Why Summer is Great.......

This weekend was lovely for the most part. We celebrated my mom's upcoming 60th birthday on Saturday by surprising her with a spa day and a family picture. It was so much fun and literally the first time our whole family has been together since Jeff & I got married 2 + years ago. It really meant a lot to mom just to have us all together. We took her to Texas Roadhouse for dinner and Cooper was extremely well-behaved(he entertained himself and all of the tables around us by waving a dill pickle around and smearing it on his face and hair) until we had to give grandma her birthday Yee-Haw, then he was a little upset and we needed to get him in the car and on the way home. He was asleep within 3 minutes of pulling out of the parking lot.

Today Jeff's mother visited which was a wonderful excuse for me to make home-made potato salad and a tiramisu trifle. Both turned out excellent and we grilled brats, burgers & polish sausage that Cooper & I picked up at Maplewood Meats. I can not wait to head out there again - I LOVE that place.

Other than that we are having a wonderful summer, Cooper is becoming more hilarious every day and growing up way too fast. I can't believe he is 9 months old already! I am of course already working on his first birthday party - we have a very special theme and menu in the works.

Have a good week everyone!

How could she keep a straight face?
I have been in a bit of a funk lately. Not sure if I am depressed because I have a birthday coming up I will never admit to celebrating or if I am just crabby. Anyway I was doing a little searching through my memory bank and I started to think about jump roping in Catholic School.
Picture it, St. Andrew, circa 1988, I am a fifth grader and we have a jump rope unit in gym class. for our final test we need to perform a routine which can be either solo or in a group. And even though I started in a group I am sure some one in the group irritated me(something that still happens today when I attempt to work in groups) and I decided to just do the routine on my own.
I selected the Pointer Sisters song, "Yes" and went along planning a little routine where I showed all of the dippy jump rope tricks we learned and thought nothing more of it. Well over this weekend something occurred to me and I am not sure how in the HECK my catholic school gym teacher could EVER keep a straight face. Some of the lyrics to this song are, "Oh YES, we're gonna makea love, gonna be tonight, YES I can just imagine, huggin and squeezing and loven and teasin all night: YES" What on earth was a 10-year-old doing listening to this? And what would make me select this for my jump rope routine? I just crack up thinking about that teacher trying to watch my routine to the Pointer Sisters talking about getting some and it puts me in a happy place!

Is this possible?

I truly have nothing to blog about. Perhaps I will share how we had a marathon laundry folding session around here or how I made banana chocolate chip muffins today. Seriously other than that nothing is going on around the H-Household this week. Perhaps it is a blessing in disguise and I shouldn't worry about it.

But then I will have nothing to worry about and I will just have to blog about that!

2 favorite new websites....

Oh yes, I actually have some advice, can you believe it?

I recently decided to give up paying WAY too much money at places like Chameleon & Synergy for my haircut for many reasons. First, it is super expensive, second no matter where I go and what I tell these fools, I end up with the same long layers I have had for the past 5 years, third, I have recently decided to donate my hair to Locks of Love in honor of my friend Summyr who is battling leukemia and realize while I am growing my hair to the longest it has ever been, it truly does not matter what it looks like. So, brace yourselves...I visited www.costcutters.com and discovered that they give you coupons and have a reminder service that you can set-up to email you when you are due for a trim, which includes a coupon EVERY TIME. What is even better is the salon nearest to us has my favorite stylist Renee, who I went to while in college and absolutely love. So even better, reconnecting with a long lost stylist who always does a great job!

Next, I am making a top secret birthday present for MeeMaw(that's what my mom called herself once instead of Grandma and it is so hilarious, I just had to start using it). I am using www.mypublisher.com and designing a storybook about Cooper and MeeMaw that she will be able to read to him for years and years. They have beautiful options there!

I can't take it anymore!

Why are the children who live in this neighborhood so stupid? Really I think it is the parents, but I can't be sure. Here are my two examples:

#1) I came within inches of hitting a little girl on a scooter this morning. I assumed since she was stopped at the corner and I had my left blinker on she would perhaps not put herself directly in front of my car. Wrong, literally as I took my foot off the brake this total moron rode right in front of me. The sad thing is, this happens all the time in our neighborhood, those on scooters assume they have the constant right of way, can drive down the middle of the street and not stop at stop signs. Eventually one of these little kids is going to get hurt and as some one who watched her younger brother get hit by a car - I hope it is not me who is the driver when(not if) it happens.

#2) The kids next door, for the record we are pretty positive that either their parents are running a meth lab, or they are on some serious meds, placed a slip & slide in the front yard this week and it has become the neighborhood hangout. It's very entertaining for Cooper to watch the kids outside playing. Here is the problem - they are so dumb, and of course their parents are busy "cooking" and don't have time to supervise them EVER, so they have put the slip and slide going UPHILL in their yard. Sooo - no one is really sliding. It's more like slip and skate or slip and scoot. I was thinking that maybe after two days of this it would occur to them that wow, this would work a whole lot better if we say, turned it around. NOPE-they are still sliding uphill.

Please say a prayer that my kids don't turn out this stupid!