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Summer Funnin'

I cried "uncle" today, begging tearfully for summer fun to grant me a day off. Between all the days we've been away (planned and unplanned), plus my self-appointed job as Official Children's Summer Social Director (the pay is terrible- sometimes it even COSTS money out of my own pocket), I'm tired. My eyes are literally burning from the tired. Or it could be from the Central Texas pollen count, but it sounds more dramatic if I blame it on being tired.

And speaking of burning, Y'ALL. It's desert hot here. We're considering developing some kind of asbestos clothing to prevent us from walking outside and catching fire from the heat. I think the risk of spontaneous combustion would be greater than the risk of mesothelioma. Seriously.

Anyway, today's plan, Operation Everyone Just Be Quiet, went pretty well. I spent most of the morning on the couch pretending to fold laundry. Can it be called "pretending" if no one is really watching? Or caring? Basically, I sat on the couch surrounded by piles of laundry that needed to be folded and put away and every few minutes I tore my eyes away from the Today Show or the internet and thought, "I should fold this laundry." It was very effective.

I also successfully threatened the boys that they would have to do extra chores if they got too rowdy. To support my fake laundry-folding initiative and to maintain some peace, they were strictly instructed to either watch TV or read books.

Listen, I'm all for kids completing chores simply because they are a part of a family and everyone is expected to pitch in regularly with no expectation of reward, but what's good parenting without sending some mixed messages to kids every once in awhile? For today, quiet and rest reigned supreme over intentional parenting. Don't judge.

Missy was at school all day because we have to pay for part-time care during the summer in order to save her full-time spot for fall. And if we have to pay for it, she might as well go. She likes being with her friends anyway and I have 33% less arguing at home when she's there, so win-win!

I have no plans for tomorrow either, but I'm pretty sure I've ridden the Quiet Train as far as it will go. But if it gets any hotter outide, I may have to demand a raise.

I'm still kickin'. And so is she.

Am I the only one who finds that the longer I put off doing something, the more difficult it is to figure how to approach the "doing" of it when I finally make up my mind to do it once again?

Maybe I should have just thrown in the towel on this blogging stuff, but I still find myself writing blog posts in my head even after all these months of never typing a single word on this blog. Usually, I have enough self-discipline to just shut down those writing thoughts altogether, knowing that there are too many other things competing with my time and energy.

But then there's today. And while I don't need a forklift to haul in all the money I make "authoring" ye olde blog (which is 0 dollars and 0 cents, by the way), I AM a proud mother who shamelessly uses her blog to show off her children's accomplishments.

Like my daughter's first recital.



and



You are welcome.

Everything would have worked out if it weren't for those meddling kids

The next time I plan to host my daughter's birthday party the day before Halloween, someone just shoot me and put me out of my candy coated misery.

Or how about this- the next time I plan to host my daughter's birthday party the day before Halloween, and I stay up until 3 AM making all the decorations and food for the party the night before that, someone just shoot me and put me out of my hot-glue-and-powdered-sugar coated misery.

Why yes, I'm exhausted today. Why do you ask?

Needless to say, I bit off a little bit more than I could chew in the Fun Department over the weekend.

When I got home from work on Friday, we dressed the littles in their costumes and headed over to a fall festival held at a local church, where we saw some of the most adorable costumes I have ever laid eyes on. And that's saying something, because my babies have been all kinds of adorable over the years in their Halloween finest.

A few of my favorites at the festival were a Snoopy and Woodstock pair and another teeny girl dressed like Raggedy Ann. I wish I had photographic evidence, but taking pictures of children with whom you have no verifiable relationship is generally frowned upon. So you'll have to take my word for it.

When we got home Friday evening, I started preparing all the food and decorations for Missy's birthday party on Saturday. Since the party was the day before Halloween, and because I love finding excuses for my children to wear their costumes more than once per season (it makes me feel like I get my money's worth), we were throwing a Halloween-themed birthday party for her.

And since I'm Mrs. Procrastinator Extraordinaire, the only items crossed off my To-Do checklist prior to Friday was "Research Ideas" and "Gather Supplies."

In other words, I knew I was in for a loooooong night.

For the next 6 hours (9:00 PM -3:00 AM) I made vampire bats, mummies, ghosts, witches' shoes, spiders, spider hatchlings. I had tons of help from J, who never complained, even when I sent him to The Store because I was in a panic for fishing wire. He drew faces and folded paper and taped bats together. I couldn't have done everything without his involunteerism.

(By the way, I warn you never to begin a craft that calls for fishing wire AKA invisible string. It's IMPOSSIBLE to tie invisible string. IMPOSSIBLE, I SAY.)

I turned string cheese into monster fingers, which meant literally CARVING out the knuckle joints. I also cut out approximately 6,274 bat/cat/pumpkin shapes out of flour tortillas for chips. We only own 1 cookie sheet, but everything was such a blur by the time I got around to baking these, that I can't even begin to hazard a guess how long it took me to finish them.

What I can tell you is how many times I was afraid the smoke detectors were going to go off in the middle of the night: Two.

Come to find out, I don't think we have smoke detectors.

After a short 4 hour nap, I got up "early" and make the hot dog mummies, the bones (that ended up looking like dog treats, so not very Halloween-y), and the icing for the cake.

Jason is the resident cake decorator and I think he hit another homerun with this one:

Because this post is already too long and uninteresting, I'll spare you all the party details except to say it was a success! After lunch and a real nap, I spent the rest of my day in my pjs watching sports on TV.

It's like I don't even know myself anymore.

But the Rangers were (are) playing in the World Series while my beloved Baylor bears were playing the University of Texas in a nationally televised game.

The BU/UT match-up originally garnered national TV time because of how great UT was supposed to be, but as the season evolved, people were starting to take notice of Baylor! I'm thrilled to report that the bears laid some smack down, holding UT to only 1 touchdown (and a whole bunch of field goals). Baylor even came from behind to win the game.

And I thought I would cry happy tears. ECSTATIC tears!

Sunday was a great day of worship, rest, and a fun night of trick-or-treating. We hit up a few houses as a family, but as more trick-or-treaters flooded the sidewalks, J stayed home to pass out candy while I supervised the kids door-to-door.

When we exhausted our candy-laden resources, we headed home and grilled hot dogs outside while we welcomed more treaters. Cade declared it the best Halloween ever. It makes me SO happy knowing we're creating happy family memories together.

Even if we are just meddling kids.

My Piper

How did it happen so quickly? When did this little 7 lb. 4 oz. peanut

with these tiny feet

and these teensy hands


turn into such a big little girl?

My sassy silly sweetie. The precious little missy who I believe understood every word I spoke to her when she was just a tiny infant. The girly twirly angel who loves mayonnaisse on bread (no meat) and never has enough play phones or purses. Daddy's princess who can never wear enough pink and idolizes her big brothers.

My heart.

Happy birthday Piper T! I love you!

I gambled and lost

The chance of rain on Saturday was 50%. The chance of my alma mater moving forward with the LARGEST HOMECOMING PARADE IN HISTORY was 100%. The chance that three littles would be crushed if we didn't attend...well, I didn't even want to gamble with that one. Especially since Micah pronounced his undying love for Baylor Homecoming just the day before.

But Jason was out of town (See how carefully I guarded that secret by not posting until he returned? But he's home now. And he packs heat, so back off!), so it was just going to be the children and me.

Me. With three children. One of whom inevitably has to go to the bathroom, but none of whom I can trust to go alone. In a crowded outdoor area. Where you cannot leave your spot for ANY REASON WHATSOEVER or risk it being invaded by sugar-crazed children desperate to sacrifice life and limb for an oversized Tootsie Roll or a 2-pack of SweetTarts because their parents likely graduated from this universit.........

So you understand my predicament.

Whether it was lack of sleep (I tend not to sleep well when Jason isn't home. And by "not sleep well", I mean stay up with all the lights on until my eyes refuse to remain open a single millisecond longer) or a full-on attack of allergy symptoms that caused me to lose my mind, we'll never know. But I packed a container of cinnamon rolls, 3 thermoses full of drinks, 2 Nintendo DSs to pass the time, 1 camp chair for mamaw because my backside can't take the concrete, 1 Diet Pepsi for fuel, and a partridge in a pair tree, loaded up the van and we moved to Beverly.

And I thought, "If it starts raining, we'll just leave."

I believe the phrase you are looking for is, "Famous last words."

Since my brilliant rain plan was "just leave," I didn't see the use in packing any jackets. Or even an umbrella.

It turns out that there's a 0% chance of being able to "just leave" when you're on the opposite side of the parade route from where you parked your grocery-getter. And you're surrounded by thousands of spectators, not to mention that the other side of the parade route is about 10 families deep. And you have 3 littles, a large bag, and a camp chair in tow. No matter how spectacular the parade floats, we definitely would have been the bigger spectacle.

My stories are soooo predictable.

We reached our usual spot on campus about 8:00. The parade started in downtown at 8:30, but wasn't expected to reach campus until close to 9:00 (thus, the reason for the DSs). The skies were still cloudy, but the rain appeared to be holding off. As though God himself looked down upon our little celebration and held back the rain.

Then the swing dancers on campus of a Baptist University must have really ticked him off because it wasn't long before I felt a few sprinkles.

"It's only sprinkling," I thought wishfully.

And then it began to rain in earnest. But in the spirit of Homecoming, brotherhood, and all that jazz, the nice couple behind me moved forward just enough to cover me with their oversized golf umbrella. So I will forgive the husband for being Overly Obvious Commentary Man.

(Dude, we all have the same parade program as you. And we graduated from a fairly scholarly university, so I'm pretty sure our reading skills allow us to comprehend the written line-up. But if we can't follow the line-up, each entry/float is clearly labeled, so there's little opportunity for suspense. Thanks for your assistance, though.)

Piper made friends with the prepared-like-a-girl-scout college freshman (I know she was a freshman by the singular fact that she had no idea from which direction the parade would be coming) sitting next to us and promptly situated herself squarely in the unsuspecting girl's lap under the protection of the girl's umbrella.

The good news is I have a new babysitter.

The boys alternated between squeezing under our portion of borrowed rain cover and diving for subpar candy.

Thankfully the rain didn't last long. I'm guessing the swing dancers came to the end of the parade route.

My pants legs were a little damp, but in the end none of us were any worse for the wear. I wish that we had been able to go to the game, since Baylor won and is now bowl-eligible for the first time in 15 years!

Despite the rain and my rare form of genius, it was a great weekend for sports! The Rangers are going to the World Series! The Bears are eligible to play in a bowl game! The Hogs won (that's for you, mom)!

Here's hoping your week (and mine too!) is also full of wins! And well-laid plans. And dry pants legs.

I'm back with more of nothing

When Jason and I lived in a (much) smaller town, we used to visit our local "Super" Store. If we hit The Store on the wrong evening (usually Sundays), they often would be out of entire sections of food. Like bread. Or milk.

You know, the "extras."

We had some words to describe The Store and "super" was never one of them.

It probably goes without saying (but my writing is so phenomenal that I'm going to say it) that we often threw up our hands and wondered why we even bothered shopping there.

Well. It turns out that writing a blog is a lot like that. Seems that if you don't write often, you don't get much activity. No content = no visitors.

Fascinating. Who knew?

I don't consider myself a writer and I have no real ambition for my blog. I don't want a book deal or a big advertising account. Two things I do know: 1) I love reading great blogs and 2) I love it when people read mine.

Unfortunately sometimes I just don't have the words to put together to uphold any kind of commitment. But dang if I don't know where to start when I am ready to reenter the fray because so many things have happened. Which leads to feelings of being overwhelmed which then causes me to avoid blogging some more. Thus, a vicious cycle of blog avoidance ensues.

This same cycle often applies to housework and laundry.

I have some issues.

But today I'm ready to break the cycle, even though I still don't know where to start. Do I wrap up our summer that officially ended for me over 2 months ago? Do I throw the end of summer out the proverbial window and recap all our back to school shenanigans, including a story about the time I almost broke down into tears in the school supply aisle of The Store? Or do I synthesize all of it into bite-sized stories until I've caught up to present day?

Since a goldfish's memory is slightly better than mine, the latter is not going to happen. I guess I'll just start fresh from here. And when I count on this blog to help me reflect on the best times and favorite memories from 2010, August through October will pretty much be a blur.

Which is totally appropriate because I think September and October bought some funky Five Finger Shoes and challenged one another to some sort of sprint to see which month could fly by faster.

I'm keeping score and October is winning.