Busy Busy

January 30, 2012Leave a comment

Phew. It was one of those busy weekends that leave you in need of another weekend. Sadly, it’s going to be an equally busy busy week followed by another busy busy and super fun weekend! Here’s what we did:

Swim partner, Ryder’s 3rd birthday

Dinner with the Phi’s – my ribs still hurt from laughing

Dinner with our preschool friends – picture 4 towheads wearing every stinking piece of dress up clothes and accessories we have and parading through the house. It was fantastic.

Baby shower / house warming party for work friends.

Oh, and Bay has a touch of a cold which is making sleeping difficult…for everyone. But she’s in good spirits when awake and I’ve got my famous Bobbi Brown concealer to cover the oh-so-scary dark circles under my eyes so we’re in good shape. And judging by the length of that last sentence, we do have coffee.

And in true I’m-having-way-to-much-fun-to-remember-to-take-a-pic form, I have no photo evidence of our super fun weekend. Boo.

But this week will prove to be equally busy with lots of water company work (so very close to completing our rate case – wahoo!), invoicing for the water co (always fun to create and then stuff 90 invoices into envelopes. Don’t worry, I reward myself with wine), Scottsdale Mom Blogs post (hello Valentine’s dinner in recipes),play dates, school and swim – and we wrap up the week with the George Straight concert and super bowl party. Phew. Glad we all napped yesterday.

Baby What??

January 23, 2012Leave a comment

In anticipation of my sister Ali’s baby shower this past weekend, I tried to find some baby shower game ideas that were a little outside of the box. And by that I mean something that was not annoying like that damn game where you put the clothes pin on your shirt and ever time you say “baby” someone gets to take your clothes pin. The last shower I was at where we played that game, a fellow guest literally started pinching me after she took all my pins. It almost got ugly.

I found the usually stuff like “Guess Mommy’s Tummy Size”…boring, and potentially a loaded game if Mommy is a little larger than she thinks she is. “Baby Item Word Scramble”…yawn. “Finish the Baby Rhyme”…blah blah blah.

As I dug deeper, I found some really messed up baby games. Such as:

“Pin the Sperm on the Egg”. I’m not kidding.

“Dirty Diaper” – I thought this was only in the movies – you melt candy bars into a diaper and make people guess what the candy bar is by smelling it. There are no words for describing the level of nastiness of that one.

“My Water Broke!” – guests are given drinks with ice cubes containing plastic babies. When your ice-cube melts setting the baby free, the guests shouts that their water broke and they win a prize. I actually kind of like this idea because I don’t really have to participate, but it needs a new name.

“Bobbing for Nipples” – again, not a joke. Just like bobbing for apples but you use bottle nipples. Lovely.

We ended up using a variation of a game we played at Ali’s wedding shower – she gets asked a series of questions and then has to eat something when she answers wrong. Pregnancy themed food was pickles and ice cream – ice cream if she was right and pickles if she was wrong. I only tortured her a little with questions like “how many feet does the average toddler crawl in a day?” and “who is the celebrity whose daughter is named Sadie Grace?”.

All in all, it was a lovely shower and Ali got lots of great gifts – I was running around like a crazy woman so I didn’t get any pictures, but Ali’s sister-in-law did so more to come!

Creative Weeding

January 10, 2012January 9, 20121 Comment

We live on a great street. We have lots of neighbors with kids and we are friends with a good 80% of our street. Like sit on the patio and have a cocktail, come by for dinner, can you watch my kids for an hour, here’s my spare key kind of friends. It’s awesome.

Friday night, Melissa came by with several bottles of wine (if she ever leaves the wine business, there will be tears). We cracked a bottle and sat on the patio while dinner cooked. I told her about our neighbor to the West kids “borrowing” neighbor to the East’s scooter. In their defense, the scooter was in the front yard. Now, we’re talking all kids involved are 3 years old and younger. Nothing malicious, but there was confusion about where it had gone and why there was a new toy in the garage.

I joked to Melissa that she was safe since she wouldn’t have any toys in her front yard. She thoughtfully sipped her wine before responding: “Do you think if I tied Smarties to the weeds in my grass, they would steal those?”.

I’m pretty sure we woke up the sticky fingered toddlers laughing.

New Year’s with Old Friends

January 3, 2012Leave a comment

We spent new year’s eve with one of my best friends, Beth (Marengo) Meyers and her always hysterical hubby Grant. They hosted a fantastic get together at their house where we ate, drank and played games until the wee hours of the night.

Beth slaved all day (or many days I’m sure) to create a tablescape that was second to none – not only were the appetizers delicious, they were beautifully presented. Shrimp salad in martini glasses, pulled pork sliders with slaw and a pickle on top with little toothpicks, beef crudities, antipasta platter, dips, chips, homemade pizzels, cheese cake bites and the list goes on and on! It was delicious too. She comes by it naturally, but it does seem a little unfair that she has that much talent 😉

Around 10, we started Celebrity. A game my step siblings introduced us to a few years ago and we’ve been obsessed ever since. PW and I have taught many a group of friends how to play, only to pass on the obsession and fierce competition. We played boys verses girls and of course, the girls wiped the floor with the boys – despite rampant attempts to cheat on the guys side. Next came catch phrase and with a few doosies like “storm is brewing” and “au revoir” the girls were again triumphant. The new catch phrase came from Grant as he repeatedly declared the games “bullshit”.

PW and I enjoyed a lovely munchkin free night in B&G’s cozy casita and awoke to fresh baked cinnamon rolls, coffee, eggs and tasty leftovers from the night before. PW’s mom Marilyn, brought Bay over and she joined us for some breakfast and then it was home for everyone to catch a nap. Which is one of the standard favorite parts of a weekend for me.

We spent the afternoon packing up Christmas and enjoying the EIGHTY DEGREES outside by opening all the doors. The breeze was blowing and there was a tangible feeling of 2011 leaving and 2012 blowing into its place. We had some the saddest moments of my life loosing Mame and Travis T. Dog, but we had some really wonderful times too. Here’s to hoping that the breeze is warm and there is smooth sailing for 2012!

Christmas Recap

December 28, 20111 Comment

Christmas is always a whirlwind of family parties, church, food and wrapping paper and this year was no different. We are truly blessed to have such a wonderful family – we were missing a few members this year to their in-laws, but we managed to adjust tradition and make it a beautiful holiday.

We kept with the tradition of the family sneaking all their gifts to one house so that the kids awake/arrive to a sea of presents. This year we hosted gift opening and it was a blast. PW and I both went to Bay’s room when she woke up and the first question out of her mouth was “did Santa come?”. We told her yes and that he had eaten his cookies and milk and that the reindeer loved their carrots. Her response? “did he put his dishes in the sink?”. Clearly she is my child.

She got to open one gift first thing – her new backhoe scooter – complete with a tool kit. What? Not everything has to be pink and pretty! She loved that she would have something that she could get around on quickly (she hasn’t quite mastered her trike yet) when she plays with Britain down the street.

She beeps when she backs up

“rip and tear!!”

Once she was done opening her presents, she asked for a “time out” in her crib. Which I think was a nice way of saying “overloaded”

“Boots like Morgan!!!”

We switched up our usual schedule a bit which left Christmas day afternoon open – which meant plenty of mimosas at brunch and a nice long nap for the whole family. The best part was that we had several friends stop by. Normally getting together with friends means much planning and coordinating of calendars, but the shared day off by all meant lots of very welcome impromptu visitors. We got to catch up with a great friend and best man from our wedding, Ryan and by Baylor’s Godfather Joe and his fiance Brandy. There was also a convoy of new bikes, scooters and cars with the neighborhood kids while the parents sat on the patio and sipped champagne. It was a perfect holiday.

After Bay had gone to bed last night, PW and I enjoyed our gift from my parents, a 2007 bottle of Cakebread Cabernet (we typically by wine base on the fact it’s under $15, not so much on the year). We were snuggled on the couch when PW looked over at the coffee table full of new Legos and said:

“Your Lego tower is pretty wonky”.

“It’s a tree” I replied.

“Wow. That’s a pretty crappy tree.”

“Listen, I don’t work at Lego Land, ass. Use your imagination!”

Merry Christmas!

December 23, 2011December 23, 2011Leave a comment

Merry Christmas!!

Thank you all for reading The Goon Room, for all your comments and words of advice. I’m grateful for all of them! I hope you all have a wonderful holiday filled with family, friends, memories and much happiness.

Hand print Santa by Baylor Wand

I love looking at all our friend’s smiling faces!

It wouldn’t be Christmas without torturing Bear with some antlers.

Baylor’s Christmas list:

1. Boots like Morgan (her best buddy has a rad pair of green galoshes)

2. Presents.

Well said little lady!

Preschool Play

December 21, 2011December 21, 20111 Comment

Baylor had her first Christmas play last week and to say it was adorable is an understatement. I have been hearing bits and pieces of Christmas songs like Twinkle Twinkle Christmas Angel and Are You Sleeping? for weeks so I was excited to actually hear the songs in their entirety.

Room 1 was lead in by their fearless (I think that’s actually part of her job description) leader, Teacher Jackie. They sang three songs with no tears and only a few wiggles. If there was a picture of Peter, me, my mom and his mom, we would have all looked like giggling idiots – my face hurt from smiling.

Ready to belt it out

Finally spotted Mom, Dad, Grandma and Noni

Hand motions for the “like an angel in the sky” part

Proud of their performance

I love this – they hold hands when they walk somewhere – B and her buddy Morgan know the drill

Easy Christmas Decorations

December 14, 2011December 14, 20112 Comments

Holy cats. This Christmas has been screaming towards us like a Mack truck. I feel like we’ve been scrambling from the get go to catch up / get ahead of this holiday. When we were putting up decorations, I realized one of my favorite things is one of the simplest. It’s a trifle dish full or ornaments surrounded by a fresh, live wreath. And this past weekend, I found a banner that cascades out of the middle that really is the icing on the cake – er, trifle. And really, it’s so something that Kristin Thomson at www.oneprettyplace.com could whip up lickety split.

Tree Hunting

December 6, 20111 Comment

Peter finally convinced me this year to go up North and cut down a Christmas tree. I have always been opposed because his plans involved me sitting in the back seat with a squirmy, crying kiddo while getting motion sick for 5 hours while he sipped hot chocolate, sang along to Christmas songs and drove his oh-so-precious truck.

He agreed to move the location to a much more reasonable destination and went the first day permits were available to ensure that we got the right area. The plan was that we would drive up just north of Payson, get our tree, eat a picnic brunch and head back while the munchkin napped. When I told our friends Beth and Grant of our plans, the wanted to join. So now we would have a party for our Griswold style tree hunting. We were certain it would be a disaster, but hopefully a hilarious disaster.

Sadly, Mother Nature had other plans. She decided to dump 2 feet of snow on the usually dry area the day before our trip. After looking at the web cams and the road conditions, we decided it wasn’t safe to risk an accident or getting stuck. So we opted for church, breakfast and tree hunting at a lot with our friends.

PW and I each can’t remember the last time we had a real tree. We have an awesome, pre-lit version that is so easy we just always go with that. But the live version is pretty great – we bought from a local nursery and the thing might as well have been cut down by us it’s so fresh! Here are the highlights:

Getting her in place.

Uncle Grant ATTACK!!!

Aunt Beth 🙂

Straightening it out…again. It only fell over twice.

Ta da!! I was trying to get tricky with my camera to get lots of light, but it didn’t quite pan out…

Who is that teenie, tiny lady?!

Old School

From the time I was little, I remember Mame had this on her dresser.

I’ve actually done a good job of making a photo ornament for each year. I love looking at all of them!

Giving Thanks

November 28, 2011November 28, 2011Leave a comment

Holy moly. It’s been a crazy week! Thanksgiving was one of the best yet – after 5 years of hosting, I think we have feeding 20+ down to a science. We’ve gotten to see and spend time with old friends and lots of extended family. Baylor is officially BFFs with her second cousin, Abby. And is solidly convinced that her (step) cousins are the best.

Mother Nature threatened, once again, to rain on our parade. I literally stepped out onto our patio with my hands on my hips just daring her to keep sprinkling all over my beautifully set table. Thankfully, I have a very convincing “mom stare” and she backed off before my linens were soaked. In fact, the sun came out by the time all of our family and friends arrived with side dishes in hand. PW’s turkeys were the best he’s ever made and the entire evening was…relaxed. The everyone ate and then sat and enjoyed the beautiful Arizona weather, candle light and kid’s laughter.