Goodbye Yellow Tooth Road...

A quick before: This is the only picture I have of Natalie at about 18 months old before I got her broken tooth "fixed".
It was Labor Day weekend, and Natalie tore around the corner of the kitchen and fell. And cried. And it was right before nap time, so I laid her down and when she woke up I noticed 3/4 of her tooth was missing! Of course by that time it was nearing 5pm on Friday (of a 3 day weekend). When we got in to see the dentist he had all kinds of recommendations, from pulling it, to lining with silver (just leaving it alone was risky since the break was close to the nerve and could cause Natalie more pain). I decided that my beautiful little girl wasn't going to live the next 5 years with a.) no front tooth or b.) a eastern European-style silver rimmed tooth. I wanted her tooth back! So I paid to have them cap it, but unknown to me they had to do a root canal on it, which killed the tooth and eventually turned it yellow. I would have rather her live with a hole or chip! So today after school the kids were racing to the car and Natalie caught an elbow to the face which caused some bleeding. And pain. So I snuggled her up like a baby and pulled that (very loose) tooth right out, easy-peasy. But gross to pull. I hated pulling my own teeth, and pulling someone else's wasn't any more of a pleasant experience. But she's thrilled, and she said she's now truly "six", and she wants the tooth fairy to bring her a Fushigi.

St. Patrick's Day

A blog in photos, because I've had one too many "green beers":


But first, a tasty bit of paparazzi I've been trying to get a picture of for over a week. I saw this car last week but drove past it at a high speed, missing my "pap op". As Boo and I were leaving the grocery store parking lot today, the car in question was entering it. A quick u-turn and a serendipitous moment of parking spaces becoming free and I was in prime position for snapping my elusive pic. But wait!! There is a passenger still in the car applying makeup! I persevered and snapped the shot below anyway, cuz that's how I live... right on the edge.

Gerbils on a belt? How stinkin' funny is this?!

My sweetness got me a cool new (green) mug yesterday, even though I was a grouch-biscuit. He's pretty spectacular, have I mentioned that?


Dropping B off at school this morning... guess who was NOT ready to get out of bed? And guess who was NOT thrilled with her St. Paddy's day outfit? And guess who did NOT want to sit in the back seat this morning? And guess who did NOT want to brush her hair? But you know what? As grouchy as she gets, she still does it all. She's still a keeper to me.

All the ladies of the house got haircut's today...

I'm blonder. This is the only picture I have to offer you. I actually took it to send to my bff to get her honest opinion about the color sitch... then Mike whined about her getting a picture but not him so I sent it to him, and he called me names. Names like 'Beautiful'. The nerve.

My Grumpasaurus was gone by 2:45.

A rare, genuine smile from the B. I love it.

Our Green dinner. Absolutely everyone voted "NO" on my suggestion of a traditional Irish dinner. To me, Irish food is pretty bland and boring so I wasn't too incensed. Then I was told by "someone" that Papa Murphy's sells a 'clover pizza' so I waltzed in there and asked for it. I got snickered at. And the Papa Murphy's VP's were there doing a walk-through. So I got extra attention because of my request. I pride myself on being somewhat intelligent, but I tend to take people too literally sometimes and actually believe what I'm told. Poor Brady has the same trait. Some day he'll be walking into Papa Murphy's asking for a Shamrock Shaped pizza, only to get laughed at. Luckily by the time he's my age, he'll have embarrassed himself enough over the years to have a healthy immunity to most of the giggles cast his way. Just like his mama. Anyway, I digress... The kids had: Superfood in green cups with green straws, green jell-o, and the girls had green ranch dressing with their non-shamrock-shaped pizza. And they wiped their mouths clean with green napkins. For dessert? A toss-up between mint chocolate chip ice cream, mint three musketeers, or green apple flavored Mentos...

My version of Green Beer. I don't want the Bud Light that they drop a couple of drops of blue food coloring into. I too old to drink cheap beer. So I chose to drink good beer with a green label.

The Crazy Nastyass Honey Badger (original narration by Randall)

Say Cheese!

A special package arrived from the middle of America today... Auntie Jackie sent cheese heads to the kids, and a cheese beer-cozy, and beer-drinking gloves (they need them in the frigid winters there), and some yummy mid-western treats. It was a fun box to open, that's for sure.

Pickles and his "hat"
Brady using his lemonade-cozy...

Say "cheese" (yes I watch Ellen, I love her)

"Morning, Sam" "Morning, Ralph"

Pickles has decided that he likes to take the kids to school and pick them up. He cries and cries if we leave without him, so I grabbed him one day and brought him with us, and he purred the whole time. He wubs us.

The girls and I made a trip to Bellevue Square where they burned some energy off and shrieked with joy as they convinced little boys to chase them around the play area.

Boo didn't use all those fingers, anyway. (I'm kidding, this dog likes to smile a lot.)

Our Weekend (two seperate tales)

Adult Version (don't worry, it's still PG):
We headed to Bremerton Thursday night to deliver Jet City Rollergirls Track for the Wild West Showdown. 3 days of derby, derby and more derby. Oh and some Merby too. That's man-derby. There was a team there who had one skater (Merby Dick) who was 71 and a 3rd generation derby player! He was inspirational to watch. I also got to watch the always amazing Bellingham Boy Scott Slamilton who is small and spry and along with Quadzilla (who lives up to his name) made for some hard-hitting fast merby. Smelly too.

Quadzilla getting a whip from... Hollywood?


That's my boyfriend... ain't he cute in pink?

There was a lot of this around the venue. A lot.

This "woman" wore this turtleneck ALL weekend. And didn't have a woman's voice. Hmmmm... And these two are a couple too. What scares me most about this picture is that she is looking directly at me as I snapped it. Oops!

I was running the scoreboard for a particular bout when the scorekeeper "Rainman" sat down next to me and proceeded to roll out his pen and pencil collection. He took great care in which pencil he selected for this particular bout. He also wore a bowtie each day of the bout and duct taped a pencil protector onto his t-shirt when he had to work on the floor. In-ter-es-ting.

Coming back to the hotel the 2nd night our pillows were arranged creatively. The housekeeper must have come to our room at the same time her favorite show was on or something, because our pillows were fluffed and packed and stacked with precision.

Random derby jam-line. I think this is Silicon Valley vs. Lava City.

Greta Gurney's Dansko clogs are so kewl.

I have to say we looked pretty cool rollin outta town...

Our Weekend (two seperate tales)

The kids Weekend:

The kids came running out of school Thursday afternoon ready for their weekend to begin. They were going to Grandma Crackers house on the island (Whidbey). And I've got the bags of dirty laundry as proof that they had a wonderful time!

Random tidbits

Last week I was "on time" for a new workout class I wanted to try. On time is late. So I was early this week, which made me on time. I actually almost walked in on the Yoga class while they were in Savasana. Oops.
It was a great class and I thought I did pretty great for a first-timer. But my body today disagrees. It disagrees a lot. But I'm going to go back tomorrow and tell my body to hush-up.

Here's a couple snapshots from the week so far:

Natalie and Pickles having a snuggle on my lap.
I made "Buckets" for book club Sunday night. Yum. I need to think of a better name for this drink; but that's what you order when you go to The Rock restaurant, "A Bucket".

Every time I see a car with towels or afghans as seat covers it reminds me of Pulp Fiction. Blech.

The girls and I went for a little walk today to help me work out some of the lactic acid in my legs... I think I needed to take a longer walk.

I needed some black pants for this weekend... what do you think about some black pajama jeans? You can't even tell that the "stitching" is just paint!

And it's the end of an era... My old Saucony's did such a good job for such a long time, I decided to get them again. Good gawd, I have big feet. I'm going to hang onto my old shoes for awhile though, these are the shoes that I've run almost every race I've ever done in; they're also the shoes that helped me lose over 65 pounds. These shoes have done me some good. I think they deserve a trip to the Warrior Dash or something good and dirty.

2 more sleeps until a superfun weekend! I CAN'T wait!