Dad Life...

The best dad ever left for China this morning.

Enjoy this while we wait for him to check in.

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Black & White

The Bee:   Mommy the black man is bad.  Brother told me.

Ladybug: And, and, and, Mommy.... you can't call them white man.  Brother said that to me.

The Bee: That's right Mommy... you have to call them  Darth Vader and Storm Trooper.

 Ladybug:  Yup that's right.



You can't make this stuff up.

the force is strong...vote

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Sunday Chore List

#1 Reorganize the kid's linen closet...

around here you find kids in the darnedest places

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Farewell Family

Honestly I should be ashamed to admit



how happy I am



to see them



GO!

but come on a week at home without kids or husband

one week in the last 12 years

I mean you get that right?

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Virtual Vacation: Real Souvenirs!

The vacation countdown chain.

We are going on a Caribbean cruise and you are all invited to join us.

Virtually that is.

So pack your virtual suitcase.

Dust off your virtual passport.

And get your virtual pedicure.

Actually go ahead and get a real pedicure, you deserve a little pampering!


We leave tonight!







WHILE WE ARE AWAY...


Each day I will be writing about our adventures in family vacationing.  There will be lots of pictures and fully (edited) recaps of the days adventures.

It will just like being there.


Except you won't be able to hear my kids fighting.


Make sure you check back here throughout the week because each time we stop in a new port I am going to buy a special souvenir for one of my very lucky and oh so fabulous readers. 

All you have to do to be in the drawing to win the souvenir is leave a comment on a day we are in port.  For my Facbook followers I'll need you to comment on the blog to play along.  I will announce the winner the following day and post a picture of your amazing prize.

(Now just to be clear were talking "amazing" as in "oh wow how did they carve that coconut to look just like a pirate monkey?")

Sound like fun?

Thanks to Jamie Mornigstar for this great idea.  The girls took turns cutting one link each day from the vaction countdown chain.  It ended up being a great way for them to understand how many days there were before vacation. This little craft projects gets two thumbs up from this traveling mama!



Personally I would hit the followers button (over there on the right) AND vote today.  You don't want to miss anything when coconut pirate monkey heads are at stake.





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Annual Assault on my Self Esteem

Search Amazon.com Apparel for swimsuit

How about none of the above?



We are going on a  Caribbean cruise in less than two weeks so this weekend I buckled down and finally made the dreaded trip out to the mall for a swimsuit.

Now in case you don't know I live in Northeast Ohio.  Where the sun shines approximately two days each year. And after a long, cold, snowy, seemingly never-ending winter.

I have to tell you people...


I am WHITE...pasty, ghostly, vitamin D deficient WHITE.

And I'm just saying... WHITE makes EVERYTHING looks BIGGER.

(except my boobs,  apparently.)


Now I know this is vain and shallow stuff

(certainly not on par with the plight of orphans around the world)

and at nearly 45 I should be over it.

What can I say except

Guilty.


After hours at the mall (which I hate by the way) I was left sweating and disheveled from trying on every suit Nordstroms, Dillards and Saks 5th Ave had to offer.

One after the other each suit failed to deliver on the promise to miraculously transform away inches from my tummy while magically adding them back to my bust.

Liars.


So I came home without a new suit.

Which is just as well since I have at least two dozen swimsuits of every color and design already in my drawer.

The pathetic result of prior quests to find that perfect, mind and body altering suit that transforms me into a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model,  (only way better cause I'm like totally smart and nice and a super cool mommy too).


You see I am vain, shallow AND optimistic too!

I believe there is a magic suit out just waiting for me to discover

Some day.

(cue Judy Garland for "Somewhere over the Rainbow".)



***Update***


I just ordered a new suit on line.

I have a good feeling... this might be the one!

 I believe in miracles like the perfect swimsuit and making it to # 4  on top mommy blogs.  
Help keep me there by clicking the big flashy button!

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Bringing Borya Home

I love that people visit my blog and sometimes stay long enough to read and even comment on my mutterings.  Really I am appreciative but seriously I'm no writer.  I'm a yammerer (that's a word isn't it?), I blab about myself and my kids and my cause of the day and basically keep a public journal of my mostly mundane life.  Somehow it works: me the (over) exposer, you the voyeur but literature it ain't. 

There are however a few blog mamas out there who can write.  People with a real voice and the talent and chutzpah to tell it like it is.  A  friend of mine who writes under the pen name  farmbeachgal is one of those very talented and smart (and often times very funny) writers.  She too is an adoptive mom (as a matter of fact we were in Kazakhstan together) and with 3 kaz kids and 3 bio kids, she's about the only person I know with MORE kids than me!  A while back she wrote this post about older child adoption that I just loved (it was later published) and I would love to introduce you to her blog, "Bringing Borya Home" with that great article but I hope you will read more (the story of how she found Borya is amazing by itself).  I would not steer you wrong... jump on over and take a look: bookmark her site, vote for her on Top Mommy Blogs, just CHECK HER OUT cause really, she's got something to say.

Those of you content with reading the side of a cereal box feel free to hang here with me :)

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Not for the Post Placement Report

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Game Over

She will sleep anywhere!

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Vote for My Blog

 

I don't win anything except maybe bragging rights. And it doesn't cost you anything except a few seconds (and let's face it -if you're already here you must have a little bit of time to spare).  So please go ahead and click the banner to cast a vote for me.  Five Of My Own was just listed 4 days ago and it's already moved to #514 out of 1,186 blogs.  I'm sort of curious to see how far up the list we can go!

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Bed Head

Tehehe...just had to share.

It's going to be a frizz-tastic day!

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Where My Kids At!.....No Really Where My Kids AT?

I heard a comedian once joke that the minivan was a way to say to the rest of the world, (I'll clean this up)..."I never plan to get lucky again".


I love my mini van.  There I said it. And I mean it, my mini van rocks!

Now I know a lot of you wouldn't be caught dead in one and truthfully I too was once a MV hater but with five kids I've got to say nothing beats it for convenience, comfort and all around practicality. 

Of course I've been through my "I'm too cool to minivan" phase to be sure.  In the past 10 years I've driven a BMW 3 series convertible (with a spoiler thank you very much) and a BMW SUV (my nod to my complaining kids who were being blown away in the back of the convertible) and then back to a BMW M Roadster (vroom, vroom drive THAT to the PTA meeting).  

But when we started down the adoption path and faced the reality of transporting a family of seven with two kids still in car seats, I finally had to succumb to the "dreaded" minivan.  

(BTW I considered doing what a lot of my similarly situated friends did to avoid the ridicule of the MV: I almost bought an SUV.  But who are we kidding? You and I both know those are just people who need a MV but are "too cool" (read as too insecure) to buy one. Yeah, yeah, driving in the snow...whatever... be honest, the only off roading you do is when you drive over the curb trying to park at the mall. Guess some of us just have a little more self esteem. I digress.)

So just when I had completely resigned myself to the leagues of minivan driving supermoms and accepted my fate of being a chronically unhip soccer mom, Toyota goes and makes MV's ( and me) cool again.  (OK if you are sneering at my Sienna being cool you and your turbo engine can leave.)  

Yes my minivan is no longer a shameless concession to a life filled with cheerios and diaper bags.  It is (drum roll please) my SWAGGER WAGON, complete with it's own rap. Dig it.

I am PROUD to drive my Swagger Wagon to the kid's schools, to the hockey games and ballet lessons, to the grocery store and to work AND to the hottest night clubs in town (once I figure out where they are). 

I do not need a sports car to be cool. 

My Swagger Wagon makes a statement...it tells the world I have kids-LOTS of KIDS (see the stick figure family on the back windshield-yeah they're ALL MINE). 

It lets everyone (behind me) know I love Kazakhstan and China and Cyclone's Hockey and Brown University and the University of Akron too.

Try to get your Porshe to do all that!

I'm glad Toyota is getting the message out that Swagger Wagons are cool.  In fact I was so inspired that today I ordered this final bit of flair for my own sweet ride...

And just for the record SWAGGER, SWGR WGN, SWAGWAG, and a bunch more were already taken so I am clearly not the only minivaner proud to be Swaggin my Wagon!

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