Dancing boys!

Last year it was Miles, this year, Linus and Oliver got a turn to strut their stuff. And it was disgustingly adorable. I am writing this from beyond the grave, because it has killed me. RIP me.

Linus and his friends before:

20160513-IMG_2032

Oliver and his buddies:

20160513-IMG_2033

And now for the deadly part….

Oliver dances the merengue:

Linus’s turn to dance the merengue:

And now, Linus swing dances.

I’m truly sorry I made you watch this, because now your heart has exploded from all the cute. (At least if you’re an aunt, uncle, or grandparent.)

In between some of the kid dancing, there were demonstrations by grown ups. I want this lady’s legs.

20160513-IMG_2065

When it was all over, time for prizes! Oliver’s class took home the gold!

20160513-IMG_2081

and thank god for rewarding everyone, Linus’s class did as well!

20160513-IMG_2090

Linus and Oliver and Diego pose with the trophy. Well, they try.

20160513-IMG_2098

That’s better.

20160513-IMG_2101

 

Small things

I totally stole my post title from Zandy.

Just some things to post.

Only thing better than snowballs on a hot, sunny day is bringing Ziggy to lick up the leftovers.

img_1082

I did a race for charity (I didn’t run it, mostly walked it, hence no actual race report) on the levee by my house, and the boys and George (and Ziggy) came to the end. We decorated pink bras. Too bad you can’t see my beading and featherwork on mine. It was itchy lovely.

Later that day (this was last weekend) I took the boys to a crawfish boil. Yum. There were baby alligators. Not to eat.

They’ve also really enjoyed playing at dusk with the kids next door. The neighbor’s boys are 1 and 3 (almost 2 and 4) so it’s really quite sweet. Miles was disappointed one evening when they weren’t outside. Gah.

Also sweet, we went to the school piano recital the other night because Oliver’s BFF was in it. They listened to all of the music and after each (very short) song, they’d say, “wow, that was awesome!” or similar. Now Linus and Oliver claim to want to take piano next year. Hmm. Not sure how we’d manage that. We’ll see. I have a feeling they might be prodigies. You never know.

Speaking of, Oliver and Linus have their dance competition tonight. Remember Miles’s last year? Yes, stay tuned for more swing dancing and meringue by my boys.

And SPEAKING of boys…check out my latest New Orleans Moms Blog post.

queen

 

Good stuff

Here are some good things:

Future lemons and also jasmine

I’m going to have SO MANY LEMONS at the end of the year! Also, my jasmine that I planted last year is growing nicely. I stopped by Home Depot the other day to get some more (trying to cover our fence for privacy) but they didn’t have any. Hmmph.

Orangetheory

FullSizeRender 12.jpg
Need to get more in that orange zone, yall.

I’m still not dead. I’m starting my third week working out there and my legs definitely feel stronger. I’m not burning as many calories as I think I should be, but I also don’t know if I can work harder without dying. Oh well, keep on keepin’ on.

I do feel really great after the workouts, I have to say. Endorphins are real!

Doing fun stuff for good

Saturday, I’m doing two fun things for a good cause. In the morning, the Pink Bra Run, a 5K to benefit breast cancer. I ordered a hot pink sports bra to decorate (and wear over my clothes, dear god I’m not going to leave the house in just a sports bra)  and I’ll be doing it with my girls, so that’ll be fun.

Later, I’m taking the boys across the lake to a crawfish boil to benefit…something good. I should be ashamed that I don’t know exactly what it’s benefitting, but it’s crawfish! And I’ll get to see Ren!

Reading children

I allowed a production company to use the boys’ ultrasound video (that thing is really making the rounds) and since without them, I wouldn’t have an ultrasound video, I decided to spend the check I got on them. But not on video games. Instead, we went to Barnes and Noble and I let them get whatever they wanted without even looking at the prices. Miles picked out a novelization of The Jungle Book (yeah, I know that’s a book, but we flipped through it at the library, and, well, no, not yet), Oliver got The BFG, and Linus wanted Charlotte’s Web.

IMG_1012

Also I’m happy with Costco Tires. I got a flat tire right as I pulled into the driveway the other day, and it only cost me $37 to replace it. On the other hand, I got a water bill for 4 times what it normally is, so…sigh.

IMG_0870
Linus showing Daddy how to put the spare on

I know there are other things making me happy. My job, for one. Ziggy, also. Yeah, really! Seeing the boys interact with him makes everything else worth it. Wine also makes me happy. Snowballs on the way home from school. Good stuff.

IMG_0905

That 366 project

No, I’m not giving up on it like I did last year. But I am definitely being lazy about it. Here are a bunch of pics in gallery format to make catching up easier.

The 9th through 15th are covered in my Austin recap post. I mean, I’m pretty positive I posted at least one picture from each day I was there. Let’s just say I did, mmkay?

So now for the 16th – 25th:

Okay, yes, I missed a day in there. Whatever. I’m being nice to myself and not obsessing over it.

We had a nice weekend in Baton Rouge. My mom and Larry hadn’t seen all three of them in a while. (Miles and I had seen them after his second day of filming.) There was hula-hooping and playing on a playground and going out to dinner for pizza. Sunday I was able to sneak off for a bit to buy some new workout clothes which was nice. We also made some more homemade cupcakes – lemon cupcakes with strawberry buttercream this time, but I don’t know if we should be making a habit of Sunday cupcakes. Well, we still have to make chocolate, so this isn’t the right time to be making a decision.

Speaking of my new workout, I’m really liking it. I am sore, but not like so much that I’m debilitated. It’s more like the “oh right, I have muscles there!” kind of sore. I’ll admit a big part of my motivation is the trip to Europe I have in June where I’ll be up on stage with my beautiful colleague Erica. There will be video of our talk. Need I say more?

Okay, on with the week!

 

Accountability and public speaking and green hair and other things

It’s been way too long since I’ve posted a real post. The kind with words and stuff. I feel pretty bad about just posting a bunch of pics about Austin, when I have lots of great memories that I really should be writing down. Let’s just hope the pictures help me remember them later. Or maybe I’ll end up editing that post with more details. We’ll see.

I think the best way for me to organize my thoughts is with bullets, since this’ll be all over the place.

I’ve been thinking for a long time about doing some kind of bootcamp fitness program, but I’ve been unable to find one that was at the appropriate times, etc. I was talking to someone a few weeks ago and she mentioned she was going to Orange Theory Fitness so I looked into it and ended up going to a class yesterday.

It was tough, I gotta say. It’s funny, you think “I can run a few miles at a time, and I can do half marathons without dying, so I must be in some kind of shape” and then you do a class like this and

noooope.gif

It’s high intensity interval training, and there are treadmills and rowing machines and weights and floor exercises and wow, when I got off the rowing machines after a few minutes my legs were like jelly.

So I signed up to go as much as humanly possible and try to get really fit over the next two months (and beyond) because in two months, this is happening…
Say hello to our next group of #WCEU speakers!

Yes, my coworker Erica and I are giving a talk at WordCamp Europe in front of, oh, I don’t know, more than the 20 people I spoke to at WordCamp Dayton. At least I can hide behind Erica, except she is tiny.

Anyway, my only point is that I want to feel good about myself before getting on a stage in front of more than 20 people.

In non-me related things, I continued to allow my children to really express themselves through their hair. I mean, it’s not hurting anyone. It’s temporary (ish, I mean, I did have to bleach their hair to get it this vibrant, but hair does grow) and if you could have seen how happy Linus was after we made his green, well, any doubts would have been wiped away.

IMG_0670

IMG_0677.JPG

Miles wanted to be in the picture too. He of course also now wants to dye his hair, but I pointed out that his acting career might suffer if he does. So we’re leaving it as is for now. Anyway, if I have to end up dying Linus and Oliver’s back, I’ll need a reference for the original color. Ha!

I had a really fun weekend with the boys, not just dying their hair. We saw Jungle Book (really good) and watched a bunch of baking shows on Netflix. MilesCupcake Wars in particular inspired us to whip up a batch of homemade vanilla cupcakes and vanilla buttercream frosting. I even scraped seeds out of vanilla bean pods, that’s how serious we were. They were deeeelish, in spite of the fact that I apparently left a box of powdered sugar at the grocery store after paying for it, so our frosting was more butter than anything. Nothin’ wrong with that

IMG_0664.JPG

Miles approves of my frosting recipe.

Austin in April

I got back the other day from a week-long work trip to Austin with one of the two teams I work on. It was a great week of bonding (we have a lot of new Automatticians on the team that I hadn’t met yet) and eating. I have decided that if it came down to food, I’d much rather live in Austin than New Orleans.

The food:

Lucky us, we had Brazilians making us pão de queijo
Beer tasting at Zilker Brewery
How the sausage is made.
Banana pudding!
Wait. I like BBQ after all!
Moar BBQ
Tacos! My fave.
I found heaven.
Burger time!
Bruce mans the grill.

The work:

The fun:

Me, Dean, Cesar
Simon, Duvall, Gus
Tish, Ainslie, me
You can see where we got our t-shirt inspiration
Brazilian t-shirts are the best
Simon and Chad Chad
I look good in a bikini.
Simon!
Simon.
JOEL and me and Simon
Simon and Livio and T$

Go team! (Thank you selfie stick)

IMG_0538
Two teams!
IMG_1813
The grackle. Our meetup mascot.

April 5 – 8, 2016

Catching up so I can post some more interesting stuff. 🙂

FullSizeRender 11.jpg

April 5 – Sometimes Spring in New Orleans isn’t the most terrible thing in the world. Sitting outside on a mild evening getting chewed up by mosquitos watching the boys practice, reading a book…not too awful.

IMG_0255.JPG

April 6 – First cavity, Oliver. Wasn’t too bad, but we figured it was best to take care of it before it got worse.

IMG_0331.JPG

April 7 – We made it back from Miles’s day of filming in time for the soccer game. There haven’t been that many games because of the rain, though.

IMG_0342.JPG

April 8 – Upside down Millie. I’m glad the climber is getting some use.

Miles’s movie star adventures, take 2

Yesterday Miles had his second day of filming. I was not super excited when I got our call time of 7:30 am, especially since it meant driving to Baton Rouge beforehand. The movie biz isn’t all glamour, y’all.

We were about 20 minutes away from the set when I got a call from a PA asking if we could get there sooner, because they wanted to get Miles’s scene done first. Fortunately, we were on track to get there about 15 minutes early.

Once we got there, of course, there was a little waiting around. Miles had a snack and after not too long, we were called to the set. (Man, I sound so knowledgeable with all my movie lingo, eh?)

IMG_0275

In the library stairwell. Can you tell he’s excited and a bit nervous?

IMG_0277

A bit more waiting.

Finally, it was time for Miles! His scene involved an elevator. The director had him practice a few times.

IMG_0295

IMG_0296

Remember, his last scene was at the pool, so he had to wear the same bathing suit, and get wet down. They used water and baby oil so it would bead up and look shiny, I guess.

Action!

IMG_0290

Gotta keep the talent warm between takes.

IMG_0325

Rehearsing for another part of the scene.

Soon, he was all done! The crew all cheered for him when they said, “this is Miles’s picture wrap” or “Miles is picture wrapped” or “wrap picture for Miles.” I dunno, some kind of lingo I didn’t quite pick up about him being done with his scenes. I also heard someone say he has a bright future ahead of him, so I am pretty much assuming he is going to be taking me to the Oscars one day.

But in all seriousness, I don’t know if this is the beginning or end of his acting career, but I’m glad he had the opportunity. It’s kind of tricky when filming involves missing a day of school, but hopefully there will more chances coming up.