To my Aunt Tricia

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/patriciamarcinkowski

Tricia, you are such a fighter! So many people are praying for your health to improve and day by day, after we had prepared for the worst, you are living proof of the power of prayer. I love you so much and wish I could be by your side. You are an inspiration. Keep fighting; we are all with you.

Don't buy your kids expensive toys

My friend sent me this video today and I swear my ovaries started glowing. If you don't feel even just the slightest urge to have a baby after this video, something's not working right. This is the most adorable baby laugh in the entire world! It is also solid proof that spending lots of money on elaborate toys is a waste. A lesson that my dear (not dead as I typo'd earlier. Sorry Mom) Mother-in-law learned after all the toys she purchased for Chuck one year for Christmas were rejected in favor of wooden blocks her husband found by the side of the road and sanded down. Twenty-three years later, she still talks about it so let that be a lesson to you parents out there. Give your kids trash as presents and see how much more fun they have.

Virtual Peek-a-boo!

Ever have that craving for some 2-year-old interaction but don't want the mess? Now you can have it whenever you want with no stinky diapers to change!

She is a vile henchman in the making, just listen to that laugh!

Who are you calling a klutz?

This is what organization looks like. My attempt to clean out all the bags and bags of baby clothes and hopefully make a few dollars in the process. Hours and hours and hours later I have piles of clothes, sorted by size, all pinned to hangers. They are pinned because if you've ever been to a consignment sale you know how insane it is. How thousands of moms and some very brave dads riffle through racks and racks of "gently used" children's clothes, toys, funiture, etc. It's crowded and cut throat. Let me just say that pinning labels on clothes, clothes to clothes, clothes to hangers sucks. It sucks hard. My Junior year of college, my friends and I decided to make disco balls by pinning silver sequins to large styrofoam balls. It's a long story and one of those "it seemed like a good idea at the time" things. I stabbed my fingertips so many times with those stupid straight pins, they started to go numb. That was nothing compared to this undertaking. I had to take a couple items out of my collection after staining them with blood from a newly pricked finger. Then to top it all off, I ran out of tags. So I went to my office to print some more out and use the paper cutter which would be much more time efficient than cutting each one out w/ scissors. Smart right? In an ideal world it would be. In this world, I hurried too much and ended up slicing a piece of my thumb off with the paper cutter! Who does that?! Blood, oh my God, there was blood. It didn't hurt but it was so scary to look at. Of course there were no bandaids so I wrapped my thumb in gauze and medical tape. Then I had to finish all my tags and hanging since I had an appointment to turn my stuff in that afternoon! It's very difficult to operate a safety pin with a mummy thumb so I grabbed the only bandaids we had in the house:

Cute huh? I shouldn't wonder how Mia hurts herself just standing still. I have only my genes to blame.

The cutest chicken nugget ever!

Seriously, how can you look at this girl and not think she is adorable? I'm not at all biased either. She's quite possibly the cutest 2 year old in the world, or at least a close 2nd to Suri Cruise. Tyson should totally pay me to allow her to promote chicken nuggets. Does she not hypnotise you w/ those dimples? You want chicken nuggets now. You need chicken nuggets.

When 4 Year Olds get bored

Home this past week because of pink eye and last week because of the flu, the girls and I were getting a little bit stir crazy. Well, more than a little bit because, really, how many Disney movies can you watch in a row without having some sort of nervous breakdown? I really can't answer that honestly because I was a bad mommy and sat watching LOST episodes on the lap top with the headphones on while I cuddled w/ my sickies. But after a while, even Jack Shepard gets old and so we turned to the karaoke mike and the camera and let the fun begin!


To the best of my ability, I tried to transcribe the lyrics you hear on this jewel of a video. Here they are in all their awesomeness:
I think so I like a light (incoherent mumbles, if you want to take a stab at the next few words, be my guest)
Something alone
A lonesome boring. I think it's not. Boring. When you're alone I, I think it's a lot. When you're alone, when you're alone and just scared, in the dark, and it's okay.
Princess up in the sky......be watching you under a star (more mumbling interupted by Layla who is closer to the camera mike)
hey hey hey
*heavy, depressed sigh*

Family services should be here at any moment.

Google ads amuse me

I promise, I will post really cute pics and video of the girls tomorrow. Really, I will. Right now I hope you will giggle as much as I did reading the Google ads that have popped up around my musings. My lamentation of the bathing suit rack has caused a Plus Size Bathing Suit ad to appear. I worked very hard to not be a plus size anymore. Very very hard. I still can't pull off a bikini but I am by no means a plus size. So now it's Damn you Google. Give me an ad about something fun, like puppies or ice cream. You know, useful things.

Don't mess with Disney

We just got through a tornado warning. Sirens went off and everything. I pulled the girls downstairs to sit with us. Try explaining to a 4-year-old why she has to stop watching the Pixar Disney Short Film collection just to sit in the living room and watch the weather channel. Freak out! I told her there were tornadoes and until the siren stopped, we had to stay downstairs. So every 5 sec. we hear "I think it stopped. I don't hear it anymore. Do you hear it? I don't hear it. We can go watch our movie now. I'm going to MISS IT!" 4-year-olds don't place danger above Disney. Ever.

The siren did, of course, finally stop and they are now back upstairs in their Pixar induced comas. Until we interupt them again for dinner in about 20 min. That should be fun.