Fads: Flamingo Edition

On our trip to south Florida in the late fall of '07 Stephen and I picked out a Flamingo beanie baby for Kyla, who was 10 months old at the time (gah!!!  seems like last week!)  Little did we know, that flamingo would be just the beginning of an interest followed for a time with exaggerated zeal! (A fad.)

Crazy how many pictures I have of her with the Flamingo from this trip and want to post them all!

  This is the sunrise on Key West.

Here's where we got the Flamingo : )

Shout out to my West Palm Peeps!

Spring of 2008:  Bought Kyla some new pajamas that were light weight for the summer, size 18m

Fast forward to August 2009... still wearing the "Mingo PJ's"

November 2009:  Kyla is *still* wearing her mingo pjs.  Shorts are getting shorter, belly starts to hang out.  Becomes increasingly difficult to get arms in and out.

December 2009:  eBay to the rescue!!  The ONE and ONLY pair of Carter's 'you make me blush' Flamingo pajamas left in the world are in a size... 3T!

December 2009:  Purchase 3T Carter's 'you make me blush' Flamingo pajamas for $1.99

New Mingo pjs come in the mail!!   aaaaand... Kyla wants to wear the OLD ones!?!

Stephen makes the switcharoo and all is good.  Kyla thinks she has the old ones, but her belly isn't hanging out anymore.

see?

Okay, so that was me sneaking sweet Colby-man in there... but still, no belly shot ; )

Here she is in all her Mingo pj glory!

aaaannd... the Flamingo pose

I don't make her do this stuff folks.  She comes up with this all on her own.

It was my fault, I curled her hair and she turned into a supermodel.

See?  Flamingo, again!

Those pj's are cute too ; )

TMI

So I've been putting off blogging for awhile... like since Thanksgiving.

I was reminded scared to death by the reality that anyone can read this blog.  Here's some background...

It happened the Sunday night before Thanksgiving, Stephen was working in Breckenridge for the first night of many that would continue through the holiday season.  This scenario isn't new to me, I put the kids to bed and hunker down with my laptop in front of the tv and relax.  I was on facebook and made a comment (after a status update) that Stephen was out of town, I didn't think anything of it until our house alarm went off at 12:30am.  I jumped out of bed and ran to turn it off since I didn't want it to wake up everyone, the code on the keypad said that our basement door had been 'breached' or whatever.  I called Stephen and he called our brother-in-law who came over and checked out our basement.  Everything was fine, but I was not!  (though I did delete the status update and all 13 or so comments... another story for another day!  controversy!) That night and every night that Stephen has been gone since, I barely slept and when I did eventually fall asleep every little sound would send me waking up in a *panic*, running to the windows to check things out.  Stephen was a champ about working through nights that he was gone to make every minute count and even commuting all the way to Breckenridge for just a days work, getting up at 3:30 in the morning if necessary all while plowing snow (here in town) through the night on a couple occasions.

I share all this to say 1.  I'm SO glad that job is OVER! and 2.  I've been extra sensitive to what I put out on the interwebs for all to read.  Don't get me wrong, I like blogging and being random and it is therapeutic (hello!  right now!) and I do like that if my family and friends want to catch up on some details of our life they can.  I've always seen 'those' people on facebook that share 'too much information' (TMI) or share every detail of their day, what they did 2 hours ago, what they are doing right now and what they need to get done the rest of the day... EVERY day!  Or how about the:  yeah, I bet you do hate your life... I can't stand listening to you complain about it every. day.  Or how about the pictures??  The pictures!!  I love to hate it ; )  BTW, if we're still friend I'm still 'cool' with you (or I've blocked you ; ) ; )  BUT I've always taken special care with 'those' in mind not to over post, over complain or even be overly sarcastic, because really, while I do NOT friend anyone and everyone, not all of my facebook friends really know me, and I don't want people taking things the wrong way.  Maybe I'm being overly sensitive, BUT I know I won't be sharing any extra info, especially concerning our current plans or plans for the future.  Because let's face it, even though .3 people comment on my blog I'm sure millions are reading ; )  ; )  Actually, that's not even the point, it only takes one crazy reading anything, and I SEE YOU and I'm paranoid READY!  haha ; )

Actually, being in complete fear like a little girl in my bed I literally had to remind myself again and again of Who is really in charge here and Who my protector is.  I believe with all my heart that whatever happens God in is control.

Psalm 23
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside quiet waters,

He restores my soul.  He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.  You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.


2 Timothy 1:7
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.





AMEN!

Crankypants

Basically the cutest thing I've seen all year!

Colby wants these black and green ones for Christmas... he told me.

Now you're in love!

Now you're mad because you found out how ridiculously expensive they are  : (

See?  Told ya.  Sad face again : (

Cutest thing ever put on a baby's booty.  Fact.

Stop Motion

I love this : )  You will too.

Her Morning Elegance

oren lavie - her morning elegance from violette valeriey on Vimeo.

Elf Yourself

Because it wouldn't be Christmastime without it!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

I don't care who you are... this stuff is always funny  : )

Mishaps

This is so bad, SO bad.  I'm a terrible person, I know.  Before we even get started I'm just putting it out there, letting you know that I know how horrible I am.

Now, let's get to the good stuff!

I love, Love, LOVE witnessing things that weren't supposed to be seen.  Sneaky, I know.  I gives me joy unspeakable that won't go away, just enough strength to live for today... oh wait, that's God.  But I think you get the point... let me count the ways:

The Local News.  I think it is so funny and or amusing when they mess up.  No sound, wrong video, wrong picture/video for the story, even mispronunciations, oh AND ridiculous stories (what?  they meant to do a story on a dog with rabies in Ramah, population: 3??).  Part of my joy in witnessing this is that I hate our local news channels.  They are terrible, unprofessional and unoriginal.  I have never seen worse News stations than in Southern Colorado.  Yes, KKTV, KRDO, Fox 21 (who doesn't even have their own website) and News First 5  I am talking to YOU.  I will tell you that one News station uses a flat screen TV on the wall with their logo cut out and taped on the bottom of the tv to use in the background.  oh my.  

Yes, yes, this pretty much sums it up.

My new favorite:  Facebook comments and pictures.  Thank you 21st century style train wrecks!  Being the Facebook addict I am on Facebook at least 4 or 5 times a day (on my phone while I feed Colby... ahh TMI, excuses, you weren't supposed to know that! ahh!) I don't miss a whole lot that goes on in FB world. Thank goodness because you gotta be quick to see certain things before they get deleted!  Or certain pictures before they get untagged.  I hope every one person reading this has had the pleasure of experiencing this one!  It's like finding a lost treasure, a treasure that could disappear at any moment, before mom or grandma or 4th grade teacher sees it!  A heated discussion treasure that could go away before anyone else gets to see it.  Love.  I just so happened to delete my own status/comments just the other night, did you see it??  Bet you wish you could see it now, huh?  It actually had less to do with the topic at hand which got a little heated (I know, someone I don't even 'know' somewhat attacked me about my own status!) and more to do that I mentioned Stephen was out of town and then I was almost robbed in the middle of the night, which scared the bijeeezits out of me.  I guess that falls in the TMI column.  On a final note, I love that some people, and I only have two of these 'friends', but I'm guessing that every person with a facebook has a very small percentage of 'these' friends, CONSTANTLY over-share.  I don't need to know, or want to know, but I do love thinking about the breadth and depth of people who see ALL of the comments and pictures and personal thoughts of these types.  This may take some of my fun away, but when Facebook asks you: "Who can see this?" select anything BUT "Everyone".

Lastly, LIVE Television.  Mainly big events like last nights Dancing with the Starts (DWTS) finale, the Superbowl, and the American Music Awards (actually, any awards show) to name a few. When somethings goes wrong on this scale, it was very wrong and somebody is getting fired!  Wardrobe malfunctions, crazed celebrities and any technical difficulty makes my heart do a happy dance.  For example, during the live DWTS finale the video clip froze and  we were left watching a good 3 seconds of the back of Miss Piggy's head  After a quick commercial break we got to watch the entire video again.  Good thing I had it on TiVo and got to fast forward!  Oh, what about on American Idol when a contestant forgets the words to a song! Wrecktastic!  I will say that I feel totally shorted when I get the 'West Coast' version and mishaps have already been edited out!  Boo!

In conclusion, I don't like other people getting hurt or humiliated, I do feel bad for people when I see that happen.  I think the excitement from catching mistakes, whether obvious or not, is that I feel like I got more than I paid for or got a behind the scenes sneak peak or even a glimpse at a rare, hard to find bird (not the local news though, their mistakes are not rare at all) before it disappears again, and that brings me joy.  So simple.

I guess I could have made this 3 separate posts... too late now people, you're getting the full meal deal!  What a treasure!

Scarry

Since the holiday season is upon us, as in, now... I thought I should offer a friendly reminder in the most PC way I know how.  Children's stories.

You should be skinny... at least, that's what I *think* they are trying to say.

So remember, don't eat a lot of pie or you will be fat.

Special Alert!

According to Kyla:

1.  Princesses don't go potty.

2.  Princesses don't wear pants.

Oh yeah...

How do you explain this?

That's what I thought.

The potty thing... well...

They do.  I said so.  I'm the mom.

Mom's

So I have been craving CRAVING a Mom's apple pie for YEARS now.  Growing up we would get to Julian, CA (where my aunt and uncle live) at least once a year.  Julian is home to Mom's pie house, which is home to the worlds best apple pie.  They have lots of other kinds of pies, but I can't tell you if they are good, because I've never even tried one.  Only apple for me... and only crumb top (again, haven't tried the flaky top, but why, WHY would you after tasting the 'French crumb??).   They have...

"American Flaky top"

aaaaand, "French Crumb top"

I remember it like it was yesterday.  I even have stories I could tell about this pie.  Like the time my brother David bought his own so he wouldn't have to share/because he thought he could eat an entire pie in a few days (totally possible).  Well, one morning before heading down the road to San Diego, which is a very, very, windy, windy road, David ate a large portion of his pie... I think you know what came next, on that windy road.

I have even gone over in my head how I can get one of these pies shipped to me or brought out to CO for me (Mom's doesn't ship, they do however, make a drop off in the San Diego area before Thanksgiving.  If that applies to you, I will be personally offended if you do not take advantage.)

Hopeless story?  NO!  This past Saturday night we had Amy and Danny Vogt (and Brady) and Julie and Mikey Foster over for dinner.  I had many apples so I decided to make an apple crisp.  Fail.  I got distracted and didn't start putting it together until just after we ate.  I enlisted the help of Julie (apple duty) and Amy (crisp duty).  I passed out ingredients and changed my mind 500 times.  Fail.  We decided to use more apples and make it bigger, so we needed more crisp, so we added here and there.  At one point Amy said, "If this turns out amazing you will never be able to figure out how to make it again!"  Famous last words, right?  Well after it cooked and didn't get crispy (fail) and we turned on the boiler and it burned (fail) we ate.  It wasn't bad!  Amy scrapped off the black part and we served it with ice cream.  At the time I didn't think it was bad, but not a 'keeper'.

WELL, let me tell you... I had that crisp for breakfast AND lunch again today and I wanted to cry.  It tastes as close to Mom's Crumb Top apple pie as I have tasted in over 10 years!  I don't know what happened in the fridge in the past 36 hours but I think Jesus gave Amy and Julie the perfect amount of cinnamon, sugar, nutmeg, flour, butter and oatmeal... and apple, combined with the right amount of 'soak in' time, just for me : )  Heaven!

Oh, and if you have Mom's super secret recipe... I would really appreciate it, as I have NO idea how to duplicate the crisp in my fridge.  Thanks!

Ate Berries in the Canaries

A few weeks ago I got a pedicure (yes, weeks ago... wish it was more often than that!) and I fell in love with a new OPI color!  From the Espana Fall 2009 collection, Ate Berries in the Canaries, is a cool fuchsia and perfect for fall toes.. or fingers, if you are more bold than I.

I tried to find a picture that really matched the real color, but couldn't.  So I leave you with these : D

I think it looks most like this bottle above

taken inside

taken outside

and No, these are not my nails!  Only for the toes :)

RUN!  Don't walk to get this color on your tootsies!

edited to add:  My perception of nail color is skewed as I only use the scale "From 1 to Florida Pink"... so yes, this is a perfect fall in Florida pink ; )

Pumpkin Love

How festive and cute is this??

Is it silly that I have a favorite font?  I do.

What?  Who's that to the right?  Oh... don't mind him..

He's... he's just an... eye sore.

Okay.  Fine.  ONE picture.  There.

"AAAARRRRGGGG!!!"

Okay now, back up!

Back UP!

...ew ... is that mold in his mouth?

That's Better.

Much better    : D

Bad Mom

Last night we had dinner and went trick-or-treating with friends and their kids', it was so much fun and the kids couldn't believe they were having the best night of their life!  At each house there was more candy!  I didn't get any pictures because I left my camera at home, but its okay, Kyla dressed up as a duck, again.  How she remembers that she was a duck last year is beyond me, but she insisted on wearing the costume again (even though we had a super cute tutu and fairy wings from a birthday party last month!).  So this is what Kyla looked like last night... only a year older and the costume only goes down to her hips now!  The hat fits Stephen about the same : )

So anyway, we're out and the kids are getting pretty good and yelling, "Trick-or-Treat" and getting a hang of it, running from house to house.  Then... we come to a house, no one was home, but they left a bowl of candy out (how nice... and trusting...)  Not too scary, right?  Wait for it...

Kyla walked up, put her hand in the bowl, and the motion sensor hand GRABBED her hand!  She threw her bucket of candy and screamed, then cried the whole way down the drive way!

I laughed, and am still laughing about it this morning.