Bootacularlylicous. Warning: Lots of Pics!

Preface: I spent an hour trying to get my poop of a camera to upload things properly to blogger, and I THOUGHT I had... but apparently not seeing as the pics giving me grief are now huge and not properly sized. So, to view the whole pic, click on those of interest. Thanks!

The Neighbors put on a smashing good time this year for the All Hallow's Eve Bash 2-oh-oh-8. First, we started out as the biggest and best trick-or-treat train in the WHOLE NEIGHBORHOOD!

(Thanks Lauren and Rob for the pics... without me asking...)

Conner tried trick-or-treating, but honestly he was thinking "Umm. Dude. You do realize you are giving away perfectly good candy, right?"






He was also not interested in pictures...



Then, we trick-or-treated back to the Halloween Bash (with exception to Chase & I scurrying ahead of the pack with a few other couples for a much needed diaper change...)

The party was wicked fun, too. Lots of yummy food, the boys had a ball playing games, eating WAY too much candy, watching Charlie Brown and The Great Pumpkin and wishing they could play the Wii set up on a giant screen in the backyard! How cool is this??:





We also walked away with some awesome "prizes":




And I even made a few "Ghostly Bowling Pins" on the fly a-la stuff from around the house/garbage:





The Monkey and The Dinosaur had a great Halloween. Thanks to The Neighbors for the invite (and the candy. and the pizza. and the games. and cleaning up all the mess.... etc etc etc).





















Here's to TURKEY DAY!

Someone Get This Kid a Spending Account...

The commercial zombiefication continues:

"I NEEEEED That!" for the 1.2 millionth time Conner cries from the living room.

It's this: http://www.target.com/Lexibook-Groovy-Chick-FM-Organizer/dp/B001009ZCS/sr=1-5/qid=1225307328/ref=sr_1_5/175-3957251-9157035?ie=UTF8&rh=k%3Aelectronic%5Forganizer%5Fkids&page=1

(sorry, blogger's picture uploader is giving me hell)

(if you are lazy, like me, it's a pink electronic "daily organizer" for annoying brats kids...and not the exact same one, but similar)

The commerical ends with "Blah blah blah Daily Planner blah blah Batteries Not Included"
Then he shouts: "I NEEEEED TO PLAN MY DAY!! RIGHT! NOW!"

You know, in case he forgets to eat, play, eat, sleep, play, eat, play,sleep....

Turmoil from my Laundry Room: A Rant

This post will probably be me whining, but hey, if Conner can do it then sign me up. Oh, the WHINING. I am beginning to wonder if I got a degree in How To Make the AntiChrist in Small Child Form INSTEAD of Advertising because OH LET ME TELL YOU I want to write a NASTY, NASTY letter to all the buttholes who make commercials for children look SO FUN in the "IHAVETOHAVEITNOW" kind of fashion. Every. Freakin. Commercial. "I want THAT!" ... "I WANT THAT NOW!"..."But I NEEEEEEEDDD! IT"..."I NEEEEEEED IT NOOOOOOOW!"

*Shoots self in face*

He even wants the girlie stuff because it's obviously just as much of a slammin' good time since it's marketed in between Batman crap and some stuff that'll surely stain my carpet and end up in the Toys We Don't Touch Place in the top of my pantry.

My REAL reasons for blogging is that I just spent an HOUR sorting. Then folding. Then hanging. Then categorizing things that are too summer-esque and moving them to The Back of The Closet. Then moving things that are now Chase's size across the hall. Then discovering goldfish in my laundry basket and eating them because I CAN. Then hearing the beeping noise echoing from my laundry room to inform me that "It's TIME to DO MORE!! COME GET US!!".

*Shoots what's left of my face from missing the first time since I was distracted by OH! RACE CARS! THAT MAKE NOISE!* Ugh.

Scratch the whole advertising thing making my toddler/preschooler/precious angel face into the AntiChrist.. LAUNDRY IS SATAN!

AND IT DOESN'T END!

And apparently, It has to get worse because boys are gross. And make messes. And don't clean up without assistance. No matter how old they get. And then they sweat... in their clothes... that I WASH. AND FOLD. AND PUT AWAY! Only for them to DO IT AGAIN... for the NEXT CENTURY!

The Angst.

I think I'll go catchup on The Hills now and try to start that episode of Grey's I missed due to Conner's mad skillz.

Yay.

The Jedi Council is not endorsed by the ADA

My precious little flower strikes again. Sigh.

Thursday night as I began to settle in for a much anticipated episode of Grey's (because ALL EPISODES of Grey's are much anticipated in Amandaland), Conner decided to test his Jedi powers and grabbed by iPhone. I must add that the iPhone is an amazing distract-your-3-year-old-for-some-much-needed-sanity tool and any parent without one and it's amazing mind-numbing games, super awesome graphics and seizure inducing lights is truly missing out. With that said, Conner's recent obsession with Star Wars and their totally awesome Light Sabers means that he's been spending a substantial amount of time on my phone playing with my Light Sabers application. It turns your iPhone into a mad crazy light sabering wonderland of awesomesauce and You Too Can Pick Your Weapon (!!)... Conner is "Dard Vada". Sweet.

So, he grabs the phone and begins to swing about wildly as if being attacked by a whole onslaught of Storm Troopers (or Jedi in the case of him being Dard Vada). The thing is, you have to swing about wildly to get the cool effect of the "Zoom, Zoom" sound made by all Light Sabers.

Then, BAM!

He smacked himself in the mouth so hard I heard a crack. And for the record: I checked the kid first (but my iPhone is ok, btw).

He opened his mouth, frightened and in pain to reveal that his front right tooth was chipped. Bad. He stuck out his toungue, I fetched the piece of now unattached tooth and quickly scooped him up in efforts to minimize his little brains exploding all over the bedroom in total freak-out-panic-mommy-IHURTMYSELFFIXITNOWPLEASE mode.

Oh but I couldn't stop it.

My BABY had HURT HIS BEAUTIFUL SMILE.

"Dental emergency?" I asked Michael.

With that, I called his dentist which (after calling me back) informed me that he could fix it in the morning, and they might have to shave the tooth up to the break. Great.

Michael was worried he'd look like this guy till Conner's 6th or 7th year on earth, when the baby took would fall out and be replaced with a Big Person "Teeth, teeth":





But, come Friday morning we had the incident under control (after having to call the dentist in for a "special" visit, because dentist don't WORK on FRIDAYS (!) ... or for half a day on Thursday... or from 11-1 during the week... I mean SERIOUSLY, WHY
AREN'T WE ALL DENTISTS??). I am glad to report that they were able to place some Special Goop on his tooth, harden it with a Ultra Special Light (similar to the Light Saber in it's own right), and now my Little Jedi has a great smile again.

The Force is strong in this one, but his Light Saber skills need improving.

Not Home, Not Now, No Way.

It’s over guys. After 1 month on the market, we had an employee of Michael’s show interest in renting the house. Good news was he wanted it now, the bad news is that it wouldn’t cover our mortgage by $250 a month and the ugly news was that he needed only a 1 year lease and wanted an escape clause in case he took a job elsewhere.

We were really stuck. The market is horrible, and we took last week to speak with 3 realtors. Not only are houses selling for $30,000 under their value, but the realtor’s in the area are just not showing homes. None. Our favorite realtor, Julie D. with Prudential Ballard told us “my phone doesn’t ring anymore… ever.” It was a nail in the coffin for us. We knew that even if we listed with her, the house wouldn’t show. If we rented – the tenant could back out in a year (or less) and according to Julie it WILL take more than a year for the market to stabilize.

We just couldn’t slit our throats financially. If our house sold for $20,000-30,000 less the price we paid, we would not only loose our down payment, but we’d have to bring 15-20 grand to the table. We don’t have that to throw away.

So, we made a hard decision. We thought about it all weekend. Saturday night, I couldn’t sleep so I got up to talk to Michael.

“What if we don’t leave… is that even possible?”
“I was wondering the same thing,” he said.

And with that, we were sold. The parade of homes was in the neighborhood all weekend, and not one phone call. The house down the street, on the market for 3+ months… not ONE SHOWING.

Michael talked to the comapny he works for this morning and it’s official – moving to Birmingham is a dead duck.

We are actually ok though. I know most of you are upset for us, and we truly “feel the love”. We wanted to live there too, believe me. It’s difficult to justify the schools here – you pay $10,000 a YEAR and get a sub-par education where in Birmingham the boys could go to public school FOR “FREE”. They’d have access to a larger school, more options for academic pursuits and, of course, the athletic opportunities associated with well established 5 and 6A programs (note: this is our opinion, sorry Montgomerians. We both graduated from "public" (I use that term loosely, as Michael did go to Mountain Brook) schools in Jefferson County, and from what I've seen here, it's just not the same)

We hate that the boys won’t be near their grandparents. We desire to be closer to our church family at Mountain Brook. We can’t stand being the “new kids” with no friends.

When we had Chase almost a year ago, Michael and I were flabbergasted with the medical system here in Montgomery. The NICU staff was floored and did not have the knowledge or experience to deal with his condition. After being flown to Children’s, Michael and I talked about how we could be ok with keeping our family so far from what we consider to be excellent healthcare. With that said, we will continue to see the doctor’s at Children’s because their services can not be replaced.

But as far as moving back goes, give us a few years. Once the boys are in elementary school, I will be working and we will begin to look for jobs in Birmingham again.

For now, thank you all for the calls, emails, and messages. We really hate being away from you all, and we know we are loved. But hey, you are always welcome to visit!

Lots of Love,
Amanda & Michael

Christmas List!

I absolutely l-o-v-e- (love!) these "Erica" patent leather pumps with buckle detail (in gray, please) by Modern Vintage.

Sell This House

You've all seen the shows where some cutesy, 20+ years in the market, overpaid and underworked realtor/design expert comes into a house that's been on the market for 7,000 days and rearranges and paints and hides the pee stains on the carpet, right?

Well, I've always wondered how SOME of those people didn't think to hide their neon bar signs or replace their technicolor carpet BEFORE thinking someone was just going to waltz in and offer their asking price. Seriously. Then, I thought surely these shows were popular enough that when I started my home buying search (my casual start to home buying, might I add) today that aforementioned homes would be few and far between, right?

OMG. WRONG!

These are pics from the first 6 houses I clicked on. They are in nice neighborhoods (well, 1 neighborhood) in a very nice area with a stellar elementary school. These are rooms in homes that are between the $200,000 and $270,000 price range. For those not familar with Birmingham (well, the "new" market at least...) that means that these are between 2,100 and 2,700 square foot homes with 3-5 bedrooms and 2-3.5 baths. Fairly new too... with nice backyards... and daisies... and free pedicures every other Thursday (ok, I made that last part up).

Here goes:
[Note: for FULL effect, make the pictures REALLY big...nice.]

1) The tree rooms. I saw TWO of these within the first 6 houses. SERIOUSLY. TWO!! That's a THIRD. It isn't HORRIBLE, but Kirsten Kemp would having most def told these sellers to paint over it. This is the least offensive of the offenders. (ps - I totally get it if the kids like it, and if it's cute... and if your mother-in-law forced it upon you and painted it while you were away getting that free pedi, and when you came home it was there, permanent and the kid's already thought it rocked... but NOW IS THE TIME PEOPLE. NOW IS THE TIME!)



2) Purple room theme going on? What? Do you SEE that shiny purple bed spread?? What's worse is that the shiny bedspread is a theme in ALL OF THE BEDROOMS. Can you BU-LIEVE that these two purple bedrooms are the master bedrooms from two TOTALLY seperate houses? I really hope they are friends.

Do you SEE the bedspread in the other room? The one with the tribal things? And the crazy border? Who puts this stuff up? What is the husband on? Michael would tell me NO and ask me if I'd be drinking. For GOOD REASON.




3) This is the little girl's room from the shiny bedspread house. I feel bad for posting it, seeing as it MIGHT have been her choice in pink... but then again, when Conner asks if he can wear my gold pumps to school, he gets a nasty look, some counseling and a big fat no. That's why I'm the mommy.



4) Ok, I understand you are dark. Bad life? But why put it all over your wall? The curtains too? Ugh. I would love to say I'd paint over it (read: TO A NEUTRAL, TASTEFUL COLOR) and move on if I bought your house but come on, I don't have 3 grand to spend on primer.




Disclaimer: I do feel a little bad about "outing" these real life houses on the internet, but maybe.. just maybe, someone will know the people these houses belong to and offer some help. The kind with a fancy couch and a shrink... the kind of shrink that can paint and has a Target card.