Business in the front

Party in the back!

The baby mullet is in full effect, y'all. It makes me want to just kiss her sweet cheeks, because bless her heart, you know?

In other news, see her boo boo? I know, you might have to squint. She fell down in the driveway last weekend and smacked her head pretty hard. But the knee has turned out to need the most care. This is how it goes:
MB wakes up from her nap.
Me: HI, BUBBA!! Did you have a good nap?
MB: Knee! Kneeeeeeeee!
Me: Huh? [I'm slow--even though this has been going on for days]
MB: Kneeeeeee! Kneeeeeeeeeee-uh!
Me: Does your knee need a kiss?
MB: Yeah!
Me: Ok [kiss!]. Does that feel better?
MB: Yeah.

But apparently not for long, because that knee needs lots of kisses. At dinner the knee needed a kiss, but I couldn't really get a good look under the high chair and kissed the wrong knee.
Me: Does that feel better?
MB: Yeah.

Can't she just stay little?

For the MB stalkers

You know who you are.

Let's see. What have we been up to lately?

Hanging out on the couch in our pjs.

Snacking.

Trying out pigtails.

 

Play dates. 

You know, the usual.

I hope you get to hang out with a snack on your couch in your pjs with your hair in pigtails someday soon, too. We highly recommend.

The Cat's Out of the Bag

I've always known that I married an amazing man, but I try not to talk about it a lot. I figure: why brag?

But then the Jacksonville Business Journal had to go and name Lee one of Jacksonville's most influential 40 under 40, and now the secret's out.

So now you know, if you weren't already suspicious: my husband is awesome. I'm so proud of him! Kind of makes all the cancelled vacations worth it. We can always take our honeymoon on our 10th anniversary, right?

I love you, sweetH. 

Do you know Sugarboo?

No no no, not this Sugarboo...

This Sugarboo:

I saw this last piece in a back issue of Southern Living that was about to hit the recycle bin a few weeks ago and decided that it shall be mine.


[Dear Lee, I will expect to receive this on or about May 9th. K?Thx.Love.]

Whip It Good

Laura, you would be so proud: I whipped my own cream yesterday. In fact, I was pretty proud of myself, so if you're underwhelmed, that's ok.

[This isn't mine--I forgot to take a picture. But I swear it looked like this. Maybe not quite as prettily styled.]

Lee and I were in the grocery store getting supplies for dessert on Sunday, and one of the items we needed was Cool Whip. Simple enough. Except that Lee has been reading The Omnivore's Dilemma

and couldn't help pointing out that Cool Whip is basically chemically contrived. It contains no milk or cream at all, and water is its most natural ingredient. Ick.

So, the only thing left to do was put on my big girl britches and whip some freaking cream, you know? On the upside, I got a nice arm workout with that whisk.

Just don't make me look at the ingredients in my Jalepeno chips. For the love of God. Don't make me do it.

Things to Do Immediately

1. Get a wok.
2. Throw out all chicken nuggets.
3. Learn how to dance while cooking.

Scene from the Wedekind house

[I'll preface this by saying that MB's new favorite thing to say is I know. This has replaced What's that? as the most frequently uttered phrase in our household. I guess she figures she's asked What's that? 14,000 times a day since October, so she finally knows it all.]

So, I'm cooking dinner for MB last night [pesto ravioli again, she can't get enough]. She's twirling around the kitchen playing with a purple beach pail that has still not made it to a permanent home in the toy bin.

I turn around from the stove, and the bucket is upside down on her head.

Me: MB, you know you have a bucket on your head?
MB: [bucket still on head] I know.
Me: Mmmkay, as long as you know.

Guest Post by Jen

[I'm taking a little break this week to eat whole bags of Jalepeno chips. So Jen has graciously stepped in to tell you a few of her Birthday Things. Want to tell me yours? Email me and we'll chat.] 

I love this blog. I must check it 20 times a day even though Suzanne only updates it once a day (if I'm lucky). It was during one of my frequent phone calls demanding an update that she suggested that I submit a guest blog. I have to admit the prospect of contributing to Suz's blog was a little intimidating. She has a knack for delivering real life infused with humor. I'm afraid I'll suffer by comparison. But such is the life of a twin: suffering and comparison! Haha just kidding, Suz!

Anywho: In sticking with the theme, I thought I'd share with ya'll a few of my birthday things. Here we go:

1. Birthday Things. This blog is one of my birthday things. I love to check in on Suz & MB during the work day and see what shenanigans they are getting into. Sometimes when I come to a sticking point on a work project, I'll even consider What Would MB Do? And then usually I'll go play outside or have a snack. (I try to avoid throwing tantrums, but it happens to the best of us sometimes.)

2. Sunshine. If ya'll had SEEN how much snow we got up here this past winter you'd know why I'm so happy to see the sunshine I can't even stand it. It got here just in time. I narrowly avoided a full blown case of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).

3. Kiel James Patrick. My coworker alerted me to the cuteness of these bracelets. The best part? The hot model guy in the photos is the designer and owner of the company. They also have cute earrings.

 4. Ben's new laugh. (These are obviously not in order of importance.) In the last few weeks, Ben has started to crack himself up and has this funny little laugh that is infectious.

5. I was hoping to get to 10, then 5 became my new goal and now...I'm just exhausted having spent so much brainpower on this. Now that I know how hard it is to be a blogger, I'd like to say I'll use this experience to stop pestering Suz for new updates, but it's not true. I will. And lying is sooo not a birthday thing.

Love, Jen

Glee for Glee

I can tell you with 100% certainty that when Lee opens this post, his eyes will roll back in his head.  He is not a Gleek like me. And that's ok. We will just agree to disagree on Tuesday nights for the rest of Spring.

But I know the rest of you are with me on this one, right?

Never was there a show that was so in my TV wheelhouse.  You did know that I was in chorus in high school, right? And I did musical theatre? So much so that I still refuse to spell theatre with an "ER" instead of an "RE"? Even now spell check is underlining theatre like I'm some kind of dummy, but whoever made spellcheck must not have been in musical theatre.

But I digress.

Glee is back tonight, and I could not be more excited.

I do have some words of warning for the writers, though: Do not toy with me over Will and Emma. You just go ahead and ask the writers of Grey's Anatomy how that ploy worked out for them.

And also--anyone who thinks of calling me during this show will get a swift shut down. Even you, Jen. Even you.

Four Freddies

I've been meaning to post about Mary Bullock's Freddies for a while now, but it turns out, it's hard to get them all together for a group photo. At any given time, one is in MB's mouth, one is in her crib, one is in the wash [which may surprise you after you see these photos], and one is on the missing list.

Plus, most of my blogging gets done when MB is asleep with her Freddies wound tightly in her fists, so there's that problem.

But tonight the Freddies were all present and accounted for.

Clockwise L-R: Freddy (original Freddy is the green one), Spotted Freddy, White Freddy, Pink Freddy

[Mary Bullock insisted on sitting in my lap for these pictures. Please excuse the odd angles.] 

Lest you think I am way weirder than I actually am, these lovies did not start out with the same name.  I had named them perfectly good names, but Freddy was the first one that Mary Bullock learned, so Freddy they all became.

She loves them all equally, thank goodness. This allows us to be able to wash a couple of them at a time. Because what she likes to do is suck on them.

That's why all their tags are all brown and disgusting. They also smell really awful. She does not seem to notice.

Whenever she sees a Freddy after a long separation, she hugs it and says Fred-dyyyyyy! like she has missed a long lost friend.

I think if Mary Bullock could express herself more clearly, she would say that her Freddies are at the top of her Birthday Things list

right behind her books. 

Reason I love Lee #14, 361

Because he sends me emails that contain the following four pictures.

The man sets my heart to music.

This is Spring

Spring always reminds me of this bit from Leaves of Grass. I think of it often on our walks.

A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full
hands;
How could I answer the child?. . . .I do not know what it
is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful
green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we
may see and remark, and say Whose?

***

Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them;
It may be you are from old people and from women, and
from offspring taken soon out of their mother's laps,
And here you are the mother's laps.

***

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men
and women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring
taken soon out of their laps.

What do you think has become of the young and old men?
What do you think has become of the women and
children?

They are alive and well somewhere;
The smallest sprouts show there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait
at the end to arrest it,
And ceased the moment life appeared.

All goes onward and outward. . . .and nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and
luckier.

Easter, continued and edited for clarification

Look! We're all actually looking in the direction of the camera! It was an Easter miracle. Definitely better than our last family picture attempt.

We had a great Easter weekend! We spent a lot of time outside, which thrilled MB to pieces. This weekend she was in the throes of a full-blown Daddy obsession, which I'm sure has everything nothing to do with his letting her play in the water hose until she was soaked down to her sandals.* I'm just the mean ol' mama who towels her off and sticks her in the bathtub, you know?

See the smile? She's saying to herself: YEAH! This guy is going to give me candy*!

Now look at her. I might as well have killed her Freddy [post on that later].

I did get a couple of kisses out of her this weekend, though, and I'll take what I can get.

We hope you had a lovely Easter! Did you get to hunt some eggs?

*For those of you who don't know us well, these are jokes. Or joke-ish-es. Since they're lame. But no, Lee did not give her candy. And she doesn't just love him because he lets her play in the water hose. Although I'm sure it didn't hurt his cause.  You saw him sitting with her for the Easter Bunny, right? So you know he must be an awesome daddy, because that Easter Bunny was scary.