My Name is Kerrie, and I'm a Bravo-holic

I think I’m watching too much TV, which is like 7-10 hours a week, mostly while Sam sleeps on me early in the morning or while he sleeps on me for his naps and the kids run amok in the house. Specifically, I'm watching shows my mom tapes for me from http://bravotv.comBravo Channel. It’s no secret I love all the Real Housewives (although I’m falling out of love with the New Jersey one), much to my husband’s disappointment. It's not exactly uplifting television, I know.

Lately I’ve been watching something I never thought I would like called Million Dollar Decorators. The other day I said something to my husband like, “Hmmm, the pea green chair next to the pea green glider with the pea green drapes as a backdrop and the rose-colored carpet is not the aesthetic I’m aiming for in our living room.” Yeah, he looked at me like I'm crazy because it generally takes an army to get me to wash a dish, and why the H would I care what the "decorating" looks like?

Watching this show makes me want to rip out my dark wood cabinets with gold pulls in my kitchen and put in something a little more "fresh." It makes me want to touch up the paint on the baseboards. It makes me get more mad than usual when Eva covers her body with hot pink lipstick and then rolls around on the light gray carpet. [Aron, "Who would give a 3-year-old this color of lipstick? Who in their right mind?!" And I have to sheepishly reply, "Oops, uhm, me."]

I also love Flipping Out because Jeff Lewis makes me laugh my butt off when I can't figure out if he's being funny or a serious jerk. I love everyone who works for him and dig his design aesthetic. Specifically, I love wallpaper like this? You?

Kansas City Children's Museum: Kidscape

Back in May we hit a cool place called Kidscape at the Johnson County Museum in Shawnee, Kansas. It's FREE (donations gladly accepted), and is small. My only beef with it is that there are two ways out of it that lead into the main museum, so you can't relax if you have a kid like Sam who will keep trying to run out of one side or the other. Then again, the benefit is that you will lose some weight. Unless you use chocolate to medicate any mommy problems you may have.

The first room has a Wii, which we don't own and I had never played. I dug bowling! The big boys played it while Callie taught Sam how to fish.

Eva had a blast in the medical room caring for her 7 babies of all nationalities.

Michael found a cool box of connecting tile thingamajigs.

This is the front of the dress shop, where you can work on your fashion creation skills. Boys love it.

There's also a theatre where the kid can play dress-up and put on a play while you sit in cushy red velvet seats. Did somebody say red velvet cake? Gotta go.

Blueberry Picking at The Berry Patch in Cleveland, MO

 This summer we took 6 kids (our ex-neighbor and friend is with us a lot, and we love it!) to The Berry Patch in Kansas City. We went at night so Aron could come with us, and also it was a little cooler and a LOT less crowded. I like to stay on the down-low like that a lot ... go places when they are less crowded. I figure I bring enough of a crowd of my own!

 Sam and I dressed in blue for our blueberry pickin'.

After we were done we rode on the blueberry train ... plastic barrels connected together. We rode all over the patch, and it rocked.