It's Resolution Time

Here's my list.

1. I will limit the number of inanimate objects my kids swallow (such as jingle bells and address labels) to a managable number. Say 3 per child?

2. I will try to keep the holy terror/demon child rumors about Aidan at bay in our new town. At least long enough for him to get accepted into a preschool there.

3. I will exercise. Once. Maybe twice.

4. I will vacuum up that dead bug in Aidan's closet. Or I could leave it as a housewarming gift to the new owners.

5. I will not threaten to cut the heads off Aidan's babies when he obnoxiously shakes them in my face. Gonna try the being an adult thing this year.

6. I will quit Ped-Egging my feet into bloody, shredded masses.

7. I will invest my whopping 16 cents a day from BlogHer Ads in a high interest bond and retire rich off the proceeds.

I'll keep everyone updated on which ones I break and when I break them.

What New Years resolutions will you break this year?

Wordless Wednesday

Why Buy Toys When...

...Aidan's favorite thing he got for Christmas turns out to be... are you ready for this? A 3 ft Christmas tree I got at Wal-Mart for $6 on clearance 2 days after Christmas. Yup, and it's not even open, he loves the boxed up Christmas tree.

Well, it was obvious by this video that the piggy bank wasn't the big winner of the morning, wasn't it?

Next year it's a multitude of different sized cardboard boxes for him.

Pudding Mess

You haven't been into the pudding have you, Asher?

Pity Party

My husband has left me.

Not that way. He moved to Nebraska ahead of us to start his new job. The kids and I will stay here until this damn house sells.

It's been barely over 24 hours and it sucks. It hasn't sucked in the way I was scared it was gonna suck though. You know, the standard being slowly tortured to death by my own spawn children like I imagined. The kids have been pretty gentle on me. So to my very supportive friends who joked about me killing them and taking bets on how long I'd last while making it clear they had zero faith that I'd survive - who won the pot? Not that anyone called to make sure noone was dead.

Is there a natural law of absent husbands? I'm thinking there must be because our heat went out today. So it must work in conjunction with the natural law of mechanical failure only at night or on weekends.

I'm pretty sure that very soon we're all gonna be squeezing into Matt's little 2 bedroom apartment until we can get rid of this house. Wanna take bets on how long until someone gets hurt in that scenerio?

The Christmas Post

Our Christmas tree that spent the season locked up in the office because Asher can't refrain from chewing on the ornaments. At least it was visible from the street.Christmas Eve

Opa Daddy and Asher

The boys singing the blessing

Aidan opening his new guitar from Nana and Opa

Julyan

Asher peeking at John and Aidan playing video games

Kid Sister and John ignoring the rest of us

Nana

Jayden and Aidan goofing around

Opa and Asher

Christmas Morning

the pathetic few pictures I thought to takeLook what Santa brought MattThis post would not be complete without a signature Aidan moment captured on camera

Hail To The Infomercial

You've all seen them. Late at night when you should be sleeping but you're up blogging with the TV on. It catches your eye and you watch. For hours, you watch. Yes folks, I'm talking about infomercials. These are just a few of my favorites. Can't you just see Anonymous using each of them? For this session, I will be assuming Anonymous is a woman. Actually I really do assume this because, well, I'm a woman and I just know.

#1. The Snuggie

Because Anonymous needs her hands free for random snarky commenting. And she's so very high and mighty, she must be a monk so why not dress the part?

Blankets are OK but they can slip and slide, plus your hands are trapped inside!

The Snuggie keeps you totally warm and gives you the freedom to use your hands. Work the remote, use your laptop or do some reading in total warmth and comfort!

Snuggie is made with super soft, thick, luxurious fleece with roomy, oversized sleeves that let you do what you want while still being totally wrapped in warmth.

#2 Rejuvenique Facial Toning System
Because Anonymous must have serious facial tension from being so fucking uptight. Plus the mask makes her feel powerful and intimidating, like Jason Voorhies.

The Rejuvenique Facial Toning System consists of a facial mask with 24 individual gold-plated contact points that deliver a light energy pulsation to key areas of your face eight times a second. The energy pulsation is controlled by the palm-size Rejuvenique control unit, which is powered by a 9-volt battery. Special toning gel ensures proper contact between the mask and your skin. The mask system works in tandem with a range of lotions and vitamin- and antioxidant-fortified lotions and gels.

To use the system, you simply apply Rejuvenique gel to the 24 facial contact points, position the mask on your face, turn on the system, and enjoy 15 minutes at your own personal spa.

#3 Facial Flex

Because Anonymous has some serious frown lines from the disapproving expressions she must hold while reading my blog.

Facial-Flex can slow and even stop the sagging process from the inside out. Using Facial-Flex restores and maintains the original shape and contour of your facial muscles. As facial muscles get stronger, they get shorter and flatter, causing the attached skin to become firmer, improving your appearance.

How does it work? Facial-Flex is a dynamic external resistance device, six-and-one-half centimeters in length, made of surgical-grade stainless steel and Delrin plastic. It uses a replaceable six-ounce dental elastic to provide resistance to compression. The lightweight, crescent-shaped facial exercise device is placed in the corners of the mouth, where it maintains a constant outward resistance.

To use Facial-Flex, compress and release repetitively against the resistance of the dental elastic. This easy-to learn procedure will yield results in no time!

Facial-Flex exerciser could end the elusive search for the fountain of youth...

#4 HD Night Vision
Because Anonymous probably always wanted to be an international spy but she had to settle for prowling the internet in search of unfit mothers.

Do You Wear Glasses? You Need HD Vision WrapArounds
HD Vision technology gives you clarity that you have never experienced
Enhance your vision
Just like High Definition TV
Lightweight & durable
Modern European Style

Product Includes:
1 pair of HD
Vision WrapArounds
FREE BONUS ITEMS:
1 pair of Night Vision WrapArounds
Patented Visor Clip for your car ( $10 value) - just pay S&H

#5 Disinfecting UV Scanner
Because Anonymous is in all likelyhood a big germ freak. It's all tied up with her control issues, acting out in cyber-space, and paranoid fantasies.

Protects your family from colds, flu, and germs such as E. coli. Portable scanner instantly disinfects doorknobs, faucets, computer keyboards and mouse, phones. Just wave it over the item-kills 99.9% of germs in seconds. Great for travel and everyday use. Uses 4 AAA batteries (not included). Folds to just 4 1/2" long to fit in included carry pouch. $29.99 for your peace of mind!

For Shame

And this(notice the FIRE in the oven!!!)

is why I'll never make it on Top Chef.

Yes, yes, my poor husband and children.

What I Did On Christmas Day

And how did you spend Christmas Day? Sipping egg nog, visiting family, maybe playing outside in the snow? Well, not these goons. These are the searches that led to this blog on December 25.

SUCK ME

little pissy free

hickey my stomach

mama,s sissy boy

Hey, fool! This ( , ) is a comma and this ( ' ) is an apostrophe. They are not interchangable.

Do you get different results if you search in all caps?

I'm speechless typeless about the other two. People are kinda scary.

I Have No Fitting Title

Aidan to Daddy - "Do I just have to kick your butt for kicking Asher's butt? I will kick your hairy butt."

Boo Hoo Hoo

I'm still getting these emails from bitter Rupublicans.

Wow, how much more depressing can it get.

Professor Joseph Olson of Hemline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota , points out some interesting facts concerning the Presidential election:

Number of States won by: Democrats: 19 Republicans: 29

Square miles of land won by: Democrats: 580,000 Republicans: 2,427,000

Population of counties won by: Democrats: 127 million Republicans: 143 million

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Democrats: 13.2 Republicans: 2.1

Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Republican won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of the country. Democrat territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government welfare..." Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal invaders called illegal's and they vote, then we can say goodbye to the USA in fewer than five yearsIf you are in favor of this, then by all means, delete this message.If you are not, then pass this along to help everyone realize just how much is at stake, knowing that apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom.'Oderint, dum metuant'

Seriously, our country isn't exactly flourishing under the current administration. Do you not think that there is even the slightest chance that Obama's not a terrorist and that he might actually want to try to fix some shit? It must suck ass to exist day to day with that level of paranoia and desperate thoughts. Have a little faith! Isn't there anything else you could be doing besides forwarding assinine Obama-bashing emails? Or are you one of those who thinks I'm gonna go to hell for not forwarding the ol' "Forward this if you believe in God. If you don't, God will deny you later." emails? Cuz don't even get me started on those.

P.S. Anonymous, I'm about 106% sure you're one of those people, no need to comment to confirm.

Christmas Eve

We are attempting assembly of all the toys that Santa is getting the credit for. And by "we" I mean Sexy Beast is trying to get into the damn boxes and I'm sitting here laughing and blogging. We're a hell of a team.

Sexy Beast is about to break out the chainsaw to get into these boxes.

I'm pretty sure it's easier to sneak into this country than to get a toy out of it's packaging.


Enough bitching. It's Christmas Eve. We've just finished an enormous artery clogging dinner, spent time with family, and opened some presents. Now it's quiet, the kids are in bed, and I'm drinking making it look like Santa has come. Do you think it would be a bad idea to tell Aidan that Santa wants margaritas instead of milk? Either way, I hope my kids believe in Santa several more years. This is fun!

Another Girl's Night

Friday night the chicas (Lisa, Lenka, Toni, Paula, and Kristin) and I met up at Shoguns for some sushi.

Yes, sushi. I swore on everything that was holy that I would never try sushi. In my opinion, fish is not meant to be eaten raw.

All that said, it wasn't bad. You can't taste the meat really for all the rice, soy sauce, and chewy seaweed. There is a video out in cyber-space of me taking my first bite of a tuna roll. I'd like to smack Toni because do I really look like that? Chew like that? Laugh like that? Ugh! But I'll sacrifice for blog-sake and let you check it out.

Paula being PaulaToni and LenkaKristin and the infamous $20 martini And now the food

Edamame

California Roll
Some kind of crazy mixed meat stuff Toni ordered Lisa's Tuna roll and something with eel sauce all over it.
EEL SAUCE!
Yup, I ate some.

I'm gonna miss these girls when I have to pack up and move to the frozen tundra that is Nebraska. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!

Not In The Spirit

I'm having a hell of a time getting into the Christmas spirit. And by a hard time I mean it's virtually impossible. Here are a couple of the reasons why.

I'm growing to hate my neighborhood. You remember that my parent's car was stolen from in front of our house, right? We've had our mailbox kicked down by little punk-ass teenagers, our house and cars egged, pumpkins stolen from our porch, a major drug raid (SWAT and all) on a house down the street and now someone stole our recycling bins! Merry Christmas, hu? Who the fuck steals recycling bins?

If it wasn't abundantly clear before, I cannot cook. Not even simple stuff. I got a recipe for carmel popcorn from Lisa that she said was fool-proof. Let me introduce you to Fool. She didn't write a temp for the oven so I went with the basic 350. Wrong guess. I burned the holy hell out of it. It tasted like what I imagine a piece of charcoal might taste like. I call Lisa and low and behold it was supposed to cook at 250. Attempt #2, bomb. Right oven temp and it tastes so-so but it's a gummy, gooey mess. Sexy Beast encouraged me to give up on making carmel popcorn. Even Aidan said more than once, "Mama, you did something wrong. This doesn't taste like Lisa's." Maybe he should go eat at Lisa's. Then, I made Peanut Butter Yum Yums and they are just okay. I'm thinking this might not the the year to have Christmas dinner at my house.

If I have to go to Wal-Mart one more time I'm going with C4 strapped to my chest. I don't ever want to see the inside of that place as long as I live. You wanna see a lack of Christmas spirit, go check out Wal-Mart right now. You'll get your throat cut for your parking spot and little old ladies are throwing down in the baking aisle over the last package of yeast.

The best I can hope for this year is for the turkey fryer to malfunction and burn our house down.

Bah-humbug!

Bust

Aidan's preschool Christmas program was Friday night. He's been singing songs, doing marches, and making hand gestures for a week. Very excited.

Sexy Beast and I had our doubts but he insisted he was going and was gonna do it.

He lied.

Sexy Beast dug the camcorder out of the hell that is our office closet and got it all charged up. I bought him a crisp new white shirt and blue pants that was required and he even let Daddy trim up his hair. When the time came we got all dressed up and went over to the church.

He was supposed to stay in his class while we sat down in the gym and waited for him. He wouldn't let us leave. He wouldn't talk to anybody. He wouldn't put on his prop. He wouldn't practice. We knew it wasn't gonna happen and told him he didn't have to do it, that we could go home, but he insisted if I'd just walk with him back to the stage he'd do it.

He lied.

Finally, after 30 minutes of putting on the prop, taking it off again, walking over to the stage, coming back, bowing up and stomping, and threatening to make a scene, we left.

Then! Then, when we get into the truck he starts singing the songs.

And then my head exploded.

Merry Christmas, Mama

It's been months since Aidan has had his hair cut. After the last bout of public humiliation, I went on strike, I was done. It's not a battle I was gonna fight anymore. I was honestly ready to let it get really long. Sexy Beast was not on board. I figured when it bothered him enough, he could wrestle Aidan into the barber's chair. And good luck to him.

This morning Aidan was yacking about needing to "borrow everyone's money to buy a 'spensive toy". If I was a cartoon, a little light bulb would have appeared over my head. I told him if he'd get a haircut I'd give him a whole handfull of money. Pennies or quarters, it's all the same to him so I was planning on pennies. Being the bargainer he is, he said he'd only let his Daddy cut his hair. So we borrowed some clippers from Lenka and he went into the bathroom with this mop.

And he came out with this one. A vast improvement. He was in the beginning stages of a mullet before because he'd let us trim up his sides and bangs but not the back.

The remains

Lost

And this is why I don't buy gifts in July and save them for Christmas. Because I forget about them until Spring when I clean out the house and find them. Or if I do happen to remember the damn things, I can't find them. Sexy Beast and I tore this house apart last night looking for 2 DVD's I bought for Aidan this summer. On a positive note I did find a bag full of stocking stuffers I forgot about. Where in the sam-Hell could 2 DVD's be hiding? My theory is that someone broke into my house and stole my Christmas present stash. It's possible, right?

Hogtied

No, we don't do this to Aidan very often.

Yes, we'd really, really like to.

Welcome To My World

Aidan has a TV in his room.

Yes, Anonymous, I'm a parental sack of shit. Start looking up the number for Child Protective Services now.

So he has this TV and all of the buttons are pushed in and broken except the Power and Volume Up. Every damn day he uses a broom or toy gun to turn the volume up. And then Sexy Beast has to reprogram one of the other remote controls to turn it back down.

Did you hear that, Anonymous? We let him have guns. You find that number yet? Got your commenting fingers warmed up?

Anyway, it's an almost daily occurrance and it really pisses us off. Last night I turned the TV on so he could watch a movie and it was blaring. So I just punched out the Volume Up button. No more of that shit! I look down at Aidan and he's got this disgusted look on his face. He puts his hands of his hips and the lecture begins.

"Mama, why did you just break the TV? What is wrong with you? That wasn't necessary!"

Then when Sexy Beast came back in with the remote the ass-chewing continued.

"Daddy, it's not necessary for adults to tear up TVs."

Oh really, Aidan? You wanna talk about what's not necessary? By all means, let's do that.

It's not necessary to relentlessly hijack the keys and try to get into rooms that are locked to you. They are off limits for very good reasons. Back off!

It's not necessary to demand corn dogs or chicken nuggets for every meal. Variety is the spice of life. Eat a damn fish stick or something!

It's not necessary to stockpile Christmas decorations in your room. Leave my Nutcrackers alone!

It's not necessary to head-butt your brother in his stomach. When he loses the ability to breath for a few seconds, it's not a good thing. Eventually he is gonna get big enough to kick your ass. Be nice!

It's not necessary to divide all of your small toys into individual sandwich baggies. It's wasteful and I'm sick of digging them out of your brother's throat. Knock it off!

And finally, it's not necessary to fall onto the floor crying, kicking, and screaming when you've simply been asked to pick up your toys. I think you have too many toys so I'm just looking for an excuse to thin them out. Watch yourself!

Jerk

Kid Sister and the boys drove down from Nebraska and stayed here on their way to Nana's house. KS told me about a little conversation she overheard between Jayden and Julyan.

Jayden - "We're going to see Aunt Tamanda, Aidan, Uncle Mac... Uncle Mac's not a jerk, Julyan, ok?"

Julyan - "Yeah Jay, Uncle Mac's not a jerk."

Kid Sister - "Who said Uncle Mac was a jerk?"

Jayden - "I did."

At least he got taken off the jerk list that he was apparently on at some point.

P.S. Is it just me or there an awful lot of J's in this post?

Not Good Enough

This morning when Sexy Beast got up with the boys he had to fix a bunch of stuff that Aidan had screwed up before we knew he was up. Aidan confessed that he got into the soft peppermint sticks that he's not supposed to have. He told Daddy that I was a silly Mama. That that wasn't a very good hiding place. That they were easy to find and that I was gonna have to do better next time if I didn't want him to get them.

Then when Sexy Beast was in Asher's room changing him, Aidan locked the door so he couldn't get out. Sexy Beast got the key and unlocked it but Aidan kept locking it back. I find this enormously amusing but it really pissed SB off. Sorry, baby, it's funny.

Christmas Train

On Wednesday we met up with Lisa, Skylee, Lenka, and Jackson to ride the Arkansas Missouri Christmas train. We got there way early because we were told to get in the first car because it was warm and the other was cold. We were not informed that one was indeed the equivilent of a cattle car. We froze our bums off! There was actually an icy breeze for half the ride. My hair was actually moving from it. I was pissed! No, I'm not just being a baby and here's why. On the way back to the cattle car, we got to walk through the 3 warm nice cars. Big comfy seats, no ice, big plastic cups for hot cocoa, no breeze, elaborately decorated, no dust or dirt on the seats... You get the idea. The kids couldn't have cared less but this picture sums up my feelings quite nicely. Please ignore the quadruple chin I'm sporting.

Aidan and Skylee hiding between the seats together. They disappeared into the bathroom for a few minutes, too. We've gotta keep our eyes on those two.

Lisa and Skylee Me and a bug-eyed Aidan Lenka and Jackson Sippin' hot chocolate
Aidan making announcements on the train

An excerpt of some Christmas song singin'

Note: I don't know how to edit video so when I slip up and say stuff like "piss me off" and "Gawd!" at the end of my videos, there's nothing I can do about it. Lisa was telling me to take a walk to the front of the car so I could look into the other car and see them not freezing to death so that's what was "'gonna piss me off". And of course the "Gawd!" was over Aidan sloshing hot cocoa all over the floor in an attempt to dodge a snipers bullet. Oh wait, it was just a dang camera! Well, that makes perfcet sense then.