I Should've Been a Cosmetologist

Because anyone that can turn this: into this:

deserves some type of recognition. I have to give credit to my frizz control friends at Herbal Essences and some extra props to my kangaroo cronies down at Aussie. Without them this monumental moment in hair design would not be possible. And, thank you Ken Paves for your inspiration. ( You can pretend you don't know who Ken is, but seriously, he's Jessica Simpson's best friend and hairdresser to the stars. Come on. Read your US magazine.)

Birthday Bacon???

Today is this handsome fellow's birthday. You know, once you start getting older, birthday's aren't really such a big deal like they were when you were five. I didn't spend hours trying to find matching plates and cups with pirates on them. I didn't fill goodie bags with junk to give away. (Well, I don't do that for ANY parties really. I'm an anti-goodie-bag-giver. You have my permission to talk about me after you leave my child's party. I'm self-confident and firm in my conviction.) Anyway, instead of all that hoo-ha I decided to

take my maiden voyage in the boat that is bacon frying. Anyone who REALLY knows me knows that "frying", "bacon" and me NEVER flow in the same sentence. So you can see what a sacrifice this was. What a gift of myself it was to give. I know I will catch some flack from you fried fried lovers......you know who you are, but this will be the first time EVER that we have fried in our current house. We've lived here for over 2 years.

Needless to say, it didn't turn out well. I'm thankful for whomever it was that invented the handy, dandy microwave. Nobody told me that the bacon would crisp once you took it out of the greasy pan and laid it on the papertowel. I was cookin' it till it got all good and crispified. I love that our house now has the permanant stinch of burned up bacon. Sweet.

My cheesy eggs and the biscuits turned out well, though. It's easy to make homemade biscuits when they come straight out of that frozen bag. They were very Craker Barrelesque.So, here's to a very Happy Birthday to Bobby. I hope I have the privelege to make him MANY more birthday breakfasts. Next year I'll probably hold that bacon.

A Little Home Improvement

As most of you know, my handyman dad retired back in July. That has freed him up somewhat to do some projects for me. First on the list was putting up some bead board in our upstairs Jack and Jill bathroom. Here's the before shot:

Here is my hired hand (with the only due payment being undying love.....How did I get off so easy?? That's already been given!!) It was a pretty daunting task given all of the little walls and the fact that one entry door is on a diagonal which left for some weird angles to be cut. And here's the finished product!! I was so happy at the way that it turned out. It really spruced up the bathrooms and made it so much brighter!

I took some pictures of the boys in the tree at my mom's house and then printed them off at home and framed them. I thought it added a lot of character to the room.

I forgot to snag a picture of Cade's bathroom before. But here it is after:
I still need to add a framed picture in his. They only had three frames at the Tarjay. So, a big shout out to my Dad for all of his hard work. I can't forget my mom either. She did a alot of the caulking and helped me get it all painted (so did you Bobby, thanks!)

Now begins the countdown............how long will it take the boys to pee on the newly renovated walls? You may think I'm joking, unless you live with little boys or are one. In any case, it won't be long! At least I'll be able to spot it more eaisily on all these white walls! Yick....

On My Nightstand

I LOVE to read. It's one of my favorite things to do dating back to being a child and hearing my mom read chapter books to me at night. One of the greatest days ever was when the book fair came to my school........Who am I kidding? It was the greatest day ever when the book fair came to CADE'S school! I still sat at the table with the little flimsy paper flyer they send home with my sharpie in hand marking the books I thought Cade would enjoy. Here's the problem. I've collected WAY too many half reads over the last few months. All of these are seriously on my nightstand. I just CAN'T find a book I cannot put down. I started with an army novel. I love me some military book...........not so much Ollie North. Too much military jargon and abbreviations and I could not follow. I've read it twice to the fifth chapter.

2) Then, The Gift of Fear. Gavin DeBecker. Great information. I learned so much about fear that I'm now scared of the book.

3) The Invisible War............real life demon stuff. The book by Gavin told me I should be scared of it too. So I am.

4)Two Wars. True story of military heroism. Not the greatest writer. But really, he never claimed to be a good writer just a good fighter. It was taking too long to get to the point where he crashed his helicopter in the enemy territory and had to fight the Afghans.

5) 3/4 of the way thorough World Without End. Good book. 1300's. SOOOO LONG.

6) Black. The people at Lifeway said it was a must read series. Too sci-fi for me. I don't get into sci-fi.

7) I tried to be smart and literary. Read six chapters of Little Women. Got tired of Mr. Darcy and Marmie. I'll try that one again later.

8) Now, just four days ago, I started taking a stab at Twilight. The ONLY reason I'm reading it is because there is so much hype about the movie and I feel left out. I can't stand not knowing what all the squealing is about. I'm two chapters in. Maybe this will be THE ONE. It's about vampires. I hope all my knowledge from The Gift of Fear doesn't force me to put this one down too.

My question is: What are you reading?? Surely someone has the perfect page turning recommendation for me. And, please, don't make it about Amish. I read so much Beverly Lewis I started pricing horse drawn carriages and almost started making my own butter. Don't take that as a stab if you're Amish. And, hey, if you are, don't tell your dad you've been on the computer.

It's That Time Again

Me: "Cade, if you could have just ONE thing for Christmas, you're most favorite thing, what would you ask for?"








Cade: "Well, since I KNOW that Santa is bringing me the Star Wars Millennium Falcon,

I just figured you could get me the Republic Gunship."
Me: "Do you have any idea how much that Millennium Falcon costs?" (try one hundred fifty dollars)

Cade: Insert shoulder shrug " No. What does Santa care? He just has to build it."








I had no comment after that. Seriously, I know all of you non-Santa-ers are saying "I told you so" right now but truth be known, I really like the Santa charade. It brings me joy. And them joy. And I loved it as a child and have no deep scars from finding out it was a hoax. In fact, I think Annie Brickler told me about it in the bathroom at church one morning...........well, it was that or the truth about where babies come from. Either way I don't remember crying about it or anything I just remember wondering how Annie knew so much stuff.





So, Santa has a tough road to go in this economy. I think Bobby is going to look into delivering pizzas so we can get the boy the Falcon. The 30 minutes of pure elation that it brings him will be all the reward we'll need.

Look Closely

Apparently we have "Droids" in the yard. After scouring the area looking for my children I made one last pass down the sidewalk yelling their names. That's when I heard lots of "shhhshes" coming from the bushes. (Hey, that was quite poetic. Read it again if you must.) I went back inside and grabbed the camera because, folks, that's just what I do. Look closely. You can see all three but I must admit they did a great job camouflaging themselves.

Rhett emerged and I questioned him as to what was going on. His reply? Hiding from Battle Droids. Of course. What else could it have been?
Cade was poised and ready with the most powerful weapon known to mankind....... The Buzz Lightyear AK47.

And when Grant ran out in his best army man fashion using hand signals and the whole nine yards, I was able to photograph him with his fighting face.

They apparently did a great job fighting off the droids because I neither saw one nor was attacked by one while spending time outside in the unseasonably warm weather. Just one more day in the life of three star wars lovin', active imaginationing, high energy using b-o-y-s.

Party! Party!

We had the big birthday bash at the Gymboree play place over the weekend. Rhett had a great time playing with his buds. Bobby, on the other hand, was wishing we had had the party at Pump it Up or something. He thought the party was too babyish. I did remind him that the child had just turned 3 even though Rhett would swear to you that it was his fifth birthday. No kidding.My cake lady did a great job on the Diego cake. Rhett was so excited to see baby Jaguar on there. He is slightly obsessed with this nino and his gato. I think one of Rhett's favorite parts was the parachute. It seems parachutes are always a bit hit with kiddos. I'm considering buying one for the Morgan home. I believe it would be a good investment........kind of like our jumphouse. We could bring it out at all the Morgan Family Extravaganzas that we have.

I was lucky enough to catch Rhett for one pic with the birthday boy. He was not into photo ops or kisses from anyone on his party day. Too busy running I guess.
Several of the kids were too excited about the play area to even eat the cake. I was practically forcing them to eat it. Even after that we came home with an entire Diego head that needed to be eaten. To keep from completely torturing myself I sent it with Bobby to work (along with a very large bag of Halloween candy). I tell you what, those work people will eat anything.

Here's to another birthday come and gone. I'll try not to be sad. These are just some of the most precious times and I've come to realize that they pass in the blink of an eye. Next up for birthdays: Bobby. Here he comes 3-2. Yikes!