You Say It's Your Birthday!

It's my birthday too, ya!

Okay.. what's weird about today is that I know many many who share this b-day. One is Molly. If you get a chance go and say Happy Birthday on her blog, and also wish her the best at IM CDA this weekend!

So, I continue my trend of not posting often.

I think you might be actually grateful about this if you knew how boring the contents of my brain are of late. Mostly I think about the cracks, and how many things are close to falling through them. The minutiae one must remember come the end of the school year (especially when one has three elementary kids) is quite astounding. Field trips for which one must prepare bag lunches, sunscreen and a water bottle for field day, the piano concert, the band concert, the final soccer game to which you must bring Popsicles, thank you cards for teachers, teacher gifts, bus driver gifts, birthday parties galore (for which you must get presents), end of the year poetry readings, or book sharing, or the end of the year class party to which you are invited! Man, it's relentless and intimidating. I feel at any moment I will forget something.... and appear the negligent parent with the poor, lost neglected child.

Then there's Lara's bday, my mom's bday, Father's Day, my sister's bday, my bday... training camp next week -- must pack! and then train train train train ... the hours are UP THERE as I move toward the final build for IMLP. And the dogs have kennel cough, and Hazel ate a plate of brownies and was literally up ALL night barking and going bananas, as if she had just snorted Coke or something.... etc etc and so on.

So, there you have the contents of my brain.

Last weekend we went to Maine to celebrate my mom's birthday. I will add here that she is basically the hottest 70-year-old you will meet. Really. She's always been pretty, but she is also in shape and sharp, and just all around amazing in the smoking grandma department.

Here are a few photos from the weekend. I'm a little dismayed at how my super cool empire waist dress makes me look slightly pregnants. But other than that, these are some good pics of the Holts.

Andy and Lara

Noah and my nephew, Sam.

Alanna, my niece, and Finn, my nephew

Andy and Me

Odessa, my brother Jordan, and my nephew, James

Jordan and me

AJ, my brother, Jordan, my brother, Dad, Mom, Laura, my sister, me, and Christina, my sister

Noah, Jordan, Mom, James Alanna, Dad, Finn, Sam, and Lara

We had a nice little party for mom, and took pictures to document how awesomely cute all of our children are...

And I had a nice run up in Maine. Nothing like the smell of honeysuckle and salt water. Just awesome.

In other news, I dyed my hair brown. It was blondish/gold for a long time, and the thing is, I was just sick of it. I figure I'm nearly at the time when I can no longer just have BROWN hair, b/c I am just starting to find white hairs here and there (okay FINE, I have been finding them for quite awhile now!). Soon, I will have to highlight to hide all of the white. You know?

These are the kinds of things I think about... 

truly vacant.

And now, it's time to finish drinking my burnt coffee, and then get my ass out on the bike before the half day bus roars to a stop in front of my house and lets off my little wonders. 

One last thing, Hazel's licking Ernie's privates as he lies there in ecstasy. Seriously, he is lying on his back, paws in the air, head back and mouth open. She's literally slurping. This is disturbing to me.

I figure I should leave you with at least one distinct image before you click on out of here... :)

And Happy 41 to me!