Darling I Love You But Give Me Park Avenue

Wordless Wednesday

A Cautionary Tale (Complete with Pictures)

You know you've been tempted. Perhaps it was when Oprah featured them on one of her shows, or maybe it was late one night and the infomercial was fairly convincing that they would CHANGE YOUR LIFE.

Some of you may have even succumb to temptation and purchased them, with hopes of impressing your friends. Better yet, you had visions of causing your husbands palms to sweat just like they did the first time the two of you met, and you were wearing your favorite pair of acid washed Guess? jeans. Of course, if your memory is correct, he was wearing those crazy cool military boots and leaning all relaxed and devil-may-carish against a column outside the local Baskin Robbins ....

sigh

uh ... wait

where was I?

Oh yes ... the deceptive promises of Shapewear. That's at least it's more subtle name. There's also the much more obvious title of Lipo in a Box, and of course Oprah's favorite, Spanx.

Whatever you call them, I've always been a bit suspicious of them. Control top panty hose make me want to crawl back under the covers and call it a day. So I was never brave enough to try on something, whose name alone insinuates some form of corporal punishment.

My teenie tiny toothpicked size mother on the other hand feels she needs all the help she can get. So after being mesmerized by a late night infomercial she purchased the promise of youth and waited patiently as it arrived in the mail. The good news was that her SIZE SMALL bodysuit came with a free gift of thigh shapers as well. (Did you catch the SIZE SMALL reference? Why on earth would they even make a SIZE SMALL??? And why on earth would someone (my mother) who IS a size small (my mother) feel the need to buy one???? How can you want to look LESS than a size small??? These questions keep me up at night ... but I digress.)

When the package arrived in the mail, she gleefully ripped through the plastic and looked hopefully at her new bodysuit. Perplexed, she realized that the small seemed really .... um ... small. Still, not one to give up, she begin the long and arduos process of trying to wedge her body into it. I won't go into the gory details, but suffice it to say her hopes of perfection were dashed as soon as she realized that bending over and breathing were the sacrifices of beauty. She immediately called the company and arranged to return the torure devices poste-haste. The good news (according to the customer service rep) was that she could keep the thigh shapers as her free gift.

Which is why my daughters now have some new leggings to add to their dress-up collection.



Ladies, you have been warned ... ignore the Sirens seductive call from the shores of fashion. Your hopes (lo, your very breath capacity) could be dashed on the jagged rocks. Shapewear that a 3 year old can easily pass off as capri TIGHTS is just wrong! M'kay?

Up A Tree ...

Wordless Wednesday

I LOVE how he plays with our kids! This post could also be titled "Where my children get their photogenic tendencies" But that's such a long title.

Reviews Coming In

The Book is out and I of course LOVED it, but as LeVar Burton used to say on Reading Rainbow, "You don't have to take my word for it ..." because my word is slightly biased and based on a desire for all of my Father in Law's hard work to be a success.

OK, LeVar didn't ever say that last part.

Anyway, people are reviewing it and seeing all of the same positive elements in the book that I loved so much. So here are a couple of reviews from people that do not share a common last name with the author:

Consuming Worship: "the book is a real eye-opener for someone like me who has always been a firm (sometimes zealous) supporter of Israel. When you peek into the life of a Palestinian born in a tent near the beginnings of the last century’s conflict between Jews and Arabs, you cannot help but have your worldview shifted somewhat—maybe not so much a shift in thought but an increased clarity because of learning about the other side of the issue."

Jeff Adams: (Our former pastor, and Daddy to one of my closest friends) "a tangible example of God’s power to change lives. There is no other explanation that makes sense."

Jennifer at A Quiver Full: "I was encouraged, educated and led to examine the scriptures pertaining to the descendants of Isaac and Ishmael in a new light."

So there you go. It really is a great book! Buy it, request it at your library or borrow from a friend you know named Addie, whatever, just read it. I think with today's volatile climate it's such an important book to open your eyes a bit to God's worldview. Forget all the rhetoric that you may have heard from the religious right or the liberal left, what does God think about this often forgotten people group? And what lengths is he willing to go just to reach them?

Halloween, A Parental Lesson in Letting Go

You know it's going to happen when you become a parent, you just mistakenly believe it happens around 18 years of age. The reality is that it starts sometime before 8.

First Halloween: (aka: the time I had more input)



Current Halloween: (aka: I think we know where this is going.)



I didn't want to let her wear this, but she confused me when she started speaking in Klingon and told me that she had to keep the ring safe from the Cylon's ruling in Mordor.* How could I refuse her ... my baby wants to be a hero!

* I totally ripped this off a tv show ... if you know which one, you're cool in my book.

TuTu Typical

Aren't they adorable?

Won't they look so cute on Halloween?

It looks like all the hours of hard work and preparation I put into their costumes really paid off.

Except now my five year old tells me that she doesn't think she's going to be a ballerina for Halloween. She wants to be Sleeping Beauty instead.

The sleeping beauty dress we have is old.
And tattered.
And a couple of sizes too big.
And is worn here around the house EVERY. OTHER. DAY.



It's nice to see she's stepping out of her comfort zone.

Scary things like PTO's, Arts and Crafts, and Pumpkin Patches

Wow, did I seriously have a blog post up for the last three weeks with a picture of dead bugs in my freezer? I really know how to leave things on a good note, don't I?! For the three of you that have continued to check in here and had to endure that, I am deeply sorry.

The bugs are gone. The freezer's been bleached. And Sporty received a perfect score on her science project. And for all that I say: Hooray!

And because I'm sick today but desperately feel the need to push the bug post further down my page, I give you, in list form, some vignettes from my life. And in keeping with the whole creepy feeling that the bugs have added to this blog, it's a Halloween themed list. Spooky indeed!

1. Somehow I ended up being in charge of the whole Halloween party for Posh's kindergarten class. I'm not sure how that happened. I vaguely remember a phone call, some sort of peer pressure and now here I am. So, I went to the planning meeting a few weeks ago, sat with a bunch of women I don't know, but who all seem to know each other, and I now have all sorts of little tasks to accomplish. Not to mention the expectation to have a party which can entertain 20 kiddos for an hour. Oh, and I have to do it for $13. Or at least that's the amount of cash they gave me. Entertain 20 kids for an hour on $13! Oh yeah, sure, No Sweat! Each kid is getting a half a package of smarties and a napkin that they can take home to keep. Should be a huge success.

2. Posh and Baby Spice are going to be ballerinas for halloween and I'm making the tutus. I'm done with one, and have one more to make this weekend before Trunk or Treat at Church this Sunday night. Here's the one I've already made:

This is only the second time I've ever made a costume for one of my kids. Sporty's very first Halloween we made a butterfly costume out of cardboard and felt. It was SO CUTE!



Or maybe SHE was just SO CUTE! Eight years later, she's going as a Jedi. Surprisingly, she declined my offer of another butterfly costume. :-)

3. I'm hoping that making costumes for the girls will make up for my other Halloween failures. I'm almost embarrassed to admit this ... but ... I buy our pumpkins at Wal-mart. And to top it off, I don't have any pictures of the kids picking them out. (Do you think that would've made for a good family photo op to have the kids positioned all around the blue shopping cart?) This is all tongue in cheek, but I do have to admit that a part of me feels like the odd man out when almost everyone seems to take their kids to a patch to pick out their pumpkins these days. With three kids, it would cost us about $40-$50 to get three pumpkins. Three pumpkins that they are going to take home and hack up with knives. Hack not carve. I just can't bring myself to do it. They don't seem to mind now, but I wonder if later they'll feel deprived when they hear their friends talking about all the fun they had at the pumpkin patch. Maybe I'll just sock away that $40-$50 we saved for the therapy sessions they're gonna need.

Have a Great Weekend!