Because today is POP TART DAY at California Tortilla!

Head over to your local California Tortilla and they’ll give you a pop-tart. Isn’t July 18th WONDERFUL? It’s POP TART DAY! And, hell, get a burrito, nachos and darn tasty queso while you’re there. I highly recommend the crunchy barbeque ranch. Yum.

July 17th: Unbeknownst to the vacationing Pop Tarts,
they would all be eaten the next day.

• made french toast, yum!
• bought 2 boy presents for upcoming birthday parties
• somehow prevented ethan from opening/ playing with/ otherwise molesting said birthday presents (james receives due credit for this feat as well.
• cleaned out office/guest room closet (#2 hardness rating on scale of 1-5, 5 being the hardest)
• bought new hardware for kids’ chest of drawers, the same chest of drawers that james had in his room growing up (hardness rating, #1)
• installed very cute new drawer pulls/knobs (#1)
• realized that a great deal more work will be needed to install new slides (#3)
• abandoned ‘fix kids’ dresser’ project, got thee to ikea for new dresser and shelf above dresser (#-137, oh so fun! ikea! yay!)
• 90% completion of putting together new dresser (#3, just on pure tediousness and time consumption)
• cleaned out 2nd walk in master bedroom closet (#4329, OMG I’D RATHER HAVE GOUGED MY EYEBALLS OUT)
• harvested small bowl of cherry tomatoes (2nd bowl sitting on the counter that i need to do something with
• harvested HUGE zucchini that I had no idea was actually growing on the plant. oops.
• harvested FIVE RASPBERRIES.
• convinced ethan to try one (jocelyn was a no-go)
• did not let children drown while swimming over at kurt and ann’s (au contraire, much fun was had by all, cute kid stories on that later)
• took beautiful pictures of blankies made by mother, and given to the kids when we were on our vacation in utah
• saw harry potter and the order of the phoenix (… eh.. did they READ the book? yeah, didn’t think so..)
• procured babysitter for next friday night, when james and i will buy the VERY LAST HARRY POTTER BOOK AT MIDNIGHT OMG I’M FREAKING OUT AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
• learned all about queen/pharaoh Hatshepsut, damn one ballsy woman.
• drank a little too much …. and wrote this entry. wheeee!
• i know i should link some things in this entry, but NOT GOING TO. DEAL.
• once again, WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

• My wallpaper art didn’t come yesterday. MAYBE TODAY!
• I’ve decided that the guest room will need some red in it. I hankering for a cuckoo clock painted glossy red, how yummy!
• my design/ decorating/ interior blog reading has reached new obsessive porportions that even frightens me a little bit. I woke up this morning from a dream that involved curtains, artwork and paint chips after reading casapinka’s blog all the way through from the first entry last night.
• I lost the lens cap to our camera. Luckily it was the cheap lens. Does that make it any better? I’m hoping it will show up, but since I ALWAYS stick the lens cap into my bra, and it wasn’t there when I was through with the camera nor anywhere in the only two rooms I was in during the camera’s use, I have no choice but to look facts in the face. My bosoms have eaten the lens cap. James would do well to beware.
• I got out the camera last night because James was out boozing and whoring with people who have absolutely nothing in common except the facts that they all own the same kind of car*, and I got to stay home and play with the kids by myself.

  This is more of a challenge than you might think. If you just play with Ethan, then Jocelyn is left out. If you just play with Jocelyn, then Ethan is left out. So we all played together in a big roleplay of getting Cinderella to the ball. Since I actually took pictures, I’ll wait until they are accessible before giving you the whole story, but I will tell you it involved cinderella, of course, construction machines, race cars, a my little pony and a police helicopter. More at 11.

-amy practices for the bubble yum olympics

* I guess they also have the penis thing in common. Will have to ask if any girls attended STI gathering.

Just about every blogger has done this, some make it a regular thing.. I’ve resisted because.. well… it wouldn’t have been that interesting.

But in looking through my stats, a search phrase popped out that I just HAD to share.

But I’m going to milk a whole post out of this, so we’ll start with the boring ones.

cheap fake tutus
— for a second when I saw this I thought, ‘fake ta-tas? sorry honey these are all real!’

happy mokes
mokes
baby mokes
cute mokes
— i always have some sort of mokes search in my stats. it’s a standard. ironically, i’ve no idea what a moke is. i just know something with that name does exist.

impatiens little black bugs

vigamox eyedrops
putting eyedrops in toddler’s eyes
administering eyedrops to children
how to give eyedrops
can i give my child eyedrops
sulfacetamide sodium opthamalic solution
child blinks and rolls eyes
how long to give eye drops for pink eye
— if you’re us… forever..

how to harvest seeds
— i get this one a lot, actually. It’s easy and fun.

and here we go.. the search phrase that led me nay, FORCED me to post this…

can you sew the placenta to the uterus

Um. I have no idea. Nor do I think I want to.

I’m hoping that this square of wallpaper I purchased last week arrives today:

It is going to hang in our guest room, whose walls, painted a medium brown shade (I call it, ‘Melted Chocolate Ice Cream’) I’m totally digging on more and more.

I am going to keep my eye out for a light blue vase to go on the bedside table.

This is all part of my decorating plan of “getting a clue BEFORE buying shit.” I often see things that I like or think I like and subsequently purchase, all to get it home and realize that I’ve no idea where to put it or if it even goes with what’s in the room already. I end up sticking it somewhere that doesn’t really fit it and pondering on what my style IS EXACTLY ANYWAY and wondering how other people manage to do this so easily. As such, I’m starting to build quite the design/ house/ decorating blog list. It’s my new obsession.

As such, I think colors are the place to start. I’ve been thinking a lot about colors to go on the walls of our main level. It’s all very open and connected, so I think 1 main color with some accent walls will work best. I currently in love with the brown/blue, brown/red, brown/pink, brown/green combinations (although I don’t want a pink wall, I just don’t have that kind of chutzpuh).

I’m pretty content to just mull it over for a good long while and make sure it’s what I want. The blue and brown of that newly purchased artwork however — I’m leaning toward it for our living room, except with maybe a deeper brown.

Seriously, how could you not love brown?

-amy

raineyamy: hi
jameseypooh: hi
raineyamy: how’s it going? how’d they do?
jameseypooh: good
jameseypooh: kids did good this morning
jameseypooh: Ariel and Batman, that is
jameseypooh: I don’t know who Ethan and Jocelyn are
raineyamy: LOL

Yesterday was fun. I was working, and Jocelyn was able to play pretty well by herself. It was interesting just to watch her. Ethan always settles down with his boy toys (legos, cars, transformers, construction machines, you name it) and will play while usually stating every 5 minutes, “Come play with me mommy!” It gets pretty old.

Jocelyn is different. She has never known a life of just playing on her own. Her brother or her schoolmates are always there. I’m not saying she’s NEVER played alone, but it just isn’t a common occurence. First she kind of wanders around, sometimes taking my suggestions, “What’s that? I think Julie is crying! (her doll) I think she needs her breakfast!” (Jocelyn scampers off to attend to Julie) sometimes not. She loves to dress up, and so at one point she had on her poofy pink dress up dress on, a pair of swimming goggles on her forehead like a headband, and was kicking a soccer ball over the house while wearing a pair of dress up shoes, which I just loved. (And yet did not grab a picture of, doh!)

Probably more than 5 times, she said, “Let’s go get my brother,” and I had to tell her that it wasn’t time yet. She just wasn’t quite sure what she was supposed to do all by herself. She always follows Ethan’s lead and she missed him. She also insisted that I stop calling her Jocelyn. For about an hour she was Cinderella, but then for the rest of the day she wanted to be called Ariel.

She was doing good at naptime (during which she took off all her clothes and put on Ethan’s, including his underwear, and then climbed into his bed to snuggle in) until the auto shop called and said my car was ready. They also said they could pick me up. So no nap for her.

I’d been kicking around the idea of a combination ballet/tap summer dance class for her because a) she is always always dancing. dancing and singing, that’s my girl, and b) loves loves to dress up and twirl around and c) hello! a dance class! for toddlers! need I say more, SHE WILL LOVE IT! So after we picked up the car, we went to target to check out their supply of leotards and tights (too big on both counts) and then went to the dance center in our community to sign her up.

Class starts TODAY, so we went from there to pick up Ethan and then to a dance shop in Manassas to get our supplies. The dance center said that since it was just a summer 6 week class, the cheap tap & ballet shoes from wal-mart would suffice. I don’t shop at Wal-mart, but I also didn’t want to pay out the nose for supplies for a 6 week dance class. I broke down and called them to see they actually had tap & ballet shoes, and they said they used to carry them, but now didn’t. I also called k-mart and target, and no dice. So we went to the very nice dance boutique and got Jocelyn real pink leather ballet shoes and sweet little white tap shoes. I’m glad I didn’t have to step foot into wal-mart, to tell the truth.

The nice lady got her fitted with shoes while Ethan found the stash of toys in the corner and kept himself busy. Jocelyn stood on the square of hard floor in front of the mirror and watched herself stomping and tapping and clicking her tap shoes with a look of utter delight on her face. We picked up her tights and leotard from there too. Now that she has real stuff instead of cheap fake stuff, maybe we’ll do a session or two of dance during the year as well.

When I was a little girl, for one of my birthday parties, we had a dancing theme. I remember my mom made tutus for all my friends and we all danced around to Olivia Newton John’s “Let’s Get Physical.” I also remember when I got my first pair of ballet shoes. I wasn’t in ballet. I did take ballet (and modern dance, and gymnastics) years later when I was about 10, but my first pair of ballet shoes my mom ordered for me from a catalog when I was 4 or 5. I remember the day they came, and putting them on with my leotard and long pink tutu.. my mom says I hardly ever took them off. She said I was dancing all the time.. dancing and singing. I wonder where Jocelyn gets it from 🙂

This morning Jocelyn excitedly told Ethan, “Today is my dancing class!!”

I hope it will be a hit. I want to stay and watch the class (at least the first one!) but am torn because I know Ethan won’t be able to sit still for an hour. I guess we’ll see how it goes. I should have put a movie on my video ipod.

ps – the mystery fever is gone, but there is a notice up on her classroom door saying how hand foot mouth disease has been spotted in her class. GREAT. I don’t think that’s what she had, but now I’m just hoping she doesn’t catch it!

i’m working at home today, with Jocelyn* at my side. Peter Pan The Tinker Bell movie is on, and Jocelyn is watching it with wide very attentive eyes.

She turns to me,

“Mommy. I want you to show me how to fly.”

I told her we would need to have pixie dust for that, so unfortunately, we’re stuck.

Now she’s watching and every now and then she says, “I don’t have dust. We need a fairy for dust.”

*She had a mystery fever yesterday evening that we think might be heat exhaustion or just being overheated.. I was staying home today anyway because my car? after it comes to a stop and I turn off the engine? Well, the coolant in the coolant reservoir starts to boil. It stops again if you turn on the engine (which we did to see if the fan was working). Odd, eh? It’s at the shop being poked and prodded, which I’m sure will cost us an obscene amount of money. Oh Honda Civic Hybrid, how I long to own thee!

-amy will throw you to the crocodiles

I don’t think I like it. Colors aren’t quite right, just dashed it off. We’ll see how long it lasts. Cute boy with a cute cute “look” though 🙂

First off, go see this blog of robot drawings. They make me so happy! You can suggest a robot for her to draw! I requested a kitty-bot! in a litter-box! Go see!

In other news, Ethan woke up with pink eye this morning. Will the FUN NEVER STOP??! We suspect some snot nosed kid from school gave it to him.

Blah.