Voyages in Parenthood

West Point Graduation

2010-05-23T17:30:00.005-04:00

Brock and I got the opportunity to experience an event yesterday that I am so proud to have attended.

A friend of ours, our Best Man in fact, John, was offered tickets to the West Point Graduation. President Obama was going to be giving the commencement speech. So he contacted us and our other good friends, Kate and Evan, to join he and his wife, Eileen. So we asked the Durhams if they could watch Leda until Sat night and we headed north on Friday night.

Due to the large number of people who were going to be descending upon the small town of Highland Falls and the security due to the President's attendance, we needed to arrive in town early...this meant leaving the house by 5:15. AM. In the morning. So we got up REALLY early and headed on over. John's plan was to park at his place of business (John runs the West Point Tour company in the town of Highland Falls), we would have a bit of breakfast at the local greasy spoon (oh, and it was greasy, and GOOD!) and then take a nice walk up to the stadium. And I mean UP to the stadium.

It was a nice walk, we got to see the campus (part of the campus) and we made our way to the Stadium (let me say, West Point has a beautiful campus and a wonderful practice facility! Wow!) We were in our seats by 7:10! We got to watch the non-graduating Cadets file in and take their seats in the section next to us. And the sun rise over the Hudson Valley. And read the news paper. And have some coffee. See, the ceremony wasn't set to start until 10AM!

It was a nice morning. The weather was beautiful and we had wonderful company. And we got to watch all the men (and women) in uniform come on in!

At 9:30 the graduating class, all 1,002 of them, began to march into the stadium. What a sight. Shortly after that, the professors and instructors arrived and then the special guests arrived. Well, except for the President. He was just flying in over the Hudson as the Cadets were marching in.

About 10, the President's motorcade arrived. There was about a 10-15 minute wait, during which, the first 5-7 minutes, the stadium was the quietest I've ever heard a stadium be! And then the calls from the stands to the Cadets on the field started. It was quite comical! Then the President was announced, he came in and was seated. The Ceremony began.

The beginning of the ceremony was fairly quick...National Anthem was played, invocation was given, Opening remarks by the Superintendent and then the President gave his speech. It was a great commencement speech which honored the Cadets on the field. We were happy to learn (and us girls, very proud!) that the two valedictorians of the class were women.

The President handed out degrees to the Honor graduates and stayed on the podium to shake every hand of every graduating Cadet. It was quite a site to watch 1,002 Cadets receive their degrees. After each and everyone was called, we were proud to witness the commissioning of the Cadets. It was quite an honor.

Early on in the ceremony it had occurred to me that I wasn't just watching a college graduation...this ceremony was different from my graduation from college in that these students were not just entering their adult life to go off and become lawyers, doctors, business people. These men and women were more than likely going off to fight in the war. It was quite sobering. And made me even more proud to have been able to attend. It was an honor.

After the commissioning, the Cadets were dismissed, at which time, the Hat Toss happened. Now, I knew about this, it's similar to the tossing of the graduation cap at other colleges and high schools. What I did not know is that in this tradition, the Cadet, who no longer needs the hat, as he/she is no longer a Cadet, will place a note, an address, maybe even money, into his/her hat. The school invites children between the ages of 6 and 10 to come onto the field at the time of the hat toss. And when the hats are tossed, the children are encouraged to go get a hat. They get to keep the hat and become pen pals with the Cadet. What an awesome idea. It was a fun tradition to watch!

It was an awesome day. So happy I got to experience it.

More pictures here!

Cherry Blossoms

2010-04-08T08:36:00.002-04:00

I have been thinking of our neighbor Mrs. Jean this week, mainly because the cherry tree is blossoming and she loved the cherry tree that stands between our two homes. And the flowers are blooming and Jean had a lovely garden.

Her daughter reminded me that it has been a year ago this week that she passed. I am grateful that my memories of her are associated with Spring and rebirth. She was such a lovely lady who deserves to be remembered with joy.

And when the cherries are ripe, we will pick some of them (and leave some for the birds) and make something delicious to eat and invite Mr. George over to join us!

For Grandma

2010-04-06T10:17:00.003-04:00

Just for Grandma...pictures of Leda in her new outfit she got for Easter...oh and some funny sunglasses she got for Halloween!

She was just so darn cute in the glasses!

Easter Monday

2010-04-05T09:09:00.004-04:00

What a weekend. It was absolutely gorgeous.

Saturday we attended our annual Easter Egg hunt and dinner at the Shier's...a large group of friends and kids and good food and just an awesome time. The kids just enjoyed the heck out of the hunt!

Later in the evening, as we sat around the table chatting, Paige came in to tell me that Leda kissed Nathan! Oh really, I said. So I informed Nathan's dad Jim of this little development and proceeded to ask Leda "Where did you kiss Nathan," wondering if it was on the lips or on the cheek. Leda proceeded to walk me out to the patio and pointed to a chair on which Nathan was sitting, "Right there, Mommy." Right, the physical location of the kiss, not the body part that was kissed!

Turns out she had kissed Nathan on the lips. Nathan was looking pretty proud of himself. It proceeded to happen three more times, each time either Paige or Leda let me know about it! Then Leda came up to me and told me she had a secret to tell me..."Mommy, I want Nathan to be my boyfriend, don't tell any other adults!" To which the adults around me and I chuckled pretty loudly about! Very, very cute.

I'm locking her up! ;-)

Sunday was another beautiful day. Spent the entire day outside, after we found out what the Easter Bunny brought (lots of hard-boiled eggs, candy and some Littlest Pet Shop, Polly Pockets and Alice in Wonderland DVD for Leda!)

We cleaned off the patio, started to prepare the garden, got the fountains installed and running. I celebrated by sitting outside reading a book.

I'm not sure if I overdosed on Vitamin D, but around 4 or so I started getting cold and hot and feeling very achy all over. Ended up with a low grade fever which put me in bed after dinner. Not sure what that was all about because I feel good this morning (other than being tired!)

So, it's back to school for Leda and back to work for me. We are going to be going to the beach next weekend, so this week is going to be VERY long! ;-)

Underwater

2010-04-01T08:56:00.002-04:00

That's what I feel like I am...underwater! I was doing well until Monday afternoon and even a little on Tuesday but then the stuff hit the fan...

Work is a bit busy at the moment (not totally a bad thing, just making me crazy!) so I haven't had much of a chance to take pictures or update the blog or even enjoy the sun that made a reappearance yesterday after several days missing!

I'm hoping that after the weekend, things will be a little more normal, at least for a little while. I unfortunately have to work on Saturday, but hopefully can go enjoy the egg hunt on Saturday afternoon and a nice dinner with friends!

I'm really looking forward to a weekend at the shore house with the Durham's next week! I don't even care that we are doing work around the house! ;-)

Rainy Spring Days

2010-03-30T19:42:00.002-04:00

...don't inspire for good pictures. That and a very busy two days of work make me cranky and not interested in blogging. So, no picture taken today...

Instead, have I told you how much my kid loves sushi? And not that fake sushi roll stuff her mother eats either...nope, she likes the real stuff. On our way home from Grandpa's house a few weeks back, we stopped at our local Wegman's to see what we could find for dinner. They actually have a sushi bar there...a real working sushi bar with real sushi chefs who will make it while you wait! So we stopped there and Leda pointed out what she wanted...salmon sushi - you know, with the big piece of salmon lying on the pod of rice? Yep, and a salmon roll along with it. That's what she wanted.

So we got that home and she dug in...except she really didn't care to eat the rice along with the salmon, just the salmon. Yes, she is her father's daughter!

Girls Only Weekend

2010-03-29T14:11:00.002-04:00

With Brock off playing with race cars this weekend, it was just me and Leda. We had a few things planned for the weekend, to keep us busy. First off was getting dinner on Friday night and since I had to work on Friday and didn't feel like figuring out what to have for dinner, we headed off for dinner at McDonald's. Yes, bad mother that I am, I fed the kid fast food! Good thing it's always treated as a special treat and doesn't happen very often!

We got home and made popcorn and sat down to watch Where the Wild Things Are. We were really looking forward to seeing this movie as it is one of Leda's favorite books. It wasn't a bad movie, just depressing. Not as uplifting as I hoped. And both of us were in tears by the end. It is hard to comfort your kid when you are crying as well! [Spoiler ahead]

I tried to explain to Leda, who was almost as uncontrollably upset as she was when she watched Marley with us, that it was a happy ending, that Max got to go home to his Mommy. She was very upset that he left the Wild Things. I told her that he could go visit, I am sure that his Mommy would let him visit, thinking that might make her feel better. I added, that if she wanted to go visit the Wild Things, I would let her. She matter-of-fact told me, "Mommy, it's not for real, it's pretend." She had me there. And she was calm enough to go to sleep.

On Saturday we shopped. We straightened up and cleaned part of the house. We played in the backyard. We had a really nice day.

Knocking 'monkey balls' out of the sycamore tree - thank goodness she doesn't have allergies:

Saturday night we watched the Kid's Choice Awards on Nickelodeon. Leda really wanted to watch and really wanted iCarly to win best show (which it did). It was an interesting experience. My kid was so cute, dancing around to Rhianna and Justin Bieber, even though it was my worst fear realized - she's interested in the preteen music scene. Oh well, it could be worse, NSync could still be around!

She was jumping around and she all of a sudden said, "Mommy, watch this..." and she jumped up and put her legs out in front of her like she was going to land on her butt on a trampoline. Problem is, she was over the hard wood floor of the living room! She landed with a thud before I could stop her. There was crying, and there was complaining that her butt hurt - she probably bruised it pretty good. But luckily she's okay. Okay, I laughed. After I found that she was okay. 'Cause, well, it was kinda funny!

On Sunday we met up with Paige and Aunt Jennifer for some lunch and a visit to the nail salon. Leda's first pedicure! She was very cute and had a great time.

We came home to veg out in front of the TV to watch the new Free Willy movie with Bindi Irwin. Again, there was some crying at the end by both of us (okay, so I am a big fat sap!). Afterwards, made ourselves a nice little pasta dinner and had a fun banana and pudding parfait that I made for Leda.

All in all, a great weekend. Even with the chilly and overcast weather. We are looking forward to temps in the 70s next weekend for the Easter Egg hunt on Saturday!

Office Mates

2010-03-26T11:55:00.002-04:00

These are my office mates:

I love the laughing Buddha. He makes me happy. I have these two sitting on my desk, just next to my computer. I think I was hoping they would make me happy while I am trying to fix some customer issues....sometimes it works, other times, not so much! ;-)

I have two other Buddhas sharing my office, big enough that they can't fit on my desk. I would love more. Like I said, they make me happy.

And who doesn't wanna be happy on a Friday! Awesome!

Recent Visitor

2010-03-25T17:14:00.002-04:00

Day three of the take-a-picture-every-day and I've already Failed! Due to work, I haven't had a chance to take a picture yet today. Oh well. Best intentions. I could take a photo of my office, but I'd rather not see that picture, I spend enough time in my office!

So, instead, how about a picture of a recent visitor we had in our yard. This lady came for a visit the day before we got hit with our first 18 inches or so of snow in February. She was just sitting in the tree outside my office window so I grabbed the camera and went outside to grab a few photos. There were some nasty crows hounding her, they finally scared her off.

I am pretty sure she's been hanging around our neck of the woods for a few months, maybe even a year now. We catch sight of hawks every once in awhile, but you hear them more often than see them!

She was a beauty.

Picture Day!

2010-03-24T08:56:00.002-04:00

Today is picture day at school. Hopefully she smiles for the photographer. Because she was not smiling for me this morning.

She's wearing her Easter outfit for the picture. It's the dress she picked out all on her own. I wanted her to wear something else, a little more colorful than white and pink, but the skirt I bought her to wear is too big! I couldn't win! Had to let her wear the Easter outfit. She was thrilled (even though the look on her face doesn't portray that!)

Taking Photos

2010-03-23T12:04:00.002-04:00

I'm having a bit of writer's block. Bear with me!

I downloaded a bunch of photos from my camera and realized that I hadn't done that in over a month! Also, I didn't take any photos in January!

I've been bad about taking photos in the past year. I'm not sure why. I've tried to make a resolution (not for new years, just an every day resolution) to take a picture a day (at least) in the past and wasn't really good at keeping it! I'm renewing that today.

I think I am trying to get myself out of the winter funk that I tend to get into just about every winter...the weather is getting warmer, the sun is getting brighter (when it is out). I'm going to do my part to try and come out of hibernation and rejoin the world. I'll try to do that with words, but if words fail, hopefully a picture will do. And maybe that will get me updating the blog more regularly and taking more pictures!

So, Picture of the Day: Leda!

Publish or Perish

2010-03-11T19:52:00.003-05:00

Leda is very into spelling things out on paper...she will ask you to spell something and she will write it out on paper.

Salt
Watch
Robot
Wood
Metal
Family
Mommy
Daddy

She will ask for the names of her friends, her cousins, her family members. We oblige either by spelling it out or writing it down on post-its.

She has drawn pictures and then wrote out 'Happy Birthday' or 'I love the family' or a description of the picture. She will write out things she sees on books, cereal boxes, TV.

She started doing this about three or so weeks ago. She can't seem to get enough words. She's gotten to the point where she knows some words now, she doesn't need to ask us to spell them.

Tonight, she made a 'magazine' that she is going to give to her Grandpa. Makes me wonder, with writers and magazine editors in her family, is this a sign of what she will become? She loves to tell stories with pictures and words. It's amazing.

My Bucket List

2010-03-01T17:41:00.004-05:00

Attending the Olympics is on my Bucket List. In fact, I would say it is at the very top. I would LOVE to go to an Olympic event (or two or three or as many as I can get tickets for!) I would LOVE to attend an Opening or Closing Ceremony. Part of me would be perfectly happy if I could just go to a city that is holding an Olympics and just hang out!

Leda watched the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics with us last month - she fell asleep half way through but she put in a good effort. Since most of the events were after her bedtime, she didn't really watch much the rest of the two weeks, except some highlights with me or on the news.

She saw the women's ice hockey team highlights and pointed and said, "Mommy, I want to do that." Just after were figure skating highlights which I pointed out to Leda suggesting that maybe she would like to do that, to which she responded, barely looking up, "No, I want to play hockey."

On the last day of the Olympics, we watched the USA vs. Canada Men's ice hockey final. Wow, what a game. I'm not a huge hockey fan, in fact, I know nothing of hockey except for when the puck goes in the net, it's a score! I'm thinking I can get used to watching hockey if my kid plays - not sure I'm going to be totally comfortable because, man, is it a violent sport! (okay, yes, so is football! At least football players aren't wearing knives on their feet and carrying big sticks!!)

I think we will be taking Leda to a hockey game this year - we'll start with the minor league Hershey Bears! We'll see how she handles it. Maybe in a few years we can graduate to a Flyers game or two!

If I'm lucky, I might make it to an Olympics - maybe to watch my kid play. That would be awesome!

Winter 2009-2010

2010-02-25T19:21:00.004-05:00

Oh my what a winter this has been. We've received more snow this winter than any winter on record (that according to the record keeping people). In all honesty, it has felt like we have received more snow than any other place on earth! Okay, I have been known to exaggerate!

It all started the weekend before Christmas. We got about 18 inches or so that day. It was kinda awesome, because it was over the weekend and we got to play. And I went shopping on Sunday with 1 other person! It was pretty awesome. All that snow was pretty non-existent on Christmas, but it was nice to have the snow.

After that, little nuisance snows here and there. Nothing that accumulated or anything that needed to be shoveled. In fact, thought we pretty much dodged the bullet, which was kind of a bummer, as I really wanted it to snow good!

And then came February!

February 6th we got about 18 inches of snow. On a Saturday, so I got to play! When it snows during the week, working from home, I don't get the day off and I can't play in it. So a weekend snow fall is awesome. I just wish we had gotten more!! Yes, I wished we got more!

Then we got more! On February 9th and 10th we got snow! Another 19 inches of snow! I was bummed about it though, I really wanted to play in it, but had to work. And this one was a wet snow and it may have killed a few of my bushes around the house! It sure was pretty though!

And we got little bits of snow here and there until today and tomorrow, when we are to get about 4 inches more of snow but lots of possibly damaging winds.

I'm about sick of snow. Not only has the ground been white for about 3 weeks, we are watching the Winter Olympics and see nothing but snow, so it's been enough snow for me for a life time! And, apparently, this winter is not yet finished with us!

Although I've got a bit of a tug of war going on. I'm sick of snow, so I am happy we aren't getting the 10-16 inches of snow the weatherman suggested with this present system, but then I'm kinda pissed that we are only getting maybe 4 inches out of it. If we are gonna get snow, snow big! Make it worth it!

Here's to Spring. And getting done with the snowiest winter on record!

Artist-In-Residence

2010-02-24T15:56:00.002-05:00

Leda has been very prolific artist the past year or so. It used to be that when she wanted something drawn on paper, or made with play doh, she made Brock and I do it - she would tell us what to draw, and we would draw it.

But since she started preschool last year, she's produced an abundance of art work. And not just what they make at school, she has used at least a ream of paper from my office to create her drawings or paintings.

There is not enough space on our refrigerator or on the walls of the kitchen or my office door or her bedroom door for all the artwork. And these include pages that she has ripped out of coloring books and colored. She has even made drawings for her friends and loves stuffing them in envelopes and asking us to put a stamp on it and mail it!

She is very creative. She has made drawings that describe everything she's done in a day - almost like story boards or comic books. I have kept just about everything she's drawn - I just don't have the space for it! But I can't get rid of it. It's something my child has made!

When she becomes famous for her art work, she can put all this early work on eBay and make TONS of money to take care of me with in my old age! ;-)

Blog Revisited

2010-02-22T19:01:00.004-05:00

I've decided to publish my blog as a book (or series of books) for Leda to read when she is a little older. So I spent some time on Friday night 'slurping' my blog with Blurb and reviewing the first couple of months of posts.

The idea to publish the blog has been rolling around in this head of mine for awhile. I think Brock and I saw something on the news about it or something in the past couple of months. And then I registered Leda for Kindergarten last week and they handed me a questionnaire to fill out and return when Leda goes back for her testing for placement. Some of the questions asked when she first spoke, first walked, etc. I thought to myself, I'm going to have to go back and read through my blog to find out these things!

This is the only 'baby' book I really kept on Leda - except for the first few months when I actually did fill out the baby book I got for my shower! This was easier - I could put it down in my own words and share it with family and friends.

I got nostalgic for the blog. I realized there are many months missing from our lives with Leda since I basically stopped posting last summer. She's changed so much in such a short little while and I hope I can remember without written documentation!

I think Facebook and Twitter have made me lazy - I only have a few characters or must make my status short. I can't describe things the way I can in a blog post. So I am thinking that it is time to revisit the blog. Start writing again. Besides, if I do say so myself (and considering I am the only one person reading this anyway!), I think I am pretty witty once in awhile! ;-)

So, here's to picking up not exactly where I left off. We'll see where it takes us!

End of Summer, 2009

2009-09-22T19:45:00.006-04:00

Yeah, Yeah, I know, I was gonna try and update the blog on a more regular basis. Oh well, best intentions and all. I have to admit, with Facebook and the advent of updating everyone in 140 characters or less (albeit, Facebook allows a few more than 140 characters), it's hard to come up with something more substantial for the blog.

I've not given up on it yet. Maybe as the days get shorter and cooler, I'll have more to say.

In any case, here's an update! A little send off to Summer 09! Brock and Leda and I (and Duff) headed down to Avalon this past weekend to have on last beach hurrah...or as Leda has taken to calling, our goodbye to Beach World until next year. It also happened to be our 11th wedding anniversary, so we made a celebration out of it.

We headed down on Friday after Leda's school let out and got down to the house and out to the beach by about 3:30ish. The day was a bit overcast, with the sun peaking through more often than not, a little on the cool side, but still shorts and maybe a sweat shirt for the beach. But not my girl. No, my child went swimming. In the ocean! No fear and no feeling of cold in that kid! Actually, the water was still a bit warm - actually felt good...not cold enough to keep Leda from wading in as far as I would let her go (and then some - she pushes the boundaries on a regular basis!)

There weren't a lot of people on the beach. There was a couple with their two little children surf fishing next to the tidal pool. We started to walk in the tidal pool when I noticed some type of fish, until I got a closer look and realized they were sharks! Okay, so they weren't BIG sharks...just little sand sharks, maybe 15 or so inches long and all a sand shark might do to you is, well, nothing! Then we saw two, then three...then come to find that the couple that is fishing, well, they are catching the sand sharks and throwing them in the pool to play with. There were like 10 sharks swimming in this pool! They kept trying to beach themselves toward the incoming tide, so when he could, Brock would grab one and walk him the few feet across the sand to the incoming tide. It was neat playing with them, but sad that they were so intent to get back into the ocean that they would try to beach themselves. Thank goodness the tide was coming in!

On Saturday morning we lounged around for awhile, then got dressed and headed down to the Wetlands Institute for the Wings and Water weekend. We've never been to the institute, and of course we had to go on their biggest weekend of the year. Well, maybe not the biggest, but they had a big ta-do all over the island this weekend. Great thing was the tickets we paid for got us two days of lots of things we could do. We got to see the Peabody Ducks march (kinda like watching the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, once you seen it, you can say you've seen it and you are done!), we got to see the turtles they were going to be releasing into the wild that day (in fact, we kinda helped!), we got to play with turtles and starfish and horseshoe crabs and snakes and geckos and all kinds of fun stuff at the institute.

After a little lunch and a marshy walk to watch the release of the turtles, we headed back down to the beach for a little fun - on our way down, we saw a wild turkey! Then back to the house for showers and then off to an awesome anniversary dinner at Blackfish Stone Harbor. Blackfish was awesome. Food was great, service was great, company was awesome! Leda fell asleep about half through dinner, but it was a good night. We headed home, put the baby to bed, watched a few movies and then caught a good nights sleep before our last day at the beach.

Sunday was another gorgeous day. I was moving a little slower on Sunday as I had a bit too much fun the night before! But we did get down to the beach - all of us, Duff included! We met a family on the beach who were trying to help a large horseshoe crab back into the ocean (as it was still alive) and we chatted with them a bit while Leda swam in the ocean. As we walked we found lots of fun shells and Leda and Duff chased the seagulls. Toward the end of our walk, we got to see dolphins playing in the surf! It was an awesome walk.

We headed back to shower and headed off to Avalon Community Center for the Wings and Water art show and had a little lunch before taking in the beautiful paintings, carvings and photography. Then, back to the beach for some more swimming and beach combing. We saw more dolphins and played with hermit crabs we found in the tidal pools. It was a beautiful day. We hated to see it go.

We said our goodbyes to the beach, cleaned up the house and headed home from Beach World. It was a beautiful weekend and we soaked up as much Vitamin D as we could to get us through the winter. We are already looking forward to going back to the shore next year!

Click here to see all the photos from our weekend!

Leda Envokes Grandma

2009-08-26T19:34:00.004-04:00

So, I'm filling up the bathtub for Leda's bath and she and I are having a discussion about how much water we will be filling said bathtub with - Leda believes it should be filled almost to the top, leaving an inch or two from the edge of the tub. Whereas I, being the conservator of water that I am, have told her that we won't be filling it that high!

Leda looks at me, and in all seriousness says to me, "Remember what Grandma says, always do what you want to do!" I asked Leda when Grandma told her this little gem of advice and she told me it was when we were visiting her in May. Leda seems to think that this statement means she can do whatever she wants to do and if she wants to have the bathtub filled to the top, well, Grandma said so!

So, what did I tell Leda, as I turned off the water at the point at which I wanted it filled? "Guess what? Grandma isn't here...and Mommy trumps Grandma!"

Sorry Mom! ;-)

4 Going on 15

2009-08-21T13:53:00.002-04:00

I know that when she actually is 15, I'm going to be wishing for these days when she 'acts' like a teenager. I know. I know.

But when you say something to your 4 year old daughter and she turns to her babysitter (who actually is 15) and rolls her eyes and shakes her head with teenager attitude as if to say, "geez, is my mother ever so uncool? Like duh!" I just shudder with fear of what she really will be at 15! And how uncool I will end up being! And dudes, I can be pretty darn cool...really! Oh, shut up!

Shore was a Beauty!

2009-08-17T19:40:00.024-04:00

What an excellent week we had last week as we spent the whole week down the Jersey Shore with our friends the Durham's (Jennifer, John and Paige) and Jennifer's brother, Steve (AKA Uncle Beek), and the family dogs, Duff, Max and Ruby!

Vacation started nice and early on Saturday morning, finalized the packing of the car and all three humans and one dog loaded up and off we went in hopes to make it down to Avalon by about 9 am to do the grocery shopping and get to the house by 10 am. We didn't do too bad, we made it to the house by 10:30 am. We got our unpacking done and putting the groceries away and by the time we were done, the Durham's arrived. We got them unpacked, the tent up in the backyard (where Uncle Beek got to sleep so he could be unmolested by the three dogs in the living room!) and after a quick bite for lunch (and off to Kohler's to put in our donut order for Sunday morning), we were off to the beach! Wow, we NEVER get to the beach on Saturday!

The beach was beautiful. And the water was WARM! I swear it only got warmer throughout the week. It was glorious! And Leda, man, is she her mother's daughter...walked right into that ocean and let the waves knock her around, but got herself right back up and walked right back in. I swear she was body surfing before we headed back to the house on that first day!

And basically, except for a few deviations, that was our week! We had great weather...when it rained, it rained at night and though it was hot, the breeze felt good and the water was so nice! We made it to the beach most every day (except 2, I think!)

On Sunday, after picking up our lot of Kohler's donuts for the week (Yum!) Uncle Beek, John and Paige and Leda and I walked across the street and went to Church. Now, it's been quite some time since I had been in a Catholic Church for a Sunday service but John and Paige were going and Leda wanted to go with Paige. I figured what the heck, right...We got seated and Leda looked all around, checked out all the stain glass windows, the missals, the people coming in and as soon as the processional started, she leaned over to me and said, "Mommy, I don't like Church, it's boring!" Oh, boy, was this going well! Well, we somehow made it through the mass and Leda even said hello and shook the hand of the Priest as we left the building. And I wasn't struck down by the hand of God! It was a good morning all in all!

Later that night, after a bike ride, a trip down to the beach again, a great seafood dinner, we were treated to an awesome thunderstorm...nature's fireworks. The sunset that occured during the storm that seemed to pass just to our south, but showed some awesome lightening strikes was beautiful...like the sky was on fire. And yes, I got pictures!

On Monday, Paige came down with a stomach bug which kept her and Jennifer in bed and back at the house for the day. Brock and I took Leda down to the beach and John joined us for a few minutes while Uncle Beek took a bike ride to Cape May and back (he's nuts! ;-) By Tuesday, Paige was feeling better, so we headed out for a boat ride out into the ocean. It was a sunny and hot day, but it felt nice on the boat. The ocean was an experience! We'd been out there once before, but only for a brief ride up and back when Leda was but a baby. This time, the guys were going to attempt a little fishing and we were thinking about having a little lunch out there!

As we motored down the coast, just off the beaches of Avalon, we noticed schools of fish jumping out of the water, making it look as if it were boiling. We were wondering what was making them do that when all of a sudden, just off the boat toward the shoreline, we saw them...a pod of dolphins! There must have been 6 or 7 or maybe even 8 of them, swimming around out there! It was just so awesome! And, heck yes, I got pictures!

Click on this one and then click on All Sizes and select Large or Original...you can see the dolphin's faces!

After the dolphins swam off, the boat was turned off and the guys got to fishing. The kids were down in the cabin watching videos and I was about to break open my book when Leda came up and announced she wasn't feeling well. Oh boy, we thought that now she had come down with what Paige had had the day before. And not in a great place either! She said she was hungry, and that was probably why her tummy hurt, so Jennifer got her some applesauce and she seemed better. It was about that time that we see the dolphins again, a little closer, but off the bow of the boat out toward the ocean. And yes, we got more pictures (Jennifer was on the bow of the boat and got these, as she was closer!)

Better yet, I got video! Not the best, but it's still video! (and ignore the yelling a screaming...we were all a little amazed by the whole thing!)

Not a few minutes after that, Leda came back up on deck and announced she really didn't feel well. Lucky for us we had a bucket, and after a few false alarms, she let go...turns out our little sailor gets a little seasick when out on the rolling ocean! Poor thing. She ended up falling asleep in my arms while I tried to fight the seasick feeling myself. The boys, after failing to catch anything, decided to pack it in and motor back into the bay. After we made it back into the bay, there were some munchies pulled out and the kid, who had slept for about a half hour, woke up and had a few chips...yep, thank goodness it wasn't the stomach bug, just seasickness, but she got over it quick!

After we made it back to the house, had a late lunch, we headed back down to the beach for some fun in the sun and sand and surf! It was another beautiful beach day.

Wednesday was a little overcast. There were threats of storms, so we decided, after a late big breakfast to head off to Wildwood and walk the boardwalk and ride the rides for the afternoon before heading home for a late dinner. Boy did we have fun. Leda rode a bunch of rides, the penultimate being the Log Flume (twice!) and the Ferris Wheel (while her mother will ride the log flume without much issue, she was firmly planted on the boardwalk during the ride on the Ferris Wheel!) There was game playing in the arcade and some french fries were eaten and some boardwalk games were played! We visited all three amusement piers (there were a lot of 'barking dogs' that night!) and Uncle Beek was the bravest of us all and rode two Xtreme bungee type rides! (yep, told you he was nuts! ;-)

It threatened to rain all day, but, despite a few rain drops here and there, it was another good day. Hot, but good. Thursday was another beauty, when the wind was back off the ocean (meaning no biting flies!) and so we made it down the beach again! Leda and I came back a little early because she got sand in the eye (it was a bit windy on the beach!) and later that evening, Clamfest 2009 commenced...the boys bought 75 little neck and larger clams for appetizer and Uncle Beek made linguine in clam sauce for dinner. Leda joined the boys in the devouring of the little clams (she likes those best!) and we have video to prove that you are never too young to love eating clams!

Friday was another beach day, our last in fact. We spent a good portion of the day on the beach and in the surf. Even Jennifer made it out into the warm water! Wow! Uncle Beek went for another bike ride (shorter this time, probably due to getting a nail in the tire and having to have the bike repaired!) and didn't join us on the beach, but we think he tired himself out the day before when he spent like 4 hours in the water boogie boarding! Yes, 4 hours, non-stop!!!! Again, nuts! But we love him! ;-)

Saturday we packed up the cars, cleaned the house and headed home. And somehow took a different way home and missed all the going home traffic! Yes, we will be taking that route home again! We had a blast at the beach again this year, due to the great weather, but mostly due to the wonderful vacation companions we have! Even Ruby the crazy-chew-everything-wake-me-up-every-morning dog! ;-) Can't wait until next year!!

Click here to view pictures from the week!

This Is Not The End!

2009-08-16T08:54:00.005-04:00

It's been over a month since my last post! I've never gone so long! Since facebook came along, I've ignored updating the blog. I'd actually thought about closing it up, but not really sure I want to do that just yet.

I'm working on a post about our week down the Jersey Shore last week. Complete with pictures! I'll post that later today or tomorrow. After that, I think I will start posting a little more, maybe twice a week....see if I can get back that blogging vibe!

Snippets of Life

2009-07-07T20:48:00.002-04:00

Life is going good around here. So good, I just can't find the time to post to my blog! So here's some snippets of our life lately.

Weekend before last we headed up to Grandpa and Nana Yates' house for the weekend. We saw Nana Pam, Grandpa, Nana Rose, Aunt Stacy and Uncle Todd! And Miss Stephanie stopped by for a chat and Missy did too! We swam and played and had lots of fun. Leda told me "I love you, even when you're cranky." It was a great weekend.

Drawing with Grandpa:

We went and saw fireworks and a band play music in downtown Phoenixville for First Friday/Independence Day. It was lots of fun and the fireworks were awesome, even if some buildings were in the way. I mean, how can fireworks not be good while the band plays "Free Bird" (very well, I might add) behind you! It was great.

We spent 4th of July with the Aunt Jennifer, Uncle John, Aunt Karen, Uncle Chris and Paige at the Durhams. Lots of swimming and good food and good friends. And a fine home fireworks show by us and the neighbors!

Tonight, Leda got out of bed and asked me what I was doing up, when was I going to bed. I asked her why and she said, "Because it's past your bedtime." How do they grow up so fast?

This weekend Brock will race in the 24 hours of LeMons in CT. Leda and I are going to go, but luckily, we booked a hotel with a pool, in case a little one gets bored being at the race track! For her sake, as there could be more trips to race tracks in her future, I hope she doesn't get too bored!

Hopefully I'll post more in July than I did in June! I may have to start doing Tour de France updates! That's what I'm spending the next several weeks drooling over! Go Lance and Team Astana!

Oh, and my Garden, it's just blooming away...my glads...

Blame it on the Rain

2009-06-24T17:59:00.002-04:00

I know, no posting = bad blogger. But it's been raining here for ~~40 days and 40 nights~~ most of the month and we've seen the sun so rarely I believe that I am suffering Seasonal Affective Disorder in JUNE!

Besides that, we really haven't done anything fun since I last posted, except for this past Saturday night when we went to the Jimmy Buffett concert! That was a blast and a half! Leda stayed the night with Paige so Brock and I had the evening to ourselves, didn't have to worry about getting home to relieve the babysitter, so we even stopped on the way home for a beer. At a bar. A real beer in a real bar. Exciting stuff!

The weather people keep telling us that the weather pattern will be changing soon. Which means we will go from REALLY WET to REALLY HOT and feeling WET (humid). Well, at least everything is green (of course, most of it is moss and mildew!) so things look pretty!

My garden has exploded, so I apparently planted well for monsoon season. I'm thinking, when I have a good weekend (i.e., not raining!) I might be moving some things around. We'll see about that. I definitely have ideas of how I will plant things next year! I'm quite happy with how things are growing. I will have to start coming up with more recipes that use tarragon though, because I have a TON of it!

We are going to head on up to visit with Brock's parents this weekend so I expect I'll have some fun things to post next week. Until then, I will refrain from giving my review of Real Housewives of NJ (Oh.My.Goodness, what a mess!)

Parenting FAIL

2009-06-07T19:42:00.004-04:00

DISCLAIMER: If you haven't seen Marley and Me and have no idea what the movie is about and plan to see it in the future, please don't read any further. There are spoilers!

So Friday night, after dinner, Leda asked if we could watch a movie. We said, sure, let's see what is available On Demand...Look, Marley and Me is available and we haven't seen it yet, would you like to see that. Leda would LOVE to see the movie of the book she got for Christmas (only her Marley book from Christmas isn't quite the same as the book the movie is actually based on, but what the hay, it's a PG movie, doesn't look to be too bad and isn't a movie that Brock and I have seen a billion times already!

Here's the first failure of the night. I read the book the movie is based on (it's is a good book, I recommend it!) so I am quite aware of what happens at the end of the movie. Not even thinking that this is a bad idea! That was the first failure!

Anyhoo, we get the movie started and we are all quite enjoying it. About, oh, maybe a half hour in or so, there's a montage while the lead character voices over about all the things they did in a year...a quick 5 minute review of a year to get you up to speed for the next scene. During this montage, there is mention of Disney World. This is a place we have not as of yet told Leda about. She is clueless to the existence of Disney World. She's totally aware of Disney, but not that there is a place that you can go visit and spend lots more of our hard earned dollars on Disney paraphernalia. And we are quite happy about that for the moment. Anyway, so Disney World is mentioned. Leda perks up immediately and says, "Disney World? Mommy, what is Disney World?" Oh yeah, we are screwed now!

The movie is moving along, it's got some good parts. It's not as good as the book, but no movie is ever as good as the book for me...some come close, but, I just am picky about movies that are made from books...I happen to believe that no one could make a movie better than my imagination. I'm a snob that way! Anyway, so the movie is okay for the younger family member...no real bad language (I think there was one bad word in the whole movie) and no real 'adult situations' that embarrassed the kid's parents!

But, then, there was the end. See, here's the spoiler, Marley gets old and sick and well, he dies. Thus leaving the three Yates blubbering idiots! Brock was the first to start crying, me following pretty soon after and Leda, well, Leda became hysterical by the closing credits. This was the complete failure! I knew exactly what happens at the end of the movie and didn't THINK that this would throw my child into hysterics when I KNEW it would cause her father and I to cry! So, for 20 minutes I tried to console and calm down my poor child who was just beside herself that Marley had to die at the end.

I finally got her to stop crying, "But, Marley dies!!" over and over again and got her to focus on some good stuff and for a good 5 minutes she and I giggled about all the funny stuff in the movie. Of course, she followed up with, "But, then Marley dies" and lots more crying for the next 10 minutes! I finally got her to calm down enough to fall asleep.

Her father and I braced ourselves for the kid to come in to our bed at some point during the night after nightmares of poor old dogs meeting their maker, but she made it through the night without any nightmares and the next day was just talking about the funny stuff in the movie, never mentioning about how Marley dies at the end. So maybe it wasn't as bad as we thought, but I will definitely think twice before I let the kid watch a movie where a beloved pet dies at the end!

Beauty School Dropout

2009-06-01T18:02:00.009-04:00

What a weekend. It was a lovely one here. Not humid, but warm and sunny. Perfect, really for the weekend we had.

I woke up Saturday morning needing to get some work out of the way and after I did, I relaxed by tending to my garden and reading a book. We then got ourselves showered and dressed and off to the barn we went to join the Durhams in helping Ms Virginia with her post and rail fence - the boys dug the holes (well, they had already been dug mostly, they dug what they needed to to get the posts in) and centered and leveled the posts and the girls put the rails in. The little girls hung out around the barn and with Ms Virginia's puppy and were very good!

After we finished up what we could there, we loaded up Ms Virginia's tractor and took it over to the Durhams to dig holes over there! As the boys were playing with the tractor and digging the holes, the little girls were playing on the playground and in the field with the dogs until they apparently got tired and headed up to the house. I followed to check on them and they were playing nicely in the den. I saw nothing amiss and told them I was going to go back down to where the other adults were (bad move!) and that if they were going to leave the den or the house, to come tell us where they were.

So, I left them there, walked on down into the backyard. Jennifer was ready to come back up to the house, so we walked back up. The girls were left alone for 7 minutes tops. We walked in the kitchen, yelled for girls who told us they were in the den. Shortly after that, Leda was crying, she had climbed under the coffee table and had gotten her elbow stuck in the rungs. So we extracted her and as I was consoling her, asked her what she was doing. "Hiding," she said. Didn't occur to me to ask from what, assumed it was some game they were playing. Then I got a look at her. And hair was coming out in clumps. "Leda, what did you do?" "Cut my hair."

Can you say devastated? Oh my I was just beside myself. She isn't as bad as I am going to make it seem, but BANGS? She had to cut her bangs practically down to the roots! And not all the way across, mind you, just half way! Then, she cut some off the sides. And not even either, one side is shorter than the other.

Seems she and Paige found some scissors and decided to give themselves haircuts while the adults weren't around. Oh, Leda and I have had talks about scissors before, but apparently those talks didn't do anything! So we had ourselves another little talk. She is banned from scissors unless she has adult supervision. And if she is found with scissors or having used scissors without prior permission, she can kiss using scissors again until she's able to move out of the house on her own. And that was drilled in over the next 10 minutes or so as I brushed out her hair and tried not to burst out in tears.

Oh, and the girls won't be allowed unsupervised playtime for quite some time.

Of course, I had to take the obligatory picture of Daughter's handy work to embarrass her with the rest of her life!

Being 4, she has no concept of embarrassment, so she'll go to school tomorrow with not a care in the world! Oh well, I just keep telling myself that it could have been worse...if we hadn't come back in 7 minutes, what they might have done to the rest of the hair on their heads!

Well, a few drinks (for me, that is!) and all was better a little while later! And after a good night's sleep, we got up on Sunday morning, got showered up, got our hair fixed up (as well we could) and we headed over to the Durhams to meet Aunt Jennifer, Aunt Karen, Paige and Sydney for a trip to Longwood Gardens! The girls had a great time, as did the adult girls! The tree house features were a blast! Except the second one, I didn't like the second one, too high up and they had a glass floor - didn't do well for my fear of heights! But I did climb up there, so give me a bit of credit!

See more pictures from Longwood here!

After a whole morning and early afternoon at Longwood, back the Durhams for some pool time and some dinner and home again in the evening. What an exhausting and fun weekend we had! Even if we did make it through with a little less hair than we started it with!

Florida Trip - "Go Faster Daddy!"

2009-05-26T21:15:00.006-04:00

When Brock told me that he booked Daytona for the 2009 One Lap, I instantly knew I was gonna wanna go there! It's been 5 years since I had attended any One Lap event and I had been itchin' to get back out to South Bend to see some friends I hadn't seen in quite some time. But a 9 hour car ride by myself with a 4 year old (or an 1 year old, 2 year old or 3 year old) wasn't what I thought would be an "awesome" road trip! Love my kid, but 9 hours in a car all alone with her was probably just the ticket to throw me over the edge of insanity!

So, I contacted my Mom who lives 1 1/2 hours from the track and planned a week long trip with Leda - two-fold, Leda got to spend a week with her Grandma and Granddaddy and we all got to spend a day at Daytona hanging out with the One Lap. Oh, yeah, and maybe there might be a ride around the track thrown in there somewhere!

That was the plan, and it executed perfectly. Leda and I flew down to Florida on Saturday, the start of the One Lap and we had a wonderful couple of days hanging out with the 'rents (or the g-rents!) and going to the beach, and shopping, and playing in the hot tub! I had to work most of the week, one of the 'perks' of working remotely, I can work anywhere there is wifi. So, to save some vacation time, and having lots to do for work, I worked. But Leda got to spend time with her grandparents and that was most important.

On Wednesday morning, we got up, packed up the van and headed to Daytona. We got there just as the first session was winding down, so Brock could spend a little time with us. He mostly scooted off on the motorized bar stool with my child!

Believe me, the look in the picture is because she doesn't want her picture taken. She LOVED riding around on that thing with him!

Between sessions, Brock was going to do some hot laps with the MotorTrend guys - they covered the One Lap this year. Anyway, he told Larry to hop in back of the BMW and off they went! Larry got a hot lap of the full 24 hour course - top speed was 152. Larry was totally psyched! He loved it! He got a great picture from the backseat:

The MotorTrend guys took a great video of it as well!

After all that, Brock loaded us all into the BMW - Larry in the front, Me, Leda and Mom in the backseat (after we loaded Leda's car seat into the car!). And we lined up all the cars participating and took several parade laps around the NASCAR track. It wasn't near as fast as Larry's trip around the track, but we hit 100 a few times. The track was amazing. You don't realize how steep the banking in the turns is until you are on it! The slower we went, the more I had the sensation that we were going to roll down the hill, side to side! It was enough for me to join in Leda's chants of "Go faster Daddy, Go faster Daddy" just so that sensation went away!

We loved it! It was the most fun I've had at a track in quite some time!

We walked around and visited with several of the One Lap competitors, friends we hadn't seen in some time, some who hadn't yet met Leda! And we got to see Granddad and Fay and Uncle Wayne! They had fun on One Lap once again - my father's 20th! What glutton's for punishment! ;-)

We headed home after a while, Leda was complaining and wanted to go play in the hot tub some more! We had a great (HOT) day at Daytona. Hopefully we can do that again - or even better, Brock can some how convince Indianapolis to rent One Lap the track next year! ;-)

We had a great couple more days with Granddaddy and Grandma...Leda spent some more time in the hot tub, the Grandparents took her to the zoo and they had lots of fun feeding birds and the giraffes. And then we took Grandma and Granddaddy out to dinner for Mother's day on Friday before we left. I finally got them to take me to Whitey's Fish Camp. Awesome dinner!

Before we headed home on Saturday, we stopped by Uncle Tony and Aunt Diane's house and visited with them and Lisa and Randy and Brad and Kate joined us for lunch. Randy and Kate then took Leda and I on a Gator Ride around the farm. It was lots of fun! I think Leda and I are trying to come up with ways to talk Daddy into buying a big ole farm so we can get a Gator and ride around on it! ;-) We were so lucky to get to see some family, even if for a few hours, before we headed home!

Home we came on Saturday night and on Sunday night, Daddy came home and we had a great dinner of Thai takeout. It was good to be home and all together after a busy week!

More pictures from Daytona and our fun in Florida here. Courtesy of Granddaddy (Larry) Sweat and Grandma (Maureen) Sweat!

Festival Weekend

2009-05-18T17:56:00.006-04:00

May really snuck up on us and slapped us upside the back of our heads! One Lap and a trip to FL in the same week really messed us up. We weren't prepared for the Dogwood Festival to be here last week!

The past two years we have gone with the Flogaus's but this year, the Flogaus's and the Yates's had different plans...the kids got to stay home and the parents went out to dinner and a show. No festival, but man, was it good.

A few weeks or so ago, on a family outing (meaning we had the kids with us), we got to discussing Spinal Tap, which lead to a discussion of Mighty Wind and then a light bulb went off, hey, weren't those guys touring and weren't they going to be playing at the Keswick (Brock's and my favorite venue!)? And would we all love to go? So tickets were purchased and reservations for dinner were made and a babysitter was procured and off we went to see Shearer, Guest and McKean play in their Unwigged and Unplugged tour and man, it was good!

Side note...we got to Glenside and parked and were walking over to dinner at Brock's and my favorite restaurant Plush when lo and behold, who but Michael McKean goes walking by us. Pretty cool!

Concert was great. These guys, even though they are funny as all get out, really play great music together. So the night was just awesome. And we got the added surprise of two songs sung by Annette O'Toole, Michael McKean's wife. Bonus!

So, no festival for us during the week, but Brock and Leda and I did head down on Saturday afternoon to watch the parade (because, I LOVE a parade). Leda was getting a bit mad about having to wait for a parade when she could have been riding the Ferris wheel, until I reminded her that they throw candy from the floats and such and then she was all, "so when is the throwing of the candy going to start??" We didn't make it all the way through the parade, we ended up going to ride the Ferris Wheel (clarification, I WATCHED while Leda and Brock rode the Ferris Wheel!).

We headed back later after dinner to let Leda ride a few rides and spend obscene amounts of money to win two 50 cent stuffed animals. And then, there was the fish game.

Oh, how I would like to wring the neck of the person who put the idea into my child's head that festivals were places where you got fish! For some reason, ever since I had mentioned to the kid that we were going to go to the Festival on Saturday she's been talking about winning a fish. I had spent that time ignoring these statements, hoping against hope the kid would forget. But she's descendant from elephants, she NEVER forgets.

So, the entire night I was steering her away from the fish games and on to other games, games that won us 50 cent stuffed animals that I didn't have to clean up after or feed! Until at last, we were getting ready to go and the only way out was to go past the fish game.

I figured, what are the odds Leda or I would actually get one of those ping pong balls into one of those little bowls of water? Not good, in fact, $2 and 10 balls later, whew! No winner! Awesome. And then..AND THEN...the kind lady (read: I want to wring her freakin' neck) handed Leda a small fish..."He's a little one and it's the last night of the festival, no harm, no foul." EXCEPT YOU HANDED THE KID THE FISH!!! Now, what crazy mother is going to tell the kid no and then drag her through the whole darn fair kicking and screaming????? So, we took the darn fish.

So, Puddle the Fish joined our family. Leda wanted to sleep with him by her bed! The kid is enamored with the fish. And so I dug out the small aquarium I had from a few years ago and cleaned it up on Sunday and Leda and I went out and purchased a buddy for Puddle, Toot. And now, Leda wants to feed Toot and Puddle ALL DAY LONG!

I swore after I saw Finding Nemo I would never again have a fish aquarium. I swear the fish are yelling "GET ME OUT OF HERE!" at me. Then again, when we purchased Toot, he was in an aquarium all by himself with really big fish. I asked the pet store lady, "is that a gold fish," and she replyed, "yes, he's the other fishes's meal." So Toot could be a bit more grateful, we did save him from certain death!

So that was our week and weekend. It was awesome!

Catch Up!

2009-05-13T17:07:00.002-04:00

Okay, trying to catch up with some stuff, then hopefully I can get back to normalcy around here!

So, I've posted some new pictures to flickr!

Leda and I went on her school trip to a local farm - the Milky Way Farm. We had a blast. It was really interesting. I think the parents got more out of it than the kids did, but it was fun and ended with some fresh made ice cream from the farm creamery while taking a hay ride! Lots of fun!

For Leda's birthday, we took an afternoon off a few days prior to the big day and took her to Adventure Aquarium (formerly the Camden Aquarium). Another fun day! We saw lots of fish, some sharks, got to pet sharks and rays and starfish, saw penguins and seals and HIPPOS! It was a lot of fun and Leda really enjoyed it. Especially the mango water ice at the end!

So, now that I am caught up on April photos, I'll catch up later with a post about our trip to Florida and our lap(s) around Daytona International Speedway with Daddy! Awesome!! Stay tuned!

Click the links to go see the pictures!

Hello...(HELLO...Hello...hello...)!

2009-04-29T18:51:00.003-04:00

Yes, I do believe that was an echo. Boy have I been a horrible blogger. This month has just smacked me upside the head and rolled over me on the way out of town!

Yes, a child in the house turned four. And I missed blogging it. But my excuses are many...and I think they are quite good. I had the install from hell which had me traveling to NJ three times in the two weeks prior to her birthday. Not to mention a ton of work in the office. Kind of work that makes you want to through the computer out the freakin' window when you are done. No, I didn't, instead, personal computing took a way back seat! I think I twittered a few times and posted a status or two on facebook.

Then there was the birthday party. And the planning, and the cleaning, and the cooking and the baking. Not to mention the cupcakes I had to make for Leda's school birthday party. First time I've ever made cupcakes...and I made two different types of cupcakes AND two different kinds of icing within 3 days! (the second batch was AWESOME, but buttercream tends to do that for cupcakes!)

I was so darn busy, I completely forgot to take pictures at my own child's birthday party! Bad Mama! But then again, I do believe this would make the 4th birthday in a row that I didn't take one picture! So I will rely on the wonderful friends we had spend the day with us to hopefully forward me a picture or two!

We did take some time on Thursday afternoon last week to take Leda to the NJ Aquarium. We LOVED it. It was a blast! We went in the afternoon and we were lucky enough to get there just after the last school trip had left! So it wasn't overrun with kids! Awesome!

So, I have pictures to post - all the way back to Leda's school trip to a local farm and pictures from our trip to the aquarium. Whether that will happen before Leda and I head off to FL for next week to spend some time with Grandma and Granddaddy or not, well, I guess we'll all have to be surprised! I'm going to try, if not by the end of the week, sometime next week!

One Lap is upon us. Brock's already gone and it's just Leda and I. So we'll just have to see what I can do to post something here before mid-May! ;-)

Wouldn't Change it for the World

2009-04-15T19:45:00.002-04:00

This week has been tough. Work is crazy (just a lot of work to get done and an on site on Friday!), we had the memorial service yesterday, Brock is working today and tomorrow, which means I am single parent for two days, including a nursery school field trip to a local farm tomorrow morning.

Not to mention the not sleeping well (snoring husband, obnoxiously loud cat who apparently finds pleasure in meowing VERY LOUDLY at 5 o'clock in the morning) and the early morning that the kid thrust onto me this morning (5:30..."I can't sleep. It's time to get up." Who the heck's kid is this anyway????)

But as I sit here trying to figure out how I am going to keep my brain working enough so I can watch LOST tonight (I have my priorities straight!), I am listening to my almost 4 year old (FOUR!! Oh.My.God!) playing in the bathtub and I smile and think, there's nothing I would trade for this. NOTHING. Would.Not.Have.It.Any.Other.Way. Nope.

(Well, I might trade the cat for something. Anything. Especially if Anything is QUIET!!)

Miscellany

2009-04-13T19:30:00.002-04:00

What a busy Easter weekend we had.

Saturday we headed over to the Durhams for a mini-Easter Egg hunt with Paige and Sydney and a nice casual dinner.

Saturday night the Easter Bunny visited and dropped off some candy, some presents and decorated our table with the eggs we decorated the previous night!

Sunday morning, Leda walked out and practically missed the fun stuff she received from the Easter Bunny. But she finally saw everything and played with the fairies and ate some jelly beans and even had an egg or two along with the bacon Daddy made for breakfast!

The rest of the weekend was spent planting some seeds for the garden (this year, we are going with flowers, herbs and hot peppers!) and prepping the garden for fertilizer next week and MAYBE some plantings! Oh, and reading. I actually read a book yesterday. A whole book. Little Bee by Chris Cleave. Great story, and, according to the book sleeve, that's all I am really allowed to say. I don't want to spoil the plot!

Tomorrow Brock and I will attend a memorial service for our wonderful neighbor Jean Mansur who passed away last Monday. She had been sick for quite some time and died peacefully in her sleep. She was a wonderful woman and we miss her terribly but are relieved she is no longer in pain. Tomorrow will be a tough day.

I'm working on some posts. Posts with substance. Really. I promise.

Friday Night Easter Egg Decorating

2009-04-10T20:20:00.003-04:00

Tonight saw a very successful night of decorating Easter eggs. I even let go and let Leda do it her way!

This year I bought her little rollers to paint on the dye.

I told her she could use different colors on the same egg, but she stuck with one color per egg!

Daddy didn't...

Mommy stuck to the old fashion way of decorating eggs...a dye pill and some water (and a little vinegar for some of the lighter colors)...

We had fun!

And we have a beautiful crop of Easter Eggs for the Easter Bunny on Sunday!

We are ready for Easter!
Click here for a few more pictures!

Blog Neglect!

2009-04-07T19:30:00.002-04:00

It's a good thing your blog can't be seized by 'blog services' and fostered by much better blog parents. Because this here blog, it would be in foster care faster than I could blink.

I am going to try and do better, I promise. I had a good start before strep invaded our home. It's bad enough it attacked my kid, thank goodness it stopped with her! At least, I hope it's not lurking!! She was a totally different kid after 48 hours of pure hell. Brock came home to a kid who looked and acted like she had absolutely nothing wrong with her. So he totally missed out on all the fun and owes me big! ;-)

I got to go see an awesome band on Friday night in town with a friend - Gaelic Storm. I highly recommend! It was a total riot and the music was awesome. Second best Irish band ever (after Rathkeltair, of course! ;-)

Saturday night we watched Villanova lose to UNC. It was heartbreaking, but what an awesome run they had. I really could care less about basketball - except when my niece and nephew are playing and of course, hometown teams are doing well. So I have had my fill of basketball for the next year!

Leda is on Spring Break this week (really? Seriously? Preschoolers need a spring break? Please!) so she's home all day on Tues and Thurs this week. She and I are going to go have a mommy/daughter lunch downtown at the coffee shop on Thursday. Something I promised a week or so ago. That should be some fun. This weekend we'll decorate eggs and hope the Easter Bunny visits with lots of Jelly Belly jelly beans for ~~Mommy~~ Leda!

That's all for now. But I promise, I will be back very soon with better and more posts!

Spelling Bee

2009-03-30T09:10:00.002-04:00

Leda and I made it out yesterday to do a little shopping at Costco and Barnes & Noble. Kid was feeling ten times better and Mama was calm. Not necessarily less tired, but definitely calmer.

So on our way to B&N, we are stopped at a light next to one of these gas stations:

Leda says to me, "Mommy, I know what that says," and I said, "Oh yeah?" and she says...

"Yeah, it says L U K Drop 1 L"

I almost missed the light turning green, that was so darn cute. And really good! Maybe not exactly correct, but very good!

I explained to her that the drop was representing an O and the 1 was actually an I. She said "Oh." And was onto the next thing. Like how may books she was going to get at the book store!

Best Laid Plans

2009-03-28T10:52:00.003-04:00

Well, I should learn never to plan ahead. Because, most likely, those plans are gonna get messed with!

I had the whole weekend figured out - Brock leaves Friday morning, I pick Leda up at daycare in the evening, we have Chinese and watch a movie OnDemand. Then all the plans for Saturday - girls lunch, shopping, etc. And on Sunday, a little planting and cleaning up outside.

Thursday night - no, make that Friday morning at 2:30 AM, those plans began to crumble.

Leda woke up and was really hot. Took her temp and looked to be about 101 degrees. So I gave her a little Motrin and back into bed. Seemed fine in the morning, but didn't really eat any breakfast, but didn't complain about not feeling well and her temp was normal. So off to daycare Brock took her before heading out of town.

Two hours later, daycare calls - kid's spiked the temp again, can you come get her. Also, complaining about a sore throat. Not sure if it's possibly chicken pox (which a kid in her nursery school apparently had last week) or strep (which a kid at daycare had last week). Brought her home with thoughts of calling the doctor if her temp didn't come down with the dose of Tylenol the daycare gave her. On the way home, she threw up. Just a little and was clear because she hadn't eaten, but definitely meant a trip to the doctors.

Into her pajamas and into Mama's bed for a little relaxing before the Dr appt. She said she was hungry and wanted Yogurt. Funny blue colored Yogurt. So I gave it to her, she ate it all and seemed fine, temp down to normal. Off to the doctors we go...

Doc takes a look at her and says it is definitely something going on in the throat area. Strep culture taken, told I'd get a call in the am if it's Strep, otherwise, it is probably a viral infection. Okay. Off to home we go, in the MINI. Not 20 feet from the parking spot at the Dr office, projectile vomiting in the MINI. Remember what she had for lunch? Oh yeah! Pretty!

Home we got, changed we got. Into bed kid got. Off to clean the Mini Mama went.

Temperature stuck around most of the rest of the day. And, the child who never EVER gave us issues with taking medicine is now spitting back up the Motrin/Tylenol every time I give it to her. She isn't hungry, is fighting me taking medicine and ends up with a temp of 103 degrees before bed. Asked neighbor to run to the drug store to get me some children's Tylenol, as I am out! Luckily, I did get some Tylenol in her and temp came down by 11PM.

At 2:30AM, I got a visitor. She seemed fine, just wanted to sleep with me. No problem, but this also meant that the dog, who was perfectly happy sleeping in his own bed prior to the middle of the night visitor, ALSO needed to sleep with me. Kid tossed and turned and then wanted some water. After about 40 minutes or so of that, she announces that she can go back and sleep in her own bed. Okay, fine. 20 minutes later, she needed to go potty. 20 minutes after that, needed more water. 20 minutes after that, she was desperate to brush her teeth "before the fall out." Finally, she quieted down and we were all back to sleep around 4AM.

7AM this morning. Kid's awake and feeling fine. Good. I did what every horrible mother does and let her watch some TV while I tried to sleep a little more! 7:30AM, she announces a headache. More fighting to get the Motrin down. 10 minutes later, doc office calls - it's strep. Calling in prescription to pharmacy.

Take shower (see, did get ONE planned thing done this weekend!) and off Leda and I go to pharmacy for her medicine. Also picked up Pedilyte Popsicles - these will come in handy later today as I will need to use them as a bribe to Leda to keep down the medicine! As I did with the vitamin that she wanted to take instead of the medicine that she spit up at me! Oh, this weekend is getting funner and funner!

20 minutes later, Leda tells me she feels good and that we should be able to proceed with our plans for the weekend. At least the one where we go to Target and buy the Pinocchio movie (of course, this is the only one that is of any importance to her!) So, we'll see. Maybe after lunch, we will venture out to Target. We'll see. The only plan we have now is to fly by the seat of our pants!

And hope my baby feels better soon!!!

Right!

2009-03-26T19:04:00.002-04:00

Toward the end of dinner, which Leda ate EVERY LAST BITE of, Leda looks over at Daddy's plate, which had the leftover of the second piece of fish he took to eat and told him that she ate good and that he needed to finish everything on his plate. In an attempt to 'correct' her, Daddy explained that he went back for seconds, he had already eaten a full course of dinner and didn't really need to finish what was left on his plate. Leda replied,

"We (meaning her and I) are right, you are wrong, Daddy."

And I thought she wouldn't figure out men so early in life! ;-)

Rainy Day

2009-03-26T17:37:00.003-04:00

Well, this might be the format/picture/colors you get to deal with for the next few months - this is looking like it's gonna be the 'Spring' look to this blog! I've still a bit of work to do on it, like add my links back in, but it's pretty much what it's gonna look like for a little while! Hope you like it! (being that my Mom and my sister and my sister-in-law are are 3 of my 4 or 5 regular readers and my Mom has already piped in her vote, I've got about 20-25% approval already!)

It's a bit of a rainy day here. I had some posts in mind, at least one I thought I would get done tonight, but now, with the rain, my brain is again on post strike. Hoping that with a nice sunny day, I might be able to bring this site back to life! In the meantime, this is what you get...a preview of our upcoming weekend...

Leda and I are going to have a girls weekend since Daddy's off to play with cars this weekend. This was Leda's request of me this morning for us to do this weekend: "Mommy, I want to buy the Pinocchio movie and watch it with you." It's a good thing she has a Target Gift Card to use...so we will be purchasing the movie on Saturday.

So far this is our list of things we will be doing this weekend:

1. Lunch date at the Cheesecake Factory (got a gift certificate I've got to use)
2. Use up Mommy's B&N gift certificates (we LOVE book shopping!)
3. Use Leda's Target gift certificate (on previously mentioned Pinocchio movie. And, hello? Target!)
4. Watch previously mentioned movie with Leda and a large bowl of popcorn! With butter!
5. Buy herb and pepper seeds and plant for garden.

We've got a busy weekend so far. Wondering when the sleeping will occur! ;-)

Uh Oh...

2009-03-24T19:21:00.002-04:00

It might be time for a little sprucing up of the site. Hey, even if I am not here as often as I would like, I still want my space on the internets to look good!

So, don't be surprised if the site looks a bit different from day to day! Or hour to hour. I'm gonna experiment! Maybe. Or maybe not. We'll see!

Sweet...

2009-03-22T17:35:00.002-04:00

I was in the kitchen this afternoon when Brock walked in and pulled Leda's lip gloss out of his pocket. Aunt Jennifer had purchased the lip gloss for her when we were up in the Poconos yesterday. He proceeded to tell me the story about how he had ended up with the lip gloss.

Leda had been playing with the next-door neighbors and they invited her in for some cake for a birthday they were throwing for their friend Lorraine*. Brock went over to get her and witnessed her telling Lorraine that she hadn't a present for her, she didn't know she would be coming to a birthday party. But she had her lip gloss in her pocket so she pulled it out and gave it to Lorraine as her present.

Brock said that he spoke with Lorraine after and told her that the lip gloss was Leda's favorite. Lorraine gave Brock back the lip gloss to give back to Leda later.

I hope she always is so giving and thoughtful of others. I really have no clue how she learned that. I'm in awe of my little, sweet girl.

(*Lorraine is a grown-up, lest anyone things that Brock 'stole' back the lip gloss from a little girl!) ;-)

Last Snow

2009-03-19T09:55:00.002-04:00

Hopefully this was the last snow storm of this winter...of course, this was over two weeks ago!

Find the white dog!

Secrets

2009-03-10T19:00:00.001-04:00

Leda announced after dinner, "I learned a new song at school today."

I was intrigued, "Can you sing me the song?"

"No, it's a secret."

"Why is it a secret?"

"Because. And I can't tell you or else it won't be a secret anymore."

Hate those loopholes.

Oh, and happy 600th post to me! ;-)

What I Would Tell My 25 Year-Old Self

2009-03-09T19:46:00.008-04:00

If I could go back in time and have a visit with my 25 year-old self, there are LOTS of things I would tell her. First, I'd have her go back to our 19 year-old self and tell HER that there are some guys you dont't date more than once. But that's a WHOLE other post.

One of the things I would tell her is you won't have to live paycheck to paycheck forever. I used to freak out about not having enough money. Not that I wasn't able to make it by week to week and still have a couple bucks to spend out with friends. But I worried constantly about the unknown...you know, medical, dental and eyes, not to mention anything that might go wrong with my car!

My 25 year-old self used to put off going to the doctor, dentist and eye doctor. I know, horrible, right. But when you don't have money in the bank, unless you are in pain or dying, why spend what you don't have, right? That girl, back then, she stressed about that, praying that her teeth didn't fall out or her eye sight didn't fail, but since nothing was hurting or falling out or failing, she didn't make the appointment.

My 41 year-old self is thankful to that 25 year-old because she stressed enough that she took good care of her teeth. Not one cavity since we were 13 or 14. I'm also thankful she wore the glasses she has had since college as much as she did because it turns out, my 41 year-old self's eye sight is actually BETTER now than it was in my 20s. Still needs corrective lenses, but they are still better!

But most of all, I want to let that 25 year-old know how good - GOOD - it feels to be able to pay for a new pair of corrective lenses and an eye exam. Really. I mean, it sucks to have to pay so FREAKIN' much in less than 30 minutes, but the glasses are gonna look HOT! And YOU CAN AFFORD THEM!

I think she'd be able to stress a little less about money if she knew that some day, she wouldn't have to stress so much.

Guess My Mood...

2009-03-05T19:08:00.002-05:00

Cowboys Let T.O. Go!

Okay, don't want to have a TOTALLY lame post, one that is purely spiteful and mean.

We need one of these in the States. Preferably close to home!

The kid could have as many Barbies as she wanted, as long as Mama can have a few glasses of wine! Awesome idea by Mattel!

Sing With Me

2009-02-26T19:16:00.002-05:00

Last night, on our way home from shopping (after ice skating lessons and dinner with Daddy), I had the radio on to the local classic rock station and Pure Prairie League's "Amie" came on. This is one of Brock's favorite songs, one which I have on the iPod and is part of a playlist entitled "Leda's Songs" because it also has the "UgaUga" song on it (also known as "Hooked On A Feeling"). So it's a familiar song!

So, driving home, I'm singing along with the radio, as I am apt to do and at some point, I realize, I'm not the only one singing. Leda's singing along with the chorus. And not just humming, actually singing the words!

In fact, when we got home, I had her go sing the chorus to Brock and she sang it just perfect!

Awesome. I'm breaking out the U2 and Rolling Stones!

Missing My Baby

2009-02-24T19:03:00.002-05:00

I've been missing my baby and her daddy for the past couple of days. They headed up to spend some time with Grandpa and Nana and I had to stay home and work. It's been quiet around here!

Thank goodness they come home tomorrow!

The kid is growing up fast. The past month she has started signing her name to everything. If she finds a pen and paper lying around, she signs her name. In fact, when we had to make 14 valentines cards for her preschool friends, she signed every single one! Wow. Blows me away! She was just a baby not too long ago!

Each day they have called me. Leda has been talking to me on the phone - not just hello and thank you very much but I have things to do, but really talking to me. Telling me what they have been doing. Telling on Daddy!

Yeah, so she calls me this afternoon - they spent the afternoon with Nana Rose and went to a kid's museum in the Rochester area. She gets me on the phone and she says, "Mommy, I have something to tell you," and I say sure, go ahead, and she says, "Daddy smoked a cigarette in the car!" And boy was she mad. She knows Daddy isn't allowed to smoke in the car. And I told her we would give him a time-out when they got home! Brock goes on to elaborate that he didn't smoke it for long, had the window down but she yelled at him and gave him so much grief, he threw it out. Good for my kid! Daddy ain't getting away with anything anymore! ;-)

Anyway, I'm missing my baby. Missing my family. Duff and I will be very happy to see them when they get home!

Where the "White Man Can't Dance" Came From

2009-02-20T09:06:00.004-05:00

A blogger I read on a regular basis (Blurbomat) had a post this week entitled Why YouTube Was Invented. The ensuing comments brought out more stuff that could be evidence of why YouTube was invented, but I think this sample indicates how the notion that the white man can't dance came to be. Best evidence of this happens at about the 2:50 mark.

I am also deeply scarred from watching this. I am not sure whether to laugh or cry.

This may also be further evidence as to why disco died. Or, better yet, why it had to die.

Lessons

2009-02-18T19:38:00.002-05:00

Tonight was the start of Leda's ice skating lessons.

There were several kids at her level or lower (meaning they've been on the ice once or never) and then there were several kids at a higher level (meaning that they were 3 feet-tall rockets on the ice...geez!) Leda wasn't going on the ice without me so I asked and the teacher said that was fine, so I went out with her. Basically tonight was learning to 'walk' on the ice and if you fall, how to get up on your feet again.

Leda did well at the 'walking' although she spent the second half of the session hanging on to me more than doing it herself. She was doing great until she had fallen for the umpteenth time...the one time she fell and it hurt! She was fine, no damage, just a little scare, that, oh, maybe if I don't do this right, I might get hurt. There was more hanging on after that. But she did really good for the first 20 minutes. Then, her attention was all over the place, especially with the candy and the toy coin machines! And, when can I get one of those?

We got ourselves off the ice for a few minutes, to re-group. I asked if she was having fun (for like the billionth time) but this time, instead of nodding, she replied "No!" I asked her why. "I don't like to fall." Oh, big lesson here...if you learn how to skate properly, then you won't fall! "Mommy, when can I get some candy." Lesson apparently over.

I did get her back out on the ice for the rest of the 30 minute class. I wanted to make sure she wasn't giving up just because she had fallen. After a few more minutes, we got off the ice and then she got her toy. And then we packed it up and headed on home.

We discussed the class on the way home and I kept telling her we would be heading back next week for the next class. She seemed to understand, but then she might have been too busy thinking about her toy or the dinner we were about to get! I'm thinking that this might end up being her first lesson in economics when I have to 'force' her back out onto the ice next week because, "Mommy paid money for this, Leda. You are GOING to learn how to skate whether you like it or not!"

Time For an Update

2009-02-08T17:54:00.004-05:00

Wow...two weeks without a posting...how could I ever stand to stay away for so long? Um, it's called mid-winter blahs mixed with writer's block. Bad combination.

Seriously, I really should start to think about finding a house in the Caribbean that I can work from starting the beginning of January until the middle of March or so! So really hate these winter months.

Anyway, it's been a crazy bunch of weeks here. Really not a lot happening, but when something is happening, it's a lot! Last weekend we took Leda ice skating for the first time. I've been ice skating a total of like 3 or 4 times in my life (and all in the second half of my life) and Brock hadn't been skating for, like, ever. So what do you think qualified US to take our almost 4 year old skating for the first time? Absolutely nothing!

But we got her laced up, got ourselves laced up, went out onto the ice only to have to turn around and get off because by the time we got to the rink and got skates and got them on, it was time for the Zamboni to come out to clean up the ice! So we watched and then we went out on the ice. Brock promptly lost his balance, his feet went straight up into the air and down on his back he went. Needless to say, he sat out for the rest of the skate. So it was up to me to take Leda around the rink. I got her up against the wall, so she held the wall with one hand and around we went. And down she went many a time. Amazingly enough, I never fell. Not once. Thank goodness for those many Saturdays at Mountain View rollerskating my teens away.

We skated for a bit more, Mommy got a few turns around the rink on her own and then we headed home. Where we all relaxed for a bit, then decided that Daddy need to go to the ER because his back REALLY hurt. Two hours later, it's just a bad bruise, but Daddy got some good drugs to help him feel better! Luckily it wasn't another broken rib (or three!)

Leda really liked the skating so I took her back again this weekend (notice, Brock did not attend this skating session!) and we signed her up for lessons before she and I hit the ice for a little while. She'll start lessons next week! We are both excited...she'll take lessons and afterwards, we get an hour or so of free skate. Good Mommy/Daughter time! Hey, I might actually be able to burn a calorie or two if she knows what she's doing!

The rest of the two weeks consisted of trying to teach Leda how to clean up her toys. Oh, was that a load of fun. There was a battle of wills and thank goodness, Mommy won. Needless to say, it was not a fun evening, but the point was made and Leda will now clean up her stuff when asked...for the most part. There still is a lot of whining and crying to go along with it.

Today there was a day at the barn with Paige and Miss Jennifer and Mr. John. Miss Virginia let Leda 'borrow' Comet (a pony) for the day as Leda's pony and Leda got to go for a great ride around the riding ring. I don't have pictures yet to post because I was helping, so I have to get pictures from the Durhams! Leda loved it. She got to brush her horse and ride and put her away. And then she got to help feed the horses! The kid wants horse riding lessons now. We are in deep!

So it's been pretty busy, but still a little relaxing around these parts. Leda will start her skating lessons on the 18th, so we'll have lots to say after her lessons. And we will be going to the mid-winter Irish Festival next week with our cousins Calean and Tristan, so we should have more pictures to post then! We'll try to keep you up to date on our goings ons as much as we have stuff going on! Stay tuned. Spring is just around the corner!! (I sure hope!!!)

America's Next Top Model?

2009-01-26T09:56:00.002-05:00

When we went on our trip to the Franklin Institute last weekend, Leda posed for pictures...very model like. Where the heck do they learn that?

She is SO not allowed to sign up for Tyra Banks' show yet. Maybe for Cycle 35!

Friday Random Ten

2009-01-23T09:18:00.002-05:00

Sometimes, I swear, iTunes knows more than it should. Or is somehow programmed to know exactly what songs would be apropos.

The Weight, The Band
The Chain, Fleetwood Mac
Crazy, Seal
You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin', Righteous Brothers
Terry's Song, Bruce Springsteen
Scream, Seven Nations
Grapefruit - Juicy Fruit, Jimmy Buffett
Rattlesnake, Live
Hot Cha, They Might Be Giants
Pinch Me, Barenaked Ladies

We had a pretty busy week here...Grandma and Granddaddy where here last weekend, Inauguration on Tuesday, Aunt Bet here for dinner last night. We are pretty tired and really looking forward to a relaxing weekend!

Red, White and Blue

2009-01-20T14:24:00.002-05:00

What a beautiful day on so many levels.

Snow Day

2009-01-19T15:06:00.002-05:00

Except I have to work. But this is what I get to look at out my window...

I spent a few minutes at lunch taking a few pictures outside. It is COLD, but it's SNOWING!

I'm a bit bummed that I won't get to play in it until it's dark, and then, probably won't want to! It's still pretty...and getting prettier! It's been snowing for hours and everything looks awesome!

Friday Random Ten

2009-01-16T10:17:00.001-05:00

It's COLDER than yesterday. Something like 18 degrees. For a freakin' high! What is up with that? You'd think it was winter or something.

Gonna have to dance to keep warm!

Shadows In A Mirror, Chris Isaak
Drops of Jupiter, Train
Tell Me 'bout It, Joss Stone
They Might Be Giants, They Might Be Giants
Space Cowboy, Steve Miller Band
Get Up Stand Up, Bob Marley & The Wailers
Dance On A Volcano, Genesis
Crazy Baby, Joan Osborne
Della Brown, Queensrÿche
All Revved Up With No Place To Go, Meat Loaf

A Dare...

2009-01-16T09:23:00.003-05:00

I dare everyone to watch this video and not have a tear (or two) in their eye by the end. I practically bawled!

Oh, and I have to say, I want an elephant for Christmas this year! I think Duff would LOVE that! ;-)

It's COLD!

2009-01-14T19:36:00.002-05:00

It's freakin' cold here. Something like 20 degrees. For the HIGH!

That's just wrong.

So it's basically caused my brain to freeze and I can't seem to come up with anything to write. Nothing. Nada. Nope.

I promise, I will get back to this here space with something interesting. I just have to find something interesting to get back here with.

Something warmer too! 'Cause this weather, well, without snow, it sucks! If you are going to be freezing cold, you might as well have some beautiful white stuff to look at. But, no, we ain't got any of that either!

I promise a better post tomorrow. Promise. Really. I come up with something.

De-lurking Day

2009-01-12T08:49:00.004-05:00

I'm not sure I even tried this before. I know I've participated as a lurker on most of the sites I visit on a mostly daily basis. So here goes...

It's De-lurking Day. What this means is if you come to this site, leave me a comment to say hi, introduce yourself, whatever. Just de-lurk! Let me know you've been here!

And, if you have a website, a blog, a place you hang out, post the link. You never know who might be looking! ;-)

Oh, and how about them EAGLES!!!! WOOOOOHOOOOOO!!!!

Friday Random Ten...The Return

2009-01-09T09:52:00.003-05:00

Yes, I'm going back to the Friday Random 10. I like it. So there.

Looks like I've got something from the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 2000s on this list...pretty awesome - 5 decades of music in 10 songs. Not too shabby!

We Ain't Got Nothin' Yet, The Blues Magoos
It Takes Two, Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock
If I'm Not In Love, Faith Hill
For You, Bruce Springsteen
Inevitable Consequence Of Progress, Johnny Clegg & Savuka
Private Idaho, The B-52's
Shy, John Mellencamp
Slow Ride, Foghat
Precious Declaration, Collective Soul
Be Near Me, ABC

Easy Button

2009-01-07T19:55:00.002-05:00

Tonight we learned two things about Leda...

Brock is always blaming me for the 'hands on the hip' attitude Leda tends to sometimes get. Tonight, the two were rough-housing around the living room and Brock thought Leda was about to bite him (a no-no in this house). He turned around, threw his hands on his hips and said, "Leda, don't you bite me." And she immediately turned around and threw HER hands on HER hips (almost a mirror image) and said to him, "I didn't!"

I sat there and watched it happen. I wish I had the video camera at that moment! And, for the record, she wasn't about to bite him at all!

Not a few minutes later or so, the two of them are still rough-housing and Brock is holding onto Leda's arms and she is trying to get away, laughing the whole time. He lets her go and she immediately grabs her right arm and starts crying - immediately we knew what happened. We aren't exactly sure HOW it happened, but her 'nursemaid elbow' was back!

Thank goodness Dr. ER from next door (have I ever mentioned that we LOVE our neighbors???? We do, we really do!) was home and he came right over to fix her up...and, you gotta love a doctor who makes a house call with a glass of wine (he had just poured it when we called!) So he takes a look at her arm, massages it for about a minute and boom, she's fine. He told her she was such an easy patient, she should have an easy button!

Dr. ER told us that not to worry, she WILL grow out of this...he can feel that her bones and joints are getting better. And that no lasting effect will be felt. But man, do we feel bad for our little girl! It's been quite awhile since this has happened (Aug 2007 being the last time!) Hopefully we can keep it from happening again!

So there you have it. Two things about Leda...1) the hands-on-hip thing, so her Daddy, and 2) she should have an easy button! ;-)

Holiday Let Down

2009-01-06T10:46:00.003-05:00

I always hate to see the holidays go. I almost wish we could celebrate into the end of January. That's right, TWO full months of holiday celebrations! Seriously, why would that be a bad thing?
;-)

I am sad to see the holidays go this year, but am taking a big sigh of relief that they are! I feel like this year, the holidays have kicked my you-know-what. Christmas was a whirlwind! So busy, in fact, that I didn't take one freakin' picture. Not one! We took a few on Christmas Eve, but the only pictures I took during the opening of the gifts this year was a video of Leda opening her gifts from Santa (who, as usual, went WAY over board). The video is 11 minutes plus long, so I won't be posting it here. You can click here if you want to go watch it!

Oh, and there's Leda coming down stairs and seeing everything for the first time and the story behind the crib.

And Leda and I on Christmas Eve

Leda totally enjoyed her Christmas. Every present she opened was "just what I always wanted!" as if we have been depriving her of everything since she was born! I also think we spent our last year of a prolonged present opening (took us 2 hours and we had to force Leda to open some stuff...she kept wanting to play with the stuff she had just opened! Oh, and then there was the making sure that every piece of tape and wrapping paper was completely removed from the item she just opened. To the point of obsession!) I think that next year, she'll rip through everything in no time flat. I hope not, because I really like that she seems to savor opening gifts...I always like to see how long I can take to open my gifts...it makes Christmas morning last longer!

We spent time with family and friends over the Christmas weekend. Dinner at my cousins on Friday night. An open house party at the home of an old friend I've become reacquainted with via Facebook. And an awesome THUMPING of Dallas by the Eagles game celebrated at the home of good friends on Sunday. And just like that, my football season was extended one more week!

Oh, and we saw Paige's new pony!

The next several days were full of work and cleaning. Prepping for the onslaught of friends and family for the 10th annual New Year's Eve party. Which turned out to be one awesome evening. We had so much fun and our Indian-giver Pollyanna gift exchange was probably the best one ever in the 7 or 8 years we've been doing it. All had a great time. And Leda stayed strong until 2:00-2:30 am. And woke up by 8:30! The kid has GOT to get a better internal clock...like one that is broken and makes her sleep until NOON when her parents didn't go to bed until 3:30 am! The rest of the New Years weekend was spent recovering from a hangover, monitoring work for support calls and resting. Lots of resting! Oh, and a nail-biter of a game where my Eagles defeated the Vikings and have extended my football season yet one more week! Bring on the Giants, baby!

I'm trying to figure out what I will be doing with this blog to at least make it a bit interesting. I've been looking at it for the past week or so and I'm just so bored with it. I'm thinking of trying one of these 365 projects...taking a picture a day....and posting them to the blog, rather than every post being a rehash of things we have done (unless something we have done is actually interesting! ha!). It may take me a few days, might take a few odd posts here and there. But bear with me and I'll figure it out!

Blog Neglect

2008-12-30T08:40:00.004-05:00

I'm not on vacation (have to work!) but have sorta taken a vacation from blogging. Too darn tired! Christmas wore us out and now we prep for the big party tomorrow night.

Will blog over the weekend...hopefully with video from Christmas morning!

Happy New Year!

Is It Christmas Yet?

2008-12-23T20:14:00.003-05:00

I'm sure my mother will agree, I'm probably the worst 'kid' when it comes to Christmas. I can't stand the waiting. It's different now, I'm all about the kid! And the husband. I'm excited I get presents too, but not like I was before I had a husband and kid. I get excited about buying their gifts and whether or not they are going to like it on Christmas. And right about now, I'M JUST READY FOR IT TO BE CHRISTMAS NOW!!!!!

(Even though my husband already knows what one of his gifts is...I will not be letting Leda know what Daddy's gift is next year..."Hey Daddy, there's no (insert word of thing that is ACTUALLY IN THE BOX) in that present. Nope, not in that box there for you!" Thanks kid!)

We are doing Christmas at home again this year. We'll head on over to Rachel's for dinner tomorrow night and we'll have Granddad and Fay over for dinner on Christmas day. Last year we tried Beef Wellington for Christmas dinner and I am so not lying when I tell you I have been waiting ALL YEAR for Christmas dinner this year because we are SO doing THAT again! Yum! I'm going to try a bread pudding this year for dessert...of course, as I always find out when I decide to do something THREE DAYS before, I will have to plan better for this bread pudding next year...panettone bread is called for but can I find that bread in our little hamlet? Not a chance. So I am going to substitute and hope for the best. It's all about the custard anyway, right?

Today was Leda's last day at Nursery school until next year (two weeks!) so they had a holiday program. And I will not lie...I cried. Okay, I didn't like full force ball out loud, I teared up. But another mother or two saw and thought I was cute, apparently. Oh well. What's a girl to do when her little child is singing Christmas carols with all the other kids and has the loudest 'HEY' during Jingle Bells?

(not the best video...and that's me trying not to laugh!)

Santa came in to visit with the kids after they sang, but Leda wasn't having none of that...She did go say hello just so she could get the candy cane, but there was no sitting on the lap or conversing with the man! I hope she gets what she wants this year! ;-)

I'm trying not to realize that my child is growing up. She's not a baby any more. There will be more holiday concerts and school stuff. She's getting close to writing her own name! We are stunned by this development. Tonight she was helping me make the cards for our neighbors and for Aunt Rachel and Uncle Wayne and she drew pictures of all of us. She said "this is Daddy and he's frustrated." Which was absolutely hilarious, but before we could think to laugh about it, we looked at each other and thought, "where did the kid learn that word? And how could she have just said that in context, with perfect pronunciation?"

But that wasn't all...later in the evening, she got in trouble for doing something that she was asked to stop doing, so she got a time out. She hates time outs...cries the entire time, every time! It was getting close to the end of the time out when she says, "I want to apologize now!" Okay, sure...HUH??? Did you just say apologize? With, again, perfect pronunciation? Do you know what it means? "I'm sorry," she says. Okay, seriously, why do they have to grow up?

The kid, she's going to Harvard...on scholarship...she's S.M.A.R.T! ;-)

So, I'm off to relax for the rest of the evening...I've finished all my Christmas Chores! All I can do now is wait for Christmas day! Oh, and fret about my box of presents for our family in Portland, OR, sitting in some UPS warehouse waiting for the snow to clear so they can be delivered! Yes, I decide NOT to procrastinate and get all my shopping done in time to ship UPS Ground and what happens? It snows. IN PORTLAND, OR! Totally procrastinating next year!

Merry, Merry Christmas! HEY!

Very Busy Weekend Before Christmas

2008-12-21T20:54:00.003-05:00

Well, this was a busy weekend. I get to relax (sorta) and it's late on a Sunday evening...not much relaxing going on here!

We made cookies, decorated cookies, made more cookies, finished our shopping, wrapped the last of the gifts, cleaned house, decorated cookies, decorated the tree...had Granddad and Fay over for dinner and decorated cookies! Whewww! Lots of decorating going on!

Oh, and we wished Aunt Aimee a very Happy Birthday! (well, at least Mama and Daddy did...Leda wasn't in the talking mood!)

But we are now done. We can relax and enjoy the last three days before Christmas! Well, except for the planning and shopping for our Christmas dinner! ;-)

Some scenes from our busy weekend before Christmas....

(clockwise from top: Snickerdoodles, Split Seconds (with added sprinkles per Leda), Gingerbread Men, and Chocolate Chip Cookies (with DARK chocolate chips! Yummmm!)

New Penguin Ornament

New Wine Glass Ornament

Leda's 2008 Ornament

Other New Penguin ornament!

Not a very good picture of the Finished Tree!

Friday (Not So) Random 20: Christmas Edition

2008-12-19T10:24:00.004-05:00

Since I completely stopped doing the Friday Random 10, you get 20 this week...Also, not so random because I picked some of my favorite Christmas songs. And no Christmas Song list would be complete without Christmas Wrapping by the Waitresses or any Christmas song by BRRRRRUUUUUUCCCCCEEEEE!

I do believe that Leda and I will be listening to this playlist tomorrow while we make Christmas Cookies! We are going to experiment and make Gingerbread cookies tomorrow! Yummmmm!

Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town, Bruce Springsteen
Christmas Is The Time To Say I Love You, Billy Squier
I Believe In Father Christmas, Emerson, Lake & Palmer
The Little Drummer Boy, Harry Connick, Jr.
Christmas Wrapping, Waitresses
It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas, Harry Connick, Jr.
Feliz Navidad, José Feliciano
Rock & Roll Christmas, George Thorogood & The Destroyers
Father Christmas, The Kinks
Santa Claus And His Old Lady, Cheech & Chong
Merry Christmas Baby, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
O Come All Ye Faithful, Amy Grant
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home), U2
Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, Harry Connick, Jr.
Christmas All Over Again, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, Josh Groban
Step Into Christmas, Elton John
Silent Night, Elvin Bishop
White Christmas, Bing Crosby
Ave Maria, Harry Connick, Jr.

Visit to Santa

2008-12-17T13:04:00.003-05:00

Visiting Santa this year was a challenge!

Last year, the kid went right up to Santa, climbed right on up on his lap and had a conversation with him while the adults (including her mother and father) stood around looking absolutely amazed that the child was not frightened of the man as every other child her age was!

This year, after a false start (we attempted to visit on Monday night but the line was incredibly long and the kid hadn't had a nap all day!), we headed off for the mall again last night and after a quick dinner, got ourselves into line and only had to wait for about a half hour. Santa was on break but we only had to wait 15 minutes for him to return (apparently he was feeding the reindeer!)

This may have been the start of the problem...Santa walked in and walked down the line of parents and children and said hello and shook hands with all the kids as he made his way to his seat. Leda grabbed her visual aid (a picture of the ONE toy she was going to ask Santa to bring her) and prepared herself for Santa...as he got to us, the kid, she lost her nerve and hid behind me, her father, anything she could to get away from the Santa man! We were stunned! This is the kid that for the 15 minutes prior to the arrival of the Man in the Red Suit gave hugs and kisses to the little 1 year old girl in line in front of us and laughed with her parents...two complete strangers! But Santa, she hid from!

Well, I figured, we had several kids in front of us and Santa sitting down might be easier to deal with than Santa standing and walking, so I figured maybe Leda would calm down and be more than happy to speak with Santa and let us get a great picture of her with the Man! Oh, I am a dreamer!

Leda seemed excited about talking with Santa right up to the very minute it was her turn. She started to walk toward him and burst into tears...oh, it was very dramatic. I had to sit down next to Santa to show her that he wasn't scary, but that made her cry even louder. I coaxed her over to me and got her to sit on my lap, but she wouldn't look at Santa. I had her give me her visual aid and I showed it to Santa and pointed out all the things on it that she wanted - it was a picture of a Disney princess package that came with Cinderella, Prince Charming, a horse and carriage, and lots of dresses. I mentioned the Cinderella, the Prince and the horse. Leda finally piped up and said "and lots of dresses!"

The picture was a bust...looked horrible, so we decided not to spend the money. Brock did get the whole episode on video, but I will refrain from embarrassing my daughter and only post a picture from that video...our 2008 portrait with Santa!

Santa was very patient (I guess he kinda has to be, it's not like this thing doesn't happen all day long to the poor man!) and very kind to Leda. She did sort of wave at him as we left, and he promised that she would get a visit from him on Christmas Eve night and I would bet a million that she will get EXACTLY what she asked him for (and then some!)

Maybe next year she'll be okay with Santa again!

Leda Sings Christmas

2008-12-12T20:08:00.003-05:00

I think these are pretty self-explanatory...

Leda Sings Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer

Leda Sings Jingle Bells

Christmas Musings....

2008-12-11T17:10:00.003-05:00

I have a feeling this month's posts will not stray far from the Christmas Theme! Sorry!

Just a few thoughts about Christmas...or the month of December....

1. How come you can always find tape any other month of the year, but come December, when you REALLY need it, it is either completely gone, hidden, lost, etc? I always have to buy more! And then, somewhere around June, I will find a HUGE stash of tape, that I will put in a place that I THINK I will remember come time to wrap Christmas presents...you think I know where that place is??? NO!!! Unless it's Target where I will be headed tonight!

2. On the other hand, I have more wrapping paper than I know what to do with. I will not need to purchase wrapping paper at Target! Well, except for the roll that will be used to wrap Santa's presents to Leda because Santa can't POSSIBLY have the same wrapping paper as me! He doesn't shop at the same Target!

3. Each year gets harder and harder...the first couple of years of Leda's life (my goodness, I make it sound like she's 15!) I could go shopping for her Christmas presents with her in the same cart...now, I have to make sure I hide everything well...the kid's crafty! Will need safe as hard to crack as Fort Knox to hide presents in by the time she's a teenager!

4. Since when is the Lucy and Linus Theme a Christmas song. I've heard it played on the All Christmas All the Time radio station three times in the past two days! Don't get me wrong, I so bop my head to it each time it comes on...and Leda LOVES it. I just didn't realize it was a Christmas song!

That's it for now. Just some thoughts I've thought in the past couple of days. Not the only ones, just the Christmas Theme ones! ;-)

It's in the Genes...

2008-12-09T22:32:00.003-05:00

The ability to, come December, attempt to purchase EVERY SINGLE THING the child puts on her Christmas list.

I've already purchased way too much from Daddy and Mommy and I haven't even attempted to figure out what she is going to ask Santa for!

Since Brock is off to a automobile thingy show for the rest of the week, I was with the kid all day today. And since I was so fortunate to schedule a dr. appt on the same day he leaves, and it's not a day when she is at day care, I need to take her along with me! Lovely! (Just a note about my child - she is absolutely the most perfect child! She was the BEST kid today...she really helped me out. I am sure this means that by Friday, I will be wishing I had kept my mouth shut about how good she was today!)

Anyway, she announces to the nurse at the drs office that Santa is going to bring her a Prince for her Cinderella, a horse and carriage for her Cinderella and lots of dresses for her. Well, this is news to me! And, the kid isn't talking about the Barbie size Cinderella I purchased for her for Christmas either! She's talking about the little Cinderella's with the rubbery clothes that her father and I hate so much!

So, I got to thinking, maybe I should purchase the big Prince Charming and Horse and Carriage for the Barbie size Cinderella and have that be her present from Santa.

So I'm searching and I find just about everything...then I started to think...the kid isn't visiting Santa until next Monday. By then, she'll be planning to ask Santa for a set of WWF wrestler dolls and a ring for them to fight in (no, I don't let my child watch WWF...she has no idea what that is and I intend to keep it that way...I'm just being sarcastic here...about her wanting the dolls...oh, whatever!)

I think I will hold off on the present from Santa until I hear her ask him specifically for it. Let's just hope it is something I can get in the less than two weeks before Christmas that I will have at that moment!

Of course, I will probably just get the darn Prince, horse and carriage for the kid. It's hard for me not to over shop for the kid, I inherited the gene for Christmas overdoing it from my Mother! And I love it!

Blogging With a Preschooler on My Lap

2008-12-08T18:27:00.002-05:00

I know, I know, I've been very neglectful of my blog the past week....but after a full month of posting, it's hard not to take a week off! ;-)

Besides, there's been plenty to do around here. Christmas is coming fast so we are in the midst of getting ready...finishing up the shopping, wrapping presents, getting ready to ship them off to various family members all over the country!

Then there's the Christmas cards to prepare and send and the New Year's Eve invites to make and send out! Oh my, and the parties! We attended Miss Paige's 5th birthday party this past weekend (FIVE!!! How the heck did she get to be five already! And does that mean my baby is actually going to be FOUR in a few months?? My goodness!)

This coming weekend is my company party in Atlantic City and Brock is off for Orlando for the four days preceding! Leda will spend the weekend with her girlfriends doing things 4 and 5 year old girls do when their parents are away (well, only Leda's parent's will be away, and someone will be supervising the girls!!)

And my baby is suffering a cold with a stuffy nose and a cough that is keeping her at night. Hopefully she and I will sleep better tonight. Currently she is supervising this blog post by sitting on my lap while I post and she's being very loving! Which means I will soon have another cold!! Yippee!

So you can see, I've been quite busy while I've been away. I will try not to be so neglectful anymore!

Thanksgiving Wrap-Up

2008-12-01T19:48:00.002-05:00

For some reason, this past weekend, I really didn't feel much like blogging. Not much like elaborating upon what we did each day. I felt like relaxing and enjoying what we were doing (or not doing) and not worrying about blogging it.

We had a great time. We really enjoyed ourselves this weekend. It was kinda nice to see lots of snow (probably six inches) and keep ourselves warm inside with family. It was nice to enjoy Grandpa and Nana Pam and Great-Nana Rose and Aunt Stacy and Uncle Todd and Uncle Dan and Aunt Maggie.

Leda had a great time playing and showing off for the adults. She was the center of the universe this weekend and she pretty much knew it! She enjoyed it to the hilt. She dressed up in her Tinkerbell and Snow White outfits and pranced around on Thanksgiving. She had books for Grandpa to read to her. She played with all her toys.

We had a great Thanksgiving dinner. Nana Pam made an awesome turkey and my pies didn't turn out too darn bad...Thanks to Mom for the great pie crust recipe (although I used Apple Cider Vinegar instead of White Vinegar because we couldn't find the white vinegar...not that it matter much, the pie crust was a hit!). Stacy made my favorite corn pudding and the most awesome (but deadly!) mash potatoes EVER! There is nothing in the world that could not be made better with a pound of butter and a pound of cream cheese!

On Friday we relaxed...pretty much did nothing all day long. Which was SO nice. We napped in the afternoon and when we awoke, Uncle Dan and Aunt Maggie were here. And we had a great afternoon with them and then a nice relaxed dinner. And there was more pie!

On Saturday we relaxed...are you getting the pattern here? Brock made everyone a little breakfast on Saturday morning and we hung out and talked and relaxed and then around lunch time Aunt Stacy and Uncle Todd took Great-Nana Rose home to her place and Uncle Todd caught an airplane ride home. We were sad to see both of them go! Uncle Dan and Aunt Maggie and Brock and Leda and I and Grandpa went up to visit Grandma Sally's grave and put flowers on her and Great-Grandparents Kingsley's graves. It was kinda nice in the snow (but it always seems we when we visit there is always snow!)

Saturday evening was an evening of leftovers and very old Trivial Pursuit. We had a great time playing the game all evening, but the questions were really odd and really old (being as the game came out in the early 1980s!) It was fun, we laughed and had a grand ole time! We even kept Aunt Maggie up past her bedtime! ;-)

Sunday was the day we were coming home. We went out for a little breakfast and then packed up the car, took pictures with Grandpa and Nana and Uncle Dan and Aunt Maggie and headed home. The car ride home wasn't all that much fun...it precipitated all the way home! It was snowing when we left New York and was raining the rest of the way home through Pennsylvania! It pretty much sucked! But Leda had fun watching Sleeping Beauty twice and Aladdin once! And even got a little nap in while she was at it!

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend. Sad to leave our wonderful family, but happy to be home. And not too happy about having to go back to work! The coming weeks we'll get ready for Christmas! We'll be home again this year (no more vacation time) and are looking forward to having a nice relaxing Christmas season. Guess we'll get those lights up next weekend!

Click here to see more Thanksgiving Weekend Pictures!

Blew It!

2008-11-30T19:15:00.003-05:00

Somewhere around 2am this morning I awoke with a start...totally forgot to blog on Saturday! oops!

We were just having way too much fun with Uncle Dan and Aunt Maggie and Grandpa and Nana! Just didn't have the time to think about blogging!

And tonight, I'm tired and achy...hoping I'm not coming down with something else...I haven't quite gotten over whatever is causing the cough!

But we are home and safe and hopefully going to be warm soon...Brock is starting a fire. And we'll hit the sheets early tonight and hopefully start December on a positive note...hopefully the sun will shine tomorrow??

Oh well, I blogged 29 out of 30 days. Most were boring, but I made the effort! Too bad I totally blew it! ;-)

Tired

2008-11-28T21:35:00.002-05:00

Don't know if it's just having a Friday off from work or all the Turkey from yesterday, but I've been tired all day! I guess it's a good thing we didn't do much today!

We played around the house, read, went shopping at Silas's and napped. Then Aunt Maggie and Uncle Dan came and Leda is in all her glory showing off for all the new relatives!

Maybe more to report tomorrow. Maybe we will actually go out and play in the snow tomorrow!

Full

2008-11-27T19:44:00.003-05:00

Today was a full day. A day full of baking (pies), making thanksgiving dinner, spending time with family, playing in the snow and TURKEY!

A successful day all around. My pies came out pretty good...Apple was a hit (thanks Mom!) and we'll save the pumpkin for tomorrow night.

Leda's been having a ball playing with her toys, dressing up for the adults and just plain being cute!

We'll see what the rest of the weekend brings. Uncle Dan and Aunt Maggie are here tomorrow afternoon. I think we may have to try and build a snowman tomorrow! There's plenty of snow here! ;-)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Off to Join the 41 Million Others on the Road!

2008-11-26T14:05:00.003-05:00

Off to Grandpa's house...heading north into the wilderness.

Packing the kid, the dog, the various other necessities into the car and off we go.

Tomorrow there will be pies to make, Turkey to eat, and at least one if not two playings of Alice's Restaurant! It's a Thanksgiving Tradition around these here parts. I'm gonna take it with us to NY. Gotta love iTunes!

Lite post today, since we are gonna spend the next 5 or so hours on the road. But I'll be posting tomorrow! And the next day. And so on and so forth! Internet gods willing!

Coughing...

2008-11-25T18:56:00.002-05:00

This weekend we are heading off to Grandpa's house (Brock's parents) for Thanksgiving. Brock's brother Daniel and his wife Maggie will be in town from the west and we wanted to spend a few days with them while they are on the "right" coast! And I don't mean that politically!

The last time we had seen Aunt Maggie is a year and a half ago when she and Uncle Dan got married. That was the week I came down with pneumonia. I started coughing on Saturday and it has gradually gotten worse and it's the same type of cough I had that week! Oh Joy! I said to Brock this morning that I didn't want Maggie thinking that every time we see her I get sick! ;-)

So I am coughing my way through the days (and nights, oh even more joy!) and hoping that this thing will go away. And I am planning to make two pies on Thursday morning! Nothing like a little extra pressure piled on!

Leda and I are going to watch Snoopy tonight! Leda has been bugging me for a few weeks now that she wanted to see Snoopy again. So on Sunday night I told her that we'd be watching Snoopy on Tuesday night. This caused a ton of heartache around here on Sunday night. Leda's not so good on her days yet...she thought I meant that on Sunday we'd watch Snoopy and it's been just crazy around here ever since! When I told her this morning that it was Tuesday, she just beamed!

So we'll cuddle all nice and warm together and watch Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving. I can't wait!

Mondays

2008-11-24T11:26:00.002-05:00

This morning came too soon. Leda had no nap yesterday so she just collapsed at bedtime last night. So tired was she that she didn't use the potty before bed. So tired were we that we didn't notice!

3AM...Leda calls out. Brock goes in to check on her and her bed is wet. Both of us are wishing we had remembered to have her go potty before bed! Instead of changing the sheets (we DID remove the wet ones) we had her get into bed with us. I think the 10 minutes or less that it would have taken to change the bed would have been worth the hour or so of sleep I lost due to little kicking feet and a dog who had to sleep on top of me as well!

So, this morning came a little too soon!

Leda came into my office before she left for daycare and gave me cuddles. She asks:

Leda: "What day is today, Mama?"
Mommy: "Monday."
Leda: "Oh. I don't like Monday's."
Mommy: (a little laugh!) "Me neither honey. Why don't you like Mondays?"
Leda: "I don't know, I just don't."
Mommy: "What day do you like?"
Leda: "Ummm, Tuesdays and Thursdays."

So, there you have it. We don't like Monday's in these here parts!

Tired

2008-11-23T18:19:00.002-05:00

Well, I thought about it, I really did. I was going to come up with an amazing post tonight, but alas, I decided to clean out our storage closet instead.

Now, I'm just sore and tired. Almost happy that my storage closet will store more stuff now that we cleaned it up a bit and got rid of stuff that we didn't need anymore. We've still got a bit to do, but I might actually end up with an office that doesn't have piles of stuff in it. Because I will be able to put the stuff away.

I'm also a bit stressed...I've decided I really need to start doing something with the stuff I have kept over the years and loath to get rid of. Like Christmas, Birthday, etc. cards that I have kept since, well, for like ever! I just don't know what to do with it. I have some ideas, so I guess I'll have to see what I can end up doing with it....maybe my office won't be so clean after all!

And, I'm depressed. My Eagles Suck. Not much more to say about that.

So, I'm saving my inspired posts for next weekend when I get FOUR DAYS OFF! WooHoo!

Ahead of the Game...

2008-11-22T14:27:00.008-05:00

I am. I am so far ahead of the game, I'm practically planning for Christmas 2009.

Well, okay, I'm not that good! But I went shopping today for Christmas Cards and I think I have half of Leda's stocking purchased! And then some! I'm so proud of myself.

And I didn't forget the Christmas Cards. In fact, I've already purchased a certain person's birthday cards (and she should remember this for when she gets the cards the first week of January (two weeks AFTER said birthday) because I purchased them A MONTH A HEAD OF TIME and will forget where I put them. Seriously!)

Oh, and yes, I shopped at Target! Well, and A.C. Moore. I promised Leda some crafts that she and I would do this weekend. Mostly it's me doing the crafts, because there is glue involved. But she helped. And we planted a spruce tree and some alyssum flowers ("carpet of snow") - we planted the seeds in small little pots and we'll watch them grow over the next couple of weeks. And if they do grow, we'll re-pot them and Leda can take care of them. It will give her a project for the winter!

Anyway, I went shopping at Target. Le Target! Why do I shop there and not Walmart or any mom-pop stores? Well, first, I love Target. LOVE Target. I'm addicted to Target. Don't know why, I just do. I'm not a big fan of KMart...I will shop there in a pinch, but I'm just not a big fan...I think Target's stuff is better quality and for around the same price, most of the time. The kids clothes are good quality and cheap!

I do shop the smaller stores, it just depends on what I am looking for and what I will pay. My favorite little shop downtown is Charmed Spirit. I've made friends with the owner and I do like shopping there. However, it is very specialty...upscale gifts and Trollbeads (thus the reason I shop there!) I love Earthmart, an 'organic' shop downtown, and I have purchased from there, but the prices are a bit expensive, so it's a treat to shop there, rather than a way of life. I love our Cheese shop downtown, but again, a treat to shop there....special occasions.

I don't like Walmart. I don't know why, I just don't. That's not to say I haven't purchased from Walmart, I have. But if I have a choice, I'd shop at Target.

I'm not a huge shopper. I only really shop when I need to or when there is something I want. I don't like going to malls or to even Target during the holiday season (I don't do malls anytime unless there is something specific I really need or want...I worked at malls for years and have had my fill of malls! I make it to the mall maybe once or twice a year) because I can't stand holiday shoppers. (Another thing I got from working for years in retail!)

So, where do you like to shop? Why? And who is ready for the Holiday season?

My Favorite

2008-11-21T19:40:00.002-05:00

Okay, so it is ONE of my favorite scenes in The Sound of Music...Off to find the song on iTunes...

Geez, YouTube has got everything!

Friday Random Ten

2008-11-21T09:03:00.002-05:00

It's SNOWING! I'm torn between pure joy and absolute fear....pure joy that it's SNOWING and absolute fear that this winter is gonna SUCK! Oh well! Music's good this morning...

You Don't Love Me, Matthew Sweet
You Make Loving Fun, Fleetwood Mac
Sweet Savannah, Shooter Jennings
Back Door Man, The Doors
Bringing Out The Elvis, Faith Hill
Short Skirt/Long Jacket, Cake
White, Discussion, Live
Private Eyes, Hall & Oates
Bobby Jean, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
A Trick Of The Tail, Genesis

On Demand

2008-11-20T17:56:00.003-05:00

Tonight I decided to leave Jillian in her box and I did Pilates instead. Reason, because I had a busy day at work, so busy in fact, that I barely drank enough water and I didn't eat lunch. I know, really bad habits if I am going to try and lose some weight, but by the time I had a few minutes to eat, it was 3:30 in the afternoon and I couldn't justify having lunch then.

I had misplaced my favorite Pilates DVD (we own a small house...every DVD we own is accounted for EXCEPT for the one that I want to watch at the moment!) and I was really bummed about it. The instructor is Ana Caban who I really liked...she made it fun...mostly by how she explained the exercises.

I've only just recently discovered the joys of On Demand. Actually, we've know about them for some time, we've used it to keep Leda happy when she wanted Little Bear and he just wasn't on any channel. But I hadn't really ventured further than Kids. I discovered how easy it was to order movies in May. That was cool! And I read somewhere that they also had exercise programs on there as well.

So last night, after my grueling workout with Jillian, I checked out On Demand. And found a whole BUNCH of exercise programs. If there is anything you want to do, it is probably on On Demand! And I found a Pilates program with Ana Caban! Totally different from my missing DVD, but there it was! And I thought, this would be great in the mornings!

Of course, I didn't get my butt out of bed this morning to do Pilates! And based on my busy day, I didn't think doing Jillian's workout would be a good idea. So, I did Pilates this evening.

Leda and Duff thought this was grand! Duff lay on one side of me watching every move I made and Leda was either sitting in her chair watching me and laughing or laying down next to me going, "Look Mommy, I can do that." At one point, Brock wanted to take a picture of her and me doing Rolling Like A Ball together! It was very cute. And no, he didn't take the picture because it would have been the last picture he would ever take! ;-)

Finally, Some Ideas...

2008-11-19T19:32:00.005-05:00

Todd finally came through. Apparently he was studying too hard or going to class or something of that sort and was too busy to give me any ideas for posts until the past Sunday. And, I wasn't paying attention until today!

And I like the ideas. I've been thinking about several and there's a few posts here over the next couple of days. There are some I will skip, but not because they aren't thought provoking. Like, how can I realistically tell you what our family can do to reduce it's carbon footprint when I live in an idealistic world? ;-)

I also won't be writing a post about how I would design Obama's cabinet because, well, I'm not President and I really wouldn't be good at it (now, get Brock to start a blog and ask HIM to design the cabinet...he's the political junkie in this family!) Besides, I'd be picking Hugh Jackman for Press Secretary and George Clooney for Chief of Staff, just so I could look at them on a daily basis!

Speaking of Hugh...FINALLY, People Magazine does something I completely agree with...They make Hugh the Sexist Man Alive. Oh yes! Guess what I will be purchasing this week?? I can't believe it took People Magazine this long to come around! Geez! (Seriously, Hugh is uber-sexy. Yumm!)

So, thank you Todd! I'm looking forward to writing my posts now! You came through last year, and I thank you for the ideas for the rest of the month! You can have some of the pumpkin pie I am making for Thanksgiving. Or the Apple...because apparently in a total moment of craving, I decided I needed to make my Mother's Apple Pie and a pumpkin pie too for Thanksgiving so I signed myself up! Yum! I can taste the pie crust now!

And that witch Jillian Michaels, well, she can just stay home for Thanksgiving. She's been kicking my butt for the past two days and will each day until Thanksgiving. Man, I am going to need a break from her for a few days! So she will stay home when we head to Brock's family's house for Thanksgiving. Then, she can kick my butt again when I get home. (Yeah, I know, not exactly how the 30 day shred is supposed to be done, but that's what I get for starting it a week and a half before Thanksgiving!)

The Shred, Sucks!

2008-11-18T19:08:00.003-05:00

Okay, that was horrible.

I'm sure that Jillian wouldn't suggest doing this right before dinner, but hey, I just can't do mornings. And, I am pretty sure that doing this first thing in the morning would kill me. Because I am pretty sure I came about 2 seconds away from death about 5 minutes into the 20 minute workout.

But I stuck with it. Even with Leda saying, "Hey, I can do that. Look Mommy, look at me, I can do that," all while Jillian is kicking my ~~ass~~ butt! Oh, and not only did Leda want me to see what she could do (which was about three moves WHILE she sat on the couch and drank her milk) she drank all my water, too! Nice kid!

I had read where people mentioned that this workout was pretty darn hard, so hard in fact that it caused some to want to vomit during or after. I thought, it can't be that hard. Oh, but it is! I did want to vomit afterwards. I didn't so I am hoping that is a good sign. (Not exactly sure when not vomiting when wanting to became a good sign??) I will say that if you want an appetite suppressant that will help you get into shape, this is your DVD!

So, I guess I will be feeling it tomorrow. Hopefully I will be able to get out of the office a little early tomorrow and start this workout an hour before dinner, so I can actually eat without wanting to die!

If I can keep this up AND find my favorite Pilate's DVD (Now, that's something I can do in the morning!), I might actually get this body into some kinda shape by the New Year and maybe, just maybe, I'll look smokin' hot next summer! Oh yeah! If not, I'll be hunting Jillian Michaels down for a little revenge!

I've Got Nothing!

2008-11-17T19:43:00.003-05:00

Seriously. Can't think of anything to write. All interesting thoughts are avoiding my brain apparently. For like the entire month. (Yeah, I'm sure there are some of you thinking that they've been avoiding my brain for a lot longer than that!)

There is just nothing that is interesting me these days. Nothing. Nada. Zip. It's quite sad. At least, there's nothing interesting that I haven't already written about. Like the past. There's lots of that going on! But I've written enough of that.

I'm not giving up though. This might be a post about nothing, but at least it's a post! I mean, come on, Seinfeld was on for nine seasons of nothing. I can at least make it another 13 days. Hopefully they won't be 13 days of nothing. At least, for those of you who still come here, I hope for your case, it's not 13 days of nothing.

So, how about a cute picture? Yesterday the Durhams joined us for dinner and football/NASCAR. Leda and Paige 'read' a book. It was very cute!

Apparently Not So Lazy After All....

2008-11-16T15:01:00.005-05:00

Okay, here you go. Cyndy's Christmas List. And no, nothing from Brock yet. So don't ask! I've already asked him. A billion times. Hopefully soon.

First, Leda's List didn't mention that Tinkerbell the Movie and Cinderella and Ariel Barbies are already something that Santa has already has on his list of things to deliver, so refrain! ;-) I don't think I put them on her lists, but just in case, already done!

So, my list. And yes, it will probably be TOTALLY unsexy again this year. But it's what I want!

First and foremost....my Amazon wishlist. I want everything on this list!!! ;-) It is in order of items added to my list, but everything on this list is still something I want! It has been cleaned up recently.

donna karan cashmere mist perfume
donna karan cashmere silk cologne
kitchen compost keeper, stainless steel would be nice. Something like this
Buddha statue
Candles, candle holders, nice smells
A NFL Championship. In the next five years would be nice.
Microplane Grater. Something like this
Wooden Lemon Reamer. Something like this
iTunes gift cards
A wideangle lens for my Nikon D50 ;-)

If I can think of anything else I need or want, will make sure to update!

Family...I will forward lists in email in the next couple of days or so. Maybe when I get Brock's list? ;-)

Have at it!

Lazy Day

2008-11-16T14:15:00.003-05:00

I realized this morning that I am just too old to stay out until 2am! But it was lots of fun!

I got together with an old friend last night and we sat around and talked all night. By the time we thought about looking at the clock, it was REALLY late! By the time I got home, it was after 2! It was fun, but morning time comes early around here due to some evil spawn of my loins! ;-)

So today, after we did a little cleaning, was a lazy day. A little napping, a little football, and some friends for dinner. A perfect Sunday afternoon.

Go Eagles!

Movie Day

2008-11-15T15:00:00.002-05:00

A few days ago, we decided today would be a good day for Leda's first trip to a real movie theater! It is supposed to be rainy and yucky (although really warm) so, perfect, right?

So about ten minutes before we leave to go grab some lunch and the movie - the sun is out.

Oh well, anyway, headed off for a nice little lunch/late breakfast and then headed off to the movie theater to catch Madagascar 2. Leda was very excited. We got there and headed first for the restrooms to make sure that the two large lemonades she had for lunch didn't interrupt the movie and then we headed over to the popcorn lady and got us some popcorn. With butter!

I have to say, movie theater popcorn is not what it used to be. The butter just doesn't match what butter used to be in the movie theater. It's a shame, really.

Anyway, off to the movie theater to catch us some seats...Actually Leda and Brock headed off to the theater while I was in line getting the popcorn, so they scored some good seats. We settled in and watched the previews...some good stuff coming out over the next couple of months!

Then, the movie started. It was a good movie. The penguins are hysterical! Leda sat in her seat for about 5 minutes, then spent all but about 15 minutes in my lap...those 15 minutes she spent in Brock's lap! She liked it. The theater was packed with kids...I haven't been to many kids movies lately, so it was a little surprising that there was so much up and down and moving around! But Leda handled herself pretty well!

At the end of the movie, as the credits were scrolling and the music was playing, it was fun to look around the theater and see all the kids dancing! That was cute!

So, first movie in a movie theater has been done and was a giant success! What fun it was!

Too Cute!

2008-11-14T22:00:00.002-05:00

Have you seen this video yet...Seriously, click there and go see this video...it's of a little kid at the Phillies Parade a few weeks back. You know the one...the WORLD CHAMPIONS OF BASEBALL parade? Yeah, that one!

Anyway, it's all over the news up here...This kids mom took him down to the parade and as they were waiting for the parade to get started, she started taking this video of him on Broad Street. And she asks him "how big?" and he raises his hands up high. And every time he does, the people on the other side of the street, also waiting for the parade, raise their hands up and cheer. And the kid's like, dude, what the heck is up with all those people over there?

It's like dripping with cute! Be careful, could cause cavities, it's so sweet!

I dare you not to feel all warm and fuzzy inside! Go on, dare ya!

Friday Random Ten

2008-11-14T10:32:00.002-05:00

Thank the Gods it is Friday! I'm probably not sleeping late tomorrow morning (we'll see!) because I'm going to get motivated and get my butt up early and start the 30 Day Shred! Ha! As I said, we'll see!

Here's what I'm listening to...

I Wanna Be Adored, The Stone Roses
Room At The Top, Adam Ant
Gimme Me Some Lovin', The Spencer Davis Group
Rehab, Amy Winehouse
Rock Rock (Til You Drop), Def Leppard
Rock And Roll Dreams Come Through, Meat Loaf
Not Even The Trees, Hootie & The Blowfish
The Interlocutor, Squirrel Nut Zippers
Before He Cheats, Carrie Underwood
Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, Indigo Girls

The Blue Guy Did It.

2008-11-13T19:04:00.004-05:00

Tonight at dinner, we saw a report about some investigative work that is being done about how (or who, or from where) Kennedy (JFK) was assassinated. The report indicated that through some testing, the investigators have determined that the damage done to Kennedy was most likely created by a shot from the 6th floor of the Book Depository. (I can't find a link to the report...it was on the NBC Nightly News.)

It was an interesting story and Brock and I were having a discussion about it and I used the name Lee Harvey Oswald by just saying "Oswald". And as we were talking about it, Leda says, "Mommy, why are you talking about the Blue Guy?"

And Brock and I said, "What? What Blue Guy?"

And then it hit me. Leda heard me say "Oswald" and immediately thought I was talking about this guy. Oswald to Leda is a big blue octopus who hangs out with a wiener dog named "Weenie."

Wait until Arlen Specter and the conspiracy theorists get wind of this!

Amazing the things that kids growing up today will grow up without!

Random Thoughts

2008-11-12T20:33:00.003-05:00

I got to go shopping by myself tonight. I therefore plugged the earphones in to the iPod and rocked my way around KMart! Hope the guys watching the security cameras had a blast, I did.

While I was rockin' it out, and on the way home, and while wrapping my niece's birthday present, I had various random thoughts. Some struck me as funny. Some not so much. But hey, I needed a post, so this is what ya get!
___________________________________________

I'm probably too old to dig Nickelback. But I do! More importantly, I'm pretty sure that when my husband reads this, he's going to think, "What the heck is a Nickelback." Anyway, I do. Dig them. And I dig my old man, too! (love ya honey!)
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I think the fact I use the word "dig" to describe how much I really like something PROVES I am too old to dig Nickelback! Oh well!
___________________________________________

You can inherit genes that make your hair the color it is, your eyes the color they are, and possibly various diseases...so why can't you inherit the gene for wrapping presents well? I can't for the life of me wrap a gift as well as my mother can. Geez!
___________________________________________

What in the heck does someone need - NEED - an assault rifle? Someone being not a policeman, soldier, SWAT team member? Really. I'd like to know.
___________________________________________

Why do the weirdest people seem to all be at the KMart on a Wednesday night?
___________________________________________

Did you know that Top Chef starts tonight?? Yipppeeee!
___________________________________________

When the heck should I start my Christmas shopping? Oh, I know, WHEN FAMILY MEMBERS START GIVING ME LISTS!
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So much for what is in my head tonight! I've got a post or two that will actually keep you interest (I hope) brewing. Hopefully I can get them written in the next day or two and hopefully I will be able to come up with more! There's more than half a month left! Ugh!

Bossy Child

2008-11-11T15:16:00.003-05:00

Our child has become awfully bossy these days. Or rather, she takes us to task for doing things that we probably, at some point or two, have told her not to do.

This makes life interesting. I've been told during a major sporting event that I should be quiet when people are trying to sleep. She's right, I do need to resist my natural urge to yell and scream during a major sporting event that a Philadelphia team is playing in, especially when said game is taking place after 8PM (the kid's bed time). Just not sure if I want my three-year-old child reminding me!

Brock and I were talking in the kitchen while he was making dinner just a few days ago and Leda comes out of her room and tells us, "shhhhh, my baby is sleeping" and stomps back into her bedroom. Brock and I had a little giggle about that.

I was on the phone with my sister last night, in the living room while Brock was watching TV and the kid was playing with her baby doll. At one point, the kid comes up to me and announces, "YOU woke my baby up. You need to be quiet!" Okay, definitely cute, but out of hand! Brock took her up to get ready for bed around that time, probably explaining to her that it's okay for us to talk on the phone in the living room and that the baby should have been sleeping in her bedroom!

Just after Leda finished her lunch today, she was heading out of the dining room and past my office as Brock said something to her from the dining room, where he was still eating. Leda promptly tells him, "You shouldn't speak with your mouthful!" Well, then!

She also takes great pleasure in coming to me when Brock makes her mad (usually by telling her she can't do something she wants to do or even when they are playing around) and telling me that I must come help her put Daddy in in Time Out. "Because he's a bad boy" I am told. This is only one example of how she tries to pit the two of us against one another. Our favorite is when she will ask me if she can do something and I tell her no, she heads right off to find Daddy and ask him the same exact thing, hoping to get a different answer! We are pretty used to this happening so that we usually check with the other before we give her an answer! She still attempts it though...guess she is hedging her bets that one of us will eventually just give in!

Ah, life with a three-and-a-half-year-old...never a dull moment!

Come On People...Help Me Out Here!

2008-11-10T20:38:00.002-05:00

I need help. I'm totally drawing blanks on what to write, so unless you want a whole month of lame posts, give me some ideas!!

One or two or three ideas would be good! My brain is a bit fried this week, having had to take a test for certification for work that took a week and was just horrible! So coming up with something to write about with any hope of entertaining the HORDES of people who flock to my blog has suffered due to having to use all brain cells on work. And those 10 brain cells are very, very tired people, so give em a hand and give me a topic or two!

In the meantime, I guess I could always spend the rest of the month complaining about my Eagles and Andy Reid's UNBELIEVABLY stupid challenge and play on 4 and 1...Yeah, I know, I'm not the coach, I probably couldn't have done much better...blah, blah, blah. The run on 4 and 1 was STUPID and I challenge anyone to tell me I'm wrong. Even Tiki Barber said it was a bad call...and I HATE when I have to agree with Tiki*. But that's besides the point...the challenge against whether the guy was down before the ball came out for a possible fumble...BAD, BAD, BAD! What the heck was that??

Seriously, do you want me to blog about that for the rest of the month? If not, give me an idea! A good idea! And nothing technical in nature!

Thank you in advance,
The Management

*I mean, it's bad enough I'm rooting for Warren Sapp on Dancing with the Stars that I don't need to be agreeing with Tiki Barber! What is this world coming too????

What a Treat!

2008-11-09T10:31:00.007-05:00

Wow! Did we have fun last night. Even feeling like crap didn't dampen the mood too much!

Leda was so excited to have 'visitors' last night that when Caitlyn and Paige (tag-team babysitting!) arrived, Leda completely forgot Brock and I were still in the house...I swear she would have practically pushed us out the door if she could have! What a change from the last time...and all times prior to that. Usually there is lots of crying and screaming, "I want to go with you!" as we are walking out the door! My, how times have changed!

So we headed off to our night out, but not before we realized, about a mile from the house (thank goodness!) that we forgot the concert tickets! So a quick back to the house and then we were on our way. First, dinner at Plush, which was as good as it ever is. Was nice and relaxing, well, except for the first couple of minutes, which were the last couple of seconds of the Penn State game, in which they lost. That was a bummer. Other than that, dinner was awesome.

Then, over to the Keswick for the concert. Alro was joined by his son Abe on keyboards and a drummer, guitarist and bass player. After his first song, he brought out a special guest...turns out to be David Bromberg! And apparently, this was a last minute thing, but boy, it didn't sound that way!

Wow, it was great. Arlo brought out The Burn Sisters who he explained had joined him on his benefit for the victims of Katrina and he enjoyed them so much, that he told them they had to tour with him! So there were lots of musicians on the stage and boy, did it sound awesome.

Every time we have seen Arlo, it's been different. This was our fourth time seeing him, and it never gets old! He played some new songs and some old songs, and some of his father's songs and some songs by Lead Belly and Ramblin' Jack Elliot. It was so good.

We've seen Arlo play with his family and we've seen him play with other musicians and we've seen him play alone. This was the most musician's he has had on stage with him and it was so well done. It was rocking and moving and funny and somber. It was really great. And Arlo told his stories. And that was awesome. He didn't do Alice's Restaurant, but that's more than okay! We'd heard him do it twice (at the last two concerts of his that we attended) and that was good enough for me! Besides, as he said last night, that's why he put it on an album! And, it would take up a good portion of the concert, therefore he would not be able to play as many other songs.

And, he ended the night with My Peace, probably now one of my all time favorite songs...

My peace my peace is all I’ve got that I can give to you
My peace is all I ever had that’s all I ever knew
I give my peace to green and black and red and white and blue
My peace my peace is all I’ve got that I can give to you

My peace, my peace is all I’ve got and all I've ever known
My peace is worth a thousand times more than anything I own
I pass my peace around and about ‘cross hands of every hue;
I guess my peace is justa ‘bout all I’ve got to give to you

(words by Woody Guthrie, music by Arlo Guthrie)

We had a great night. I kinda wish I didn't have a cold, it would have been that much more enjoyable! I highly recommend catching an Arlo concert! It's well worth it!

Dreary Day

2008-11-08T16:50:00.002-05:00

Make that a week...it's been overcast and sometimes raining just about all week around here. I think the sun peaked out for about an hour or two yesterday. That's been it.

So we didn't get a whole lot done today. Besides the fact I have a cold that has been slowly moving into my head, darn it!

We did head off to Ikea and bought some bookcases...one for our bedroom and one for Leda's. Leda's got a ton of books that need a place to live and since we moved her clothes into a smaller dresser...well, one that doesn't take up so much wall space, we have some more room to use!

Brock and I are off to see Arlo Guthrie tonight. So I am looking very forward to having a good dinner. Hoping that the cold and the headache will try and hold off until after Arlo plays. Don't expect Alice's Restaurant tonight...but expect lots of good music!

It's THAT Time of Year...

2008-11-07T18:26:00.003-05:00

Because we have a kid who is now old enough to ask for everything under the sun and knows exactly (EXACTLY) what a toy catalog is, Leda and I sat down this evening and went over what she wanted for Christmas. So, here's Leda's Christmas List (or what we have edited to be Leda's Christmas list because, you know, she wants everything!)

Don't get your hopes up...this does not mean that you will soon get a Cyndy and/or Brock Christmas list...gotta keep you waiting a little bit!

Leda's Amazon Wish List

Leda's etoys.com Wish List

Leda's Toys to Grow On Wish List

There are a few things on these lists I'd like to point out...

1. Books. She loves books. Books are always a good thing!
2. Train set...Ask her why she needs a train set and she will respond, "because I don't have one." Same goes for the pirate ship. Although, I have to say, she does like to play with train sets (and pirate ships.)
3. Horses...she is all about horses these days. Must run in the blood.
4. The really expensive stuff...not necessary to purchase. She said that she wanted to ask Santa, so I put it on the list. There were LOTS of stuff I told her we couldn't put on the list because we had to save stuff for other girls and boys...because really, if she had her way, EVERYTHING would be on the list!)
5. Most everything is a suggestion. Except for one thing...A bathroom for her doll house (On the Amazon list) - Leda is absolutely positive that her doll house is not ACTUALLY a doll house because it doesn't have a bathroom. She must have one. Or else, we will have to purchase her a whole new dollhouse. One that has a bathroom. And in this housing market, moving to a new house is just gonna kill the dollhouse family. They have enough money to add a bathroom, but not enough to purchase a whole other house. Save them, please!

(Oh, and about the dollhouse family...Mom has disappeared and I think Dad ran off with Snow White (or Cinderella...both are pretty much home wreckers). So you will notice that on the amazon list there is another dollhouse family listed - this one has a grandmother to watch the kids while their parents are off galavanting around with Diego and the Princesses.)

So, there you have it...I'll add to as I get more requests from the kid.

Friday Random 10

2008-11-07T11:24:00.002-05:00

Today my shuffle is gettin' the Led out...Already about 20 songs past my top 10 and have heard at least 4 Led Zepplin songs...right now, rockin' out to a little Black Dog!

Celebration Day, Led Zeppelin
Six Months In A Leaky Boat, Split Enz
Rocket, Def Leppard
From the Beginning, Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Do You Want To Dance?, Bette Midler
Oye Mamacita, Los Lonely Boys
Angel From Montgomery, The Angels
Everyday America, Sugarland
Blue Angel, Squirrel Nut Zippers
Another Rainy Night (Without You), Queensrÿche

It's the end of the week. I'm fighting a cold and looking forward to an evening with Arlo Guthrie tomorrow night (plus dinner at our favorite before-concert-at-the-Keswick restaurant, Plush.)

Have a great weekend!

Sushi, Baby!

2008-11-06T17:05:00.003-05:00

Tonight we are off to grab some sushi and go have some dinner with a friend with a 4-week old baby. We can't wait to meet her!

And I'm really looking forward to the sushi!

So much for best laid plans...I had planned to get some sleep last night, but turns out, due to a sore throat, I spent most of the night coughing myself awake! So not happy with my body! It is not cooperating.

Hopefully after some good sushi, baby cuddling time, visit with a good friend and maybe a glass of wine, I can come home, catch CSI and Life on Mars and head off to dreamland without interuption! That would be nice.

Then, I might be able to come up with a truly inspiring post! Instead of this rambling mess!

Need Sleep!

2008-11-05T19:37:00.002-05:00

The past two weeks have seen me up past my bed time too many times! Phillies and Presidency have me low on sleep! Turns out, the Eagles will probably have me up late on Sunday for the Sunday Night game. Geez! Will I ever sleep again?

Yes, I stayed up late last night. Watched until the bitter end (12:45am, when I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer). I watched history....no, I participated in history last night. And, putting aside who won and who lost, I am so proud of this country. You came out and voted! Highest percentage of eligible voters to vote since 1908! That right there is amazing! Because, if we are going to be a democracy, you gotta vote...you gotta make your voice heard.

And I'm totally impressed with the college-age voting block! In our area, they more than doubled their turn out! That is awesome!

I've found myself emotional throughout today, especially when I think of Martin Luther King Jr. and his words and his works and how far this country has come since I was born - since well before! How last night we came so much closer to the dream that we ARE all equal and we could all achieve the highest achievement with hope and hard work. And that makes me swell with pride for this country.

And - no more campaign ads! Wooo Hooo!

Tonight, I'm gonna pack myself into bed early, maybe read a book, definitely go to sleep early and turn my attention to the most important competition in this country...Dancing With The Stars! Go Warren, Go Lance! Woo Hoo! (but no, I haven't been voting - only in my heart. I know, I'm such a bad example!)

A Long Night

2008-11-04T20:13:00.003-05:00

Tonight's gonna go on forever!

We've all voted, it's now a waiting game. And listening to the spin! Oh boy, can't wait!

Leda went with me to the polling place, as she has for every vote since she was born. She ate pretzels and 'stole' popcorn from the snack for workers table and was happy to see her Daddy who has been working the poll all day. They've had long lines all day. Luckily we only had to wait for 10 minutes.

So we voted. Now we wait to see who wins.

One More Day

2008-11-03T13:19:00.007-05:00

Well, here we are, the day before the election! A very important election and historic either way. Living in a 'swing' state, the phone has been ringing off the hook this past 48 hours! I guess, since both Brock and I have volunteered for one of the campaigns, we aren't getting as many as others! I know some people have had twice as many calls and visits as us!

Being that this election season has been the LONGEST of all time (like, hasn't this been going on for.EVER), I'm so looking forward to the day when not one news station or news program will discuss politics. At least not election politics! It's been a long hard road.

Leda's been aware that something is happening. She knows the candidates names and knows the one we are supporting. We've even been good about not portraying the other side as bad or wrong, just that this is an election and that both sides are good, we just like one candidate more than the other. That it is okay to disagree, it doesn't mean that who you disagree with is bad. But in three-year-old land, there's only good and bad. This is what we get for letting her watch princess movies!

It occurred to me yesterday, as I was trying to explain to her who Joe Biden was (since she was confusing him with John McCain...hey, they both have gray hair, it's an easy mistake) that the next election cycle, Leda's going to be old enough to start understanding more about our democracy. And it bummed me out a little bit, considering the historic connotation of this election and how Leda will have to read about it in history books rather than 'live' it. That she will more than likely not remember this because she's too young.

Then I realized that either way this election goes, something that seemed almost impossible when I was a kid is no longer impossible. That an African-American man CAN be President or a woman CAN be Vice-President. And my child will never have to wonder when in her lifetime would one of those things happen.

And, regardless of your party affiliation, isn't that pretty darn cool?

Get out in vote! And if you aren't registered, get registered and vote in the next election. It's a right as an American that we ALL are born with. We shouldn't take it lightly as it is something a lot of other people in this world don't have the right to do. VOTE!