Well, we're settling into our new routines...

Now that Grace is in kindergarten, the days and evenings have undergone some changes. Slowly, but surely, we're all adjusting.

So far, Grace LOVES kindergarten, which is great. Every morning she's chomping at the bit for her bus to get here and pick her up. In typical Grace fashion, yesterday she confessed that her and her new little friend, Mackenzie, "kinda got in trouble" for fooling around during class at some point. LOL! Way to go kid! You managed to make it to the second day without getting yelled at. [sigh] Oy.

Other than that, not too much going on. My house is trashed and I've got a shitload of stuff to do over the next two days, and yet here I sit, blogging instead of working on that stuff. Nice.

Anyway, here are a few pictures of the girls from the past few days. (The ones of Grace are from her first day of school on Monday.) Gotta love 'em...

Well...

The outfit is picked out, the name is on the backpack and lunch bag, her "homework" is done (taking in a picture of her family) and ready to go, her bus tag is on a string and ready to be put around her neck in the morning, and the nap towel is in the bag. My girl starts kindergarten tomorrow.

Shit, I feel old. I mean, when I started kindergarten, all of the parents of my friends seemed ancient. They were old in my head. And the truth is, they were probably younger than me. Most people back then started having kids when they were in their early 20's. I was 28 when I had Grace. And now I am one of those "old" parents. Where the hell does the time go? [sigh]

See? This is why I don't blog anymore...

I'm sitting here, trying to think of something to blog about today and am drawing a total blank. I'm sure funny and interesting things have happened to me lately that I haven't mentioned here, but for the life of me, I can't think of them right now. Let's see... Hmmm...

Oh! Here's something... yesterday Hannah woke up from her nap and I asked her if she was hungry and wanted supper. She said, (in all seriousness...), "Nah. I'm just gonna eat the boogies out of my nose." What the hell? She then touched my nose with her finger and said, "Here's your supper, Mom." I seriously don't know what the hell is wrong with my kids.

And on Monday, after I took Grace for her kindergarten physical, the girls were telling my mother-in-law about it and they told her that the doctor checked Grace's heiny (They both call their vaginas AND their butts "heinies", but that's another story...). So anyway, my mother-in-law says, "Yeah. That's just to check to make sure everything's OK down there." Hannah said, "Yeah. And to make sure there's no bugs in there." Again... what the hell? LOL! Maybe she knows that Daddy once got crabs from his whorey girlfriend in high school?...

OK. My brain is fried now. Sad, isn't it? That the past 10 minutes of blogging has done me in for the night. I think it's time for a beer...

Kim's making me do this...

Not that I don't want to blog. I'm just kind of in a blog slump these days. Partly because I'm insanely busy... partly because I don't have a single drop of creative blogging juice in me... and partly because I end up telling all my stories/anecdotes/vents/etc. to my online friends and then don't feel like typing it all out again here at night.

Soooo... to update you (briefly)....

• Grace got her ears re-pierced over the weekend. They were done before, but they got sore and we had to take the earrings out and the holes grew shut. The little shit didn't even flinch, even when the stupid gun got stuck on the back of the one earring and the woman had to pry it off.

• The next morning, I took her for her kindergarten physical and two booster shots, where she freaked out, kept hiding behind me, and had to be held down by me so the poor nurses could give her the shots. What the hell?

• Between myself, my mom, and my mother-in-law, Grace could very well be the best dressed (and trendiest) child in Mrs. S.'s kindergarten class this year. Rock on, girl.

• Hannah has been wearing a pair of boys' camoflauge sweatpants for 2 days straight now (chosen by herself yesterday when my mother-in-law was shopping for Grace's school clothes) and now refuses to take them off. At all. Ever. Sweet. She keeps calling herself "Hunting Girl". Nice.

• I have a shitload of errands to run tomorrow and don't feel like doing a damn one of 'em.

• This evening, I found a can of Pringles in the refrigerator. This means I was either really drunk last night, or really tired this morning when I put them away (I can't remember when I put them back in the kitchen). What's worse is that I apparently saw them repeatedly in the refrigerator throughout the day today and thought nothing of it.

• In the past week, Steve has (accidentally) crushed my big toe (me in flip-flops, he in big ass boots), practically ripping my toenail off my toe AND (accidentally) caused 4 cans of tuna to fall and land on the big toe of my other foot. Fucker. Let's see how clean your house is when I can't walk, asswad...

YEEEEEHAWWWWW!!!!

I went grocery shopping today and now, my friends, I am thrilled to report that there are Pringles AND a gallon of Breyers Cyclone Caramel Cup ice cream. Mama's eating GOOD tonight. Mmmmhmmmm. [happy, happy sigh]

So, apparently, I'm not the only parent that likes to make our kids do stupid things so we can take pictures. The other day, Steve dressed up both girls in his turkey hunting gear. Terrorists or hunters? You make the call...

Screw Michael Jordon...

Hannah's in the house, yo!

(This photo could also be titled "How Steve and Allison Entertain Themselves When They're Bored... Looking for Funny Photo Ops".)

Help.

Friends, I just ate the organic version of Cocoa Pebbles (bought by my husband... AKA: Organic Man). They really weren't very good. The world as we know it is coming to an end. If I don't start eating the total crap I used to, you may see me on the news after I go ballistic and start hurting people. If that happens, please make sure the cops and my lawyer know that it wasn't really my fault. My body is in shock.

Whew. It's over.

The weekend that is. Dear lord, this weekend was NUTS!

On Saturday afternoon, I took Grace to a birthday party at a bowling alley. Yay. LOL! So we get home from that, and I immediately had to change myself, change the girls, do all of our hair, throw them back into the car, and we all went to my MIL's husband's surprise 60th birthday party.

It was fun, and he was surprised, but I had to stay sober (designated driver), so I was really ready to just head out by like 8:00. LOL! The girls had a BLAST though. And other than a little potty accident by Hannah at one point, they were pretty damn good.

Sunday was more craziness. My nephew was getting baptized and Steve is the godfather. So I had to get the girls all prettied up again, and we headed to the church. My nephew is actually already a year and a half old, so he was NOT happy about being held during the ceremony and pretty much screamed and was pissed off the whole time. LOL! This is the only picture I got of Steve with him.

We left the church and headed to a local restaurant for the baptismal lunch. It's on top of a local mountain, and you can see for miles around from up there. It's actually kind of a famous place in some ways, but I can't get into it, or all of you freaky internet stalkers will figure out when town I live in and come kill me. (LOL! As if I'm worth all that effort.) So anyway, we got some good pictures up there of the family.

So we eat, and somehow I get stuck taking the kids outside to wait for the adults to finish up inside. It was damn hot and the kids were getting a bit "rammy" at this point. So I finally just let them play in the dirt, get filthy, and hoped my sister-in-law wouldn't freak the hell out when we walked back in and she saw how dirty her son was.

I finally get the kids to go back inside where I found the other adults enjoying dessert and passing around pictures that my sister-in-law's dad had of hunting or something. What the HELL! I was sweating, dealing with three kids (one of which was my out of control nephew), and you're in here eating cake and looking at pictures? Bastards. I was pissed. LOL!

So anyway, we head home for a brief two-hour rest, and then it was off to my mother-in-law's house. [sigh] See, her husband's son had flown in from Texas for the surprise party and we've never really met him before (MIL's only been married for three years). So they wanted everyone to hang out and get to know each other before he and his family flew back today.

So that's all good. Except my sister-in-law kept telling my nephew to get out of the dirt. Um, sweetheart, the whole yard is dirt because Steve poured a new patio and sidewalks and they didn't plant grass yet. So she keeps flipping out about that, but wasn't yelling at him when he was fist fighting with his little three-year-old step-cousin. [shaking head] I don't get it.

But anyway, funniest pictures ever. They decided to get a picture of each family with their kids. Great. So they take one of my step-FIL's two sons with their families and then it's our turn. After a few where Grace makes goofy faces, we finally get a nice one. (Note to self: Don't sit next to Hannah in pictures anymore. Because even if you aren't large and aren't wide, you will look like it in comparison to the little munchkin who barely weighs 25 lbs.)

Then it's my brother- and sister-in-law's turn. Oh my god. My nephew was having NONE of it (even though the little devil tried to run in front of everyone else while they were getting their pictures taken. So first we have this picture. Gunnar flipping out, sister-in-law trying to smile anyway while holding Gunnar down Gunnar is screaming...

Then we have the next picture, which totally cracks me up. Gunnar is still screaming and fighting, and everyone else in the picture is looking at him, wondering what the hell his problem is. Except my sister-in-law, who, wants to keep a good impression in front of everyone, just stares at the camera, with a pinched smile, trying to act like her child hasn't been the worst-behaved one there all night. Cracks my shit up, let me tell you...

And so you can get an even better look at her face...

LOL! So anyway, it was a busy weekend, with lots of late nights. Hopefully, things will slow down a bit now. We're all freakin' exhausted.

Oy...

Conversation with Grace yesterday:

Grace: "Mom, what are boys nutters called?"
Me: "Nutters?"
Grace: "Yeah. Their private parts. What are they called?"
Me: "Uhhh..."
Grace: "And why do they have those long things hanging down anyway?"
Me (laughing): "Ask Daddy."
Grace (laughing): "No. He'll yell at me."
Me: "No he won't. Ask him."
Grace: "You ask him for me."
(We head upstairs to Daddy...)
Me: "Hey Daddy, Grace wants to know what boys private parts are called, and she wants to know why they have those long things hanging down."

We were all laughing so hard we never answer her. Whew! Dodged that one. LOL!

Ahhh...

I can breathe again. As of midnight last night, I finally finished up the work for the Project with the Hideous Deadlines. Today I have a crap load to do (cleaning up from the pig roast), but at least I'm not under the stress of work, and can finally get off this damn computer chair for a bit. Sweet.

Anyway, here are a few pictures from the pig roast this weekend. OK. So the truth is, we all suck and most of the pictures we took were of Grace and Hannah. LOL!

We had a BLAST though! It was so cool to hang out with Emily and her husband, Tracey, and Jenn & Blaine & Fenn all weekend long. Lots of beer... lots of crappy food... lots of laughing... ahhhh... The band kicked ASS at the pig roast and everyone was bummed when they finally stopped playing at god knows what time.

Anyway, here are a few pictures...

Steve setting up for the weekend. He built that horrendous structure and then draped the biggest tarp I've ever seen over it and made a huge tent. He's got good balance, no? LOL!

Blaine and Steve chillin' on Friday night.

This was the funniest thing ever. We were all sitting around on Friday night and Emily was COLD. Dear lord, it was like 70 degrees outside! LOL! Silly Texan.

Hannah chillin' out and listening to the band. Take note of hottie Blaine and adorable Fenn in the background. Mmmm....

My little groupies... I swear they sat there the WHOLE time the band was playing.

Their biggest thrill was when the drummer let them sit at the drumset and bang the drums between sets.

Grace was a complete natural...

I think this is my favorite picture from the weekend. That's the drummer in the band. He was GREAT with the kids and let them come up on stage between sets and act like rockstars.

Hannah just adored Fenn. It was like a real-life baby doll and she was in her glory.

This is the only picture we took of the four of us (because we suck). It was the morning after the pig roast and Tracey was about to walk out the door and head to the airport for her flight home. So she looks fine, Jenn freakin' wakes up looking like that which totally ticks me off, Emily was all dressed, and there I am... in Steve's T-shirt and a dorky headband. [sigh]

For Tink...

Hi Tink (and others)!

I just got your comment delivered to my email. I am sooo sorry I haven't been around. It's because I don't want to be, believe me. The pig roast was this weekend and we had a BLAST! Everything went well and we all had fun.

But I'm bombarded with work. [sigh] I had to work half of the time that my overnight guests were here, and I've literally worked about 30 hours in the past two days (and am still not done). I'm exhausted, I'm cranky, I don't have time to eat, I'm totally neglecting my kids, and my ass is sore from sitting in my chair all day. I am praying that after tonight's deadline, I'll have time to, ya know, like live and stuff again, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

I miss you guys too, and I promise to be back here, being my usual witty self (LOL!) as soon as I possibly can.