What Part Of "Party" Don't You Understand?

G and I took about eleventy bajillion pictures yesterday (okay, maybe closer to 400, but STILL) but we got home so late that we didn't have time to offload them. So in the meantime, I hope that these cellphone videos will amuse you until tomorrow.

First up, Shae singing "Raise Your Glass." You can LITERALLY see the point at which the jellybean sugar high wears off and she gets distracted by domestic waterfowl.

And also: "Dog Days Are Over." I assure you, she is usually much more energetic and dancy when she sings this, but at this point in the day she's a wee bit tired, so let's give her a pass.

I promise that by the end of the summer, I will have incriminating video of her rocking out to Lady Gaga (or worse, Ke$ha) and then my husband will get his wish and she will have no choice but to join a convent to save herself a lifetime of embarrassment, courtesy of her blogger mother.

Heavy Machinery

CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT! RAWR!

Okay, yes, technically this is a foundation. Whatever. Shut up. The reason why this foundation even exists right now is because of CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT! RAWR! (I love the little sign that says "OUTSIDE," and I wonder what would happen if, say, some wiseass blogger who was possibly illegally trespassing at a construction site might have removed that sign and put it, say, inside the foundation. What would happen? Not that I, personally, know anybody who might do such a thing.)

There was a bulldozer at this particular construction site -- the new spec home being built on the lot next to the home of the Hello Kitty party girl -- but Shae didn't want to pose for pictures in front of that. She was much more interested in the backhoe.

Not that I blame her. You can't climb into the giant shovel part of a bulldozer because a bulldozer doesn't have a giant shovel part. Duh. (At least I think that is the difference. I thought the bulldozer was actually a backhoe, and that the backhoe was a front-end loader. You know, because the giant shovel part LOADS from the FRONT END?)

Now I am wondering what it is that I asked my husband to buy me when he took me out for dinner for my 21st birthday and we went to Red Robin and I drank an entire birdbath margarita all by myself and got so drunk that I had to lie down in the booth for a little while just to make the room stop spinning and then on the way home we passed some heavy machinery and I basically begged and cried until he promised to buy me a backhoe but what if I really secretly wanted a bulldozer all this time and maybe it means we NEVER EVEN REALLY GOT MARRIED oh my God MIND BLOWN.

Anyway: CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT! RAWR!

Hello Kitty Has Super Powers, Doesn't She?

So. We went trick-or-treating last night with friends and it was cold and rainy and we're all going to have the plague by the end of the weekend, no doubt, especially because it's supposed to snow this weekend.

Yes, you read that right: it is supposed to SNOW this weekend. BEFORE Halloween. In PENNSYLVANIA. And not just flurries, either -- they're calling for up to 6" around where I live and work, with more possible in other areas.

WHAT IS THIS I JUST CAN'T EVEN.

So while I try to find a store that still has milk and bread and eggs and bananas -- you know, blizzard foods -- before I go to Shae's Halloween Parade at school this afternoon, I hope you can enjoy some more pictures of what is turning out to be one of the most enjoyable and simultaneously girliest Halloween costumes that I have ever seen.

She knows she's adorable. We really are going to have our hands full, aren't we?

"Hey guys, watch this!"

How is it possible for this kid to still be this tall even while she's bent in half? Does not compute.

Great Pumpkin Presents

Because I love buying treats for the adorable little moppets in my life, we gave my niece Makayla a little present this weekend and we said that it was from The Great Pumpkin. (BTW: Hi, Joey! Your birthday gift is going in the mail tomorrow!)

She had absolutely ZERO idea what to do with it. Clearly it wasn't food, so she just sort of looked at it for a while until Shae stepped in to "help." (Ha.) I don't remember what age kids are when they first start to love tearing into wrapping paper, but evidently it is sometime after 10 months. Maybe closer to two? (Which means next Christmas, 2012, will be a RIOT.)

What Makayla did love? Was watching Shae rip the ever-living snot out of the tissue paper and undo the curling ribbon holding the package together. (I didn't use tape on this one, because somewhere back in the lizard part of my brain, I got the idea that tape was "bad for babies." Why I thought a four-foot string of shiny ribbon would be okay is beyond me. I am admittedly not the brightest crayon in the box.)

And of course -- and I say this as an almost 40-something -- whipping tissue paper around the room is a practically overwhelming amount of fun. I still like to do it, I am not going to lie: tossing around balls of crumpled-up gift wrap is one of my favorite sources of holiday amusement. (Largely because we have easily entertained cats, but still.)

Everybody loves tissue paper and presents from The Great Pumpkin. YAY!

I Feel The Earth Move

So, you might have heard we had an earthquake yesterday. Everyone's fine and nothing's broken, as far as I can tell, and I got to check an item off my bucket list. It is probably not normal to have "experience an earthquake first-hand" on one's bucket list, but when have I ever been known to do anything "normal?" It's been awhile, as far as I can tell.

This is the last week of "summer camp" at Shae's school -- their regular curriculum starts Monday, including Spanish lessons, which are new this school year and which I am way more excited about than Shae is -- and it was supposed to be a Water Play Day, but it was postponed until the afternoon because it was cool in the morning, and then it got cancelled after the earthquake, and she was majorly bummed about it because it was supposed to be the last water day of the summer. So I took pity on her poor soul -- seriously, a depressed 4-year-old is the saddest thing ever -- and we stopped at the water park on the way home.

Before Shae would go under the sprinklers, though, she said she wanted to show me "something cool," and she proceeded to drag me all over the world until we got down to the creek, which she kind of wanted to swim in, except she was afraid of getting eaten by alligators. And since God knows what kinds of gross things live in that creek, I let her think that alligators were the reason why we couldn't go swimming there.

We spent almost an hour at the water park, longer than I expected to, but there was nobody else around, and she was having such a good time that I just couldn't resist. Perhaps my brain got knocked around in my skull during the quake, or maybe I was just feeling indulgent. Who knows? She had fun, that's what matters, and I think we managed to make up for missing wacky water play with her friends at school.

Although there is something sort of sad about being the only kid at the playground in the late afternoon when the sun is still up and the summer is waning. Not that she minded much -- she had the whole place to herself. If I had known there was going to be an earthquake, I would have packed my own suit and played around with her.

I would never have looked as cute with the Hello Kitty hooded towel on, though.

All photos taken with my iPhone using Retro Camera (also available for Android).

Let Them Eat Those Little Whaddaya-Call-'Em Italian Cookies

It's Friday, y'all! Whoo hoo! Let's wrap this week up and then commence with the heavy drinking, shall we? It's what all the cool kids are doing.

Do they still have those alligator wrestlers in Florida? The Seminole ones? I wonder if they ever recruit from out of state, because I think we may have a live one here. Assuming that Seminole alligator wrestlers ever wrestle polyvinyl pool toys, of course. Everybody's got to start somewhere, don't they?

Caption this. No, I mean it: caption this. Because I got nothin'. I'm pretty sure that's some kind of preschool primal-growl-roar-scream thing going on, maybe even a barbaric yawp, but from the right angle ("right" being "correct" or "proper" here, and not the geometric 90°) it looks like it could also possibly be a yawn. Maybe. If you've been drinking enough (or maybe if you have not been drinking enough).

Oh hey, how did this little bit of delightfully delectable deliciousness get in there? Om nom NOM! Look at those CHEEKS! Look at those ARMS! Look at those ADORABLE LITTLE TEEFERS! Also: she has my mother's eyes, and the same missing upper lip that the rest of the women in my family have. This one is definitely related.

As promised (and expected, at this point, because there ALWAYS has to be a picture of my kid eating something on this blog every week or else I feel like a complete and utter failure as a human being): those little whaadya-call-'em Italian cookies. They probably have a fawncey-sounding name that ends in "i" or "o" or possibly "ei" or "ie." Cookie, maybe.

BONUS! Juice box hero. Have a great weekend.

Dept. of Redundancy Dept.

Wanna know some things I never get sick of taking (or posting) pictures of?

(1) My kid.

(2) Cupcakes.

(3) My kid, eating cupcakes.

(4) Miscellaneous.

Greeting Cards Have All Been Sent

Well, okay, technically they've not all been sent. Okay, none have been sent. But they're all written, except for the 7 people or so whose addresses I need. I had 88 people on the list this year -- in my next life, I want to be part of a smaller family. Sheesh.

I am really happy with the way our cards turned out this year. I've mentioned before that I take Christmas cards very seriously, and I was lucky (and patient) enough to find cards that met all the totally random arbitrary criteria that I felt needed to be met: non-denominational, colorful, happy, chic. I didn't end up picking one of the three designs I thought I would do with, but I did find something that worked for me.

Now if only taking and picking a picture of my kid would have been so simple! Even when you weed out the test shots, I ended up taking something like 130 pictures of my (generally mostly uncooperative) kid in front of the Christmas tree to get three pictures that were usable for the cards.

The one I ended up using is almost but not quite perfect -- I mean, it pretty much perfectly sums up my life, but it isn't exactly a perfect picture. Shae is (1) looking at the camera, (2) sitting still, and (3) smiling all at the same time, but she is not entirely in focus. I think the problem here is me; I left my tripod at my sister's baby shower (which, OMG, I never put up pictures and my sister is having the baby, like, RIGHT NOW) and I still don't it back, so I was using a jerryrigged stack of toy boxes and books to hold the camera still, and either she moved or I did. But I like the light here, and her hair looks great, and that million dollar smile, plus I really love this shirt that she got for a Christmas present last year and it's actually what I had in mind when I was picking out new decorations for the three this year, so I just ran the softening filter and called it a day. Like I said, I am really happy with how the cards turned out, and I think this picture is at least 75% of the reason why.

This photo was another contender and I almost ended up using it. Technically speaking, this is a better picture -- Shae is in focus, the lights have that nice twinkle from the shortened depth of field, her eyes have a gorgeous sparkle. Practically up until the last minute, this was the picture that was going to be on our cards. But I changed my mind because of (1) that weird open-mouth thing that Jessica Simpson is always doing that kind of makes her look like an unfortunately dim mouth-breather, and (2) Shae is not looking directly at the camera. Darn it, kid! Why don't you like to look at the camera?

I almost used this one, too. This picture is pretty typical of my kid (and, let's face it, her mother) -- she was chitter-chatting during our whole "photo shoot" and I really needed to work hard to get her to take direction. "Shae, look at the camera." Click. "Smile please." Click click. "Honey, can you drop your chin a little bit?" Click. "No, not that much, don't look at the floor, look at the camera." Click click click. "What are you doing with your face?" Click. "Don't scrunch up your nose, just look right at the camera and sit still and smile." Click. "Shae, please." Click click. "SHAE." Click. "Oh my God kid what are you doing can you please just sit still for two seconds and look at the camera and stop making that face and smile and listen to me OH MY GOD PLEASE LISTEN OR YOU ARE NEVER GETTING ANY CANDY AGAIN EVER."

Yard Work

Before the weather turned -- it's been cold and wet the last two days, and yesterday we even had a little snow (on Thanksgiving!) -- we put the kids to work in my grandmother's yard. Lots of leaves to clean up, you know, and we have to get everything done before the snow comes for real.

Of course, we don't all have the same idea about what constitutes yard "work."

Fortunately Joey has an excellent work ethic, unlike his degenerate slack-ass cousin, and he kept Shae in line and made her clean up her mess.

It sounds like I am picking on Joey because he likes to clean, but the fact is, I respect a kid who loves the vacuum almost as much as he loves mashed potatoes.

The Dude

For the next couple of days, I will be in my Happy Place. Well, not under the dryer at the salon, getting my hair done -- my Other Happy Place. With my daughter and my nephew (and all those other crazy people we are related to). But mostly with my daughter and my nephew. They're the important ones.

I'm glad they're in town this week -- Thanksgiving isn't the same when your whole family isn't together. And we're planning on a LOT of togetherness, starting tomorrow, when we take a day trip into the Great Big City filled with all the Dinky-Doos.

There will be shenanigans afoot, believe me. SHENANIGANS! And it's going to be AWESOME.

Presenting the Pirate Princess of Pottstown Port

Shae is going to be a pirate for Halloween. This is all my doing; I wanted her to be something fun for trick-or-treat, but I also wanted her to be something that had a certain degree of power along with the feminine charm. Also: badassery. And inflatable swords.

To properly get Shae into character -- oh, yes, I am a "method Mom" -- we've been watching a lot of Pirates of the Caribbean in our house. The first and second movies, anyway. We haven't seen the third one yet, but we have the trilogy on Blu-Ray and I'm pretty sure we'll be getting in a lot of viewings. Because Mommy? Loves her some Orlando Bloom AND some Johnny Depp.

At some point I'm going to need to figure out what to do with her hair, so it will fit under her tricorn hat. Somewhere in my house is a multi-color scarf that I got from my husband's grandmother, but I can't find it. To practice, I found this wrap that I got for some trip to somewhere. It's ... very big. But a lot of fun to tie around Shae's head.

I'm also going to have to start working on her skirt soon, or it will never be finished, because Mommy is a terrible sewer to begin with, and I have to hand-sew the whole thing. Probably more than once, because I don't anticipate that it will work out as expected the first time around.

In the meantime, we'll keep watching Captain Sparrow to learn how to act like a pirate. And we'll probably throw in a little SpongeBob, just because.

Wonder Twin Powers Activate

On Thursday, the last night of our full-family vacation (both my sisters left the shore on Friday -- one so that should could visit other family members while she was "local" and still make it back to Chicago in time for work on Monday, and the other so she could find out she is going to have a girl, although I am personally holding out hope that it might possibly be a unicorn) -- on Thursday, we went to the boardwalk at Seaside Heights. When we were kids, we used to go to Seaside Heights for our summer vacation, and I had vague and hazy and soft and fuzzy memories of the boardwalk. I recalled it was awesome.

Um, yeah, not so much. Thanks, Snooki. *eyeroll*

But there are still lovely parts, if you ignore all the "As Seen On 'Jersey Shore'" signs and the "Welcome Back MTV" signs on the club marquees. It smells pretty darn good, that combination of salt water and sand and Coppertone hanging in the air, mixing with the aromas of all the different foods you can eat on the boardwalk -- pizza, cheesesteaks, fries, freshly-made salt water taffy, ice cream, lemonade. I love the sounds, too, the jangle of arcades and the rolling of skee-balls and the pit-pit-pit of those big wheel games and the crash of the waves and the laughter of the gulls and the screaming of children. And nothing anywhere in the world looks as inviting and exciting as the lights of amusement-park rides reflecting in the glimmering ocean. (Too bad I am a terrible photographer -- you will just need to take my word for it.)

For all that waxing nostalgic, at the time I was upset about our trip to the boardwalk, because it was not quite like I remembered. I used to think the boardwalk was so cool, because there was nothing like it near my house. It was five miles or so of complete sensory overload, and I loved it. It kind of squicked me out this time, and it never occurred to me until my brother-in-law said something, but it kind of does look like one giant church carnival. You know, if your church is "Our Lady of the Meat Market."

I was kind of devastated, and I blamed MTV: yet again, they have stolen and ravaged my youth! I didn't eat anything, because I felt like everything was dirty, somehow -- Snooki-fied. I made up for eating 700+ calories more than I was allowed on Wednesday by eating almost 900 calories LESS than my budget on Thursday. I didn't even have any ice cream.

And then I got home, and I looked at the pictures, and you know what? That trip to the boardwalk gave me exactly what I wanted all along.

These two, walking around all night in their "matching" outfits, holding hands, being together. Looking adorable. Just talking.

Teaching each other to fly.

And, you know, having ice cream, which has the calcium that is very important for growing superheroes.

So, all told, it was a pretty damn good vacation. Let's do it again.

Soon.