Avengers Have Birthdays

Meet Dawson. The 7 year old.

Meet Dawson's 7 year old Avenger cake.

Okay. The cake is not 7 years old. But I really needed to try and keep my sentences precise and similar. I don't know why. I just wanted to. We didn't know until after the fact that the Avenger A lit up with a tiny light bulb. I think WalMart owes us an explanation.

These are the party favors that Dawson and Grammy G made. They should make party favors for my birthdays. I would have them make Avenger thongs.

Here is the party table. I would like you all to take notice of my perfectly placed plastic forks. I do believe that is an example of Alliteration.

The table of presents which is quite lovely.

We planned this party for days because we figured we'd have to come up with something for the kids to do. I know. We're for hire.

So we came up with some games. Jason was in charge of those.

Here are the behaved children, lined up ready to play.

First game: tape a streamer to your butt and run. Okay so the object of the game is to collect as many streamers as you can. But it sounds more fun to to just say tape it to your butt and run.

Second game: frisbee toss. They had to land their small Avenger frisbee in the bucket. No one made it. What is wrong with kids these days? Too many video games.

Next game: Shoot the Captain America Target. Jason drew the target. If I had drawn it it would have looked like this: o  only sloppier.

Up next: tie a balloon to your ankle and keep the others from popping it. They all liked this game but I don't like the sound of balloons popping. It reminds me of drive-by shootings.

Apparently this guy was last and decided to pick up his balloon and dive so they tackled him.



A random shot of everyone's backside. Gotta love those.

The final and favorite game before cake. Poop Deck. Here they are poop decking: 

Opening presents. I should have known better to let Evan down on the floor for this part because somewhere in the process he ate a piece of balloon and pooped it out the next day. The boys are actually more enamored with him than the presents though.



A present before the mess:



A present and an annoying mess:



I'm quite certain Dawson had a great time at the party because later that night he was so tired that he burst into tears for no reason. Now that's tired. I mean for a boy. Because boys don't have PMS.

Happy Birthday My Little Avenger!

Dear Meijer

February 10, 2013

 

Meijer, Inc.
2929 Walker Ave., NW
Grand Rapids, MI 49544-9424

 

Dear Meijer,

     Hi. I’m Joy Wilkins                        …                              Okay.

I would like to highly recommend that you add a store location in Colorado Springs, CO. I know several people from the Midwest that have relocated here that love your store (including me) and have mentioned to me that your store is one store they miss having nearby. I could give you names, but I’m not sure if the employee working for you that is reading this letter also works for the CIA and would snoop into their livelihood which would create drama for me and my friends and I don’t like drama. So.

When I’m back home in the Midwest and grace your store with my presence, my first stop is the World Food aisle. I love that aisle. First, I grab Matzo Ball soup. Have you ever had Matzo Ball soup? I know you sell it, but you should eat it. It smells up your house when you make it, I just want to warn you. But don’t let the smell fool you. The taste is a party for your mouth.

Speaking of the World aisle, I’m wondering if you will ever sell husbands. My friend Kelsey would like an Italian man and I think she would do best finding one in the World aisle if you sold them. I can guarantee you she will not look for one in the frozen food section, so please take my humble advice and do what I say.  Feel free to ask me questions.

The very last swimsuit that I actually liked wearing, I purchased from your store. It was a tankini! The shorts are brown, and the top is white with brown and turquoise polka dots. Could you sell tankinis that remove cellulite? If you did, you could sell them in the snack aisle. I’m not sure why though. Just because you could if you wanted to, I guess.

Well. I suppose I should end this composition. If you add a store location in Colorado Springs, CO, I can assure you that you will have business.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments. Otherwise, if you don’t contact me I’ll assume you will begin construction on the store soon. Please put it near my house.

Sincerely,

A Title For This Post.

Sometimes I yell. I'll give you a minute to let that sink in. Like this morning, when Jason and I were in the driveway ready to drive separately to take my car in to get it fixed because my radiator leaks.How bad do I need a radiator anyway? Really? I think it's simpler to buy me a new car, rather than driving separately to go get my car fixed. But we weren't arguing about that actually.  Jason wouldn't let me back inside the house because he was in a hurry so I yelled that I was going to yell and make a scene for all of our neighbors to hear, which he doesn't like for some reason. And then he let me inside.

The end.

Dawson has this thing with nesting. He did it when he was little too:

He surrounds himself with pillows and then stuffs all manner of toys and clutter into his space which then makes a nightmare for me clean up later. Only I think I appreciated it more when he was little, because now he creates this:

Which of course is engineered to take up the entire living room with it's chaos and muddle thereby rendering me to shudder the entire time it's being constructed. If you don't know me, I'll let you in on a little secret: I HATE CLUTTER. Hey look! There's my knees!

While Dawson was busy wreaking havoc on my OCD, ("When it comes to havoc, nobody wreaks like me!"-that's a quote by Dr. Doofensmirtz from Phineas and Ferb because it's my most favorite cartoon in the world of cartoons) Evan was busy in the waste of space room (which is the other room that we have that we really don't use, so we keep it pretty) doing this: 

 This was not a cluttery thing to do.So I let him continue on with his manner of happiness.

But then Dawson decided he was finished with his disorder in the realm of tidiness in the living room and wanted to move it to the well kept and orderly waste of space room so that it looked like this:

And I took pictures of all of this so that I could show Dawson's wife someday that she needs a maid.

 The other night, Evan grabbed my coffee cup which was empty because I wouldn't leave a coffee cup on the floor with coffee in it, and started doing this:

And it made me laugh. Doesn't it make you laugh?

 

 Dawson got his hair cut.

 This was before he got glasses.

That is Dawson with his hair cut while wearing his new glasses which he still actually likes to wear and continues to ask me if I think he will still get to wear them in 2nd grade. I change my answer depending on my mood.

I took this picture of Evan. I think he looks plastic. Does he look plastic to you? There is no "make someone look plastic" feature on our camera so I'm not sure how I did it. Although, if there was a "make someone look Barbie" feature on our camera, I would use it on myself and then I would update my profile picture on FB more often.

 Dawson and I completed another thousand piece puzzle. He picked this one out because he is rather captivated by ocean life just like his daddy. The only problem I have with doing puzzles is that I have to sit, and then my butt conforms to the size of the chair and my legs go numb. Maybe next time I'll do butt clenches.

 

The Naughty Fish

Dawson has this fish named Goldie. Goldie is high maintenance. If I wanted a high maintenance pet, I would have chosen a lion, Are you with me?

One day Dawson was worried because Goldie was treading at the top of the water and couldn't seem to swim down. Jason took a look at him and saw that he was bloated. So he quickly got online to see what could be ailing said fish. One site he found said that fish who like to eat bubbles, can get full of air making it hard for them to swim. In order to correct the situation, you need to feed them peas. Yes. I said peas.

It occured to us that Goldie is always swimming toward the top of the tank and gulping in the bubbles like they're fish candy. So, Jason promptly went and bought a bag of frozen peas, cooked them, mashed them, and dumped them in Goldies tank.

Goldie then got a good spanking and a lecture about the need to end his bubble gulping. He ate the peas, his bloating subsided and he was a happy swimmer again.

Until the next day... we caught him eating the bubbles again.

At that point I told Jason it was time to do some seroius discipline, but how do you put a fish in time-out?

Gripe Water

We nearly made it one full year without Evan being sick.  His first sickness came on Sunday night, after we came home from a super bowl party. Personally, I blame the economy.

Editor’s Disclaimer: **The information I’m about to disclose cannot be used against me in the court of law.** 
I attempted to feed Evan all manner of delicious foods that were offered at the party. He didn’t like the shredded chicken we had for the tacos and continued to throw it in my lap. I wonder if I should wash those jeans.  So, I turned a blind eye when he continually crawled back to the plate of cheese balls and shoved them in his mouth.  When it was time to eat his bottle, he ate about half, pushed it away as though it were liquid bugs and crawled off.. a chipper little munchkin.

When we got home, we put Evan right to bed. Why do we say “right to” something?  Poor Evan, he barely slept at all the entire night. He didn’t cough, sneeze or puke. He just whimpered and cried the entire night. What the heck? Throughout the night I got up with him and held him while rocking him in his rocking chair. He would sleep soundly then for a while and would often burp, which made me wonder if he had a tummy ache and it hurt to sleep on his tummy.  Then, when I thought he was asleep and would be okay, I’d put him back in his crib and it went like that all.night.long.  I don’t know about you, but I’m not in the mood to run to WalGreens at 3:00 a.m. Why can’t they do house calls?!

The next morning, he was weak, and tired he wouldn’t eat or drink and he was  grumpy. This was him:

After I laid him on the couch he would sit up and look for me and then lay right back down, so I got nervous and laid him on two pillows so he would have less far to fall. See. I’m a good mom.

 

Since he wouldn’t even accept fluids, we went to WalGreens and bought Gripe Water. The stuff is jet black and I spilled it all over me and the carpet when I opened it to give him his first dose.  I guess I’m klutzy when I’m tired. No comments!  He sucked the Gripe Water right down and cheered up just a bit for about a ½ hour. I thought “hey, I know a few negative nellies out there that could use some Gripe Water”… you know what I’m sayin?  He had a bit of a fever, and I realized he has 4 top teeth pushing their way through at the moment. Like really, right now they are pushing! For real! At any rate, Evan remained grumpy with bouts of cheerfulness throughout the day, but he began eating and drinking again –just like in the bible days! –and so I do believe the Gripe Water is heaven sent. By the end of last night, he seemed back to normal.  Let’s see if we can go another year without sickness.



The Random Mushroom.

I have horrible handwriting. Did you think this was my handwriting? This is not my handwriting. This is called font. Font could never be my handwriting because it's precise. My handwriting is..."ambiguous" I had to use that word because I found it in the "opposite dictionary".  However, I suppose I can relate to the Apostle Paul when he would tell his peeps that the letter they were reading was written by his own hand. So. Maybe I'll be an apostle someday. I wonder what kind of handwriting Jesus had? I'll bet it was similar to Arial Narrow font with a hint of italics.

I have several pictures I've been meaning to share. On Christmas Eve, Dawson and I made these little things that I don't have a name for. But you take Rolos and put them on a pretzel and put them in the oven and then take them out of the oven and press a pecan on top. What kind of name would you give that? Rolprecan. Yes, I'm sure that's it.

 See the garland on our railing? Jason's idea.

I dont' have anything else to say about these.

 

 If you pay close attention to this blog you should remember that we had bought Evan a bouncer for his Christmas present.

 He likes it.

Dawson received a nerf gun for Christmas. I'm too lazy to capitalize the N of nerf.

One afternoon, Jason and Dawson disappeared for a crazy long amount of time. I could hear muted, subtle cheers coming from the basement and found them doing this:

 Jason had even drawn a target on the window.

 

Dawson got a bull's eye. Let's see how I did:

 

 There are people that exist in this world that would have been amazed and jealous by my eagle eye near sniper awesomeness of the outside edge.

Suddenly, as I was gazing through the dirty window, I remembered The Random Mushroom that is laying, petrified, in the pile of rocks at the bottom left corner of the window well.

I wonder, how did this mushroom get there? I'm done wondering now. You can go on with your lives.

 

 

Sunny, With A Side Of Joy

I suppose today is the day that I shall post my "after" pictures. However, I have to tell you something first.

Something.

Ha! Get it?!

Well. Before you go skipping through all my blah blah blah and head straight down to the pictures of me after I got my hair done, I have to tell you about the title of this post:

Sunny, With a Side of Joy.

When I was getting my hair done, I was chatting on and on with my hairdresser who happens to be quite fun and funny. And she said, "You should have a talk show. You could call it Sunny, with a Side of Joy". Isn't that great? I think I should have my own talk show too, only I wouldn't have any people on my show because I do enough talking as it is and why would I invite people to put a damper on that goodness? You know? They would just cloud it up. All my going on on and on and on. And we know how all of you like to hear me go on and on. So. All that to say that I have come to the conclusion that I think that should be the new title of my BLOG! What do you think? I might cry for 3 seconds and whimper for about .13 seconds at saying goodbye to "Smiling's My Favorite". But if I have the support of my internet public -all 3 people who read this, I'm quite sure the looming depression would soon disappear. Really I should write books, shouldn't I? I mean "looming depression" that's pretty clever.

For real. Leave me a comment and tell me if I should change the title of my blog to

"SUNNY WITH A SIDE OF JOY"

Onward ever onward...

I forgot to take my camera with me to have my picture taken the moment it was finished. So I had to wait until I got home. But before I show you the pictures, which you can really see, but I'm pretending that you can't so that I can keep talking... I have to explain what she did to my hair. Because I took in  all of the pictures I created of myself. Which sounds very shallow and egocentric. But it really is what I did so I had to say it. She looked at all of them and said "Rather than making you commit to one color, which will just grow out in a couple of weeks, why don't we just choose a couple of those colors and highlight your hair with them"? Which I thought was brilliant. Brilliant I tell you. Brilliant I say. (one snap and a shout out to the person who can tell me what movie that quote is from). So we chose a reddish brown for the first color and a chocolate brown for the second color. She didn't do much in the way of cutting my hair. Because I liked the length and the chic who had the hair that I liked had a ton of layers apparently.

So I got home and told Jason to please take my picture so that I could show the eager public. We had to go to our upstairs bathroom, because it has the best lighting. It also has a pornographic shower, as you can see behind me.

First picture, no glasses.

Then I really quick decided that I do need a picture of me with my glasses on:

 

Only that one was taken in the kitchen underneath the clock that I don't like where it's placed and I keep moving it and Jason moves it back. And the wall isn't really mustard yellow in real life. It's more of a some other kind of yellow that isn't mustard.

 Then. I decided that I had to have a picture with my hair curled. Which I had to take on a whole different day because I'm just too flat out lazy to go curl my hair except when I feel like I should curl my hair for a picture of my hair curled.

And I'd say I look very similar to a chipmunk.

Before                                After





I have pound puppy eyes.