Before I get into this long awaited post, let me just give you one tip. NEVER let your children go to a birthday party at Chucky Cheese (is that even spelled right?). My girls went to a birthday party there in April and they are still sing Justin Bieber songs. Now, I've got nothing against him. It's possible I may have in a moment of weakness downloaded a song or two of his onto my ipod. I may also have plans to watch Never Say Never. There I said it. BUT, there is just something really wrong with my three year old walking around singing "Baby, Baby, Baby, OOOOOOOHHHHHHH!" For real.

So, there has been a lot going on here. I had surgery, my father in law had open heart surgery, Abbey broke her arm, and almost as traumatic as those things, Abbey decided haircuts all around were the order of the day. Alivia bore the brunt of that little adventure. She basically had a mullet on one side of her head. Correction, HAS, a mullet. I refuse to make a bad situation worse by cutting all of her hair that short. I did giver her a little bob that will make growing it out a little less painful. Maybe. And, just in case you were wondering, all of the patients above have healed or are recovering just fine. :)

One story about my girls before I end this. The girls have been obssessed with what is "in real life" and what is not. It all started with a conversation that abbey had with her bible class teacher. I wish abbey could tell you this story because as she was telling me i could tell by her tone when mimicking the teacher that her poor teacher was having her patience tested :)

Abbey: Mom, I asked my teacher about that story about the little boy dying and she said it was true.
Me: what little boy?
Abbey: Stephen. You know, they threw rocks at him.
Me: Oh, that's right. Tell me about that conversation.
Abbey: Well, I raised my hand and my teacher said, "Yes, Abbey?" And I said, Was Stephen in real life? And my teacher said, "Yes, Abbey." So, I raised my hand AGAIN and my teacher said, "Yes, Abbey??" And I said, Did they really throw rocks at him and kill him? And my teacher said, "Yes, Abbey."
Me: What did you do then?
Abbey: Well, I just sat there and stared at her because I didn't believe it.
Me: It's true abbey. I know it's sad, but it is true.

It was a pretty sad day, because I had to inform them that while the story of Stephen was in real life, unicorns were not. Seems pretty messed up to me. I think things started looking up, though, when I confirmed that Justin Bieber was in real life. I heard whispers of excitement coming from the backseat after that one.

As I type this...

(about these pictures...i have the hipstamatic app on my iphone. i may need a little practice. can't seem to figure out where the light is going to be. These are pictures of ainsley's recital outfit for ballet.)




My husband is driving his white 2002 altima to Goodwill while dangling a garbage bag containing a dead black bird out of the drivers side window.

Like a week ago, we were out in the back yard when we spotted one of those huge black birds on top of the roof. Aaron ran in to get the bb gun. He came back out, took aim, fired, and to everyone's amazement the bird literally looked up to the heavens and then rolled over the roof towards the front of the house.

Aaron went to destroy the evidence but their was none to be found.

Fast forward to tonight. About 30 minutes before high school bible study starts we both decide we smell death at the front door. Literally. To steal a line from Rapunzel, "It just generally smelled like the color brown." It took us about 30 seconds and one trip up a ladder to confirm that, yes, there was our black bird in the gutter. Fantastic. and gross.

Once removed, the bird CLEARLY could not stay hear until the next trash day (Thursday), which brings us back to aaron's little jaunt to goodwill.

ALSO, I had a wonderful mother's day! I was gifted with some shopping money, a few flowers (which alivia informed me were made of Kleenex), and some beautiful drawings. You may also be interested to know that according to my children, I am 71 years old, 8 feet tall, weigh 5 pounds, and the thing I say the most is "Help me dress up!!!" I should probably be counting my blessings on that last one.

And finally, I'll leave you with a quote from abbey. I texted this to the immediate family so this is old news for ya'll. Aaron took Abbey to the bank the other day and of course she got a sucker. she was telling alivia about her sucker when she got home and alivia wanted to know why she got the sucker. This was abbey's answer which should be read with great annoyance at having to explain the obvious. "ALIVIA, they saw me in the car, they thought I was cute, they got me a present, and the present was a sucker." Hey Abs, don't be so hard on yourself :)

You're only as old as you feel...

Isn't that a saying? I think it is, and normally I would go look it up and make sure before I post it for the world to see but I'm in kind of a time crunch today.

If it is true, today I feel like I'm about 978. Not 31. Or is it 32? Has anyone read Water for Elephants? When he was talking about not being able to remember you age, I was like, this is the story of my life!!

Anyway, it all started when I went for my laser hair removal appointment, or as we tactfully refer to it around here, "getting my mustache zapped off."



Your welcome :)

So, as if that wasn't humiliating enough, my laser person goes, "Oh, you're really broken out!" Which led to me leaving with a tub of retin A. Not gonna lie. I'm excited about this. I hear it makes your skin look bomb. And I've definitely been thinking between the acne and the "fine lines" i've been spotting I could use a little help.

That stuff is no joke. I'm sitting in the car with the air conditioner blasting in my face chanting..."no pain, no gain! no pain, no gain!"

And then I go to my obgyn today for this pain i've been having in my side and he walks in a says, "I'm tellin ya! You have three babies and everything starts fallin apart!" He's lucky he's cute. He can get away with saying that kind of stuff to me. And stuff like, "You may have a hernia."

Fabulous. Oh, to be 16 again!

Concerning the bunnies...

They all hopped away out into a beautiful meadow where they will live happily ever after. That's my story and I'm sticking to it because I definitely have a 5 year old who can read and would be crushed if she found that the story ended any differently than that.

HOWEVER, when I told my children this story, Ainsley said in a very exasperated voice, "Mo-om, the Easter bunny would not bring us bunnies just to have them hop away."

Ummmmmmm.......

Also. Aaron and I overheard this conversation tonight between ainsley and abbey in the back seat...

Abbey: " Ainsley, once I got a stomach virus, and it was the first time I had ever thrown up."

Ainsley: "I had a stomach virus too and I threw up 11 times but then I took a bath in the morning and i felt a little bit better."

Abbey: "And that medicine you put in your bottom is CUH-RAZY, cause it just disappears!!"

Our Easter...

What a day! As I was browsing facebook this evening and seeing everyone's family Easter pictures, I had one thought..."Oh crap. I did not take one single picture of my girls in their easter dresses." So, you'll just have to take my word for it. They had Easter dresses. They were super cute.

So what was I doing this morning instead of taking pictures of my perfectly styled children? Well, Easter morn found me (once again) running around in my back yard in the pink robe and fake uggs. And it's possible I still had the towel turban going. I can't really remember. ( I think I'm having a revelation about why our neighbors keep declining our dinner invitations)

Why, you ask, would I be doing that. Well, let me just tell you. I was standing at the kitchen sink washing my hands, and staring aimlessly out the window, when something caught my eye. At first I thought it was one huge critter. Then I realized it was a bunch of little critters. 6 baby rabbits to be exact.




Every hole in our yard is filled with water with all the rain we have had. So, I'm assuming that their little nest was flooded. I couldn't just leave them all huddled in a pile in the rain so I fixed them a little laundry basket house so they can hopefully stay dry.

The girls are beyond excited about our little Easter blessings and we let them hold one. Here's hoping this turns out better than the bird's nest.



In other Easter news, i went shopping for Easter shoes to go with my Easter dress and came home with these...





Someone save me from myself.

We really did have a great Easter. It was a wonderful day spent with family (I even got to hug my parents for a few seconds :)). We are blessed :)

A story and pictures that have nothing to do with each other :)

Last night we went to a scholarship dinner. We took the girls. Abbey started the fun with a break down about 30 seconds after we walked in. She recovered in time for the entertainment portion of the evening which was a sweet, sweet family from our church singing a few songs.




Alivia apparently thought someone said karaoke night cause she sang "flower gleam and glow, let your power shine, make the clock reverse..." every time it got quiet. (That's from Tangled for all you who are unschooled in the most recent kids movies) We made it through dinner and I even managed to deny abbey permission to carry her dessert plate to the table on her head, all without a scene.



We ended the evening on a high note with Alivia announcing to every one at our table that she tooted. Numerous times.





And then a sweet, old lady said, "What lovely children you have!" Actually she said that before the karaoke and the tooting. So, maybe given the chance, she might have taken it back.

The bird update :(

Well, it's not good news. I thought things were going great. The parents were sitting on the nest, the eggs were looking good, mom and dad bird got used to us being around and wouldn't even fly away when we came near them. And then something happened...I'm not sure what. It could have been the youth group coming over. Bless their hearts. It was like the paparazzi outside a rehab center. what with all the yelling, and picture taking, and trying to get close. I can't blame them. It was pretty cool being that close to a bird sitting on a nest. I may have also taken a few pictures. But I did not yell. I had to keep some sense of decorum.

Anyway, after that incident, the birds were spooked pretty easily and would fly away. And it probably didn't help that we were using a table saw about 15 feet from the nest either. But, aside from the spooking easily, things seemed fine. And then I went outside one morning and mom bird was gone as well as one egg. I searched high and low and could not find the egg. A few days passed and the bird parents did not return. And then the second egg disappeared. And honestly, I was trying REALLY hard not to think about what type of critter could have gotten up there and taken those eggs. Until a few days ago when Abbey and Alivia were practically tearing the blinds down to get a better look a the "black squirrel" that was walking across our yard.

I'm sorry, what??!! Black squirrel? Sounds like a skunk to me folks. So I'm mentally preparing myself for my first real "kill" to be a skunk, now that I have a gun and everything. Except that the skunk is going to have to come into the back yard for me to shoot him. Because I am not going to camp out in the front yard with my bb gun. I have neighbors. They think I'm normal. They do not know (i hope) that yesterday I was in my backyard in a super fluffy bright pink robe and target uggs perfecting my bb gun shot on a my little pony and a piece of sidewalk chalk.

I'll leave you with a picture that I took of ainsley a few days ago. I love it because it is totally her. I have a really hard time capturing natural pictures of her. She really likes to fake smile. No faking here :) She is just having a good time :)