the flood

When I don't get a chance to blog for a few weeks that a sure fire sign life has entered into crazy once more. It's almost never the same crazy, and the crazy is never really gone, but sometimes it slams you and you're (read: I) am fumbling for a while as I try to get through it.

Usually I can manage the crazy pretty well. Everyday, seven days a week I try really freaking hard to think ahead and solve the problems before they happen. Like Rainman style, I'm counting which route requires the fewest steps thus increasing my efficiency. True story. I'm a real blast to be with. 

That being said, I'd like to share the story of, perhaps, one of my top 3 most mortifying Mom Moments yet and I really have no one but myself to blame. 

Errr.

Ummm.

Yeahhh.

All this...?

My bad.

It  started out innocently enough. Rad smelled...fun...and needed a bath. I started one for him, went down stairs to get him and then totally forgot I left the tub running. After about half an hour Jake took Beck upstairs for his nap and found our new water feature. Usually this would send me into full scale chihuahua mode but I was like "hey, let's take pictures!" and Jake took over the chihuahua mode.

The boys were super excited about "the big ba-venture" in the bathroom. Rad's unwavering dedication to only drinking the highest quality water was and is still going strong.

Jake was totally justified is freaking out because the 2 inches of water in our master bath and half our bedroom because while the boys and I were frolicking, buckets of water were waterfalling (literally) into our garage leading to this...

because

 ...when we bought the house we replaced all the flooring except in these two rooms, the bathroom still had the nasty linoleum which is in no way water proof. All the water went right through the floor into  garage.

Yay.

The major, epic silver lining to all this was that our insurance gave us a nice check to repair the damage. In order to stay in the budget we're doing all the labor and renovations ourselves. We like to call it #pimpmypotty.

Clearly we renovate in the lap of luxury.

I refuse to complain (too much) about this. We are super lucky that it wasn't worse and super lucky that our insurance was a total all star. But going to bed and waking up to see all this jazz is getting my OCD all funky. Our goal is to be done by Christmas aaaaaand we think it might be possible. 

Maybe Santa can throw in some volunteer some tiling hours. ;)

Rad's rules

I know there's a toddler-logic-short-and-sweet-post missing in your blog roll this morning. Now that's rectified.

^^^Rad loves all the lamas that come with the holiday season. Well you try telling him it's a reinndeer. Impossible.

Our middle child wakes up every morning and sets out on a mission to indoctrinate the world his rules for a successful life. Always yelled. Always repeated. Thrice. At least.

1. No no running away.

2.  No no touching fire.

3. No no touching (there's a theme) whales.

4. No no touching dad.

#toddlerlogic

this is halloween

Halloween: We freaking did it!

This year Halloween snuck up on me and it was a mad dash to get the costumes assembled and not forget the costume parade at kindergarten.   

But look! My most favorite fall activities checked of the list! We hit up the pumpkin patch to find the coveted perfect Jack-o-lantern pumpkins.* We hype up the patch to make the boys feel like the corn maze is as good as going to Disneyland. I think we have maybe 1 more year before that doesn't fly any more. One of my  most favorite things about pumpkin patches in Arizona is that they  don't serve hot cider or hot chocolate. They serve snow cones. Really.

*It should be mentioned that we didn't end up carving our pumpkins this year. Two or three years ago I would have stressed to infinity and beyond about that, but this year I realized the boys appreciate more the time spent together and not what's checked of the list. It's not an epic revelation but I know the evening we spent in backyard playing was just as good as if we had carved those pumpkins. At least I'm telling myself that. 

Back to the  patch. Rad was a bit of a pumpkin diva, OK a TOTAL pumpkin diva, insisting on certain ones and getting suuuper mad when he couldn't lift them. It kind of made me proud that he loved the patch as much as his mom.

These days every little dang thing is a competition to Rhett. So you can imagine the competitive spirit that pervaded the fun family outing. He went as far as to call himself the Pumpkin King. Rad did not like coming in second place.

The Kindergarten costume parade. Rhett and his best friend Everett were twinning.

Of course the dress up festivities were a month long affair 

Which is always a blast on days when you have a bazillion errands to run and the boys drink a bazillion juice boxes. Public restroom story goldmine. 

Overheard from stall

Rhett:  Iron Man lightning pee go!!

Rhett: PSHEWWW! (Sound effects)

Lately I have been trying hard to channel my sleeping artist self to become more of a domestic goddess. Wink. ;) So, of course, the Miller Halloween celebrations got a pretty good dose of my Martha Stewart aspirations. I decorated our front area really "awesome" in a not too scary spider-theme. Our neighbor said it was "sophisticated". Which is pretty much the weirdest halloween complement, but I will take it. 

Our biggest Halloween mistake also pictured above, buying the boys light-sabers that are quite hard and leave welts. Or as the boys call them light-savers.

If Luke Skywalker had a social media account this would be his throw-back-thrursday pic. Obvs.

On Halloween we went over to the Berner's for dinner and appetizers. I missed the memo that dinner and appetizers were meant to me Halloween themed. Tyrell went above and beyond. I ordered pizza. Ha. 

And then the homies went trick or treating.

The father figures were there to sample candy and light the way. The were A+ on all accounts.

Rad realized that if he stood in front of the door long enough they'd give him 2 servings of candy. It's never to early to find the loop holes.

And not to make this all about Rad, but I must express how proud I was of him trick or treating. Rad's speech has been a little delayed and his pronunciation is even a little further behind that. Even though he has come so far in the past month I was afraid he wouldn't be able to say trick or treat and be understood. But on Halloween night he was a rockstar. The neighbors couldn't say enough about how cute he looked and how fearless he was. Both the truest of true statements.

The boys had an absolute blast running up and down the sidewalks and chasing the big kids in their costumes. They both weren't phased by the masks, the wigs, the hanging skeletons or even the pyrotechnics and fog machines. People, this slice of suburbia doesn't mess around.

Happy Halloween!