heyMamas

Please be the last one

I did in fact promise here not more than a week ago, to not post anymore pictures of Belle and Lily playing in the snow, so I won't. 

You can trust me.

What I will post is a beautiful photo of snowfall in Central Park, a spot not too far from my office.

 

Yesterday, we had a constant dusting of snow blanket the entire City which promptly turned into slush.

The snow has continued through the night and is still going today.  I have never had this many snow days, EVER and if they don't stop soon I am indeed going to die.

 

Although I do have to work from home today, I am going to try to take in the stillness of a snow day, along with enjoying...

The comfort of my home.

The sweet smell of my girls.

Hot chocolate with mini-marshmallows. 

Going into my kitchen to get food instead of my work pantry.

Working quietly, without interruptions.

Working quietly, without interruptions {yes, I meant to repeat that.}

If you are lucky enough to have a snow day today, I hope you can also slow down if not just for a few minutes and enjoy it. 

Waaahhhhh

I am so sad, look what happened last weekend...

 

 

 

As any of you iPhone users out there know, I do EVERYTHING....I mean EVERYTHING with this phone. 

I send emails, texts, take thousands of pictures, send them straight to Flickr, read the New York Times, read smutty gossip sights, read my favorite blogs, schedule play dates, read Twitter, send tweets, catch up on Facebook, have every last bit of info on people that I know in my contacts....my life is in this phone....

How could this happen??

What have I done??

 

 
 

So with broken phone in hand, we headed to the new Apple store in my neighborhood and I had to do something that made me very sad.  I had to fork over two hundred dollars for a new phone {and that was a bargain at this point because buying a new iPhone entirely could have been so much worse, like if I had just plain lost it. So I should consider myself lucky, I suppose} and the reason for sadness is there are so many other things I could have done with two hundred dollars, so many {think shoes...}.

Drew spent the day backing up all of my data because we had never done that before, and he saved all my apps and other important information that was in my phone so when we got back home he was able to synch up my new iPhone and I was back in business that same day.

 

What I learned from this experience is that a) I rely way to heavily on this phone and I would like to change that by not using or looking at it when other people that I should be interacting with are around, and b) I will never pile my phone on top of ten other things that I already have piled in my arms as I make my way up to my bedroom, and c) I would die without this phone. 

DIE.

Mama's Bits: Gaga

{This is my category called Mama's Bits where I discuss a piece or person that is highly relevant at the moment in pop culture in an effort to catalog for my girls, who and what was popular during their childhood.}

 

Lady Gaga....what can I say, I mean is she a whack-a-do or what?? 

Just look at her hair in this picture...and what about the way she plays the piano with her foot while she sings along?  That's some funky shizz people.

 
photo courtesy of AP Photo/Andy Paradise

Actually the truth is, we love her and I may even can so far as to say I adore her.  Her album is on heavy rotation in our house at the moment and although she may be slightly (or way more than slightly) off-center, you can NOT deny that this girl has a serious set of pipes. 

And frankly, when you are that talented you CAN actually wear a phone on your head and still be taken seriously.

My girls know every song and every dance move, although I try REALLY hard to limit that "I wanna take a ride on your disco stick" song.  

Um, yeah, we skip that one.

 

 
{Clearly, this was photo was taken before Gaga was famous and dressing with bags over her head in an effort to continue her performance when she is back sitting in her seat at an awards ceremony.  Did y'all catch that one?}

 

I had never heard Lady Gaga speak and up until this point I had not even read much about her, so I taped an appearance that she made on the Oprah show.  I watched along with my girls and have to admit I was quite taken with her.  She reminded me of a young Madonna, and if you read my 'About Me' page, you will see just how I felt about Madonna while I was growing up.

Gaga was so well spoken and thoughtful in her comments and I was surprised by that, not entirely sure why I was so surprised, but I was.  She spoke about how important it is to maintain a strong bond with you parents and to respect them.  And I have to say as a Mom watching with my girls I hope they heard her message and remember it. 

She also talked about being a workaholic and how driven she is in the pursuit of her music and bringing her artistic aspirations to life.  I  loved that my girls saw her progression from singing in run down New York City nightclubs and rising to where she is now, because for some reason (it's called American Idol) my girls think you can just grow up to be a pop star.

Anyway, props to Gaga and her message to just love yourself for who you are, even if you are so different from everyone else.  I dig that, and I want my girls to know that conforming is not the answer to finding your inner voice and true self.

Precious cargo

We had Chipotle for dinner tonight which is hands down my all time biggest obsession at the moment.  I know saying 'all time' makes it sound like my 'all time favorite' and then I contradict myself by saying, at the moment, but I think you get where I am going with this. 

I am currently obsessed for what will probably be many future dinners on many future nights for years to come with Chipotle.

And it doesn't stop at Chipotle, oh no it doesn't.  I am equally as obsessed with the vegetarian nachos at Moe's Southwest Grill.  Come to think of it, my Moe's veggie nachos might even mean more to me than my Chipotle veggie burrito bowl.

Whatever. 

My point is we love Chipotle and I am not alone in this, the girls and Drew are in on it too, although the only thing that Lily eats are the giant plain tortillas and tonight she ate two {2} giant plain tortillas and four {4} pancakes left over from breakfast this morning, so we made her take two additional fiber tablets so she doesn't blow a hole in her bottom if you catch my drift.

 

And this is how dinner traveled home from the restaurant this evening.  I think the girls payed more attention to our foods seat belt than their own.

This time I have proof

Very recently I wrote a post here about how obsessed Lily and Belle are with gymnastics.  And that has not changed a bit since I posted that. 

I now have the actual proof that this is ALL they do.  And it is getting worse by the day!

They have moved their gymnastics from the basement, to the unfurnished living room and NOW into our guest bedroom and insist on using the bed as a balance beam and a pommel horse.  They do flips onto the bed and flips off the bed. 

They pile pillows as high as they can in an effort to replicate some god-forsaken piece of gymnastics equipment.  ANYTHING that they can get their grubby little hands on that remotely has anything to do with gymnastics, is game.

It's bad.  Really, really bad.

 

So here's my proof...

This is Belle doing a handstand which then flips her into a back bend position.

 

 

And I just about have a heart attack every time I watch her do it...

 

  

And whatever Belle does, Lily has to try to do it better.

 

 

And I just about have another heart attack.

 

 

And they make me watch these marathon sessions of crazy handstand into back bends, ten times a day and god forbid I am busy doing something else during this time, I am accused of all sorts of heinous things like "you aren't paying enough attention to us"or "you love that stupid iPhone more than us." 

As if.

 

 

Then they do this crazy thing where they ....

 

 

Do a handstand and flip up onto the wall and then walk their bodies back down the wall at which point they land on their backs in a most uncomfortable position.

{Please excuse the background of our messy not decorated yet basement playroom.}

 

 

Then it's Lily's turn and a fight will no doubt ensue about who did it better...

 

 

or who stayed up longer, or who's legs were straighter...

 

 

And the latest coup...

the split...

 

 

which is the recipe for bad blood between the girls. 

Lily claims she can do a split with her back leg farther down on the ground then Belle's and Belle just tells her to shut up because she does it better or just as good and bragging isn't nice anyway.