somewhere over the smoggy rainbow

Wow. I've been blogging like a fiend, haven't I? What's up. These pics are just a few of the 300 that my mom had taken with her camera when we were visiting. She just sent them to me. I think 250 of them were just of M playing with various toys from different angles. I was gettin' bored going through them, and I'm her mother. So I would have put these next few pics in a slideshow, but I didn't feel like it.

Oh, by the way, about that first pic. Lest you think I am torturing my child, this was taken after L had peed all over the bottom two steps on my mom's stairs. Oooo... big trouble, buddy. BIIIIIG trouble. I'm holding him down on the potty. "Where does pee-pee go, L?" "Waaahhhh... in... *sniff*... the... *sniff, sniff*... pottyyyyyyyyy...." We've had no problems since. It must have been traumatic enough. It's tough, this potty training business. Real tough.


This must be pre-accident. Life was still good.





No such thing as too many kisses or hugs from your babies.



She's such a tan baby. How did that happen?


Nate, you look a little bored. How long did you have to hold that caterpillar?


No one curls a lip like L. I think "I'm gonna getchuuuuuuu!!!!" is what's going on here. Emphasis on the "uuuuuu". Thumb-sucking equals funky teeth and wierd lips. Pass it on.


M spent lots of time in the sunroom.


B watched and waited for Papa all afternoon as he painted the backyard stairs from the sunroom. Then he got to help! Pure joy.


Mom and M also spent lots of time together on the front lawn. Who hangs out on their front lawn? I think Mom just wanted to show her off to all the neighbors. They do look awfully cute together!


Ahhh... there's no place like home. Oh, sad. For a minute, I forgot where I was. Back to reality, viviendo en Mexico.

for selfish reasons

Since Aud refuses to blog right now, I decided to post pictures of my beautiful niece for my own personal enjoyment, AND so I can look at them all in one place any time I want. Ahhhhh... LOVE her. I love every single INCH of her!!! Wish I was close enough to tickle her. Doesn't she look just so tickle-able???





You wish I was there to tickle you, don't you, Belén! Tickle, tickle, tickle!!! Tell your mama to get you out of dirty Boston and bring you to Mexico where it's really clean and not at all hazardous to your health.

T-H-I-R-T-Y

I neglected to give this guy a little shout out last Wednesday in all the chaos of moving. Like this close-up pic? I'm trying to hone in on any wrinkles he may or may not be developing. Pete called him that morning and said, "Congratulations, man. Welcome to the thirty-year-old club." Love it. Although, I think Bruce is even hotter than he was at 21. Of course, when I met him, he'd just gotten off his mission from the Dominican Republic and was wasting away from the leftover parasites he brought back home with him. We look back at those pics and think he looks a little like death warmed over. It makes me feel really good about myself, because I think, "I really married this guy for his spiritual capacity." Okay, I am totally kidding. I've always been hot for him! Bruce, I love ya, babe. I don't know anyone I would trust more with the temporal and spiritual safety of our family. He's like a steady rock, anchored in all the things that truly matter. But most importantly, no matter how old you get, Bruce, I will ALWAYS be younger than you! Boo-yah!

naked political rallies

I'll spare you the image, so there will be no photo with this post. But just about every day we've been here so far (except for Sunday), there have been these political rallies in the streets. And people are totally naked at these political rallies. I kid you not. They're pretty much just wearing these political flyers (I'm talking 8x10 - or maybe 5x7 papers) with these political images on them as loin cloths. AND. NOTHING. ELSE. Women included. You're getting gas at the pump, and these people are running around chanting in the nude. I'm picking up the boys from school, and on the way home, these people are running by naked. So far, I don't think my kids have noticed. It's miraculous, really. I keep trying to distract them with things like, "Er... check your shoes, everyone!! Make sure you didn't step in doggy poop today!" Anyway, just another fun part about living in la ciudad.

**Edit**

Hey! It worked! Aud, this is for you, since you wanted to see it sooo bad. Unfortunately - or should I say FORTUNATELY - I couldn't make this image any bigger...

bienvenidos a mexico

We made it! I loved driving through Mexico. I really did. It was a long road trip, but the kids actually rose to the occasion and there is some beautiful landscape that's fairly Rocky Mountain-esque. I absolutely love the mountains. Some people love the beach, but my perfect place to live would be on a mountain top somewhere. Mountains add diversity of landscape, they're nature's landmarks. It's so breath-taking to look out over the world from a mountain top where everything rests in perfect perspective. Even the mangled huts and broken homes that dot the landscape look beautiful from up there. These are googled images, but they are a perfect depiction of what we saw while driving through:





We hardly stopped, because there weren't a ton of safe places to stop. But we mostly stayed on toll roads, which made for a smoother, safer drive. However, it was terrible timing on our parts to arrive in Mexico City on a Friday afternoon. Wow. Ginormous mistake. Firstly, traffic was... let's just say it took two hours to go five miles. I nearly crashed about fifteen different times and almost ran over about a hundred different street vendors trying to sell their pistachios or whatever in the middle of the freeway. Secondly, there is usually one day out of the week you are not supposed to drive. Depending on what kind of car permit you may have, everyone has a different assigned day. Apparently for our type of permits, we are not supposed to drive on Fridays. Not only are we huge targets in general for the shady Mexican policia here with our Texas license plates, but we were driving on our unapproved day.

We ended up getting pulled over, and here, you have to bribe the police. They originally asked Bruce to pay an outrageous amount, and he negotiated but didn't have enough cash on him to pay them immediately. "Oh, that's okay," they said. "You can give us cash from the next ATM." However, they didn't want to be seen getting cash from him in front of the bank, because they didn't want it to look like he was "paying them off." Sketchy, dude. You don't want to know how much he had to pay them. Let's just say we could have bought several plane tickets back home to the U.S. with the cash we gave those thieving police officers. Sooo... 21 hours of driving time and mucho dinero later, we finally made it to our destination.


Bienvenidos a Mexico, verdad?

fourth of july

I'm totally ganking this slideshow from my friend Betsy's blog, but since I forgot my camera and she's so great at taking pictures... I know. This is so plagiarism. But will it make it better if I also include a link to Betsy's blog post?

http://betsylyman.blogspot.com/2008/07/red-hot-and-blue.html

She sets the scene much better than I do anyway. I'm sorry, Betsy! I'm so glad she got the pics of Cameron and B on their Nintendo DS's all night and one of her Makena and my Makenna sharing a pillow. What Bets forgot to include was that her 7-year-old Makena is the best babysitter ever. I would totally leave my children with her if it wasn't illegal. Sweet, sweet girl. It's really too bad MY Makenna is so NOT a sweet girl. Maybe it's that extra "n" in her name. "N" for NAUGHTY!!!

P.S. If the guy in the red, white and blue mullet scares you... I don't blame you. You can check out Sidney and Joel's blog here: Sid Subjects. Joel is... hard to describe.

P.P.S. Also, if you're wondering why I'm wearing sunglasses when it's already dark out, it's because I've got scary eyes. They're all red and bruised around my irises from my lasik surgery. I've been freaking out the hotel cleaning ladies. They give me whatever I want. "Deme mas toallas!" I say, and they give 'em to me. No questions asked.

bye-bye, glasses!

I went and got LASIK surgery yesterday! Woo-hoo! It was a fairly quick and painless process. They brought me into the operating room where they put a whole bunch of drops in my eye, gave me some valium and stuck me on the operating table. When they taped my eyelid back and clamped this plastic thing over my eyeball, I sort of went into freak-out mode. I started grinding my teeth together to keep from screaming out (and/or throwing up), and I had to clench my hands in a tight fist in the pocket of my hoodie to stop from punching anything or anyone. "Look into the red light," they said, and I tried to think of something - anything - but the fact that they were lasering my eyeball. When they removed a flap of my cornea, everything went dim except for a small white light, and I wondered if this is what it felt like to die. And don't even get me started on the burning smell...

But after five minutes of total anxiety, I went home and took a nap. Today, I have 20/20 vision! It's a miracle, people. I highly recommend it. I've been legally blind since I was 12. My previous outrageous prescriptions made optometrists look twice. I love, love, LOVE modern technology. Goodbye glasses!