greatest hits

you know how bloggers love to make gratitude lists?  i get it.  i am grateful for many, many things, but let's be honest, a lot of things just get on my damn nerves.  here's a few off the top of my head.

1) looking for things: shoes, coffee cups, phones, and uniform shorts that always end up being crumpled in the dryer.

2) syncing my phone to the computer.  shoot me now.

3) solitary chin hairs. (hello, thirty-seven.)

4) fixing things.

5) paying to have things fixed.

mercy, i just finished unloading all of the pics from my phone onto the computer for the first time in eight million years, and i had to call my husband to talk me through it.  bless.

but, blogging is easier when all of my photos are in one place.  see?  i found a silver lining!

here's my current gratitude list, in no particular order.

i am grateful for:

1) marcy and this birthday card.  taylor and squad is my favorite.

 2) best friend's babies: the next best thing to your very own.

3) when my niece flips me off shows me her boo-boo.

 4) t-ball.  the first practice resulted in the type of crying fit that sounded like he was being stung by a thousand bees.  wtf?  but i am happy to report that crosby has since embraced(ish) the sport and the new friends he has made.  thankyoubabyjesus.

 5) gone are the days of my children smiling for a camera. i'm not so much grateful for that, but i am happy they will at least humor me by standing side by side for a photo.

 6) baby cousins that have turned into teenaged cousins.  i am so proud of the kind-hearted big kids they have become, even though it makes me feel old as dirt.

 7) two-fold: yoga and mexican food.

chris and i started beachbody workouts almost two years ago, and have worked out just about everyday since.  lately i have tried really hard to incorporate a yoga practice daily.  are we in the best shape of our lives?  nah.  am i ever going to look like jennifer aniston?  no, dammit.  i will never give up booze or mexican food (they say never say never, but i feel pretty confident about it), so that dream is out the window.  but we feel healthy.  and strong.  and i am happy with that.  (if you want to know more about it, message me).

 8) turning thirty-seven and becoming a bird-watcher from my kitchen window.  don't judge me.

 9) my big boy and his talent for sports and his love of the arts.

 10) my baby boy's snuggles and his obsession with wearing socks with every style of shoe.

11) my baby turned five.  FIVE. fiiiiiiiiiivvvvvvvvve.

 we upheld the birthday balloon/breakfast tradition,

 we partied at chuck e. cheese,

 we partied at home,

 we partied at school,

AND at his favorite restaurant.  he felt loved.

 11) school pictures.  because they're my favorite.  my boy looks like he's ready to fight someone.

 12) muffins with mom.

13) froyo dates.

14) school performances where 4/5 year olds dress up like tiny italians.

 15) and checking concerts off my bucket list.  chris bought me last minute tickets to go see lauryn, which fulfilled all of my nineties hip-hop fantasies.  q-tip, check. d'angelo, check. outkast, check.  lauryn hill, check.  thank you, honey.

 looking forward to a saturday full of baseball games and a sunday spent celebrating mothers.

how have you been?  what are you looking forward to?

love,

coco

greatest hits: the about-dang-time edition

i was going to give you a list of reasons why i haven't blogged in two months.

but then prince died.

i'm sad.

i have a cousin who is ten years older than me.  so when she was at the height of her fabulous 80's teenagedom, i was a little girl with stars in my eyes.  she was my idol.  she was cool (still is) and was always so sweet to me (still is).  one of my first musical memories was "hanging out" in her room as she was getting ready to go somewhere while listening to "when doves cry".

that sealed the deal.

i adored her, therefore from that day forward, i adored prince as well.

may he rest in peace.

p.s. "sexy M.F." and "let's go crazy" are excellent additions to any workout playlist.  don't let anyone convince you otherwise.

so, here we are in the height of birthday season.  from march to may, we celebrate the birthdays of my husband, my sons, myself, my sister, my cousin, my neice, my grandfather and my mother.  throw in a couple of best friend birthdays and that about wraps it up.

three birthdays down in our household with only crosby's to go.  we will celebrate that stinker in a couple of weeks.

1) first up, chris' birthday.  man, am i ever glad that guy was born.  he saves my ass everyday.  i'll love him forever and ever.  and ever.

every 37 year old man needs a fathead of his man-crush, no?

chris loves von miller.

von miller is an aggie and a bronco and a super-bowl mvp and now a pretend ballroom dancer.

we love him around here.  now he greets us every time we pull into the garage.

chris shares a birthday week with my sister.  they decided that they wanted to day-drink in lieu of a party.  we went here and had a grand old time.

2) next up is ben's birthday.  he is currently banging on piano keys so i will have to dig deep, but here goes.  he is smart, witty, passionate, intense, emotional and has really great comedic timing.  he is a treasure, that boy.

 he wanted to eat at his favorite restaurant for his birthday dinner.  he is obviously too cool for school.  it's benny's world, we're just living in it.

 he loves video games like no other, so he had his party at an arcade this year.

{the birthday lunch bunch}

he shares the same birthday with a classmate, who happened to be born within hours of him in the exact same hospital!  precious.  

3) i spent my birthday morning chaperoning crosby's field trip.  his class is studying italy, so his teacher arranged a visit to an italian grocery store.  they got a tour, saw pizzas being made, and sampled italian mineral water, salami and biscotti cookies.  it was rad.

then i met my main squeeze at our favorite restaurant for lunch.  divine.

that evening we celebrated with margaritas and the next day we took our posse and met up with friends at the old 97's county fair.  the grown-ups drank beer and danced around to alt-country, while the kids played carnival games and acted like complete nut jobs.  good times.

  

whew.

we made it.

how are you, my sweet readers (those of you still here, at least)?  i'm sorry i dropped off of the face, but something had to give for a while.

i even quit reading blogs!  wtf?!?!

soooooo, i have decided to start from scratch.  if you love a blog, can recommend one or write your own, would you pretty please leave a link in the comments?  i am ready for a fresh start.  i want to read what you love and what you write.

thanks for hanging in there with me!

love,

coco

greatest hits

waaaaaaaay back in 2015, we celebrated some holidays.  it's my favorite time of the year, and i used to let it get the best of me (remember 'christmas neck', longtime readers?)  but i must say, the older i get, the better i manage it.  just don't talk to me that last week of school before christmas break when i am balancing work, my checking account, what feels like ten christmas parties a day, teacher gifts and class funds.  

i just love the traditions, the pomp, the food, family time, the decorations, and even the presents.

here's my holiday photo dump.

1) because i am neurotic and absolutely must buy a tree the weekend following thanksgiving, we bought another home depot tree this year since the rain thwarted our hopes of a trip to the tree farm.  the boys were stoked, can't you tell?  nobody's going to ruin my christmas spirit, dammit!

2) ben used to be my little christmas elf.  but now at age seven-going-on-thirteen, he helps me decorate for short perionds of time, taking breaks to play on his ipad, eat snacks, and complain of being bored.

now this little dude is my elf.  and somehow we have gone all these years without breaking more than a couple of ornaments.  this year, however, crosby broke four.  all by "accident".

bless his cute little heart.

2) dallas has really stepped up it's holiday game the past couple of years by hosting free concerts and tree lightings downtown.  last year we saw the los lobos.  this year, we saw polyphonic spree and ran into friends just in time for the fireworks show.

3) santa. neimans. downtown.  best-ever.

we had to have the talk this year about how santa needs a lot of helpers to be in all of these places at the same time.

we have somehow avoided the "big" santa talk for another year.  makes me want to cry.

4) the bonner/martin/knight/houze ladies lunched again as we do every year.

we spray perfume.

we pose for pictures.

we day-drink with our grandma.  whatever.

it just might be my favorite holiday tradition.

don't tell the boys.

5) marcy is still inviting all of the miniture people over to destroy her house, decorate cookies and have dance parties on her bed.

we love her for it.

our group keeps growing, in numbers and in height.

6) we don't get to see chris' family as often as we would like to, but since they've retired and moved to georgia, they live a lot closer!  they made a road trip to texas for christmas.  and in return, texas welcomed them with bi-polar winter weather (aka 80 degree temps and tornado warnings).

.

nothing says family fun time like all piling into your closet during the tornado sirens.

while they were here, we were able to visit with chris' brother and his family.

our sister-in-law is an amazing cook and roasted a prime rib while matt frightened us all with knives.  just kidding.

 

all i wanted was a cousin picture, but all i got were more photos of crosby with a finger in his nose.

i have plenty of those already.

7) look!  a family picture!  on christmas eve!  it's a christmas miracle!

oh man, that food.

8) santa came!  we even got santa his own tree this year, since the big tree is in an entirely different room than the fireplace.  i feel like santa appreciated this thoughtfulness.  he's a busy man and has no spare time to waste walking across a house to find a christmas tree.

9) pawpaw gave me some of my grandmother's christmas dishes after christmas last year, so i got to use them for the first time this christmas and it made my nerdy little christmas heart flitter-flutter.  it's the simple things, people.

9) we rounded up our year with our normal new years eve tradition of spaghetti carbonara, wine and s'mores.  i basically write this exact same post year after year, with the only difference being my children keep getting older.  thanks for still reading anyway :)

10) and somewhere in that holiday mix, my dudes went to see star wars.  twice.  and it is all they have talked about since.

how are you?  what have you been up to these days?

i am looking forward to going on a date tonight with my husband and eating delicious food at a new-to-us restaurant.

i would love to hear what you are looking forward to!  thanks for reading.

love,

coco