Throw Back Thursday; Creepy Doll Edition

In all fairness, it should probably be called creepy pre-adolesecnt edition. It's not the poor dolls fault.

I was one of those kids that played with dolls long past the appropriate doll playing ages. Tell me you know what I'm talking about here - you wouldn't ever tell your friends at school you still played with dolls but when you were home alone you snuck them out of the closet. You get it, right? Right?

Apparently, I was also the kind of kid that had professional studio pictures made with them. 

I came across these gems the other day and was equally appalled and nostalgic. This is me posing with my doll at an Olan Mills portrait session. Notice the doll's hand-smocked dress:

I'll have you know that our dolls did not go out in public wearing mass-produced generic doll clothes. Nosireebob. My sister's and my dolls had custom clothing and every year my mother made them Easter dresses to match ours. We also all had matching smocked night gowns. 

Now that I think about it, we were our own American Girl Company long before the American Girl Company even existed. We were groundbreaking.

This next picture is the nail in my preadolescent coffin. As you can see I am older. Much older. The doll is no longer a baby and we are back at Olan Mills to capture our new life stages.

I don't even want to take a guess at how old I am because we all know it's too old. However, I applaud my parents for not dressing me like a miniature adult normal kid and letting me hang on to my childhood as long as I possibly could. Or, perhaps, I just applaud them for taking all of this in stride, because goodness knows by this time they had to be just slightly concerned.

Either way, kudos to them.

Sadly, Mia has never really played with dolls but you better believe I will keep her childhood toys in her closet and pretend like I don't notice when she's 13 and drags out the Barbies. I will not, however, send her to the portrait studio with them. 

And, Mia, whenever you're angry with me, because you will be angry with me, and whenever you accuse me of being the worst mom ever, because you will no doubt, at some point accuse me of being the worst mom ever, I'm going to look you right in the eye and ask you one simple question, "Do you have portraits made with your dolls that will haunt you the rest of you life?"

Apology accepted.

If you ever see one of my kids in this store, you have my permission to drag them out by their hair.

Recently the CEO of Abercrombie &Fitch had this to say about his beloved company.  What. The. What?

I swear if my kids ever so much as glance behind those wooden blinds in the mall they are going to be wearing this until they are old enough to pay their own bills:

See ya, Kevin Durant jersey!

Because anything, anything, is better than this:

(Somehow this is advertising their clothing line)

And just when I was feeling pretty sure that I had about 6-7 more years until I needed to worry about talking to my kids about not dressing like a high-class hooker, Bode home home with this in his backpack:

Bode likes boobies and Lily. In that order. 

I am starting to realize that this is going to be an uphill battle. And I'm going to have to call in back-up on many occasions. Let's make a pact right now to be each other's back-up. Because it's all fun and games until somebody gets into a filthy lake in their Abercrombie jeans. 

Now, where were we?

The Thunder eked by to the next round of the play-offs.

 And this sweet girl had a piano recital.

 Mia has outgrown every single thing my mom made her for the summer.  Yaya originals are the only reason I'm upset about that. Brand-new never-been-worn Yaya clothes. It's a crime.

It looks like Mia wasn't a fan of the country/cowboy unit:

This Edmondite isn't going to put up with things like walking, and dust. 

Oh, the humanity!

Survival Mode

I'm in it. It's not going well.

If it's not nailed down I'm eating it. I'm bursting into tears with no warning whatsoever. My mind is racing. My eye is twitching. I'm cussing (mostly under my breath or in my head. Mostly.). I tried on seven different outfits yesterday and flung discarded articles of clothing all over the place. I'm making no-bake cookies just to eat the hot goo out of the pot with a spoon. Think post-pardum.

I missed the deadline to enroll Bode in kindergarten.

I took 15 grad hours this semester. It was all fun and games until this week. Now I have finals to take and classes to wrap up. And on Saturday I have 25 minutes to defend seven empirical questions and then my fate is left up to my professors. 

Thankfully, the wise words of a good friend keep ringing in my ears and they are so, so true: Stupider people than me have done all of this and they made it just fine.

If heaven has a canteen, Mia will totally run that place someday.

If heaven is a place where we will all use our spiritual gifts to their fullest potential, then Mia will get to micro-managing everyone there and have that place whipped into shape in no time.

Sunday was the Walk for Hope, and our sweet small group kids decided to have a bake sale and donate the profits. Mia's goal was to raise $5. We like to encourage our kids to set the bar as low as possible.

Before we got there Andy and I talked to Mia about how things were probably not going to go exactly how she expected them to and to think about ways she could handle her frustrations that did not involve her crying in a corner for 3/4 of the evening.

And low and behold she did it! She had to take a few deep breaths and had to reign in the furry a couple of times, but for the most part she was able to pull off one of her elaborate schemes while still enjoying herself (for the most part). I was equally thrilled and relieved.

And given the fact that we kind of forgot to show them how to make change and they couldn't always tell the difference between a nickel and a quarter, these little rug-rats made almost $90!

I am so thankful for my small group. They are not only my personal life-line, but the small group experience has become just as precious to my kids. 

And here's another thing: When your communication skills fail miserably and you accidentally leave your kids at church, there is always someone that will assume responsibility for them until you realize they're gone. 

If you feel like something is missing in your faith journey, or if you just need some extra support as you try to figure out how to raise your family in this crazy world, then find a small group and do life with them. 

I don't know a parent who couldn't use a back up or two. 

Never mind the children, we're saving the basketball goal.

I came home to find this classy contraption in my driveway this afternoon. Apparently this is how my husband plans to save the beloved basketball goal from the Oklahoma weather. 

I never said he was a genius.

Eclectic.

No word describes my daughter better (except, perhaps, genius ;) and her room is certainly no exception. 

This was our compromise to her asking for purple and turquoise stripes with a white ceiling.

 I let her pick out some fun pillows and a rug from Ikea and a new duvet from The Company Store.

And by "pick out" I mean I let her pick between a couple of different options that I deemed acceptable.

This is the first room in the new house that I have painted, and I have to say it's kind of nice to have a room that isn't "Osama Bin Laden's Bunker Brown."

 At least I'm pretty sure that's the name of it.

Mia learned an importnat lesson during her room redecorating project and that lesson is this: When Mommy promises to do something for you, what she really means is wait 6 1/2 months and she might get around to it.

I don't hate myself enough to eat quinoa.

I am willing to do all kinds of trendy things in the name of health. I eat greek yogurt, put spinach and kale in my smoothies, and meet friends for lunch at Cool Greens.

I'm all about jumping on the latest bandwagons. Once, I made kale chips and dipped them in hummus, for goodness sake.

So the other day I was in Sam's alone. That was my first mistake. And somehow I ended up leaving the store with quite a few pounds of quinoa. It's gluten free, it's organic. It's so hipster trendy that it's now ethically controversial. Once again, I was high-fiving myself for being the most amazing mom ever. "My kids are so going to thank me for this," I thought.

And then I made it.

Do not be fooled by the artsy pictures on Pinterest. 

 

In real life it mostly resembles my dog's vomit.

It tastes like sand with little pieces of sea shells mixed in it. Bode literally cried when he put it in his mouth. Even the dog wouldn't eat it. He would rather eat his own vomit. I'm not kidding, he has actually eaten his own vomit and would not eat this.

I'll leave the quinoa for the morally questionable vegan hipsters who do not care about the poor children in Peru.

I'm just trying to save lives, ya'll.

We have now officially entered the awkward smile stage.

This is all I have to show for Easter:

Yep, we've hit the awkward years.

And I realize I'm biased but these are the two most adorable awkward children on the planet.

Marriage is about compromise.

Like when you thought your tax refund was going to be used on window treatments and your husband was thinking more along the lines of a fancy basketball goal.

However, I've never seen a happier (or more cocky) 5-year-old in my life. Most of the time it's pretty adorable. The other times it's completely obnoxious (case in point: below is his "I'm better than LeBron" face).

His fancy new toy is keeping him outside and helping him get exercise, and that's definitely a good thing. I'm actually referring to Andy.

I'm pretty sure window treatments wouldn't bring Bode this much joy. However, they would keep all the mass murderers from seeing into our house, so that would have been a plus.

And then there is sweet Mia. The only thing this girl needs to keep her happy is an insect or two.

She's simple in so many ways, yet complicated at the same time. It's the complicated part that terrifies me as a parent. Well, that and the mass murderers.

She told me recently that she was sad that Bode likes basketball so much because he doesn't spend as much time playing with her.

Translation: He doesn't spend as much time doing what she says. Nonetheless it's still a little sad. This is the first time in their lives they have had so little in common.  

I guess marriage isn't the only thing that requires compromise. 

Welcome Home

Meet our terrarium. It's the eyesore of our house which make it all the more thrilling that it's the first thing you see when you walk in. And as if it wasn't obvious enough, it comes with a huge mirrored wall. Score!

This thing evokes all kinds of reactions from me on a daily basis. Namely, cussing and laughing out loud.

The question on everyone's minds (including mine) is why is it still here? Well, for starters it's quite the conversation piece. One night Andy tried to talk me into getting in a swimsuit and laying on a beach towel as people came over.  I guess it does have that island vibe, if islands were full of kitty litter and fake palms trees. 

For another thing, it's built so darn well it would take a crane with one of those giant balls on it to get it out of here (I'm not up on my construction vocabulary, I'm sure there is an official name for that). It's built over carpet and tile, so according to the hubs it's staying until it is time to replace the flooring. 

It's just another thing on my "things I promised my husband I would not bug him to redo when we moved but we both knew darn well I was lying" list. 

Stay tuned, there are plenty more mirrors in this house for me to complain about and there is no better place to complain than your very own blog.

I realize this blog has been a little Bode heavy lately,

but recital season is coming up giving Mia several opportunities to be in the spotlight. And let's be honest, she's pretty much always in the spotlight around here.

However, this little man had "wheel day" at school last Friday and he was pumped. The five minutes Bode wasn't talking about basketball last week he was talking about wheel day.  It was "a really big deal, Mom."

Notice Bode in the very back of the line listening intently to the instructions. 

That's how I prefer to picture him at school, the only one being perfect all day long. 

(I've been known to not always live in reality.)

Check out this chaos. I have no earthly idea how these amazing teachers handle this. I was ready to go breathe in a bag.

When I told you Bode wore his jersey every single day I was not saying that for effect. 

I'm dead serious. Every. Single. Day.

Mia went right to managing all the kids like a pro. Those kids had better not get off the bike trail or they had her to deal with.

By the end of wheel day Bode looked like he might faint and told me he would die if he didn't get a grilled cheese and a root beer from Sonic. At that moment I knew that there was at least a little bit of my DNA in this kid, and I was so relieved. I may not understand basketball but I completely understand the need for a Sonic drink. Bode and I - we're going to be just fine.

This happened.

The good news is that we can now eat together as a family.  

The bad news is I'm cooking again.

This kid may be broke, but he's happy.  

He's living on love.

 I tried to explain to him that the days you live on love are the happiest days of your life.

He didn't get it.

The only things he gets right now are legos and basketball.  

And I've never met anyone happier.