Happy Early Birthday M O M!

Sunday night we celebrated my M O M's birthday a few days early with the fam, it was pretty low key, my mom made enchilada's and rice and I made the cake.  The kids were thrilled to see each other and taking pictures of them of them that were not blurry was next to impossible, but holy cow, they are cute.

This girl kills me, OMG, she is cute!

OH Mari.

Halloween Carnival and Haunted Trails

This past Friday night was pretty spooky in our neck of the woods.   Mr. Pie’s school had their annual school carnival and the City of Laguna Niguel had their annual Haunted Trails event going on.  We had plans with my parents to take Cole, Mari and Mr. Pie to the San Diego Wild Animal Park on Saturday, so we thought it would be fun to go to the school carnival and Haunted Trails together as well.  The parents, C and M met us at Mr. Pie’s school and the kids ran around playing games, eating candy and getting spooked.  After the carnival we grabbed dinner at Baja Fish Taco and headed to the Haunted Trails.  A couple weeks ago I scored four free tickets to the Haunted Trails so we only had to buy one tickets (thank you Tina).  The City put on a great event and we all had a great time getting spooked.  The Sheriff and I laughed the whole way through just listening to the boys scream, Mr. Pie was pretending to be one of the Zombies,(he was wearing his jacket that you zip up over his face and has some scary face on it) and he kept saying “I am blending in” so that the zombie’s would think he was one of them and not scare him.  The boys loved it, it was a great “parks and rec” event.  

At the carnival, Mari has her "spooked" face on.

The boys loved the doughnut game

Our FREE tickets, yay for saving us $48.

Getting a good picture of the three of them is like herding cats. 

We were not allowed to take pictures or video inside the event, so this is the one and only shot I got.

Waiting in line, we had a friend show up behind us, a selfie was in order.

We had a great time, the kids were WILD and Mr. Pie busted out dance moves that we had never seen before, now on to the Wild Animal Park where all three of the kids belong in the morning.

Writer's Block!

Not that I am a writer at all nor do I try to be one, but geez, I cannot come up with anything to talk about these days. So here is life in no particular order.  It was my friend Jill's bday last Friday, she wanted everyone to come to her house, hang out, drink wine and play cards, so we did.  It has been years since I have played Spoons or Bullshit, we went crazy and threw in a couple rounds of UNO too, watch out it was wild.  Happy Birthday Jill!

Spoons

  I continue to watch Scandal like it is my job and some moments I feel like my life at work has morphed into the show or vice versa and it takes me a moment to snap out of it and realize that Olivia Pope is not going to come “fix” the situation.   I nap every night on my couch between 8-9pm (I highly do not recommend this) and the other night I woke up from my “nap” and had no idea where I was, like NOT.A.CLUE.  it was scary.  The Sheriff, Mr. Pie and I have been paddling together the last couple Saturdays, it has been a lot of fun.  The Sheriff and I paddle the OC-2 together and Mr. Pie is on the OC-1 and paddles himself around.  We have found that this works the best because if Mr. Pie is on the OC-2 he does not paddle and therefore whoever he is with ends up paddling his 60 pound body around.   Speaking of Mr. Pie, he was being a 9 year old boy last week, got himself in some mischief and landed himself in the Principal’s office one day and a note home a couple days later.  OMG, that little stinker!  I kind of felt that his teacher overreacted a bit, but whatever he deserved a stern talking to and hopefully that is the end of it, perhaps it was his new braces that caused the trouble.  

How cute is he?  Even with the heart on his face he is so cute.

Halloween is fast approaching and it looks like another year will pass without going on the Haunted Hay Rides (cue the violins), instead we will be going to the City of Laguna Niguel’s Haunted Trails.  It should be fun and it is less expensive so……we will go.  We bought tickets to the San Diego Wild Animal Park on Groupon months ago, we are going to redeem them in a couple weeks along with my parents and Cole and Mari, so that should be a lot of fun.  Rex, Mr. Pie's lizard friend that we made a pet died yesterday, R.I.P. Rex.  Mr. Pie and I actually thought he was dead on Saturday, but turns out he was not.  Rex was a biter and Mr. Pie got bit a couple times so being the resourceful kid he is he found a glove (actually a mitten that has skulls on it I think and is missing its partner) and would use that when handing Rex.  I could never really put my finger on what it reminded me of until the other day, it was totally a Michael Jackson move (you know one glove) and as I was telling the Sheriff how Mr. Pie gloved up and took the lid off the cage to see if Rex was still alive and the whole time I am screaming like a girl cause if Rex was dead I did not want him touching a dead lizard and telling him how gross it was and ya I might of jump around the kitchen begging him to stop, I could not help but laugh cause all I could picture as I am talking to the Sheriff was Mr. Pie putting that glove on.  We played the longest game in the world aka Monopoly on Saturday night and I got killed, the Sheriff and Mr. Pie took every last penny of mine.  Playing games or doing small activities together is so Mr. Pie's love language, if you have not read the book "The Five Love Languages", I think that is what it is called, go.do.it.now., it applies to both adult relationships and relationships you have with your kids (I know he is not mine, but it helped me figure out a kid who I do not have that emotional bond with).  So that is about it for now, I just wanted post an update, mainly for me, I look forward to many years from now looking back and reading about the everyday stuff we do, so for selfish reasons you are all reading about our ordinary lives.

Proof that our lives are very ordinary…

I send the Sheriff text messages like the one above, I find myself hilarious, not sure if he laughs out loud like I do or if he considers myself bothersome, but whatever, I like him therefore he gets messages like this when he least expects it or maybe everyday.  ;)

Oh and some pretties to make this extra sweet.

XXX

Winding down from the Weekend!

It is October 5, and there is no sign of Fall here, it was 95 degrees all weekend and more heat is expected this week, at this rate we are all going to be using cactus as Christmas trees this year, ugh.  In an effort to stay cool the Sheriff and Mr. Pie met me down at Baby Beach yesterday after my paddling practice and we finally took out the OC-2 and OC-1 all together and enjoyed a couple hours of "family" paddling.  Mr. Pie has a tendency to freeload when he is on the OC-2, so we put him on the OC-1 where there was no one but himself to paddle the canoe.  Mr. Pie did great the entire time, we ran into a lot of friends out on the water and they were all very impressed to see him out there by himself.  It was nice to paddle with the Sheriff on the OC-2, I wish our schedules would allow it where we could practice and race together during the winter series but that is the life of a single Dad, his kiddo and his girlfriend.  

Yesterday afternoon, I go this text message from Shannon…..

Our family has strong water safety values and does not support the arm floatie industry at all, apparently we have made quite an impression on little Caroline and at the age of 3 she recognizes the danger as well.  Good job!

Today the Sheriff had to work, so I stayed home and finally got to a few things that have been neglected for months around the house.  I had a HUGE pile of random stuff growing on my kitchen counter, my kitchen cupboards were a hot mess, the laundry has been out of control and the frig needed some serious attention.  I spent the morning purging, I seriously had 7 frying pans, who the heck needs 7 frying pans, especially this girl that hardly cooks?  I threw away all of my plastic ware, I hate that stuff, it is a crazy mess, so to the garbage it all went, bye bye.  I also tackled the frig, something in there was stinking things up, so it all went to the garbage.  5 bags of junk later I have a clean counter, organized cupboards and a empty frig, it is wonderful.  After 6 loads of laundry I have declared victory in that department as well and lets not forget I have clean floors.  This is what happens when you paddle ALL OF THE TIME, your house goes to pot.  

I sent this picture to the Sheriff, I told him he was lucky he was at work cause who knows what projects I would have tasked him with. 

While I was at it, I decided to do a little Halloween decorating, this is about as festive as it gets around here.  

Oh and I finally got my Skinnytaste cookbook (thank you M O M), hopefully I will find some healthy dinner recipes's for us that do not require more than one frying pan since I got rid of the six other ones, lol.  

Now it is time for some more Scandal, goodnight.