Dear Blog,

I am so sorry I have neglected you for so long. I had the best of intentions when I started you and it seems like I've never been quite able to 'take off' into the blog-o-sphere. You are special and lovely and I promise it's not you. It's me. Life has just gotten in the way and with all the holidays and drama that have been swirling around lately I just had not been able to find the time to post anything interesting for your readers. And for that I am sorry. But enough with excuses. My resolution for this new year is to keep you updated more and I hope that I can keep it. I am only human after all. I promise I will do my best, though. I hope you had a happy New Year's. I know I did ;), but more about that later. Your are awesome and keep shining.

Hugs and love,
Maria, the Awesome.

From The Bottom Of My Heart

Thank you free Baby Einstein YouTube video for hypnotizing my child just long enough that I could quickly and efficiently cut back all ten of his talons consecutively without any bodily harm to myself, my son or the people in and around the surrounding neighborhoods.

The Countdown Begins

With Thanksgiving inching closer and closer I am reminded that my days with my beloved fall decor are numbered. Don't get me wrong, I love love LOVE my Christmas stuff (My sister-in-law calls my Christmas decor a "catalog Christmas", I choose to take it as a compliment.) but I equally enjoy my autumn things. I took stock of what I have and realized a startling revelation. Aside from my wreath, all my fall stuff are pumpkins or various heights, colors, and textures. Apparently I really like pumpkins. Would you like to meet them? I thought you would.



These adorable little guys are my only "Halloween" decorations. Everything else can just be filed under Autumn.



These two cute pumpkins are some of my kids favorite things to play with. Nevermind that they have boxes upon totes upon storage containers of toys. Because, really, who needs toys when you can play with metal pumpkin thingies?! Yay!



This here is my pumpkin shelf. That middle tan one is the newbie, I just bought her the day after halloween. :) Please ignore the chipped paint on the shelf. It was originally white but I've been spray painting it brown about once every year for the past seven years or so.



Hi buddy. This cute little bugger is my leftover candy dish. After my family devours all the good stuff after halloween this is where all the gross leftover pieces that no one ever really wants go.



See? Like this.

But then after awhile we'll all get so hard up for candy that we'll end up eating the stuff we don't even like. It's a vicious cycle we endure year after year filled with guilt and disgust. And sugar.

I can be a tad dramatic.

So what's going on in your house? Have you already swapped out the seasonal decorations or are you trying to hold on to the last lingering moments like me? I'd love to know! :)

Right Now:

My kids are up way past their bedtime and playing with a big inflatable football player thing in the living room. I am in the bedroom hiding in a corner so I can have some "me time".

My husband is making me a grilled cheese sandwich because they are delicious.

I smell like a giant gyro because I worked at my dad's restaurant today and have yet to take a shower. Shower's are for the weak.

Not to confuse anyone, I do bathe regularly and do not think "shower's are for the weak". Just sometimes. Like right now.

Jeff just brought my sandwich to me and my youngest followed him, found me in my corner, and is now begging like a dog for my sandwich. He's actually whimpering like a puppy.

I'm way too tired to do anything productive but the night owl in me wont go to sleep. Or it could be the Redbull I pounded around 7.

My sandwich was yummy. I may ask for another.

I Love Fall

I really do. I'm always a little sad to see summer end but fall in Washington is usually gorgeous. Right now it's about 70 degrees with clear blue skies. That's better than most of our days last summer! I especially love the changing colors of all the trees and plants around here. So beautiful. And they match my home decor so well! Love it!

Yesterday was the first day in a long while when all the stars aligned for a perfect picture day. Johnnie didn't have school, I didn't have work, neither child needed a haircut, and the weather was beautiful. Of course in our household nothing is ever easy and we didn't actually end up leaving until around 3 pm to find our perfect picture takin' spot.

After getting lost downtown for awhile (I have AWFUL direction skills) and finding three separate spots that I didn't think were good enough I finally found a beautiful little landing spot with TONS of leaves.

So I woke the kids up and threw them in the leaves. What? That's not nice?

Apparently they didn't appreciate it and both totally acted out. And I learned a valuable lesson. That I need a 'helper' for days like that.

I was hoping for a few more pics from the 'shoot' but I am in LOVE with the ones I got. Plus, I think my kids are the cutest children that have ever walked the face of the planet so I am just a little bit biased.

Funny story, after about five minutes of sitting in leaves both my kids were like "eff this" and started running away from me (hence all the pics of them from behind) and after awhile I couldn't even tell them which direction to go in. Joey is just learning how to run and tries to whenever he's got the chance even though he's not very skilled at it yet and totally busted his face in the dirt. Poor kid was screaming so hard and wouldn't stop until I had him back in the car in his seat with his sippy cup of milk. The funny part is that while all this chaos was going on I had a pack of 'Greeners' (that's a word for hippy out here) watching, giving me weird looks, and walking in our general direction. A normal person would kind of give a sympathetic/weird/awkward/poor mom look my way and keep their distance but not these people. As I'm sitting in dirt trying to console my screaming snotty child these people walk right to where we were, which wasn't by anything or anyone, to look at a leaf on a tree next to us. A freakin' leaf! Ugh.

This...

...made me happy today. :)

Just Not In The Mood.

No, this isn't going to be a post about that.

I just haven't been in the mood to keep up with this here blog. I don't know why I do things like this. I get all kinds of excited for a brand new project of some sort, a billion ideas run through my brain, but once the novelty wears off and it becomes something I have to do versus something I want to do I rebel and give up. I know I'm only hurting myself and I'm boring for you guys to read. I really am sorry.

I'm also tired. I started working three days a week (three very loooonnngg days) prepping at my dad's new restaurant to help get it up and running in addition to taking care of the kids and being the house-cleaner, the bill-payer, the money-budgeter (New word! You're welcome Webster's.), the chauffeur, and the disciplinarian, I'm pretty much too wiped out to write about anything let alone something interesting and funny that people would enjoy reading.

I also have a lot of self doubt.