{lesson learned}

Innocuous adj. harmless

This was the word I used to ease George's tension as the kids begged him to play.

"Oh go ahead honey, it looks fairly innocuous."


"Hold on tight honey!!"

Truth be told, what I was really thinking was, holy cow he looks like he's going to hurl!

Oh boy that doesn't look good.

"Honey, I'm just gonna stay over here and take some pictures. It's for the blog you know."

Lesson(s) learned:

The antonymn of innocuous.

Men over 40 shouldn't let their kids spin them at will on playground equipment.

{it's 10 o'clock}

do you know where your kids are???

It would seem that there is a malfunction in the internal clock in my children. Why is it that at this very moment (11:06 p.m.) as I'm trying to focus on writing a funny entry, Courtney has entered my room for the third time just to "chat". Seriously, I'm here ALLLLLL day long her!! Oh and George is on the other side of me talking about "bonus baseball" ..... huh? All I want to do is to finish one blog entry, just one. So OK, there is a moment of silence and I think I might actually get through this.

As I was saying malfunction in interal clocks....

Courtney & Mikayla decided to take a swim in my bathtub at 10p.m.

Jake & Gavin got the "serious munchies" at 10 p.m.

AHHHHH!! Gavin please unplug that toaster. Like the SuperHero I am, got there just in the nick o' time! No, not really, he had already unplugged it.

And of course, the biggest child of them all came home from a meeting ready to finish installing the toilet in the guest bathroom at, you guessed it, 10 p.m.

Summer.... you gotta love it!

Addendum: While I was typing this in, my ADD took over and I decided to at least attempt to put the dogs to bed. Perhaps then everyone else would get the HINT!! Apparently the only hint taker in the house is the Blue Blood- Sir Max himself. Sorry Max, that's my spot!

{hooky day}

Every year my children get the opportunity to play "hooky" from school. They are not perfect attendance overachievers like I was. I lived for that piece of paper that said I had attended every last stinkin' day of school. But my children? Nope, they have no desire to win the McDonald's gift certificate or be acknowledged in that way. It all started when Jake (of course it was him) was really stressed out in 3rd grade. He was in a 3rd grade gifted class that skipped the 3rd grade material and moved right into 4th grade learning. I thought this was great. He, however, needed a day off. So I gave in. WARNING, WARNING....NEVER EVER GIVE IN!!! Now here we are two years later taking family hooky days. It's become a tradition I know will be passed down for generations and it will at some point be all my fault. But until then, let's enjoy some pictures!

My ami fabuleux, Lori, mentioned she had free passes for Key Lime Cove, the new water park in Gurnee. So we took our very white bodies there and had a great, great time.

I don't know how he's still standing. You can't see her, but Mikayla is hanging on his right arm. I got out of the pool just long enough to take some pictures and lose the game!

I thought this was the funniest picture! Look at the concentration in her eyes. She missed the shot! I think the life guard was wondering why I wasn't in a tanning bed!!

Great fun!

{could it be}

Yes it is!!! A real live post! Fasten your seatbelts, this is an all about boys post. So what have the Taylors/DeCarlos been doing? Well, I've been working on trying to stay sane! I know, I know we all experience that feeling. YOU DO experience that feeling don't YOU????

OK, nevermind, don't tell me.

Let's instead focus on boys.

Lookie here at the handsome firefighter. He just got promoted to lieutenant. I love him in uniform, but me thinks I like the bunker pants better!

While I was in the house searching for my sanity (again), I noticed the boys were missing. Found them on the porch with weapons! Yes, that is a BB gun propped on my lovely southern style porch and yes, they are using pocket knifes to whittle their twigs into sharp spears. I stopped looking for my sanity long enough to ask them what they planned on doing with all their weapons. Jake's response..."world domination mom whaduthink?" Seeing that I don't plan on becoming an NRA member anytime soon, I asked them to put the weapons away then resumed my search for my sanity. About 30 minutes went by and again the house got a little too quiet. Now where are they?

Are you kidding? A fire? Trust me when I say they do own video games. Why do they feel the need to torture me so? They did make me a s'more to schmooze me a little. Who can yell at a boy that brings you gooey chocolatey niceness? I extended their "electronic" time hoping to avoid anymore criminal activity.

Here are the charming little criminals in disguise. They look fairly innocent don't they?

{meet the family-lone star edition}

Most often you will read about my mom & sisters as they are more local and much easier to make fun of! However, there is a whole other side that I don’t see as often, but are just as much fun to write about….they are the Texas relatives!

Did you know????

*Texas is the only state to have the flags of 6 different nations fly over it. They are: Spain, France, Mexico, Republic of Texas, Confederate States, and the United States?

* More wool comes from the state of Texas than any other state in the United States?

*You can walk my non-Spanish speaking husband, George, across the border from Brownsville, Texas into Mexico and then pretend to not know him and walk away?? But I digress.

*I have a dad George, a brother George, an uncle George and a cousin George? With the exception of my brother, they all live in good ole Texas! Ridem' cowboy!!

There is probably some deep psychological theory attached to why I married a George as well, but we won't delve into that today!!!

So for today, we shall spotlight George......my dad, George that is & his very cool Columbian wife, Geovany.

He is a retired postal worker, who managed not to go postal but instead moved to Brownsville, Texas where his biggest decision of the day is do I water my grass while I smoke my {very unhealthy} cigar or do I golf?

OR

Lose the cigar Dad!! Pretend you're a firefighter & hold that hose with two hands!!!

Now my dad does manage to keep himself busy doing other things............. hmmm...what would those retired things be? Fishing, fishing and more fishing!! He is actually a Catholic deacon too who can write one mean sermon; which may I add I heard plenty of growing up! Oh wait, those were lectures...is there a difference??

He did finally settle down & married the best Columbian cook around. George (my George) craves her gourmet Columbian rice. She was going to teach me how to make it until I found out it involved a pressure cooker. Now, I'll cook "under pressure" but I don't think it's a good idea to combine cooking & real pressure. It scares me. And this leaves my George dreaming of the good ole days when Geovany lived here and made rice just for him. She really made the rice for holiday gatherings but my George convinced himself she made it just for him.

Here she is holding my newest sibling which brings my brain to another pychological quandary.

Why is it now that they are empty nesters they feel the need to adopt new siblings and pamper them and make them exquisite doggie meals? Seriously, this sibling is undoubtedly more pampered than I ever was!!

Please note, I'm not calling the new sibling by its name as I am not quite ready for that yet!!!

So there you have it ~ my dad, Geovany (the most awesome cook) and the sibling

direct from the

Lone Star state of Texas!!