Proud mommy moment

Allow me to brag for a moment on my eldest child if you will. 

 Last night at the PTA meeting Kylie was awarded citizen of the month. Again. Fourth year in a row. She takes after me ya know. Okay maybe not. My husband and I are thinking that this kind of thing must skip a generation. Regardless I am very proud of my baby. She works so hard in school and even though she rolls her eyes and acts like this is all no big deal I know she's proud of herself too.

The weekend of ugly.

This weekend the girls and I attended a family reunion. Naturally my husband had to work so I did it alone. I'm pretty sure all of my aunts, uncles and cousins are convinced I don't actually have a husband because it never fails everytime we have a family get together he is at work. Anyway..... I've often joked to my husband that every family has an Uncle Eddie. You know the guy from the National Lampoon's movies? 

The reunion was held at this really nice park with a picnic area. The kids were playing on the playground and the adults were visiting and playing catch up with each other. And then he arrived. Uncle Eddie. Now in all fairness to my family this guy is not actually a family member by blood. I believe he married a cousin or something. While most of the people at the reunion were average, pleasant everyday people. This guy? Well he wasn't. He arrived with a cigarette and a can of beer. I have no problem with people that smoke, just don't do it around me or my kids. I have no problem with people that drink either, but drinking to me is one of those 'right time, right place' type things. Apparently drinking his beer, smoking his cigarette and stuffing his face took all the energy he had in him. I walked up and found him sprawled out on a picnic bench with his big, tattooed gut hanging out. Naturally I took a picture. Because I'm a jerk like that.
Unfortunately I didn't get a good one because people kept walking in front of me, but here ya go.

Sorry ladies, I'm afraid he's taken already. As if that weren't enough beauty for my eyes to behold I came home to find a facebook request from this guy in my inbox:

I know, I know you guys are totally jealous. Sadly I had to turn down his request. My husband was too jealous.
Oh, but the ugly doesn't end there. Later that night when my husband arrived home from work he was in a very grumpy mood. I asked him if he had a bad day at work and he told me that no it had been a pretty good one actually, it was coming home to egg on the front door and having to clean it up that did him in. Yes, that's right apparently our house was egged. Nice huh? The kids and I were home all evening and didn't even have a clue. 
I was really hoping Sunday would be nice, but alas we had a bit of ugly pop up there too, although in a different form. We took the kids to the park to play and on the way home I had to stop by target to pick up some things for the girls lunches this week. Kylie had her purse with her so she asked if she could buy a webkinz. I told her I didn't care and then Audrey went and grabbed one. Audrey had no money. Mommy wasn't paying for it. Drama ensued. I finally calmed her down, but then I made a tragic mistake. I kissed her on the cheek and told her I loved her. Horrible right? Well for Audrey it was. She has always been super sensitive to well, pretty much everything. The biggest thing is kisses. She cannot stand for someone to kiss her. EVER. And of course I just screwed up and did it. In a public place no less. She began crying and screaming all over again. She told me she did not love me anymore, that I was disgusting and made her want to throw up. Nice, eh? So that kind of ended my ugly weekend. Hopefully this week will be much, much better than the weekend was.

Open letter Friday-Pottery Barn Kids

Being the dork I am I often compose little letters in my head to companies, annoying people, etc. I thought I would start sharing them with you guys (I know, I know you're thrilled right?) on Fridays. If you would like to add  yours you are more than welcome to either include it in the comment section or if I can ever remember how to do the McLinky thing then I'll include a link up at the bottom of the post. Happy Friday!
Dear Pottery Barn Kids,
First of all I would like to say that I love and adore your ridiculously overpriced company. I have been a fan and customer for quite a few years now. Generally I have had nothing but good experiences with you, the quality of the products are great and the customer service is phenomenal. Right now however I am not a happy mommy. A few days  ago I received my new catalog in the mail. Since this week has been a bit crazy it kind of took me awhile to get around to looking through it. Now I'm wishing I hadn't. You see, within the pages of that innocent looking little magazine I found this:

 

What's the big deal right? The big deal is that you have gone and added not one, not two, but THREE new dolls! To make matters even worse I went online and noticed that not only did you bastards add new dolls, but you added new furniture and accessories. 

  Now I'm sure you're probably reading this thinking "okay crazy lady what's your problem?" My problem is three part. One I have spent the past year buying all of the dolls that you make. Not just the ones on your website but I've also had to stalk eBay to find some of the ones that you quit making. Two I have three daughters and that makes things pricey when you are multiplying by three. Three I have already bought everything for my children's Christmas. Yes I realize that it is just now the first of October, but I like to shop early. So I'm asking you to please, please, please stop the insanity. My husband loves me very much, but I do believe that if I hit the submit button on my $428 (before tax and shipping) online cart after I have repeatedly assured him that I am finished toy shopping he may very well leave me.  So for the sake of my children no more cute stuff! Okay? Thanks very much. 
Sincerely,
Lana 

Ah, that Sophie

When I first began my blog I did so mostly so I could have a place to vent about how insane life was. I had a one year old, three year old and five year old and a husband that was rarely around to help out. Kylie and Audrey were pretty easygoing, but Sophie? Ah, she was a completely different story.

You know you love me mom.

At home she was just an angel, but nine times out of ten if I tried to go out in public with her it would result in tears. I remember calling my husband at work many times and asking him to please bring home some milk so I wouldn't have to take our precious darling to the store. Yes, it really was that bad. There is one shopping trip that particularly stands out in my mind. We were in Target and I was trying to hurry up as quickly as possible and get my groceries and get home. Sophie was screaming so much that an old lady followed us all over the store. I can only assume that she was waiting to see if I would lose it completely and beat the child so she could whip out her phone and call child services on me. She was shopping with a friend of hers and the friend came along and yelled at us to get out of her way. I turned around in tears and practically ran to the register. It was truly horrible. And the bad thing? I ended up forgetting half of the things I had gone after in the first place. 

I want to go outside now!

Luckily since then things have gotten much, much better. My husband is still rarely around to help out with the girls, but they have gotten older so taking them places is generally pretty easy. Or so I thought. Yesterday I had to make a return to gap. So Sophie and I set off on our merry way and had a really great time at the mall. We went into several stores and shopped and she was fantastic. Then as we were leaving I asked her if she wanted to stop by the consignment sale. I didn't need anything, I was just curious if some of the things I had put in the sale had sold or not. She told me that she wanted to go and off we went. Things went well until she saw this thing:

 

 She was convinced it was going to be hers. I was convinced I was not spending $40 on a toy for her. Tears ensued. I finally wrangled her into her carseat and drove all the way home with her kicking and screaming. I'm pretty sure my husband felt a sense of deja vu when he received a phone call at work yesterday with me crying about his spawn precious child and blubbering on about needing a drink. 

Who me? I would never throw a tantrum.

 I'm hoping that yesterday was just a weird fluke type thing because I truly think I'm getting too old for this kind of thing. But just in case we will be staying home today.

Anything boys can do...............

Who says a girl can't climb trees? And in a skirt no less.

 

Fall? Is that you?

Did you hear that loud noise this morning? That was me whooping with joy. When I went to take the kids to the bus stop this morning it was in the seventies. Seventies people! I think we might actually get a taste of fall. I know some of you are already wearing jackets, but we've been in sundresses, sandals and tank tops here forever now. I finally broke down last night and started pulling all the sleeveless things from the girls closets since October will be here this week (eek! How did that happen?!?). And yes, I fully realize that it will probably be in the eighties by this afternoon, but for now I'm happy.
Saturday I took the girls to Michaels for some arts and crafts. I've been hearing for ages now that they offer workshops for the kids on Saturdays, but just haven't really given it much thought. In other words I've been too lazy to haul myself out of bed and schlep them around town when I don't have to. A friend gave me the heads up that this Saturday they were doing an American Girl craft so I knew we needed to try to go. I'm so glad we did. The girls had a fantastic time.

 By the way, that my friend would be a cake for an American Girl doll. They also made party hats and banners so you guessed it. We've been having doll partys this weekend.

Other than that we pretty much stayed home and did nothing this weekend. It was glorious! I love having things to do, but sometimes it's really nice to just stay home and not have to go anywhere and do anything.

Guess HGTV will have to find some new design stars

I have come to the conclusion that my husband and I suck at the whole 'cutesy decorating/home repair thing'. It think it's pretty obvious after seeing my hand at arts and crafts that I won't have to worry about people beating down my door for help. And after this latest foray into home improvement (yes, I'm snickering as I type those words because well.... you'll see) I've also come to the conclusion that my husband won't have to worry about people calling on him for his services either. You see several a few weeks ago we decided that after ten years it was time to finally get around to doing some work on one of our bathrooms.  The work we were doing should have taken most people a day to complete, a weekend at most. Not us. It's about three weeks into this little project and we've still got work to do. Don't get me wrong, we can actually use the bathroom, but it still needs some things done to it. Like the door needs to be painted, some of walls need to be touched up, and we still need to buy some kind of storage cabinet thingy for the wall. That's right a thingy. It's a real word. Trust me. Anyway, Wednesday my darling husband did not have to go to work until 2:00 so I asked him if he would please put towel holder up so the kids would quit throwing the hand towel in the sink every time they washed their hands. He did and this is the result:

 Is it just me or can anyone else see the problem here? Hmm, anybody? Yes, that bad boy will be getting moved soon. Also, notice the mirror? Yeah, you only have to be about six feet tall to be able to see yourself in it. Which I guess for me is a good thing when I think about how much weight I've put on lately (damn those Hershey's!) so maybe I won't complain about that one. Too much. So for now I guess the powers that be at HGTV can rest easy because it looks like they won't have to worry about juggling their schedule to find us a time slot. Unless they want to add some comedy into the mix in which case we will proudly say "bring it on!"