Happy Old Year!!

We've been talking with the kids about resolutions and what we can each promise to ourselves to try to make us better people and live better lives.

Katie is going to try to eat more vegetables. Scratch that. Katie is going to try to eat a vegetable. I remember one meal last year where she ate one kernel of corn and we all did a celebratory victory dance. She knows all the good things that veggies can provide- the muscles, the healthy heart, blah blah. She always makes her dolls and barbies eat veggies, and hopefully will apply it to real life this year!

Ryan is going to set his bed every day because he's so practical.

If Claire were able to articulate this, I'm quite sure she would resolve to only eat healthy snacks. I am going to assist her in this effort by moving the snack box, which I should have done years ago!

I have to lose my Halloween candy/Thanksgiving dinner/Christmas cookie weight before bathing suit season. I will decide when it gets closer if it's going to be either 9 or 19 pounds- we'll just have to see how things are going come mid-May.

And I'm having issues with a very addictive game on Facebook...Bejeweled Blitz... buh-bye! I need to get my life back. I just don't have it in me to resist your pull anymore so I'm cold turkeying it. Deleting it from my facebook page and my life. Forever.

Tim has yet to weigh in on his enduring struggle for the year to come. More than likely it will be to reduce is intake of caffeine. And by February he will renounce that horrible plan because without Coke we are left with a very crabby, undesirable version of Tim. And life is too short to waste time with crabby. So he will give it up for Lent instead because we can survive 40 days of crabby, but not 365.

I am in shock that we're ending another whole decade. Remember 10 years ago when everyone was in a panic about Y2K and the world coming to an end? Doesn't seem like it was that long ago! Tim and I were at a Millenium Party with a ton of people playing Beer Pong in the basement. And now we have 3 kids, a house, and a dog with retirement plans and everything! Where does the time go?

Ryan will not permit me to say Happy New Year until tomorrow so until then... Happy Old Year!!!

Once Upon a Zumba Class

A sweet friend of mine recently told me that she takes her little girl with her to Zumba class sometimes and I suddenly got a very funny vision in my head of Katie attempting to Zumba. I thought this is something we must try.

Our first attempt was a dismal nightmare because the instructor canceled class at the last minute and Katie had a throwback to 3 years ago and screamed and demanded to do Zumba class anyway. So I started jumping around the family room with her and she rolled her eyes and scoffed at me that I couldn't possibly have been doing it right. Which gave me a flashback to the reason I had to stop going to Zumba class a few years ago.

Because I may look Latino, and I took 2 years of high school spanish so I can ask you where the bathroom is and tell you your cat is fat, but I can NOT dance. I have no rhythm, no coordination, and no sense of direction. If the crowd is moving left, I go right and watch everyone leap out of my way. Most importantly, I have no bootylicious shakeability. Which is a requirement for Zumba.

I also always have such a dumb look on my face when I'm exercising. I'm trying to remember the steps, counting the moves and trying to remember when I'm supposed to turn, or flip to the side, or switch feet, or wave my arms in the air -which I always seem to do precisely when everyone else has just finished. And in Zumba, I cannot keep up with the rapid succession of changes and dance steps.

So my friend didn't tell me that she was an expert in the art of sexy latin dancing... for one song, the instructor moved her up to the front row as a shining example for us to watch. Catcalls and everything, she was really rockin the sports pavillion!

I had to laugh when we got there because I'd assured Ryan that he wasn't missing out on anything and this was a girlie thing. He will get his big day to partake in a class at the pavillion sometime, but this just wasn't going to be it. So when we got in the room and secured our spot safely in the back row, I noticed an old man in the front corner. I whispered to Katie if that little old man can dance, we definitely can handle it. Little did I know that he choreographs some of the songs and could out-zumba everyone in the room except the teacher. While singing along to the music. Of course I knew she'd rat me out to Ryan and let him know that boys can do it too.

Katie did great. She loved it and was bouncing around happily the whole time. There was only one collision where she was still moving forward when everyone else was on the way back already. She did every step wrong, but she's too young to notice or care. She can't wait to go back.

The Sears Angel

Waiting for the repair man... why are they allowed to give a service window of 8-5? I think I'd like a job that I can show up anytime between the hours of 8 and 5. I hope he has the part he needs to fix the washing machine. I really don't want to do this again in a week when the part comes in. Ryan has already pointed out numerous times that he only has one pair of socks left. And they are shinguards! If he can't fix the machine today I might have to go to a laundromat. Do laundromats still exist? Actually it doesn't matter, I'll just buy a package of socks.

As soon as Tim and I slip out to get a quick lunch, the guy calls. He's 1o minutes away. Bummer. There goes lunch!

The problem with the washer? A 4 inch screw in Tim's pocket that must have fallen out and somehow got inside wedged under the drum. Probably several hundred dollars to fix, but this repairman signed off on it as a warranty problem and didn't charge us anything. We were warned when we bought the washer that little things like screws or safety pins could fall out of pockets and really mess with the motor and that kind of "user error" was not covered by the warranty. Our Sears Angel felt bad charging us for such a common mistake. He also showed Tim how to drain this little filter area that we didn't know we were supposed to be draining. He even cleaned out the dryer hoses and tweaked the dryer to make it run more quietly. I didn't even realize it was loud until now that it doesn't make any noise at all. . I thought we were going to have to return some of the kids' Christmas gifts to pay for this repair!

Now I'm wondering why Tim was walking around with a 4 inch screw in his pocket! That's pretty risky if you ask me.

Birthdays

Birthdays have certainly changed over the years! This year my birthday included a lukewarm bath prepared by Katie with bubbles and candles and Claire hanging over the side of the tub asking every 10 seconds, "You like you bath?"

I could hear Tim setting up the bed, as he had just washed the sheets. I love the smell of freshly washed sheets! So after shivering in the tub for about 15 minutes as if I were dying of fever, I'd had enough and decided to snuggle into my nice warm bed to really relax. Hmmm, nice job on the sheets TIM, they're still damp! Brrrr! What a night!

Truthfully, I wouldn't have it any other way. Listening to the kids argue with Tim over where to place things on the breakfast tray, and fighting over who gets to help carry it upstairs, watching their little faces try to hold back the excitement and surprise over my gifts, staying inconspicuously out of their way while they bake me a cake, knowing how much Tim has struggled to find time to sneak down to the basement with the kids to make super secret birthday cards for me, all of it makes me feel so loved and special. Happiest of birthdays to me.

Him Not See

The kids have a little Christmas tree that they decorate. It is filled with little plastic ornaments of all the Disney characters from my tree when I was little. Antiques, if you will. It was nice when they were little because they could feel involved with the tree trimming without breaking any of our nice ornaments. Their ornaments are constantly being rotated around the tree. Last year little silver strands of tinsel were added for a lovely effect.

Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs are all represented on their tree. Until this year (when the snow white movie was released from the vault) none of the kids knew who those characters were and took no interest in them whatsoever. But Claire's favorite princess is "So White" and she has loved the Hi-Ho's ever since she watched the movie.

So tonight, an hour after she was tucked into bed, she crept downstairs to take the Hi-Ho's off the tree. She proceeded to peel off all of their eyeball stickers. She brought them over to me announcing, "Him not see!" Those poor dwarfs never stood a chance... And yes, we do have our Christmas decorations up already... I know you're jealous! Christmas just lasts longer at our house!

Things I learned at Disney World

• It really is a small world after all... I bumped into an old friend from high school, right beside Cinderella's castle!
• Everyone should use credit cards... and not just any credit card, but one that has a decent perk program. Three of our airline tickets were paid using miles earned from our visa, and we had so many disney reward points from our other visa, we were able to eat at the park free for 2 days.
• Going to a bonfire on the first night will result in smelling like a bonfire each night thereafter.
• Katie changes her underwear A LOT during the day. For our 6 day trip, I packed her 14 pairs of underwear and she used them all. By the 4th day.
• A flight planned during Claire's naptime doesn't mean that Claire will take a nap!
• I really shouldn't try to keep tally of all the money we spend on a vacation. It's just too depressing.
• Disneyworld buses are trained to only turn right. It took 45 minutes on the convenient disney bus to drive us 2 miles down the road because we took backroads all around Orlando so we wouldn't have to make a very dangerous left turn!
• A "travel" sized tube of toothpaste lasts for 4 days. Not long enough.
• All Claire really needs to have fun is a beach ball and some water!
  
• Sometimes a "Lazy River" is just too lazy! We were barely even moving!
• I should not be in charge of packing... 15 pairs of flipflops, and not one single pair ended up in my suitcase! I had to buy shoes as soon as we got there!
• Walmart in Orlando is a lot nicer than Walmart at home! But still, who wants to go to Walmart on their vacation!? Oh, yes... people who don't pack shoes or diapers.
• The "Midieval Times" restaurant has a very low overhead. They don't even have silverware! As Katie said when they plopped a chicken on her plate, "Seriously, how am I supposed to eat this?!"
• Breakfast in the Cape May restaurant... $100. Breakfast in our room... priceless! We got to relax in our jammies for an extra 20 minutes!
  
• Balloon animals are useless. And when they pop it becomes a very bad day for everyone.
• Don't take a picture of Tinkerbell as she flies down from the castle. Resist all temptation to capture that magical moment.

• Do take lots and lots of pictures of your little girl meeting the princesses they love! These are the moments dreams are made of!

• 300 tvs to watch the Redskins game from every angle at the ESPN zone... and they still stink!
  

ADHD

I think I might have ADHD. Maybe I've always had it, but it was never diagnosed. My distractability and inability to focus on any one task has never been as noticeable as it is now. My brain is jumping all over the place~ Here's where my head's at right now:

• Geez, is it Thursday already? Another week done, another week that I still haven't gotten my Daisy leader training finished. Or started.
• I gotta make sure I stop by the bank to open the account for our troop, at least I will have done something leaderish before the next meeting.
• Ok the next meeting is tomorrow, I better iron on those patches to Katie's uniform... are we troop 1718 or 1817?
• Why on earth do I need to send in more money for Ryan's lunch account already? All he buys is milk, there's no way he's out of money yet!
• I hope that book order comes in before we leave on our trip so the kids can have some new books to read on the plane.
• Why did I buy that 5 pound bag of broccoli? No one's going to eat that much broccoli... I guess I can make some broccoli cheese soup... a lot of soup.
• I still have 12 apples left, what else can I make with apples?
• Is there an apple/broccoli dish I'm totally overlooking?
• We have to get our Disney Rewards points certificate before our trip... after saving them for 2 years, we better get a lot of free stuff when we're at Disney!
• Do we want to do Odyssey of the Mind again this year? It was fun I guess, and worthwhile. Can we fit it into our schedule? Maybe, but only if the kids are on the same team. And I can't help out too much with coaching.
• I need to figure out lesson plans for preschool next week... pumpkins...hmmm and then monsters... maybe we'll become Germ Busters and do a lesson in handwashing and flu prevention...
• What questions do I need to ask Ryan's teacher at his conference? Hmmm, how to walk the line between advocating for your child and becoming a pushy know-it-all?
• Why did I agree to be room mom? How am I going to get this fall party planned while on vacation? Am I going to get online and check email at all when we're there? I better get something out before we leave.
• Why havent' we gotten Halloween costumes yet! Shopping the week before, everything is going to be sooooo picked over!

ok, my head hurts. But for every answered question or thought process, there are 5 new questions or tangents... my mind is in a whirlwind. Boy do I need this vacation coming up!

Rock the Red

A holiday weekend, an extra day to procrastinate all the things that are piling up on my list. I am gearing up to really tackle my to-do list that has been catching up with me. Tim is in the middle of tiling the fireplace. Ryan has just started a big homework project that's due tomorrow. Katie is knee deep in Barbie clothes and some big party for one of her Webkinz pets. And Claire is naked. Yes, she's wandering around the house naked. But somehow the next thing I know, we're all in the van heading downtown.

We got a call. It's my friend, who shall remain nameless lest she get busted at work for giving out client tickets to her friends, offering us 4 tickets to the Capitals game. Tonight. In 2 hours.

Of course we'll go, how can we pass this up?

We're 8 rows from the ice, right behind the Caps goal. We're sitting with the rich people! Now THIS is a hockey game! We're close enough to see the players' facial expressions, and Ovechkin's missing tooth. Close enough for Pop Pop to see us on tv, thanks in part to Ryan having an end seat and dancing in the aisle flapping his little wings the entire time. What can I say, the kid loves hockey.

We all are swept up in the excitement, and surrounded by red jerseys, so we detoured to buy shirts for everyone. Plus we figured what we saved on tickets we could spend on shirts and food right?

Hmmm, is that Katie I see wearing a RED shirt? What? Has the earth imploded? Is that the same girl that doesn't admit that the color red even exists? Who draws rainbows with pink instead of red? I cannot believe my eyes!

By the way, with her missing her front teeth, I was cracking up all night listening to her shout at the top of her lungs, "Let'th Go Capth!" It was like sitting with Daffy Duck.

For Claire we bought a large foamy finger. Which turned out to be a huge mistake, as anyone else would have had the foresight to realize. Claire needed a 10 foot radius to swing that thing freely. But like I said, we were swept away with excitement and everyone around us received many bonks to the head. We also found out that Claire is good for 2 periods of hockey. Honkey, actually. During the third period she announced, "I all done honkey," and started to climb all over the 4 of us in an attempt to tunnel her way back to the car. She was asleep as soon as we clicked her carseat.

And speaking of sleeping... going to bed at 11 on a school night was probably not the smartest thing to do! Waking this boy up for school in the morning is going to be a nightmare!! Especially since I will be waking him up a little early to finish that Fall project.

Mickey Mouse and Bitches

That's who we're going to see at Disney World... according to Claire.
I love her mispronunciations, listening to her talk is so much fun! (those would be princesses, by the way, that we are going to see at Disney World).

Another fun and slightly embarrassing mispronunciation is pumpkin. Thank goodness no one understood her or even flinched when she announced that she was going to the f***** patch.

Almost as funny as when Ryan was a baby and he had a similar mispronunciation for truck. Or dumptruck. We had so much fun getting him to repeatedly say dumptruck for our friends. Yes, we were so immature. Immature, but also very very funny.

The first time we went to Fuddruckers was also kinda funny, but anyone could make that mistake!

Katie never was difficult to understand. She had no mispronunciations to speak of. She went for the embarrassing moments in other ways, such as asking the Target cashier, "Are you a lady or a man?"

Dear Christopher Columbus,

I know you wouldn't have predicted when you started out your journey 517 years ago that your accidental "discovery" of a land that would one day be known as America would one day lead to celebrations of your achievement with grandiose sales on mattresses and cars and days off from work and school. You wouldn't have known that this celebration would come just at the exact time when people would need a 3 day weekend. And you couldn't have possibly known that one day there would be a sport called soccer and that sport would sometimes be played at 8am on a Saturday, and that during said celebration of your journey, soccer games would be cancelled. But over here in Ashburn, VA we are very, very, very thankful!

Steamy Fun!

Have you ever wondered if you can make your carpets even dirtier while cleaning them with a steam cleaner? Well I am here to tell you YES, you can!


It all starts with a tiny little gumball that your kids leave buried in the rug. The heat from the steam cleaner will dissolve that little gumball until it's just a mere blue smudge on your white rug. You will no doubt do a double take from the irony of suddenly seeing a stain where there wasn't one a moment ago. From a machine designed to remove stains there is suddenly a stain in its track. Hmmm, wasn't that fun?

Fl-ackle

yes, that's about right... it's kind of a combination of flag and tackle football. Ryan is in heaven, it's the perfect way to spend a Friday night as far as he's concerned. I had no idea what to expect when we signed up for this. Every other sport we've enrolled him in involved one of the kids' dad volunteering to coach. The main focus and interest was on the snack afterwards.

This time, we have a former NFL player coaching, so I knew there was somewhat of a step up from what we'd been used to. So they had a couple of practices during the week, learned some plays, we have all these sheets of paper with little X and O figures with arrows pointing everywhere... I won't pretend to know what any of that means. So we show up at the field for the game and were blown away.

This was a real football field, with goal posts, yard lines, booming speakers, a flashing scoreboard, and concession stand brimming with tons of spectator foods. There we were, lined up at the gate, $2 in hand for admission, this was the real deal. I've never been this excited at football game in high school or college! The boys were lined up outside the field and as the announcer called each name, they came running out through the goal posts to the sounds of their adoring fans.

The boys will rotate through playing all the positions, and I won't pretend to know what they all are, but Ryan did get to be the quarterback a couple times- his favorite position so far because, as he pointed out, he will definitely get to at least touch the football if he is quarterback. And touching the football is very important.

I wasn't expecting much. I kinda thought that each of the teams would score a touchdown every time they got the ball. But there was a surprising amount of blocking and tackling involved (for a sport that wasn't supposed to have tackling). I also figured most of the action would be running with the ball, I didn't think they would be coordinated enough to throw to each other (or able to catch). I was wrong. One of Ryan's 2 touchdown passes was captured on the video below. Yes, I am the proud screaming momma in the background! He was so calm and cool, looking around for his receiver and lining up his throw just before the guys grabbed his flags. And the kid that caught it slipped right into the end zone. It was such a thrill to see Ryan's face light up. He was beaming. And he hasn't thought of anything else since. He's up hours past bedtime reliving the moment.

The Ants go Marching...

Hoorah, Hoorah...
What's the very last thing I expected to see when getting home from vacation? All the unpacking, laundry, bills, restocking the groceries looming over my head... and yet there's another pertinant task taking the lead as I rank the priority of these jobs, weighted against the exhaustion I'm feeling from the day of traveling.

After all the cleaning we did before leaving because isn't it so refreshing to come home to a nice clean house... On the kitchen counter is a skittle. Or what's left of a skittle. It was a green one, but almost all the green shell has been removed. Removed by ANTS!! Ewwww, there is a steady stream of tiny ants marching to and from this skittle, each carrying off an invisible chunk of skittle. I follow with my eyes the line of marching ants and see that they're heading through a tiny crack in the mortar between 2 tiles on the backsplash. Heading through that crack and into the outlet! I shudder to think what it would look like if I took that outlet cover off.

Tim is on top of this situation quick as a wink. One minute he is my pack mule, unloading a weeks worth of junk from the beach, the next minute he is flooding the outlet and countertop with ant spray. Those ants don't know what hit them. Who knows how many days they had been working on that skittle. Who knows, maybe there was a handful of skittles and they were finally on the last one!

And NOW we can get to the laundry, the bills, and head out to Costco to restock the fridge with food for the week.

Time and Space

I could enjoy the ocean views forever, from the kitchen, the bed, even the giant bathtub. Everywhere I go in the house I have a view of the shoreline, I just love this week. I am so relaxed, I feel like we've been here for a month instead of only a week. I can barely remember what the calendar holds for us when we get home. I don't even recall what my house looks like. I have lost all track of time and space, I've been in another world, and I don't know if I want to return to real life!

Goodnight 5 year old...

I tucked my sweet little 5 year old into bed tonight for the last time. She is so perfect and snuggly sweet in her new bed. She jumped from a twin to a full, so she looks so little laying on that huge mattress!

As I whispered to her, "Goodnight little 5-year-old," for the last time, she just looked up at me. She is soooo not sentimental, not a thought spared for savoring childhood. She just said right back, "Goodnight big 33-year-old," and that was the end of that. No, she has no time or patience for mushiness or syrupy sweet musings about growing up too fast or things I remember doing when I was a little girl. She is all business. Very matter-of-fact. She is thinking about the party.

THE party. The Webkinz party. Have I finished making the Wheel of Wow? What about the gem mining? What other games can we have in case the things we've planned leave a lot of extra time? Do we have enough ribbons and flowers for the hairbows? What if the girls forget to bring their webkinz pets? What if the other girls have boy webkinz and they don't want to make hair bows for them? What prizes do I have to give away? Do I have enough prizes? Do we have enough cheese and toppings for the pizza? What if someone doesn't like the topping choices I bought? Ok, all these concerns are things that have crossed my mind as well, but the 6 year old birthday girl should not be worrying about them!



Tomorrow when she wakes up, we will snuggle together and enjoy breakfast in bed and I'll pull out her scrapbook and show her the pictures of when she was a baby with the cutest little punchy cheeks that were so thick and so fat I couldn't even tell if she had any teeth. My little baby Katie... all grown up.

The Fun Ship

Carnival advertises as "The Fun Ships" and they truly are. It is the ideal vacation for a large group- big enough with enough variety of activities on the ship find individual activities, and small enough to reconvene at times to enjoy family time. We had people ages 2-66 on board the ship and found something fun for everyone to enjoy. Including "Camp Carnival" for the kids. None of our kids wanted to be separated from us, as I predicted, but maybe on a future cruise the lure of bright lights and video games (ahem Ryan) will entice them. Ryan was invited to a party one night in one of the lounges from 10-1am! Fun Ship indeed! These kids are learning how to party hard core from a very early age!

The kids had so much fun playing with their cousins on the ship. They loved the pool and waterslides and especially the mini golf course up on the sun deck. I don't know what Ryan would have done without that!

Tim and I had a good balance worked out which included me taking the kids back to the cabin after the nightly show had ended around 10pm and getting them settled into bed (after a bit of swinging from the bunks like monkeys) while he went to the casino for a couple hours with the guys. He enjoys a good game of Craps and has gotten either very good at it or very lucky. He won 60 bucks one night, the same night that someone lost 200, so he must have felt a little smug about that!

And before you get to feeling sorry for me that I had no free time... my me time came in the mornings. I snuck out very early and was usually the very first person at the gym. I enjoyed a nice workout and then sat on the sun deck watching the sunrise, in a quietnesss only the first one awake on the whole ship could enjoy. Then I took a nice long hot shower in the spa, where they have an unlimited supply of towels and tons of space, not like the little mini-shower stall in our stateroom with the floppy nozzle that keeps twisting and pointing in the wrong direction.

It is the little things, you know, and when all the little things are just right, they add up to make one very happy vacation.

The Long Haul

The price of plane tickets for 5 to Tampa is a little steep for us, plus there's the added struggle of not being able to bring as much stuff. When you're loading up the car for a long trip, you can pack almost everything. Except toothbrushes, why can't I ever remember those? So it was a no-brainer that we were going to drive to Tampa for the cruise. We like to do our long drives at night. Get a couple hours under our belt, stop for a late dinner, and pop a movie on for the kids and BAM- they miss most of the journey, happily cuddled up with their pillows and blankets. And we actually get to have good conversations with each other, rather than running interference and throwing snacks and crayons to the kids. And we can listen to good music instead of the Wiggles or Sesame Street (not that I don't love a good Ladybug Picnic).

What we didn't expect was that Tim's dad would want to drive down with us... commit to 12+ hours in the car watching Disney movies and napping in an upright position. Especially since he could have flown down with Tim's mom and been there in a couple hours. But rotating 3 drivers behind the wheel would lessen the strain on all of us so we snatched him up when he offered. Plus, come on! Doesn't this look fun?

So here's how our drive went:
5:00 pm starting our journey, all smiles, excitement looking ahead to our vacation

7:30 why did I have to eat that chicken fried chicken at Cracker Barrel? I can feel that gravy congealing in my arteries while I sit here... all semblance of the healthy eating plan is out the window in preparation for the cruise

9:00 the way we've positioned the seats and cargo, there is enough space for me to curl up on the floor of the van. I don't sleep while sitting, so I finagle my way onto the floor with some pillows and am almost as comfy as I'd be in a bed... well, ok maybe that's a stretch, but it's not bad

12:30 I'm awake, it's my turn to drive. We're just pulling out of a gas station in NC when BAM a giant splatter of bird poop hits the windshield, right in my line of sight. What kind of bird is even awake this late?

1:00 I'm enjoying my quiet ride, everyone is asleep. Tim is using a roll of paper towels as a blanket, poor thing!

1:45 Wow does South Carolina have a TON of adult video stores! Glad the kids are asleep and not reading these billboards!

2:30 What in the world is Claire doing awake?! She's in a half awake dazed slumber mumbling "Mommy Hand, Mommy Hand." So now I'm holding her hand while sitting sideways in my seat. Great. Why did I sign up for the midnight - 4am shift?

3:00 Now Claire is watching a movie. At least I have my hand back. My numb, purple, dead hand.

3:30 There's Mr. Pete's Pecans and Gas... there's a store I think we'll pass on

4:00 Someone else's turn to drive, I'm heading back to sleep...

7:30 Look out Tampa, the Erny's have arrived! We're looking for a Bob Evans for breakfast and Ryan is complaining that he slept through all of South Carolina, he really wanted to see that state! Bummer for him, maybe on the way back he can check out the "Gentleman's Clubs" ugh, we'll have to find another distraction for him, or at least an alternate explanation for what those places are!

Multi-tasking

I am hardcore. I've gone to the dark side. I will not miss my workout to cuddle and coddle this baby of mine. I am tired of her going to sleep at 10:30 or 11 and leaving me with no me time in the evenings. So today I had a crazy thought... and stumbled on a new multi-tasking endeavor- weight lifting and cardio all at once! She loved being in the backpack and kept saying "Giddy-up Mommy" (thanks Tim). 28 minutes into my workout the bouncing suddenly slackened and it felt like she doubled her weight. Finally. Asleep. Apparently she is just as hardcore as I am. Let's set the score at Mommy=1, Night Owl=0.

I carefully finished and stealthly, smoothly climbed off the pedals and maneuvered her ever so cautiously to the bed. I was nice and sweaty so the backpack slid right off and I was absolutely positive she was still fast asleep as I peeled her out and laid her gently on the bed. I was just turning to finally breathe and walk away when I caught her out of the corner of my eye. She was smiling up at me from the pillow and whispered, "Boobie Time?" Grrr. And the score's even.

This is how much she loves the pool...

BeBe Choot On!! BeBe Choot On!! This is what I hear all day long, Claire chanting, asking if it's time to get her bathing suit on.... She is never satisfied, even if we spent the entire day at the pool, and so far 4 hours is the max for Ryan and Katie, Claire is still digging her fingernails into the door frame of the locker room as we try to pry her from her beloved pool.

The English Lesson

We have seriously dumbed down our speech around here. I know you're not supposed to use baby talk when interacting with your baby, and you should explain everything just as you would want it explained to you when talking to a toddler. We've never done it before, but this time around with Claire, we have really dropped the ball on vocabulary expansion. We use sentences like:

Mommy do it.
Mommy hold it
Daddy take it
No touch!

She uses the same types of sentences to communicate with us. So we're all on the same level. Tim and I talk to each other like this when the kids aren't even around. Caveman speak, or cavebaby speak... it's very efficient. And completely unnecessary for a child who will frequently take the child safety locks off the cabinet doors, dig around for what she needs in the cabinet, and then put the safety locks back on...

Score: Wall-3, Katie-0

This was a bad week for Katie's head. She slammed into 3 different walls and got 3 head injuries. I am a pretty calm person, I don't get rattled too easily, but the first time Katie slammed into the wall at my parents house, my mother gasped so loud she nearly sucked in all the air from the room, which contributed to Katie's panic. We held her down with an ice pack for so long, that the goose egg didn't get very large, and the bruise is already fading to a lovely yellowish gray. Thank goodness too, because our big family trip is coming up soon, and nothing would look worse in our family pictures than a huge purple lump on her forehead.

The next head injury was right under her eye. Again, forced ice pack, lots of screaming, and the bruise and swelling was pretty minor considering the force with which she she hit the wall.

The last incident was much worse, at least for me because there was a lot of blood involved. And we were at a friend's house... what could be worse than bleeding all over your friend's house? Katie suddenly was calling my name and stumbling toward me down the hall. None of the other kids could really tell us what happened, just that she must have tripped and fell into a corner. As she got closer to me, I could tell something was wrong, one half of her head was red. Like a horror movie. It started dripping down onto her shoulder, that's when she noticed it and started shrieking. I couldn't even see where the cut was, her hair was all matted and sticky with blood. We laid her up on the kitchen counter and used the hose from the sink to rinse the blood out. Eventually I found the source, and it was a pretty small cut, less than half an inch, but apparently head injuries come with massive amounts of blood. My friend assured me that her kids had all had much worse, deeper cuts than this on their heads and were turned away from the ER without stitches or staples. An hour on the couch auietly resting and watching tv, Katie was cured. What a rough week for her head... I wonder how many brain cells died during those ordeals...

Random Tidbits

1. Add these to the list of keys that have been broken off my keyboard: control, alt, d,z,x,c,b and esc. So now I have to guess where the z and x are because I never really knew. Thank goodness I hardly ever have to use them. Claire brought them all over to me announcing, "I broke it!" Like that was her goal for the day. She was so proud. Last week it was my space bar. Luckily it kinda snapped back on and works almostallthetime.

2. Our washer and dryer are stacked, and up on the top of the dryer is where I store a bunch of lunch boxes, coolers and insulated bags. Why do we have 13 of these things? 3 I can see, one for each kid. Oddly enough, not one of them is big enough to store all the drinks and snacks we need when we have a day trip planned so we end up using one of the bigger coolers from the garage anyway. Every time I do a load of laundry, and that would be at least once a day, no fewer than 4 of them tumble right off the top of the dryer. Today I am going to find them a new home.

3. I discovered that Tim has an emergency golf shirt in his trunk with his clubs. As in, "Honey, I had a golfing emergency today, I'll be home late, the guys wanted to catch a quick 18 holes..." hmmm, sounds a little like premeditation to me.

4. Katie made a "Do Not Disturb" sign for her bedroom door. She told me that when she takes it down I am allowed to go in there and clean it... well, how do you like that? Hmmph.

5. For 2 days in a row I have raced into our room as an afterthought and put a diaper on Claire while she napped. She is sooo into her big girl panties now- the ones that have Minnie Mouse on them- that she refuses to wear a diaper. I tend to forget during the day how close we are to soggy carpets and puddles. Do you know how hard it is to put a diaper on a baby all balled up in the fetal position? And I live in fear that she will wake up and her hour long nap will be even shorter.

6. I recently found out that there is, allowable by FDA standards, up to 6 rat hairs ground up in each jar of peanut butter. Needless to say, this has caused me some distress as peanut butter is a major staple of our diet. I can't bring myself to buy it, and the kids are getting restless- they eat a pb&j sandwich every day for lunch. I should just get past it- the way I made concessions to eating chocolate even after finding out about how many insects are allowable per ounce. This rat thing is just different to me I guess. But if you put them both together, my obsession with Reese Peanut Butter Cups is cured!

7. Claire, "Clue" as she calls herself, or rather, "Baby Clue" finally has allowed me to put her hair in piggytails! She is sooooo cute!!

The Impulse Purchase

There was no way we could leave the store without this...

She was just waaaaay too happy. And I'm a sucker for this kid. And I foolishly allowed the delusion to build in my mind that this might be just the thing that gives her incentive to sleep in her own big girl bed... hmmm. We'll see about that.

Puppy, Puppy, I love you!!!

Boppy-Boopy-Boo

We watched Cinderella. Claire was in awe. After the movie she had her new shiny wand and was dancing around in circles pointing it at each of us singing, "Boppy- Boopy- Boo!!"

Ammo and Too-kie

It was with much nostalgia and bittersweet emotion that I celebrated my baby girl's birthday. We took her to Sesame Place. She was totally starstruck and loved seeing all her favorite characters in the parade and shows. She loved the rides and enjoyed the wading pools and water attractions. Ryan insisted on bringing his wallet so she could pick out something and he could buy it for her, how that melted my heart for her to have such a loving big brother.

The pudgy baby is slowly disappearing from her face, but the sweet spunky toddler that is taking over is one of my favorite things.... well, it would be in the top 3 at least...

In the morning when she woke up we were singing Happy Birthday to her and talking about how she was born, and when Katie woke up and came in to join us, Claire announced, "Happy Birthday Katie!" When we explained that it's only Claire's birthday, her little face lit up and she seemed to understand this day was just going to be all about her. She got a Too-kie monster doll for her birthday, and carried it around snuggling it all day. A trip to the bookstore to buy "Goodnight Gorilla" a favorite book that we've had on renewal from the library for about a year, dinner out and a yummy Cookie Monster cake rounded out this exciting birthday. It's all about the little things, she's so happy and easy to please.

Claire with all her little friends!

Pool Time

Well, I survived my first trip with the kids to the pool for the season. As suspected, Claire was in heaven splashing around in the water. She was squealing and clapping as she ran through the fountains and kept wanting to wade deeper and deeper into the pool, chasing after the big kids. Of course she doesn't realize they are 2 feet taller than she is and can walk around the entire pool without the water ever being above their heads. So I got to get in with her, lucky me! The pool temperature is usually starting to be just right for me around Labor day when it's closing.... I was dreading the freezing temps of early June, but Claire was just so excited, how could I not be excited too?! No pictures of this event... it was crazy enough trying to keep track of this fearless baby without worrying about dropping a camera into the pool.

The only problem came when it was time to go home. She just kept yelling over and over, "NO HOME!!"

The Hand of God...

We did nothing to celebrate our 10th anniversary last year. Actually, not nothing, we spent the evening packing for a vacation- packing being on my list of chores that I hate the most. I hate packing almost as much as unpacking, and sometimes think it might be easier to just never go on vacations just to avoid those 2 unpleasant jobs. Actually, there is a suitcase in the hallway right now from our trip 2 weeks ago still waiting to be unpacked. Maybe I'll just leave the clothes in it for the next trip...


So, since our 10th anniversary was SO lame, we decided that this year we would definitely do something to mark the occasion. Anything, as long as we spent the day together... eventually it was decided that we would go on a hike, see a movie, relax by the pool, and eat out somewhere. My parents offered to play us for the day, God love them, and we sent them out in the morning with directions to the kids' sports events and embarked on our day without responsibilities.




The hike was amazing, exhilerating, and breathtaking. The Billy Goat trail through the Maryland side of Great Falls, definitely one to revisit. As we walked the mile from the parking lot to the trail, we saw warning signs of how risky this hike is, with some people needing a helicopter rescue! Yikes! Allow 4 hours for this hike, one of the most strenuous on the east... But we didn't see anyone coming out of the trail that looked much different than us so we thought we were qualified enough to handle it. And, we had all day if we needed it.




We stopped several times to enjoy the view, watch some rock climbers and kayakers, take pictures, and snack. Photos do not do justice to this beautiful part of our world. Who knew we could be so close to the city, but also right beside this. It was rock scramble after rock scramble with the occasional dirt path thrown in, and of course the intimidating rock wall we had to scale. I was just glad we weren't going the other direction when we arrived at the rocky ledge. Going down it might have been more stressful than going up! Every so often the delicious smell of honeysuckle or gardenias flowed out of nowhere, but we couldn't see any flowers, and butterflies as big as my fist were fluttering everywhere. A perfect day.


We soon found ourselves sitting in an outdoor patio for lunch, right beside a family with 2 whining obnoxious kids. Normally that wouldn't bother us, because we bring our own whining obnoxious kids with us to balance it out... but Tim looked annoyed and wanted to move inside the restaurant instead. They had just gotten their salads, who knows how long they would be there with those kids pouting and fussing. The parents weren't even trying to quiet them down. Just as Tim was reminding me that the whole point of today was to get away from that kind of noise, a huge gust of wind came and blew their table's umbrella up out of it's stand and crashed it down on the table, knocking their plates around. Ahhh, the hand of God. They decided to pack up everything and move inside and suddenly we were there alone to enjoy our meal. A perfect day.



Our next adventure found us poolside with our ipods and books. I haven't enjoyed a few hours of peaceful solitude at the pool like that in a long time. Of course I love playing and splashing around at the pool with the kids, but this was a totally different experience! Eventually we realized we were ready for dinner so we went to Maggie Moos and had a huge ice cream sundae for dinner before catching a late movie. A very full day, but also very relaxing. A perfect day.



The kids got some awesome grandparent bonding time, they went to the movies and out to dinner after their soccer games. By the time we got home that night, they were snuggled up having a sleepover with Gma and Gpa. It was a perfect day for them too.

The Newest Colonial Soldiers

Downtown Philadelphia: we've been wanting to visit for a while, but just never squeezed it into our weekends at Sesame Place over the years. This time, we made a special trip and wanted to do a simple walking tour of the historical downtown area... the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, and Betsy Ross's house were what I was aiming for, anything else would just be icing on the cake.

Everyone walks around dressed in character from the 1700s, it was really something to see. We stumbled onto the most amazing experience for the kids. We heard some fifes playing in a little courtyard and wandered over to take a look... it's always better when you don't try to plan everything out too much..... The next thing I knew, these 2 Army Generals were calling all the kids to come "enlist" for the army and join in for some soldier training. After some gentle prodding, we finally got Ryan to join Katie who had bolted over to the line of children. They paraded the kids away, practicing marching and then handed them some long wooden guns for "Musket Training." I've never seen Katie so excited and happy as when she was swinging that gun around! After their training session they all got little certificates and orders to ship out the following morning at 5am. The rest of the day that's all they could talk about!

The cutest new recruits!

Charge!!!!

A salute!

Claire's Song

I find myself referencing almost anything Claire does as "the cutest thing ever..." but bear with me. She sings now, and it's the cutest thing I've ever heard. She sings Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Itsy Bitsy Spider and the ABCs none of which sound like the actual song, but she has the melodies down so you can guess what she's singing. Her newest trick is to make up her own lyrics. Today, she composed a lovely tribute to 2 of her favorite things in all the world. It went something like this: (to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle)

Mommy, boobies, mommy, boobies

Mommy, boobies, mommy boobies

Mommy, boobies, mommy boobies

Mommy boobies, mommy boobies... tada!

Things to Remember about Camping

We took our first camping trip over Spring Break... just a one nighter- kind of a practice round to see if we're up for "those" kinds of vacations. Which, given my fear of insects, Katie's intolerance of heat, and Claire's innate ability to find sticky substances and smear them all over herself, I had my serious doubts that we could handle it! Plus I'm not keen on sleeping on anything other than my pillowtop mattress. And don't get me started on using leaves to wipe... So here is what I will take away from this experience, and refer back to should we ever attempt to repeat this little adventure.


Don't eat at Sonic. After 3 hours in the car you need a little airing out and leg stretching! And for heaven's sake find a restaurant that uses plates!

Make sure Claire is asleep the entire time the tent is being assembled so she doesn't wander off and get lost.

Learn to assemble tent in less than an hour.

Don't let the most clumsy child carry the lantern. Although, a huge fiery "Pumpkin" moon can be breathtaking and cast enough of a glow to find the way back to the campsite after the lantern was rendered useless.

Roughing it shouldn't involve 2 iPods, a laptop and 2 cell phones... good grief!

S'mores are just too darn messy!

April is a perfect time to camp in the Outer Banks- no bugs are out yet!

People who are afraid of the dark should not drop their lantern/night light!

On any given trip, our van is packed up as perfectly as a Tetris board... each item having its own exact placement in the cargo area. This is Tim's area of specialty. He will spend an hour just packing the car. And then I'll say, "Whoops, I need to grab something out of that bag right there," on the bottom of the stack no doubt. So in the morning after camping, I thought I'd help out and start packing up the bags. Of course I was doing it all wrong and I heard ALL about it...

The Perfect Mother's Day

No, that wasn't sarcasm... this year, Mother's Day was truly a perfect day! I enjoyed breakfast in bed and a nice, long, hot, uninterrupted shower, Tim researched some new projects to do with the kids involving paint and fingerprint poems that I had not heard before. Have I really been out of teaching long enough to have new fingerprint poems written without my knowledge? Then we spent the day hiking and wandering around the old town of Harper's Ferry, WV. There was a beautiful blue sky and fluffy white clouds surrounding us all day.


What an adorable little church from the 1800's! The chiming of the bells welcomed us to town as mass was just getting out. If only we had been a little earlier, we could have gone to church here!
Thomas Jefferson said that the view of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers converging at this point was worth the voyage across the Atlantic. "Really?" Katie commented..."Just a big old rock and some trees?" She has a totally different idea of the ideal view involving a huge field of pink flowers with a rainbow overhead and a pink sunset in the distance!

They did have a good time climbing on Jefferson Rock!
My little hiker!
Look at this cute little tiny town! We ate lunch in the "Rose Garden" of a little restaurant- it felt like we were eating in someone's backyard. We probably were! And when we stopped for ice cream, there were 3 or 4 people in line ahead of us and the cashier was flustered. She made a quick call on her phone saying, "Better get down here right away, we're swamped!" I had to laugh!
We walked along the railroad tracks, hoping a train wouldn't pass by and scare us all to our deaths. They were very loud! And poor Claire fell asleep and missed the ice cream!

One final note for next year, in case we forget about the red berry smoothie stain on the stairs... don't let the clumsiest kid carry the tray of breakfast food!