Weird Awkward Spooky Halloween

Sunday. All Hallow’s Eve. And I heard The Nutcracker Suite.  9 had rehearsals at 12:30 and all I saw was Halloween socks over pink tights while hearing Nutcracker music.

Weird.

As the evening progressed we finally caved into letting the girls get dressed. Did your kids wake up thinking they could don those costumes at 8am?

     

They really were cute. Even if 6 said “I’m going to be a black cat and Abby’s my witch”… said in the butIreallymeanbitch way.

We had a chili party on the street behind us… because OUR street is too lame to participate.

 

6’s sweet little crush and his baby sister… children of the host. I couldn’t resist putting their pics up… That Ally cat is just too cute.

                                         

Want to know why I brought my camera? Not to get pictures, I assure you. By taking my camera everywhere I go it allows me to sit on the outskirts of the action. I HATE parties like this… where everyone else seems to know each other and each other’s children’s names and birthdays and social security numbers.

Awkward!

I left early to set up my table. I sit and pass out candy while Hubs takes the girls around the neighborhood. I get to dress like a witch, have a few glasses of wine, and scare the neighborhood kids with my spiders and tablescape lab jars :-)

Lot’s of spiders, fun Harry Potter and Pan’s Labyrinth music, and candles… lots of candles… which was really cool…

Until someone told their kid to come look at the “alter”… I kid you not. Alter.

Pffftt… Texas…

Spooky.

Sugar Shock

It’s the day after Halloween… and bleck… do I ever regret having Snickers for dinner last night.

Here’s a shot of my little witch with her black cat :-)

I’m so glad I’ve been playing with my camera and following along with Darcy’s 31 Days to a better Photo posts. My pics are already getting to be loads better!

Bored with her Hipstamom

9 is getting really testy about pictures lately. She’ll give you about a 1/3 of a second and that’s about it. Lucky for me, I’ve been learning how to shoot manual on the D90… cause I REALLY needed to figure out how to increase the shutter speed. THIS shot was a bloomin miracle because the Hipstomatic app doesn’t allow for bored 9 year olds. See there?… It’s a smile… for the camera… can you believe it?!

THIS is what she usually looks… She’ll kill me for sharing shots like this one day :-) *snicker*

Coulda been cute had she not tried to squirm out of the shot…  

And THIS is the look she gives 6… I call it her “do I really have to suffer the presence of my sister” look. Awe. SO mature.

Hey, at least I can find humor in her attitude, right?

Too cool for school

Seriously. I *may* be having a little too much fun with Hipstamatic. But it’s my blog and I’ll put as many of these shots as I want too ;-)

Baby loves her new hat.

Another one?

Y’all. I’m telling you. Hipstamatic is a SUPER fun app! If you haven’t tried it, give it a go. Lots of coolness.

Another submission to Hipstamom from the pumpkin patch… because it was just too funny not to share… 9 acting like a country girl… priceless LOL

Silly Pumpkin :-)

 

Sometimes calling somebody a Drama Queen is really just commentary on how silly they are :-)

Hipstamom Submission

Have you used the Hipstamatic camera app yet? So. Much. Fun. Old school lenses, films, and filters.

Here’s my submission shot to Hipstamom, a really cool site showing off what people are doing with the Hipstamatic app.

My Pumpkins in the pumpkins

Grainy vintage-y loveliness. 

Future Tigers – Wordless Wednesday

 

Trying to be as wordless as possible…

Sometimes you’ve got to get on your knees and just go for the shot.

**************************************************************************

UPDATE: I am so happy to have just stumbled into the iheartfaces post today. I edited this shot and I am TERRIBLE at editing. I used the Canon Digital Professional software that came with my point and shoot to work on this one. I have PSE6, but I know squat about how to use it. I KNOW it can be a better picture, but I just don’t understand Photoshop Elements.

iheartfaces has a linky set up for constructive criticism. I would SO appreciate some help. I’m still a newbie on my first DSLR and only on occasion am getting the kind of shots I want. Heck. Most of the time they look AWFUL.

The original photo information:

ISO: 400

Tv: 1/160

Av: F13.0

Flicker Link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/25332409@N08/5062637576/

I SO wanted this to be a more vibrant shot. The sky color was BEAUTIFUL that day… it just doesn’t show in the picture. I will say that I was LITERALLY on my knees shooting behind me so that the girls didn’t know I was shooting them.

Any help offered is greatly appreciated! Thanks iheartfaces for this opportunity!

Geaux Tigers!

Hubs and I both went to LSU. We loved, lived, and breathed LSU. Our babies’ birth announcements were both LSU themed.

We brought 9 as an infant to a tailgate party. I was still breastfeeding at that time and had to escape to my car to pump. It was sheer misery. It was so much Hell that we never took them back.

Until this weekend. You know… for the Tennessee game that ended in one of the most effed up victories I’ve ever seen or heard of. Yeah. THAT game :-)

I called my sister and she met us in Baton Rouge. It was awesome to see her. I’m sure my girls chatted her ear off and probably even scared her a little. My kids are… insane exuberant. A bonus to having your sister meet you? You get to be in pictures :-)

      

         

Boy did they have an awesome time. The look on 9s face when the Golden Girls marched down the hill… Priceless. 6 got so crazy and into it that she yelled “Tiger Bait!” & “Peace out! Tennessee!” at some of the Tennessee fans… Sorry folks… We didn’t teach her that one… 

    

And because my sister is a genius at coming up with clever pics we got THIS shot…

What a weekend. We are still trying to recover. It was so amazing to have our girls walk around campus with us and have them actually enjoy being there. At one point we realized that there’s a good chance both of the girls will be there for a couple of years together… in that crowd… as students… I nearly got teary until one coed sloshed up next to us and told us how cute the little Tigers were through liquored up breath. That’s just NOT something this Momma is ready to think about… Especially with THIS one…

Yeah. She’s a lil crazy. She’ll need a very VERY short leash.

Sweet 6 – Wordless Wednesday

Dear Santa…

The other day I was hanging with the family in the pool and the girls wanted to talk about Disney. Yes, we are indeed THAT family. The family who’s 9 year old is about to take her 11th trip to the World. Trust me. My kids could plan your entire trip, guide you around the entire Disney World property without a map, and tell you all of the best sit down restaurants and which has a good lobster bisque. Really. We are a little bit psycho about planning our trips… down to the very last minute detail. Planning is half the fun when it comes to Disney.  We even plan to have “unplanned time”… seriously. I’m not very anal about many things, but a trip to Disney World just puts me in a tizzy.

As the girls started talking about what we were going to do and where we were going to stay, the BIG question came up…

How on Earth is Santa going to visit us at Disney World?  

Let me preface this by saying that I generally tell my kids the truth. When my oldest was 5 and asked what a period was, I told her.  I usually answer the questions. I do not give them more information than they need. I give them enough information to satisfy their curiosity and then move on… I just don’t believe in lying to them…  Except when it comes to the magic of being a child.

Mommy?

Yes, Jillian.

Is Santa real?

Do you get real gifts?

Yeah.

Well then, what do you think?

I think you and daddy are Santa.

Shows what you know, kid. Daddy’s cheap. He wouldn’t buy you extra presents just to pretend to be Santa.

Oh.

Yeah.

Well, then how’s Santa going to know which hotel room is ours?

Abby – Duh. He’s MA-GIC…

Ooohhh.  Yeah… MA-GIC… Well, I still think he needs a sign or sumthin…just to be sure he finds us…

Abby – and maybe some extra special Disney cookies… like chocolate dipped rice crispie Mickey heads.

We can get a Santa Stop Here sign and put it outside of our door. I’m sure that will work.

And then he can leave us lots of gifts! …

You know what’s really cool to do? Ask Santa to surprise you. If you don’t ask for anything and just tell him to surprise you, you’ll usually get something totally awesome… *cough*likeafriggintriptoDisneyWorld*cough*

Abby & Jillian – AWESOME!!!!

I said I didn’t lie… on important things… but I will work them for as long as I possibly can.

So who has some suggestions for small packable and easily concealed awesome Christmas presents for a 6 year old? 9 is getting a Kindle…

 

Last day of freedom

 

Friday was our last weekday before school started back. Levi had Friday off so we decided to spend the day in the city. Did you know that if you live in the suburbs of Houston, one really never does need to go into the actual city? At least, we don’t. But it was a special sort of day and we didn’t want to waste it by doing laundry and other such nonsense.

We took the kids to the Natural History museum.

RAWR.

Jillian loved the fossils….

 

And Daddy loved the fossils…

 

But Abby sat still, without fidgeting, without blinking, without breathing for 15 minutes trying to get the butterflies to land on her…

I’ve never seen her so still, so quiet, so frozen before… she didn’t even smile while I was giggling at her for being so still and so quiet and so frozen! She took her butterfly enticement very very seriously…

And I had a ball taking pictures. I even got a really fun sun flare.

Back to School – Get Your Craft On

I recently found myself in a conversation about Teacher Appreciation week. I was at our back to school PTO board meeting and a question came up about what do we want our Teacher Appreciation week to be about? We were making all sorts of plans about fun things to do for our teachers… Starting with a Back to School desert bar… How yummy does THAT sound :-) My lemon cake will be making an appearance at the bar.

I thought about that PTO meeting while I was drooling over binders and fresh crayons in the school supply section. I remembered THIS feature on Today’s Creative Blog. There are LOTS of really fun supplies these days. I thought that it was pretty lame that the kids got to enjoy all of the goodies. This Thursday evening our kids will go up to the school for Stop and Drop to deliver their school supplies and meet their teachers. My kids will come with a small token of their excitement for the school year.

We filled a fishing tackle organizer with fun clips and tacks in the school colors. We found so many things that we ran out of dividers… but the girls liked the blue ones for some reason, so they had to stay… (It’s sort of hard to remind myself not to correct them when it’s their project…)

When I asked what else they thought the teachers would need in their “survival kit” the girls immediately said chocolate, lip balm, and gum. 6 even suggested that every girl likes diamonds, so nestled in with the kisses is a “huge honkin’  diamond”.

6 was right. Every girl needs big fun bling.

After helping them cover the lid and making a bow for them, the girls decorated the top with stickers and their school logo.

They are so excited to see who their teacher will be. They are equally excited to see if she goes for the candy or stickers first.

Show your teachers you support them and offer your help. Even if it’s in the form of a thank you note telling them how much you appreciate their work.

Have a great school year!

 

 

American Girls…

No, not the song… which always reminds me of Silence of the Lambs with that chunky chick banging on her steering wheel… I’m talking about MY girls and their dolls…

Seriously? American Girl should sponsor us for this post. Seriously. And I’m not even kidding a little bit.

*disclaimer* I have hated dolls ever since I saw Puppet Master when I was a kid. Chucky didn’t help much either. The fact that I can even stand to have these dolls in my house says something about my awesomeness as a mother.

 

And this doesn’t even count the Bitty Babies, pets, and outfits. Oh, the outfits… with all their shoes. My favorite part of the dolls has to be the outfits… especially the pajamas.

Until we are ready to go somewhere and we can’t find the right shoes for the right outfit. Then? Not so much.

I do love the fact that the only actual toy my girls will play with are these dolls. Not Barbies, or Pet Shops, or even those stupid toy hamsters hiding upstairs. I guess that’s the main reason I don’t mind that there is a bloomin’ fortune in these dolls at my house. There’s my reasoning, folks. At least they play with them. Doesn’t look like a great argument once written down into actual words. I should really work on my justification process.

                     

We even still love the first one we got… the Me doll who looks a bit ethnic for “medium” skin tone with green eyes… Whose hair now makes her look like a Rastafarian.

 

I guess that since most days Abby’s hair looks like a Rastafarian, that means they pretty much nailed it, right?

My girls weren’t into baby dolls when they were little… but right around age 5 1/2 they became interested in American Girls. And for whatever reason, I’m grateful. Because 9 still has a high interest in playing with her dolls.

Yep… I think a paid American Girl Doll review would be right up our alley. Don’t you? ;-)

Happy Birthday Abby!

And now, if you’ll excuse me while I curl up into a ball and cry

over my baby turning 9…

Sisters

Moments like these are few and far between, so here’s proof that sometimes my kids get along :-)

Thanks, Crazy…

 

I’ve been playing around with settings getting to know my camera. Like a good girl should. So, you know, when I have something of actual importance to shoot, I’ll be ready.

This is what 6 does to me. Every. Time.

“Hey! Jillian! Look at Momma!….”

To which she replies…. “BAAAAHHHHHH!” 

I thought if I put it out on the internet, in 20 years she’ll be sufficiently embarrassed and apologize for being so damn crazy when she was 6.

 

And then I actually look at the pics and giggle.

So maybe she knows what she’s doing after all…

8 is nearly 9

Or at least, that’s what Abby keeps telling us. 8 isn’t NEARLY a big deal like 9 is. And with her birthday coming up on the 31st, she’ll go from being known as 8 to a very important 9.

This is 8s state of happy… when she’s eating. That’s her Mmmmm face.

My babies may be skinny as rails, but they know a good slice of pizza when they see one.

And then they destroy it by loading on the parmesan cheese.  But 8 knows what she likes, so I let it slide…

Because 8 nearly 9 still makes wishes with her eyes closed.