Wednesday, March 18, 2009

How we roll....again


Emma takes her playing even more hardcore than Emery. Don't believe me? Take a look at these pics....she doesn't even wear a helmet. Now that is REALLY hardcore playing (actually, I was holding it while I took the pictures. My mother would have kittens if the kids rode their bikes without helmets).

How we roll


The weather has been perfect for playing outside and we have been taking advantage of it. And we are hardcore when it comes to playing outside. How hardcore? Emery wears his helmet backwards. That's right...Hardcore with a capital H!

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

an auteur in the making







Emery managed to sneak the camera and shoot some pics of himself. Ah, my little shutterbug. Granted, he still has a lot to learn about lighting, composition and such but I think he's well on his way to becoming a polished photographer. And yes, that is chocolate on his face in the last one (he's a messy eater)

hey, its me!


I haven't posted a pic of myself in a long time so I thought I would correct that error (for those of you who were wondering if I was nothing more than a floating head with fingers). This is me, getting ready for work. Amused grin included at no additional charge.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Photos on a lazy sunday afternoon



Haven't done much today. Got some donuts for breakfast and frozen pizza for lunch (hey, when it's the weekend, I have to save my energy for tea parties and horsey rides). They were playing in the kitchen while I was busy with some cleaning and I managed to snap some pics.

Friday, March 6, 2009

trendy



Here we have Emma modeling the new spring line of hats from McDonalds. Notice the purple backpack (or "pack-pack" as she calls it) that she uses to accessorize the ensemble (she's been begging for a purple backpack for weeks. Must be a Dora thing).
Seriously folks, I have no idea why she does these things. She came up with this one on her own.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

A very well deserved thank you

This, if you didn't know is Darrell, affectionately known as "Pops". Darrell is my mother's husband. I know that sounds like an odd misnomer, but there is a reason I call him that. Darrell is a great guy. He loves my mother and treats her with respect. He is the most wonderful grandfather you could ask for (well, Emma is still holding some reservations about him) to my kids. But, and this is a very large but (hee hee), I'm just too....old...to have a dad. My sister thinks of him as a father, and honestly, in some ways, I do as well. But the first two fathers I had barely qualified for that name and so I kind of just shut off the idea of having a father. I know, it sounds like I'm digressing here, but stay with me, I have a point.

Anyhoo, Darrell made me an offer the other day that made my mouth fall open, literally. He offered to get me cable and pay for it for a year. I know that some of you are thinking, "That's not that big a deal". Let me explain: I haven't had cable for two years. At first it was cut off because it was too expensive with me being in school. After I graduated, I never got it turned back on because I couldn't afford it by myself (and don't worry about my kids...they have enough spongebob, dora and diego movies, among others, that I should start renting them out to the neighborhood kids). Big game on? I would try to squeeze it into my schedule to go to my sister's or my mom's house. But I never really missed having cable. In fact, it almost became a point of pride to say that I didn't watch TV.

Then Darrell made his offer. He listed his reasons for doing so, none of which I'm going to go into here. But they were generous and very touching reasons, I assure you. And much like a tee totaler who's fallen off the wagon, I suddenly relished the thought of catching Sportscenter and watching the late night news. That's when the real impact of what I had been given hit me. I was going to get a sense of normalcy back into my life. I was going to be able to do something as mundane as turn on the TV.

And it's all thanks to Darrell. I prolly still won't call him "dad" (I'm not going to prostitute my feelings that much). But I certainly feel like I have a dad now, for the first time in my life in a very, very long time. And it's not because he was generous with his money. It's because he wanted me to feel like I wasn't failing in life because I couldn't even afford to have something as simple as cable TV. And for that, I give him the utmost thanks on the biggest stage I have in my possession.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

A dream come true

Have you ever had one of those nights where you had a dream come true, like the entire night was like one long fairy tale? Me neither. And then last night happened. Correction, last night going into this morning. 5 am this morning, to be exact. And get your mind out of the gutter, you disgusting sicko.

Oddly enough, I have some tangentially related pictures but I'm not going to post them. Call it...protecting my karma. Think of this post as something akin to what the Israelites did on their journey through the desert. They would build these markers made of stone to indicate a passage of some importance or crossroad. So, this post is my stone marker denoting a...new direction, let's say.

Anyhoo, for everyone out there that's never had a secret wish fulfilled...? Don't give up hope. I have a real life example of what happens when you, as Disney says, wish upon a star.