The "Honest Moms"

I love all my mom friends, but I have two friends in particular that I have known my whole life practically (Kelly since the first day of HS and Erika since the first day of college) and they are my "honest mom" friends. I think we all probably try to keep up appearances to an extent, but with these girls, it is all laid out on the table. Practically all of our conversations start with... "Oh my gosh, I am a horrible mom, listen to what I just did" or "I am so embarassed. Listen to what my kid just did in public.", or whatever.

For example, when I totally lost it and almost started crying b/c Gwen stole my smoothie and wouldn't give it back (and then took a sip right in front of me and yelled "YUM!!!" - I was driving by the way, which is why I was at her mercy) Kelly and Erika were the only ones I confessed to.

Anyway, I just got an email from Kelly and she wrote the best line ever...

"All I know is I'm trying my damnest and can't believe that
stupid and ignorant people can pull this child-raising thing off when some
days I'm barely keeping it together."

Now all you moms out there, tell me that doesn't make you feel better : )

Another Math Nerd in the Making???

So Lance is a typical finance guy who loves numbers. He can do all sorts of crazy math in his head that I could only dream about. No amount of flash cards by my loving parents could make me able to do subtraction in my head.

Anyway, Gwen seems to be following in Lance's footsteps as far as her love of numbers. She has to quantify everything. She has had so many examples lately that have made me laugh, that I had to get some of them down. Here are a few quotes from my 3 1/2 year old...

"Oh no, I just spilled about 13 drops of water on my shirt."

"Mama, I think I'll be ready to get up from quiet time in 49 minutes."

"My booboo hurt today for 3 minutes. Actually, a little more than 3 minutes, like to the edge of 4 minutes, but not quite 4 minutes."

And my personal favorite... "I think Darcy will be 3 years old in as many days as there are deer in Kansas." (after we hit the deer in Kansas she had a lot of questions about the number of deer in Kansas vs. other states, etc. So the number of deer in Kansas is kind of what Gwen uses as her measure for A LOT)

Then yesterday we were playing a game and there were 6 cards that you distribute among the players. It was just the two of us so she passed the cards out 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3. Then she said "There are 6 cards because 3+3 is 6. Can you play this game with 3 players? Because then everyone would only get 2 cards". I think if you had asked her that question, she probably would have gotten it wrong, but without thinking she just knew the numbers. I'm afraid Gwen might be out-mathing me before too long!

Molly's Wedding

This is a little late, but a few weeks ago we went to our friend Molly's wedding in Boulder. It was so nice of Molly to invite us when she heard we would be living in Colorado and could drive down. It gave us a great chance to see her, and some of my other college friends. The wedding was beautiful and the reception was so much fun! Here is a pic of me with some of my friends, including: Kate - my inspiration who has started her own market research/moderating company and is so busy she doesn't know what to do! She took a huge chance and it is paying off for her, which helps me feel like this whole crazy thing might actually work. Emily - adorable in her 7th month of pregnancy and comtemplating a natural birth! Molly - the beautiful bride with her headful of curls. Sarah - my "Georgia Peach" who herself just got married a month ago in Athens and looked unbelievably gorgeous. I would have pictures from her wedding posted here but KATE (see above, she is very busy) has not sent them out yet! She was our designated camera person and she has failed us : )

While at the wedding Lance and I also took our annual "Anniversary Photo". My dream is to someday put all the photos from our anniversaries into an album so we can see our progression. As I just wrote that, I realized that as we get older, that might become depressing, not cute. Hmmm, maybe I should rethink that. Anyway, we just celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary! Since we can no longer muster up the energy to even go to dinner on our anniversary (yes, its true, and it will happen to you), we now take our anniversary photo at the closest event where we actually look decent. So here it is!

Post Office

Today I went to the post office to mail my first package. The guy at the counter actually weighed my package with one of those old school scales where you slide the bar across until it looks balanced. Then he pulled out an old chart and looked up how much my postage would be. I just thought that was funny.

Hilton Head 07

The girls and I just got back from a vacation in Hilton Head with my mom, dad, sister Christy and brother-in-law Nick. True to form, we had mishaps on both the front and back ends! On the way there, we managed to miss our first flight, which meant we also missed our connection to HH. Why, you ask? Did we arrive too late? Oh no! Of course not! We arrived at the airport in plenty of time. So much time, in fact, that I decided to get breakfast for the girls BEFORE going through security. By the time we got to security the morning rush had started and we waited in line for an hour as our plane flew away. But we ended up catching a later flight into Savannah and ended up only losing 1 1/2 hours. On the way back, our flight was delayed 2 1/2 hours and unfortunately we were stuck on the plane the whole time. We were in a row with 3 seats, so me, Darcy on my lap, Gwen next to me and some poor lady stuck with us. At one point, Gwen fell asleep cuddled up on the lady's arm. I am not kidding.

Anyway, we had a blast in Hilton Head... Too hot to do much but go to the pool and eat. And we did both in excess! Here are some pics from the trip:

The whole gang...

My little buddies for the week.

Gwennie, making a handprint t-shirt with Grandma. Gwen starts pre-school in 2 weeks and keeps talking about how she is going to teach her class how to make handprint t-shirts.

Us learning the hard way the following rule of vacation: Over 100 Degrees = DO NOT EAT OUTSIDE!!!!

The beach babe.

Our New Digs

In case quitting our jobs and moving to a new town were not adventurous enough, we decided to live in a 1 bedroom apartment with 2 kids and 2 dogs.

Here are the new digs..


Our main room: kitchen/dining room/living room/office/bedroom. That thing on the left wall is our bed. We just pull it down from the wall each night!


A good excuse not to cook


Step into my office/entertainment center/bike storage unit


The girls room. They LOVE sharing a room!

Welcome to Granby, Population 1,525

Make that 1,529 now that the FitzSimmons' have arrived on the scene!

Here are a few observations from a newcomer:
- HA! Turns out all the roads are DIRT! Apparently when there is 2 feet of snow in the winter, you don't realize that the roads beneath you are, in fact, dirt. Only the main road is paved.
- There is ONE stoplight! Yes, that's right, we are in a 1-light town! People refer to everything as "in town, before the light" or "in town, right past the light" etc.
- There are about 3 restaurants in town. Our local Mexican Restaurant is also the local Pizza Place and the local Hamburger Joint. Basically, it is a concession stand attached to a tattoo parlor. They sell all the typical concession stand food, but since the owners are Hispanic, they also sell burritos.
- We saw a BEAR driving home the other night. A real life, not-in-a-cage bear, just crossing the street.

Now before you go thinking that the FitzSimmons' have made a big mistake, I should clarify that our town, Granby, is on Highway 40, and is one along a line of several towns, each with stoplights & restaurants. In fact, I believe Winter Park has several stoplights. So, we are not relegated to our mexican/pizza/burger stand for all meals. There are plenty of cute towns and restaurants within 20 minutes of us. And the most beautiful sunsets you have ever seen...