Friday Photos: Happy Halloween!

May's Birthday

May May turns 5 on Thursday. I can't believe it. We celebrated with a bunch of her little friends last Saturday with a Beauty Shop themed party. We painted nails, did make up, applied lotions and perfume. The girls had fun and felt pretty.

May wanted our house to look fancy. I think these tissue paper pom-poms did the trick.

Pre-party dance party.

Cute little partyers.

It was fun.

Friday Photo: All Wrapped Up

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.

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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?

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