What ya Don't Want to See at the Carnival....

Remember how much fun you had at the Carnival as a kid?

All the fun colors, rides, games, & cotton candy? Never did you worry about the "safety" of the carnival.  

Why is it as adults, that's the first place our mind wanders to when we think of the carnival??

Cause of this.......

As a parent, you turn a blind eye to all the very "Adult-themed" names of the rides.....

And hope that while your 8-year-old son is waiting for 10 minutes in his car for the ride to start, he is NOT questioning why there are necked women on this ride?  Cause really, what does the "Crazy Dance" ride have to do with necked women??  

don't answer that.

And as much as we need a 8 ft stuffed banana in our house, I would not let the boy play for it.

I know -I'm mean.

I wanted him to try to win the Rasta-banana.

Come on mon!!

But the one thing that bothered me - 

yup - this man carnie proceeded to have a 10 minute conversation while loading the ride......

safety first!!!!

If I said I wasn't holding my breath while the kids rode this ride, I'd be lying........

'cause that text about the party on 6th street later was soooooo important.........

much more so than ensuring all the KIDS were loaded properly on the ride....

and I don't even know where this carnie was....

I was behind the fence as I watched my kiddos struggle to snap their buckles closed.

don't worry - I embarrassed them fully as I very loudly told them to "tighten your strap!", "check them by pulling real hard!", "rattle the bar", "check it again"....you get the picture.

look how high in the sky there were!!!!!! yikes!!

I know when we went to carnivals as kids, they were probably just as unsafe, if not more so....

and these rides were much more innovative and fun.....

the smiles on their faces showed how much fun they had.....

but I can't say we will go again next year.

 not that they would want to after this ride.

yes.  I'm showin it to you for a 3rd time.

it's my blog - I can do what I want.

besides, I never showed you the "recovery" picture.....the one right after the one above.

whew!

That's right kids.....

WHEW!  

We survived the carnival.

Will Run for.......

I love to run. There I said it.  Call me a freak - but ever since I started last Winter, and then ran a half-marathon in the fall, it has become my favorite way to burn the calories.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not out there with a big smile on my face, jogging on air to the 'Chariots of Fire' song.  In fact, I am a sweaty mess, huffing & puffing as I push my 25-lber in a jogging stroller - I don't have the best form and I grumble to myself as I go,  but I love the way it makes me feel.  And I love the way I can push myself - it allows me to be competitive with myself...

sounds crazy.

i know.

mra

Every year, the Austin American Statesman puts on the Capitol 10K and this year my girlfriend convinced me to run it with her.  But we thought it'd be even more fun to get as many friends as we could to run it with us (or walk- we didn't care).

Altogether, we were able to get 17 ladies from Round Rock out to run yesterday!  Hence the creation of the "Real Housewives of Round Rock!"

And what will we run for???

and what did I run for??? 

 we'll talk more about that after the 6.2 miles.....

 what's a little run between friends anyways?

 or how about a few of my 23,000 closest friends??

 the race started up Congress Ave toward the State Capitol.

there was something so very cool about running up Congress- I couldn't take enough pics.....and I had promised Mel I wouldn't take that many......

and we did it - 1:02 15sec - we were excited considering we hadn't really trained that hard for it.....I mean, we had Spring Break..... :)

 My sweet friend Dolly, who despises running, "ran" the race - and didn't sweat any of her makeup off - doesn't she look great fro just completing the run???  Not me - see all red-faced and sweaty - not a bit glamorous.....

 I was just thrilled she had run it - kept telling me for months that she was only doing it for the shirt.  Wanna guess what the back of her shirt said??

Will Run for the T-Shirt.

 It was a fun fun fun race - lots of hilarious costumes - like this one - mom close your eyes -

And it was really great to get a bunch of friends to accomplish something big like this together.  And we all celebrated afterwards....

 And this momma got her Texas Martini.

BTW, our awesome shirts came from MyRaceRagz.com.  Kevin helped us with them and he was incredibly helpful.  If ever you need racing shirts - please consider using them.  I can't say more great things about my experience. And we had more compliments on them.  Many folks wanting to know where i was headed after the race.

follow me to Chuy's.....

Happy Happy Joy Joy

It's Spring and Saturday and going to be in the 80's here today...what's NOT to like about this trifecta????

Nothing!!

So why not focus on what we have to be happy about this morning??  I went to bed grumbly, drained, and emotionally over this week.  Woke up, got my 7 am boot camp in, and voila- Happy time.  (seriously y'all - I have some major endorphins flowin this am)





So I am linking up with Mamarazzi's Happy List....cause don't we all need to reflect and focus on what makes us happy in life?

So what makes me Happy?

I am happy to have a large cup of steamin' hot coffee with Caramel Macchiato creamer in my hand.

I am happy to have a great friend who also happens to be a terrific trainer do boot camp twice a week to keep me interested and motivated to work out.

I am happy to have a hubby who suggests we go to the DQ for blizzards last night - one reece's peanut butter cup blizzard = how many boot camps?  Oh well.

I am happy to find out that Bubba's spill last fall did not permanently damage his 2 front teeth from the dentist yesterday.  So what if they are a little jagged?  It suits him.

I am happy that I finished 3 books this week - no, I am not a crazy fast reader, but had started them all previously.  And I am happy that I am interested in a wide-range of books.....Definitly Dead by Charlaine Harris....The Complete A to Z of Glee...and Decision Points by George W. Bush.

What?!?

Don't judge me.

I am happy to have 10 friends running in the Capitol 10K with me tomorrow wearing matchy-matchy "Real Housewives of Round Rock" shirts.  The back of each girlfriends' shirt has a different ending to this saying, "Will Run For......"  What do you think mine says???


And I am happy every time I look at this picture.

it just makes me giggle.


what makes you happy???

These are My Confessions....

Ah it's Friday!! FRIDAY!!!!  YAY!!

It's 82 and sunny and ga-or-jous!!  This, my friends is why I live in Texas!!!  But I will confess that you will hear me complain about the hot hot hot summer sometime in the near future (but that's not even an "official" confession).

mra.....




Joining Mamarazzi's & Glamazon's Friday Confessions......

I Confess
That I was totally shocked at how many of you commented on my corny dog picture from the rodeo.  It's a corny dog y'all.  Am I the only naive one out there?  Get your minds out of that gutter!

I Confess
That my son knows who Montel Williams is.  Wanna know why?  Because the boy is addicted to the Sprout channel.  And Mr. Williams likes to encourage poor moms to "get fast cash now....." with his magical cash program.  For all those high credit cards the 2 & 3 year olds are racking up.  I mean they all need to learn how to go in debt while they are a toddler, right?

Anyways, my confession is that this week has been uber busy with pta crap stuff. And it is convenient to flip the tube on and allow Barney, Thomas, and Mr. Williams to babysit.

UGH- even typing that out makes me sick.  At least I can recognize it - I know I'm in trouble when Bubba starts calling Mr. Williams "Daddy".....

I Confess
That I planned a girls weekend (which I am so excited for) on Bubba's birthday without even realizing it was his birthday.  What?  He's only turning 2!  If he was turning 10, then we'd have a problem.

Jeez, after the tv confession and this, you all think I'm a fantastic momma, huh?

Think I'm gonna change my weekend plans?

uh no.

again, he's only turning 2.

I Confess
That I am super stoked that Bubba had been learning words left & right. Blue! Plane! Cookie! Car! Poo-Poo!  What????  Yup - he loves to read The Potty Book (you know, the one with all the body parts) - his favorite part is to say "Bye Poo-Poo!!" But I regret that I forget that 22 month olds don't have a filter.  And when he waved good-bye to the 20-year old boy clerk at Target and said, "Bye-Bye Poo-Poo!", I was oh-so-proud.

I Confess
And speaking of pottys.... I am NOT trying to potty train the bubba at 22 months, however, he loves that book and now tells me when he has "poo-pooed" and pats his bottom when he has.  So the other night he says it but has no "evidence", so I stripped him down and put him on the potty - scared the crap out of him (but not literally).  Yeah, he likes to talk about it, but I have a feeling it will be slow moving (no pun intended).

So I'm going to quit while you all think so less of me and my "momma" skills.

I am looking forward to the weekend!!  The "Real Housewives of Round Rock (16 of us!!) are running in the Capitol 10K on Sunday - I am super excited ~ wait til you see pics of our awesome running shirts!!!

Have a great weekend y'all!

This Ain't My First Rodeo

Last week was Spring Break,  and before we headed to Oklahoma, the kids and I visited the Texas Star Rodeo.  I grew up going to Rodeos and this was my first one since I was a child.  But this was my kid's first rodeo....and we had a blast.

For all our non-Texas friends, here is our list of 'must-do's' while at the Rodeo.......

 check out the events 

- so it was a Tuesday morning, and all they had were the girls 

showing their horses in sparkly-shirts....my kids still liked it.

check out a funny event 

like these adorable pigs racing to get an oreo.

 pet a deer?

huh?

only in Texas y'all.

 Scare your 2-year old while petting the deer, so that he doesn't want anything to do with the animals.

 ride a tractor.

backwards.

we showed him the right way........

 eat some yummy (and expensive) carnival food.

like a ginormous corny dog.

 and the requisite funnel cake.

 take the kids on some crazy carnival rides.

unlimited ride wristband half-off.

yee-haw!!!

 make sure you capture those great expressions......

 and require your kids to do some sibling-bonding while on the rides together....

 or maybe not.

 see the rodeo through the eyes of your 2-year old.

 capture those smiles....

 and fearful faces.....

especially this one......