who else forces their kids to do photoshoots?
MDW
Went to Granite Hill MDW with a huge group this year. We call it “camping” but most all of us have travel trailers which are pretty much like driving a hotel to a campground.
Camping is so great, this years spot was so awesome too. One of the guys had booked it a year in advance! Good spots book so fast, especially for large groups. Most campgrounds consist of a million pull in spots on tiny lots, but this was around the edges of a huge field that was so perfect for the kids to play in.
The girls were in heaven able to just run around like little wild beasts. 
I am LOVING this daddy-daughter moment. Such a great pic.
Or this one, accidental capture of my baby being catapulted from the slide. I’m not sure how but she landed on her butt… and of course went back down a zillion more times. 
This is how you travel in large campgrounds, that or walk but who can walk with a herd of children? (most the kids were sitting up by me)
I don’t know about most kids, but mine usually eat better in a group. She actually ate a ham sandwich – um, awesome.
Um, there are no words. Really.
Party in the USA people, we rocked that dance party. O shut it down. Love.
Community slip-n-slide. That’s whats cool about camping too, neighbors are usually pretty social and neighborly. 
This is O on her bike. She doesn’t know how to ride, she says she is scared of it – but she does look pretty cute.
***sparklers**** I didn’t know they were even around anymore!!!
barre
I’m not a runner. Or a swimmer, or a weight-lifter, body-pumepr, jazzerciser, zumba dancer… you get the point. But I do have constant disgust and guilt about not doing any types of physical activity. Especially when I wake up in the morning and my bones hurt and I’m stiff and arthritic. It’s depressing. So last year I tried Insanity and it was total torture and I hated every second of it.
This year I finally got around to trying Barre. I’ve been wanting to do it for like – ever. There is a studio down the street from where I was working last summer and when I would walk to Subway on sunny days for lunch I would sit and chew my pickles and stare longingly with all the rest of the pervs eating lunch – at a perfectly sculpted female buttox in the studio window. I would daydream about rocking a thong that summer on family vacation… just kidding. My kids would be like, uh your butt is hanging out mommy, grossss.
So anyway – ironically there is a studio by my house and my awesome MIL bought me some sessions for xmas, SCORE>>>>
Unfortunately, they don’t watch kids so it’s like impossible to ever go but when I do get there I actually enjoy it and have fun. I can’t walk the next day but I feel proud.
I found this picture online and sent it to my friend and C to show them how painful it was in class.
The irony is I was like “I’m the girl dying” and they were both like, “oh, in blue??”
“No guys. This is not a real picture and that is not really me.”
Guess the joke was on me that I picked a photo with someone who actually did look like me.
table read
I think I heave serious commitment issues. Like when I commit to something, then regret it and wish I didn’t have to do it, then stress over it and stress over it and stress over it until I get there and have an amazing time and am SO HAPPY I did it. Until the next commitment… vicious cycle, press repeat.
I had known about “table read” for a while. It was a Sunday evening-ish and about an hour and a half away, I knew I would be home late and I didn’t know what it would be like and I was stressing I was going to suck or blow or just whatever word is “in” right now for being a total lame duck.
I arrived on-time and parked right next to one of the other girls in the cast so at least the intimidation of walking into a room of people staring at me was reduced. It was still a bit intimidating walking in there, not knowing what the process was going to be like. Is the producer strict? Is she mean is she snippy??? I was nervous.
First we did a photoshoot for the promotional material. So, you know when you don’t shave and you have to lay your hairy legs all in the laps and over top three other strange women? Oh, you don’t know what that’s like? Ok, well it is embarrassing. In my defense, I wore long capris and didn’t plan on snuggeling, but whatever – we’re all friends now! How about that moment the photographer asks you to take off your shoes and put your feet up on the coffee table and you remember you have the feet of an eighty-nine year old women which are currently died black from the gardening mulch? Yes, that also happened. At least I don’t have anything to be nervous about anymore. I might as well farted at dinner.
I gotta be honest though, having a photoshoot with a bunch of girls in the park on the water ain’t half bad. Actually it was very enjoyable.
The table read was also so fun and such a great learning experience. So cheesy, I know. But I googled table reads for like three days trying to figure out exactly what I was going to have to do. Now I am totally prepped for when I land that co-star role.
How hollywood does this picture look? Damn, should have gotten a mineral water. All famous people drink that weird mineral water that comes in that I Dream of Jeannie shaped green bottle. Must remember that for next time.
Well, here’s the cast. It’s almost like I have friends. Can’t wait to post more once we start filming!!! Two weeks count down… #nervouspooping
second child syndrome
I guess I should throw some pictures up of our second child too… small dogs are so different than the big ones. Not that I don’t love my little dog, she just requires much more and is less resilient than the bigger one. And peoples kids LOVE the small ones which makes it harder.
A face (ears) only a mother (or a Papillon fan) could love.
I think she’s so freaking cute, not to be confused with a Chihuahua, puuuuh-leeeease. 
Not a water-dog, yes she is a semi diva.
Not a purse pooch either, which is what I always wanted so I make her do it anyway. You can clearly see the look of distaste in her ears!!!
Sometimes a snuggle-bunny. But on her terms of course. She’s a total momma’s girl, not a real people person, you know stranger-danger and all that.
best dog ever
Everybody has a best dog ever but whatever. I can say though with much certainty that everyone who has met our girl has been won over. She has a pocket full of tricks that would impress even the most stuffy cat-lover.
She is getting up there in age and we think she just had a stroke so the side of her face looks a bit like her Madame Tussaud’s wax replica stood a little too close to an open flame. But the vet assures us strokes in dogs aren’t as damaging as in people and she’ll firm back up over time.
A true Lab, she has had an exciting life of boating, beaching and family fun. We invested in a camper specifically so we cold drag our furbabies everywhere with us. It’s really the perfect solution. 
Her only flaw is her bottomless pit. She has eaten herself into lots of trouble in her lifetime. Including eating greasy rocks from under the grill, she ate a blanket that required surgical removal of her intestines for manual “milking” that was awesome, sticks, loaves of bread, full freshly baked cakes, lots of paper products, some plastic products, bones, grass, fake indoor plants, cat litter excessively, lots of diapers, and a wide assortment of wild and domestic feces.
The best human pillow ever.
Our best dog ever.
exasperation
“Mommy, why are you making that face?” Because I am losing my marbles.
Mostly, I try to shake the small stuff, like my need for order, cleanliness, arriving on time for once – anywhere, putting on makeup, brushing my hair, ok – just general personal hygiene, getting out of my pajamas, making my children wear clothes, getting the dogs outside before they can’t hold it anymore, getting my kids to the toilet before they can’t hold it anymore, getting to the toilet before I can’t – ok this just got weird.
Anyway, my point is everywhere I look stuff just isn’t right and I feel like I have really grown as a person because I resort to taking pictures instead of totally flipping my shit. It doesn’t do any good anymore and if the baby craps on the floor once in a while because she won’t wear pants then I guess that’s what steam cleaners are for, right? Um, BTW Bissell is much stronger than Rug doctor in my personal experience and I have A LOT of experience.
figure 1. using all my clean dishtowels as a bridge across the floor covered in dog hair.
my flock enjoying individual dirt baths in my garden. bye bye new seeds I just planted. We will clearly not be harvesting any spinach or broccoli.
this is just a simple picture of my cat scaring about 5 years off my life when I got down on all fours to reach a ball that rolled under the bed. I look up to this nose right in my face. Not even sure why it scared me so bad.
#TBT
I heard a commercial on the radio yesterday that jogged a highly repressed memory of something that I can honestly tag as one of my more embarrassing moments. So, in honor of TBT (throw back Thursday) I’m going to dish on this awkward little on-going calamity I had with a former boss.
When I was pregnant with W I got assigned to help roll out this great big state project. The project manager assigned for this deal was a Californian who came to Baltimore a couple times a week. He was pretty chill, youngish, healthy-granola style and we meshed ok. You guys know what I mean by that, right? Example he stayed in a hotel in the Inner Harbor and actually went jogging around the Harbor at night. Like HELLO, do you have a death wish? Who goes running around the Inner Harbor at night? Well, maybe he was a super-fast runner and knew he could out run a stab attempt?? I digress…
So, one fine day when we were talking shop he randomly asked me where some good topless bars were. Though odd, I took it in stride and offered the names of some locations my brother had frequented and I knew were popular with C’s friends. I have some delusions of grandeur when it comes to Cali so I wanted to give this guy the benefit of the doubt. Plus, I always hear Cali is very liberal and though I probably don’t know exactly what that means – who knows, maybe they don’t have sexual harassment and stuff out there seeing as how everyone is famous and awesomely tan? Plus, being like 8 months pregnant I knew this wasn’t a come-on he just wanted to know where he could see some boobs. He was obviously lonely.
Fast forward a couple weeks later and I am in a meeting in his office running through some project data. In walks the administrator (my boss’s boss’s boss – like high up there boss man) we say our hello’s and he goes right into talking topless bars with Cali transplant project manager. Interesting. We are friendly, he once gave me a holiday mix tape (he gave lots of people holiday mix tapes but I felt cool to be on the short list) but this was a new level of work friendship. Nor did I realize how conversational and normal it was to eat dinner with co-workers at topless bars. Anyway, that’s being a pregnant girl in a man’s world, right? The Administrator starts rambling about how amazing the food is at this one specific location, though small portions, and complaining it was so dark he couldn’t see what he was eating. Well duh it’s dark, who wants to see cellulite right? They turn to me and ask my opinion about Croquetas, jerked from my musings on cellulite I stutter and fumble and somehow Nightshift maybe came out of my mouth, I can’t recall the specifics the aftermath was so humiliating. The administrator gives me a weird look and bids us farewell and exits quickly stage left. Cali project manager also has a weird face and asks what Nightshift is. The heat that radiated off my face must have sealed my fate before the dubious explanation of Nightshifts endeavors because Cali project manager was laughing like a Hyena on crack. WTF was going on.
They say you learn something new every day. That specific day I learned about Tapas. Tapas – a wide variety of appetizers, or snacks. Which apparently may be eaten in dimly lit facilities not to be confused with Topless Bars. Luckily Cali project manager did not take my suggestions to patronize any of the facilities I suggested. Lesson Learned.
Oakley's Band Aid Commercial
Here is Oakley’s latest Band Aid commercial. It will be airing today on the Disney Channel! Get it girl!! <3
She had so much fun with this one. Got some awesome outtakes of this little princess to…
strep
Apparently strep throat is spreading like wild fire in Jacksonville, FL and in my house.
Here’s a link in case you have family and want to tell them to stay indoors for fear of the “strep”.
http://www.news4jax.com/health/whats-going-around/strep-throat-is-still-going-around/31983248
I haven’t had strep in years, like many many years. Probably since I was in school and I don’t remember it being this awful. The worst part is my kids had it first so while they were crying and writhing in agony I was simply pumping them full of fluids and medication, oblivious to the fiery licks of pain they were enduring in their tiny little throats. Now I am suffering the wrath of strep and literally am incapacitated. It’s like my throat is melting from the inside out and I am sucking cough drops and drinking hot tea like a frenzied animal.
Screw you strep throat. I hate you.
And C is so scared. He knows he’s on Strep’s hit list. He went out and bought 3 cans of Lysol and has been dousing the house frequently. Like that will save his soul. The odds are against him, I hate to say it. Although I’m rooting for him. Hopefully he makes it out alive, he is the worst patient. He won’t even sit next to me on the couch. Maybe I will at least lose some weight out of this torture because that’s what it is. Total Effing Torture. If I had enemies I would cough on them. It’s that bad.
It started out in such an odd manor too. O came home from school complaining that her teacher gave her hot soup that burned her throat. I know, sad right? But I thought it was odd she burned her throat and not her mouth so we asked if her mouth was ok and she said it was fine. Sign #1. doom.
Then in the middle of the night O woke up screaming in terror shriveling away from both C and I – in utter terror! It was awful. She was so hot she was hallucinating – she said we had masks on us and she didn’t know it was us. She was totally freaking me out. Sign #2. gloom.
It was all downhill from there, more fever, loss of taste of food, more fever, W then started with the fevers so we ended up going to Urgent Care Sunday because that’s a great time to go. Positive strep tests led to antibiotics, popsicles and excessive amounts of chicken soup. Or actually excessive popsicles and no chicken soup but I try to get them to eat healthy. Half way through the week cold symptoms started and the girls ended up with viruses on top of the strep. Because I can handle all that is dished out to me. (that’s what I keep telling myself at least)
I literally wanted to go back to work that’s how bad it was. Interrupted sleep, crying, fevers, diarrhea – it was like a week of a sickness hell bender.
By Thursday both girls were finally well enough to attend school the next day, Friday. Yet by some act of mother freaking nature it snowed so I got stuck in the house one more day. It was the ultimate test to my sanity.
I ended up having a wonderful sickness free weekend though. Happy children, productive activities – even went to NY Sunday for a fabulous Network workshop for the CW before I was struck down by the hand of the strep devil. Now I sit here typing in front of a heater fantasizing about chicken broth, Afrin and my heating pad.