Zoomin in between the rain showers

Last week was nothing but rain, rain and more rain. Just one dreary day after another making everyone lethargic and apathetic. We did pull ourselves out of our gray funk long enough to go outside for a quick romp between rain showers on Tuesday. The yard was so saturated that Chase and I both wore our Wellies. Amaya wasn't allowed to get down on the grass not that she minded that one little iota since her preferred mode of travel is in Mama's arms. I think we got an hour of playing in before another round of precipitation urged us back inside. It was enough to chase away the doldrums for a bit at least.

In other happenings, Amaya had her 9 month well baby visit. The weed was 30.25 inches tall taking her completely off of the charts. Now where did that come from? Andy and I are both fairly average people--must be from whatever stock made Uncle Rob so tall. She weighed 20 pounds 12 ounces which placed her in the 80th percentile. That is easier to explain as it probably has something to do with her seemingly insatiable desire to eat. She devours all food placed in front of her in a manner that would put Henry VIII to shame. She'll eat anything--which is good because it means that she gets a well balanced diet. It's not so good because when I say anything, I do mean anything. If you look away for just a moment, she takes it as an opportunity to find some treasure on the floor to cram into her mouth. The latest examples of things she's decided look tasty include dog hair, dirt, and dryer lint. She's worse than Chase ever was about trying to swallow all kinds of undesirable paraphernalia not that he was completely insusceptible. Nope, I haven't forgotten the little Noodle's penchant for the occasional taste of dryer lint. Mama has a long memory for tidbits that she can use to embarrass her children when they're teenagers.

Swing back...

Swing forth...

Practicing for his egg race?

Chase reminds me of Andy in this picture.

Uh Oh Spaghetti-o's

Both of my kids really love spaghetti and meatballs which is great for Mama since it means no fights about eating one's food at meal times. However, like most things children thoroughly enjoy: it's awfully messy.

When I factor in the washing of the dishes, faces, chairs, benches, and laundering of the tomato sauce splotched clothes, I can guarantee that it takes three times longer to clean up after the meal then it did to prepare and eat it. The lil cherubs certainly don't intend to create so much extra work for Mama. They are in fact quite embarrassed and remorseful over their untidy eating.

Were you wondering why I failed to mention the cleaning of the floor earlier? Well it's certainly not because that surface evaded the path of the pasta explosion. Nope, it got hit all right.


I didn't mention having to scrub the floor because I don't ever have to do that. I have this magical, furry creature who comes along and takes care of that particular chore several times a day.


God bless Iverson.

Wine, Kindle, Sleeping Baby

What more does a girl need? This is where I ran away from my crazy life to: Keli's house and her 7 week old baby Adriana. Too cute. Holding such a little one made my own lug of a nine month old seem that much bigger. Could it be that she was ever so tiny?




Yep, guess she was.

Here we go! Ale, Ale Ale! Go, go, go! Ale, Ale Ale!

"No one can hold you down. If you really want it
Just steal your destiny. Right from the hands of fate
Reach for the cup of life."

Do you really want it?? Awww Ricky Martin. Remember him? No, I haven't completely lost my mind. That song Cup of Life--well I thought of it today when Andy sent me flowers. Why did I think of it? Well because the card said "These are for your cup of life." You see, that is what Andy calls my mercury glass vase: my cup of life. He's forever asking me what I'm going to put in it, so finally I told him that if someone ever sent me flowers, I'd have something to put in the vase. Well guess what came today:


Nope, I'm not at all spoiled. And here's the whole picture. This is the fireplace in the kitchen--I think on the floor plan, the builder called this little area the hearth room or something like that. Anyway, I just wanted to point out my mad design on a dime skills here. The clock is from Target and the pictures are also from the T although I bought them cheaper at a thrift store. I liked the Paris theme since Drew and I were married there--Paris, Las Vegas that is. The candle sticks are also from a thrift store. The red candles were Christmas clearance at Kohl's. The iron welcome mat is a reproduction from a little shop in Occoquan, but I thought it was too pretty to step on so I put it on the mantle. Finally, the aforementioned mercury glass was on clearance from Pottery Barn. Do my penny pinching skills astound or what?

Weather confusion, Birthdays, & Tutus

I've got a lot of pictures for you today. The one up above there? Yep, that's our Chase in a jacket, scarf and hat on an 80 degree day. He's reenacting his most favorite Imagination Movers episode. In that particular show, the air conditioner won't turn off in the warehouse, so the movers are really cold & have to put on lots of warm clothes. Noodle likes to pretend it's cold in his imaginary warehouse too, so he's constantly asking to put on more warm clothes. Doesn't matter if it's hot enough to melt the cheese right off of his grinning face: the kid still wants his warm clothes. But don't worry about him getting heat stroke or anything. It only takes about 10 minutes of crafty distraction techniques to get him out of his ensemble. Although the effort required for that particular mental and physical exertion is typically enough to give me hot flashes.

Next, we have pictures from Allie's birthday. First we played a little ball.


Then we bounced a bit.

Wouldn't be a party without a giant parachute, would it?


All that exercise made us very hungry.


Finally, we have a picture of Amaya . She's just tutu cute right? (Sorry couldn't help myself)

And here are my darlings attacking their Mama. This is my cue to put away the camera--the children have had enough of the paparazzi.

They're the noodleheads

They shake their googleheads...

They're the nooda-nooda-noodlehead crew!




I do hope that Laurie Berkner forgives me for the liberties I took with her googlehead song.

She's hot and she's cold

Our little sugar bean has been keeping us on our toes at meal times. She gets very hyper upon first spying edible items and thus begins her feeding frenzy. She'll start kicking her feet and bouncing up and down in her chair with so much force that she looks like she's sitting in the last car of a roller coaster. Her excitement is so adorable that you can't help but smile and wonder how such a darling being came to exist.

But don't ponder the miracle too long. If you lose focus for even a second and fail to provide the little imp with a constant supply of food, her mood quickly changes. She shifts all of the energy that had been previously used for happy bouncing into fist clenching, face scrunching fury. There is no downtime between the two emotions either. As she is popping the last provided morsel of food into her mouth her eyes are scanning the table for its replacement. If she can't locate the much desired crumb, she'll begin her howling before she's even finished swallowing the food that is already in her mouth. Trying to adjust to her vacillation between ecstasy and rage makes your head spin. Perhaps we're on a roller coaster after all.

I know, I know

You want a new post. You want new pictures. I'm a slacker. You don't know how I can be so cruel and heartless. I should be ashamed. I know. I'm working on it. Maybe tomorrow.

In the meantime, you can enjoy these random pictures from my iPhone. One other thing, please try to think happy, forgiving thoughts rather than prank calling Laura until she provides more interesting reading material thoughts.

An Easter photo essay

I am ashamed to admit to my gluttonous consumption of obscene amounts of cakes, cookies and candy this weekend. However, I must own up to my sins as my blog post today reflects the effects of my sugar slump on my brain's ability to allow proper conductivity at the site of my neural synapses. Roughly translated: my ability to form complete, coherent sentences is lacking today. No need to feign disappointment: I know you're only here for the pictures anyway. Everyone wins today.

What is it about holidays and sick kids?

Aside from that one major illness at Hanukkah/Christmas, my offspring have been fairly healthy this year. Before you tell me to knock on wood, let me just tell you: it's too late. Amaya is sick. She started getting snotty and congested last Thursday. Perhaps you remember my post about it? Andy took her to the doctor Friday and was told it was just a cold. But, almost a full week later, the girl still didn't seem to be getting any better. In fact, she was becoming cranky and even more needy. I am not exaggerating even a little when I say that she shrieked until her face turned bright red and her eyes popped out if I tried to sit her down the floor right next to me instead of on my lap. Have you ever tried to balance a 20lb squiggling weight in the crook of your dominate arm while using your free, but drastically less adept hand to empty and then reload the dishwasher? Let's just say that it was not a fun time to be the mama.

Then yesterday, I woke up with a sore throat, and suddenly a bunch of bells and lights started going off in my head. I just knew that Amaya had gotten strep, and the pediatrician confirmed my diagnosis. A quick look at the calender shows that this illness comes right before Passover Seder and Easter Sunday. Do you think she planned it that way?

Since she was still contagious last night, Amaya and I had to miss the Easter egg hunt at Allie's house. This totally bummed me out, but what could I do? I had already possibly exposed the entire group with the sugar cookies I made for the kids to decorate, so it didn't really seem very nice of me to take the little infected infant over there to breathe on them all, too. So that meant that Chase and Daddy went without us, and from the looks of the pictures it would seem that they didn't even notice our absence. Bah Bunnybug.



Here is Chase showing zero concern over the fact that he may have just ingested a strep laced sugar cookie. I would like it known that I provided full disclosure of the possible contamination, so any sickness attributed to consumption of said cookies is in no way my fault. Any questions regarding this matter can be directed to my personal assistant. Good luck reaching her--I've heard it's difficult getting imaginary people on the line.


I, according to the CVS Minute Clinic, do not have strep. I do have a sore throat, occasional fever and swollen lymph nodes on top of the normal runny nose, itchy eyes, headache and cough of allergies. But none of this--not my aches, not my daughter's germ infested body, nothing short of a plague will keep me from eating my weight in Matzo Brittle tomorrow night. So Gran, I hope you've made plenty.

Be careful what you wish for

Remember last year when I declared my desire to own those adorable monkey slippers? Well obviously, I got them. Apparently, my family seems to think that I whine when I don't get my way, so Jenn decided to save everyone the pain of listening to me by getting me the cute foot attire for Hanukkah. Don't they look great on my chubby feet?

And boy are they comfy. I wear them pretty much all day around the house, outside to get the mail, sometimes even when I'm driving if I don't plan to get out of the car but let's not tell anyone about that because I think it's probably illegal. Since I am obviously happy with the slippers, why the title of my post? Well, I'm not the only one that loves my slippers. Chase adores them too. He even named them Ew and Aw. Except he doesn't want to wear them, he wants to talk to them. And he expects them to talk back--all day long. Now who do you think gets to provide the voice for these two little sock monkeys? That's right, mama does. So instead of relaxing with my feet propped up in my chair, I have to repeat the same mindless conversation with Chase over and over and over and over. If I try to ignore his requests that "Monkeys talk me", Chase starts grabbing my toes and twisting until I begrudgingly wiggle my foot and ask him "How are you today Chase?" in my best monkeyish voice. I guess I could just stop wearing them, but then instead of seeing their cute little button eyes, I'd have to look at my ugly feet. Not sure which option is the greater torture at this point.

Even when miserable

due to having a terrible cold complete with an endless runny nose & dried snot all over her face,



Amaya still has the strength and desire to unleash a killer smile.


Don't even try to resist...

Buy one toddler bath, get an infant bath free*

*Limited time offer. Quantities limited to stock on hand. Not responsible for tantrums thrown or wet bathroom floors.

From Amaya's expression, you can tell that she is
simply shocked that her big brother hasn't tried to
dunk her yet. Give him time, give him time.