Happy Birthday to Meeeeeeee!

Hello darling readers. Today is my 30th birthday you see. It's been 30 years now since the Earth was first introduced to the bald, some-day-blonde, hazel-eyed, pale, blind girl who would eventually become a crazy redhead with an unnerving fire for life, and an extreme passion for her babies and her soft spot, who shall remain nameless for now...

At dinner (complete with dongs and drinks)

My birthday began on a bright note this morning. The twins woke me up (rather quietly... the shock!) by telling me happy birthday. Logan followed suit, and while the rest of the world could have no way understood what the child was saying, I did. And it was music to my barely-awake ears. My babies love me :)

I climbed out of bed reluctantly (as always), and started to pour juice, hand out Poptarts (I know... Mom of the year), get kids dressed and throw myself together enough to leave the house, clad in sweats and a t-shirt with my coat thrown over it. I didn't put on a stitch of makeup (I'm really growing up!) before we left the house. I did, however, stop at McDonald's for a wonderful sweet tea... the first of my birthday sweets.

I took the kids to Joel's parents' house because I had lunch plans today, and surprise plans tonight. I came home, hopped in the shower, got prettied up (curls, red lipstick, hose, skirt... the works), and then received a happy birthday call, which made me very happy :)

My friend was supposed to pick me up at 1pm. She didn't show up. I'm worried about her, because I couldn't get in touch with her. I wasn't upset or anything... I found some humor in eating Spaghettios instead of dining with wine at the Cheesecake Factory. I dressed up for Spaghettios. How lovely :) *cackles*

Ready to go out (and praying I don't get stood up twice ;)


After eating my Spaghettios (I don't even really like Spaghettios, except for the meaty balls), I decided to eat a cupcake. Then another... courtesy of my ex-husband's girlfriend. Yes, that's right, I not only dressed up to sit on the floor, watch Young & the Restless and eat half-cooked Spaghettios. I also dined on cupcakes the ex's chick baked. Conventional birthday lunch? No. Funny enough to blog about? Surely! *more giggle fits*

This afternoon I decided to take a nap... on my curls. I woke up a few times, because I refused to turn my phone off, but enjoyed the rest. I woke up a bit smeared (mascara) and with a bit less pizazz on top of my head, but I didn't care. I love sleep, and a quiet house and a nap on my 30th? Near bliss!

I talked with handsome and then with my friend Amy, and then started to get ready (once again) for my surprise. My friend Candise picked me up and we meandered to the Mexican restaurant. The waitress came out and immediately asked for our drink order (I would later have my picture taken with her). Without hesitation, I ordered a strawberry margarita. "Small, Medium or Large?" "Large of course!" This damn drink was literally as big as my head! And they don't scrimp on booze! It was loaded with tequila! LOADED! Let's just say by the end of dinner, I had finished off that 45-oz glass (with a sipper beside me) and I was flying high.

Miss Amikens (aka Twan): This chick & I have been friends for 25 years! My GOD! We should get drunk more often!


Cute little Innocent Ash



Candi Cox :P (LMAO)



Beautiful Whit and Hot Little Hunter, the stripper :P


Rainbow, Shannon & the Stripper in Action ;) LOL


Rainbow (also known as Shelly, Shell and Michelle)
We've come a VERY long way! ****MUAH****

I opened my gifts, and just about died when I opened a giant ding-a-ling I was NOT expecting from my sweet, innocent coworker! The fact that it was from her cracked me the hell up! I also received darling coffee mugs (I'm addicted!) and many other fabulous gifts. THEN the waiters and waitresses came out with my HELLO KITTY CAKE! That's right! For my 30th birthday, I got a HELLO KITTY CAKE! And I LOVED it! One single candle. One happy Kelly.

She Just Rocks!
(I will be getting a Hello Kitty tat on my foot sometime in the no-so-distant future)

I cut the cake and can happily report that no one has yet eaten miss Kitty's face. Because of this, I stuck my straw in her nose and proceeded to suck. The cake was lovely and yummy, and no, the new girlfriend did not bake it. Thank you L&P!


What happens when dongs and drinks collide.


Miss Amikens brought me home and we chit-chatted a bit before she left me for dead. Haha! Just kidding! I quickly ran down to the computer to post pics on Facebook. I had a wonderful time, and was anxious to show my friends :)

Just a bit ago, while I was on the phone (yep, again), I was unknowingly receiving text messages from an irate family member, telling me that the family did not divorce me (see previous posts). When you haven't heard from your parents, brother or sister for well over a month after asking them to get ahold of you if they decide not to cut ties, it's sort of an unspoken message... we're done with you. I've heard that message loud and clear (3 times in my life now), have come to terms with it, and have moved on.

In the next breath, I was told that we all need to be grown-ups and move past this. HA! I will NEVER, EVER let people come into and out of my children's lives the way they have been in and out of mine.

They critique my parenting, my decisions, my life in general, and now I admit it... yes, I am done. I am no longer staying in a dysfunctional situation knowingly. I AM an adult now. I'm making this decision for my children, myself and our well-being. Those family members who have walked in and out of my life? They are my past. The babies, my friends and him... they are my future.

Happy Birthday Kelly.
I love you.

Poop on You

This has been a rather interesting weekend. I took Friday and today off to allow myself a much-needed short-little-teeny-tiny vacation. I realized I have been going full speed ahead since long before we moved into the new house. I haven't had much down time, and I was looking forward to a nice, relaxing, peaceful long weekend. I forgot something important in this cozy little plan...

I have kids.

The crazy train came right along, picked us up for a mini-holiday, and I've been riding the rails & bumps all damn weekend. It's one of those stay-cool-or-you'll-haul-off-and-hit-something-or-worse-yet-someone long weekends, where the kids are literally playing tug-of-war over a stupid little pirate eye patch, sticking out their evil little tootsies just to trip one another on purpose, and screaming at the top of their lungs because they want the pizza man to bring pizza... noooo, homemade pizza just won't do.

Another factor I didn't take into consideration before my spa-like lovely weekend was the fact that we were having a yard sale Friday & Saturday. For future reference, I plan to write myself a hate note scolding myself for having a yard sale two weeks after a big move, and threatening myself that if I ever do plan a yard sale again, I just may have a nervous breakdown, and the insane asylum will be quick to follow.

The pricing was the worst. I had no help, which I won't get into, and the pricing process took a total of 5+ hours, and I'm a damn fast pricer! I'd truly be an asset to the retail world, with my nervous energy and my fast-paced talky ways. Any chance those retailers ever had of me coming to work for them, they are long gone. The yard sale did me in.

We made decent money. We sold quite a bit, and have shit-loads of crapola still sitting in the garage. The rest will be donated. That makes me feel a little better about the psychosis behind having a sale in the yard/driveway. If you think about it, the whole idea is quite odd. I won't get into that now... displaying your crap for the whole neighborhood to see is a blog post in itself.

My friend Candise came to help me with the sale. The actual sitting and selling was quite fun. Our most interesting customer showed up in a huge blonde hair piece, an off the shoulder shirt with her bra straps hanging out proudly, a tiny little skirt and silver sequins shoes, which would have rivaled Dorothy's if they were red. Not only did she saunter around the sale looking quite delirious (she had obviously had work done... bad work), at one point she answered her cell phone and proceeded to say "there ain't no one prissier than me". It was awesome! I wanted to take her picture, get her autograph, interview this large woman with enough self-esteem to fill North America. But I didn't. I just stared at her with fascination. I'm sure she thought I was checking her out. After all, who could resist this hunka hotness?

Anyway, today was house-cleaning day. I slept in (thank you Joel!), and then woke up full of spunk and energy. I banished my lovely children and husband to the basement, as to not be disturbed (except for kids screaming at me from the basement and Rock Band playing at alarmingly high call-the-police volumes). I managed to clean the entire house (minus the basement of course) and get some laundry moved from the dirty mountain to the clean mountain.

The hardwood floors are decidedly very difficult to keep clean. I treated myself by buying a Swiffer Sweeper yesterday. Thank God for Swiffer! I already have the Wet Jet (although I can't find the pads right now), and believe it is one of the best inventions I've been introduced to! Brooming and dust-panning are not my thing. I think sweeping is a big stupid waste of valuable time. But the Sweeper is actually fun :) I zipped around the house today, and managed to sweep the entire upstairs before this little perfect piece of machinery finally died of exhaustion.

Among the other events which made up my weekend... I dropped my cell phone in the toilet. Mind you, I have been wanting a new cell phone desperately, but I would have never went to the extreme to dropping my old, ugly, stupid cell phone into poop water. Baby poop, water and cell phones do not mix, just so you don't make the same mistake. I was phoneless for 12 hours, and thought I could die from loneliness. Joel was out for the night, the kids eventually went to bed, and I was at a loss. Not even my computer could keep me occupied and happy. What if I had to call 911? Oh my God, I forgot to tell my mom something! Jeesh, I can't even text my texting buddy... what ever will I do?

Well yesterday, Joel and I meandered into Verizon, and I upgraded to a beautiful pink, shiny Blackberry Curve. I'm falling in love with it. There is no way I will ever learn all of the ins and outs, but the whole idea of having my email, facebook, messanger and countless other apps at my beckon call.... priceless!

Because the phones were buy-one-get-one-free, Joel wound up with a free Blackberry (though he opted out of the pink). He loves it just as much, although he wouldn't admit in the beginning that he wanted one. When the guy said "free" he perked up a bit. I'm afraid I will have to watch for him to make sure he isn't about to run into a pole while walking, or a dog while driving... he's rather lovey-dovey with his phone as well.

So, the crazy train weekend is quickly coming to a close. The twins start preschool Wednesday. I took the day off work, so I can take them, cry, pick them up, cry some more... and spend the rest of the day wallowing in self-pity. My babies are getting old.

I hope you had a nice weekend. I hope you didn't have a yard sale. I hope you shipped your kids off to Grandma's and I hope you were graced with the presence of a hot-shot hunka-burnin-love.

Until next time... just shoot me.

Kell ;)

Potty Mouth

Today was a frantic day for my family. Okay, I'm lying through my teeth right now. It was a frantic and traumatic day for me... and miss Abbi.

We started our day at 5am... sorta. I hit snooze, after waking up and realizing the baby was snuggled up against me as close as he could possibly be. He had teetered in at some point during the night, and I hadn't even noticed. What a love. I couldn't move. I just laid there. Now, whether I actually wanted to snuggle with the baby at 5am, or just use that as an excuse to sleep 5 more minutes, I can't tell. I know, but I won't tell you... :P

That brings me to the wake-up. I hopped out of bed.. literally, because at some point a giant semi (toy) also teetered into our bedroom and plopped it's big square very-hard-plastic ass onto the floor right where I step to get out of bed in the mornings.

Thankfully I had gotten my shower the night before, after my husband graciously made my roots the color they were meant to be... red... not the blonde God graced me with. I'm still a bit peeved at him for making me a natural blonde. It SO doesn't go with my skin tone. We'll have a talk once I get up there to meet him... Lord willing.

Anyway, I still felt rather clean from the shower I had taken last night, so I threw on my scrubs, added a few curls to the fro and painted my face. Not bad for 5:30am, I suppose.

I then packed myself some healthy goodies for work, filled 3 sippies, threw some diapers in the make-shift diaper bag (I finally threw away the lovely pale pink designer-knockoff bag Joel preferred :P) and tip-toed back to wake the lovies up.

Aiden was first. He popped out of bed like he had just realized his sheets were either frozen or on fire. He immediately went out to the living room. I turned on the light, and he gave me an evil little stare. "Mommy, this is WAY too early." "Join the club Aiden... this is how Mommy & Daddy feel every weekend day." Note to self: Tomorrow, wake Aiden up by screaming in his ear.

Abbi was next. She was a little slower than Aiden, but she knew what she had to look forward to (and fear) for the day, so she hobbled out to the living room, too. She had a mini-tantrum over her dress (too many buttons... wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh), but she recovered quite nicely. So I went to wake up the baby.

I shook him a little... not in a baby-shaking syndrome way... in a loving, get-the-hell-up kinda way. He turned over onto his belly, snoring happily. I jiggled his cute little baby leg. He sat up pissed. He started whining and I had to giggle. This was payback.

The getting-out-the-door process went rather smoothly, and we were on the road by 6:15am... off to Papa's house. The drop-off was drama free. The kids love Papa. They even got to see Mama for a quick minute before she left for work.

I got to work and fretted all morning... stomach ache, nausea... I thought I could seriously vomit. But I didn't. At 8:35am on the nose, I left work and met the kids & Papa at the church. First day of VBS. First day I've ever dropped my babies off ANYWHERE and left them. Sure, the grandparents watch them and we have a couple of very trust-worthy friends who have babysit, but this was entirely different.

As soon as we got to the church Abbi was in full-blown OCD mode. I wanted to cry. We registered. She asked me where the bathroom is. We got name tags. She asked me where the bathroom is. We met the teacher's helper. She asked me where the bathroom is. We showed her to her mat. She asked me where the bathroom is.

You see, Abbi did not have to pee. She has a major issue with potties. She must know where they are, how the door closes, who will take her, if she is strong enough to open the door & if it is just 'kinda loud' or 'really loud' when the potty flushes. Preschool starts in a few weeks, and this has been her main concern. The potty.

The teacher (who will also be her preschool teacher) helped to calm Abbi down. This whole time Aiden was being a champ. He was excited.

The teacher's helper showed us to the restroom. Abbi was satisfied after the teacher's helper promised her that if she had to pee, she would show her to the bathroom. Mission #1 accomplished.

Mission #2? Will Abbi be picked up. Mind you, we have never left our kids. We would never leave our kids and the fear Abbi has about us leaving her is extremely real and a bit odd to me. I assured her over and over and over and over again that Papa would be there to pick she & Aiden up at noon. I imagine she asked her teacher the same question 50,000,000 times throughout the day.

I told the teacher on the way out I was going to go cry. Abbi stared at me but didn't start throwing a fit or sobbing. I would cry enough for the both of us...

So I got back to work and had to auto-pilot myself through the morning. My stomach was REALLY aching at this point. I was shaky. I was a MESS waiting for noon to come. I couldn't wait. I couldn't wait to call Papa and find out if the kids had done okay. I had lots of faith in Mr. Aiden. I prayed I wouldn't get a phone call about Abbi. I didn't.

Noon came and went. I waited til 12:30 to call, so I could talk to the kids too. Joel called me at one point and I panicked. I just knew something was wrong. Nothing was.

The kids were SOOOOO excited when I talked to them! They had a fabulous time! I'm pretty sure they didn't even miss me, which makes me want to shout from the rooftops and cry profusely all at once. Day one done, 4 more to go.

VBS was the topic of the night... all we heard about. Logan is a bit too young to go, so he stayed with his Papa all day. He probably loved the attention. Trying to fight for attention when you don't say much, and have twin crazy children as your siblings, must suck.

Tonight we drove into town. One of the kids' favorite things to do is to go through the car wash. We save this for special occasions (I almost said rainy days, but that wouldn't be appropriate) and cabin-fever days. The van gets washed about once every couple of months. (Seriously, it was eight freakin' dollars and it didn't even BLOW DRY the damn van! RIP I tell ya!)

We're driving through (it was nearly dark and it WAS dark inside the car wash) and the baby just started WAILING. Big old sick-cow wails... seriously, he sounded like a wounded animal. From his perspective, I could see why he was so outrageously scared. Tiny Logan (alright he's not all that tiny, but compared to me he's an ant) versus the big car wash machines. I felt for him.

On our way home I couldn't help but think about the scary things in life. If we fear things as adults, can you imagine how small children feel? The world is HUGE to us, which makes it GIGANOURMAMUNDUS to them. We stopped for a train, and I realized how scary a train could be. I just prayed that if it derailed, it would derail off the other side of the track. Trains = Scary.

We got home and Abbi pointed at a giant bug on the wall. She called me over, and it was a GIGANOURMAMUNDUS mosquito. GIGANOURMAMUNDUS mosquito = Terrifying.

See what I'm getting at? Life is full of fear. We spend hours a day avoiding them, making people feel better about them, facing them & beating them. I just pray the train doesn't derail, the mosquito doesn't suck our blood and the toilet doesn't suck our asses down with it.

Life is damn scary. We'll never get out of it alive.

It's not worth worrying about. That's just how it is.

The end = Petrifying.

Ding-a-ling

**The Smart Ass**

My head is spinning from listening to the twins (my kids, not my breasts) playing pretend all morning (because breasts playing pretend would just be, well... strange).

Anyway, the kids have been playing with this little broken plastic purple house. I can't throw it away, because they would know. Even if I do something 'without them knowing', they know! They hunt me down and poke & prod at me all day. They stalk me! So, in short, the broken plastic purple house stays. I don't feel like being poked today.

Along with the plastic brokenness, they also have little tiny dogs and cats who have apparently morphed into my children in their minds. At one point today, Abbigail yelled "MOM!" hysterically 3 times. When I finally asked what was going on, she said scoldingly, "I am not talking to you!" with a giant sigh. I love it! I can sit back and not answer to "Mom" today... yay!

Since I hear "Mom" an estimated 5,000 times a day (more if I'm not working), I appreciate this pretend time. Aiden earlier yelled, "get outta this house or I will beat you." Now please realize, we don't say things of this sort to or around the kids. They do have an oddly fascinating love for the Powerpuff Girls, and I believe they are the cause of my children's evil-ness as of late. As a friend of mine would say, "bugger!"... we HAVE come to an understanding that the word 'Stupid' s NOT allowed in this house. I hate that word!

Among the list of other words I hate:
-Tender (ugh!)
-C*nt (just don't say it... I will gag)
-Scrotum (seriously, who would name a body part a 'scrotum' that is so close to another body part that is supposed to turn us on... YUCK!)
-Puss (uck... in every sense of the word! SO Gross!)
-Buford & Hog Leg (the two words my ex nicknamed his ding-a-ling.. he was obviously delusional, and I'm quite sorry he isn't computer savvy, cause I sure would love for him to see this. Heheheehehe *evil snicker*)

So, back to playing pretend, although I greatly enjoyed that little detour, while watching & listening to the kids, I realized how much people in general play pretend... put up a facade. I'm guilty of it. I'm sure you are too on occasion.

How often, in passing, does someone ask you how you're doing, and you say 'fine'. Rarely are we just 'fine'... but we continue to say it, whether we just want to get the hell away from the person asking, or we just don't feel like getting into the drama called our lives. To me, 'fine' is just a reflex now. I'm not sure that many of the people who ask really care. I think the 'how are you's' and 'how's it goin's' are actually auto-pilot questions, too. Sure, some people truly care when they ask, but often, it's just a formality.

One goal I have set for myself lately is to not ask cookie-cutter questions & reply to others with cookie-cutter answers. Who cares if they don't really care when they ask? At least YOU are being authentic if you give an honest answer. I appreciate it when people are genuine. I try to be. I almost always am, but sometimes 'fine' is just easier.

Make-believe for kids is a bit more innocent than grown-up 'play'. We adults really 'play' eachother constantly... go through the motions. It would be nice to know what people really think.

Then again, maybe a touch of make-believe isn't so bad. I tend to like this little place I call my lala land... a little too much. I don't think I could give it up. It's definitely my happy place.

So... my plan? I'll continue to be happy in my own little world, and to allow the slaps of reality to only burden me when they are truly important. Healthy? Maybe not. But it's my world, and I'll be enjoying the blissful chaos day after day...

Wanna join me?