Parents of girls (especially only girls), answer me this….do girls play-fight like this, or is it a boy thing? (I know my sister and I fought like this growing up, but it wasn’t pretend like here!)

While I have you here, do you mind clicking on the Top Mommy Blogs button on the right? I’m at #32 right now, which is pretty pathetic. Only takes a second!

I’m still amazed that I have blue eyed children. Yesterday, after t-ball practice, Oliver’s eyes were looking particularly blue, due to his pupils being tiny.

Note to self: time for haircuts.

Just a few from the past few days…

I have a big brother. His name is Evan. He’s a landscape architect in Los Angeles. Well, that’s his profession. But his “hobby” is making films. Short films, mostly. He’s been making films as long as I can remember. When I was younger, he always had his Super-8 camera with him, and he and his friends John and Bryan and Darren would be running around mixing up fresh batches of fake blood, or building dummies, or generally creeping out the neighborhood as they made movies.

Here’s a particularly memorable example:

Twin Terror from Evan Mather on Vimeo.

About 15 years ago, he started making animated movies. The first were stop-action Lego Star Wars recreations/spoofs/parodies/homages. We were all so excited when he was mentioned on CNN for this gem:

Quentin Tarantino’s Star Wars from Evan Mather on Vimeo.

My favorite of his movies came along in 2000.

Fansom the Lizard

Fansom the Lizard from Evan Mather on Vimeo.

Anyway, I could go on and on. He’s had films shown at film festivals all over the world. SXSW, Sundance, Japan, The Netherlands, you name it. His videography is staggeringly long. But until now, he’s only made short films. And now he’s starting work on his first feature-length film. And he’s looking for backers. Have you heard of Kickstarter? It’s really cool. You can pledge any amount of money, and if he gets enough pledges, then he will get the money, and that movie will be made. At certain price points, you can get incentives. Your name mentioned in the credits. A postcard. A DVD of the movie. A producer credit.

He has raised most of the money he needs to make this film, but he’s still a little short. Won’t you visit his Kickstarter page and pledge a few dollars? Think about how cool it would be to say “I helped fund that” when he’s on stage at the Oscars, accepting his “Best Documentary Feature” award…

Update: Well, my blog went down for several hours today, and in the meantime, his project got fully funded! But you can still back it and make it even better!

And I mean that in a good way.

On Saturday, we went to a crawfish boil at my boss’s house. Even though the forecast was for rain, rain, and more rain, we were very lucky that it held off the entire time. It was gray, but not rainy. Whew. George couldn’t come because he was still sick, but the boys and I (except Oliver) ate our weight in crawfish. Yum.

Before:

After:

Deeelish!

Unfortunately, I neglected to bring any bathing suits with us because this was set up in the front yard. (Granted, I know the boys wouldn’t have gone on it, but I would have!)

And yesterday was, of course, Mother’s Day. Best one yet, except that my Mom was in Los Angeles so I didn’t get to see her. I got to sleep in while George fed the boys breakfast. And then we went to lunch with his parents, where I got a dozen pink roses and a bottle of pink champagne.

Afterwards, we had dessert.

I dropped the boys off at home (including the eldest) and went shopping with my friend Terry. Found a couple of dresses for my 20th reunion coming up, and then we went to see the Great Gatsby. I came home after the boys were in bed, so it really was a day of no responsibility. Nice.

I also got cards, including these homemade ones, which are, of course, the best.

Now George has set a new standard for Mother’s Day. I won’t complain if every Mother’s Day from here on out is like this one.

Last night was the boys’ first t-ball game, and holy hell, it was adorable. They had such a great time. It was so nice to see them having fun and NOT whining or fighting over anything. It was just pure joy. Well, until the end of the game, when they were handing out little bags of cookies and Linus lost his. But those were the only tears of the evening, so I call that a win! So, the game. I took a lot of pictures. Can you blame me? When we got there, the coach handed out shirts and hats. I’d bought the pants the night before. If you think this is cute, it’s nothing compared how adorable it was with their shirts tucked in. Oof.

(For the record, and so I don’t forget, Miles is #3, Oliver is #9, and Linus is #7.)

They had a short practice before the game, and then they named the team. The boys had some ideas of their own, including “Smooth Fire” and “Thunder”, but in the end, the team got named the Sharks. They were playing against another team wearing blue, but it was more of a royal blue. Kind of confusing.

Then the game began! For t-ball, each inning consisted of a run through the batting line-up. And there were two innings. (Hee!) So each kid got to bat twice. There are no outs, and as far as I could tell, the score wasn’t tracked. (Of course, the boys told me at the end that their team had won. Uh-huh.) Now for the pictures…
Read More

First practice, a photo by pyjammy on Flickr.

The boys had their first t-ball practice last night. The whole thing was disgustingly adorable. Not just my own boys, but the other kids. The boy who skipped first base entirely and ran straight to second. The tiny one who hit them out of the (admittedly small) park and caught a line drive. I gotta remember his name for when he’s famous one day.

Tonight’s the first game, so expect a much longer, more detailed post tomorrow with tons of pictures. They’re going to be wearing baseball pants. I may faint from all the cute.

Last night, I took the boys to see Disney on Ice presents Rockin’ Ever After. {Disclaimer: I was given the tickets for free, but all opinions are my own.} I wasn’t sure how they’d feel about it, since they’d only seen one of the four movies represented in the show.

First up was the Little Mermaid. Even though I haven’t seen the movie in at least twenty years, as soon as Ariel gets her voice back (spoiler alert!) and starts the “ah-ah-ah..” song, one can’t help but pretend one is also a former mermaid. The boys enjoyed the dancing crab (Sebastian) and the fish (Flounder) in that sequence.

Next up was Tangled, which they may have seen, because they recognized the girl as Rapunzel. I’m not going to lie, I watched that one by myself not too long ago. The boys liked that the guy in that kept getting knocked out with a frying pan. Hope that doesn’t give them any ideas… There was also a skating horse that Miles thought looked real. The lantern scene was very cool, too.

We got a short intermission after that, and I promised the boys some more vastly overpriced cotton candy. Well, it came with a Flounder hat, at least.

They would not stay still for a photo.

Next up was Brave! As you can see, I dressed the boys in their Brave t-shirts featuring the triplets, so I was happy the little guys were in that segment a lot. (But no bear part! I was kind of surprised they cut that out. Maybe to avoid spoiling the movie? Oops, guess I should have put SPOILER ALERT before this paragraph.)

Wrapping up the show was my favorite segment, Beauty and the Beast. I forgot how much I loved that movie when I was younger. I must have watched it a thousand times while babysitting my neighbor’s kids when I was a teenager. This show really made me want to watch it again.

The best part, of course, is the Be Our Guest song. I really would like one of the dresses that the “plates” wear.

The boys were a little freaked out by the fire on stage, but I thought it was cool. (This is when the townsfolk are going after The Beast.)

My only complaint about that segment is that the post-Beast Prince (or whatever he is) was not terribly handsome. Kinda wimpy, actually. I’d take Gaston over him any day.

And that was it! The production values were very good, and I love watching ice skaters. The highest praise I can give the show is that the boys sat through it and were engrossed the entire time. Go and see it if you can! It’s playing through Sunday, May 5. Showtimes can be found here.