Happiest surprise ever
…was finding this (Kiki found it actually, when we went to the grocery.)
We mixed it with lemonade and seltzer water. I think I found my summer beverage of 2015!
Author: Pam Kocke
NOLA mom of identical triplets. Talent Acquisition at Automattic. Enjoy reading and photography and sewing and bookbinding.
Bye tooth!
It’s been probably a year since any teeth have been lost, but at about 5:20 this morning, Miles woke me up to tell me his very wiggly front tooth was now gone.
When Linus lost his front tooth, there was already an adult tooth behind it (I assume because the tooth he lost had been damaged years before, somehow forcing the adult tooth to come in faster? Is that a thing?) so this is the first gap-toothed grin we’ve seen from the boys.
Love!
MEGAFIST™
The boys got this awesome new machine the other day, it’s called MEGAFIST™. Here’s a demonstration of how it works:
I’ll admit, sometimes it’s buggy and will switch into MEGAHUGZ™ mode without warning. Or even more ominously, MEGATICKLE™. You gotta be careful with technology.
Lots of things
– You know I’m a big Morrissey fan, right? I got to see him 8 years ago in Virginia, but I was pregnant and, I don’t know, the show wasn’t as amazing as I’d hoped it would be. Well, I found out last week that he’s playing HERE! In New Orleans! For the first time since 1992! Exciting, right?
Except it’s the same week George and I will be in England. (We’re even flying into Manchester. Life is cruel.)
– In somewhat less sad news, I started planting jasmine vines along our iron fence. We don’t have a back yard, just a side yard, so maybe this will give us a little more privacy. In a few years, anyway. And it will smell nice.
– In case you were wondering where in the heck my “Bootcamp Day XX” posts have been (only kidding, I know no one has) it’s because I’m trying to let my achilles’ tendon heal. I’m not sure what’s going on with it, but it hurts sometimes, mostly when I’m going down stairs, or running. So I’ve been sticking to cycling. And sleeping later. It’s frustrating, I’ve never really had any running injuries before.
I ran a tiny bit on the treadmill this morning, just to see how it felt and it definitely felt weird. Tomorrow I have some new shoes coming in the mail (going back to my old trusty Nike Structures that I wore from 2001-2013, but got too expensive, but yay for old models on eBay) so maybe the extra stability will help.
I also read that I should be wearing shoes with a bit of a heel (I mean, not stilettos, but not my beloved Toms, either) so I guess I’ll be the cool mom sporting sneakers with my high-waisted pleated jeans this summer. Or something. Or maybe I’ll just get some wedges. Or something.
I just want to make sure that I can still do the Rocketchix triathlon in July again. We shall see.
– Just had the most delicious lunch, must share. I mixed together the following in a bowl:
- shredded chicken that I slow-cooked last night in taco seasoning and salsa (the shredding-in-a-stand-mixer is the bomb, btw.)
- quinoa
- chopped avocado
- salsa
- plain greek yogurt (stand in for sour cream)
And I just mixed it all up and gobbled it up. If I wasn’t doing the Simply Filling thing with Weight Watchers, I could have added beans, corn, and cheese, but it was really good even without those.
– I never finished posted pics from when everyone was visiting last week. This is one of my favorites, so I’ll just share this one. Me and my nieces and my boys. When we’re in Virginia, I’ll do one with Andrew and photoshop them together or something.
Look, there’s our house!
Last night’s episode of NCIS New Orleans was terribly exciting, no? I don’t mean the plot or the atrocious accent of that one guy (HUH?) or just the typical New Orleans cliches they threw at us, but MY STREET!
Just for fun, a few screen shots from the episode, next to the photos I took while they filmed…
My view: The gray SUV that carries NCIS people (I guess) screeches into the driveway of the “coroner’s office”!
On TV: The gray SUV that carries NCIS people (I guess) screeches into the driveway of the “coroner’s office”!
My view: People run out of the building, away from the gunman! (Then they stood in our driveway.)
On TV: People run out of the building!
My view: Scott Bakula and other randoms run to help the security guard who got himself shot!
On TV: The pain is so real!
Okay, that’s enough. You get the idea.
One more screen shot, where you can see our house! And our garbage cans! And a tiny bit of my van! And my neighbor’s house/coffee shop!
Well, I think we’ve proved that my block makes a great place to film things. Now if anyone just needs a cute 7 year old boy and some spares, have your people call my people!
NCIS New Orleans
Watch tonight! It’s the episode they filmed in front of my house last month. You might catch a glimpse of something from one of these scenes… (spoiler alert?)
Those are mostly pictures I took from my desk, so the action was really close. It was cool to see how everything is done, but I also got pretty jaded towards the end.
“Yawn, there goes Scott Bakula again.”
(Look, my mom loved Quantum Leap when I was growing up. This is exciting stuff to have the star on my sidewalk!)
Anyway. Look out for the coffee shop – that’s really my next door neighbor’s living room.
Here’s the preview for the episode:
Drawings
It’s like I don’t know my own children anymore.
For the past few days, they’ve been drawing, reading, and playing chess. WHO ARE THESE STRANGE KIDS?
Yesterday, I came home from a bike ride (that’s kind of a lie. I went for a bike ride, popped a tire by the pub and ended up spending a few hours there.) and the boys were surrounded by drawings. Good drawings.
Somehow they found some video on YouTube that teaches kids how to draw using letters and numbers, and they’re now obsessed. I approve.
Here’s the channel:
Month 88
You know what this means? Twelve months from today, we’ll be taking #100. Then, maybe I can consider stopping. (No, not really. As if.)
This month, we had a very special guest, all the way from Los Angeles! Give it up everyone, for COUSIN ELLIE!
Then and now
My brother and niece came to visit in August 2012, when Ellie was 7 years old (plus a few months.) We took a walk around the LSU campus (where my brother and I both went to school) and I took a picture of my brother with his daughter and nephews.
Today, Ellie is almost 10, and the boys are 7 (plus a few months) and we went back to LSU, visited Mike the Tiger again, and found the same bench in the quad for a reprise of that old photo.
Looking at the boys’ legs dangling above the ground in the first picture compared to today’s kind of kills me.
Thursday
I posted a picture of the cousins in birth order a couple of days ago, but here’s how my brother got them to do it. Cue the giggles!
We came home on Tuesday so we could sleep in our own beds (my mom’s house, while large and lovely, is not quite large enough for four families, so the boys and I were camped out on the floor of my mom’s office on various mattresses and sleeping pads) and it was kind of sweet how sad Linus was to leave his cousins. Mean of me to take joy in his sadness, I know, but it just makes me happy that they are having so much fun together.
(He was also sad to leave the big house with the big yard. Yeah, kid, we all want a big house with a big yard.)
We had crawfish and shrimp Monday night, yum.
Relatedly, my brother has spent a bunch of time working on his current Kickstarter project, which I promised I’d pimp out for him. A few years ago, he drove cross country and did a time lapse of the drive, which you can see here:
Now, he’s doing one around Iceland. Gee, must be nice.
So, go support him so he’ll stop bugging me already.
#NOLAmomprobs
Check out my latest post on the New Orleans Moms Blog. Do you know how many tries it took to get the perfect forlorn, tear-streaked photo for this?
(a lot.)
Cousins!
My brother made standing in a line, in birth order, into a game. Voila! Pics of the boys and almost all of their cousins. (Andrew is at home, but we’ll see him next month when we go to Virginia.)
pyjammy dot blog 