Talia the Vampire and other Scary Stories

So hey look we are still around. I have tried to peruse other blogs of relatives and although I am not the only one who has been super crappy at updating I still feel the guilt of not completing my goal of blogging regularly. I love looking\reading everyone else's and am not on Facebook enough to keep up with whatever is going on there. I need an outlet that gives me days and even weeks to get to versus the daily check-in. I send this challenge out into the family\friend Cosmo- I miss hearing about your lives please follow my lead and write something new soon. I just read Heidi's blog about her new baby and realized I didn't even remember that she was already due.

Guilt ridden lets begin:
My latest endeavor is to somehow get Talia to want to read. Do you know what it is like to have a child who is so against reading that you are scared that you will never find anyway to connect with her in any areas? I love to read and if we don't have even that in common how will we get through the tweens and teenage horrors that normally occur between mother and daughter? So when my lovely imaginative daughter picked out several books (that her grandmother graciously purchased for her) entitled, "Vampire Weenies" & "My Sister is a Vampire" I thought we must have them. They were from the Book Fair at school so I thought great no problem. Then I start reading Vampire Weenies. It was not funny nor was it anything a little kid (5th grade or below) should be reading. One story was about a ghost who tricks a girl down a hole and causes her death so she can have a ghost friend to talk to. It only got worse from there. Now I have never thrown away a book. I have this standing rule that one must finish a book and all books should be treated with a certain level of respect (we did burn that Judy Blume book at the beach one year but it deserved it); Talia went to take a rest one day and I found the book and threw it away. Great job Mom! I felt very "Footloose" about the whole thing and yet relieved to have it out of my house.

Still Talia has this obsession with vampires. She even plays good and bad vampires. I have told many this story but she was a vampire puppy the other day. She says to me, "I am a vampire puppy. A vegetarian vampire puppy." I look at her waiting for an explanation and of course she continues, " I only eat lions though. And only the daddy ones, not the mommies or the babies." I acted like that was great news and she continued with her game. She is something else.

Tristan and Tyler continue growing. Tristan loves preschool and Tyler grunts a lot to get her voice heard. I have done all I can to teach her some sign language but whenever I sign to her she acts like I am this crazy person. Today she put a plastic container on her head and laughed uproariously for 3 minutes while I tried to get her out of it. She is her own woman is all I can say.

Just to prove my point at the "scary" nature of my children, the pictures at the top are of Crazy man Tristan splashing it up, Talia and Tyler tetter-tottering (notice Tyler's legs, does she have a zest for life or what?) and Talia in yet another outfit of her own design.

I just realized my blog is so on point with October! Man even subconsciously I am able to bring a theme together!

Justin Bieber is My Hero

A favorite show of mine is Fantasy Factory. Rob had Justin on as a guest star and I couldn't help but think about it and smile because my little girl is a Bieber fan. That show brings such joy to my heart and I will remember to buy my "Do Work" shirt soon but what I loved about the show is its fun loving nature. TV is supposed to be fun and so is life. Don't think me lame (or do) but I hate when my life isn't fun. My kids took showers tonight, racing to the "Baby Baby" song from Justin Bieber and it was so fun. Tristan added more Transformer stickers (they are actually bandaids that he had lined up on his leg and proceeded to transfer to the section of wall just outside the shower-he did the same thing last night) the whole time bebopping to the song. We totally completed showers in 3:43minutes and my kids were di-rrtttyy from the shark game they were playing outside. I also took the kids to Moo Creamery all by myself and only had to ask for help from near by customers one time (I totally lucked out there since my cousin and his kids were there by chance and offered to watch my food because Tristan had to go to the bathroom, which meant we all had to go leaving my delicious sweet potato fries unattended). Short story long-life should be fun. I can remember thinking of ways to make dishes fun or promising my self that when I had a family we were going to make dishes a group activity so that the work didn't seem tedious. I become too bogged down sometimes and am missing life and the goodness it has. Good thing I have kids; they always remind you how fun life can be. I would never have the appreciation that I do for JB if I didn't have a 5 year old daughter who screamed when she heard\sees him and really shouldn't we all have something we get that excited over every time it happens?

Tyler's Tricks

Looking back at past posts I realize I haven't done enough justice to Tyler and my blog reporting. The following is my efforts to give props to the girl who has many tricks. One has to watch her very closely to truly grasp her greatness. Below is her best trick, we will call it "Wipe-out" (I am so clever).

She stalks the wipes and if I ever leave them unattended she is all over them. Her second trick is called "find the most unsafe place to start climbing and then climbing it". She decided to crawl up the mini slide we have in our family room. Luckily when she fell backwards she fell on her bum first before her head. Still the kid is 8 months old and made it halfway up the slide. I am just waiting to see what she climbs next. Her third most mentionable trick is crawling. I document it not because it is some astounding trick but because she has been doing it since she was 5 months old so she is really fast and determined. She follows Talia, Tristan and I through our whole house ( and there is a lot of ground to cover) just as fast as she can. Now if I could just get her to stop bumping her head every time she goes and hides under the coffee table she would be bumped to Amazing Status in the baby record books.

Oh and Tristan is still a pirate (he changed the name of the book"The Sailor Dog" to "The Pirate Dog" and each time I say sailor instead of pirate he corrects me) and Talia cries each time that I mention that on Saturday we have to cut her hair (because she doesn't want to look like a boy) and she still loves Justin Bieber. Shoot me in the foot.