In An Effort To Not Be The Lamest Mom In The World...

In an effort to not be The Lamest Mom in the World, I took the kids sledding. 

Of course it wasn't until the second to last day of their Mid-Winter Break from school that I started adding up the amount of time they spent in front of the television and I realized they would soon need glasses and anti-seizure meds if I didn't get them away from the screen and out of the house.

I am always shocked at how close to us in Seattle the mountains are. It was exactly 60 miles to a well groomed sledding hill with heaps of snow.
I have coworkers who have longer daily commutes to work.
Why can't I take my kids to the snow more than every other year?
In High School, my friend Sierra and I would drive 4 hours to Tahoe in the morning for a day of skiing, and then drive home. We would listen to The Steve Miller Band on the cassette player, and tape signs on the windows of the car for people passing us to see. (We were looking for dates.)
Those were the good old days.
**Note: Sierra was born in the Sierra Nevadas to a couple of Hippie parents. If my memory is correct, they had a dog named Rainbow. Sierra, her parents, her brother, and Rainbow all lived in an old school bus in the parking lot of Alpine Meadows Ski Resort when she was a kid. So Cool. When I met her in high school, her family was living in a gated community in Half Moon Bay.

I have my own version of a cool bus, The Eurovan! It has a table that is perfect for PB&J and Hot Chocolate after a day on the slopes.

And then we went home, and I gave myself a gold star (a Hefeweizen) for attempting to not be The Lamest Mom in the World.
(I am purposely leaving out the part where I screamed at the kids to quit the bullshit in the back of the car while I was driving in the snow. Nobody needs to know about those moments in a not-lame mom's day.)

Typos, Their a Pretty Big Deal

A typo turned this Super Hero in to someone's dinner.

Sadly, not even Spell Check could save him.

Power 10 in 3-2-1 STROKE!!!

You know when you've been going to the gym 3 days/week for 6 years, then you go on vacation for 9 days and it takes 7 years to get back to the gym? That's kind of what happened to me and blogging. 

We went to Ireland in August. When we came home, school started again for the kids and I was overwhelmed with how to summarize 2 weeks in Ireland and 317 photos in to a blog post. After that, I felt guilty posting anything else until I got the Ireland post up. Then, not posting became much easier. Then, I had major guilt about not posting. So, I made a poor effort to get back on that rowing machine by putting up Finn's 1st grade photo. Then, it just got worse. I stopped taking photos altogether. I don't even think I brought my camera to Christmas.

Well, now I feel like a squishy slob, so I need to get back to a steady gym routine before nothing fits me any more. 

Translation: I feel like a loser Mom who is going to forget what her kids looked like between September 2012 and May 2013. 

What's worse than forgetting what the kids look like, is forgetting who they are at ages 9 and 7 years.

Niamh is prone to meltdowns about her hair. She is learning to play the Ukulele. She continues to steal candy and lie horribly about it. She watches music videos by Taylor Swift, Avril Levigne, and Beiber's ex-girlfriend, Selena. And, she packs a 7lb, 300 page book in her back pack every day so that she looks like a big book nerd when she pulls it out, slowly, so everyone around can see the size of her reading material. She's not a big book nerd but I love that she wants to be....and love even more that she's failing at it. I think she's on page 12.

Finn has turned in to an athlete. He can really play both soccer and baseball. He analyzes the game once its over, and he always knows where he's going to make "the out" if the ball is hit to him. He has the smelliest feet North of Bell Town. He can eat 8 pieces of pizza and ask for yogurt 10 minutes later, go to the bathroom, and then ask for soup. And, he also steals candy, but is not as good as Niamh about lying about his crime. 

These photos are from my phone. Once I post them, I'm going to feel better.

Too Sarcastic?

I desperately want to get this for Niamh but sometimes she can be overly sensitive. 

Should I?

Finn's 1st Grade Photo

Well helloooooo there, Ladies. I'm Finn. My parents will let me date in 2021. Until then, we can be "friends".

Every now and then, Steve gives me this same look and I run.