Chew this EXTRA! mint gum to help curb your appetite.

For the love of cheesy endorsement haters everywhere, will you PLEASE stop them? I love the show the Biggest Loser, but lately I get physically nauseous every time one of those awful trainer endorsed products pops up.

I don't need EXTRA gum, Milk, Reynolds Steam and Seal or whatever the hell, let's just stick to the good motivation and quality stuff rather than the cheesy product endorsements and stretched out drama.

That's all for tonight - imagine that, a quick tv rant.

Happy Hallows Eve everyone. Hope you enjoy the new look. It's about time!

Halloween Flashback

Doesn't her hair (the little that she has) look red here?

Of course, I squeezed myself into a picture.

Our pumpkin family. Amazing how better Bridget did than TPD

The Tiger family last year... what will this year bring?

Happy Halloween Preparations!

Embassy Beets, The Radish Inn

Probably one of my favorite office clips ever. Not sure why, but I could not stop laughing at this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlhGAY3NZ_g

Sorry, stupid NBC must have pulled embed rights, I can only link to, but totally worth the 30 seconds of your life!

Who's your daddy?

I know I owe you all a LOT of information, but as that mound of information grows and becomes more daunting, it's easy to just stop writing period. In an effort to avoid letting my blog grow cold, I'm going to stay current with a funny story from today and worry about catch up later.

While walking babygirl this evening (yes, off and on in the rain, but we also got to see TWO rainbows - unfortunately, I don't think she appreciated them yet, but I sure did!) anyway, while walking, Bridget has started really noticing things, not like she didn't point and oh and ah before, but now there are real words and meaning associated with things and people.

For instance, "aaaoooh - oggy" said with extreme enthusiasm, means someone walking a dog is approaching. This is usually followed by serious acrobatic maneuvers to ensure a clear visual path of the "oggy" for as long as caninely possible.

Next thing of interest are men. I should clarify - just one man, not men plural, not a man and a woman, not a man and a dog (then we're back at the previous paragraph) not a man and a baby, a man on a bicycle, a man with a tricycle, a man on a unicycle... okay, focus... you get the idea. It has to be a man by himself, one single solitary man. Once we have spotted one single man, her hand immediately points and with sheer delight she calls out, "da da? da da?" over and over again until the object of her affection finally looks, laughs or is out of her line of sight.

The best part about this today was the fine looking young mid-20ish nicely built man with dark hair who suddenly became daddy. I just looked at her and told her not quite, to which the man give a half hearted gruffy laugh. Moments later we pass an older distinguished, balding, heavy set man who also immediately became daddy, too. Dad II thought it was more humorous than the first Dad, but I somehow doubt Tim would.

As we finished walking home, she didn't spot any more dads, but probably about 14 different oggys. Can't wait to see who we encounter tomorrow.

Glad to be back, internet friends, I'll try and post some pics of the cruise as soon as Tim gets back in town and brings back the computer with all the pics. It was a great time and it has definitely been hard to adjust to being back to real life, client demands, a ripped up kitchen and mostly no towel animal waiting for me every night on my fluffed pillows and turned down bed... sigh... but then again, there are no oggys, fake daddys or baby girl on the cruise, so it's good to be home, too.

Happy Thursday night tv friends!

Three nights to Tampa!

Things have been so busy and crazy, I've barely had time to think about the fact that I'll be dipping my toes in cool Caribbean waters in just a matter of days. Just tonight, I began looking up pictures of Belize, Costa Maya, Grand Caymen and more and it finally felt awesome. I can't wait. Sure, we haven't packed anything, haven't thought about what to bring exactly and haven't even started to begin to pack up babygirl, but that will all work it's way out. Hey, we have passports and for us that's a victory in and of itself (remember the great birth certificate incident of 2001 - oh, to be that young and stupid again).

Well, back to work - clients don't always understand that a week on a cruise ship in the middle of the Caribbean ocean doesn't make for good website service.

Just to make you a little jealous (yes, I am that mean...) here is one of our stops - Belize.

7 hours, 40 minutes PEOPLE

7 hours, 40 minutes...

Bad Blogger + Reminder

I've been so bad about blogging lately. I hate using the "i'm so busy" line because in reality I do have time to blog, I just don't choose to spend the time I do have blogging. I pick much more important things like watching the biggest loser stretched out over a ridiculously long 2 hours when it could easily be condensed into an hour or going for a nice long run/walk with babygirl or reading my US weekly to find out the real truth on Britney's parenting as told exclusively by a bodyguard that surely knows all since he worked for her for a whole two months.

I'm just kind of lazy-busy right now. Sure, we ripped out our kitchen, bought a piece of t-shirt equipment that cost more than my first car, I run two businesses out of my home and I've been a single parent while Tim's been traveling a lot the past couple of weeks, but even with all that stuff, I could find time to tell the little stories that run through my head all day long, I just don't. I get much more selfish with my "me" time. It's all about priorities when it comes to time crunches and right now blogging is just a little lower on the priority level - somewhere between US weekly and painting toe nails.

I'm sure you've all been devastated (insert sarcasm) by my lack of posting initiative, but tune in soon - I've had the following blog titles running through my head for the past week or so:

HAIR (no not the Musical)
Puggle Man works his Magic
Mixphoria meets my MP3 player
4 Cities in 5 weeks: the Recap

Lastly, the reason why I started this post in the first place, was to remind everyone to get a good night's sleep. You might even want to set out your stapler and 20lb white stock before going to bed tonight. It is as you know, Office Eve, the most magical night of the Fall Season. The night before Michael, Dwight, Pam, Jim, Oscar, Ryan, Kelly, Angela and all our office friends come back to make us laugh and look forward to Thursday nights again.

Michael Scott: Attention everyone, hello! Yes, I just want you to know that this is not my decision but from here on out, we can no longer be friends. And when we talk about things here, we must only discuss work associated things. And uh, you can consider this my retirement from comedy. And in the future if I want to say something funny, or witty, or do an impression I will no longer, ever, do any of those things.

Jim Halpert: Does that include "That's what she said?"

Michael Scott: Mmm hmm, yes.

Jim Halpert: Wow. That is really hard. You really think you can go all day long? Well, you always left me satisfied and smiling.

Michael Scott: That's what she said!

PS - I'll also be checking out Earl. I agree that it went up and down last season, but I thought it ended pretty strong, so I'm going to give it a good chance this season and see if it can reel me back in. Oh, and unfortunately, we have to wait until NEXT Thursday for my rapidly-becoming-my-number-2-go-to-show 30 Rock. It doesn't premiere until Oct. 4th!

Must See if you Missed it...

I love TV, TOO!

A-Le just wrote a great post about TV and how absolutely awesome it is this time of year and I couldn't agree more! For me, this night is the kick off to the fall TV season and something I look forward to as much as all the previews of my fav shows themselves. Yes, tonight, my friends, is the Emmy's - a true couch potato's dream. I get to see all my favorite TV stars dressed to the nines all on tv at once.

I've watched the Emmy's year after year, since I was a kid watching with my mom (usually in her room since dad and Mark had kicked us out of the family room for some baseball game or something), to holding Emmy parties in college, to now making my reluctant husband watch year after year as he constantly bitches about how stupid it is and asks over and over again, "who is that and who cares what they think" (he obviously doesn't get *it*).

Last year at this time, I watched the Emmy's from my cozy room at St. John's just 37 hours after Bridget was born and, actually, had a bigger Emmy party last year than this year, but nonetheless, I can't wait to see who wins, who performs and all the great things about TV I love so much.

I finally know what DROP SHIP means..Aka - you might as well just skip this post it's so boring.

I've been working at Sydney's Closet as a consultant for almost two years now - no wait, over two years now and everyone throws around that term so much and with such obviousness that I never wanted to ask exactly what it meant. Plus, when they would use it, the context was always different so I was having a hard time pinpointing exactly what that meant, I had my theories, but I always thought there was more to that term. Keep in mind, though, I didn't care enough to oh, say... google it and find out what it was... so it really didn't bother me that much.

Well, just today, as I was fixing an order for my own site, I called Cafepress and asked if they could "drop ship" the items. Ding! I knew what drop ship meant. It was like it secretly snuck into my brain and burrowed a little home there without my recognition.

Anyway, that's my exciting Thursday update for you all - big day here at CWC - stressing about drop shipping and watching the new women on "the view".

Drop ship: An arrangement whereby a mail-order or Internet merchant accepts orders for products, and then pays a manufacturer or distributor to ship the product to the customer.

Now, if my brain could only learn that "snuck" is not a word, we'd be in good shape.

Remembering

When I am complaining about certain TV personalities or angry at that mini-van who cut me off in traffic this morning, I sometimes need to put it in perspective. I know these are "life" things and that it's okay and normal to feel irritated about little things, but days like today really help keep things in perspective and help me remember how lucky we are that every day for the past six years we've had the ability to live, laugh and even complain.

mmmm....consequences....

Maybe the consequences should be that the Today show boots your rear end from doing interviews.

Yup, I've got a new Anne Curry clip coming soon. Just gotta wait for the today show to put it up. Stick to Dateline Anne, STOP the interview madness, please.

Anybody see this clip I'm referring to? If you did, you are probably still sick to your stomach and not reading blogs yet, I understand.

Try this link if you are a glutton for punishment.

Did we mention how much we love Chris Porter? Oh, and Happy Birthday Big D!

I'm doing back to back birthday posts - Bridget's 1st Birthday and now Big D's 30th birthday... I tried to think of a way to compare the two, but while Bridget actually opened presents, was sang happy birthday to, and ATE her cake, her Aunt Molly didn't really partake in any of those usual birthday events - well, at least we made them both wear a lot of goofy birthday paraphernalia. That's gotta count for something, right?

When all was said and done, though, a very wise man (or at least one that had perhaps imbibed in a few too many red bull and vodka's) had this to sum up the 30th Birthday experience:

We came, we saw and we kicked some serious KC ass...

OR, maybe, just maybe, it kicked ours - I'm not really sure, but either way, I believe Molly-Big D-Midget-MeMe-Delanty had a good time celebrating her big 3-0!

Warning - Long drawn out recap of the day ahead.

We kicked the day off at Charlie Hoopers for a little lunch, a lot of pitchers and the Mizzou vs. Illini game. There was some *friendly* natured competition between the Mizzou Alum (Mark, Tim and I) and Jim, the lone Illinois Alumni. Really, he didn't have much of a chance up against us, but Mizzou did almost fold and shut all of us up at the end, luckily the Tigers squeaked out the victory.

Next, we headed to the Falloon on the plaza where Sara and Paul helped us get the location festive with 30th decor. We had surprise guests John Quigley, Dave Shomin, Adam Watkins and even Mr. Quigley make an appearace - plus a few others that I can't remember right now (see previous paragraph about pre-party again). It was a fun time and I would write more about it but mostly I just remember talking a LOT to a bunch of people about the same things....or maybe I was talking to the same people about the same things, I do that sometimes.

Then some of us girls headed to O'Dowds for a little dancing. This is where I first spotted Chris Porter. I made Libby ask the guy in the band if it was him and he confirmed, but our attempts to seek him out proved fruitless after he disappeared into the crowd. I was so bummed and I knew Tim would be, too, but it was back to dancing to some good Dave Matthews and Jack Johnson. Not the typical Nelly or Murphy Lee that I prefer to really get my hip hoping groove on, but it was still fun and the guy had an amazing voice. Of course, I think had Pee Wee Herman been singing "Crash", at that point in the evening, I might have thought he had an awesome voice, too.

Finally, while leaving the Falloon - the most amazing thing happened (no, we didn't run into Oprah, Ghandi, Ellen, The Queen of England, Dave Matthews, Jimmy Buffett AND Bono on the sidewalk - but you would have thought we did) we ran smack dab into ...wait for it... Chris Porter...

Like, did I mention we saw Chris Porter? Well, we did you know. We saw Chris Porter. Do you know who that is? What? You don't know Chris Porter? Well, Tim and I, we LOVE Chris Porter and he does this joke about a grandpa and a casket that they bought at Costco and oh my god - it's a cosket and... you put grandpa in a cosket??! It is so funny. Doesn't that sound funny? Isn't that just hilarious? Haven't you ever seen Last Comic Standing? and Chris Porter? He lost to Josh Blue? I mean, seriously, THAT was Chris Porter! It was Chris Porter! Is anyone listening to me? Oh my god we just got our picture taken with Chris Porter. Do you know who he is??? That's Chris Porter...

... and that's mostly what I remember at the end of the evening, but I'm pretty sure to many of you there Tim and my's Chris Porter love fest was even worse than that!


Happy Birthday Big D!
Love,
Tim, Chris & Erin

View all the pictures here.

Should we be worried about how much she liked the cake?

Neither Tim nor I are big big desert people. Not that I don't like sweet stuff, I just wouldn't crave it, I wouldn't seek it out most of the time. Well, unless we're at a wedding, then I would seek out the cake - not like Kim might seek it out, wrap it in whatever is closest by and store it throughout her home like a squirrel hides nuts for the winter - but I do enjoy the wedding cake. Most of you have heard me say this, but give me a big plate of cheese fries (preferably like those ones in Dallas that were the BOMB) vs. chocolate cake and I'll take the cheese fries every time. So, when Bridget started, albeit slowly and daintily (also not sure where she got that from) to really get into the chocolate cake, I was surprised. At some point, I even heard a couple party goers question when we should cut her off.... I'm pretty sure Aunt Kim and Aunt Aimee were pretty proud of their little cake lover.

All in all, the big ONE was a BIG success. There were too many presents (but in my world there can never really be too many presents) and every single one was great. She got some too cute fall clothes, fun noise making toys, educational toys, a thoughtful Piggy Bank from the Muldrows with a really cute note and idea inside (yes, A-le, of course I opened it...that night...!) and some great books just in time since she is finally starting to get into looking at them. There was good food (courtesy of Viviano's fabulous catering which I highly recommend for events and appetizers courtesy of Mom D) and we all had a fun time celebrating our little Bridgey's first year.

It actually was perfect. Sure I forgot an appetizer, didn't have the best plan for how to cook the food and needed some help from family and friends, but all in all it was perfect. The babygirl was surrounded by family and friends that love her and have been there for her throughout her first year of getting acquainted to this world and I'm pretty sure she knew it!

I worked and stressed and made about 18 different batches of icing to make the perfect buttercream icing (note to future Erin: confectioners sugar is different from granulated sugar) for her cupcake tower, but when it comes right down to it, the only thing that really matters is that tpd, Bridgey and I are so lucky to have all of you in our lives, just as we are all lucky to have her!

So, here's to a great first year of trials and tribulations, and, as surprising as it was, this wasn't that overly emotional to me. I was prepared to feel sad or longing for her babyhood, and, sure it was nostalgic thinking about her birth and the emotions of finally having her after 9 long months, but mostly it was just exciting. Exciting that she is growing and learning and understanding who her family is and, selfishly, exciting that we've made it relatively unscathed. I kinda feel like, yeah, we did this and if we can do this, we can do about anything. We've been through colic (or at least something that caused her to scream for hours on end for the first few months), we've been through late nights, early mornings, being tired to the bone, an overnight emergency room visit and all the way, in between, we've seen the funniest, most entertaining little person emerging day by day. I can't wait to see what the next year will bring!

Of course, I took way too many pictures. Here you go, those of you who don't mind 25 pictures of baby cake eating... click here!

ps - Thanks for the nice birthday tribute Blogging Mommy A-le. It was really sweet!

It was supposed to be Happy Birthday Eve...

but now it's just plain old Happy 1st Birthday babygirl! I am up way too late putting (I would like to say final touches - but it's really more like mid touches as there is sadly still very much to be done) on your big 1st birthday bash. It's after midnight, so instead of wishing you a happy birthday eve, I now get to say happy birthday.

Interestingly enough this year reminds me of last year - I've been working hard all day long, I'm up way after midnight and I'm looking ahead to a lot more to go! Regardless, I did it last year and I'd do it every year from now on for you.

Things won't be perfect tomorrow like I'm sure every first time - first birthday party mom wants it to be, but dad and I will do our best to make sure you have lots of presents, lots of time with family and lots of cake (well, Aunt Kim and Aunt Aimee will definitely help in that department - they like the cake) and sometime - when I have more time I'll blog all about the crazy things your mom has done to get ready for this day.

Let's just hope I'm not still awake at your actually birth time - 4:16am!

I love you! Happy 1st my sweet babygirl.

Is it just me ?

Maybe... probably, but I don't find this cake topper to be particularly cute nor do I think "this whimsical topper also makes a great keepsake for the mother-to-be". Not sure about all you other moms/preggos out there but I don't really need to be reminded that I was so large during pregnancy my scale staged an uprising. Especially not in a cover-my-mouth "he he - I'm taking this all in stride" sort of way.

Don't worry, Sheryl, we will not be choosing this particular "keepsake" for your shower!

Parental Epiphany

Sure I've had many of these along my almost 1 year (yikes!) crash course in parenting, but today surpassed them all. I'm not sure what was different or why it finally clicked, but there it was... click click click... right there, right then.

I was changing babygirl on her table after the morning nap and I was doing my usual rambling/singing/finding any object that will serve as entertainment long enough for me to get the clothes off and diaper changed when I see she is pointing up towards the wall... after asking a couple times "what? what are you pointing at? what do you need?" you know, basically the questions I repeatedly ask her, I say, "the lion? do you want the lion?" Immediately, her face lights up, a huge smile comes across and she starts flipping her hands feverishly back and forth as if to say, "duh, mom, of course that's what I want... you know the lion that you always talk about when you change me..."

Click - insert light bulb here.

Almost every time I change her, I talk about this little lion my mom painted on the wall near the changing table. We talk about the color and how grandma painted it and how there is a palm tree and then how much mommy likes palm trees and beaches and Jimmy Buffett... and, well, you can see where this is going, but basically we talk about the lion. Well, today I wasn't talking about the lion or showing her the lion and she knew it. She was telling me to talk about the lion. SHE was telling ME what to do. She is a person with her own thoughts and desires and feelings and it was just so shocking. Obviously I knew this on many levels prior to this occurance, but to have her point it out to me in such an obvious you-shoulda-had-a V8 sorta way, was just eye opening. I'm not sure why, in the past, it hasn't been as eye opening when she hits me and screeches at me because she wants me to stop changing her, but that doesn't make for nearly as cute of a story and I just never made the connection I made today with that behavior, so I'm sticking with the little lion. It was so innocent and so cute and so perfect.

Thanks babygirl - you made my day.

Is this my college fund mom?

yes, it is babygirl and apparently it should also be the "buy Bridget some more clothes" fund, too.

Hmmm...questionable, but so darn funny

*Warning* - questionable bleeped language. If anyone watches Jimmy Kimmel, this is pretty funny - or even if you just have a monster crush on Matt Damon like me.

If short on time, slide over til about 2:26 minutes are left. I think this will be funny to everyone but I could be clouded by my LOVE for Matt Damon, so pretty much anything he does is fine by me.

Making our daughter perform purely for our enjoyment

For growing up in a video household long before any of my friend's parents had video cameras, it has certainly taken me far too long to figure out how to post my videos to my blog and youtube. My dad would not approve. Now, to be fair, I do this for clients all the time and it's no big deal, but MY camera has to be super difficult and old computers didn't help the situation. So, finally just in time for the big #1 birthday, I have conquered the video beast - a new cord and a few new computers later, we are ready to roll. Look out blog readers, it's about to get interesting... or incredibly boring seeing as how every time I turn the camera on she immediately stops doing funny stuff.

So, for my first test post, a quick clip from tonight. It highlights a few of her new tricks: where's your monkey, being a snickelfritz (sorry big d), finding her nose (sort of), and being bonked in the head by brogan - that one is not so much of a trick but an everyday occurance - don't worry she was fine it phased her more than normal since she was tired and up past bedtime.

I promise not to bore you constantly with "things I think are funny that my baby does but really they are only funny to me" video clips every other day, but I really am excited about finally joining the video world, so for tonight indulge me with an "I know this is not really all that exciting but it finally works PEOPLE!" video.