A family of entertainers...

It's a good thing I have a marketable skill or we'd all be in the poor house...

I think Julie's WTF look kind of says it all:


Cassie's "Rock Show"




Jamie's "Dog Show":




... and Tom thinks he is a Guitar Hero (ca-thunk is NOT a note):

Dinner Out

Zorba in Round Rock rocks

Beautiful Austin Day

Jamie reading and Cassie bathing

Jamie read Cassie a book... he has now taught himself to read upside down. Okay, is it me or is that brilliant? I didn't figure that out until 5th grade. I remember doing it even. I'm quite impressed! He did pretty well too!



And Cassie taking a bath. I figure sooner than later it'll be weird to take pictures of my kids in the bath, so decided to grab one :-)



The kids are finally taking separate baths. Well, Jamie is taking a shower. Tonight was the first time he did it himself. He got his clothes, started his own water and came out dressed and cleaned. Awww... he's growing up so fast. I remember getting swollen legs from sitting up with him all night when he was just 2 weeks old. And now he's this... this... kid!

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another game

its too early for this

Mr. Overachiever Daddy and the Errupting Volcano Cake

My house is a complete disaster, but everyone at the elementary school is fully in a sugar coma :) Make sure you scroll down to see the erupting volcano cake.... seriously, people. He needs a hobby.

For V-Day Tom made the teacher's a double heart cake - can we all say "awwww..." now? *laugh*



Suck Up!

And now the eruption. The lady who had the camera didn't know it was recording so I spliced it together as best as I could... Do you hear those kid's screaming? OMG... it was so loud. I'm almost glad I had to stay here and work on those never-ending stream of tax forms.

For those of you dealing with tons of snow... neener neener

The weather is supposed to get gross and Cassie is taking full advantage of it now, as you have seen lately. The little girl next door came over with her roller blades and they had a blast... I got to read a while too :)

Cassie is loving outside right now...

The weather here is absolutely gorgeous this week (well, it's supposed to get colder tomorrow and over the weekend). But Cassie has been taking full advantage of it, spending a lot of time outside. For her birthday, someone got her bubbles and another person got her a tether ball. She has had the BEST time with it!

Kids In Trees

We have this tree in our back yard that they kids like to sit in or climb on. I have no clue what kind of tree it is... I'm just not a tree person... but the kids were outside and we had some great overcast light, so I took a couple of pictures. Neither were very cooperative (I know, that's a shock - the little stinkers).

Cassie's Party...

We had Cassie at the local indoor jumpy castle place. It was a pretty small party. The theme was "backwards". The kids wore their shirts backwards (well, some did - Cassie refused herself). They walked backwards sometimes, they said "goodbye" as they came in, the cake was written backwards :)

AND the party was backwards... FIRST we opened presents, THEN we had cake and THEN we played. It was very silly ;)

We hung out and then grandma treated us to dinner :)

Pictures (Tom did the cake this year... all by himself!):

I'm "This Many" Today

Happy Birthday, Cassie!

Today, my little girl is 5. Where has the time gone? She'll be starting school in the Fall. She's such a little pre-teenager (already?) that when I told her I needed a picture of her this morning, this is what I got:



Hey, at least it wasn't a "talk to the hand" picture. What a brat. And yes, I've brushed her hair since then ;)

Cassie is my little girl. When she smiles, she smiles with her entire face and can light up a room. When she cries, she breaks your heart into a million pieces. And yes, she uses both to manipulate people and she knows it. But it's okay, everyone is aware of it, so that makes it okay, right? She's beautiful and smart and sweet and always has a hug for (almost) anyone that asks. If you ask her whose girl she is, she'll promptly tell you "Momma's Girl" - very well trained.

Happy Birthday, sweetheart. I hope you have a great time at your party. More later on that :)

I took this one a couple of days ago. She and Julie are "like a pair of mandarin ducks" (hehehe, been reading Snow Flower and The Secret Fan) - Julie is going to be so confused those first few days when Cassie starts school. She's giving Julie a PB treat here :)

Random Jamie Photos

I bribed Jamie to help me do some photographs for my class this week :)

If I had better planned my time this past week, I would have done it outside in pitch dark so you wouldn't see we were in the bathroom (only room with no sunlight whatsoever). But oh well.

Famous Last Words

"I'm going to make a volcano cake for Jamie's class... Yeah that erupts... No just a simple one... No really!"

WTF? This should be interesting... stay tuned on Thursday!

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Battleship, Dudes!

Jamie loves games. Computer games, card games, playground games, board games. If it were up to him, he'd spend all day playing a game. The kids were playing next door when he came home all dejected saying the girls didn't wanna play with him...

Let me digress for a second... it's been interesting to see the change over the past several months. The little girl next door is the same age as Jamie, but she's a girl. When we first moved here, Cassie was still pretty little (I remember sending her next door in a pull up and praying she didn't have an accident!) so the little girl and Jamie were closer. But now... the girl stuff has outweighed it as Cassie has gotten older. I dunno, it's probably good because when Jamie started school, he knew the little girl would be there and now that Cassie will start, she knows she will have them both there. I'm kind of sad for Jamie though. He really wants to play with them... BUT Jamie also I'm sure is being difficult. Things have to be a certain way for him to agree to it, so his neurosis are probably driving the girls crazy. Anyway...

So, he came home and came into my office (yes, I was working - welcome to tax season) and asked me to play. So... we played. He is actually pretty good - he beat me the last time, but I got him this time! He is a surprisingly good sport about it too. Anyway... ignore the clutter that is my kitchen area right now - seriously, it's disgusting - here he is waiting for me put down the stupid camera and play already!

Blocked

Go MadDog Go!

Weekend Sports

We had games this weekend, just sharing the pics...

I love this picture. I've been trying to get this picture for 2 weeks now! WooHoo!


Jamie passing the ball (see! he does touch it!)


Cassie taking a water break


Cassie going after the ball (she actually made a goal this game, but it was on the other side of the court so I didn't get a pic)

MNO: The One Where Candy Is The Paparazzi

We had a Mom's Night Out at one of my friend's houses on Saturday night. Her husband was out of town and her kid was at grandma's house. SCORE! For those of you wondering what a mom's night out really is, it's basically an excuse for us moms to dump our children on our husbands and sit around either a restaurant or someone's house and laugh (or cackle as Dy's hubby says - he actually calls us "that cackle of women that came to my house") and drink and laugh and bitch and moan and drink and laugh some more :-)

As our little group has grown (we had like 10 people show up this time), we've started having them at someone's house - not as noisy as a restaurant and we all just bring something to drink/eat/whatever and do whatever. This time we had Boogie to keep us entertained. You know you are with good friends when you can get halfway sloshed, sing off key, call them dying cats and they still love you anyway :)

Angela can actually sing - either that or I had more margaritas than I thought. Yes, Denise always looks this confused. *snicker*


This is Claire Delaine. She can sing pretty well too.


This is Jen. She's preggie and the cutest thing ever. We made her sing a few times though :p


This is my friend, Denise. She was trying to dance along with the character on the screen. This was after only one margarita.


We had a great time. Thank you, Dy, for letting me crash at your place :)

Speaking of Dy... make sure you visit her blog before her hubby makes her take that post down... it's freaking HILARIOUS!

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Heard From The Backseat

"I didn't hit her, I popped her."

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Heard From The Backseat

"Mommy is getting grey because we're growing older, Cassie"

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