Ladybug, originally uploaded by blondemom.

Miss A’s first Halloween in 2005. One of my all-time favorite photos. That baby tongue would give Gene Simmons a run for his money!

I must mommy MacGyver a snow princess costume by 5 p.m. using nothing but my bare hands and a bag of assorted snowflake theme accessories procured from the Dollar Tree. Spit and duct tape may also be involved, as will wine. Please lay hands on your computer now and send me your Martha juju. Lord knows I will need it.

Nothing like an eleventh hour change of costume. At least Miss A is content with a kitty costume “inherited”‘ from Miss C!

By the way, have you seen my keys?

Pumpkin Patch, originally uploaded by blondemom.

Today has been one of those picture perfect fall days. It makes it OK that I have yet to find my set of keys with, of course, both my house keys and car keys. I believe that a certain 2-year-old with sticky fingers and a penchant for mama’s purse put them somewhere over the weekend. Let’s hope I find them by Thanksgiving. Eh, keys are overrated any way.

Even though I have two little girls who love their bling, I don’t really possess the girly girl gene. I don’t insist that they wear matching smocked dresses on the weekends and big floppy hair bows. I don’t care if they wear Gymboree leggings snagged at a consignment sale and a Tarjay t-shirt. Pony tails and pig tails are considered fancy up dos at our house. Miss A wears a lot of hand me downs and Miss C was spotted at the neighborhood pizza parlor recently wearing a Cinderella costume. Honestly, as long as their clothes are clean and dog hair free (which is a difficult thing to attain at our house), I consider it a banner day. Plus Miss C has to stick with the standard school attire five days a week, so why not let the girl channel her inner Cyndi Lauper on the weekends?

Despite my inability to fix their hair properly or make sure they look like little miss Southern belles, I think Miss C and Miss A have a healthy balance of tom boyishness and love for all things princess. They’re not opposed to playing in the mud, but they love to play dress up. They love to wrestle and have pillow fights and play with terrorize our dogs, but they also love to twirl in their nightgowns and sing with dreamy cadence, “I love being a princess, I love being a princess!” (Thanks to The Backyardigans.) Miss C is especially diligent about wearing things she deems pretty, and often our opinions don’t mesh. I’m sure this is just practice for the teen years.

I do like to dress the girls in matching outfits during the holidays, though, and with our recent cool weather I am daydreaming about snowy winter days (since we get so much snow in Nashville) and the girls wearing matching PJs and sipping on hot chocolate while curled up in front of a roaring fire.

But I draw the line at something like this…

Besides, Bailey and Jack would look hideous in plaid.

I was really surprised yesterday after my mammogram when I was told that the radiologist wants me to have a surgical biopsy on my right breast.

“But I just had a biopsy in March.”

“I know, but he is recommending that you have that area biopsied again.”

I started getting that sinking feeling again as I sat in a waiting area with several older “ladies in waiting” in gowns and everyone was getting released but me.

I am waiting to hear back from the surgeon’s office about scheduling the biopsy. It sounds like it’s an easy outpatient procedure, but I’d really like to get all this boob exploratory stuff over with. The nurse at the breast center says they are just being cautious and she can’t really see any kind of definitive mass or lump. It’s just a cloudy area that is very dense. My breast tissue is very dense and I have a fibrocystic mass in that right breast that they just keep looking at. And the tissue has changed since my biopsy (to which I say, of course it has…I just had a biopsy!) I know most biopsies have benign results and I know they are just being cautious and that’s a good thing.

Who knew that 2007 would be the Year of the Breast?

Sigh…

Yesterday was an incredibly crummy day. My brother’s German Shepherd had a baseball size tumor removed from his spleen. He’s doing OK, but he’s nine years old and I’m not sure how his recovery will go. He’s my brother’s “baby” and dog cousin to our dogs.

Also someone I work, and not very closely I might add, pointed to her stomach yesterday and pointed to mine and then asked me if I was having “another one.” I quickly told her no and that that was pretty much impossible any way at this point. And then she mentioned an e-mail that had gone out and she thought it mentioned something about me having a baby. (There are two Jamie’s at my office and the other Jamie is pregnant and due in December.)

Nope, I’m not kidding.

I had on a parka and I do have a little baby belly leftover flab, but come on people. I am not pregnant.

What a day!

This is the flavor of the month at our house. I caught Miss C licking the outside of the container.

For a great laugh check out Fabulous Mommy Fussypants’ Fight the Frump Photo Smackdown. Do not skip the video at the end. Her Fight the Frump series may start a mom jean burning revolution!

On the opposite end of the spectrum is the I Dress Like a Slob Flickr Photo Pool I saw on Secret Agent Josephine (if you ever need a dose of happy, just visit her blog.)

I love digital scrapbooking but my blogging habit addiction has taken time away from that hobby. I usually do more in the winter when I have more time to go through our digital photos and organize them (i.e. actually print some and stick them in photo albums). Here’s a really cute and free downloadable back to school digital kit from Two Peas in a Bucket.

I am thinking of making our holiday photo cards this year. There are a lot of great kits online, such as this one from Shabby Miss Jenn.

Through Shabby Miss Jenn I found a shabby chic blog and I really enjoyed looking at the before and after pictures of her house (love the harlequin paint theme in the dining room.)

Even though I love photography and digital scrapbooking, my crafty gene is just not a dominant one. Looking over a Michael’s ad can make me hyperventilate. However, I keep finding creative blogs and hoping that I can be creative vicariously through them. Skip to My Lou has photos of the most awesome Halloween party decorating.

Have a great weekend! We’re off to trunk or treat with the cousins tonight!

Secure in his Masculinity, originally uploaded by blondemom.

Single ladies take note.

If you can imagine your boyfriend allowing his little girls to play daddy makeover during prime NFL Sunday TV time, then he’s husband material.

If he also cooks and makes an awesome margarita? I hear they have drive thru weddings in Vegas.

Today is boob Friday for me, oh joy! I have a mammogram and a follow-up appointment at the Nashville Breast Center. I’m actually looking forward to having time to sit down and read this awesome book.

p.s. I have on my porn star mom tight jeans today (but no spike heeled boots or crazy fur pimp hat) partly because they were the only clean pair. Time to do laundry or lose five pounds.

The hubby and I went walking at the Y today after lunch and he rode with me afterwards to pick Miss C up from school.

As he was walking up the sidewalk in the rain to get Miss C I saw a woman I can only describe as Porn Star Mommy walking her son back to her SUV, which was parked directly behind us. She was wearing the tightest blue jeans I have ever seen in MAH LIFE. She was one with her denim. I don’t even know how she was able to walk. She also had on spike heeled black boots, some major (as Posh Spice would say) makeup, and some kind of crazy white fur hat.

The hubby climbs back in the passenger’s side of our car after helping Miss C get in her booster seat.

“Well you just missed P-O-R-N Star Mommy wearing the world’s tightest blue jeans.”

(I spell out porn for fear Miss C will pick up on that P word and recite it to her kindergarten teacher during celebrate the letter P week.)

“Oh man, I missed her.”

“Yep. I was going to point her out to you.”