Special Promo for you guys!

Full disclosure: My brother and sister in law own this company. 

However, that does not stop me from thinking it is a great idea and one you will want to check out if you are or you know someone who is getting married.

The website is Wedzines and it is so cool! You (with the help of the Wedzines editors) can create a custom wedding magazine about you and your soon to be spouse. There are some really cool things you can include in the book - AND they are being nice enough to give a special gift to you guys.

Here is what you need to do:

1) Go to Wedzines and check out all the fun stuff you can do! 
2) Register here
3) Enter promo code: ROBINSNEST which is good for a free standard digital Wedzine (a $20 value)
4) Post it on Facebook and tell all of your friends how cool Wedzines are!
5) Enjoy!

5 question friday

Yes, I know it is Sunday and for a person who is punctual to the point that it is annoying, this is killing me.  But with the crazy week I had (husband out of town for 5 days, 1 kid starting kindergarten, 1 kid starting preschool, starting new job, preschooler battling stomach flu, and so on) I have not had time to write my own creative blog so here goes this awesome thing from My Little Life. And I have to apologize with this new computer I cannot figure out how to copy the cute little linky guy for this. I will figure it out one day.

1) Do you have any nicknames and if so how did it come about?
My first nickname was Robinsky from my parents.  In high school much to my parents' horror my nickname was Boner.  Not for the reasons you are thinking, dirty minds. I was a good girl in high school, it wasn't until later that I became the degenerate I am now.  Somehow my name went from Robin to Robone, to Bone to Boner.  My husband likes to call me Bob which drives me crazy, I'm cool with Rob cuz it is short for Robin but BOB?  That is a man's name (yes, yes I do realize Rob is a man's name too. I didn't say it made sense).

2) What is your birth order amongst your siblings?
I'm the third (baby) and the only girl.  Greatest situation EVER!


3) In the movie of your life who would play your significant other?
He has to be cute and funny just like my husband.  So I'm going with Paul Rudd.  He is a Kansan too - perfect!

4) What is currently your favorite song?
I have no idea, SAD.

5) Are you saving money for anything right now? Big or small purchase?
We just made a large purchase that is attached to the back of our house. Because our wallet asked for a breather, all purchases of any kind are on hold.  Next up possibly an addition to our house or a new overstuffed chair for our living room.

Hubs is back in town now, kids have started school and flu is out of here. Hopefully this week I will be funny, creative, etc. Stay tuned!

Those advertisers are speaking to me

E started Kindergarten today. I'm not sure how this happened, because it has gone so fast. However it also seems like she has always been in our lives and I cannot imagine anything without her. 

It is amazing how much I pay attention to all of those back to school commercials wondering if I have purchased her the right things and if there is anything that I can buy that will ensure success in friendships, school and all around adjustment to life.  I've been in advertising for 14 years, you would think that I know that all of these ads are made by people sitting in a room who probably don't even have children, however that does not stop me from wanting to pull out my credit card and consume, consume, consume.

The one that totally speaks to me is a mom who wishes she could take her child in the classroom and tell all the other kids what a great kid she has. I so am fighting the urge to do that.  If I could, I would make a Powerpoint presentation on E and all of her amazing traits.  She is incredibly smart, hilarious, sweet and considerate, unbelievably sassy (and not always in a good way) creative and a budding artist.

I'm proud of my little big girl and she did an amazing job walking in the school like she owned the place and didn't have any qualms about me leaving her.  Not sure I felt the same way :)

I will learn to love my PC, I will learn to love my PC, I will learn to love my PC and why I love Geeks

I am a Mac girl, have been one since college and have really really been one for the past 8 years while at my old company.  For my new company there is a need for me to have a PC because of a certain software that we use. 
I got my brand new fancy schmancy PC the other day. It has Windows 7 which according to the 1,000 commercials I have seen on it - is awesome. My husband who is pretty smart with this stuff tried to help set it up to work with our wireless Internet.  No luck. We literally worked on this all weekend. It would tease us by working every once in awhile but never for a long amount of time. It was so infuriating.  If you walked away from the computer for one second, the Internet would stop working and anytime my husband tried using his Mac with the Internet, mine would shut down. 

I was so incredibly close to hopping on a plane and going to California to retrieve my beautiful Mac from my old company's IT guy. I had offered to purchase it but they needed it as an extra.  But this time I wasn't going to be so nice about it. I wasn't above holding said IT guy up at gun point. If he would just hand over the Mac, no one would get hurt - except maybe my PC.

My husband left town for work on Monday AM and left me alone with this mean horrible beast.  I had never gotten it to work at all on my own so I was totally screwed.  Finally, after 5 days of this, I called the Geek Squad (1-800-Geek-Squad) and told them of my woes. (Note: I am so pathetically dependent on the Internet that I had to call someone to get me the phone number to the Geek Squad because I recycle all of the phone books I receive immediately and get all phone numbers I need online) I was ready to set an appointment and have some guy come out for 13 hours and pay him $1,000,000 to figure out this mess.

The guy was super nice and asked me if I had hit FN key and F2 key at the same time.  Uh, no.  "Well try that," he said.  SUCCESS.  YAY!!!!!

I am so excited to have Internet I cannot tell you!!!  And I love the Geek Squad.

And I am trying to get over the fact that my computer made my husband and I look like total morons for 5 days. We are going to find out a way to get along, we really will.

Star studded week

So we had a big party on the new deck this past weekend.  Seriously are you so tired of hearing about the deck?  I need to shut up about it.  But I guess you can tell how much I love it.

Because my husband spent two weeks gallivanting (okay yeah I know it was for work but I like to say gallivanting anyway) around Europe with them, he became pretty good friends with some of the rappers who are his clients.  So these guys came to our party on Sunday.  What better way to christen the deck than to have Tech N9Ne and Krizz Kaliko hanging out?  It was awesome.  The hubs told me I wasn't allowed to geek out and ask for their autographs or anything. You will be proud, I didn't. But I never get to see these famous people he gets to work with so it is kind of exciting for me.

Although we had some famous dudes at our house this weekend, this post is really about my dad and his start studded weekend.  As you may or may not know my dad is working his way towards an Academy Award.  He is so adorable and actually spent a day this week filming a major Hollywood movie.  You have to go read his blog about it all, it is very entertaining.

http://actingyourage1.blogspot.com/

Really am going to start charging for the use of our yard

The other day I wrote about how some of the neighborhood children use our corner yard for their lemonade stands.  Since I wrote that post we have had a few more little entrepreneurs set up shop.  And like I said, I really am okay with it.

But the people selling their homes are seriously starting to annoy me.  I watch the realtors in their high heels and dark suits pull up in their shiny Mercedes, leave the engine on, glance around quickly to make sure no one is looking, dart to my yard, stick their sign in, hop in their car and peel out.  Seriously, how hard is it to just come and ask me if they can stick a sign in my yard?  I would say yes. I really would.  There are a lot of advantages to someone on my block selling their house.  Potential for my property value to go up, potential for new kids my kids' age, potential for a new best friend to sip margaritas with on my new deck and much more. But when you don't ask, guess what? The second it gets dark out, I'm going to go and rip that sign out.

There is a homeowner on our street who did it today. She is selling her house For Sale By Owner.  Granted she lives like 10 houses down from me and we have never met, but I would think since we live on the same street it would just be good neighborly niceness to take the 30 seconds to walk to my door and ask me if she can put her sign in my yard. I watched her put the sign in. Didn't even look up at my house while she was doing it. I expect the realtor's to be less sensitive to me, but I really take much more offense to the FSBO chick doing it.

Guess what I will be doing about 9:30 PM???  Really, really, really I need to get a life and get real things to worry about.

Disclaimer: Just so you don't think I'm a huge ginormous ass, I don't throw their signs away. I just pull them out and stick them on the sidewalk.  Just enough to annoy them and have to stop and put it back every day.


Disclaimer 2: I don't just sit and stare out my front window all day. It just happens to be the view from my kitchen and office - where I spend all day long.

The long awaited deck...

Our deck is done! Our deck is done!  Here are some photos. Everyone is invited to come and hang out. We can probably fit 200 of our closest friends. It is a large deck!  Hehe, I said large deck.















This is where my husband cooks delicious dinners for us.

This is where I sit and drink and let him do that.

Warning, this deck has a tendency to turn you into a lush.  Not sure how it happens but every time I set foot on it I start drinking.  Very strange - it must have magical powers.

 This is where we eat those delicious dinners.                                                                                                   

I am a happy woman! If you don't see me blogging for a few days, come to my deck, take the margarita out of my hand and tell me to snap out of it.

Code Yellow

I was a star player in a Code Yellow yesterday at Kohl's.  What is a Code Yellow you ask?  Well let me tell you.

It is when a rambunctious little 3 year old feels the need to run away from his mommy and disappear into thin air

It is when a mommy grabs her 5 year old holding on to her for dear life and runs frantically through the store yelling said little guy's name

It is when strangers look at mommy like she is 1) a crazy woman or 2) the worst mom on the planet

It is when those strangers are correct

It is when mommy tries (not very successfully) to hold her tears over the fact that a horrible stranger has most likely snatched little guy and walked him right out the door trying in order to reassure sweet scared sister that her brother will be found any moment

It is when mommy has every Kohl's employee looking for the little guy and gives death looks to any employee who isn't searching under beds or in the clothing racks because mommy knows that all employees heard the Code Yellow! announcement over the loud speaker and cannot fathom why they are not about to pass out from panic like she is

It is the complete stopping of time

It is by far the scariest thing that has ever happened to this mommy

It is the absolute release of tears after, what seems like 4 hours, the loud speaker announces that little guy has been found and is at the front

It is the tightest hug you have ever given your terrified child and the ability to squelch the monster lecture you want to give him about the danger of what just happened

It is letting your children know how special they are and that you love them more than anything in the world

It is something I hope you never experience

Bieber hair

My 3 year old has Justin Bieber hair.  If you don't know who that is, good for you.  But if you do know who he is you might think my child needs a hair cut and you would be correct.  Z man refuses to get one and although I am the mom and should probably assert my authority I really have no desire to put some poor hair stylist through the agony of trying to hold him down. I know from experience that it is not fun.

The funny thing is that it has been so long since he has gotten a haircut that the hair has gone back to being cute.  Sort of like if you hold on to your clothes for long enough they will come back in style.

Plus now we have a fun thing to tease Z with.  We call him Bieber all the time and he insists in his cute 3 year old voice "I'm not a beaver, I'm a little boy!"

Meanest Mom on the Block

We live in the corner house and often times kids use our yard to hold a lemonade stand.  I'd by lying if I told you I haven't thought about going out and asking for 10% of their money for the use of our yard. I'm not that big of an ass, I wouldn't really do it, I just think it would be hilarious.

Today two girls from the street set up shop in our yard.  One of the girls lives in the last house on the other end of street, another corner, so I'm not sure why they didn't use her yard - but whatever.

She rang our doorbell and asked if I wanted to buy lemonade. I explained that my kids were in the bathtub and I could not leave to go outside right now. I assured her I would buy some later. And I truly meant that. I knew E would be excited to go out and purchase it.

10 minutes later she rang the doorbell again. I know it was her because I  peaked out of the window upstairs. With kids still in the bathtub, I ignored her. 10 minutes later the doorbell rang again. By this time my kids were out of the bath and E saw the pushy lemonade salesperson at the door and yelled to me to answer it. I was busted.

Like I said, I did have every intention of buying the lemonade from the girls but I was in no hurry to pop my happily splashing kiddos out of the bathtub for it.

I answered the door and pushy lemonade girl asked if I was going to buy lemonade. I responded "Yes, I do plan to but, as I said last time, I am getting the kids bathed and I will do it when I can."  Off she went back to  bully other people sell lemonade.

At this point I was annoyed, but I still gave E $1 and told her to get herself and Z man some lemonade. Z man said he did not want any.

E skipped along with her dollar bill and came back with a red Solo cup containing no more than 3 sips of lemonade in it.  For her safety, as it was at the edge of the yard and close to the street, I watched the entire transaction and I know E didn't drink any of the lemonade.

Now if you have read my blog for more than 12 seconds you know I am prone to exaggeration but honestly there was about 1/4 inch of lemondae in her cup.  I took a picture of it because it was so ridiculous! Unfortunately my photo does not do the absurdity justice.

Just curious, I asked E if she had gotten any change and of course, since she is 5, she looked at me like what the hell is change?  I was really annoyed by now because I really felt they were taking advantage of E since she is only 5 and didn't know any better.

NOTE SO YOU KNOW I'M NOT A TOTAL JERK: I always give kids more money than they are charging for their lemonade.


I marched out to that lemonade stand and told the girls that E accidentally forgot to get Z man's lemonade (knowing perfectly well he didn't want any) and that I needed another cup.  Because the mean mom was there they filled this one much higher. I didn't give them any money for it (I could see their sign at this point and it said $.50/cup which is what I ended up paying) and walked off feeling justified. Had they been less stingy they would have gotten to keep that extra $.50.

Yay! Mom Power! Way to stick it to a couple of 9 year olds, Robin!  What is wrong with me? Why did this bother me so much? Clearly I need a hobby.