Happy 2010!

Ahhh, it's over. Fun, but exhausting sums up our holiday experience.

Christmas 2009 -- in numbers:

1 - Days I've been at work since 12/18 (two half-days)
2 - Movies seen (Avatar and Up in the Air -- both good!)
3 - Presents I bought for myself
4 - Number of days I had to shop for all of my gifts
5 - Play dates Anabella had last week (good thing we like the same people)
6 - Bags of trash at curb on 12/26 (sorry, environment!)

20+ - Times Anabella took something away from Scarlett the two weeks I was at home
1 - Times Scarlett bit Anabella on the BUTT for doing it (on Christmas day no less)


P.S. Did you notice the new blog banner? I think it's funny, but one of my coworkers (and the guy who drew the coffee mug) says it's disgusting. Thoughts?

"What the f*ck?" -- Christmas gift edition

I have spent the last three days in malls and stores across Houston (because I hadn't done jack crap to prepare for Christmas until last Saturday and this is how I like to punish myself) and have seen some redonkulous stuff passing itself off as Christmas gifts. Here are just a few of those "WTF is this?" gifts:

This thing was huge. Look how tiny the disposable cameras are in comparison. If you need a remote this big, well, can you really even see the TV anymore?

No. This is just wrong. Period.

I know some people are really hard to buy for, but give me a break. Get a gift card.

Gross. Would anyone ever touch the "butt" side now that it is clearly labeled?

I can really only think of one person that this is appropriate for -- and Jesus isn't into bling.

Halloween too

Here are the girls' Halloween photos. Anabella was "Shine." Yes, I know you have no clue who Shine is ... no one else did either ... so I let her carry the Shine doll around with her as a reference tool. (Shine is a character on Wow Wow Wubbzy voiced by Beyonce.) She had a blast and definitely has a little rock star in her, so that is all that mattered.

Scarlett was a cow. She couldn't care less about Halloween and probably just thought it was a nice warm outfit on a cool night. But isn't she cute?

Boo!

For the first time in a very long time, I was truly frightened on Halloween. My friend Kathy's daughter was having her first birthday party, and Scarlett was still napping, so Anabella and I went over alone. Dan called just as we were leaving to go trick-or-treating with the birthday party to find out where they could meet us. A few minutes later, this comes walking down the street.



Yes, that is my husband and his last-minute, surprise costume. He's wearing a Halloween costume of mine from several years ago (I was a senorita) ... with painted finger nails and reeking of my perfume. And he was wearing a pair of heels that I haven't worn yet. Oh, and pearls. LOL

P.S. Of course the girls were total cuties. I'll post photos of them tomorrow. For some crazy reason, I signed up for NaBloPoMo this year (30 posts in 30 days), so I need to stretch this out. ;)

Bringing the fun back to holidays

I get joy from my children almost every day, but one thing that is really so super awesome fantastic about little kids is how much they enjoy holidays. Anabella really "got" July 4th this year, which made it my best July 4th in at least a decade. (My last awesome July 4th included me losing my hearing for about two weeks, but that's another post.)

My friend Stasa threw a great party, complete with babysitters and lots of activities for the kiddos. And she lives about a block away from the location of the biggest fireworks in Houston, so it couldn't have been a better evening. Anabella discovered her love of glow-in-the-dark jewelry and fire, in the form of sparklers ...

... and we had an incredible view of the fireworks display. (Sorry, but iPhone isn't equipped for that kind of photography.)

So it totally made up for having to stay in this hell-hole weather, instead of taking our usual trip to Michigan, where they are enjoying 70-degree days. (Bastards.)

Dan also cleaned our pool this weekend, evicting our two resident frogs and their million or so offspring. (He also had to kill a water spider that was apparently the size of his hand. Eeek.) Which means I no longer have to listen to frogs fornicating as I go to sleep at night. Oh. And I can swim in my pool. Yeah!

P.S. What's Scarlett balancing on her head today? A box of mac & cheese, of course.

Easter recap

Oh what a crazy, jam-packed weekend. After two failed attempts to get a picture with the Easter bunny, I finally gave up and tried to convince myself that Scarlett would have just cried anyway. But secretly, I'm still sad about it. (On Friday night, the line was closed, so Dan told the girls that the EB was sleeping. Saturday, the line wrapped around the place twice, so I told them the EB was sick and needed some rest for Sunday. Are we nominees for the bad parent award yet? )

Otherwise the weekend went well ... birthday parties, Easter egg coloring and "hatching" (meaning Anabella squishing a hard-boiled egg), hoarding of Easter basket goodies ("MINE!"), and of course, lots of chocolate. Here's a few photos:

Maybe now Anabella will finally quit asking me to help her make Valentine cards.

-- The B.S. Cafe is now serving a classic Easter bunny photo from 2006. How cute is she?

P.S. What's Scarlett sitting on today? An Easter basket, of course. (Although she couldn't squeeze all the way into it.)

Merry Christmas and such

Hi everyone! Hope your holidays were fabulous. I'll blog about ours later (I'm at the airport) but let's just say Anabella got a truck load of toys but only wanted to open her M&Ms and mommy discovered her second gray hair on Christmas day.

Dan and I are heading to Cabo San Lucas for three glorious kid-free nights, so I will be gone for a few more days.

Blogger Dan: our bet on the Texans game tomorrow is on. If you lose, I want either a can of Garrett's popcorn or meatballs from Rosebud (but I'll need to have those overnight. Ha!) Figure out what Texas treat you want ... Not that it's going to matter.


-- The B.S. Cafe is now serving guacamole and margaritas.

Why Mommy Drinks

Just pretending to be 3 years old
Over the weekend, my angry chick went missing. I knew Anabella was the culprit because I have had to tell her several times not to play with it. ("Art" and "breakable" don't mean much to a 3 year old.)

Me: Anabella, where is mommy's bird?

Anabella: Birds are outside. (runs to window) Nope, no birds outside right now, mommy.

Me: Where is the bird that mommy has on the desk in her office? The one you were playing with yesterday?

Anabella: Bird?

Me: Yes. Let's go look. (walk into my office and point to where Angry Chick used to be)

Anabella: Bird is gone. (runs to office window) Nope, bird isn't out there mommy.

Me: Anabella, did you move mommy's bird?

Anabella: What bird?

Me: Anabella, the kitty misses her friend.

Anabella: (Very serious look on her face) Really?

Me: Yes, the kitty is very sad.

Anabella: Oh. (thinks about it for a minute.) I broke the bird. He's in that box. (pointing under desk) Sorry, mommy. (leaves the room)

Sure enough, angry chick was thrown in a box ... her gun barrel broken off. So apparently my sweet little girl was taking me on a silly, wild chicken chase, all the while knowing exactly what I was talking about. When did she get so smart ... and devious?

Coolest Car Ever
Okay, maybe not the coolest car ever, but look at what my car did the other day when I was dangerously close to running out of gas.

It took the initiative to find me 20 gas stations within the range of the amount of gas I had left. The only way it could be any cooler is if it said something like "Hey, dumba** ... you will be walking in about five minutes if you don't get some gas."

Secret Santa
I convinced my coworkers to participate in a Secret Santa exchange this week. Look what I got today ...

It's an old-school slinky ... no plastic, child-safe crap going on here. It's better than a stress ball, which is why I've been playing with it all day. No sense being productive on a Monday, right?

-- The B.S. Cafe is now serving lead-based toys.

Photo Op Weekend

Just a few photos from our Halloween weekend. This is the first time Anabella understood what trick-or-treating means ("they are going to give me candy?!"), so she was really pumped. Scarlett went as a little witch. Couldn't keep the hat on her, but she looked pretty cute anyway.

Anabella wanted to be a pirate ... of course she had her "Arrrrrrr!" down perfectly, and she was the World's Most Polite Trick-or-Treater ever, yelling "Thank YOU! Happy Halloween!" as she left every house.

Here is Winston in his pirate outfit. That's Chloe, our neighbor's daughter, who wanted to share her candy ... apparently Winston looked like he needed a tootsie roll. When I mentioned he could barely fit into his costume, she decided to keep it for herself.

Saturday morning, we woke up to find a giant pile of itty bitty pieces of tin foil on the dining room table. I totally flipped out, thinking that Anabella had eaten 50 pieces of chocolate before 8:00 a.m., but then she showed me this.


I guess she just liked unwrapping them. Whew.

And here is a picture of Anabella at a princess birthday tea party on Saturday morning. She wanted to take the outfit off as soon as we got in the car.

And she was completely OVER it after 15 minutes and 3 cups of "tea." I have to admit ... I love that she isn't a super girly-girl. Not that there is anything wrong with that, it's just that I'm not a bows/bedazzled/glittery kind of girl either.

Anabella was completely disinterested in Cinderella, who had the full attention of all the other princesses, and spent about 20 minutes sitting in a chair, holding a fork, and staring down the cake.

That's my girl!

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

As a woman who has a very Hispanic sounding maiden name (Hector...it's actually German), I have adopted Cinco de Mayo as a personal holiday. Granted I am as Caucasian as they come, but who doesn't enjoy a day that involves margaritas, Mexican food, pinatas, and victory over the French?

However, our holiday started off in a bit of sadness. Anabella came home with a little Cinco de Mayo bear on Friday, but apparently there has been some foul play, because all we could find of him this morning was his little teeny party hat.

I think the culprit might be the newest addition to the household, Max.

I know he looks innocent enough here, maybe even downright adorable, but he has been hell on four paws since he showed up. Not only did he probably devour Mr. Cinco de Mayo Bear, he has been making my home his own personal potty for the past 10 days.

So, I am on a potty-training mission this week, or Max might be joining Mr. Cinco de Mayo Bear...wherever he may be.

Christmas in March, Easter in June...

The holidays never end at our house. Not sure if we just need more holiday cheer than everyone else, or if we are just destined to be "those" people in the neighborhood who leave Christmas lights on the house year-round. Today, I opened up the blinds in my office, and this is what I saw.

An Easter egg still hidden in our yard. So I decided to take a look around and found 2 more. (The good news is that they had packages of mini M&M's in them, so I had a yummy afternoon snack!)So Easter is starting to feel a little like Christmas 2007, which didn't end until March 2008.

Because we were home with a new baby and no visitors, I decided to go all out and hang lights on the house. Well, I could never get the guy who put them up come to take them down, and my six-foot ladder just barely got me close enough to rip the lights off the bottom story. Luckily, we had some high-wind days and the clips on the roof started coming down on their own. So when a strand would fall down far enough, I would get the ladder and go rip them down.

That worked fine until it came to the last strand, which was completely unreachable unless you got on the roof. I tried to borrow ladders, to no avail, and finally came up with an idea. Not a brilliant idea, but it worked none the less.

I used duct tape to attach the 20-foot, light-bulb-changing pole to the skimmer pole for the pool...thus making a 30-foot pole. Then I stood in my front yard like a total clown, trying to balance the pole in a manner where I could knock the clips off the gutter on the tippy top of my roof. After about 30 minutes, this ridiculous pole dance finally worked and the strand came down just close enough where I could jump up (because I have about a 2" vertical jump, this part took about 15 minutes) and yank the strand down. It probably wouldn't have taken so long if I didn't have to drop the pole and act all nonchalant every time someone drove by.

And just when I thought Christmas was over, I noticed this while I was out hunting for lost Easter eggs today.

One remaining Christmas light clip. Damn it!

Happy Easter

My little bunnies hope you are all enjoying your holiday...and eating lots of chocolate!

Happy (belated) Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day! I hope everyone got something special, even if you had to buy it for yourself. My hubby isn't a big fan...he thinks it's a "Hallmark" day...so I just made it all about Anabella.

So, here is my belated Valentine's to all of you. Well, all of you who drink anyway. A yummy cocktail recipe perfect for a day that revolves around chocolate.
................................................

Chocolate Martini
4 oz. chocolate liqueur
2 oz. vanilla vodka
Splash of Half and Half
Chocolate syrup

Preparation: Mix 4 oz. of chocolate liqueur and 2 oz. of vanilla vodka. Add a splash of Half and Half and shake over ice. Line a martini glass with chocolate syrup. Add mixture.

................................................

And a very special Valentine's photo for No Cool Story. I saw these and immediately thought of you. Then I thought, Super Happy Girl should so sue these people for copyright infringement!

Well, Happy Valentine's Day anyway.

Merry Christmas!

What's funny about this photo is that Anabella has never met a stranger, and Scarlett never cries. Guess Santa smelled funny or something.

Merry Christmas!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here are the three things I am most thankful for today...

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, EVERYONE!

Happy St. Patty's Day

Today is my husband's favorite holiday, which means I will be chauffeuring him to a St. Patrick's Day party so he can get trashed. He used to start at 7:00 a.m., but as we have gotten older, the people willing to get up that early to start drinking has diminished significantly. So, wish Dan good luck in his yearly goal of drinking everyone else under the table. And send good thoughts out to me...sometimes I find myself wanting to strangle all the drunks when I am the designated driver...including my own husband.

Have a great St. Patty's Day! Drink some green beer and watch the NCAA tournament. (Thank you, St. Patrick for letting Ohio State pull it out of their asses...otherwise my grid would have been totally fried!)

Here's a kiss for all you Irish out there.

Finally!

Now this is a made-up holiday that I can support.

I say we all sleep as much as possible this week. Screw work, cleaning the house or doing anything productive. It's sleep week, people! Woohoo!

Gifts and Grievances (like Turkey and trauma but with presents!)

Christmas is over. Whew. We just returned from 8 days in Florida. That might sound fabulous (and in reality, it wasn't all bad), but we stayed at my in-laws house...a two bedroom home that is not baby-proofed in any form or fashion. So, I spent 8 days sleeping on a FUTON in the "lanai" (which by the way, has no curtains on the windows) and chasing my daughter around making sure she wasn't eating dishwashing soap or sticking her fingers in sockets. (And their internet connection is DIAL-UP! EEK!)

Otherwise, it was a nice time. My favorite sister-in-law was there, so we drank lots of wine and read plenty of trashy magazines. I wasn't forced to make my own gifts this year. And we ate really decadent meals all week long (I was actually SICK of food and sweets by the time I got home), so I guess all in all it was a pretty good holiday.

Oh, I almost forgot the best part (in regards to blogging!)...my in-laws live in a retirement community and all I can say is that it is a site to behold. So stay tuned for my YARD TCHOTCHKE PARADE...coming in the next day or two. Them old people love cheesy lawn decor.

Happy New Year!

Christmas in New York City

My friend KB and I just returned home from a fabulous girls' weekend in New York City. I have some good stories to share, but no time tonight. (I must pack for my next trip...we are leaving tomorrow for 7 days in Florida with the in-laws.)

But, here are some photos from NYC to put you in the holiday spirit.

The tree in Rockefeller Plaza












The M&Ms guy in Times Square (not very Christmasy, but what are the holidays without chocolate, right?)












Christmas ornaments in a fountain












Radio City Music Hall












Big-ass Nutcrackers!












And a girl's wet dream...a Cartier box the size of a car!

Thanks week finale

Today I am thankful for...

1. Laughter. Things that make me laugh almost every day include my daughter, my friends, The Daily Show, and reading other blogs.
2. My family. They are always entertaining, but this year was definitely "turkey and trama" (a saying I am stealing from Stasa, who stole it from someone else). The highlight was my dad using very inappropriate language in front of our 16-month old. He also asked my crazy aunt Cynthia about the highly sensitive subject of spreading her husband's ashes (he's been dead for 10 years), which started a little not-so-friendly banter. Dad was really on his game! Luckily Winston (our bulldog) didn't pee on my aunt's psycho dog this year...that might have been the final straw.
3. This blog and all the cool people I have met through blogging. It's only been a few months, but I really enjoy this creative outlet. And reading other blogs is much more fun than watching another episode of Friends.

It's been a very thankful week, but I am also thankful that it is over and I can go back to being my more bitchy self tomorrow.