Friday Photos on a Saturday Night: Tweedling Around Out Front

Toronto, Part 2: Niagara & Palmyra, NY

On our way home, we first stopped by Niagara Falls. It was amazing.

I have no idea what Ruby is doing in this picture. I'm going to go with wiping Cheeto debris off her hands and onto her jacket.

This is the view from where we were on the Canadian side, which is supposed to be the better side to see Niagara from for some reason. Even though I didn't know why this side was better, it didn't stop me from looking over at the people on the U.S. side and thinking "Suckers."

After crossing back into the States (border patrolmen resembling no celebrity, Canadian or otherwise) and gorging ourselves on buffalo wings, we went to Palmyra, New York to visit the Smith Farm and the Sacred Grove. It was gorgeous and peaceful and will always be a good memory for our family.

There's a Few Spots Still Available!

I Want To Kick Verizon in the Neck

I've been without functioning Internet at my house for almost 3 weeks now and it's just about killing me.

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Toronto, Part 1

Our trip to Toronto was fantastic.

How could it not be when your Canadian border patrolman was:

Ok, so maybe not really but he was the spitting image of Joey Gladstone. And we die hard Full House fans all know that Dave Coulier is Canadian, so I found this to be utterly delightful. As he was looking at our passports, I was torn as to what to say to him: "Wow, so Alanis was REALLY mad, huh?" or "Cut! It! Out!"

Go had to be at a plastic surgery conference every day, all day (hence the reason for the trip) so that left me and the girls to hit up the town. They are good little travelers and the Toronto public transit system is nice and not too confusing. There was a low point, though, when I led us to the opposite side of town with no buses going back to where we needed to be, leaving me dragging two whining girls and holding a sleeping, limp, deadweight toddler for 3 miles in my already-worn-out Toms. "This is an adventure! This is an adventure! This is an adventure!" The only other complaint I have about the entire trip is that I checked a book on CD out from the library for our drive, which I thought was going to be a mystery/thriller but it ended up being Christian fiction. Ugh. I have a really hard time stomaching that particular genre.

The first day, the girls and I went to Riverdale Farm--I fell in love with this place. It's a fully functioning 7-acre farm in the middle of downtown Toronto and is free to the public. It's nestled in the middle of Cabbagetown, a totally rad area with charming old houses with awesome architecture and lots of trees and parks. I loved it. The girls had a blast at the farm and we couldn't have asked for a prettier day.

For more pictures from the day (Mom), you can see them HERE.

While in Toronto, whether it was in line for the street car or while lugging my stroller up the subway steps ("This is an adventure!") or just walking downtown, everywhere we went, people kept stopping me and asked for directions, to which I would always answer "Oh, I am SO the last person you want to ask." It was so weird! Is it because no woman in her right mind would take three small children out in a busy city where she didn't know exactly where she was going? Did they think they overheard me say "sore-ry" or "owt" or "eh?" or "hewse" ? Do I look Canadian?

The next day was rainy, so we spent most of the day inside at the Royal Ontario Museum.

I love a good museum.

And this was one was AWESOME. The girls and I spent all day long there we still didn't see it all.

We really, really enjoyed our time in Toronto. It's like a clean New York city with a European flair. I highly recommend it.

Friday Photos: Babies

I'd Like to Thank the Academy

for:

1. The wonderful smells coming from my yard right now. Basil, thyme, rosemary, lavender. Would it be weird if I started rubbing a bunch of rosemary in my arm pits instead of using deodorant?

2. And thank you to all fonts in general. Except for Papyrus and a hand full of others that I really don't care for. I could waste a lot of time on this site. And by that, I mean I do waste a lot of time on this site.

3. The writers of Modern Family. That show always, always make me laugh: "If an accident does happen, I hope he kills me, because I don't think I would be a very inspiring disabled person."

4. The week Go has off in a little while. We're driving 7 hours to Toronto and staying for a wee bit! And then we're driving 7 hours back home to wash our clothes and go to the bathroom and shower in our own shower which I would bet money, has even lower water pressure than the humble hotel in which we will have just come from! And then we're driving 12 hours to Nashville! And staying for a wee bit! And then driving 12 hours back home! All within a week! Also, we might be insane!

5. Olive, who is inseparable from her baby lately. It's one of those little ones with the cloth bodies and plastic head and limbs. She keeps it inside a beanie like a little sleeping bag. All day long, she carries it around, kisses it, loves it, cuddles it, feeds it, sings to it and puts it to sleep on anything soft she comes across, giving it a kiss goodnight, says "Ni-ni, bee bee!" gives it a couple of pats for good measure, then picks it back up 10 seconds later. She requires that I give her baby kisses about every 15 minutes. My kids have done lots of cute things in their day but this might take the cake.

6. The constant singing in my house during the day by my two youngest. May's always been prone to wander around in her dreamland singing, making up songs with lyrics consisting with phrases such as "in your heart", "truly believe", "madly in love", and "forever and ever" , which I really don't know where these cheesy lyrics come from since Go certainly doesn't listen to songs with such sap and I'm a total tom-boy when it comes to music (and well, most other things) but I love it. What I love more is that while May is on one end of the room (or often, car) singing her heart out to random melodies, Olive is on the other end crooning away as well, a completely different melody and lyrics with eyes squinted and brow furrowed, giving it her all and often holding out the length of notes for an impressive amount of time. I want to secretly record these two one day so they look back and listen to their weird duets.

7. Chicks with acrylic nails. I like watching them try to things and look normal while doing those things. I am reminded of an SNL skit with Kristen Wiig where she worked up in an air traffic control tower. She had long acrylic nails and was trying to open a bag of Sun Chips. She's so genius.

8. Kristen Wiig and the other funny ladies out there that I have girl-crushes on. This includes but is not limited to: Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and my pal Alisa. (Alisa, if this makes you feel uncomfortable reading this, I promise to keep it platonic this weekend.) And though she's not funny, Nigella Lawson. Just because.

9. Again Olive, for being a really fun age. She's becoming extremely verbal, which is a great vehicle for her vibrant personality, always cheerfully saying "Thank you! Your welcome!" as she hands you random stuff she's found around the house. It sounds like "Deek Doo! Wow Cuh!" She has also started saying little sentences. Here are some of her latest words: (and this list, I am aware, only interests my mother and my husband)

-most of her sentences start with this: "I want...": (Uhhh)
-"cookie": (tee-tee)
-"peanut butter": (pee-a-bow)
-any sort of liquid to drink is "juice" (which is odd since she never has it): (joo)
-"May-May": (Mah-May)
-"Ruby"-(Woo-Bee)
-"I want down" (which means go down in the basement): (Uhhh dowww)
-"bath": (bow)
-"toast": (tow)
-"shoes": (shee-yews)
-"Me too!": (Ah do!)
-She has started letting me know when she has a dirty diaper: she walks to where I am, says "poo-poo" and turns right around for me to check her diaper. I think potty training is in our near future, which doesn't mean much since after my experience with Ruby and May (struggled and struggled for months when Ruby was 2, threw in the towel and 6 months later, she trained herself and May just trained herself when she was about 2.5, so I'm a big believer in letting the kid lead the way, although I'm aware it always doesn't go this way, and I don't expect to be as fortunate with this every time, but so far, we're off to a good start.)
-What a kitty says: (eee-ow)
-What a doggy says: (fff-fff)
-What a cow says: (noooooh)
-puppy: (bob-bee)
-yogurt: (yo-gee)

10. Scheduled mail carrier pick ups for packages, which require me to stay away from the post office, otherwise known as My Own Personal Outer Darkness.

What Do You Do at 4:50 am After Being Up Since 2 am Because You Let Your Baby Eat Way Too Many Spicy Chickpeas and She's Woken Up Every Hour With Gas?

Give your photography blog a much needed face lift.

Photo Mini Sessions

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I've Got New Zealand Fever

Three Weeks and One Day

Three weeks ago, I posted that I had scheduled myself out to deep clean my house over the next 21 days. Today is day 22 and I'd like to proclaim that I almost did it. I did the kitchen, the girls room, our room, Olive's room, the front room, the downstairs bathroom, the pantry, the basement and as of this morning/afternoon: the garage. I still have the upstairs bathroom and my art room to go, but those won't take long. The garage was my Mount Everest. I'm ashamed to say it's been our dumping ground for the past four years and never paid any attention to--I've been dreading this since the beginning. This morning, from 8:30 to 12:30, I climbed it, covered in sawdust, insects (both dead and alive) grime, larvae, cobwebs, spiderwebs, spider eggs, dead leaves, mold, pollen and old mouse poo. I've never felt so disgusting yet so triumphant in my entire life after I had finished. I've never taken a longer shower than I did this afternoon. But our garage has never looked better, not counting the HUGE mound of trash bags taking up the better half of the garage. I can't wait until trash day.

Favorite Moments From Today

1. Trying to talk to the pediatrician over the squeaks, squeals, zips, screeches coming from the Zhu Zhu pet in my purse while we both pretended not to notice.

2. Wrestling (I usually use this word as hyperbole, but this time I really mean it) May, trying to keep her still so she could get blood drawn while singing/yelling "May May, come out and play with me! And bring your dollies three! Climb up my apple tree! Slide down my rainbow..." in front of four recoiling phlebotomists.

3. After the doctor's/lab, instead of taking Ruby back to school for lunch, we took our lunch to a park where we were attacked by bees thanks to my beloved Jo Malone Nectarine Blossom & Honey Cologne and wait for it...wait for it, I stuck my hand in a fresh pile of dog poo.

4. Taking Ruby back to school and chatting with her school nurse while I held Olive who insisted on repeatedly pulling down my scooped neck t-shirt and sticking her hands down into my shirt, causing some major Northern Exposure. Nope. Not just a TV show from the 80's.

5. Dinner with the girls at Costco. Olive, who was already covered in remnants of various samples (chocolate milk, yogurt, pot stickers, sticky buns, chicken soup, chocolate mousse) was really excited to eat and so overcome with love and joy for her dinner, hugged an entire slice of pizza against her chest and lovingly rocked it back and forth. I still had 2 more errands to run after that, which if it hadn't been such a chilly evening, she would have worn just her cow-print leg warmers and her diaper rather than her cow-print leg warmers and a light green onesie covered with chocolate milk, yogurt, pot stickers, sticky buns, chicken soup, chocolate mousse and a grease stain the exact shape and size of a gigantic slice of pizza.

Still, it was a good day.

For Realsies Friday Photos: MayMay and Olive Before the Bus Stop

This is how we eat crackers:

We start out ferocious, just to let those crackers know who's boss

and then once they know we mean business,

we ease up and end rather daintily.

Miss Sassy Mo Lassy.

Squabbling over territory.

Olive points to our obnoxious neighbor and is all like

"Who does that guy think he is?"

Possibly the Friday Photo: At the Doctor's Office

List 'o Twelve Things That Should Be Done Today But Won't

Behold!

1. Clean out our room
2. Clean out Olive's room
3. Clean out the upstairs bathroom
4. Sew 5 caps
5. Construct 6 hair clips
6. Sew bright blue raw woven silk dirndl style skirt
7. Write a chapter
8. Clean out garage
9. Edit 2 photoshoots
10. Ship 5 packages
11. Research things to do in Toronto
12. Do all the other normal stuff that needs to be done

Major Heebeejeebees Happening Here

From what I've been told, I'm kind of a mouth breather when I sleep. This does not sit well with me now that I know there's a Tremors Mini Me still creeping around my room. How am I supposed to sleep tonight? Seriously.

Sent from my iPhone

Friday Photo

Camera battery is dead as dead can be. Please accept this humble picture taken by phone. Ruby wants me to be sure to point out the following things to Grandma: leopard print cardigan. Saddle shoes. Heidi braids.

This Is What Happens When I Try To Do Stuff

I am now just 2 degrees away from Kevin Bacon. Would you like to know how?

Let me start by making a long story short:

Today, due to two nights of only sleeping for 3 hours, was the first morning I felt alive enough to get up early-early and work on the 1/10 of a novel I have started.

That's the shortened part.

This morning my alarm was set for 5:30 but Olive woke up at 5:15 screaming. I got her settled down and was walking back to my room as my alarm was going off. "Well that wasn't that bad. Let's do this thing." I flip on my bed side lamp, set up my headrest, my two pillows, pull out my lap top and settle in, open up my Word doc and..."WAAAAAAAAH!" Olive again. I attempt to work but a crying baby isn't really conducive to creating compelling characters. So I get up, change her diaper, get her a drink, put socks on her feet, rock her and get her down again. Then back to work. I settle in again, stare at my screen, trying to get into the zone. I take a deep breath and lay my head back on my headrest and what to do I see?

My 2 degrees from Kevin Bacon. Kevin Bacon was in the movie Tremors with this fellow:



That fellow was up on my ceiling. I jump out of bed because this guy's going to fall on my face any moment, I just know it. I run to the closet, grab one of my husband's size 12 1/2 shoes, thinking "Bigger really is better!" and I jump onto my bed and smash the shoe against the ceiling, hopefully squashing this thing in the process. I twist and smash. There's no way this thing is getting out alive. Since the shoe is so big, I can't really see if he's dead or alive, so cautiously, I take the shoe off the ceiling and inspect the damage. There are no bug guts on the ceiling. I check the bottom of Go's shoe. Clean as a whistle. GAHK! I jump around on the bed, ripping away the layers of head rest, pillows, blankets but no creature is to be found. I feel a slight tickle on my scalp. I bend over my bed hyperventilating and manically rake through my hair. Nothing. I feel something on my back. I arch back and hop around, wiggling all over, scratching on top of my clothes, then underneath my clothes. THIS THING IS ON ME! Nope. False alarm. I look around everywhere, behind the bed, behind my nightstand, under the bed. I have no idea where this guy went. I stand there and listen for the scurrying of a million creepy tiny feet but the silence is deafening. I decide not to let this ruin my potentially productive morning. It's time to get to work. I pile on headrest and pillows again. I nestle down in my bed. Laptop on my lap. I stare at my screen. "WAAAAAAAH!" Hello Olive. Ugh. I let her cry and stare at my screen. She continues crying and I decide to reread what I've written already. I do this for a couple of minutes put she's building in intensity, making it impossible to think at all and putting her sister's slumber at risk. I go in again and rock her until she's just about asleep, something I normally don't do but desperate times, desperate measures, people. I sneak out of her room. Ok, ready to write. Get into bed, laptop at the ready. Cursor blinking. I stare at my screen, conjuring something to come. All of a sudden, there's a tickle on my toe. I fly out of bed, yelping and throwing off the blankets. Again, nothing. This thing's inside my head now and I feel like there are bugs crawling all over me. NO! I will not let a silly bug, that yes, may look like an alien, ruin my productivity. I am up! There's still time! I need to write, dang it! I put back my blankets, get into bed, place my lap top on my lap with determination, look at my screen and type one word. The wrong word. Delete, delete. What word should I use? I look up, deep in thought and hello Tremor Worm. You are on the opposite wall now. And now you must die. How did he get over there so fast? There must be two. Maybe even little baby Tremor Monsters. Fantastic. I jump up again, grabbing one of my smaller shoes this time so I can witness his slow and hopefully agonizing death and right as I'm approaching him, coming in for the kill, he senses my thirst for weird-alien blood and drops from the wall and down behind the dresser where I can't get to him. CURSES!!! I throw the shoe down on the floor in frustration. "WAAAAAAH!" This child is going to be the death of me. And so is this alien bug. I grab Go's sound-eliminating head phones, the ones he wears on the airplane while I wrestle our kids, the ones that make me want to reach over the aisle and strangle him while saying "YOU'RE NOT HELPING ME!", the ones that when I look over at him and give him the look that says "I'm going to strangle you if you don't start helping me," he says really loudly over his music "I CAN DO WHATEVER YOU NEED ME TO DO WHILE I LISTEN TO MUSIC" and I shake my head at him, like "No you can't" and he smiles and nods his head like "Yes, I can" and puts out his hands like "I'll prove it. Give one of them to me," and I shake my head again, then mouth the words: "Watermelon, watermelon, watermelon" and he yells "WHAT?" and I mouth "Watermelon, watermelon, watermelon" again and he looks so confused as he takes out the ear buds and says in a normal register "What?" and I say "Exactly." So I grab those, shove them in my ears, get in my bed, get my lap top, and stare at my screen. I look at the clock. It's almost 7. I write one freaking paragraph and Ruby comes in, hungry for breakfast and of course she does because for some unknown reason she wakes up with a blood sugar in the 400's, which is sky high and not good. Sigh. At this rate, this thing won't get published until they make Tremors 9: The Return of the Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great Grandchild of the Original Tremors Monster. And in the meantime, I will be wiggling and scratching at myself all day long because I swear this thing is still on me.

7 Things on September 7th

1. Last night I fell asleep and stayed asleep until the morning WITHOUT ANY FORM OF SLEEP AID for the first time in a really long time. I'm such a big girl. I got to put a sticker on my chart.

2. Kind of obsessed with Chobani greek peach yogurt and Avarado Street sprouted wheat bread and have been for months.

3. I watched Jersey Shore for 15 minutes for the first time a couple of nights ago. I completely see the appeal. It wasn't as gross as I thought it would be and even though these people are completely ridiculous, there is something about them that makes you sympathetic while simultaneously hating them. It was a strange feeling; fascinating and entertaining to witness. That being said, it will probably be the last 15 minutes I ever watch.

4. Lately, I've been overwhelmed with thoughts of all the things I'd really, really love to do that I'll probably never get to do. Like bike across America. Or write a screen play, direct it, do the soundtrack and then watch it in a real live theatre. Be awesome enough at an instrument to play in a band, and then actually play in a band. Get through a yoga class without the teacher stifling their laughter as they observe my crazy unlimberness. Paint a picture that I actually like. These are things I long to do and I fear will never come to pass. There's something else that's always been on that list, but I'm taking it off and am working toward it: I am attempting to write a novel and hopefully, get it published. This is something I've been working towards on and off for the past 2 years. As of tomorrow morning, I'm back on the wagon. I'm trying to prove the voices in my head wrong - the ones that tell me I'll never be able to do it, it's not worth the energy and the sacrifice of precious sleep. These voices are really hard to ignore because you see, the voices in my head sound something like the lovechild of Fran Drescher and Gilbert Gottfried.

5. We all know it: summer is winding down, fall is upon us. 95% of you just clasped your hands together and took a deep inhale. I really, really wish I could do this with you, to relish autumn and be among you, you who gushes about how much you *LOVE!!!* fall, but I just can't seem to do it. To me, autumn is a precursor to 5 to 6 months of wintery misery. But (as always) I'm going to attempt to enjoy it this time around. Maybe I'll succeed knowing that this is my second to last fall here on the East coast. (UTTER GLEE!) But really, even if I didn't get slammed with the winter-blues every year, I'm not much a cozy, toasty autumny person anyway. I get much more excited about things coming in green, fresh and alive (spring!) than I do about things wilting and dying...which is what fall is. Sorry to burst your apple-cinnamon scented bubble, folks. Fall = death.

6. We've been finding dead butterflies in our front yard lately. This creeps me out. What's that movie where they keep finding dead animals around and then all of a sudden some weird disaster hits?

7. This post is starting to bum me out. Hm. How should I lighten this up? Hmmmm...uh...well...how about you pretend that I uploaded a video of Olive dancing? Picture a very tall, very bald toddler hunkered down, jutting out her chin, sticking out her neck, and pumping her fists horizontally back and forth and then all of a sudden, she tips her head waaaay back with her eyes closed and her mouth open wide, sticks out her tongue and sways her head side to side, in time with her fists. Yah. I'm just going to have to post a video.

And Then Their Brains Hurt

Over the past two weeks or so, the girls have watched The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, The Music Man, and Oklahoma!

(While watching Oklahoma! for the first time Sunday, when Laurie and Curly are singing together in the beginning)

May: Hey, that's Madame Librarian!
Me: Yep. That's Shirley Jones.
May: No, that's Marian the Madame Librarian.
Ruby: She lived in Iowa and now she lives in Oklahoma?
Me: She's an actress, you guys. She's a lady just playing characters in movies. It's not real. Her real name is Shirley.
May: So Mary Poppins and Maria are two different ladies?
Me: Well, it's one lady, Julie Andrews, playing two different characters.
Ruby: I just thought she was always a babysitter wherever she went.
May: A singing babysitter!

Sent from my iPhone

Friday Photos: A Little Peach

These pictures would be a lot more beautiful and interesting

had the FedEx man come with my fixed camera before our trip to the peach orchard

rather than after.

Ah well.

As you can tell, she wasn't really interested in having her picture taken.

And here is a picture showcasing her darling hair.

The East Coast summer humidity may be suffocating and awful

but it does wonders for the Reynolds Girls' curls.

Truth

Today is the dreaded basement day. My goal is to get rid of half of the girls' toys. While I began sifting through all of their junk, May did a perfect swan dive into a big pile of toys and came up for air, triumphantly holding a shiny metal harmonica. "My moron-ica! I've been looking everywhere for this moron-ica!"

...I wonder what her take on bag pipes would be.

Good To Know I'm Not the Only One

May: Mom, when I jump, my bottom flops.

This is especially comforting coming from the little girl who possesses the smallest rear end in the world.