Tag Archives: family

pfizer

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O just wrapped her first big time commercial.

It was probably the biggest one she has done so far in terms of competition and work involved on her part. Her BandAid commercial ended up being really big but it was nonunion to start so none of the union pros were able to audition. This commercial was a union job so all the union kids auditioned in addition to any nonunion kids. She had a couple solid lines and a principal role in the shoot.

I must admit I was nervous, we go on these auditions and typically the odds are so stacked against you that you leave and don’t think much more about it. (ok, well that’s such a lie because I think about it every day until I hear it books!)

I took her to the first audition, also called first round/call. We had just been to the same casting office a week or so earlier for a different huge casting (20 kids for a school class) which I was sure she would have booked but alas I will never know what casting is looking for. She did get a callback for that one too but ended up not booking! Bummer.

I will never understand this business and as much as I retrospectively analyze each experience it never paints a clear picture. We arrived on time and hung out in the waiting room. The casting director came out and informed all us moms there were lines for the audition so we all scrambled to get our kids prepped last minute. Usually we get the script ahead of time to practice but this was only a one-liner so it was no big deal. O ran lines a couple times then was called back and skipped her way into the audition room. But when she came out O came out with this look of sadness on her face I was immediately in mad-mom mode wondering what these people said to her.

“what happened, what’s wrong?” she informed me that casting asked her to do other lines that weren’t for her age. LOL. Good thing? Bad thing? One will never know. Except I did learn during the shoot the client thought O was hilarious because she apparently told casting in the audition “those aren’t my lines“. And she was right. And they loved her ‘tude I guess.

Then the callback audition.

This was awful timing for me and C so Grandmom ventured out this time. All was smooth sailing and O said she had fun and did a few more new lines.

O then got a “hold” placed on her, which is when they want specific kids to be available to them while they figure out  which one they will use for the shoot.

When we got the booking call I was nervous and excited.

It’s a lot of pressure wondering how O will be feeling the day of the shoot, if she will be into it or pick that day to decide she’s over this whole “acting” thing.

To top it off O woke up with pink eye two days before the shoot. I was FREAKING. Luckily I treated her with medication I had and it went away pretty quick but she totally woke up full blown sick sick sick the day after the shoot. I did learn a little stress reliever while on set – union gigs always book a back up kid in case things don’t work out with the first pick. PHEW. There were two for O’s role, two for her fake older brothers role and two sets of twins for the baby sister role! That was crazy because all the babies were cranky too. The very last baby of the four ended up working out for the shot.

 

She cracks me up with these roles. Whenever she gets off book for an audition she always incorporates new language from the audition or the characters name into daily play with her sister. She did a voicover audition for a fairy role and had t say “whoopsie-doodle”. Now her and W say “Whoopsi-doodle” all the time. And she makes us call her by her character name all the time too. Maybe she is a method actor? har har.

The shoot ended up going great. It was a lot of work for her but she nailed it. It should air in February – I will be sure to post it 1 million times everywhere I can as soon as I get my hands on it.

O's favorite things

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I’m big into lists right now. I don’t know why. I actually take that back, I have always been big into lists. My entire life is like a giant, never-ending to-do or grocery list. But maybe because the school season is approaching I have started thinking in an even more structured and nonsensical way about everything in my life.

So to go with the theme of lists here are five of O’s favorite things in life right now;

  1. making messes. It doesn’t matter where, it’s just her thing. Dumping toy boxes, spilling drinks, getting anything and everything everywhere. All messes in my house were created by her. (or the dog. Unless O is shredding dirty diapers and eating sh*t out of the trash can and just blaming the dog but I doubt it.)
  2. scotch tape. Scotch tape is like the newest obsession in my house. She scotch tapes everything. She tries to make books and scotch tape them together, I keep trying to introduce staples as a much more efficient book making mechanism but she won’t stand for it. She even scotch tapes her barbies to stuff, like the kitchen cabinet knobs. It’s like these poor barbies are trapped in giant scotch tape spider web fiasco’s all over my house. It’s both weird and creepy – however may be appropriate to keep around as Halloween Decor.
    1. as a side note W is into that blue painter tape. C uses it to tape down drawings and plans to the drawing table and W likes to rip off 1 million smallish pieces and stick them all over her face and body.
  3. stickers. F stickers. I hate you stickers. I have like a sticker infestation in my house right now. There are stickers stuck to the hardwood floors, toilets, toys, my desk, the kitchen table, the windows… when W was a baby I saw this weird blue thing in her mouth and C and I had to hold her down and dig a blue circular sticker with a flower on it out of her mouth – it was stuck to the roof of her mouth! I kept that one for the baby book obviously. All others stickers get destroyed onsite. 
  4. signs. We have pictorial signs all over the place right now. There is a picture of a girl “scotch taped” (go figure) to the bathroom door because that’s the girls bathroom, sorry daddy you must go outside and do your business. There is a picture of W and another picture of O taped to either side of the family room, because that’s their respective sides of the room for playing. I also found about 8 random signs taped to the wall space above the couch in my office varying in images from flowers to unicorns.
  5. clothes. So she is super obsessed with clothes right now. I know, adorable right? No. It’s effing annoying. She is constantly changing, like “oh, I sneezed and got germs on this shirt – I must change 563 times and throw every article of clothing I own all over the room and for good measure I will also throw some over the upstairs railing down onto the couch in the family room. AND in case that doesn’t drive Mommy to hide in the pantry and drink copious amounts of wine I will THEN proceed to hide the most important articles of clothing, the staples mommy always picks for me to wear in hidden locations, like under the bed or at the bottom of the toy box….”

Listen to me complaining. Like I don’t think everything O does is the most absolutely adorable and hilarious thing ever ever ever. Keep doing your thing O, and I’ll just keep cleaning up after you, it’s my job – plus it gives me great material. (And interesting talking points when my neighbors come over. I doubt anybody else in the neighborhood has Barbies taped to their kitchen cabinets.)

trouble

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Dearest Cousin (you know who you are),

I am both excited and terrified for your upcoming wedding. I know it will be the most amazing, memorable night of your life, it’s after all every girls dream to have a wedding with family and friends, a gorgeous gown, a loving night full of dreams and happy endings. However, I am genuinely scared O may not comprehend this is not her wedding, she talks nonstop about her wedding and her wedding dress and the party and flowers and how excited she is to be having her wedding.

Maybe there is a book on this topic. Like you can buy books on how “every body uses the potty” (oh, which reminds me O wrote a book specifically on this topic) or you can buy books about when your family pet dies and goes to animal heaven. I need to purchase the How to teach your 4 year old she is part of a wedding, but it’s not her wedding. Ugh, I hate to be the bearer of bad news.

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Then there is W. Look at that face. It just screamsssss trouble, it may not scream it in an articulate manner in which you the recipient would understand, but you would get the point.

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They are both so excited for “their” wedding and ask me nonstop when their going to have it.

fair

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We took the kids to the fair last week. I am excited just thinking about it. I love taking the girls to do fun stuff. Plus I have been shooting a webseries on the weekends so I wanted to do something fun and special with them. Plus, plus I wanted to see how W did on the rides because I want to plan a Disney trip.

IMG_2841 O being herself. Hollywood 24/7.

IMG_2848 Look at that face! She was so adorable. I was nervous she was going to blow a gasket because she’s all in the “do-it-myself” phase which literally makes me want to throw shit. There is a lot of stuff that drives me crazy that I have been able to let go of since having kids; like order, hygiene, a clean house… but when I am in a rush, like every morning – I don’t have time to watch you take 27 minutes to put on your underwear, W. Nor do I have time for you to change your outfit 64 times, O. I am just about capped on my maximum OCD tolerance. I digress…

Anyway I thought W was going to loose her shit and fight me standing next to her on the carousel but she let me hold on to her. Actually I was pretty bummed because C bought them both unlimited ride bracelets before we realized W was too small to ride any rides!

IMG_2858 Lucky for us this fair wasn’t too strict on rules and let W onto the rides anyway! We just watched the rides first to make sure there weren’t size restrictions for a reason… like the higher up ones.

That was her first ride by herself, she had this weird face the entire time and she didn’t move a muscle, O had the same reactions on her first rides when she was little! We were like… “is she scared?’ “is she going to cry?” “why is her face like that?”

Then she got off and wanted to do it again, and again, and again so we knew she loved it.

W reallllly liked all the rides that were horses. I think she would totally *love* to ride horses when she grows up but I doubt C will ever let that happen. I used to ride horses for years when I was younger and decided to pick the hobby back up after I met C. He would come watch me in my lessons sometimes and decided I wasn’t very good. Just because I got thrown off a lot doesn’t mean I wasn’t a good rider, I like to think I had very challenging horses – therefore I was actually an excellent rider… but anyway –

 

IMG_2891 IMG_2892 IMG_2894 They let her on a bunch of rides she was too small for – oops!

IMG_2898  We were safe about it though. This little kid swing was awesome.

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C won a prize throwing a baseball at a wall of bottles. He had to break a bottle. He’s so manly and strong.

IMG_2910 O and W played this game of throw a ball in a hole – win a prize. O picks a cute blow up pony. Ugh, W not so much.

IMG_2914 She picked some crazy ass purple alien. Whats worse is the damn thing stands up by itself and she puts it in odd places throughout the house and scares the shit out of me. She also put stickers all over its face for some reason. Creepy.

IMG_2921 Ssssso fun. I want to try Dutch Wonderland next.

little girls

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Sugar and spice and everything nice.

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W taking a picture of O (making a heart with her hands)

Sometimes they play so good and look so freaking cute I could imagine having 100 of them running around.

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HAHAHHAHA. Then reality hit’s and I’m all like, THAT was the WINE talking.

pottery barn inspo

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I love Pottery Barn Kids. I don’t really know why. Some of the stuff is just so effing expensive it doesn’t even make sense. But all the bedrooms are super matchy-matchy and freaking adorable. I wanted that for my girls but at like a Walmart price point.

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So cute, right? It’s been finished for like 6 months and no one has slept in here yet!

Money well spent!!!

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So this was O’s room and had a lot of stuff in it originally. I made these little side lamps before O showed up. They were old Pier 1 side lamps and I just bought new shades and some boa’s and stuck them around the rims.

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When O got a little older I saw all these precious DIY dress-up cabinets on Pinterest and just had to have one.

I could totally see it, all the little dress-up clothes hanging on little tiny hangers and looking so freaking cute. Well guess what – as you can see from the image below we just shove all those pretty little outfits in the door and close it. O never hung her clothes up and so not only did I have clothes everywhere but she would be running around with hangers too – uhhhh helllo dangerous! 

This was my moms dresser as a baby so it had some sentimental value. I spray painted this since it wasn’t real wood and glued fabric to the door because it was cracked. I also got the butterfly knobs from Target.

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I got this bookshelf from my mom also. I painted it and backed it with the same fabric as the dresser.

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O’s room was Mauve but I repainted it this candy pink color to match the bedding I ordered from Pottery Barn. I got the cheap last season bedding but it worked out for me anyway because I really liked it and it coordinated with the monogrammed pillows I wanted.

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Always wanting to help, unless it cleaning up her own toys, clothes, etc, etc and then she wants nothing to do with it.

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Love Love Love this sign we got from a burnt down barn. It was a charity event and I just haaaaaaaad to have it.

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O’s aunt made that wreath from pink tissue paper for my front door when I had my baby shower. It’s soooo pretty!

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This toy box was my dads growing up and I sanded the weird sketchy clowns off it and painted it 6 million times with that Martha Stewart Glitter paint. You can’t even see the glitter, total waste of time.

It is also filled to the brim with small $5 bribes. It typically costs about $5 to peacefully grocery shop with O, and it is so worth it. I would gladly pay double that to peacefully do anything with W but we haven’t reached that bridge yet. Apparently her patience and cooperation is priceless.

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Found these two on Craig’s list. Luckily C went with me to pick them up for one because they weighed like a million pounds each and for two you never know what kind of sketch ball is waiting to chop you up into tiny little pieces off craigslist. SO always bring someone with you! 

And don’t be scared to turn the sale down either! Unlike me who bought  broken $10 packnplay with baby vomit inside and actually spent $20 because the crazy woman didn’t have any change. My fault for not bringing exact change, I will admit – but ewww so gross for not cleaning your baby puke up before you sold your packnplay! I mean seriously have some dignity people!!!!

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Anyway. I painted and distressed these two and I love how they turned out. I was too impatient to order that Annie Sloan chalk paint so I used the Americana from Home Depot. Boy that is some thick stuff. We shall see how it holds up. I guess the good part about them being distressed is that scratches won’t matter???

teleworking

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It has been unfortunately snowing here off and on for the past few days (weeks – whatever). It sucks really bad. Traffic is already horrendous on a normal day – add snow and you might as well stay home. Like literally. We have a steep cliff for a driveway too so the littlest dusting calls for teleworking. Not only would I likely slide back down the driveway (hill) but I would slip off the back of the parking pad, which is a cliff down to certain doom.

Anyway, days I telework the girls just basically run wild throughout the house destroying stuff. Example – right now I have about 35 stickers stuck to the kitchen floor I have to eventually peel up at some point.

I’m not sure what drives children to just destroy but I feel as though they would be setting the curtains on fire and burning couches if I let them.

Figure 1 – playroom.

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I force myself not to look in there during the day. C gets so mad because I like to clean it all up at night before I go to bed. It looks so pretty all cleaned up.

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