Did You Know You Could Bedazzle That??

We have a new nail establishment in the area......and thank goodness. I thought it was just a disgrace that we didn't have at least 10 to choose from that were less than .01 miles from our house. So, I decided to take them up on their advertisement of a spa pedicure for $19.99.

Of course when I get there I'm promptly placed in the standard massage chair with my feet submerged in warm, bubbly water. My first mistake was pressing the button with the little bootie picture. I'm not sure what kind of place they're running over there but my eyes when all silver dollar size and I let out a "whoooop".....I was violated. Moving on to my second mistake: Not knowing Chinesglish.

The conversation (or lack thereof) went similar to this:

Lady: "Whowaseeesiiiinne?"

Me:  "I'm sorry....what did you say?"

Lady: "Whowasseesiinne?"

Me (leaning forward):  "Ummm. So sorry. What?"

Lady: "WHO.WASS.SEEE.SIIIINNNEEEE???"

Me: "Uhhh. Design??? Uh....sure?"

So next thing I know she's bringing out all this colored toe paint and containers of things. About ten minutes later I've got a Georgia O'Keefe on my big toes.

I was telling a friend this story later that night and she politely responded, "Well, at least she didn't put rhinestones on your toes." Ummm, well.....yeah, she totally did. Take a gander at the center of that little flower:

She bedazzled me. And just for the record, when she brought me my ticket she said, "Fo you.... twenty fiiiiii dolla." I got hoodooeyed out of my $19.99 spa pedicure but came out with a wearable work of art. Watch out tweeners.....I'm all over it.

It Really Is Windy

Bobby and I made a quick getaway to the bustling streets and honking horns of the city of Chicago last weekend. Bless my parents for keeping the kids even though two of them had just finished puking and were still feeling less than optimal. Perfect timing for me, you know, since I've got a terrible aversion to the word "puke" and definitely to the actual physical act of anyone tossing their cookies. Mom and dad held strong while we were gone though and no one's food revisited.....until Sunday night and they were officially off duty. Sorry dad. Poor dad. Leave it to 3 germ carrying kids to take the man down. In all of my 31 years I've never seen him ill with a stomach bug until Cade was born. And now this makes number two. Kids are germy people. Really germy.

Bobby had a business meeting on Thursday so technically this qualified as a "business trip" so lucky for us we shacked up in the ever so inviting Four Seasons Hotel and as luck would have it we were upgraded to a suite. And let me tell you, it's even sweeeter when the suite is on someone else's tab.

This was the view from our window. One big one in the room with the bed and one huge window in the sitting room. We were on the 43rd floor so all of the cars below looked like Matchbox. It was incredible at night too.We were lucky to have some friends come along for the fun. A'lyce made my shopping more enjoyable and we loved having friends to converse with over dinner.Speaking of dinner, I had salmon TWO nights while we were there. I don't even like salmon.....usually. I'm more of a white flaky fish kind of gal. More specifically I prefer a white flaky fish that tastes like chicken. Just keepin' it real. However, the salmon was delish. I'm assuming that I probably wouldn't have liked it if it had come from Captain D's or something but somehow if you're in a nice restaurant you really can't go wrong. A sad thing in any city is walking past numerous homeless people. What is more sad is that one homeless man, in an attempt to get these fellows to give him money called out "Hey! Hey Tony Soprano!! Hey Kirk Douglas! How 'bout some change, man!" Then he added, "And ladies, I ain't forgetting ya'll either. Ya'll are like supermodels!"

Supermodels? Maybe A'lyce but not me for sure. Worse off, have you seen Kirk Douglas?? Let me refresh you:

And Tony Soprano?? Better than Kirk for sure but still not quite a compliment:
Needless to say, after suggesting that Bobby appeared to have one foot in the coffin and Jason was perhaps overweight and balding the poor man didn't get any moola. I personally would've given him ten bucks for suggesting that I was supermodel material but unfortunately I didn't have my purse.

Some other things I didn't bring with me were my common sense nor my spectacular comfy shoes. Wait. I really don't think both can coexist. You really can't be wearing spectacular shoes if you're all comfy. Anyway, after walking block upon block in the city the first night in some stiletto pumps, I quickly decided that I would prefer that someone chop my feet off and just let me walk on my bloody nubs. It really couldn't have been any worse. As with child birth though, I forgot the excruciating pain and wore a pair of wedges the next night. Hello blisters on parts of the foot I was unaware that I had. Needless to say, in an attempt to salvage my feet we ended up taking cabs the rest of the night and there will be no mention of how I used napkins from the movie theater to bandage my wounds.

It was a great trip with great friends to one of my favorite shopping destinations. I am now going to save a quarter a day so that I can go back to Chicago and make my dream of owning a pair of Jimmy Choo designer shoes come true. These in particular are fabulous:
At a quarter a day I can go ahead and clear my calender for summer of 2022. I'm pretty sure it's wide open that year.

Merry Monday

Thanks to some Sunday afternoon pukage by Rhett our normal Monday routine was halted and surprisingly it didn't turn out too bad! Rhett woke this morning back to his normal self, appetite and all and by 8:30 was asking to go outside. So outside we went. I pulled out some sidewalk chalk, googled "Hopscotch" and 10 minutes later we were old schoolin' it.

Because Legos are never far from their mind, the boys chose Lego men to be their markers. You had to toss the marker into the right block....

and then take off hopping!

Grant was putting some serious concentration into his jumping.

Cade was perfecting his balance to be able to pick up his marker on the hop back. It turns out that even in hopscotch there is some fierce competition......

and unfortunately a sore loser........boooo.

We had had all we could take of the hopping so it was off to ride bikes. I broke the rules today and let the boys ride in the street since pretty much everyone was at work and the traffic was minimal. They rode bikes today for nearly 10 hours. I'm not even joking. 

It brought a smile to everyone's face!

Grant did alot of talking into his elbow while calling his brothers things like "Commander Rex" and of course there was alot of racing to escape droids and what not.

Cade used this opportunity to perfect his bike riding skills. It has taken him forever but FINALLY the training wheels have come off of his green Racer X. He did at least 800 loops from one neighbor's driveway to the next and thankfully had no serious wrecks. I'm definitely going to have to buy new crocs when this season is over because he generally chooses to forgo the bike's manufactured brakes and uses his own toe brakes. 

Rhett thinks it's the greatest thing ever to be able to ride his tricycle and keep up with the bros. He seemed to have made a full recovery by this afternoon and showed no signs of slowing down. In fact, he pedaled and used his outside voice to scream things like "I don't need yo hanitizaaaa!!!" (hanitiza is a Little Buddy language compound word for hand sanitizer....and when you read that line you must use your most country hick voice along with country song tune). He also brought out a new, inappropriate phrase: "butt wings" as in, "Ima goin' so fast I must have on some butt wiiiiinngs!!" I have no idea what butt wings are nor where he came up with such foul language.  We're not allowed to say the double T version of that word here. 

In any case, it was a fun filled day. Thank you clouds for hanging around so the day wasn't miserably hot and thank you projectile vomit for not rearing your ugly head again! 

"We Don't Even Need No Nap!"

Mmmmm Hmmmm. Just as I thought......

Frenzy on the Fourth

Another Fourth of July holiday has come and gone and we managed to survive having our annual Extravaganza Jubilee Celebration to celebrate the good ol' USA and Bobby's innate love of blowing things up.



Just like a good planner, I headed to Target on July 4 at around1030am and grabbed some festive tees for the boys. Grant's had a red, white and blue eagle or something crazy on it. You just can't see it. His picture attitude was less than stellar so don't be expecting too much from him.Little Buddy was Mr. Picture Poser. There may or may not have been candy involved.Bobby's attempt to make Cade have a normal kid smile instead of his iguana neck cheesy ball smile landed me a great photo op.Pyro Bob had a souped up arsenal this year under the guise of helping out a former coach of mine. On one of his usual tent stops he found that my high school softball coach was manning the tent to make some extra cash in the summer. Basically he was using his good nature to help put food on the table for the man, his wife, and three kids. It had nothing to do with the fact that Bobby LIVES to shoot fireworks......Now, contrary to what some believe, Bobby follows all rules and safety regulations regarding fireworks and any other flaming balls of hot paper and gun powder. I don't know why our neighbors fear their house burning down this time every year.We had the usual smattering of children watching army tanks, little china houses, and red hot doodads spinning out of control in the street. And, as every year past, they (Bobby) loved every second of it.They were pretty loud though.And what's the Fourth without colored smoke bombs??We had some good eatin'. Barbecue if you're into that (which I'm not), mac and cheese, hashbrown casserole and any other yellow/white starchy food you can name.....and homemade ice cream which I AM into.
The water slide and jump house made their debut for the kiddos.

And the men played cornhole (not pictured) and this ball-on-string game that I cannot recollect the name of.
Check out all of these boys. That's not even all of them. I just liked the picture of them all together with their tan little backs.

Here is this year's girl's group photo......sans Jon in the background. I'm pretty sure he was holed up in the play room making kids clean up and call him "Big Jon".We had a great evening spending time with our buddies and watching Bobby's pyrotechnic show. Mixed with all of the neighbors fireworks it was actually a site to see. Praise the Lord for being able to live in America, for freedom to worship as we please, and that no one walked away from our house with third degree burns or missing appendages! Happy Fourth!

It's Tough To Be A Bug

I really felt like it was a set up. The doorbell rang and, of course, it was one of at least 5 companies that will try to sell us a bug contract this month even though we're already debugged at the Morgan Casa. Or so I thought. I let Bobby take the door call and I went out to the garage to get something. There was the biggest bug ever with pinchers and the whole nine yards lying on it's back kicking it's grotesque little legs. I feel quite certain that the guy talking to Bobby had planted the bug there so he could swoop in and rescue our family from some type of bug takeover. Anywho, I called the boys out because I knew they'd love it.


They kicked it outside and began to play with.....errr, torture it. If it weren't so creepy I'd just buy them bugs to play with. This particular one provided a good 30 minutes of uninterrupted play time. Cade got some bug tweezers and attempted to pick him up. It proved to be a tough task because those twiggy little legs were tacky and kept sticking to the driveway.

Aaaahhhh. Finally.

They put it in Rhett's bug catcher. Everyone was thoroughly impressed. This is where it gets interesting.........

Enter Bobby and his "hey boys! Let's blow him up!" comment. I was all, "Bobby! Is that appropriate?? I mean," whispering, "next you know it's cats and we've set them straight on a path to Jeffrey Dahmer. "

Against my better judgement he lit a little firecracker with said bug sitting sweetly on top.

Boys watching intently as Bobby, quote, "gives Mr. Bug a ride on the dynamite express"!

Here he goes!

BOOM!

I'll be the first to admit.......I was laughing. Really laughing hard. That nasty beetle bug probably flew 20 feet in the air. It was a sight to see. I guess this is just one more day in the life of a home filled with too much testosterone. Please pray tonight that we have not created a UniBomber or some type of future arsonist. Let it be noted here in writing that I, the good wife and mother, voiced concern over this "boys will be boys" action......but don't note that I laughed. That could be used against me later.

Coach Pitch... Check.

Cade recently completely his first season of "real" baseball. He played in the coach pitch league this year and let me tell you, it was a step up from the unorganized chaos of t-ball. His position was left field but if my memory serves me correctly he never actually caught a fly ball. That's okay. We were good at running the ball down and throwing it in :)He did get (usually) at least one hit a game. He looks pretty relaxed with the whole arms crossed thing going on in this pic. Makes you think that it's old hat to be standing on second base. Bobby was one of his coaches this year. I think he would describe the experience as slightly rewarding and mostly incredibly frustrating :) The ol' Captain D's Rays pulled out only one win this year and it was pretty brutal. You know things aren't looking good when your playing teams with matching bat bags and pullovers.......in 7/8 year old baseball. Seriously? Give me a break.He did, for the first time, get to sit in a real, true dugout. And that was all kinds of cool. Don't be judging his Kareem Abdul Jabaar sports glasses either. My heart can't take it. The kid needs some extra eyes. What can I say?

Once again we teamed up with our buddy. These two made a pretty good match for each other on the baseball field. I think the best quote from my Cade was: "I hope next year we get to keep all of our good players....and me and Cade Ashman." Ha. Both of them showed considerable improvement from the beginning of the season. I was proud of how hard they worked. The highlight of the season was our impromptu team trophy handout and cupcake eating. Nothing like stuffing your face with a cupcake right before closing ceremonies.
Add one more trophy to the collection of sports memorobilia because coach pitch is over. We've been there. Done that. Check it off the list for 2009. We'll be back for some more next spring. In the meantime we're going to be playing a little pitch out in the back yard.