and baby makes 6!

2nd Annual ballerina cupcake post and bonus lecture

You might remember last years tooth aching sweetness.

Well, I present the 2009 human cupcake…

Is that not insane, gobble her up cuteness? Watching this degree of precious was beyond words.

I have video, but honestly do not have the motivation to upload it online. The sun is out, the sand is warm and the water beckons to me with all its luscious saltiness. Today is the last day of school, and the beginning of summer. We have big plans.

What are you going to do? Are you going to spend it online reading about other peoples lives, or are you going to get outside and live your own fabulous life?

Turn off the computer. Who cares what Dooce is having for dinner. Will there be another Drama at BlogHer this summer? Psst…it has no bearing on your life. Quit worrying about what other people do with their kids. Really, I mean who cares???? If you like sunscreen, pile it on baby and get your arse outside.

IMHO, if you are sitting here reading this, than you are wasting time that you will never get back again. All it takes to hammer this home is having a husband who had a stroke. Life is fragile and each minute that ticks by is a minute of your life that is gone forever. I would rather have that minute be one that was spent kissing my children. Or spreading a quilt in the backyard under the oaks with the sunlight dappling through the trees onto my husband and I as we steal a romantic moment alone while the neighborhood is at work. Be still my heart.

My friend Shelley made my family laugh this week. One of my kiddos got grounded and the Wii and PSP are in dust bunny hell. She said “It’s going to be an Amish Summer!” To join in on the fun, in an act of solidarity I am adding my computer to the tangle of cords and electronic devices in the top of the closet for the next 2 weeks. T.V. is unplugged. (mutiny…now it is reduced time each day) Game boys pffft, gone(this was met with mutiny…the kids and Bill, so handhelds are allowed). This was not met with a standing ovation at our house. My 14yo son, (who is the one that got grounded and whom the other kids can blame for their misery, but I’m just sayin’) said “Shelley isn’t kidding. It is going to be an Amish Summer and it is going to stink (insert a “uc” in place of “tin”). And I replied “Fool, if I finish all of my chores and you finish thine, then tonight we’re gonna party like its 1699″ and he started laughing involuntarily, because he would never laugh on purpose at anything I say anymore. He is much too cool.

So anyway…..Make this your Anish Summer, fool. Turn it all off, and don’t be whiny, or else, my brother, I might have to get medieval on you heinie.

Kookdom, or not

As my husband waded out into the tiny surf I yelled at him and gestured to my hat….he ignored me and continued on. The Hat (he has 2) and sunglasses remained on, no doubt in an effort to make me squirm in embarrassment.

Only a kook would paddle out into tiny surf, dressed like that. I think I even yelled “Kook” at him as he paddled to catch his first wave.

In reality, the difference between Billy and a kook is that a kook could never pull it off. The Hat and $200 prescription sun glasses would be lost in the first wave. Only that man could surf like this for an hour and never lose either. Goofball.

Bad hair day

Cory was voted by the student body to have the best hair in his class. Mr. and Ms. Best Hair are photographed side by side in the Middle School annual, and that picture is going to have a prominant spot in his wedding rehearsal dinner slide show.

Now that he has won best hair, he has no use for his gorgeous locks. Swim team is looming, and the long standing tradition is for the boys to get mohawks…….and they color the hair in various shades of “freak your grandparents out”. My son is to spend a week or so in the Hill Country with his 75yo Papa and Nannie soon. I am pretty sure that a mohawk on his little darling grandbaby will require an increase in Papa’s cardiac meds and lots of gin.

You vote….should my preshus bayyyybeee color his mohawk green, red, pink or blue?

p.s…..my last blog theme died during a routine upgrade, and I have replaced it with this one. Please let me know if you have any issues. Comments have bee screwed up, and I hope that this repairs them. Thank you, The Management.

Johnny Depp has nothing on him

Yes, that is a real sword.

But it is not the sword, in and of itself that made me nervous.

It was going in to use the bathroom and seeing the pirate taking blue eyed blond shots at the bar between shoots. Awesome.

Freakin’ Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

A whatchamacallit

I don’t know what they call these, but some days I think I need 4 of them at my house……….and a plank. ;*)

Pirates and a ramble post

Saturday we went to a birthday party with a pirate theme. This b-day party was HUGE. There were over 50 kids, and each kid was given a handmade pirate costume. They were DARLING and made me feel like a lazy bum with my “family” b-day parties. Mia hasn’t taken hers off since Saturday. I finally had to sneak it to the washer, and then put it away until she asks for it. A bit of motherly mutiny. ARrrrr.

Mothers day was exactly how I imagined it. Family, beach, surfing, and some nice cold Modelo’s. I would share some images, but the truth is, I put my camera away so I could enjoy the moment. Okay, crap, I just never pulled it out the entire day. Bad dog. And just how many beach photos do you people want to see over and over again? ;*)

We are trying to figure out trip plans around all the swim team and other scheduled activities this summer. I am itching to get some firm dates, as all our favorite spots are opening up and ready for summer. One idea was another month in the trailer somewhere south. I have made the promise that if we do this, I won’t beg to move there. We are also thinking about a boat trip very soon, but the wind better lay down a bit before we schedule that. It has really been blowing, like howling, which is great for racing, but terrible for leisure sailing with young kids. Nothing like sleepless nights as you imagine drifting into the reef due to dragging anchor in the 30mph winds. It makes rowing to shore a chore. It wan’t like this last year, so not sure how typical this is or not.

In the meantime, we are wrapping up all things school. I am sooooo glad to be near the end. Waking before 6am is running me down, and I will be glad for a break from constant car rides to and from and all over. So will the kids. I can tell they are done and ready for a break because Quinn was almost in tears this morning when Bill told him it was time to leave for school.

Summer also grants me more exercise time, as I have a big kid home to watch the littles. I need some me time pretty bad. I am hoping to shove my board in my van and take some early morning surf sessions BY MYSELF. What a concept. Have not done that since 1993.

In other news, it is snake season again, and Cory, AKA Steve Irwin Jr., has been at it again. Everything that slithers ends up in his fearless hands. The latest was a water snake that looked very much like a copperhead at first. I had a coronary when it bit him. I am ready to kill the boy. I guess I can’t really call him a boy anymore. The “boy” has morphed into this stunning man creature?

I have to do a double take everytime I look at him. How did THAT come out of Bill and I. Impossible.

One last note…when talking about Mothers Day last week, I mentioned that I love handmade cards from the kids. So, this is what I found next to my espresso machine on Sunday morning.

I love my Billy.

And now I am off to work out. I joined a local health club, and am trying hard to hammer home the last few pounds of weight loss before June. Must be hawt for my man. ;*)

Take a left, please

You are looking at the reason I survived my 20’s.

Call it a fate, or whatever you want, but I met him at a crossroads in my life. I could have gone down the path of the endless party, meeting some pretty boy that would give me superficial fulfillment. Or, I could follow Billy down the road to the left…..the one that would wind around mountains to hike, oceans to sail and surf, and children to marvel at.

I am glad I went left, when most of the people I knew then went to the right.

This man, the one I followed, is one of the nicest human beings on earth. There are times, of course, when I want to strangle him, but for the most part he is everything a woman could ask for and then some.

I feel very lucky to have taken a Louie with him.

Dancer

I love watching my kiddos and photographing them naturally. They are so funny and uninhibited. Mia seems to lose herself in thought and is so demonstrative. I was reading a magazine while she sat with me the other night, when I heard her humming and looked up to see her with her eyes closed, doing what looked like ballet. I had my camera there, so I snapped a picture.

Busted!!! The flash went off, and that photo session was kapoot.

Some of you might have noticed that this site was down for, well, I don’t know how long. The short story is that the shared IP from my hosting company got black listed by the company formally known by SW Bell, so if you have that ISP, well, no “and baby makes 6″ for you. Oh, wait! I have that ISP!!……hey, are you kidding me? I couldn’t get to my own blog. Insane.

After over 24 hours of being treated like a ping pong ball going between Bluehost and the company formerly known as SWB, as they passed the blame back and forth, someone from A T & T actually spent her day dedicated to figuring the mystery out and she found the black list issue. Her name is Serena and works in tier 2 at the call center, and she rocks her job. The problem was, it might take a week or more to get unblocked.

So I found a way around it. Dealing with it really stinks, especially if you hate having a phone hanging out of your ear for 6 hours at a time. Billy especially hates it, because it means I am am on the computer more and have a phone hanging out of my ear. Have I ever told you how much he dislikes the computer and the phone? They are his arch enemies. His competition. He doesn’t care what I do all day while he is at work, but when he gets home, he would like for me to be with him and present 100%. This is a request I gladly will meet….although, when my blog has been shackled and jailed, the man will have to deal. Savvy?

So, now we are back to our regularly scheduled surfing, sailing, beach going blogging…..surfing is on the schedule for Mother’s Day. I am sorry if the ISP thing caused anyone any issues. I was wondering where everyone went the last few days. I might have even sniffed my under arms a couple of times.

**p.s. In the process of dealing with this issue, my last post got accidentally deleted by yours truly (a casualty of trying to blog via iTouch). I was able to find a cached version of the post to copy, but lost all comments. Such is life.

That face

This face……….it is the face that makes my heart explode with joy.

It is also the face that belongs to a child that changes her clothes 16 times each day. Not only does she change the clothes, but she wears each set long enough to dirty it just enough for it to need washing.

As a boy mom prior to birthing Miss Mimi, I never had this problem. My boys were never really aware that clothes can match, and that if you wear something once and play in a sand pile for 6 hours, you might need to put them in the dirty hamper when you take them off. I am not even sure they know where the dirty clothes hamper is, since I usually find it stuffed under the bed, on the floor of their closet or worse, put back in the drawer.

The boy/girl thing is very apparent in regards to bathtime. When Mia gets out of the bath, she asks if she got all the shampoo out of her hair. With boys, you have to make sure they even used shampoo…….using soap takes longer and the goal in the shower is not to get clean, but to get it over with as quick as possible.

Girls dress up to go to the Hannah Montana movie, complete with scarves. Boys stick their finger in their mouth and pretend to barf when you ask them if they would like to go.

It would never occur to Mia to throw her Corolle baby up on the roof. The boys would do it, complete with mock “save me” cries.

Nor would she tie a string to a stuffed animal, attach it to the back of her bike and drag it down the road in an attempt to create a patient for her “surgery clinic”.

Mia probably would not launch her skateboard into the sewer, leaving her father to figure out how to fish it out from a crack in the sidewalk 12 inches high.

Boys would not climb into bed with their mom and say “Mom, can I give you a facial”. They would get into your makeup and mix everything around making a new color called “barf”.

Boy hugs and girl hugs are different. Girls snuggle up and tenderly stroke your cheek. Boys wrap their arms around you in a bear hug you that you know is going to end too soon.

Boys love their moms with a fierce protectiveness. Girls love their mom with a sweet tenderness.

The differences are most certianly there. They are not learned behaviors. They just are.

If boys are blue and girls are pink, I don’t see the individual colors. I see the most perfect color of purple my life could ever have painted across it.