35 Eff Off

35, please quickly go fuck yourself. You think you're so stealth, that you've got it all figured out. You are a bitch. Nobody likes you, even those who are too sweet to tell you to your face. Everyone hates you. But right now, I hate you the most. I hate you for these:

No, my eyes do not have their own personal fans. You dug your nasty little nails into my face.

I hate you for ever letting me think that this was fat:

And here you had me contemplating a girdle in 100 degree weather:

You are pure evil for all of my youth you squandered. However, without you I would not have the love of my life and the beautiful children we made together. I will forgive those little angels for the havoc they brought onto my body but you, 35, will not be forgiven. You had better wisen up and get it together because the next 35 are going to be rough for you. I will gouge out your eyes and beat you into submission. You crept up on me while I was weak. You won't get away with it again. Prepare to have your ass handed to you, high and tight.

Crafty

Who freaking knew I could be so crafty? When it comes to being creative, I suck. I mean I can problem-solve and come up with "creative" solutions to every day problems but I consider those to be ingenuity, not true creativity. I can HOWEVER follow instructions like a motherfucker! A few months ago, I "directed" my husband through installing our garage door opener. Piece of cake. In fact, if I was as strong as most men, I could have done it alone. My neighbor was even impressed. I believe his exact words were "Wow, that's not easy. There are whole companies that do nothing but install garage doors." So recently a facebook friend was posting about making her girls tutus as part of their Halloween costumes. She said it was really easy. I remembered lots of cute pics of little girls in tutus I had seen recently and instantly decided that I could so this. I could come up with some cute tutu costumes for my girls. I did a little googling and discovered that there is a whole tutu universe out there. I followed the instructions from this momblog and with a little insight from my girls, I made Ava a "Cheerleader Fairy" (her words) and Emma a "Graveyard Fairy". I thought they came out pretty cute and were much less expensive and more practical than spending money on a Party City costume.

Here are some more photos from Halloween, which I have come to realize, sucks in Texas. The real fun of Halloween is wearing your costume to school and becoming that character for the day. I mean did it not complete your life when the boy you crushed on was dressed as tarzan to your Jane? Or your arch enemy was dressed as a witch or a dog? Unfortunately, when we researched places to live and school districts, it never crossed our naive liberal California minds that religion (you know that thing that is supposed to be separate from state) would play such a huge role in the school district's policies :( Halloween is too evil to be celebrated (oh and sex is too gross to be discussed. Yes, our district teaches abstinence but that is a whole other blog rant...). Ava did get to dress up for her "Harvest Fest" but Halloween was a little anti-climatic for Emma who would have loved to see more of her friends dressed up. Here are some more pics from Ava's preschool parade and Halloween night. Vinny dressed up as a golfer.

The kids did have a good time Trick-or-Treating. Emma went all over the city with her two bffs and even went to a rockin party at another friend's house. She didn't even come home until well after 10. But the little kids barely made it around the big block. They weren't even gone long enough for Amanda and I to finish one beer. They got tired and came home only to get ramped up on sugar. Vinny will regret this later in life when I show it to the first girl he brings home. :))

And speaking of crafty, I made Ava some pretty kick-ass cupcakes for her big five.(blog to follow).

Back on the Fatty Wagon

Dammit!! So, I did good for the first half of the year. I lost 20 pounds before my CA vacation. I was eating right and working out, my skin was looking nice. THEN, CA happened. Holy burrito. I stopped working out the day I got on that plane. I reportedly ate 10ish burritos in 2 weeks then granny died and I had to go back a week later only to eat more burritos. I mean really, granny's service was catered by CARMEN'S...drool! And my cousins made me drink way too much. Then bathing suit season quickly went away and well, that was just another excuse to eat poorly and not exercise.

I regained 7 pounds and it's all flabby bc I haven't done a single sit-up in 3 months.

I am back on the fatty wagon as of yesterday. My 35th birthday (what? NOOOOOO!) is in a couple weeks and then i am going on vacation with my besties in January. Buy the way, these hookers are all CA skinny :( Even if I lose another 20 pounds, I will STILL be the fattest one there :( So, back at it I am. Please don't offer me anything with flavor. Kthanksbye.

The Update

I'm a lagger. A known lagger. This is not new, nor will it change. I should try to do better but I don't like to set myself up for failure. So, it's been a while since I've blogged. The reasons are many: softball has taken over our lives, TV is really good right now and I have a personal obligation to watch my shows in a timely enough fashion as to not let the DVR get full lest one of my shows be skipped and then someone has to die and lastly by the time I get to my 4th job-interneting- I am a little too buzzed from my newly rekindled love of wine to focus on little things like spelling and grammar (as evidenced by some recent late night facebooking). Here's a sweet little rundown:

Emma

Emma is so amazing. She rocks a demanding softball schedule and still manages to get straight As. This fall she is playing for two softball teams. She is playing for a travel team, The Austin Stars, and still playing rec ball at Round Rock. This means games 2-3 nights per week, practice twice per week and weekend tournaments about twice a month. She is getting so good. We are just now really starting to understand the craziness that is youth sports. In fact, I was "one of those parents" at her first Stars tournament. She sat out most of the tourney which she was okay with her but when they finally won a game after batting around the order a couple times and she didn't get to bat, I was pissed. I started crying (I know, right? I don't CRY!) when she said to me after the game "I guess my team didn't need me to bat". I probably should have just got in the car and cried to myself but I was enraged that a grown man made my daughter feel that way...I kinda went psycho-crazy-mama-bear on her coach. We've since moved past that but it is not beneath me to do it again if necessary...

Emma likes to wear my old Clairemont Bobby Sox All Star jacket. I love it!

Ava

Ava will be turning 5 in a week. She is also amazing. She is so amazing, in fact, that she taught herself to read. Much like she taught herself the alphabet before she was two and how to write before she was three. A few weeks ago, she climbed up on my lap with a book and asked to read it. So, I started to read and she stopped me "No, I mean I want to read it to you." Okay, so I'm thinking she must have memorized it. Nope. She was reading. There were a few words she asked for help on but she totally got it. She is also starting to write little stories. She is so, so smart and if it weren't for the fact that the hippopotamus still rears her ugly head, I'd be considering testing her out of kinder next year. She's still in preschool this year because Texas' cut-off for kinder is Sept 1. Here she is on her first day of preschool:

And with her two bffs who are in her class again this year:

She is also playing softball for the first time this year and she is awesome! Her little team, The Sweet Cleats, is undefeated! I love, love, love that her league keeps score. There really is no time when "everybody wins" is a good lesson, right? I mean, I have been kicking my kids' butts for years at all games to help them learn how to lose. I don't need anybody messing up my system with an unrealistic ideal. There is no "everybody wins" in life. So, adding Ava's two games per week schedule ensures that we are at the ball fields during dinner pretty much every night of the week. Cre8ive meals/parenting has been our fall theme :)

Vinny

Vinny is the sweetest 5 front-toothed kid you've ever met. That's right five front teeth. He had always had this cute little gap in his front teeth. Then a few weeks ago, a tooth started coming in! It looks really cute, but unfortunately I think it's going to have to be pulled. I am not looking forward to that experience and am therefore LAGGING on setting him up an appointment... As you can see from the video, he can talk now. He went from point-and-grunt to speaking in sentences in one day. His first sentence was "One more ba" complete with holding up one finger, thereby also conveying that he understood the concept of "one more". We are glossing over the "ba" part here. We all know what it means. We all know what it means TO ME and that's the end of this discussion :)) His longest sentence has been "No want mama do it, I do it!" and his best sentence is "I a u toooo, ma (I love you, too mom)" Be still my heart...

He has also graduated to a toddler bed and peed in the potty a few times. However, full-on potty training is going to wait a bit. He's not quite ready but we are approaching the time. Just beware: the day that mah baybay is out of diapers and off the ba will be a sad, sad, tear-filled, day of contemplating a tubal reversal for me. Please be supportive (with chocolate and wine, DO NOT encourage the reversal!)