a snapshot into my thoughts

sometimes i feel like blogging, but i don't know what to say. let's call it entertainment anxiety. what if this blog isn't entertaining? will you hate me? so i thought i would just write my thoughts on some pictures that i have taken recently. i'll try and keep the stories to a minimum. consider this stream of conciousness blogging...

this photo is of the fantastic thomas in front of the saint louis temple. we were able to go on saturday. thomas drove, i slept. i sometimes i amaze myself at my sleeping abilities. i drive myself all the time and i am fine. put me in the passenger's seat and i am dead. i brought several magazines and scarlett's baby book with me to entertain myself on the 4 hour trip, but to no avail. i was dead to the world after only an hour of traveling. during my dreams in the car, i thought i was awake. i was dreaming, "oh, i'll show that thomas. i'll stay awake the whole time. he always jokes about my narcolepsy. well, haha! looks who's got the last laugh now!" and then i would wake up to tell him and realize that i had been asleep for an hour.

the lovely me in front of the temple. my faithful readers will notice that i wear that green shirt ALL. THE. TIME. it's in nearly every picture. i promise i have other clothes. it is just my go-to shirt. everyone has a go-to shirt. this is mine. funny thing is, last summer's go-to shirt i NEVER wear anymore. favorite shirt overkill. after this summer you will never seen ol' green scoopy puff sleeves on my again. also, i always think that when i pull my lusterous locks in a pony tail that i look sophisticated and then i see pictures and i know better. the look is a little more 12 year old gym-chic.

what can't i take a normal picture? seriously. SER.IOUS.LY. bring out a camera and i make stoopid faces. then i am surprised at myself later. it's like i am one of pavlov's dogs. camera=dumb face

my sister is pretty hottt though.

while my son is the spitting image of his father, he got his sleep habits from me. this was after a quick jaunt to the pool with jamey. reagan had a meltdown to end all meltdowns. it was quite unusual since he has always been such a compliant child. mostly. sometimes. anywhooo. there was kicking and screaming and hairpulling. the hair pulling was a newly developed skill that i would like to blame on the bad influences at the YMCA. i should have been embarassed by this outburst, but i kept laughing. it was comical. i felt like a cartoon character. reagan's body was like rubber. contorting and squishing into different positions that seem impossible. perhaps someday he will be a yoga instructor. better yet, a contortionist. i would love to visit him at the circus.

please note meatball patiently waiting for reagan to be completely asleep so that he can steal his crackers.

the end.

or is it?

no really, the end.

bless this mess

this is what i am currently up against:

the front entry:

the playroom:
the living room:
the monster who created this great mess:
(not me of course, the smaller person in this picture)

and that monster too.

how it makes me feel:

not mad, not sad, mostly just that emotion when your face scrunches up and you breathe heavily out of your nose all at once. exasperation? perhaps i should BOL? i am neither diligent enough to keep messes like this from happening nor fastidious enough to want to fix it any time soon. i am like a hamster on a wheel. why clean it up when that is just creating another opportunity for the monsters to mess it up again?

the end.

but not really.

perhaps in 20 years when my children are seeking their own fortunes far far far away and thomas and i have retired to the battery in charleston, i will not have to worry about messes anymore. each morning i will go out to my garden and pick flowers while singing, sooong! song of the south! sweet potato pie and uh, shut my mouth!



i can't see any messes here in charleston...

i conquered the hill

on saturday my sister and i completed the 35th annual hospital hill run, the grandfather of all kansas city road races. it was a race that almost didn't happen. i didn't sign up until last minute and somehow my fantastic sister, heather, convinced me to run the 10k even though i have never even dreamed of running that far in my entire life. seriously, there should be a million dollar pot of gold at the end of any race over 5 miles. a 10k would guarantee like a million bucks and some change and a birthday cake and ice cream and a full body massage.

plus, everyone in the universe kept saying how completely awful the hills are in this race. and then the evening before i ate at my favorite mexican restaurant and had tons of chips and salsa and a gigantic bean burrito. not exactly the ideal pre-race meal. that night before i woke up every 20 minutes to check my clock so that i wouldn't oversleep. the race started at 7am, so heather and i were on the road at 5:30am in order to park and stretch and pretend to be really good at running with the other racers. then the worst thing ever happened. occasionally, certain circumstances will trigger morning sickness. i am not pregnant-REPEAT- i am not pregnant, but sometimes by body remembers what it is like to be pregnant and wants to perform an encore. my deadly-barf-inducing-combination is honeycomb cereal and sneezing. the two of those together is what i call a perfect storm. and this perfect storm happened as i was driving down the interstate. heather nearly had to grab the wheel as my eyes rolled back in my head and waves of nausea overtook me. there were many fed exed prayers as i made my way downtown. by time we got there, my pre-race jitters overtook my nausea and i was ready to strut around with all the other 4,000 runners and pretend to stretch and discuss my "strategy" and be knowledgable about racing. and i am sure that i fooled nobody. my strategy was this: don't ever stop running. EVER. no matter how much it hurts. i am sure the others were impressed.
pre- race, still smiling.

the final stretch to the finish line.
closer now so that you can see it is really us and not two other extremely sweaty yet cute sisters running nsync. at this point i was fighting back tears i was so proud of myself. i also cried during the national anthem. i am tearing up as i type this.

and by the finish line, drenched in sweat and pride. that sounds like an gospel or classic rock album title. heidi and heather, drenched in sweat and pride, the greatest hits.

the best part of the race was the swag that gave you for participating.

my bragging rights t-shirt.

i nearly wore this ensemble to church today:
the visor, the sweat-wicking running shirt, the tote bag, the flip flops that said "finisher" across the toes. and drumroll.....and a huge freaking medal!!! i didn't know that everyone got one and i nearly kissed the girl that put it around my neck. i still haven't taken it off. i hope my mom doesn't mind me wearing it in the next family picture. do you think i can get on a plane with that around my neck?

twenty seven thirty eight

thomas and i ran in the inaugural raytown family 5k on saturday. let me tell you what, i was awesome. AWESOME! what's the point of a blog if you can't tell everyone how great you are? well, here it is again in case you missed it. I AM GREAT. i have never run so fast in my entire life. i am not athletically inclined whatsoever and i don't really like running in the first place. and people that say that do are liars. i ran my first mile in nine minutes and my finish time was 27:38. i was in tears when i saw my time. i don't know how i made it over the finish line without tripping. i am a big baby. and i beat thomas(not by much though) so it was doubley sweet. tripley sweet if you count the cookies i ate when i got home. quadupley sweet if you look at how white my legs are in my booty shorts:

***yes marci, that is your blue springs high school cross country t-shirt from 15 years ago. i still have it. and i am probably never ever going to give it back, so thanks for the inspirational shirt. it's most likely the reason i did so well.

luckily for me and everyone else at the race, georgia man showed up. some of you know him by his alter-ego of thomas, but thomas hates running. so georgia man showed up in his place. please note the georgia socks. georgia man went about his duties at the race of spreading good legal advice, witty repartee and the news of georgia football dominance to everyone that will listen. this is our year baby!

our re-enactment in the front yard. i often wonder how i get thomas to go along with my re-enactment pictures. his face is not pleased. but look at me, ecstatic! blame it on the runner's high.

in order to properly inform everyone of my excellent time, i decided to permanently tatoo my time on my forehead.
GO ME!

the toothless wonder has learned to crawl

scarlett turned 10 months on the 28th. that same week scarlett went from scooting lump to speed demon. after months of non-crawling scooting(which seemed to please her just fine) she took the plunge and actually used her arms and legs for movement instead of rolling, squirming, squishing and blobbing around the house. thank goodness she left blobbing around the house for me to do. i love an evening of blobbing. especially after a big dinner of mexican food and ice cream.


when she was bored with an afternoon of crawling, she decided cruising furniture was next on her list.

still, with these hugely important accomplishments, NO TEETH! not a tooth in her head! reagan had teeth at 4 months. i am beginning to worry that no teeth are ever going to come. it's my punishment for pouring water in my brother's bed and trying to convince everyone david had a bed-wetting problem. it was really funny at the time, but was it worth this? she will be the only kid in kindergarten with dentures. i will have to buy polident for my child before i need to buy it for me. until now my greatest tooth phobia was me losing my teeth while biting into a whether's original hard candy or as the result of a freak roller coaster accident(it could happen). but no, having a child with no teeth is worse. definitely worse. how can i be a stage mother and shamelessly promote my child/model/cash cow to support my wicked shoe habit if all she has to show the casting director is a mouth full of gums. gummy o'hara doesn't work for me. they are beautiful gums, but gums don't pay the light bill.

everything is up to date in kansas city

but not neccesarily in jamesport, mo.

we took a day trip to adam-ondi-ahman and jamesport. pretty drive, but we would never want to have our car break down out there. we would be stranded for days in little towns that time forgot. sort of like swiss family robinson, but swiss family simpson. we certainly would have our pick of the finest amish furniture around, but i don't think the amish would have appreciated me turning my nose up at their outhouses. seriously, there wasn't a mcdonald's for miles...like 20. and they have mcdonald's pretty much everywhere. third world countries have mcdonald's, jamesport, mo does not. we were able to eat at a fantastic amish restaurant. home cooked vittles just like granny never made. plus, check out the classy shopping options.

anywhooo, the weather was so fantastic this weekend, i had to take a picture of our house with the trees in full bloom. the pink tree next to the porch is a flowering dogwood, state tree of missouri. who says you never learn anything from me? we also have some flowers growing that the neighbor claims are called "naked ladies". i will definitely be replanting those next year. naked ladies every spring!
love it!

4/28/80-4/28/08

i had the best birthday ever. EVER! thanks for all the well wishing. and david, i know you meant to call me. no hard feelings. you're only my 3rd favorite brother now. my golden birthday did not let me down! 28 is great! of late i have been apprehensive about celebrating birthdays with bigger and bigger numbers associated with them. i fear the older you get the less fun your birthday is. SO NOT TRUE!

here's the breakdown:
6:30am- i woke up and remembered that my sister, heather, had spent the night! a great way to start a day.
7:00am- enjoyed reading the entire comics page of the newspaper by myself with no interruptions while the kids were still sleeping. ate a GIGANTIC bowl of reese's puffs cereal.
8:30am- ran three point one miles with my sister by my side.
10:00am- went to the grocery store stinking like a teenage boy because i was still wearing my workout clothes. purchased items for my dream birthday cake.
11:00am- created dream birthday cake. heather did most of the baking. i did a fair amount of bowl licking.
12:00pm- removed the abominable stink from my body by showering.
1:30pm- was picked up by thomas for a fun lunch downtown on the plaza! thomas surprised me by taking the afternoon off.
2:00pm- consumed delightfully creamy gnocchi pasta at the classic cup. it was so rich and delicious that i would swear they had added newborn baby skin to the sauce.
3:00pm- shopped. purchased fantastical silk dress from banana republic courtesy of mimi susu's gift card. thomas amused himself by checking the ESPN website on his blackberry. how did i ever convince him to go shopping with me before the invention of the blackberry?
5:00pm- returned home from plaza escapade.
5:30pm- put finishing frosting touches on dream birthday cake.
7:00pm- enjoyed a wonderful birthday party with my adoring spouse, my well-behaved and clean children, my magnanimous and loving parents. much pizza was consumed. crystal light was imbibed out of champagne flutes. cake and ice cream were devoured. presents were opened and much fun was had by all!
10:00pm- did the dishes with a huge smile on my face
11:00pm- crawled into my bed with a huge smile plastered on my face and thought about my wonderful day. can't wait 'till next year. of course i think by then i will be back to wanting to go backward in age. i would like to try and be 27 next year.

the classic cup!
me displaying my banana republic dress bag. (did you know that i love banana republic? those of us in the "know" call it BR. now you know.)
my "28 is GREAT" cake. more frosting than you can imagine. and on a classy platter of a cookie sheet covered in tin foil.
what makes this my dream cake you ask??? the bottom layer was a gi-freaking-normous brownie. on top was yellow cake and gobs and gobs of frosting in between layers. perfecto.
the band that played at my party. i love live music.
i never know what to do when people are singing happy birthday to me. what's the polite and gracious thing to do? smile demurely and make eye contact with each guest? sing along softly? stare at my hands in my lap? i chose none of these. i waved my arms around like a lunatic and sang louder than everyone else in a higher octave than everyone else. i think that the best way to celebrate.
ps- that's not a gigantic diaper around my waist, though it does resemble one. it's my faithful apron. i never enter the kitchen without it. i thought that if i wore it around my waist only then it wouldn't be so obvious in pictures. hmmm, guess i was wrong!

about the post title:
oftentimes i have wondered when the best time of the year is to die. you don't want to die near christmas because you can't open your presents and you don't want to die right before your birthday because you want to get the most out of the current age you are. and doesn't it make sense to come full circle and die on your birthday? so i figured that coolest day for me to die would have been monday so that my headstone would have read:
4/28/80-4/28/08
how cool would that have been? now i have to wait until 4/28/28. or 04/28/40. that would be pretty neat too. or of course, the granddaddy of them all, 4/28/2080. is this morbid? just a little. but you gotta plan for these things.

let's talk about me

i can't remember the last time i left a hair salon completely happy. several years would be the closest estimate that i could give. i think it was that time in 2002 that natalie and i got our hair done at the real von curtis salon, not the school, in provo. so, it's been awhile. some of you may remember the infamous perm hair of 1993 and 2000(gasp, i know, i had a perm that recently. how many of you can claim that?). many of you recall me with black hair, or stripey gold hair, or stripey platinum hair. and LOTS of bad regrowth. plus lots of shades of brown hair and of late, gray hair. yikes! somehow, last week, the unimaginable happened. the stars aligned with the moon and i left the salon with a smile on my face and a spring in my step! i ventured out to a new salon called blondies and they accepted me, even though i am a brunettie. i would guess most of the stylists there are brunetties too.

anywhooo, this new cut isn't anything outrageous. i'm not JEM or anything.

JEM or not, i think it is great. i just sat down and told the stylist i wanted something youthful and non-mommyish and easy to do yet slightly dramatic. and as an added bonus if it could be a little bit like victoria beckham's hair when it was long, that would be fantastic. (victoria is my current crush. now if only katie holmes would go away so that we could be best friends...)
TA DA!
the day of:

those of you that have followed my hairstyles of late are probably remarking to yourselves, "heidi, that i just like that time you wanted your hair long with loose waves. only you used a hillary duff photo." i know, i just like that look. straight, flat hair isn't for me. the bigger the better!

my personal recreation of the style:

furthermore, judging from these photos, i like to wear aprons all the time.

thomas seems to like it too. but he has told me to stop staring at myself in the mirror and fluffing my hair all day. i say, i'll fluff all i want! it means i actually like it! would he rather have the usual grumpy, whiny, complaining depressed heidi? well, about my hair anyway? haircuts can't fix everything!

heidi's haircuttin' haven

doesn't it seem like the hair salon with the goofiest name is the hair salon that should be most avoided? too bad reagan doesn't have that option. there is no chez heidi salon in this bathroom. but thanks to fantastic enrichment night lesson, i do have the skills to do a VERY basic boys haircut. reagan had begun to resemble shaggy from scooby do and i was feeling like i needed to drive the mystery machine around town and pass out scooby snacks. so a haircut was in order. zoinks!

shaggy, the uncompliant client

the back view. luckily, reagan doesn't have normal hair, he has cat fur. thin, fuzzy and completely unmanageable.

the bribe. i told reagan he could eat as many cookies as he wanted if i could just cut his hair.

the big reveal: a full tummy, a bit itchy...

and pants-free, of course,

but happy.

caution to the wind

the weather was in the high 60s today and i could hardly contain my glee! the weatherman said to be on the lookout for thunderstorms and tornadoes, but we threw caution to the wind(literally) and played outside. the winds whipped around our faces and the clouds swirled up above, but we were fearless! actually, i was a little afraid of the swingset falling down while i was climbing on the monkey bars, but i certainly wasn't afraid of any ol' tornado.

uncle mark modeling the argyle socks with workout attire trend that is so hot right now.

since we are on the subject of tornadoes and all things midwestern, i will address something that has been on my mind. many of you think we live in kansas. we don't. we live in kansas city, missouri. not kansas. missouri. not kansas. spread the word. tell your friends. note mark's sweatshirt:
somewhere under the guitar is says missouri.

and we're still celebrating...

i went to hy-vee groceria today to pick up some needed items. i always swing by the bakery to see what free sample they were offering to sweet little boys riding in their mommy's cart. today it was sugar cookies. reagan did not want a cookie. he wanted cake. he very loudly refused the cookies and shouted for cake as i pushed the cart toward produce. can you believe it? a good little simpson boy refusing something chocked full of sugar? you think you know a kid...anywhooo, reagan's desire for cake is just getting louder as i push the cart away faster. then a sweet bakery employee tracks us down and gives us a free slice of cake. i am thanking her profusely and reagan demands an entire cake. a slice was not enough for him. apparently our next family home evening lesson will be entitled, "how to not look gift horse in the mouth."
we continue to bop around the grocery store and reagan slowly warms up to the cake. then he drops it on the floor. luckily it was in a plastic container. then i drop it on the floor. and then i smash into it with the cart and drag it under a wheel for a few feet. amazingly the plastic container is still intact. show me a biodegradable container that will take that much punishment!

the cake:
the happy boy in mis-matched sweats:
singing "happy birthday" for the gabillionth time to reagan.