spending time. Empty houses suck. I think Dad would say something like that. No. Dad would say, "Empty houses blow chunks."

I don't regret a second I spent doing Super Man while balancing the kids on my feet on the trampoline. I am going to get this. More playing, less twitching. It's going to the top of my list.

Ta-da!

Yessss!

It's not quite midnight and I made it.

Porkchop's presents are wrapped and all laid out. I didn't think I was going to make it. At 5:15p.m. I still needed to run to Ace Hardware, give haircuts to the boys, prime and paint the tricycle, work another hour, do the bedtime routine, finish cutting my squares for the swap, cut and sew his cap, wrap the presents, blow up balloons, do the dishes, and pick up the family room. With Husband's help it all got done. I could not disappoint. Porkchop might only be turning two and have no clue what a birthday is, but an oober-helper big sister does.

"I'm sooo excited for tomorrow."

"Why?"

"It's his birthday."

"Yeah, but why are you excited?"

"Because I can't wait to ride his bike 'cause he doesn't know how!!"

Oh, that girl. It is the Scrunch show. All day, all the time.

And now I'm going to post pictures of her debut performance. There are only like three. It's so hard to get a picture without someone's big fat head in the middle of it.

"Olive Octopus has such style. She waves her arms all the while. Oh, oh, oh. For the letter 'o'!"

My life.

Sometimes when I sit down to spew I feel like I need to start so many posts with, "I'm not crazy, I swear!!" But as the self proclaimed Mayor of Crazytown I think it might be, well... a lie. 

These little gremlins put the 'crazy' in Crazytown. There are days I think I'm gonna lose it (like most of last week). And others (like today) where every handprint I come across makes me stop and pray, "Dear Lord, don't let them grow up so fast!"

Almost every time I talk to my grandma she likes to remind me of the story of her grandma, my great-great-grandmother. My grandma was busy and overwhelmed one day raising her four little boys (And based on some of the stories I've heard, I'd have thought they were the spawn of Satan. No joke. They were four naughty little boys.) It was a normal day. She doesn't remember what was so unusual about it. She was just feeling tired and haggard when Grandma-Great stopped in. She looked around at the mess, looked at Grandma, and said, "These are the best days of your life!" Grandma burst into tears. And every time she tells me that story she laughs and says, "Honey, she was right!"

If she had stopped by my house this afternoon, I know she would have said the exact same thing. 

"These are the best days of your life!"

Reality Bytes

I was so tired last night, but wanting to check one more thing off the to-do list, I blogged. When I re-read the post this morning I thought, "Who is this chick?? She sounds like she's got her crap together." Like in a supper peppy, I'm just thrilled with every little pebble my kid poops, and in fact I'm so happy I started crapping rainbows kind of way. Not exactly my blogs cup of tea. So let me fill you in...but it's our little secret, m'kay?

Yes, I did paint the bathroom cupboards. And my family has patiently found somewhere else to eat meals because they've been propped on the kitchen table for the last two weeks.

Yes, I did take before pics yesterday. The real reason I didn't post them was because I waited to do it until five minutes before Squishy woke up. My mirror was embarrassingly disgusting and needed wiping and it must have taken up the entire five minutes because she started to wake up. As she started waking- my milk let down. Get the picture?

Yes, I did stencil tote bags for Teacher Appreciation Week. But only when sometime Wednesday I read on my favorite couponing blog about the fun and easy Teacher Appreciation Week crafts she was making. Crap! What do I have that I could throw together? And I remembered I had the Dollar Tree tote bags originally intended for Mother's Day gifts that I never go to. (Sorry Moms.) Holly and I discussed the necessity of these things. "You have to be the nice mom so they like you and will be nice to your kid." Ironically, today was the first day a teacher has asked to speak with me after school. Greeeeeat....My kid hurt another kid's feelings when she REFUSED to sit by her at snack time. After talking to her this afternoon I find out it's because she overheard her say 'stupid' to her mom and her mom say 'stupid' back. "Stupid is not a nice word, Mom. So, she can't be my friend." Ugh, where in the freakin' parenting manual do I look up what to say to that? "Sometimes mommy says not nice words and her friends still hang out with her???"

Yes, we did make cupcakes. We. My husband did most of it and only after I sent him to the Chevron across the street to buy the secret ingredient- sour cream. Who doesn't have sour cream in their fridge? Luckily, our local Chevron dude and my husband are buddies now. For the last three (late) nights while I've worked my husband goes over to buy a treat at the gas station. He always asks if I want or need anything. "A drink" is my standard response. He comes home with a Pina Colada, Strawberry Daquiri, and Green Tea Sobe. I don't not drink because I'm Mormon. I don't drink because I'm an alcoholic. Last night when we were in dire straights for some sour cream, the dude told my husband that if they're closed and he still sees his car to just go ahead and knock on the window and he'd let him in. We are officially hooked up.

Yes, Scrunch has a play today. Miraculously, I was able to find the buttons in my catch-all room called a craft room so I could glue them on at o'dark-thirty. Tonight she will look cute and we will all be smiling in the pictures. I will post them tomorrow with captions about my adorable children. They were not so adorable this afternoon. It could be captured in another three posts but I'll just summarize by saying, "If you were near the vicinity of Sunrise and White Rock this afternoon, perhaps in the McDonald's drive-thru, I'm sorry if you had to hear Mommy throw a tantrum." I forgot the windows were down. Luckily all that I said was, "EVERYONE JUST STOP TALKING TO MOMMY FOR A MINUTE!!!!!" And may I also add that if I were to submit a topic suggestion to People I Want to Punch in the Throat it would be, Greasy-haired Mickey D's Employees Who Look Down Their Nose and Judge Me.

The kids have been banished to the backyard until I'm ready to bathe them and wrestle them into combing and curling their hair. I'd have stuck them in front of a movie, but our DVD player is busted and I'm on the computer, the only other means for watching Bob the Builder or Sound of Music.

Now, if you'll excuse me. I need to squirt some frosting on those bad-boy cupcakes of mine. But only after watching no less than three videos on YouTube on how to pipe it correctly. I will put on deodorant (because I think I forgot to this morning), brush my teeth, and go parade wave and flash my pearlies at the other pre-school Moms. We can all continue to pretend at having our shit, I mean poo-poo, together.

My secret is safe with you, right?

Somethin' to look at.

I took 'before' pictures in the mirror today. If I get the desired results, I might post them with the 'afters'. Just for comparison's sake. On their own they are a little...saggy? Saggy is just as good a word as any.

In the meantime, take a look here. Freshly painted bathroom cabinets with new hardware! It is taking me almost two weeks to do what should have been a 48hr makeover. Mirror frame and light fixture in by Mother's Day??

It started with finding a forty-five dollar shower curtain on clearance for seven dollars. I've had lots of "help" with the wallpaper and I'm surprised all the hardware is still in place.

Then there's the little interrupting projects along the way. Stenciled tote bags for Teacher Appreciation Week. Fixing buttons and putting pieces together for Scrunch's costume. Her first play is tomorrow night! It's just a pre-school thing for the parents and families, but I don't know who's more excited. Gramps even shared his top-secret Snickers cupcake recipe for the occasion. This is gonna be good!

Today it's Monday.

You might remember that I use to write a random post on Fridays. Little ditties that I'd like to express, but there just wasn't enough to do a whole post on. Sometimes it was Thursday. Other times it was Saturday. Today it is Monday. This week I'm either really early, or really late. Your pick.

Today was the first day of 30 Day Shred. Twelve hours and then six hours of natural labor and I don't ever recall wanting to physically hurt my midwives. 24 minutes with Jillian and I want to soccer punch her in the teeth. Needless to say it was a shock to the system and my ego. My four year old can do more push-ups than I can. "Come on Mommy! Don't stop!" And Porkchop with his dumbell substitution Campbell's cans! Oh, my abs! How many calories does laughing burn?

I have started to fill in the ole brows with a pencil. If I look a little more surprised than usual just chalk it up to being late to drop off at pre-school or the electricity going out.

No, we still don't know if we're moving to Jerusalem. They keep saying yes, but not saying when. I'm giving it till the end of the week and then I'm putting in the drip-line and the garden on Saturday.

They say you can't buy happiness. I say they be mistaking. Clearly, they have never purchased a pink ikat pillow or green chevron throw.

I'm having a hard time committing to a plan for window treatments in the family room. Go neutral or color? Lets see who's paying attention. Let's vote. This is a two part question. 

a) white 

b) stenciled stripes

c)

d)

e) I don't care about your dumb drapes. 

Part 2. Pelmet boxes or drapes?

If you mark 'e', please stop reading my blog. Like today. Jerk. Of course you care about my window treatments!

I have started calling Juju, also known as Pollywogallina, Squishy. She gets squishier by the minute and my Husband felt that perhaps calling out "Baby Ju!" on an Israeli playground might not be the most politically correct thing I've ever said.

My son is an over-achiever. Not only does he take the batteries out of all electronic devices, but he also fills their cracks and crevices with cream cheese. That smell is the remote.

Found my phone in the back of a pushcar on the back patio. Wonder how that got there?

I could keep going. My thoughts are nothing if not random lately, but I've got to get crackin'. If you think a pillow and throw can put a smile on my face, you should see how absolutely giddy painting bathroom cabinets makes me. Or it's the fumes.

Peace, yo!

(That was as random as it gets.)

Viva la guacamole!

Need an obscure holiday party planned? Ellie's your girl.

Happy Cinco De Mayo Hombres! and Muchas Gracias!

I can't wait to see what National Accordion Awareness Month and Creative Ice Cream Flavors Day brings!