i have one word to say to you...

dear mc donalds employee that told my son he couldn't put his feet on the booth while he was sitting there and then proceeded to say something to me about it two more times while i had all five kids there with me but eventually gave up mentioning it after you had to go clean the men's room because someone had smoked crack in there,
i have one thing to say to you...

SERIOUSLY?!?!!?!?!?!!?!?!?

have a wretched day -

beth

ps - this is a true story. me + all five kiddies in mickey d's waiting for tommy to come in and have lunch with them because the boys had a half day of school. as i stood at the table, waiting for our food, another employee came out of the bathroom and said "damn! it stinks in there! someone musta been smoking crack." i naturally assume he was using the term as a figure of speech (as i do quite frequently. however, i did not know that smoking crack was really stinky), but alas, he wasn't. as the charming-yell-at-thomas employee walked past i heard her say "it's terrible. people think they can come in here to get high." then she made that sound like she was sucking her teeth. obviously, thomas sitting with his foot up was the biggest problem they had in there that day.

do they really belong to me?

so, i love my children's names but i know that they are not "fun" or hip or unique. they are good, traditional names that i love. even the two names that are my absolute favorites (you know the ones that when you were a silly little teenager planning your perfect wedding and your perfect future with your one perfect baby boy and one perfect baby girl and their perfect names) and that i think are really cool, are not in actually all that exciting (thanks to grandpop murray, pop speers and margaret mitchell). well, the girls have rebelled (shocking, i know) and have chosen new names for themselves.

meet...fifi and zsa zsa. for real.

can i make a confession?

alright. i have a confession. and i am totally waving my brat flag with this one, but it's my blog and if i want to whine about something, i'll whine. sorry. anyway, here it is. i.hate.potty training. not the actual practice of teaching them to go on the toilet. the actual part when they use the toilet instead of diapers and pull-ups. i think it sucks. i know, i know. most people are thrilled to bits once their kids are trained. me...not so much (i warned you that i was being a brat here, didn't i?).
wanna know what's worse. cara trained herself. with no encouragement from her parents. in fact, when i think about it, it was kind of with discouragement from her parents. you know...all five kids are in target with you because you just had to buy milk before you go home and cara, who is wearing a pull-up, decides she has to go to the bathroom. imagine yourself and five kids in a bathroom stall (not even the handicap stalls hold that many people). now imagine trying to convince all five kids not to touch anything. see...discouragement. sadly, caroline's will prevailed and she is trained.
what i hate is the whole not-able-to-do-it-by-herself thing. every time she has to go to the bathroom means i, too, have to go to the bathroom. if we're out somewhere, it means everyone who is with me also has to go to the bathroom. it also means that every time we are out somewhere, we have to go to a bathroom. when was the last time you had to go to the bathroom in a place that doesn't necessarily provide public bathrooms? let me tell ya something...it ain't pretty. the way i see it, it's kind of a big hassle. i know, i know. listen to me "waaaaah! my life is so hard. my kid is potty trained. waah!" but. like i said, it's my blog. i can whine if i want to.
looks like i gotta run now. apparently, cara has to go to the bathroom. again.

shameless plug for some etsy that i love

so, the tutus...

i received a couple of comments about the tutus that my girls are wearing at their birthday party, and i've been meaning to do a post about an etsy shop that i am a HUGE fan of, and as the tutus came from the etsy girl, it seemed like a good time to do this.

so, one of my best friends in the world (i'm talking first day of third grade - go to her house and tell all about the first time i kissed a boy - 10ish new kids on the block concerts - get dressed for high school dances at her house because her parents are at the mountains and we are not supposed to be wearing dresses that short or that tight to the dance at the boys' high school - go on a million vacations her family even though i am the only person there that does not understand italian - bridesmaid in each other's wedding kind of best friend) has opened her own etsy shop called bellina bowtique (i wasn't kidding about the italian language) where she is currently selling hairbows and eventually branch out into other girly accessories, such as the fabulous tutus that my girls wore to their birthday party.

i don't know if you all caught it, but the tutus and hairbows were coordinated to the paper products for the party (i don't play around when it comes to themes). most pictures of my girls include hairbows that stephanie has made and while i prefer the over the top, bigger is better type of bow, she does make some bows that are much more appropriately scaled to little girls' heads, too. stephanie makes bows that coordinate with gymboree's clothing lines as well as special holiday themed bows. i've even been known to take a picture of an outfit that my girls are going to wear and email it to her so she can do a bow to match that outfit specifically (what?!?! like you wouldn't?). like i said, a little over the top.

we have recently had two baby girls born into the family (shout outs to erin and maggie and lisa and keira, woo!) and i gave them killer new baby gifts from my dear friend's shop...crocheted beanie hats with big huge flowers on them and hair bows that coordinate and can be switched for the flower, pretty little pink polka dot bows and cute little purple clippies. so fun (i mean really, you're never too young to develop a passion for great accessories)!

go check out stephanie's shop, bellina bowtique. i know you will love it as much as i do!

ps - the pictures all include things (pink and purple tutus for their 2nd birthday, easter hair bow, bow on the hats for st. patty's day, tutus and coordinated hairbows for their 3rd birthday, etc.) that i have gotten from stephanie!

september

i'm back, bitches! haha...you thought i was gone, didn't you? tricked ya! i was really just buried under a pile of life. i am starting to see the light, though and hopefully will be my happy (haha) blog-posting, blog-commenting self soon.

anywho...september was a month of firsts and since i was a bad blogger and didn't post about the first day of pre-k, the first day of kindergarten, ah hell...the first day of fourth grade, too, the first day of dance class, the kickass pirates and princesses party, the third birthday, etc., etc., etc., i figure i will make this a big, fat picture post and just show you what our month looked like. you can thank me later.

if anyone is wondering...tommy is still unemployed, but doing lots of side work, so we are still hanging in there (it helps to have really super parents, too, by the way) and i am totes schooling all those silly little college kids in my classes. i'm so the girl ruining the curve for them and i love it. haha, fools! srsly, though...school is going pretty well. we are having some adhd/crappy teacher issues with thomas that we are working on and i have been spending a lot of time researching new schools and talking to therapists to get an iep and all kinds of good stuff like that. all in all, it has been a crazy busy couple of weeks for us, but hopefully, i will develop a better schedule soon. i miss you my bloggy friends!

ps - the pictures are terrible. i am using disposable cameras these days and when i got these discs back, they were so fuzzy! sorry!

life

i feel like a total blog slacker lately. real life has totally taken over. tommy is still not back to work, so that means i have to SHARE computer time during the day (wtf, right?!!?) and with taking classes, i have to spend my time doing other things like reading psychology and doing statistics homework. plus, the boys all have homework now, too. it's busy here.
i totally have to still do the girls' birthday post, as their birthday was on saturday. i also want to write something about their party, but i still don't have the party pictures on here, which i need to do, so you can see the true pirate and princess fabulousness that was the girls' birthday outfits. plus, i have to do a post about a super etsy shop that belongs to one of my best friends (like, since third grade best friend) and is the source of previously stated fabulousness. also, i really should tell you all about how caroline, the evil genius, has completely potty trained herself. f'real. lots to do, lots to do...
i figured i would share a little gem from yesterday with everyone, though. i was trying to do some reading and school work and tommy came in to see how it was going. as the boys were all in school, katie and cara made their way into the bathroom. as tommy and i listened, he wondered if they were trying to rebuild the bathroom. i replied that i thought they were just trying to break the toilet. less than five minutes later, there was a giant porcelain sounding crash. sure enough the lid of the toilet was on the floor and cara was pointing at katie saying "katie do it. shes do it." which, by the way, i totally don't believe. my two darling daughters, sweet little angels that they are, managed to break the lid of my toilet. not my three boys. sigh...

ahem...(tap, tap, tap)...is this thing on?

stepping up on my soapbox...
i have some inflammatory things to say here, so i apologize in advance to anyone who is truly offended, but i gotta say...kanye west, taylor swift...i really don't care. really, really don't care. i am posting on this here, today, because facebook was so full of outrage yesterday and i found it so annoying, but if i post anything on facebook about it, i am just feeding into the frenzy.
i like kanye west's music ("run this town" is my newest ring tone). i don't mind taylor swift's music (i prefer carrie underwood or kenny chesney or even zac brown...srsly just outed myself as a country music listener...gasp). i'll leave "pictures to burn" on when i hear it. but, i like these songs. not the actual singers. they don't affect my life in any way. they don't live near me, don't talk to my kids, don't let their dog go to the bathroom on my sidewalk, nothing. these are things that would have an effect on my life. celebrities...no effect at all.
i know the argument is that celebrities are role models, blah blah blah. but...isn't that my job? and my family's? shouldn't we be providing examples for our kids to follow? shouldn't we be people that our kids can look up to try to be like? if my kids see someone acting like an ass on tv, then try to act like that, they will be corrected by an actual real live adult in their life and know that douchey behavior is not acceptable. i think that's more important than what happens on the vma awards. plus, it's not like it was a really important awards show like the grammys or anything, right? haha...kidding, people.
anywho...my point here is that i don't care what happened. please don't tell me not to listen to kanye anymore. please don't tell me that taylor swift is heartbroken and will never recover. she'll be fine, i'm sure and really i just don't care. sorry.
now, in a complete 100% contradiction to everything that i've just said (i can do that, you know, it's my blog)...i'm so sad that johnny castle has died. that is my number one, favorite movie of all time. so, so sad. i am thinking of changing jack's name to johnny in a tribute to mr. castle. also, i think the rafter kids will be retiring the michael jackson dance moves and start practicing "johnny's mambo" and the lift. i'll keep you posted on our progress.
sorry about the rant...
...stepping down from the soapbox now...