The Good, the Bad, and the Just Plain Rediculous!

Will's 1st Birthday!

2011-05-24T01:03:00.004-04:00

Up late again tonight, so I figured I'd post again :-) Alyson has been waking up around this time for the past few nights and crying for me, for no apparent reason. Not sure what's going on there. For the past week and a half or so, her bedtime routine has been dragging out longer and longer. We used to listen to some music, read a book, then I'd say goodnight and that would be that. I'd close the door and she'd fall right to sleep. Then one day she wanted her light left on. Then she wanted her door left open. Now she wants me to lay with her until she falls asleep. If I get up before she's fallen asleep, she'll get out of bed and want to follow me downstairs. I swear it takes almost an hour to get her to sleep each night when it used to take 20, if that.

And NOW-- she'll wake up crying and yelling for me. Lastnight she woke up 3 different times. The first time wasa around 1am... I went and layed down in her bed and ended up falling asleep up there until 4am-ish. Being that my bed is MUCH more comfy than hers, I came back downstairs. Not even a half hour later, she must have woken up and noticed I was gone. I hear screaming and crying. I got to the steps and there she was, sitting at the top of the steps saying, "Mommy... you were in my room... you were gone." Ugh... so back upstairs I went and stayed there until she woke me up for good this morning by nudging me and saying, "Mommy, wake up-- I want cartoons on!" lol

So far so good tonight... (fingers crossed)... I just don't want this to become a regular thing! I like my own bed. No-- make that, I LOVE my own bed. Hopefully this is just a little phase she's going through.

Anyway... onto the weekend.

Sunday was our baby boy William's 1st Birthday. I can not believe Will is ONE already!! This year has FLOWN!! We plan on doing a larger family/friends birthday party for both kids in June once we get settled in the new house, but still wanted to do something for him on his actual birthday. We went to church, out to breakfast, then went party supply shopping. We had a small little party for him at our house around 5:30pm. We just invited our parents and two of our close friends and their 3 little kids. Russ had ordered some pasta and meatballs from a local Italian restaurant, and we had cake and ice cream. Will LOVED his cake!! It was white cake with strawberry filling and whipped icing. The boy ATE IT UP! There was some green icing on the outer edge of the cake, so his face and hands were all green! He was still slightly tinted green through the evening! It was hilarious!!

Now onto Monday... 4 more days to go until MOVING DAY! It still seems surreal that this won't be our house anymore. We've been here for 7 years and have made SO many memories here. I get a little choked up thinking about it because really-- this was the house we lived in when it was just the two of us, then the two of us and dogs, then kids entered the picture. The other night I was putting Aly to bed and while waiting for her to fall asleep I was looking around her room thinking back to when I was pregnant and found out I was having a girl. I was SO excited to decorate her bedroom. I painted and decorated the whole thing myself and was so pleased with how everything turned out. Same thing with Will's room. I only hope their bedrooms at the new house turn out just as great! We haven't done anything with their rooms yet... they need wallpaper removed and walls painted, but other than that they are ready to move into. I figure Rome wasn't built in a day, so we have to prioritize our home updates right now.

But yeah... SO many memories here. I'll miss this house in many ways, but then there are things about it (neighborhood-wise, mostly) I won't miss. I won't miss people driving past our house like the road is a highway. I won't miss the police cars having to go to the apartment complex down the street because the residents are doing drugs or being disorderly. I really do think the neighborhood is the main reason we wanted to move. It's just not very kid friendly, and as the kids are growing up, that's a priority for me. I want a safe neighborhood where I can take the kids or the dogs for a walk and not feel like we're gonna get run over by a motorcyclist or car going 50 mph down what SHOULD BE a 20 mph road.

I know this new house will bring so many more memories though. It'll give us the added space we need, because with 2 kids and 3 dogs, this house feels like the walls are closing in sometimes!! I'm just looking forward to painting and decorating the rest of the house... I absolutely love that kinda stuff. Can't wait to figure out where all our things can go... though I'm sure once we're halfway through unpacking I won't be so excited.

*sigh* This is just bittersweet. I know it'll really hit me when we get our final things out of the house and close the door for the last time.

Well, I should head to bed now. Here are a few pics of Will's party (the rest are on FB). Nighty Night!

Picture time!

2011-05-21T10:53:00.006-04:00

I woke up this morning to find something it feels like we haven't seen for quite awhile...

SUNSHINE!!!!

This weather has been crazy... it's really depressing to wake up every morning to clouds and/or dreary rainy weather. Finally, some sunshine!! Puts me in a much better mood. But one weird thing it makes me want to do is clean...LOL! I have no idea why. Maybe because I can open the windows up and get the fresh air in the house, so I want the house to be nice and clean. I dunno. I just know I have to take advantage of this burst of housecleaning motivation while it lasts. But I have to put the important things first-- like blogging.;-)

Well, yesterday my mom and I took the kiddos to Sears for their birthday pics. Alyson will be 4 on June 21st and Will is going to be 1 year old TOMORROW!!! I still can't believe a whole year has gone by already.

AND-- of course--- a few nights ago Will was playing near a big bin of toys we have in the living room, when all the sudden he started crying really loudly. I scooped him up and held him on my lap for a bit until he stopped crying, then he turned around and looked at me and I saw a nickle-sized knot on his right cheek. Instant bruise. He either fell onto one of his toys, or hit his cheek off the end of the toy bin. Poor little guy. Needless to say, he got his very first face bruise two. days. before. pictures. I couldn't cancel the pictures because we are moving next week, and I knew if I didn't do it now, they wouldn't get done in time for their birthdays. So, we went for pictures yesterday, bruised face and all. And of course they don't do touch-ups at Sears for some crazy reason. You'd think they would. The pics turned out really cute, but you can still see the bruise in the pics. Guess it will give us something to talk about when he's older...

Anyway, Will totally did not want ANYTHING to do with pictures at first. But I guess you can't expect to plop a one year-old with stranger anxiety down on a backdrop and expect him to instantly be a smiley camera ham. I feel like I got a nice workout from chasing him around the room,picking him up and trying to make him somewhat pose for the girl. We gave him a little break and my mom fed him some of a bottle while my true camera ham got her pictures taken. Aly was LOVING getting her picture taken. She kept wanting to lay down on her belly. She was so cooperative and did exactly what the girl asked her to do-- what a breath of fresh air...lol. After Aly was done, Will was starting to come around a bit, so we got a few decent poses of him. No smiles though. My normally smiley boy just did not want to smile at all. :-( I told the girl, "As long as we get ONE pose of each of them separately and one together, I'm happy." Surprisingly, there were quite a few decent ones to pick from. And of course, I couldn't decide which ones I liked the best and ended up spending way too much money on way too many pics,which I told myself I WOULD NOT DO. Ugh... oh well. There will be lots of pics of the kiddos up around the new house :-)

I'm adding some pics from yesterday at the end of this post. For those of you I'm friends with on FB, I posted the whole set of pics on there if you want to check the rest out.

Well, I guess I should get started with cleaning. I have a whole long list of things I need to do during this next week before we move, like scrubbing floors, washing walls, cleaning windows and blinds... you know, all the fun stuff. Rather than put our home on the market right away, Russ is renting it out to one of his employees and his family. We move out Friday the 27th, and they need to be in by the 1st to avoid paying another month's rent where they are now, so we need to hurry in order to have the house all ready for them. It's gonna be go-go-go this next week, so I might not be posting much til after the move. We'll see :-)

Have a great weekend!

Here are a few pics from yesterday...

The "I couldn't think of anything to write, so here's a survey" post

2011-05-18T00:51:00.002-04:00

I'm tired but not ready to go to bed yet... wanted to update my blog but do not have the brain power right now to think of something interesting to write about. SO--- it's survey time! Here's a little about me :-)

1. What time did you get up this morning?
8am

2. Diamonds or pearls?
diamonds

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema?
HA! Wow that was a long time ago. I'm a "wait til it comes out on dvd" (or Comcast On-Demand in my case) kinda person. I would have to say it was one of the American Pie movies. Yeah-- long time ago.

4. What's your favorite TV show?
Right now I am absolutely loving "The Voice." I'm also into Dancing with the Stars mostly because of Hines Ward being on the show shaking his booty every week. Other favorites include Law and Order:SVU, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, House Hunters/House Hunters International (well, anything HGTV usually) and yes, my soap which I DVR religiously-- Young and the Restless. ;-)

5. What did you have for breakfast this morning?
Honey Nut Cheerios and a cup of hot tea.

6. What's your favorite cuisine?
Italian! Though some General Tso's Chicken sounds reeeeeally good right now...

7. What foods do you dislike?
I don't do oysters or anything slimy like that. And grapefuit-- just can't do it. Also tried some collard greens at my in-laws' house (they grew up in VA so they always ate them) and yeah-- not a fan.

8. What is your favorite chip flavor?
Probably tostitos scoops with salsa or salsa con queso. *drool*

9. What's your favorite CD at the moment?
A mix cd I made years back of songs that remind me of my crazy college years.

10. What kind of car do you drive?
black GMC Yukon Denali

11. Favorite sandwich?
chicken salad wrap with lettuce, tomato and cheese

12. What characteristics do you despise?
as evidenced by my previous post-- hypocrisy is one. People who are dishonest or two-faced. Materialistic people or people who think they are above everyone.

13. What is your favorite type of clothing?
I like anything comfortable, without giving off that "I'm a mom and have no time for myself" vibe. ;-) Jeans and a cute shirt suits me just fine. But when I'm relaxing at home, pj/lounge pants here I come.

14. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation.Where?
I would love to go to Italy or anywhere tropical.

15. What color is your bathroom?
one is white, one is green.

16. Favorite brand of clothing?
no favorite brand... anything that looks cute is fine with me.

17. Where would you retire to?
hands down-- Outer Banks of North Carolina. Love love love it there.

18. Favorite time of the day?
Night time after the kiddos and hubby are in bed. I can actually hear myself think.

19. What was your most memorable birthday?
My 21st... though it was only memorable to a certain point.... ;-) lol

20. Where were you born?
Steubenville, OH

21. Favorite sport to watch?
Pittsburgh Steelers football and Pittsburgh Penguins hockey

22. What fabric detergent do you use?
Tide... and when I want to shake it up a bit I use Tide w/ April Fresh Downy ;-)

23. Were you named after anyone?
My middle name (Jane) is after my grandmother. (mom's mom)

24. Do you wish on stars?
eh... not really.

25. When did you last cry?
LoL... I got kinda teary-eyed watching Hines Ward start crying on DWTS, if that counts. Last CRY cry was probably a few weeks ago when I was feeling so freaking frustrated and overwhelmed. It was a bad day with the kiddos and I just had a lot on my plate that day. Sometimes a good cry makes you feel SO much better!

26. Do you like your handwriting?
Most of the time. When I'm not writing in a hurry, I like it.

27. If you were another person, would YOU be friends with you? Absolutely! I think I'm a great friend. I am loyal, supportive, trustworthy, honest and fun with a little sarcastic smartassedness (is that a word) thrown in there. ;-) I would give the shirt off my back (but I might have to keep my bra) if you needed it.

28. Are you a daredevil?
Let me think.....uh, no.

29. Do looks matter?
Sometimes

30. How do you release anger?
Yell...cry... throw random (unbreakable) things at walls... have a margarita.... ;-)

31. What were your favorite toys as a child?
my Casio keyboard, hula hoop, my barbies/barbie dollhouse, games like Candyland and Sorry....

32. What class in High School was totally useless?
I'd have to say Spanish, only because we spent more time watching La Bamba and eating candy than learning Spanish. I would have liked to come away from 3 years of Spanish class having known how to say more than "hola" "Como estas" and random spanish curse words. I think my daughter at 4 years old knows more spanish due to Dora and Diego than I learned in 3 years of spanish class!

33 Favorite movies? Armageddon, Empire Records, Under the Tuscan Sun, The Mummy, Billy Madison, The Notebook

34. What are your nicknames?
My coworkers called me Bethel, but I don't really have any current nicknames.

35. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off?
no

36. Do you think that you are strong?
I try to be. I've gotten stronger over the years.

37. What's your favorite ice cream flavor? oreo

38. What is your favorite color?
blue

39. What is your least favorite thing about yourself?
I care too much what people think.

40. Who do you miss the most?
my relatives who live far away... my grandparents who've passed

41 What color pants are you wearing?
Grey pj pants

42. Last thing you ate?
cheddar cheese chex mix...that stuff is addictive.

43. Favorite song?
hmm... right now I would say it is Adele's "Rolling in the Deep"

44. If you were a CRAYON what color would you be?
red

45. Last person you talked to on the phone?
My cousin Brenda

46. What is the first thing you notice about the opposite sex?
hmm... I'd say eyes.

47. Favorite drink?
hot tea

48. Do you wear contacts?
nope. No glasses or contacts.....yet.

49. Favorite day of the year?
Christmas Day

50. Endings happy or sad?
Happy of course

51. Winter/summer?
Summer, no contest.

52. Hugs OR Kisses?
Both, please.

53. What is Your Favorite Dessert?
anything chocolate

54. What Book(s) are you reading? Just got done reading "Heaven is for Real" by Todd Burpo. Very very interesting read...

55. What is on your mouse pad?
Pittsburgh Penguins hockey schedule

56. What Did You Watch Last night on TV?
DVR'd shows-- Y&R, Tabatha's Salon Takeover

57. Favorite Smells?
my clean kiddos after their baths, vanilla candles, fresh baked bread, the air outside after it rains, clothes fresh out of the dryer

58. Stones or Beatles?
Stones

59. What's the furthest you've been from home?
probably the Caribbean... either Punta Cana or Cayman Islands, not sure which is further from me

60.What is the most memorable moment in your life to date?
The birth of Alyson and Will, and my wedding day :-) Best moments of my life, hands down.

Vent-- drama drama.

2011-05-17T00:57:00.003-04:00

hyp·o·crite noun \ˈhi-pə-ˌkrit\
Definition of HYPOCRITE
1: a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion
2: a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings

I was going to post this as my facebook status yesterday, but decided against it. I might still do it though, with the words "(person's name here): this means you" after it.

Ugh. Gotta love family drama.

I don't like to air too much dirty laundry on here,but this has been on my mind lately.

Russ's brother T and sister-in-law B aren't speaking to the family (well, to Russ's mom and his other brother J, anyway) because J's wife K "verbally disciplined" (if you can even call it that) T and B's daughter L.(Sorry for all the letters here...) L was telling J&K's daughter "My daddy is better than your daddy" and stuff like that, and all K said to her was "Please don't say that...it's not nice and it hurts my feelings when you talk about my husband like that." She didn't tell L to shut up or anything like that-- she put it very nicely to L. WELL--- L called her mom and dad and said K was being mean to her... they freaking blew a gasket about the whole thing, refused to listen to K's side of the story. They wanted Russ's mom to take L home and she refused to because she wanted T&B to come deal with the situation themselves. She also told them, "Why do you think she's saying things like that? She's only repeating what she hears at home." And that was it-- they hold such huge freaking grudges and GOD FORBID someone correct their child. That was at Christmas time and they haven't spoken to the family since, because of a petty thing like that.

This isn't the first time either. Russ and I have been married almost 6 years,and I think the whole family has only been speaking for 1 1/2 of those years. It's nuts.

Anyway-- it just highly annoys me because they put up such a "holier-than-thou, we're the perfect Catholic family" front, and little does the rest of the world know that they treat their family like S***!!!! I just don't get how they can act like such great Christians, when they are forever holding grudges and refusing to forgive. They have seriously alienated practically their whole family, and most of their friends. People ask Russ if T is related to him, and Russ will say, "yeah he's my brother, but we're not very close" and the people never really have anything nice to say about T.

Russ and I weren't involved in this latest dispute, but he refuses to talk to T if T insists on treating the rest of the family like crap. Russ's mom misses her grandkids like crazy and I hate seeing her hurting like that. She went to one of the grandkids' first communion on Sunday, and a few of the grandkids barely spoke to her. She said it felt very forced, and she knows for a fact that T talks badly about her to the grandkids, because she heard it from their other grandma (who heard it straight out of T's mouth to the kids one day.)

My MIL was so hurt and upset when she called me Sunday to tell me how things went. I could tell she'd been crying. She's torn because she wants to let the grandkids know she cares, but she's so tired of being treated like crap by T. B didn't say one word or even look at her on Sunday. She says she's done with them because she can't put herself through that anymore. It's just so sad. I've always had such great relationships with my family, so I just don't understand how anyone can be like that and just quit speaking to family over something so.... stupid. I mean seriously-- if my child said that to someone else and I wasn't around, I would be happy that someone corrected her and told her it was wrong. My MIL is right though-- children repeat what they hear at home. God knows what goes on behind closed doors.

Sad sad sad. Sorry for the downer post...just had to blog vent. Would that be called "blenting?" ;-)

Colossians 3:13
Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

Weekend: Success.... Carnival: Fail.

2011-05-15T15:58:00.004-04:00

Ugh... WHY do I always pick Saturday night to stay up extra late, knowing fully well that I will have to wake up close to 7am on Sunday?? 3 1/2 hours of sleep....soooo tired.

And of course the minute I sit down to type this, my 3 year-old decides she wants to crawl on my lap. She just told me, "I want to sit on your legs. Put your pooter (she won't say computer for some reason!)down." LOL Meanwhile, Will is in the kitchen playing with the ABC fridge magnets... and I'm hearing the ABC song over. And over. And over. And over...... Never a dull moment in this house. Well, never a quiet moment is more like it.

I decided at 11pm lastnight to put Will's baby pictures in a photo album I bought awhile back. Yeah, only took me a year to start a photo album for him. I've totally been slacking where that's concerned. Anyway, going through hundreds of pics and trying to get them in somewhat of an order took me a few hours. Then, despite it being 1:30am, I decided to watch some shows I dvr'd.

yawn.... I need a nap.

Ok... kiddos are officially preoccupied with their chicken nuggets and fruit, so mama has a (short) moment of peace.

Onto the weekend...

This weekend was nice.... Russ has been so busy with work all through the week, so it was nice that we got to go out as a family and spend the afternoon together yesterday. We went out to dinner here in town, and it just so happened that the carnival is in town. You could see everything from the windows of the restaurant so of course Alyson asked if she could go to the carnival every 2 seconds during dinner. She was SO excited to go and kept saying how she wanted to go on the ferris wheel. So after dinner, off to the carnival we went. We didn't have our stroller with us, so we had to hold Will since he isn't walking very well yet, and the area the carnival was at was all gravel. We were trading him off about every 5 minutes because he was constantly squirming to get down. Aly was saying how she wanted to go on the rides, so we went to go get some tickets. Fortunately, Russ has done some work for the guy who owns the carnival stuff, so we got Aly's hand stamped for free, plus free tickets for us. THANK GOD, because Aly chickened out on every ride. Didn't ride ONE THING. Russ and I both took her on the merry-go-round, and at the last second with both of us, she got down and headed right back out the gate. Same thing with the kiddie roller coaster and this ride that's kinda like the teacup ride (the one that spins around) but it was teddy bears. Makes me kinda rethink taking her to an amusement park this summer! Guess we'll have to wait and see. Maybe if she had another kid with her she would have gone on the rides. Who knows.

After the carnival lastnight we went to the new house, then took the kiddos to Coldstone Creamery where Aly downed some vanilla ice cream with sprinkles (she never wants anything different) and Will had his first kiddie cup of Apple Fritter ice cream. I think he would have licked the cup if we had given it to him once the ice cream was all gone-- he loved it! Mommy and daddy went the healthy route and split a strawberry banana smoothie, though chocolate was sounding pretty darn good.

Today we had church, then breakfast, then back home for a day of just relaxing. (ie: cleaning and laundry for me-- real relaxing.) Russ had a lot of stuff to do in the office today so it's just me and the kiddos hanging out. Can't say I've gotten much done today besides laundry though. The house looks like a small tornado went through. I swear, sometimes I wonder why I bother to clean. Seriously. It's frustrating. Add three big dogs to the mix and I feel like I need a drink by the end of the night...lol! (Preferably a glass of wine or a margarita.)

All I know is....bedtime is gonna be early tonight for the kiddos. And probably for me.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Updates! :-)

2011-05-13T22:49:00.005-04:00

Ok, so seeing all your new posts inspired me....lol! I'm jumping on the blog updating bandwagon too. ;-)

Where to begin...

Well, my last post was in February, and I had written about how Russ and I just booked a trip to Cancun. So I guess my updates will start there :-)

We went to Cancun from April 7-10...this was pretty much an early birthday present for me, since my bday was April 13th (the big 3-1.) We stayed at Live Aqua and it was sooooo relaxing there! It's a very zen-like spa type atmosphere there. As soon as you walk in the lobby, there are beautiful water features and the scent of eucalyptus in the air. It's an all-inclusive resort and isn't considered adults only but we didn't see many kids there at all, just a few people with babies. We stayed on the 5th floor in an "Aqua Club" room and had access to the Aqua Lounge which is located on the same floor. They have snacks out throughout the day and various liquor tastings each day. Russ and I aren't big drinkers at all (I think we still have liquor from our wedding in2005!), but we definitely enjoyed the tequila tasting our last night there!! They had about 20 or so different bottles of tequila out that night...fun stuff, I'll just say that!

The beach was B-E-A-UTIFUL!! Absolutely gorgeous clear turquoise water. Each morning we woke up and ordered room service breakfast and enjoyed that breathtaking view. We'd spend a few hours at the beach/pool areas then head out for some shopping, etc... Unfortunately my husband had the attitude that "I'm already tan so I don't need sunscreen"--- yeah, he ended up paying for that after the first day at the beach. Aloe was his best friend for the rest of the trip. I made sure I got pictures of that.

Aside from shopping (the mall was right across the street from the resort--awesome!), we took a late-night boat ride through the lagoon and out into the ocean a little and got to see the resorts in the hotel zone all lit up-- absolutely gorgeous. The boat owner and his captain tried finding the croc named "Ponchito" that hides out in a certain part of the lagoon, but he wouldn't make an appearance for us. I can't say I was disappointed about that!

We made sure to check out the local Hooters restaurant too, one evening...LOL. ONLY because they were the only place close to our resort where we could watch the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey game. The Pens won in overtime, and we got to watch a beautiful sunset over the Nichupte Lagoon in the process. :-) Great night.

Anyway, it was SO great to get away for a few days. Russ's mom and her husband watched the kids the first few nights, then my parents had them the last few nights. They all stayed at our house so it was great not having to take the dogs to the kennel, plus the kids got to stay in a familiar environment. Not that they aren't at our parents' houses all the time, but we figured they'd be missing us so it was better that they got to at least sleep in their own rooms at night. Aly's very much into a routine, so it seemed to work out better that way. I'll be sure and post some pics of the trip very soon!!

In other news--

My baby boy Will is turning ONE on May 22nd!! This year has FLOWN!! I can't believe it's been a year since I was blessed with my son! He's already cutting his 7th tooth, and has been *trying* to walk for the past few weeks. He'd take about 5 or so steps then plop down on his butt. Today, he was walking all over the place, so I think he's got it down now. He still looks like he's had a few too many to drink when he walks, but he can go longer distances now. He gets a huge grin on his face-- so proud of himself. Of course, now I can't keep track of him. This is when I really start to miss the days where I'd put him in one spot and know he wasn't going to move from that spot.*sigh* lol

OH-- another huge update. In mid-February, Russ and I saw a few homes we wanted to look at on realtor.com. Two in particular really looked like they had what we wanted. (I wasn't getting my hopes up though-- we'd been looking on and off for four or so years with no luck.) Well, on Feb 13th we looked at 2 houses about 5 minutes from where we live now... the first home had a great lot, great neighborhood, but crappy layout. The second home, well---- was IT. We just knew. Great neighborhood, big flat backyard, lots of space. Seriously, we weren't halfway through the house and my husband was talking about making an offer! We put an offer on the house right after we looked at it... got a counteroffer which was still more than what we wanted to pay, but we couldn't pass it up... so we accepted their counteroffer and are now new homeowners (again!)

The house is a 5 bedroom 2 3/4 bath with about 3000 sq feet. Lots of room for the kiddos. I'm excited they they'll actually have a designated playroom now, since every room in our current house seems like a playroom!! The kitchen is big, we have a formal dining room now, plus we have a spare bedroom again! Just can't wait to move in. Yeah.... not in the house yet. :-( Closing took awhile... we didn't close til the end of March. The house really hadn't been updated much since it was built (yeah, wait til I post pics-- it was interesting), so renovations have been going on for over a month now. At this point, everything we needed to do in order to move in is done except for countertops. We are still waiting for kitchen and bathroom countertops to be installed, which isn't happening until the 18th (hopefully a little before that.) Our moving date is set for the 27th, so the next few weeks are gonna be busy!! Aside from packing for college, I really haven't gone through the moving process before. Moving in our current house with Russ was such a gradual process-- a few things here,a few things there-- that it wasn't a big ordeal. This is gonna be interesting, being that we have 7 years of stuff accumulated in this house. We've already thrown out or donated a lot of stuff, but there's still so much to do! I'm nervous and excited at the same time. This will be a great change for us though. It'll just be great knowing that's the house we're in for the long term. I'll keep you updated... I have lots of before and after pics I'll post soon too.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! :-)

2 months and counting!

2011-02-07T00:43:00.009-05:00

SO BUMMED about Steelers losing the Super Bowl!! Ugh. Three Pittsburgh turnovers for 21 Green Bay points just doesn't win a game... :-( I was really hoping they'd pull out a win at the end, but no such luck. Maybe next year, right?? As for the entertainment, I think it sucked! I don't think the Black Eyed Peas were that great... they should have had Usher do the whole halftime show. Not to mention Cristina Aguilera screwing up the lyrics to the National Anthem! She's never gonna live that one down...the media's already all over it. I was looking foward to the commercials this year but there weren't that many I liked. I loved the Doritos one where the guy licks the cheese off the other guy's finger... the Pepsi Max first date one... the Teleflora commercial with Faith Hill in it... and the Cars.com one about "Going First." Those are the ones that stuck in my mind, but I don't think I saw half of them! (Baby bedtime takes awhile...lol) So.... now that football is done, back to cheering on the Pittsburgh Penguins now :-)

Anyway, onto the good news...

Russ and I FINALLY booked our trip to Cancun!! SOOOOOOOO EXCITED!! We're going in April and staying at Live Aqua. It's an all-inclusive. We've done Riu Caribe (not the best place, but a good value) and Sun Palace (AWESOME!)in the past... we would have gone back to Sun Palace but we wanted to do something different. Looking forward to getting away, just the two of us. Yes-- we will be CHILDLESS. We're only going for 3 nights though. I'd miss the kiddos too much if it were any longer than that!! It'll be just long enough to relax and de-stress. SO looking foward to lounging on the beach, sipping a fruity drink and enjoying the gorgeous turquoise water!! LOVE IT.

Here are a few pics of the resort-- looks like it's gonna be amazing!!

Beach Cabanas!

Exterior at night:

The down side... only 2 months to get my butt bathing suit-ready again...lol ;-)

Off to bed... I only got 4 hours of sleep lastnight so I can hardly keep my eyes open. Just wanted to update real quick. More soon :-) Happy Monday....

JETS --> (J)ust (E)nded (T)heir (S)eason

2011-01-23T23:16:00.008-05:00

PITTSBURGH'S GOING TO THE SUPERBOWL.... HERE WE GO.....

YAAAAAAAAY! So excited right now!! :-)

All in all, today's been a great day. Aside from the Steelers becoming AFC Champs and heading for the Superbowl, Russ and I had our first "date night" in a looooooong time. Well, it was more like "date afternoon." My mother-in-law came over to watch the kids and we went down to the Highlands and did some shopping, then had dinner at Olive Garden. Shopping, yummy portobello ravioli and two glasses of Moscato made me one happy girl...LOL! ;-)

Well, I think I'm off to bed. Time to crawl under my warm blankets and get some sleep... this single-digit weather has got to GO! Wishing I was in Cancun right now....

*&%# ^**%$%!!!!!!!!!!!

2011-01-20T00:15:00.006-05:00

Today was just one of those days when you wish you could have a do-over. Ugh...

Went to Sam's Club today with my cousin. We were loading our stuff up into the back of the Yukon and noticed this lady in a big Escalade stopped behind us. There was a guy collecting carts, so we figured she was just waiting for him to go by. All the sudden she beeped at us, because she wanted to pull in beside me, and my cousin's cart was partially in that spot. She then proceeds to attempt to pull into the spot and HITS. MY. BUMPER. Not just a tap, but hit it hard enough to where the vehicle went forward a bit. Bren and I were just standing there in awe, wondering if the dumbass really did just hit my car.

So she took a minute to get out of the car, then comes around the car staring straight at me. It was an older lady, and at first I thought she was about to say something like, "Oh, I'm so sorry" and be all apologetic. She almost kept walking and I said, "Uh... you do realize you just hit my bumper." She got all upset and said, " I did NOT. I did NO SUCH THING." I think steam started coming out my ears at that point. I said, "Yes, you DID hit my bumper. We both stood here and saw you do it." She STILL adamantly denied it. She got all pissy with me and said, "I did not. I didn't feel a thing."

I mean seriously.... the lady hit my bumper, then had to back out of the spot so she could pull back in. What did she think made her have to back up?!?! Newsflash-- it was my bumper!!

I showed her the scratches (not just scuffs) on the bumper, and she goes, "That's nothing. That will buff right out." (Ok lady, do you do bodywork now and know these things?!) THEN-- (and this pissed me off---) she looked at the scratches and said, "Those could have been there already." I said, "No, they weren't. This is a BRAND NEW vehicle, and unlike you, I'd know if I hit something." I told her I'm not just going to confront someone about something they didn't do! She made it seem like I was standing in the parking lot and just decided to pick a random person and say they hit my car...that's how she came across.

I said, "How about we go look at YOUR bumper, and I can guarantee there are probably scratches on it too." She got a little more upset and said, "Yes, let's do that then." I showed her plain as day where the marks were on her front bumper and the lady tried to tell me it was DIRT. I wiped what dirt WAS there off, and low and behold.... the marks were still there. She still tried to deny it. Finally when she realized her dumbass routine wasn't gonna work anymore she said, "Well what do you want to DO about it?"

UGH! Well for starters lady, how about some insurance information??

Yeah... dealing with the PA police department wasn't on my to-do list today. The lady admitted to the police that she hit me, but then said, "I still don't think I did it though." I've been driving for what-- 15 years?? And this is the first time anything like this has happened to me. Tomorrow I get to deal with her insurance company, who will get to pay for a new bumper on my vehicle I've only had for 4 months.

Yay me.

The cherry on top of the cupcake today though-- having to come home and tell my husband all about it and listen to him blow a gasket! Fun stuff!

Tomorrow better be a great day!

So easily sidetracked... :-)

2011-01-09T22:46:00.006-05:00

So one of my main goals this new year has been to declutter my life.... in many aspects. One being to LITERALLY declutter my house. My husband jokingly calls me a packrat and says we should be on an episode of Hoarders. While yes, I keep some things that I "might use one day," I am NO WHERE near Hoarders material...lol! I told him, "Have you SEEN the show Hoarders??" and he said, "Well, no...." I said, "Watch it, THEN you just DARE tell me we should be on that show." Let him watch one episode of that show and he'll think our house is immaculate-- two kids, three dogs and all. lol

My problem is that when I start going through things (drawers,closets, etc) I come across all the things I've put away that really do mean so much to me....old pictures, old letters, etc... then I just sit there going through it all, thinking back to all the good memories! And of course, I get hardly anything accomplished.

Like tonight. I discovered some old cd's and of course had to play them. Right now I'm listening to an O.A.R. (...Of A Revolution) cd from 2003... "In Between Now and Then." (Appropriately titled for this post!!) Brings back SO many memories!! Russ and I had just started "exclusively" dating early that year, and he had gotten this CD right around the beginning of our relationship. All O.A.R's music reminds me of various times in our relationship. The cd I'm listening to right now was played OVER and OVER during our first trip together-- a road trip we took to Buffalo, NY and Niagara Falls, NY/Canada. Russ played the hell out of this cd-- LOUDLY, may I add.. Good times!! Those were the days--- carefree and impulsive days,where we could take off on a whim and think nothing of it. We didn't have kids, pets...no one to be responsible for but ourselves. Now, impulsive is a distant memory. Impulsive for us when it comes to an overnight (or a trip for more than a few days) is planning at least a month in advance so we can find the appropriate babysitters, make reservations for the dogs at the kennel, etc... lol. Kinda hard to be impulsive anymore! Sometimes I find myself missing those days, but I would never give up what I have now!! Listening to all these songs just makes me smile,and think how far we've come in 8 years :-)

Next up-- a mix cd I made for my best friends while we were in college in Toledo, Ohio. Ohhhhhhhh my... now those are some crazy, hilarious, "what was I THINKING?" memories!!!!

Hmm...yeah, not much decluttering going on around here....lol. I'm having much more fun relaxing and reminiscing....with some short periods of facebooking tossed in there.

Boo hoo.

2011-01-03T22:58:00.004-05:00

Feeling kinda blah today. I started getting a sinus cold about a week before Christmas, and was FINALLY feeling better and had my normal-sounding voice back for about 3 or 4 days.....and now, I'M SICK AGAIN. Back-to-back sinus colds?? Seriously?! Not funny, sinuses. Not funny at all.

Anyway... another reason I'm in a mood tonight...

My husband and I were discussing the idea of buying a bigger house, because now that we have two kids we just need some extra space. We casually looked around on realtor.com and some other home websites, and came across a few homes we liked. We drove by them, and they just weren't what they appeared to be in the pics, so we didn't call our real estate agent to look at any of them. So yesterday afternoon, I showed my husband a house up for sale about 10 minutes away from where we live now... bigger than our house by about 1000 square feet, and it sits on 15 acres. Lots of privacy, which we'd both like. I actually used to work with the owner of the house, which was a plus because I knew the house was probably immaculate inside!! To my surprise, my husband LOVED it, and called our realtor about going to see it. That was yesterday around 5pm-ish. Russ said he was really interested in the house and would put an offer on it the same day we looked at it if he could. (He hasn't felt that way about a house since the one we put offers on a few years ago!)

Our agent called us back this morning, after Russ and I were excitedly talking about the prospect that we might ACTUALLY BE MOVING (YAY!!).... and our bubble was instantly burst. There's already an offer on the house, the people are preapproved for financing, and there's probably no chance of that falling through.

Sniffle sniffle.

So upsetting. We've both been pretty bummed about it today. The realtor mentioned one other house close to that one, and it was on 10 acres...we figured we might as well look at it. He called the listing agent to set up a showing, then called us back.... and--- burst bubble #2. Contract on that house too. Actually, a bidding war between 2 parties.

Needless to say we're back at square one again... at least we don't HAVE to move. We'd just LIKE to move. Russ told me, "Well, I guess this just means there's something better out there waiting for us." That, or it's God's way of teaching me to be patient...lol. Maybe one of these years (cause really, we've been looking on and off at houses for about 4 years now!) we'll find the right one. Just have to wait and see.

So that's it for now. Just bummed out, but what can you do, right? It's just not our time to move yet, I guess. Like I always tell myself-- "Everything happens for a reason."

Now, I'm off to take some more Nyquil and get some sleep.

1/1/11!!!!!

2011-01-01T01:36:00.002-05:00

Happy New Year!!!

Just sitting here thinking of past New Years Eve's.... and MY HOW THINGS CHANGE!!! 10years ago I was super excited that I'd be turning 21....couldn't wait to *legally* drink... was all about going out and having fun. And now-- we got invited to a party tonight, but didn't go since the kiddos are still both getting over their colds. But I realized-- I was perfectly content staying at home tonight with my family. I told Russ, "You know, I don't even feel like going anywhere...let's just stay home this year." Part of me thought, "Did that just come out of my mouth?!"lol But seriously, I really just wanted to stay home and cuddle with my babies and furbabies. (And ok, my husband too.) ;-) I thought for a brief moment that I'd crack open a bottle of wine, but as much as Russ wanted me to (for reasons I won't write in here...LOL) I ended up sitting on the couch with a cup of hot tea. LOL!

When it got to be midnight and the ball dropped in Times Square, Russ jokingly kissed all the dogs first, THEN got to me....lol. And not even 5 minutes after midnight, he turned the channel to the show "How It's Made" and it was something about onions. I looked at Russ and said, "Really? Are you serious?!" LOL...

In the end, all that matters is being with my family, no matter what we're doing.... I don't need to be at a New Year's Eve party, and I sure as heck don't want to ring in the New Year totally inebriated and then bring in 2011 with a hangover...lol. I feel so blessed and so thankful for everyone I have in my life. Two beautiful kids, 3crazy ornery dogs, and a wonderful husband who would do anything for his family.

2010 was full of ups and downs, but was mostly positive. Our family grew by two-- we got our new puppy Ruby (who fortunately is finally starting to settle down a bit) and had our gorgeous baby boy William, who is the best baby boy I could have ever asked for. I finally feel like our family is complete, and can honestly say---- I LOVE my life.

Here's hoping 2011 brings much love, good health and happiness. I can't wait to see what exciting things are in store for our family. I just have a feeling this is gonna be a GREAT year!!!

Well, I'm off to bed now. Nighty night! Happy 1/1/11!

Christmas recap :-)

2010-12-29T00:56:00.002-05:00

Well, I hope everyone had a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS :-) Our plans ended up changing a bit, and everything (sort of) worked out in the end. This is how things ended up going. Well, for starters-- for anyone who doesn't know/remember, my husband does snow plowing and salting of business parking lots during the winter. He got a phonecall at 5:30am Christmas morning... one of his buddies who also does snow plowing/salting during the winter called to let him know he was out salting and that it was really snowing hard out. It was hardly doing anything when I went to bed, so that was a bit of a shock. Russ got up to check things out and we had about 1 1/2 inches of snow on our back deck by that time. He ended up having to go out by himself and salt a few parking lots of places that were open at the time. I was pretty upset about the whole thing, being that our kids would be up soon... but really, I couldn't get mad because snow is our livelihood in the winter...it's what brings us income. But still-- I was upset he had to leave!

I ended up staying up after he left....it was about 6am and I figured I'd play Santa and put the gifts under the tree afterall. I got all the kids' gifts under there and put Aly and Will's new train together. By 8am, the kids still weren't up... thankfully, because Russ wasn't home yet. He ended up getting home about 8:40 or so, and I could *just* hear Alyson waking up. I swear Aly and Will must coordinate their wakeup times each night, because a few minutes later, Will woke up.

We opened presents up about 9:15am or so... Aly was LOVING it this year! Will is just starting to sit up really well by himself, so he got to sit on the floor by Aly the whole time she opened presents. She opened his presents too, but by that time, she already had a few of HER presents she really really wanted to play with, so her attention span was zip by that point. I had to keep reminding her that she needed to help Will. Finally, she left about 3 of his presents under the tree so I opened them myself...lol.

After present opening, I made breakfast for everyone... pancakes, sausage, and scrambled eggs with ham and cheese. By the time we got done eating/cleaning up, it was 10:30am. I hadn't gotten a shower yet, the kids needed to get dressed, and we were supposed to be at Russ's mom's house (20 min away) by 11:30am. Yeah....not gonna happen. Russ called her and told her we'd be late. We didn't end up getting there until after 12:30pm. Everyone opened presents then we ate around 2pm. Russ and his family are originally from Virginia, so there are a lot of southern foods at their family gatherings... one being collard greens. I usually avoid them but figured I'd try them for the first time on Christmas. And yeah....not a fan. Blech. But at least I gave them a try....lol.

We stayed up Russ's mom's house til 4:30 or so, then came back home. Aly and Will both fell asleep on the way home, they were SO tired. As soon as we got in our front door, Aly laid on the living room floor for a few minutes...lol. My parents ended up showing up about 6:15pm and stayed til close to 9pm. I tried staying up and getting my nightly dose of Hallmark Channel Christmas movies, but my eyes were slamming shut by 10:30pm. I was asleep by 11 and slept for 9 hours. It was great...lol.

The past few days have consisted of gift exchanges with friends, and attempting to get all toys out of their boxes and into the appropriate child's room...lol. I usually keep some toys in our living room since the kids' bedrooms are both upstairs, so I moved all that stuff back upstairs and replaced them with all the new ones. In the next few days, the "Great Toy Purge" will be taking place. We need to scale down the amount of toys in this household, majorly. I already have a bunch of clothes to give to Goodwill, so maybe we'll add some toys to the mix.

As for tomorrow (well, today, since it IS 1am...) I'm planning on meeting up with my cousin to do some shopping, then I need to go get groceries since it's been almost 2 weeks and we're almost out of everything in this house. My parents got me a gift certificate for the mall, and I CAN NOT WAIT to go out and buy some things for myself. Everything I buy is for the kids, so it'll be nice to treat myself for a change. I'm just hoping the kiddos feel ok tomorrow. My parents are supposed to watch them for the afternoon, but both kids weren't feeling so hot today. They both have runny noses, poor things. Aly is coughing a little, so Russ went and got those Triaminic strips for her (which the pediatrician recommended) and I put the vaporizer up in her room tonight. As for Will, you'd never know he was sick other than his runny nose...he's still little Mr. Happy Baby as usual!

So we'll see how things go in the morning. If the kids aren't feeling so hot I'll just do the grocery shopping and hold off on the "me" shopping. I hate seeing my babies sick :-( Hoping they feel better soon.

Well, I'm off to bed. Night!

Just not the same.

2010-12-25T00:20:00.002-05:00

Well, it's officially Christmas Day, so....Merry Christmas! We spent Christmas Eve with my side of the family tonight at my Grandma's house. It was nice, but seems like it gets shorter and shorter every year. Everyone is all grown up with their own kids now, and everything's changed... everyone has their own traditions and other places to go now... it's just kinda sad. In a way I miss the days when all the cousins were little and just hung out and talked for hours.Just not the same now. But don't get me wrong-- I'm just thankful to still be able to get together with my whole family!

Plans for Christmas Day include church at 9am, then we're going to Russ's mom's house at 11:30 to open presents, and dinner at 1:30pm with his side of the family. We'll stay over there til 5-ish, then head back home. My parents are coming over our house around 6pm to exchange gifts, and they're bringing us dinner :-) We'll probably just wait until then to have Aly open up gifts... I hate to do it that way, but with our schedule tomorrow, that's the best way to do it. Next year that won't fly, I'm sure!! Right now, Aly's starting to understand the whole Santa thing, but still doesn't totally get it....she doesn't realize the whole "Santa comes at night and you wake up in the morning to a bunch of presents" idea. So we can still get away with opening presents later in the day. Next year we'll have to change things all around.

We should have gone to church Christmas Eve, but everything at my Grandma's house started at 4, and since my Grandma's getting older, (not to mention the fact that everyone always has other places to go) everyone always seems to leave by 7pm or so. If we went to church tonight we would only have an hour or so with everyone before they left. Now I'm kicking my butt though.

Is it bad that I don't want to go anywhere tomorrow?? I just want Christmas like we had it when I was growing up. I want to wake up on Christmas morning and do the present thing right away, then sit down to a nice yummy breakfast.... then just lay around and watch A Christmas Story while Aly and Will play with their toys that are scattered all over the living room. That's all I want to do. I just want to stay in my jammies and not have to worry about going anywhere. *sigh* In the coming years I told Russ we're just gonna have to tell everyone that if they want to see us, they have to come to our house. Once kids are in the picture everything changes,it seems... and it gets harder and harder to go fifty million places over the holidays. For me, anyway. I just don't want to step on anyone's toes by saying that we're doing something at our house. My mother-in-law and her husband always do a big dinner for each holiday at their house, and those are the few times all her kids get together. I don't want them getting the wrong idea and thinking we don't want to see them, but I don't have the room in our house to invite everyone and their brother either. I can't possibly make a dining room that barely fits a 6-person table hold 15+ people, so as much as I'd like to offer to host things, I just can't.

I'm just bummed because I can't even put presents out tonight like everyone else is busy doing. I already have to wake up at 7am so I can get myself and the kids ready, and if Aly wakes up (she doesn't usually get up til 8 or after) and sees presents she is not going to want to leave the house. It doesn't even feel like Christmas Eve since I can't do that. Thank God Aly doesn't "get" the whole Santa thing, like I said... :-(

Anyway... enough of my moody rambling. I just needed to vent...lol. (Whether anyone reads it or not.) I'd better try and get some sleep now. Hope everyone has a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS, surrounded by the love of family and friends!!!

Loving this time of year!!

2010-12-19T01:09:00.004-05:00

I really should be sleeping now but I'm not even close to being tired....

Just sitting here on the couch, listening to Christmas music and enjoying the lights of my Christmas tree :-) I just got done baking cutout sugar cookies and now I FINALLY get a chance to sit down. I was bummed for a bit because the first batch of cookies I made turned out BEAUTIFUL and so yummy looking....but not yummy tasting. Turns out my baking soda was old and the cookies had a yucky aftertaste to them. NOT good. I just about said heck with it and gave up on baking for the night, but I REALLY needed to get some more done. SO... I made another batch (same recipe but with baking powder instead) and they turned out AWESOME!! I made snowflakes and gingerbread men and trees :-) Can't wait to put icing on them... I *might* have Aly help me...but the question is-- How messy do I want things to get??!! lol

So now I officially have a whopping TWO cookies made. Chocolate chip and cutouts. I want to make a few more things since we'll be going a bunch of places over the holidays... not sure what yet. Probably Divinity (my grandma's favorite-- I make her a batch of her own every year), peanut butter cookies w/ reese's pieces in them (yum) and who knows what else. I tell ya-- I have eaten more sweets over the past few days than I have in the past few MONTHS.My tummy is yelling at me for it... it's not used to a lot of sweets...lol We hardly ever have sweets in the house since Russ is diabetic, so it's very tempting right now! My mom gave me a tin of cookies to bring home to "have around when company comes"-- YEAH RIGHT. Those won't last for the company...haha!

It feels great to finally get a chance to sit down today. It's been go-go-go from the minute I woke up this morning. We had a birthday party for our friends' son who just turned 3, then once we got home around 4-ish I did a bunch of cleaning/laundry, made dinner, then it seemed like it was time to get the kids ready for bed. This day FLEW!

Russ is still gone... he left around 9:30pm to pick up his brother and his family from Pittsburgh airport :-) I just feel bad because their carseat and stroller got LOST... they had a connection in Las Vegas, I believe Russ told me. So, guess their stroller is livin' it up in Vegas right now :-( Seems like something gets lost every time they come here. Last time, Russ's brother's whole luggage got lost, and it was finally brought to our house 2 days before he had to leave. That's my worst fear everytime Russ and I fly somewhere-- I'm always a mess while we're waiting for our luggage to come out!!

But anyway....I'm so excited to see them! They live in Alaska, so we don't see eachother much. MAYBE once a year, if that. They have 2 kids-- an 18-month little girl and a 3 month-old baby boy :-) I'm looking forward to seeing if our boys resemble eachother!

They will be in town until New Year's Eve... unfortunately they can't stay longer than that because they both have to work at the beginning of the week following New Year's, and flight time back to Alaska is looooong.... they need time to recover after getting home.

Well I gotta cut this short now... Will just woke up crying so I gotta see what my baby boy needs. Nighty night!

Sleepytime for everyone but me!

2010-12-14T23:00:00.004-05:00

Ahh, nighttime. This is my favorite time of day....everyone in the house is sleeping and I can actually sit and hear myself think. I get to sit my butt on the couch, turn on a Hallmark channel Christmas movie, and enjoy the peace and quiet and my Christmas lights. Love it.

I got some more gift wrapping done tonight. Little by little, things are getting accomplished. It's just hard because Will's nursery is in what USED to be our spare bedroom, so now I have no place to stay up late and wrap presents without disturbing anyone. I have to do it all at night once Alyson is sleeping, when I go take Will up to his room for the night. He gives me about a half hour of his time before he enters that fussy "mommy get out of here and let me sleep" mode. I have everyones' presents up in his room... wrapping paper, ribbons, bows, and boxes all over the place. Poor kid, it looks like Christmas exploded in there right now. Luckily he's not old enough to realize what's going on yet. Mama's gonna have to find a new place for everything next year because he won't be confined to a crib all night next Christmas!! (I'd like to say we'll be in a new house next year, but that's a longshot. Maybe in the next FIVE years. But anyway.) Keeping Alyson out of his room has been rough, because she always wants to go up there with me when I put him down for naps, etc... she caught a glimpse of some wrapped presents the other day and got all excited. I wrapped all her stuff in Spongebob Squarepants Christmas paper (she LOVES that show right now) and she saw it... she goes, "My spongebob wrapping paper! I LOVE IT!!!" then proceeded to grab the roll of paper and give it a hug. Gotta love her. So then I had to tell her those presents were for someone else. She said, "Oh... ok, mama" and then turned around and said, "Can I open it??" She definitely keeps life interesting around here.

Not much else going on today... just had to open a case against a buyer on ebay though... that was a first. I've had good luck with ALL the buyers I've dealt with so far,except this one person. He emailed me on 12/8, a few days after the end of my ebay auction, and said there was a problem with his paypal account that would be resolved by Saturday the 11th and he'd pay me asap. Fine...I emailed him back and said it wasn't a problem. Didn't hear anything from him all all weekend. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, so I thought, "ok, maybe the paypal issue will be resolved on Monday." Monday came, and nothing. So I emailed him and nicely asked if the issue was resolved, whether he still wanted the item, etc. Told him to get back to me asap and let me know. That was yesterday afternoon. Didn't hear anything all day yesterday or today. It's going on 9 days now. I just want to know what's going on, but I'm not getting a response. Ugh!! So, now he has 4 days to pay me or I get my ebay fees back. The way I see it, if you want an item so bad that you purchase it using buy-it-now, wouldn't you at least pay within a day or so?! Maybe I just feel that way because I pay immediately when I purchase something. Who knows. It's just that I was reeeeeally looking forward to getting an extra $50 around this time of year. :-(

Man, can I ramble or what? ;-)

So that's my interesting life right now. Still battling this sinus cold. Don't have the balloon feeling in my head so much now, but it's turned into a scratchy throat and that tired, drained feeling. I just took some Nyquil...and that green nyquil is DISGUSTING! It tastes like black licorice,and I'm not a black licorice kinda person. Darn grocery store didn't have the red kind. Blech. I just hope this cold is gone for Christmas. Our whole family was sick for Christmas last year (but with the flu, which was worse) and I don't want a repeat of that! So for now I'm just gonna rest up and curl under my Steelers blanket and enjoy a Hallmark channel movie...that is, until this nyquil kicks in and knocks me out.

Night!

Another year gone by....wow.

2010-12-13T22:59:00.000-05:00

I refuse to believe it's been almost a year since I posted! Guess now is a good time to start back up.

Let me just say that this Christmas season is going so FAST! Hard to believe there are only a few weeks left until Christmas. I still have over half my wrapping to do, have NO cookies baked, and I need to thoroughly clean my house since lots of company will be here soon.

I'm just getting stressed out now...lol. Being that we've had another child this past year, I told myself that we were only going to buy for KIDS this year...no adults except for my in-laws,my parents, and my grandma. I told some of our friends a few months back that we were just buying for their kids, so they shouldn't buy anything for us. Everyone was fine with that. But NOW, I found out they DID get us something...now I feel bad because we have nothing for them, and truthfully we've already spent way too much on Christmas already. Now I feel like I should buy something for them so we don't feel bad when we get the gifts they bought us. They're really good friends of ours--practically like family-- so I don't know what to do now. I really don't want to have to rack up any more money on our credit card.

And THEN-- my sister-in-law called the other night asking what size clothes the kids were in. I told her Will is in 6-9 month but will be out of that size soon. She laughed because her little boy is 3 months old and is in the same size, also ready to grow out of it already!! And of course, all the clothes I got her son for Christmas are Carter's 6 month size, which is actually 3-6 months. GRR! I ordered them from the Carter's website,and can't find my receipt anywhere. So now I have to call them and see if I can still mail everything back.

And I thought I was done with my Christmas shopping...guess not. :-(

Sorry for the whiny post but it seems like when we try to save money, it never seems to work out.

Onto more upbeat subjects--my kids.

I can't believe Will is already 6 1/2 months old!! He's growing SO fast! At his 6month appointment he was 18 lb 15oz and 27 3/4 inches long...90th percentile for height and 70th percentile for weight. He's sitting up on his own for short periods of time (tries to himself to a sitting position on his own,but only gets halfway there...) and is starting to say some consonants now( ba,na,ma.) So, maybe hearing the word "mama" isn't too far off! :-)

Aly is 3 1/2 years old already... she's my little ornery princess. She tries to be my little helper where Will is concerned...which is a help *sometimes*...lol She's in that "I want to do what I want to do" stage, and is going through yet another naked phase...lol I swear, the girl only stays dressed when we go somewhere other than our house. I get her dressed in the morning and 10 minutes later I hear, "Look mama,I naked!"(Great, honey....great....)

I'm still staying at home full-time with the kiddos, which has its ups and downs.
I absolutely love being home with them and feel so blessed that I'm able to, though I sometimes miss adult conversation (though I make time for mommy's day out with friends,etc!), and especially contributing $$$ to the family. I've been putting some of Aly's older clothes up on ebay (since I'm pretty sure we're done having kids) and have been doing great with that, so it helps out with extra little things I want to buy :-)

Well, I'd better end this here...I am battling a case of sinusitis which has my head feeling like it's about to explode:-( My jaw and ears hurt because of it...NOT FUN. It's made my night-owl self very tired, so I think I'm gonna head to bed soon. I'll post pics of the kiddos soon!

*Nighty night!*

4 days? Seriously?

2009-12-21T23:29:00.000-05:00

Ok, so does anyone else think this holiday season is FLYING BY?? Jeesh! Every year I tell myself I'm going to get all my shopping done early so I can relax, and every year I'm still (sort of) last minute! I did a little bit of shopping (mainly the toys for all the kids I have to buy for)before Thanksgiving, and THOUGHT I had the other things pretty much done by the first week of December. (minus the wrapping...)

It just seems like Thanksgiving was just last week,and now Christmas is 4 days away! FOUR! Tomorrow I need to run to the store (probably Walmart, as much as I like to avoid that place during the holidays) and get gift bags I forgot, along with a few groceries.

Then it's on to the gift wrapping, finishing up my cookie baking, and TRYING to relax in the process. I can only do so much at one time,so it seems like it's taken me forever -- Aly will only sit and watch cartoons for so long before she loses interest and comes upstairs or out to the kitchen to see what mommy's up to. I have no idea what I'm going to do next Christmas when my spare bedroom becomes the baby's room and I no longer have a place to store presents and do my gift-wrapping! Not to mention Aly will be older and start to nib around a bit. I don't want her finding all her presents in the house! I'll probably have to take everything to my parents' house or something. Who knows.Guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

As for our Christmas plans, we're going to my Grandma's house (mom's mom) on Christmas Eve... every year our family goes over there, we've done that my whole life. Christmas Day will consist of 9am church, then we're heading over to Russ's mom's house around noonish for gifts/lunch... then once we get back to our house, my parents are coming over and bringing dinner! Turkey and ham and lots of yummy stuff. And oh yeah, more presents. They've even spoiled our dogs this year, from what my mom has told me :-) Needless to say, it'll be a busy, "go go go" kinda holiday. I told Russ that once our kids are older, we're going to have people come to US, and I'll host things. Plus hopefully in a few years we'll be in a new house and I'll actually have the room to have a lot of people over at one time for dinner. :-)

Well,I'm going to head to bed... gonna try to get as much done tomorrow as I can.

Crying so hard I can hardly breathe...

2009-11-22T22:52:00.003-05:00

My parents got their pug dog, Otis Pugsley, back in 1993. I was 13 years old. I still remember the day so clearly... February 12, 1993 my mom, dad and I went to Ohio Valley Mall in St. Clairsville for a day of shopping. Of course, when we walked by Petland, I insisted that we just HAD to go in. You know, just to "look." We had just lost our dog Jamie (aka Boo Boo) to congestive heart failure in the beginning of January 1993. My parents didn't know whether they wanted another dog or not, but they said we could go in "just to look." We saw a little pug puppy in the store, which was a breed of dog my mom and I LOVED. I asked my parents if I could get the dog out to pet it, and they of course said no. While their backs were turned, I asked one of the girls working if she'd let me hold the pug. Well...my parents came back over to me, and to their surprise, there I was, holding the pug and totally falling in love with it. Though I missed Boo Boo and nothing could replace him in my heart, I SO wanted another dog.

We oohed and aahed over the dog for a bit, then reluctantly I had to say goodbye to the little guy because of course my parents said no...we didn't need another dog yet. So we walked down the mall a ways and decided to get something to eat. The WHOLE TIME we were in the restaurant, I was just CRYING MY EYES OUT....I wanted that dog so badly. (And I also mentioned it'd be a great birthday present for my mom, who has a Valentine's Day birthday!) All my whining and crying finally paid off, and my parents agreed that we could get the dog. I was ECSTATIC!! I practically ran back to the pet store. Once we got there, we got the dog out right away, and decided to name him Otis Pugsley, after the movie "The Adventures of Milo and Otis," which was popular at that time. (Well actually, we named him Milo for a day, til we realized Milo was the CAT in the movie. So we changed it to Otis. But anyway....)

Once we adopted Otis,they put the cutest little blue bow around his neck, and I proudly carried him through the mall. He was soooo tiny,probably 8-9 inches long at the time. I was in love with his little black mask and curly little tail. We walked down the mall to the Kmart there, and bought him a collar, dog bed, food, etc.

On the way home, he stayed in the back seat with me, in his little dog bed. I just stared at him the whole way home, and thought that he resembled Gizmo from the Gremlins. In a good way, of course. He just looked all around, wondering where it was we were taking him. I remember hearing my parents telling eachother, "I can't believe we got another dog...." lol

So that was the day we got Otis. It still feels like yesterday. Hard to believe it was 17 years ago. Little did we know he'd live such a long and full life with our family!

Today is Otis's 17th birthday. Unfortunately, it is not a happy day for our family. Two days ago, my parents took him to the vet because he's had infections in his mouth and recently some bleeding. They noticed an abscess on his gums, and it hasn't been getting any better with antibiotics. They decided to take him in to see if there was anything else that could be done. They discovered that the abscess is actually an agressive tumor that has already invaded the soft palate (back of the roof of the mouth.) The doctor said it won't get any better, and sent my parents home with some pain medicine to keep Otis comfortable, since he's been whining a lot lately. He didn't give a time frame he thinks Otis will live, nor did he recommend putting him to sleep or anything. He basically left that up to my parents, since they said Otis is still eating well and getting around ok.

Over the past few days, Otis is whining/crying a lot more, and my parents said it's been a struggle to give him his pain medicine. It's so bitter, he barely gets it down. My parents want to enjoy what little time with him they have left, but they obviously don't want him to suffer either. Tonight on the phone my mom said he is still eating, but not able to stand up very well. I told her that we have no idea how far the cancer has spread, and that he could very well be in a lot of pain. They wanted putting him to sleep to be the last option, but unfortunately that is going to happen sooner than later.

When I called my parents tonight, they said they've talked it over and tomorrow they are making the painful decision to have Otis put to sleep. They just can't bear to see him suffer any longer. So today they are loving him as much as they can and just showering him with hugs and kisses and lots of good food. Poor little guy...

I am just sobbing uncontrollably as I write this. Whenever in the past my mom has talked about losing Otis some day, it hasn't bothered me much. I think, "Ok, he's going to be 17, he's had an awesome life, and there's nothing we can say we WISH we did with him. He's done it all, practically... we gave him a great life." And that's always made me feel better. But now-- being face with it, right smack in the face-- knowing it's going to happen tomorrow-- I am crying like a baby. That's my little buddy, ya know? I mean, I was 13 when we got him and over half of my life includes memories of him. Whether a dog is young or very old-- it doesn't make any difference in how utterly devastated losing them makes you feel. This whole situation brings back a whole flood of emotions where losing our 9 month old boxer Max to lymphoma is concerned. Every emotion I felt then is all rushing back and it feels like we're losing him all over again too.

It's just so sad knowing this is his last night with his family. His last night snuggling up to my parents in bed at night. His last meals in the house... I know he's going to a better place where he won't be hurting or suffering anymore, but it doesn't make my heart hurt any less. Little did I know when I saw him last week over at my parents' house, it would be the last time I'd pet him and kiss his little head ever again.

I'll miss you little buddy... til we see eachother again. I love you.

**God, please give my parents strength to get through this tomorrow.**

Halloween update, since I have pics now...

2009-11-18T15:52:00.009-05:00

A little update with pictures, since I didn't have access to my pics last time I posted!

Here are some pictures of Alyson at Halloween... she was a little bumblebee. Russ and I took her over my parents' house, since we don't get many trick-or-treaters in our neighborhood. She LOVED LOVED LOVED giving out candy to all the trick-or-treaters! We gave out candy from the front porch, but she'd take handfuls and stand out on the sidewalk, waiting for the trick-or-treaters to come by! A few times I had to tell her that, no, she couldn't take something back OUT of someone's bag after giving them candy. She was trying to develop a candy exchange system, I guess...lol. "Here, you take this Reese's cup, and I want those chips...."

So here are the pics:

Aly (complete with chocolate face) with my cousin's daughter Olivia, dressed as Little Red Riding Hood.

Stuffing her face...

Waiting for trick-or-treaters...notice the chocolate smeared on her pants...haha!

Tootsie roll anyone? Or maybe you'd prefer some Dots?

I'll post more pics soon...Aly just woke up from her nap(Yes!! She took a NAP!! Yay!), so I gotta go upstairs now.

Hope everyone's having a great week so far.

News :-)

2009-11-12T14:19:00.002-05:00

Ok, so....wow. I knew I hadn't updated in awhile, but jeez!!! Better get to it. Lots to update about, but I'll stick to the important one...

For those of you who haven't found out from my Facebook account (that's where I've been keeping updated with everyone, mostly!), Russ and I are expecting Baby Hunt #2! We found out right after coming back from NC in early September. I had a hunch I was pregnant, being that I was totally craving jalapeno poppers when we went out to eat on vacation, and I am SO NOT one who likes hot and spicy food.

As of today, I'm 13w1d pregnant and due on May 19th, 2010. Alyson will be just over 1 month from turning 3 years old! Russ and I are really excited about everything. He's really hoping for a boy this time around, his "Junior," as he calls him... but I will be happy either way. If it's another girl, I am totally set where clothes are concerned...the new baby will be in the same size during the same seasons...can't get any better than that.

I had my first ultrasound a few weeks ago, at a little over 11 weeks, and everything looked great. I'd post a pic, but I'm not on my own computer right now, so I don't have access to it... I'll do that soon. Baby's heartrate was 176bpm, so according to the old wive's tale, that's a "girl heartbeat"....but we'll see. With Alyson, I just KNEW she was a girl, there was no doubt in my mind from the very beginning. But with this one-- I have no idea. SOmething's telling me "boy" but I don't know.

I asked the ultrasound tech at my OB office when they usually do the gender ultrasounds, and she said 25 weeks. I REALLY can't wait that long!! That'll be the end of January or early February!! If that's the case, I'm gonna go somewhere around here and have an elective gender ultrasound done, maybe in Pittsburgh or something. I told the ultrasound girl that I'd like to find out before Christmas (I'll be 19 weeks the week of Christmas, and I found out with Aly at 18 weeks...) and she said, "I can take a look around for you then." So MAYBE they'll do one in the office early for me. I'd just like to know before Christmas...it'd be a great present :-)

Well, my lovely angel of a toddler is upstairs banging around, so I guess that means she doesn't want to take a nap...which equals her trashing her room. The past 4 days it has been a struggle to get her to take a nap. I think she's trying to get away from naps, but I'm trying to hang onto her naps with a death grip as long as I can!! At least for my own sanity...haha.

Picture time!

2009-07-23T15:41:00.001-04:00

Here are pictures of our trip to Ocean City, MD in June.

Here are pics of Alyson's 2nd Birthday Party, 6/21/09 -- Dora the Explorer theme!

2am rambles...

2009-07-22T02:01:00.005-04:00

Ugh.... here it is, 2am and I'm STILL awake. I'm so extremely worn out by this sinus cold I have, but I can't seem to fall asleep. My eyes hurt, my ears ache, my throat is scratchy... and it sucks. No one should get sick in the summertime!!

Anyway, since I'm wide awake, I figured I might as well attempt to stay updated with my blog. I really need to update this with pictures from Aly's birthday, vacation, etc... I started a post with pictures last week, but when I went to preview my post, the pics were all screwed up, so I just saved it as a draft and haven't gotten back to it.

Anyway, here are the updates from the past week or so...

Starting with yesterday... we had a little scare where our boxer Cody was concerned. He and Lucy were napping in the living room while I talked on the phone with my mom... then I see Cody get up and start walking around, only he couldn't keep his balance for anything. I immediately called Russ to come home, luckily he was just next door in his office. I started saying Cody's name and he was just ZONED and wouldn't respond to me, and his pupils were all dilated. He'd try to lift his back legs and it seemed like he was sorta stomping around at one point, only he didn't have the strength in his legs to keep from wobbling around. I held onto him and he was trembling, poor thing. He got himself up on the couch and stayed there for a few minutes, while I called the vet and explained what was going on. They said we could bring him right in... thank God we only live a few minutes from the vet. So Russ opened the door to the basement where we keep the dogs' leashes, and Cody LEAPT off the couch, like nothing was even wrong!! The whole episode only lasted 5 minutes or so!

Since Alyson was napping, Russ took Cody by himself to the vet. He said Cody was still kinda weak and wouldn't jump out of the Navigator like he usually does... Russ had to lift him down (and he's about 90 pounds!) The vet said that more than likely it was a mild seizure. They checked his temp (their temp will increase during a seizure) and ended up drawing a CBC to check for any abnormalities where his labs are concerned. They said we'd find out the results by Wednesday, but the vet called us this afternoon and said everything was fine. He said just to keep an eye on Cody and that if he has another episode like that within the next 2-6 weeks, they can put him on medicine if need be. So we'll see. I'm just praying this was just a one-time thing and he won't have that happen again! He's back to his same ornery energetic self today, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed :-)

(cough cough sniffle sniffle, sneeze.... this cold sucks.....)

Anyway, so that was the excitement of the past few days. In other news... I'm trying to potty train Alyson. That's going really well. *rolls eyes*(Sense the SERIOUS SARCASM.) I just don't get it. Alyson knows when she goes to the bathroom and will occasionally look at me and go "poo" or "pee pee!" She knows how to put her potty seat on our toilet, she knows to take her pants/diaper off, and she even knows to get toilet paper... but she won't do a darn thing once she gets on the toilet. I guess she's *almost* ready but not quite there yet. I just don't want to MAKE her sit on the toilet and then have her not want to go on it at all because she associates it with me forcing her to do it, ya know?! *sigh* And what sucks is that now she's in the "I want to take my diaper off ALL THE TIME" stage. I brought out her big girl undies and she was all excited so I figured she'd want to keep them on, but no. They came right off too, within about 2 minutes. So that's our adventures in potty training for now... fun fun.

Well, I really need to try and get some sleep now... Alyson doesn't get the fact that mommy isn't feeling well and would love to sleep in for a change. She'll be up at her usual 8am or so, I'm sure... so that gives me less than six hours of sleep.

Nighty night!

Updates, good and not-so-good

2009-07-07T13:28:00.002-04:00

Wow, it's been awhile since I've posted... as usual. A lot's been going on, so I'll try to give the short version of updates.

Most recently...
4th of July was awesome... we spent the day out on the boat on the good ol' Ohio River. The weather was beautiful, blue skies and sunny. We went out to dinner with friends, then back down to the boat to watch the fireworks on the river... good times! Aly went to my Grandma's with my mom and dad to watch the fireworks. My Gram lives close to where the fireworks are let off, so everyone usually goes over there and watches them from the backyard. I wasn't sure how Aly would do with being REALLY close to the fireworks, so I figured I'd wait til next year to take her with us. Come to find out, she LOVED the fireworks and just stared in awe at the sky, going "Woah! Wow wow!" when the big ones let off. Too cute.

What else to talk about that's been going on recently... Oh. We just got back from vacation last week... we spent some time in Ocean City, MD with friends of ours and their 3 kids. We stayed right on the boardwalk which was awesome! Lots of nightlife. Not that we could really enjoy it with 4 kids ages 4 and under, but it was still nice to sit out on the balcony late at night and enjoy some 'adult beverages.' haha But yeah, like I said-- 4 kids ages 4, going on 3, 2, and 18 months. Mass chaos all around! haha It was definitely a good time though. The beach was beautiful, and the weather cooperated the whole time we were there. Which was only 4 days, but long enough to get somewhat relaxed. (Before making the 8-hr trip home...fun fun.) I miss it! Russ, Aly and I are heading to the Outer Banks in September, so now I have THAT beach to look forward to :-)

As for Alyson, she's doing great. We had a Dora the Explorer birthday party for her on the 21st of June. She had a BLAST! We had a pinata in the shape of a #2, and all the kids loved it. The weather cooperated for that too, which was great because there were 30-some people there and the house would have been kinda crowded if it decided to rain!

Aly's 2-yr checkup at the pediatrician went well... she's 36 inches tall and weighs 34 pounds... higher than 100th percentile! My baby is off the charts. No wonder everyone always asks me if she's 3. She's gonna be a tall one. I figure I'm 5'5 and Russ is 6 ft, so she'll probably end up somewhere in between. She's just growing like a weed, and is into something new everyday. SO curious!!! Her latest antic was to flood our upstairs bathroom. Yeah... that was fun. You see, she always goes up the stairs and plays in her room, that's just an everyday thing. So i didn't think anything of it when she went up there the other day. Well, she had gone into the bathroom and decided to stick a bunch of baby wipes into the toilet and keep flushing and flushing and flushing. That toilet is pretty quiet so I didn't hear all this going on, I thought she was just playing in her room. But when the water started spilling onto the floor, I heard THAT. I thought she had turned the shower on, but no. I got to the top of the steps and saw water all over the floor about to head onto the hallway carpet!!! I had to turn the water off to the toilet and figure out what the heck she did. She was just laughing and laughing at the water falling onto the floor. Mommy, on the other hand, was NOT laughing. Ugh... eventually I got the situation under control, but not until after the extra water decided to drip down to the main floor by way of the counter over the stove, and then down to the basement. It basically made a path all the way down the house. NOT fun. I'm hoping we don't have anything like that happen ever again. I hope she got the toilet-plugging out of her system.

And we're thinking of having ANOTHER child?? haha

Yes, you read that right... we're officially "trying." Well, not TRYING trying, but we have the "if it happens it happens" attitude for now. We're not trying to prevent anything from happening. I was totally excited at the end of May to find out I was pregnant, only to have my excitement cut short by a miscarriage a week later. It was pretty crushing, because it is totally amazing how quickly you can come to embrace and love a child that you've never even met yet (and who is virtually the size of a pencil tip.) At first, I was surprised (because we weren't really expecting it and were actively house hunting at the time.) Then in the next breath I was TOTALLY excited, and Russ was too. To top it off, 2 days later my cousin/best friend found out SHE was pregnant, so we'd literally have been due days apart.

I knew to be cautious in the first weeks, but I still found myself planning for the future and how we'd redecorate our spare bedroom to make it the baby's room... it's just sad. But I know everything happens for a reason, even if we can't figure out what that reason is right now. The good thing about this whole situation, though, is that it really made us get our priorities in order and think about the future more. It REALLY brought my husband onboard where having another child is concerned. It was pretty much the furthest thing from his mind even a month ago, now he is all for trying. For now, we're putting our house-hunting on hold to focus on other things, like paying off bills!! My husband is in the process of putting up a huge building/garage on 10 acres he bought for his business, so that's taking up time and money. He's just running out of room where his garage is now, and his business is expanding, so that takes top priority over us buying a new house right now.

So now we're taking things day by day, and are excited to bring a new baby into this world when God decides to bless us with another one :-) Fingers crossed!

Well, I know there's still a lot to update on, but I need to get some things done around the house before Aly wakes up from her nap. Hope everyone (who still reads this or occasionally checks up on me) is doing well. Take care :-)

Blah blah blah. That's how I feel today!

2009-04-08T14:23:00.003-04:00

Well, as I write this my daughter is running around getting into everything and I have absolutely no energy to get up and chase after her! I started getting a sinus cold yesterday and today it's definitely here in full force. Aly had me up just about every hour lastnight, and it turns out this sinus thing got her too... she had a little snotty nose this morning when she woke up, along with coughing and sneezing. We spent a lot of time around little kids this past weekend and had a playdate on Monday, so I'm thinking we caught something one of those days. I guess we've been lucky though... this is only the 2nd sinus cold Aly's had since she's been born. She was about 4 months old the last time she was sick!

Needless to say, I've gotten nothing accomplished today, except for caring for my little Alyson! She's eating and drinking ok, and doesn't have a fever as of yet (and hopefully she DOESN'T get one!) so we're good there. Here's hoping. Tomorrow we're supposed to go to my in-laws' house for dinner, but I talked with my MIL today and said there's a chance we might not be able to make it. I don't want to get anyone else sick, since these colds just started. So we'll see... I just feel like my head is a big balloon and everywhere in my head where there are sinuses just HURTS! Also my muscles are aching, especially my back...that happened last time I had a sinus cold. It sucks! Oh well, I guess I'd rather we be sick now instead of next week. Russ and I are leaving for Cancun on Thursday already!! 8 weeks went by pretty fast! I'm looking forward to the trip... we (especially Russ!) need to get away for a few days. Aly is staying with my MIL for a few days, then my mom and dad are watching her Friday and Saturday nights. Luckily, she's used to staying places, and so far she doesn't cry when we leave her with anyone. I hope that doesn't happen, or it'll make ME cry!

Well, I'd better go see what Aly's into. She's bringing me pieces of candy and handing them to me, and I didn't know we had candy in the house....hmmm.... Never a dull moment.

Hope everyone (if anyone still checks my blog, being that I post 1 time a month...lol) has a great Easter weekend! We're supposed to do lunch with my MIL and her husband, and then my parents are cooking dinner for us. :-) I can't wait to put Aly's little pink Easter dress on her! I'll be sure and post some pics soon.

my monthly post...

2009-03-16T12:37:00.002-04:00

Guess I should post again sometime this century!!! I've been way too caught up in the whole Facebook craze lately, so that's where I've spent my catching up/blogging/updating time. I'm liking it a lot more than myspace these days. It's amazing the people you can find on there...seems like everybody and their brother is on facebook. Even the priest at my church is on facebook...lol.

Anyway, not too much exciting to talk about, sadly! Same old same old. I've just been enjoying what little warm weather we've had lately. This weather's been a big tease!! We had about 4 or so days last week where it was in the 60's, then it got all cold again. Aly gets all excited to go outside and play on her swingset, then the next day she wonders why we're not going out because it's 30 degrees again!! Tomorrow is supposed to be in the mid-60's, so I'm looking forward to that! I'm so tired of cold weather...

In other news...

As for the house I've talked about on here time and time again, it came REALLY close to being a reality a few weeks ago. The realtor we've been dealing with called and told us the guy will take a lower price (FINALLY) so we put another offer in. The guy counteroffered with a price that's still a bit too high, considering all the work that needs to be done to the house before we move in (fence, deck, driveway). I mean, the house itself is move-in ready, but Russ is concerned with all the outside stuff that needs finished and that would tack on another $30-40k to what we'd be paying for the house.

So NOW, Russ decides he'd rather build a house. A guy he knows (who considers Russ to be like a son) has about 6 acres of land he's willing to sell Russ if he wants it. About 3-4 acres is flat, with the other 2 sloping/wooded. So that's an option now. I guess what we're doing now is just waiting (ha...seems like we've been waiting FOREVER!) to see what happens with the house, and whether the guy decides to finally lower the price to something reasonable. If that doesn't work out, Russ wants to buy the land and build in the next year or so. I was REALLY set on buying the move-in ready house, but when I think about building and having EXACTLY what we want, that sounds pretty darn good too!! There are pros and cons to each option. The one house is in a great neighborhood, very kid-friendly... and part of me wants that. A great place to raise kids, for Aly to go ride her bike, etc... I just keep thinking about what's best for our kids in the future. But building-- we'd have a ton of land to do whatever we want with, plenty of privacy... but no close neighbors or that neighborhood feeling. If we wanted to take a walk/ride bikes we'd have to go somewhere else and do it, because the road in front of the house isn't the place to do it. So I'm kinda torn. In the end I'll be happy with whatever decision is made... you gotta make sacrifices either way. So we'll see. :-)

Well, that's about it for now. I need to go get ready...Aly and I are going grocery shopping and then I need to go get some new Penguins stuff to wear for Sunday... Russ and I bought 4 tickets for Sunday's Penguins/Flyers hockey game in Pittsburgh... I'm SO EXCITED!! It's gonna be an awesome game!! :-)

Have a great week! I'll try to post again SOON! But when all else fails, you can find me on facebook...lol.

The good and the not-so-good

2009-02-26T23:12:00.006-05:00

First off, thanks for the prayers for my Grandma... she's back at home now after spending about 6 days in the hospital with bronchitis. The doctor said she also has some emphysema which is contributing to her difficulty breathing. She had quit smoking about a year ago (after smoking for 50 years or so!), but unfortunately she's back to smoking again, though not as much as before.

Anyway, she was sent home from the hospital with oxygen and a portable tank, being that her breathing still wasn't up to par. The nurse checked her oxygen on room air prior to her being discharged, and it was only 87%, so she won herself an oxygen tank. She also has to have breathing treatments at home every so often. Since she has a really hard time seeing now (macular degeneration), my aunt and mom have been taking turns going over my Grandma's and giving her treatments to her. Gram has a doctor's appointment in 1 month, so she'll be on the oxygen at least until then. She's feeling much better though, thank GOD! Her birthday is tomorrow and she really wants to see everyone, so we are having a little family party for her tomorrow evening, just for an hour or two, so she doesn't get worn out. I called a local bakery and ordered her a white cake with raspberry filling and whipped icing, and it'll say "Happy 79th Birthday" on it. I was going to joke with her and have "Happy 30th" or something put on it, but I didn't...lol.

So that's the news with my Grandma. But I swear, when it rains it pours... The day my Grandma went in the hospital, I found out that the pastor at our church was admitted to a Pittsburgh hospital for emergency surgery!! He had been getting sick and throwing up, then come to find out he had a perforated bowel. Needless to say he had MAJOR bodywide infection and unfortunately he is allergic to a TON of things, so I don't know exactly which antibiotics they ended up using to treat him. He was very critical the first 24 hours, and was sedated and on a ventilator in ICU. I just received an email tonight saying that he's been moved to a step-down unit, is off the ventilator and is doing alot better. I guess the staff had to ask that his cell phone be taken away because he was CONSTANTLY on the phone after getting off the ventilator! He is SUCH a talker! Like he said in church one day, "I could find a brick wall and have a conversation with it!" I'm just so happy he's doing better...he's become such a friend of the family and I'd hate to see anything happen to him :-(

On a lighter note...

Russ and I have planned a short vacation for April!! Russ has been so stressed and has been on my back to plan a trip for us. I was just a little on the fence about the whole thing because he wanted it just to be the two of us, and I just HATE to leave Alyson! I know she'll be in great hands with my parents and Russ's mom, but I still hate leaving her. Russ REALLY needs to get away though, and really wanted to go somewhere in the Caribbean. We wanted a nonstop flight if possible, and remembered USA3000 airlines flies nonstop to Cancun and Punta Cana. (Anyone fly that airline before?) We ended up finding a nonstop flight from Pittsburgh to Cancun for mid-April.... I can't wait. We're only going for 3 nights, since "Alyson withdrawal" will surely have set in, even during that short period of time!! We ended up booking a suite at the Sun Palace in Cancun. It was completely renovated and reopened in January 2007 after being destroyed by Hurricane Wilma in October of 2006. The rooms all have private hot tubs in them (I can't wait to fill it all up with bubbles...hey, they provide them so why not!) The place looks gorgeous. I read practically every review and looked at a ton of pictures on Tripadvisor.com, so I think I made a good choice. The place is ranked #3 of all the hotels/resorts in Cancun, so that can't be a bad thing!

Here are some pics:

View of the resort:

View of the beach:

View of the suite:

I'm really excited to go, and it will be nice to spend time alone with my husband. Plus, it'll be a darn good birthday gift! (My bday is the 13th, and we leave on the 16th) :-)

And what's a post without mentioning Alyson? (I really need to start updating HER blog that I started awhile back...) Well, Alyson is steadily growing into Little Miss Independent. She wants to do EVERYTHING on her own, and will let you know what she thinks (mainly by dropping down to her knees and bouncing up and down while whining...) if you try to tell her otherwise. She's doing SO great with feeding herself, but she still doesn't understand why mommy wants (well, NEEDS) to help her with the messy stuff. She's currently loving applesauce,Gogurt, jell-o fruit cups, Jr.Lunchables, and Mac and Cheese....lol. Oh, and Cocoa Crispies and Oatmeal Squares. She LOVES some cereal. Takes after her mommy in that aspect! (Probably because that's basically all I ate while I was pregnant---CEREAL!) Currently Alyson is obsessed with her bellybutton and showing it to EVERYONE (and wanting everyone to show her THEIR bellybutton!), and she's still playing with the dogs food and mixing it in their water. Also, anytime she finds a paper towel, dishrag, etc, she dips it in the dogs' water bowl and then goes running off like a mad woman, with a trail of water behind her. That's always fun to clean up. Earlier today since it was mild outside, she decided to make a few trips out the dog door and run out onto the deck. It's always something... I could go on and on.

How about I'm already looking around online for ideas for Aly's 2nd birthday party!! I'm thinking we're going with Strawberry Shortcake this year. Aly is SUCH a strawberry girl! She will eat a whole container of strawberries if you let her.

I just can't believe she's gonna be 2 in June.... pretty soon we're gonna have to start trying for baby #2! I'm starting to hear, "So are you ready for another one?" and "When are you having another baby?" and "Alyson needs a brother or sister" more and more lately. I'm ready for another baby, but I still need to get my husband to jump on board the baby train again...lol. So we'll see.

Well, I'm getting tired so I'm gonna end this here. Hope everyone enjoys their weekends :-)

Updates...

2009-02-18T00:40:00.002-05:00

Here I go becoming a blog slacker again... better update a little.

First off, I hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day this past Saturday. Though a romantic "date night" with my husband would have been great, I was just as happy going out as a family on Friday night. We took Alyson out to dinner on Friday night, since we knew all the restaurants would more than likely be packed on Saturday. Russ kept asking me, "What do you want for Valentine's Day??" but I told him dinner was fine. I've never really made a big deal out of Valentine's Day. For such a long period in my life (pre-Russ) , February was just SUCH a crappy month for me for a lot of different reasons... so I'm just happy to have a wonderful guy to spend V-day with. Anyway, for V-day we ended up getting Alyson a cute pink teddy bear with a heart pillow that says "princess" on it, and a Strawberry Shortcake "Be My Valentine" book. I read the book to her, but I think it only kept her attention for, like, 2 pages. Oh well...

As for Alyson, she's STILL in that mischievous "I want to get into everything" stage... boy, does she keep me hopping!!! The girl DOES NOT STOP. I wish I had half her energy. She's just GO GO GO from the minute she gets up in the morning. Her latest antics include attempting to crawl out the dog door (she had stopped that, but now she redeveloped an interest in it....), and pouring the dog's food into their water bowl and stirring it around with a spatula she grabbed out of the silverware drawer.

Sorry if this post is jumping all over the place... I just don't have much to write about...that I can THINK of anyway. There are a few things I'd LIKE to talk about in here but it would take way too long to type out right now, and I'm getting too tired to think straight. I'll just continue this another time. Just figured I should update since it's been awhile.

Well, I'd better attempt to get some sleep. Tomorrow I'll be heading to the hospital to see my grandma... she had to be admitted today because she was having a lot of trouble breathing. Come to find out, she has bronchitis. She's had a lingering cough and it seems that she never fully recovered from the last cold she had. So now she'll be on IV antibiotics and supplemental oxygen. I don't know many details yet, but I'm sure I'll find out more tomorrow. My mom and my aunts all keep eachother informed, but by the time info gets passed from one person to the next to the next, and then *I* hear it, the info has always gotten a little mixed up from what was heard in the beginning. You know, kinda like that game "telephone." Anyway, any prayers would be appreciated :-)

Nighty night...

Talk about DOWN TO THE WIRE!!!

2009-02-01T23:54:00.005-05:00

HERE WE GO STEELERS, HERE WE GO!!!

Wow...what a game!!! By the end of the game I had a headache, was totally sick to my stomach, and had tears in my eyes! I couldn't sit down AT ALL for the last 3 minutes of the game. The dogs were looking at me like I was nuts because I kept jumping up and down and yelling at the TV...lol. They were staring at me as if to say, "Puh-leeeeeeeease SIT DOWN!!"

I'm just so happy the Steelers got a win... the "Six-Burgh Steelers" now have their six pack! Woo hoooooooooooo! :-)

Book me on the next flight to Florida, please...

2009-01-28T10:01:00.008-05:00

(A little update to this post first-- I started a blog for Alyson! It's called Adventures in Alysonland! I figured that way I have a place just to write about her. I put the link in my "Misc. Sites" category to the right, if you wanna check it out! Thanks!)

*****Now back to our regularly scheduled post*****

Ugh, I hate this weather we are having right now!!

We got a few inches of snow Monday night into Tuesday, which was fine.... the roads and everything were pretty clear during the day while there was a lull in the snow action. But TODAY... YUCK!! It started snowing again lastnight, and we had another 1/2 inch to inch of snow....but THEN overnight started the freezing rain, which is still going strong right now. Then later is another 1-3 inches of snow on top of the ice. Everything has about an inch of ice on it right now. I'll be lucky to get into my vehicle within the next few days. It doesn't help that my battery died the other day from cold weather, and ever since we jumped my car, the remote starter won't work. So now if I can't get into my car, I have no way to turn it on and attempt to defrost it. Needless to say, I'm not going ANYWHERE today. Or possibly tomorrow. Thank goodness I got out for awhile yesterday!!

The roads are a sheet of ice because all the road crews are running low on salt... I guess they just don't care if people slide all over the place. Some main roads aren't even getting plowed. One of Russ's employees went sliding in a work truck and wrapped it around a telephone pole this morning...he's fine, but it was just enough damage to the truck to put it out of commission for awhile. Russ is thrilled about that, lemme tell ya. Puts him in an even better mood than his sleep-deprived self was ALREADY in.

Ahh, I love winter..... I SO wish I was on a beach right now. Anyone up for flying to Cancun? Heck, I'll settle for staying in the US and just heading to Florida. But for now, it's just going to have to be a day spent in the house with my little girl and the dogs watching cartoons and Disney movies.

Stop snowing! (Uh, I mean, KEEP snowing!!)

2009-01-14T23:23:00.005-05:00

This snow needs to STOP! Ugh. It's snowed basically 24-7 for the past few days. It's supposed to let up here pretty soon, but will be back in full force tomorrow. Lovely... Pretty soon I really AM gonna have to shovel my way out of the front door.

It just sucks to be stuck in the house BORED. I've been wanting to take some Christmas stuff back for the past few weeks!! Last week I ended up getting sick, then Aly started getting a little something sinus-related (which didn't turn into much, thank God!), and this week is snow snow and more snow. In the coming days, when it's not supposed to snow, it's still gonna be in the single digits temperature-wise, with lows of -3 and such. I just hate to take Aly out in that!! We were supposed to meet my parents for breakfast Friday morning, but it's supposed to be a high of 8 and a low of -3 or something like that. So we'll have to see about that...

I have to watch talking about all this snow stuff around Russ. I'll catch myself saying, "When is this snow gonna STOP?!?!" or "It's gonna snow AGAIN?!" and he'll look at me like I have two heads. He goes, "Honey, don't say that... this brings us money!This is what I DO." (His company salts and plows parking lots around our area, and in the Wheeling,WV area.) So basically I have to act like I don't mind it snowing 24-7 and being stuck in the house bored out of my mind...lol. But hey, if these snow squalls get us a little closer to being able to buy our new home-- let it snow, let it snow, let it snow! I just wish there were some breaks in between snow days, so I could see my husband for more than 10 minutes out of the day. I've hardly seen him the past few days :-( So yeah, in THAT aspect, I can't wait for the snow to stop!!

Speaking of our (possible) new home... Russ said our realtor J called him about our 'dream home' today... he said that the owner is willing to pay all closing costs and a few other fees, so the deal is looking better and better! We just might make an offer on it SOON! Russ is just waiting for the interest rate to dip down a little more, so he can lock a rate in with his banker. So we're getting a LITTLE closer to this house thing actually happening! Russ told J, "I'm lucky if I've slept for 10 hours all together in the past week, so I'll get back to you and we'll discuss everything after the snow's over and I get some sleep." He can hardly even think straight right now... he's been taking little naps in his truck, but that's about it. (He's been up since yesterday morning around 7am!) I keep saying I don't want to get my hopes up about this house, but it's so hard NOT to!!! I just keep hoping and praying. If things are meant to work out, they'll find a way!

Well, I'm gonna watch some Leno then try to head to bed. I'm just waiting to see whether Aly is gonna wake up soon or not. She's got 4 teeth coming in all at once, so the poor girl has been waking up around this time every night, and sometimes even a few more times. Usually she times it for right when I decide to go to bed. As soon as I get comfy under the covers, the crying starts.

Well, nighty night.

*********************
A little update... here's a survey thing I saw on Maria and Marisa's blogs. I copied it...hope you don't mind ;-)

So here's what you do, copy it to your own post, bold or change the color of the things you have done, and then tag 4 other people to do it. Sounds like fun, right??

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland (Does Disney WORLD count??)
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept in an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitchhiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a sunrise or sunset
30. Hit a home run
31. Watched a total eclipse (solar)
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69.saved a favorite childhood toy
70. visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House (I stood outside the gate, if that counts...)
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chicken pox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a lawsuit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Read an entire book in one day

We're getting blasted with snow... a whole 3 inches.

2009-01-10T00:33:00.002-05:00

I'm FINALLY feeling better today. Not 100% yet, but enough where I actually got out of the house and felt like I was in the land of the living today!!

So obviously I didn't make it to Wally-World to get groceries yesterday.... I got ready early this morning so I could get there somewhat early and *try* to beat the Friday crowds there.

So I get to the parking lot, and you would think it was the day after Thanksgiving...the place was frickin PACKED! I had to park way at the back of the parking lot. Reason being-- we were SUPPOSED to be getting a lot of snow (6-8 inches, which is the most we'd have gotten at one time in the past few years...)Evidentally the "supposed" weather forecast flipped everyone right the heck out, so everyone and their brother was trying to stock up on groceries and such before the snow hit.

And NOW the snow forecasted has decreased to 3-6 inches for our area, which is going to end up being more on the 3 inch end of things. Woah... what a LOT of snow! (Sense the sarcasm.) That's what always seems to happen around here... a ton of snow is predicted (like tonight, which they referred to the upcoming storm as "the worst storm in 2 years") and then it ends up being minimal and everyone flips out for nothing.

So we'll see... the worst of the storm is supposed to hit later Saturday morning. (well, THIS morning now,being that I'm writing this post after midnight...) You watch... now that they've said it's not going to be as bad as originally thought, we'll probably be blasted with a foot of snow and have to dig our way out of our front doors...lol. Great.

Well, I'm gonna try to get some sleep now. Getting a decent sleep has been foreign to me lately. Aly's been waking up more during the night, and also has been wanting to wake up for good WAY more early than I am willing to. Either she's teething some more, or she's starting to get sick... I hope it's the teething.

Have a good night!

Sinus cold, nausea and stomach cramps, oh my!

2009-01-08T11:15:00.006-05:00

This week has been rough!! I started getting a sinus cold over the weekend, then Tuesday morning I woke up TOTALLY nauseous, throwing up, etc. I ended up with a case of the flu on top of a sinus cold... fun stuff, I tell ya. I've had that lingering nauseated feeling for the past three days, but luckily it's getting better. I just keep having stomach cramps on and off that will leave as quickly as they come on. They'll just last a few seconds, like my whole upper stomach tenses up, and then they're gone. So I dunno what's up. Everyone I tell this to, including my husband, goes, "Are you pregnant?" It's like everyone hears the word "nausea" and automatically they think I'm pregnant! (Which I'm sure anyone reading this thought too! haha) But no, I'm not pregnant... that I know of yet! This is definitely not prego cramping! :-P

Despite how I feel today, I SO need to go grocery shopping. We're running out of a lot of things in the house, and I can't afford to wait much longer. I've had to put it off all week so far, so I guess today I'll just have to suck it up and take a trip to Walmart. My parents originally had offered to get me a few things at the store and bring them over, but now my dad's sick with a stomach bug too. Must be going around. Our good friends just got sick with it over the weekend too.

I just can't wait til flu season is OVER!! And to think, I told Russ a few months back, "No, I'm not gonna get a flu shot... I haven't had a flu shot for years, and it's been awhile since I've gotten a BAD case of the flu." Ha. Yep, should have gotten a flu shot...lol. I'm just glad I haven't gotten Aly sick. I think if she was going to catch it from me, it would have happened by now. What a relief!

On a different note... (since I have nothing exciting to talk about...)

Here are some pics of my little furbabies rockin' their new collars. I love 'em. I actually got them online from 3 Dirty Dawgz., which I discovered while looking around on Etsy one day. Because, you know, going to the local petstore to buy a collar would be too easy. lol Actually, I just loved how this website had so many DIFFERENT collars. The printed ones we've bought them around here fade so easily. But anyway... here are the pics.

Here's my princess Lucy in her pink crowns collar, and Cody the stud in his turquoise crowns collar!

Christmas and New Year's Pics

2009-01-05T00:31:00.001-05:00

As promised, here they are.... (the New Year's pics are repeats from my previous post... I put all the pics into one slideshow so I could email it out to friends and family!)

Happy 2009!

2009-01-03T21:13:00.013-05:00

Well, I hope everyone had a great New Year's Eve and is having a wonderful 2009 so far :-)

On New Year's Eve, we went over our friends Dean and Joelle's house and celebrated with a bunch of our close friends. All of us basically have little kids around the same age, so obviously due to the little ones' bedtimes, we didn't all hang out until midnight. It was still a great time though. Aly was such a trooper...she was still awake and raring to go until about 11pm when she started yawning. We only live about 5 minutes away from Dean and Joelle's, so it didn't take long to get home. We put Aly to bed and Russ and I rang in the New Year by ourselves, watching the ball drop with Dick Clark and Ryan Seacrest...lol. :-)

The New Year has been good so far... it was nice spending time with Russ's brother and our sister-in-law. They left on the 1st to go to Minneapolis, where her family is from, and on the 4th they are heading back to Alaska. We're all trying to persuade them to move down here... if not close to us, at least to the lower 48! (Don't think I mentioned this before, but my SIL is 4 months pregnant, so we all want to be able to see their baby more than once or twice a year!!) It'll probably be a few years before they move (if they DO move), since they have work commitments up there for the next 1 1/2 to 2 years. So we'll see.

What else to talk about....

OH. New Year's Resolutions. #1 has already gone partially out the window, but I'm getting better. I always make more than one resolution. This year's are:

1. Lose weight. (But since all the TV shows say to make SMALL goals that are realistic, the first part of that resolution I hope to do is "Exercise at least 3-4 times per week.")

2. Not procrastinate so much.

3. Keep in better touch with friends and family.

4. MAYBE.... give Aly a baby brother or sister??? (We'll have to see about that, because it takes more than just ME to do that...lol. I'm ready, but I'm not so sure Russ is yet!)

So there are the resolutions...the ones I can think of right now, anyway.

I'll finish this up with some pictures of New Year's Eve.

Here is Aly opening up one of her presents from our friends.

The kids exchanging presents

Russ (in his little kids party hat!) and our friend Brandon

Me, Russ and Alyson

All of us...The Hunt/Klink/Bucci/Riley families (except for Dean's mom Stephanie, who was taking the pics for us!)

Alyson and Guy drinking their sparkling white grape juice (and LOVING it!)

Gotta get every last drop!

Christmas updates :-)

2008-12-29T00:52:00.004-05:00

I fell asleep for a little bit on the couch earlier tonight due to being TOTALLY exhausted, and wouldn't you know that once I got back to bed, I was wide awake staring at the ceiling. So here I am, blogging away :-) Figured I might as well update since it's been awhile.

I'll start off with my last post... as I said in that, our friends' daughter J had to go back to the hospital last week. We ended up visiting her on Monday night, and she was ZONKED from Morphine...poor thing. We took her a little dog with a santa hat on that sings "Santa Baby," a coloring book, and a huge helium balloon shaped like a reindeer. She was in and out of sleep the whole time we were there. The next night she was spiking fevers and they found out she had an infection in her spinal fluid, so she had a PICC line inserted (an IV they put in if you're going to need one for more than just a few days), so she's been on antibiotics for that. The GREAT news was that she got to come home Christmas night. She just has to continue IV antibiotics at home for awhile, but she's slowly getting back to her old self.

I was so impressed with Children's Hospital though... they were awesome to little J. They brought paints and all sorts of activities for her into her hospital room, which she LOVED... and on Christmas night, while J and her mom and dad were all sleeping, "Santa" snuck in and left a little Christmas tree and a huge bag of toys for J. It brought our friends to tears the next morning when they saw everything, especially since they hadn't gotten alot of Christmas shopping done due to everything going on. She got barbie dolls, My Little Pony, coloring books, a magna doodle and all kinds of great toys. It really cheered J up because she was worried Santa wouldn't visit her!

J came home in the early afternoon Christmas Day. Santa and Mrs. Claus made a special visit to little J at her house on the 26th, once she was feeling a little better, so they celebrated Christmas that day. The good thing is that their other two kids are 2 and 1, so they really had no idea that they were celebrating Christmas a day late.

My sister-in-law, Alyson and I went over to see J and her family lastnight... she is doing great! All smiles and running around as if nothing ever happened. What a blessing! We ate dinner with them and played with the kids and their new toys for awhile.

So that's the story with J.

Now, backtracking a bit to Christmas Eve. We had a big get-together at my Grandma's like we do every year on Christmas Eve. We had a lot of laughs, a lot of food, and a lot of my uncle's homemade wine. (Which, of course, I had to sample every kind he brought.) Good times!! Russ didn't stay very long though... his brother and his wife flew in from Alaska, and he went and picked them up at the airport while I stayed with my family. So I didn't get to see my in-laws until Christmas Day.

Ahh, Christmas Day. Now THAT was interesting. It was pretty much go-go-go from the start. We went to mass at 9am, then came home for a few hours...I made us all breakfast then we put Alyson down for her nap. While she was upstairs, we opened up our presents to eachother. Russ got me a necklace that has a mother and child intertwined (kinda in a heart shape), with Alyson's birthstone in the middle. He also got me a dell laptop...in PINK! My other laptop just died one day, so I had been using his... he's happy to have it back now! As for my presents to Russ, I got him clothes, some Dallas Cowboys stuff, a wallet, and a grab bag full of odds-and-ends things... nothing all that exciting. He's so hard to buy for, because he always seems to go out right before Christmas and buy whatever he needs...silly boy.

So after we opened presents, we THOUGHT it'd be awhile before Aly got up, but she didn't sleep long at all. We headed over Russ's mom's house to be with everyone. Russ's OTHER brother (the one who lives close to us) was there with his wife and kids, and we weren't sure how that was going to go. It went pretty well though. His brother was just his usual a-holish self, for lack of better words. As Russ says when it comes to him, "If you have low expectations where he's concerned, you won't be disappointed." Which he wasn't expecting much more from his brother. His brother got him a Santa Claus that stands on this little pedestal... you press a button and Santa goes, "Ho ho ho... I've heard you've been extra good this year, so Santa had an extra special present for you" then he turns around on the pedestal and pulls his pants down. Yeah... that was Russ's present from his brother. I call it the "screw you" present. Russ's mother was TICKED about that. Oh, and then, Russ's mom's husband's family has a tradition where you say a prayer for whoever got you the gift you're about to open... and when Russ's brother opened our gift, he just said a really crappy prayer, like, "Thank you for the love that is Russell, the generosity that is Russell" and was just totally smartassed about it. I SO wanted to say something but I kept my mouth shut. If they had been getting along it wouldn't have been so bad, but since they're NOT really close, it was totally a slap in the face to Russ. Guess it's just one of those "you had to be there" situations.

Anyway, the rest of the day went well though... we ate dinner , talked with everyone for awhile, then came back to our house to meet up with MY parents. They TOTALLY spoiled us with presents. Even the dogs got two huge bags of presents. They were loving it. Alyson opened up all her presents (from us AND my parents) while my parents were here. She was more into the Christmas thing than I thought she'd be, which surprised me. She tried opening her presents once we coaxed her a little, but mostly it was me who was the present-opener. Aly got a babydoll, a baby stroller, a grocery cart, Dora bath toys, clothes, the Fisher Price Learn About Town, Fisher Price musical friends table, blocks, leapfrog fridge dj,pots and pans set, etc etc etc... she has enough toys to open up a store now.

The day after Christmas, I hung out with my sister-in-law K (the one from Alaska) while Russ and BOTH (yes, BOTH) his brothers went out to lunch together. From what Russ tells me, the lunch went pretty well. Later, Russ and I went to Cabela's with both brothers and their wives... a lovely family evening....lol. (Russ's brothers are both big into hunting, and Russ got this grand idea that he wanted to buy a gun. He ended up getting some huge gun (AK 17, I think???) like they use in the military. What for, I dunno. So he dropped some mad amount of money on this gun, and was all excited.

After all that excitement (yeah right), we all ate at Olive Garden. It wasn't as tension-filled as I thought it would be... it was good for all of us to get out together for a change. That was a first, actually. Russ and his in-town brother probably talked more over the past 3 days than they have in the past 3 years.

Anyway, onto yesterday... the 3 brothers had more male bonding time, and went out to their hunting land to practice shooting. They were all pumped to play with Russ's new "toy." So they did that for awhile while my sister-in-law K and I hung out, then we all met up for dinner. Pretty noneventful. (I'm trying to be short and sweet where the updates are concerned...lol)

So all in all, it's been great that all 3 brothers have gotten to spend time together. Hopefully everyone can act civil and (gasp!) even become closer. We'll see. As Russ says, "If you go into it with low expectations, you won't be disappointed." I'm not holding my breath for some miracle to happen, but all this is a start.

So there are my holiday updates. Russ's brother in in town until Thursday morning, and I think they will be staying with us for a few days (they've been staying with his mom so far), so I'll try to update when I can. It's just been busy busy busy since Christmas Eve. If for some reason I don't get to update before New Year's Eve, I hope everyone has a WONDERFUL New Year! Be safe, whatever you end up doing for New Year's Eve!!

Next post will have pictures, I promise :-) Just have to get them into a slideshow since there are so many.

More sad news :-(

2008-12-21T23:57:00.002-05:00

Another prayer request... :-( I found all this out about 7:30pm tonight.

Our friends' daughter J had to go back to the hospital tonight... she's started to have severe headaches and so her parents took her to Childrens Hospital in Pittsburgh. The doctor did some tests on her and discovered she has a spinal fluid leak which is causing the headaches. I guess this happens in about 10% of post-op patients who had the same surgery she did.

Little J had to go back into surgery tonight to drain the fluid... that was around 9pm. Russ and our friend Brandon went up there to be with our friends... I'd have loved to go up and see her, but Aly was due to go to bed at 8pm :-( So Russ is still there now... he just called about an hour ago and said that the surgery went well... she just has tubes and drains galore coming out of her. And what ELSE is sad is that she'll more than likely be in the hospital for a week, the doctor said. Which means she'll be celebrating Christmas in a hospital bed :-(

What I don't understand is that she was doing SO WELL yesterday. J's little brother turned 1 on the 16th, and our friends had a little birthday party at their house yesterday for him. I gave J a hug and asked her how she was feeling and she smiled and said "good." I asked if she was having any pain and she shook her head no. She was loving playing with all the kids, and was playing dress-up in all her princess dresses with the other girls. It's crazy how things can do a total 180 in such a short period of time.

If you could please say a prayer for her speedy recovery I'd really appreciate it! Also for my dad too... he's been having sciatic nerve and back problems, so the doctor sent him for an X-ray and found out that he has a lot of degeneration (break-down of bone)/arthritis in his joints and back. He's been walking around with a little limp due to all the pain. He goes tomorrow for an MRI, and I'm just hoping he won't be needing back surgery. His side of the family all seems to have these problems... his brothers and sisters and my grandparents. He's stubborn though and said he's not having surgery unless he ABSOLUTELY has to. So we'll see. For now, I'll be hoping and praying for GOOD THINGS and lots of healing....

We'll probably be going to Pittsburgh tomorrow to see Little J, so I'll update when I can. Have a good night :-)

The past few days... (Ok, so I couldn't think of a better title)

2008-12-18T23:44:00.005-05:00

Just a quick update on the past few days...nothing very exciting to talk about, but that's just my life!

Yesterday Russ and I went over our friends' house (the ones whose little daughter J had surgery) and took them dinner. We were SUPPOSED to get alot of snow the night before, and so I wasn't sure I'd make it to the grocery store to buy food to cook, so I ended up ordering food to-go from a local Italian restaurant. And of course, we got NO snow. Oh well... I didn't have to cook, so that was nice :-)

J is doing better, thank God! I took a gift over for her... I got her a cute little puppy that sings "Jesus Loves Me" when you squeeze its paw, and a set of pj's with minnie mouse on them. (She loves Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.) She was laying around alot, but did come out in the dining room to have dinner with us. She's still in a decent amount of pain, but is taking alternating doses of Tylenol and Ibuprofen. Evidentally the narcotics she'd been prescribed were doing more harm than good, so she didn't want to take them anymore. Her incision is healing pretty well too.. the doc ended up having to shave a 1" strip down the middle of her head to her neck to make the incision, but when her hair is down you can hardly tell. She's a trooper I tell ya. It won't be long til she's back to her energetic little self.

It was nice to spend time with our friends, just hanging out and relaxing. We even split a bottle of wine too, with dinner... the first time I'd drank any alcohol in awhile! I had a few glasses, but it just tasted so GOOD! It was an amish wine called "Roadhouse Red" from Breitenbach Winery in Ohio. Click *here* to check out their website. The wines are FANTASTIC... especially their Frost Fire and First Crush....and strawberry...and peach....and.... LOL. Ok, it's ALL good. I highly recommend it. I always visit there when my cousin and I go out to Sugarcreek to do some shopping. We love going out there to visit all the little country craft stores since we're all into that.

But anyway... I got off track there.

Now to today... I went to a Christmas program at the school a few of my nieces go to. It was so cute. I think the kids all ranged in age from 3-5, and it was ADORABLE. Some kids would forget their lines and look at the teacher in front and say, "What NOW?" and one little girl paused in between lines, so the audience started clapping, thinking she was finished. She goes, "I'm not done," then finished what she was saying. LOL It was too cute. One of my nieces has some lungs on her... you could hear her and one other girl plain as day.

Alyson LOVED the program. I was hoping she wouldn't be fussy, so I came prepared with her sippy cup and lots of crackers, which of course she finished it all. My mother-in-law and her husband took turns holding Alyson, and Aly would stand up on their laps. We were cracking up because whenever the audience clapped, Aly would get a huge grin on her face and start clapping her hands too. I can't wait until she's in school programs... she'll probably be hilarious. She'll be the little girl up on stage looking at the audience and saying, "I'm not DONE." LOL

So after the program we drove around for a little bit looking at Christmas lights. One neighborhood had houses COVERED in lights... it was like each house was competing with the next. One had music playing and everything. It made me think... what happens if you live in a neighborhood like that and you want to decorate but not THAT MUCH? I'd feel obligated to have to make my house look like the Griswold Family Christmas as well, wouldn't you?! That would suck if you only want to put a few things up... you'd be all out of place. But anyway... I wonder about stupid things like that. Oh... and another thing we saw was a house where the people decorated their car in the driveway!!! That's a first for me. Now I have truly seen it all. The guy (I'm assuming it's a guy that thought of this) had those string lights (the ones in the plastic tube, like you can wrap around tree trunks and stuff) strung on the bottom of his car and around all 4 tires. It was uh, cooooool. Yeah. The most annoying things I saw though (and this is, and always HAS been,my pet peeve every holiday season) are the people who string a bunch of lights together, and one random string blinks while the others stay on. Please don't do this. Like if you decorate your bushes and one string in the middle of the bush is blinking and the rest aren't. The people RIGHT next to us have that problem ALL OVER THEIR YARD, and I get to see it EVERYDAY. And they do it EVERY YEAR. lol

So there's the past few oh-so-exciting days in a nutshell. Tomorrow I need to go to Walmart...I need both groceries AND a few more toys. I don't feel like running to fifty different places. It's bad enough it's supposed to be raining all day tomorrow and I'll have to drag Alyson out in it.

More (hopefully exciting) updates soon. Possibly dealing with that HOUSE!! (But I'm not getting my hopes up just yet.)

But I want it, I want it, I want it!!!! haha

2008-12-16T11:21:00.003-05:00

Some of you who have been reading my blog for awhile might remember me talking about a house we wanted to buy during the summer time... the house is AWESOME, it's 4 bedroom 2.5 bath and is 2800 square feet, on over an acre of land, and is in a great neighborhood. Not to mention it's only 2 years old. If we got it, we would be living about 2 minutes away from the land Russ bought a few months ago. (He bought 10 acres of land for his business... he plans on putting a big building up in the spring and moving his office, equipment and everything out there.)

So we've talked with our realtor on and off about this house. We DID put an offer on it back in June, but the owner didn't take it. His way of thinking was basically, "I want this amount for the house and I'm not taking a penny less." So that was a big let-down. Russ just told me to be patient, because it's not like we HAVE to move, and we're not in any hurry.

So a few months ago, the guy dropped the price by $20,000, but is still not budging on the amount he wants for the house. The amount he lowered it to is the EXACT amount he wants, and no less. So we're back to THAT situation...the waiting game.

Fast forward to last night. Russ came home from a meeting with his banker, and had a big grin on his face. He said, "I think I'm gonna call J (our realtor) about that house... interest rates are down and my banker said I'll have no problem being financed for any amount." So I got ALL EXCITED again. Russ was planning on putting a higher offer than our previous one, but was only willing to go about $15,000 higher at the MOST. So he talked to our realtor, and J said that the owner had just been given an offer for only $9,000 LESS than his asking price, and he rejected THAT!! So evidentally this guy is in no hurry to sell his house. Either that, or his asking price is making him take a big loss already. So who knows. So I got all excited for nothing.... again. Russ and I just both REALLY want this house, but the guy is asking way too much for it, and it truly isn't considered "finished." The people were only in the house for a year and the guy got transferred for his job, so they had to hurry up and pack everything up to move. So there's NO deck on the back, and the LONG driveay is still gravel, which isn't allowed in the city limits. I just don't understand how they couldn't put a deck on the back of the house!! The french doors in the kitchen just have a piece of wood over them so they can't open, because it's a 2-story drop down to the grass. (And these people had little kids too!!)

Russ said that the driveway will be about $15,000 to do, and the deck (the one WE want) will be about $10,000. So with all those upgrades which the house needs, the owners asking price just isn't reasonable. So all we can do is wait some more. Our realtor said, "Well, the next people you'll probably be dealing with is the bank." (Meaning the owner will probably let the house get repo'd before he takes a loss on it... so evidentally J knows a little more than he's telling us.)

I just keep praying that we eventually get our dream house :-) At least we're not FORCED to move and we're content where we're at right now. I just know that once we have another baby, this house is gonna get real small real quick!

Well, I'm off to give Aly her bath and put her down for a nap. Have a great day :-)

Update and Walmarting

2008-12-12T22:55:00.003-05:00

Just a little update on my previous post about our friends' daughter J. The surgery went well, though her first night post-op was rough. She was in a ton of pain and had to lay flat for 24 hours. (Which I'm sure is hard for a 3 year-old!) Yesterday was alot better for her, and today she sat up a few times and was looking out the window at the snow... and she's also off IV pain meds and onto pills only. So things are getting better day by day. Thanks so much for your prayers!!

Today my mom and I took Alyson out to run some errands. I picked up Aly's pictures from Sears (which have been in for a week but I never seemed to be able to make it to the mall...), then we went to Walmart for the last of my Christmas shopping. (My first visit to walmart during this christmas season... I try to avoid the madness of Walmart at all costs during the holidays!!) I just basically needed bags and bows and wrapping paper, but of course I ended up buying lots of things not on my list...because really, it's WALMART. I've found that I can not stick to a list when I go to walmart. I always end up buying fifty million other things.

But anyway... after walmart I brought my mom back to my house and she helped me clean up my spare bedroom. We took a lot of things from the spare bedroom, along with Aly's outgrown clothes and toys, and put them in the crawl space in Alyson's bedroom. I've been wanting to do this FOREVER, but her "big girl bed" is blocking the door to the crawl space, and I can't move it by myself to get back in there. So we did that tonight, and now Aly's room is nice and neat now without her jumperoo (which she hasn't used in 8 or 9 months)and other outgrown stuff sitting out. She's all ready to pack her new Christmas toys in her room! Oh, and when I was in the crawl space, I discovered all kinds of wedding gifts I had completely forgotten about. I found a whole pots and pans set, vases, photo albums, a waffle iron, a coffee grinder, a bar glass set, a casserole dish set, candle holders, and all kinds of other fun stuff. It was like Christmas came early, only with already-received wedding gifts. Or something like that. lol

So that's about it for now. Just wanted to update real quick, mostly about little J. She's supposed to be home either late Monday or Tuesday, so I told our friends that we'd come visit her as soon as she's up for visitors. I'm going to take dinner over there, and I bought J a few little goodies today... a comfy pair of pj's she can relax and recover in, along with a cute little stuffed bear that sings "Jesus Loves Me"... it's too cute. I can't wait to see her and give her a big hug. I'm just so glad everything went well for her and that she seems to be recovering well.

Nighty night!

Prayers needed!

2008-12-09T17:49:00.002-05:00

To anyone who is reading this, I have a favor to ask... a prayer request.

Good friends of ours have a 3 year-old daughter, J, who was just recently diagnosed with infantile scoliosis. (Abnormal curvature of the spine.) Her spine had a 40 degree curvature to it, so she's had to wear a brace 23 hours out of the day for the past few months. As a result, the curvature luckily has decreased to 30 degrees.

J had an MRI to see what exactly was causing the scoliosis, and the results weren't great. She has a malformed cerebellum (that's the lower part of the brain) which is protruding through the hole in her skull that leads into the spinal canal. She also has a large pocket of fluid in her spinal canal around her spinal cord. As she is growing, that space is getting smaller and smaller causing the scoliosis.

Needless to say, our friends then had to make an appointment with a pediatric neurosurgeon to discuss their options. They were told little J needs to have brain surgery.

The surgery is taking place tomorrow morning (Wednesday) at 11am. I know you don't know who this little girl is, but please say a prayer for her for a successful surgery and a speedy recovery. Her family and friends (including us!!) have all been on pins and needles wondering how she will do with the surgery. Supposedly most kids who have this type of surgery done are able to go back to school within 1 week, so hopefully she is back to her sweet energetic self soon!

Thanks in advance for the prayers.

"Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree...you look much better upright!"

2008-12-08T12:16:00.003-05:00

Well, I hope everyone had a great weekend :-) Mine was pretty busy! Friday I went up my Grandma's house for a birthday party. My cousin and his kids were in from MD and were staying at my grandma's... most of the family hasn't seen them in years, so my uncle had a birthday party for both the kids (his grandkids) while they were in town. It was nice to see everyone! Alyson played strange with everyone for awhile, but started warming up to everyone a little later in the evening! She still would only come to either me or my mom. She DID go to my aunt though... she probably thought my aunt was my mom, since they're twins!

Saturday, I took Alyson up to my mother-in-laws to see all my neices and my nephew! All Russ's brother's kids had spent the night over there Friday night, and were staying most of the day Saturday too. Russ originally told me he didn't think it was safe for me to drive up there due to the snow coming (they live in an area where the county won't really treat the roads with salt very much.) I felt bad, because I had gotten all ready to go, and so I told Russ, "Well YOU call your mom and give her the bad news, because I'm sure she and the kids are looking forward to us coming." So he called her and when I got on the phone with her, I could hear the kids say, "Aunt Betsy's not coming????" So I felt bad and told Russ I'd go, but that I'd just keep an eye out on the weather. I ended up staying over there for a few hours, and by the time I got ready to leave, EVERYTHING was covered with snow. It took me twice as long to get home, but I made it. It was worth it though, to see the kids. They all loved seeing Alyson, and were playing with her all afternoon. They all wanted to take turns holding her... it was too cute! They had made cookies right before we showed up, and lemme tell ya, Alyson LOVED those cookies. :-)

Now onto Sunday... Russ, the lucky boy that he is, got to go to the Steelers/Cowboys game at Heinz Field. While I was envious, I wasn't jealous of the fact that he'd be freezing his boys off while I was sitting on my couch in our warm house!!! He bundled himself up with a gazillion layers of clothing and said he was sweating by the time he got ready to leave the house... but by the time he got home he was happy he'd put that many layers on...he said his feet were freezing!

Unfortunately for him, but FORTUNATELY for me, the Cowboys lost. (Yes, I married a Cowboys fan, despite the fact that my WHOLE family, myself included, is a bunch of Steelers fans!!) The guy he went with is a Cowboys fan too, so they were both bummed about the game. I enjoyed it though!!

So while her daddy was gone yesterday, Alyson decided to get into EVERYTHING. She was climbing on chairs, climbing on tables...and.... knocking down the Christmas tree. Yes, knocking down the Christmas tree. I was in the kitchen and heard the ornaments clinking around, but figured she was just trying to squeeze between the couch and tree in order to reach the end table (she likes to grab whatever she can off the top of it.) So I peeked in the living room to see what was going on, and it was like slow motion... the tree came toppling down and she just barely got out of the way. It scared the crap out of her, and I just stood there with my mouth open. You always think, "Noo.... that won't happen to ME!" and low and behold, the tree comes down. I didn't want to yell at Alyson, because I mean, would she really know what was going on?! She was screaming and crying already...so I just picked her up and put her in her highchair to get her away from everything. I tried tipping the tree back upright (wishing Russ was home to help me!!) but while I was underneath it, I didn't realize one of the legs on the tree stand had folded back underneath the stand, so the tree fell right back over again, this time on top of ME! Well, Alyson saw it falling and screamed even more, poor girl. Finally I realized what the problem was and unfolded the legs of the stand so the tree would actually STAY UP. Fortunately, not many ornaments broke...just two, and most of them actually stayed on the tree.

So that was yesterday's action. Aside from that, I just finished up my outside decorating (in less than 20 degree weather with minimal feeling to my fingers!!), and then *tried* to relax. I just kept an eye on Alyson....AND the tree :-)

Feeling better now :-)

2008-12-03T20:30:00.005-05:00

Thank goodness I'm feeling better today!! I couldn't keep ANYTHING down yesterday. Russ decided he was hungry for breakfast food at 6pm, so he went out to eat since I was in no mood to cook. I told him to bring me back pancakes because I *thought* I'd be able to tolerate them. No such luck. I got through the day yesterday on one little bowl of applesauce and about 3 cans of diet mountain dew. Fun stuff.

Today was good though. I'm still not 100% but I feel MUCH better. I could actually think about decorating for Christmas again. I turned the Christmas music channel on tv, put my window decorations up, and then decided to tackle decorating the christmas tree. I have the tree pretty much all done, but can't seem to find my tree skirt. I have SO MUCH STUFF sitting out in my spare bedroom, it's hard to tell where it is until I start putting things away again. It looks like I'm celebrating every holiday up in my spare bedroom... all my different decorations are sitting out because I want to put everything back in the bedroom's crawl space in a SOMEWHAT organized manner....lol. My everyday decorations are in one corner of the room, my fall stuff is on the bed, and all my christmas gifts and christmas decorations I haven't yet put up are somewhere in the middle. My husband doesn't dare look in there or he'd throw a fit...lol. He's such an anti-clutter person!! Not that I'm a messy person, I'm just not as neat-freakish as he is. I tell him, "Hey, at least the room's not like this ALL YEAR! Give me a break during the holidays!" I told my mom I'm going to hold her hostage one day next week so she can come help me organize my spare bedroom.

But back to the tree... I knew it was going to be slightly more interesting this year with a toddler running around, but jeeeeeeeeeeeeez! It was exhausting! As soon as I brought out my two big storage containers of tree decorations, she was ALL OVER THEM. She pulled out my beads, which instantly got completely tangled...needless to say, they're not on the tree now. And you know how the round glass ornaments have the little detachable part that fits inside the top of them that holds the ornament hook???? Yeah... she got into one bag of ornaments and pulled ALL THOSE OFF. They were all sitting on the floor beside her. So I didn't put AS MANY ornaments down low on the tree... the ones I put down there are ALL non-breakable, and since we have an artificial tree, I bent the end of the branch down over the ornament hooks so she can't pull them off. She tried for awhile, but eventually gave up. (ONE POINT FOR MOMMY! WOO HOO!)

Oh, and while I was decorating the tree, she decided to start a new trick... my little monkey has graduated from crawling up on the dining room chairs to crawling FROM THE CHAIR ONTO THE TABLE. I had to pull her off of there like fifty gazillion times, then finally she spent the rest of my tree decorating time in her highchair having goldfish crackers and milk. I now have to keep all chairs completely pulled away from the table so she can't get up there. I'm sure it won't be long until she realizes, "Hmm... all I have to do is push this chair over there....." She's a quick learner, I tell ya.

Well, I'm gonna finish watching the Rockafeller Christmas special! (I'm SO into the Christmas spirit, I can't help it... I absolutely LOVE this time of year!)

What a day...

2008-12-02T14:35:00.002-05:00

Well, it's a good thing I got all my fall decorations taken down yesterday and got the inside of my house decorated for Christmas (minus the tree)....because today I am a MESS!

My husband went to bed lastnight around 9pm or so because he knew he'd have to go out working in the middle of the night since it was snowing. Close to midnight he came down the hallway looking like death, carrying a blanket and pillow and laid down on the couch. He was moaning and groaning about how his stomach was "a wreck." He said, "Yeah honey, dinner tasted great, but it just wasn't the same coming up the second time around."

At this point, I felt fine... I was tired, but other than that everything was great. Then it was like BOOM, it hit... my stomach felt funny and I ran in the bathroom to greet my dinner for the second time around. Not fun.

So we were back and forth at this for awhile, then we laid down for awhile. Around 2am, Russ woke up to go to work and said he felt "a little better" but that he had thrown up again. I said, "Yeah I'm getting that feeling too..." and he said "Oh, believe me, the second your feet hit the floor you'll be running to the bathroom again." Which, unfortunately, was exactly what happened.

So we decided that the only thing that could have made us sick was the dinner I made, since it was the only thing we both ate that was the same yesterday. That was about 5:30pm or so, and we started getting sick around midnight. Dinner tasted great though, which is what I don't get. I made stirfry, and am always VERY careful to cook it thoroughly. I mean, the day I bought the meat for it, it went straight into the freezer, so it's not like I let it sit out long. The veggies I used were a bag of frozen ones, so no problem there... so I dunno.

So today I woke up headachy with an upset stomach but that was it. It felt more like a bad hangover than anything. (Not that I've, uh, been hungover at all...lol) I just feel worn out, and so does Russ. But what has me wondering is that I all the sudden started feeling chilled and checked my temp... 99.3. Not an especially high fever that I normally get with the flu, but not my normal 97.6 either. And THEN I started getting achy all down my neck into my lower back.

Needless to say, I have NO IDEA whether this IS food poisoning, or a mild case of the flu. Grr. I've been online looking up the difference between food poisoning and the flu, and what I've read says that food poisoning gives you bad stomach cramps, etc... which I haven't had.

Sorry for the most interesting post, but I'm just kinda confused and bummed here. My relatives are coming in at the end of the week, so I'd hate to be sick and miss out on seeing them..and most of all if this IS the flu, I definitely don't want Aly to get sick.

If anyone has any experience with food poisoning, let me know if you think this is what I have. Being a nurse, you'd think I'd know, but they're just so similar which has me completely baffled.

Alright, off to TRY and lay down a bit.

Goats, shopping and cheesecake...what could be a more perfect weekend?!

2008-12-01T00:02:00.005-05:00

Hello :-) I hope everyone had a nice, relaxing long holiday weekend! Did anyone go out and do lots of shopping on "Black Friday?" I told myself I WAS NOT going to go shopping that day because I didn't want to have to get stuck in the crazy hectic crowds, but my husband decided he wanted to go out and have a "family day." I wasn't complaining...my husband rarely suggests we go out shopping!

We decided against the mall though. I figured that would be TRULY nuts. We went out to dinner at the Pittsburgh Chop House, then just decided to go to Sams Club. The crowd there wasn't any different than usual, in my opinion. Aly started getting a little tired and fussy at Sam's, so we just called it a day and headed home (after I made Russ sit in the drive-thru line at Starbucks for 15 minutes because I was totally craving a caramel mocha!!)

Saturday when I woke up, fully intending to take down all my fall decorations and start decorating for Christmas, Russ says to me, "Let's spend time together today. I got all my paperwork done, and it's not snowing... I'm not busy which is RARE, so let's go somewhere!" I had lots of house cleaning and laundry to do, but I gave in and figured that the cleaning and laundry will ALWAYS be there, so what's another day putting it off!

We decided to head to Wheeling and went to the Good Zoo at Oglebay with Alyson :-) I was just upset because we didn't make a final decision on where to go until we had left the house, so I didn't have my camera with me :-( Oh well, I'm sure there will be a next time soon. Alyson was a LITTLE interested in things... they have a huge model train exhibit downstairs and she really liked watching all the trains go around, and the little planes flying around above the train tracks! She also liked looking at all the fish and birds....she'd just stare at them with her mouth open! Next we went outside and strolled her around to see the animals. We went down to the barn and saw a donkey, pig and barn owls, then went over to see the goats and llama! The goats were the funniest things. You can actually walk inside the gate to interact with and feed them, and it was hilarious! They didn't want anything to do with us while we were inside with them, but once we got outside the fence and bought some food for them, they were ALL OVER US. They practically tried crawling over the fence when they knew we had food. That's what scared Aly... she was in her stroller staring at all of them, then they started jumping up and sticking their tongues out to get the food Russ had. We were both cracking up, but Aly didn't see the humor in it.

After the zoo, we went to the Olive Garden to eat... which I have been craving FOR-EV-ER! Olive Garden is like a treat for me.. we don't eat there very much. Afterwards I decided to splurge and bought a piece of raspberry cheesecake, which Alyson had no problem helping me with. She picked up a spoon and started sticking it in the cheesecake so she could feed herself. The poor girl wanted NOTHING to do with her chicken fingers and fries, but she was all over that cheesecake. Hmm...like mother like daughter.

So it really was a great family weekend... until we got home yesterday. We quickly found out why Alyson was fussy during dinner and on the way home... she wasn't feeling well, and let us know that by puking on the living room carpet. Not once, but twice. I had JUST changed her into her pj's and had her all ready for bed, then she got sick all over herself, AND all over Russ. I felt so bad for her, she didn't know what to do. Needless to say, she went STRAIGHT INTO THE BATHTUB. Poor thing. Luckily she was fine this morning... no fussiness or anything during church, and she ate a decent amount for breakfast. I was REALLY hoping she wasn't coming down with the flu. That'd be the first time she's been sick... she had a slight sinus cold when she was 5 or 6 months old, but nothing since. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Well, I'm off to bed. It's already way later than I planned to stay up. I just got all into this Britney Spears documentary on MTV. It's pretty interesting, I have to say! Portrays her in a totally different light than the tabloids do.

But anyway... nighty night.

Thanksgiving updates

2008-11-27T23:42:00.007-05:00

Well, I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving and filled your bellies with turkey and all kinds of yummy things!! :-) Me, I'm STILL full from about 5pm. I enjoyed lots of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, etc etc... I think I ate enough food to last me through the weekend.

Anyway, Thanksgiving Day for me was, well, interesting. It's been go-go-go from the minute I woke up this morning... baking and getting things ready to take with us, then leaving for Russ's mom's house around 12:45pm. We had his mom's to go to at 1, then my parents at 4.

As I said in my previous post, this was the first holiday in a LONG while that we've spent with Russ's brother and their family. I didn't go there with high expectations that everyone would be holding hands and singing songs while swaying back and forth, but I WAS hoping that it would be a bit of a 'new beginning' to get the family back on track.

It was, to say the least, civil. Russ and his brother didn't talk much, but when they DID talk, it was civil. A bit forced, but pleasant. Basically "hi how are you, how have you been" small talk. (It's a start, I figure.) But I felt somewhat that you could have cut the tension in the air with a knife at times. It's just that no one really knew what to say to eachother. I mean, no one's gonna come out and say, "So.... uh...where have you been the past 3 years?" Ugh. I felt like I was sitting there twiddling my thumbs trying to think of things to say. I mean, what do you say to people you really haven't seen in 3 years because your husband and his brother are both too stubborn to give a little and put some effort into mending their relationship?!?!?

And the kids... oh. It just BROKE MY HEART to see them so grown up and to know that all this mess caused me to miss out in the past 3 years of their lives. I mean, the youngest was just a baby when Russ and I got married, so she doesn't know me from a hill of beans. When we walked in Russ's mom's house, she was sitting on the floor playing, and just looked up at us and stared as if she was thinking, "Who are YOU?!" It's just so sad. The girl is 3 years old, I'm her aunt, and she has NO IDEA who I am. The next youngest MIGHT remember me, but I doubt it. She was in our wedding, but was only 2 1/2 or so at the time. The two oldest girl and the only boy are the ones I got to know the most, and so they were talking to me alot, about what they've been up to and everything. It was so great to talk with them and hear about them being in dancing, basketball, singing lessons, etc. They are all growing up so fast and I really don't want to miss out on any more years of their lives!!

Tonight as I got into bed (obviously not able to sleep, being that I'm up writing this now), I talked with Russ about everything. I said, "SO...what do you think about today?" and he goes, "I dunno. It went ok, I guess... it was nice." So then I started talking about the girls and how one of the older ones told me before we left, "I just asked my mom how come we don't see you, Uncle Russell, Alyson and Nana very often." It BROKE MY HEART. I wanted to cry. I told her, "Well, we'll be coming over with your uncle Jon and Aunt Krissy at Christmas!" ANd she smiled and said, "Ok... but you need to come over before then. Come over before Monday, ok?" Then she just smiled and I gave her a big hug, trying to fight back tears as I walked out the door. So tonight when I talked with Russ about what she said, I started crying again and had to get out of bed for some "alone time" just to think. So here I am, blogging away.

This just sucks because I NEVER grew up around any disagreement in my family. I've never had to deal with not talking or associating with family members until I married into Russ's family, so I don't know HOW to deal with it. I just know I miss those kids like crazy and I just hope Russ and his mom and brother can resolve their differences and we can go back to spending more time together again. I know it's never gonna be a perfect relationship, but I'm hoping today was a small step in the right direction for everybody.

Here is a pic we had taken at the end of the day... My mother-in-law's husband's children are on the left hand side in the back. They are all sooo nice! In the front are all Russ's brother's kids :-)

Hopefully there's ALOT to be thankful for...

2008-11-25T22:03:00.004-05:00

Snow, snow and more snow... that was the forcast for today. And it'll be more of the same tomorrow. So needless to say, today I just stayed in my warm house with my little princess and my furbabies while my husband was out working. I baked some pumpkin bars to take to my mother-in-law's house and to my parents' house on Thanksgiving. Figured I'd at least get that out of the way.

Speaking of Thanksgiving... this year ought to be interesting for us. It is the first holiday we're spending with Russ's brother, who we really haven't spoken to in a few years for different reasons I won't really get into. Basically it's just a lot of disagreeing where Russ, his brother and his mother are concerned. I'm basically stuck in the middle, wanting to spend time with my in-laws but wanting to do right by my husband too, ya know?

Anyway, we're going to Russ's mom and her husband's house at 1pm, then to my parents' house at 4. Russ's mom informed us a few weeks ago that she asked Russ's brother to come, and he said he would. She thought Russ would be upset about it, but he's totally fine with it, which is great. He's been wanting them all to just put everything behind them and be a family again, but that just hasn't happened yet. It's starting to between his brother and mother, but it's not quite there yet.

I'm looking forward to seeing their family though... I think it'll be good for everyone to be together for the holidays. I mean, Alyson is 17 months old and she's never met her cousins at all. That just kills me. I really want her to be close with them...they're all such sweet kids. I've thought MANY times about taking Alyson over to see them (regardless of what Russ had to say about it) but when everyone stopped talking, Russ and I hadn't been married long and so I hadn't been around them much...I didn't feel like I was at the point where I could call and just stop by whenever. I dunno.

So maybe being together for Thanksgiving will help things along.I reeeeeeeeally hope so. I'd just hate for them to act weird towards ME... like I said, I just feel caught in the middle of this mess. I don't know why Russ chose not to speak with his brother in the first place. He says it was because his mom would call and talk about what mean things his brother said to her, and Russ was just tired of the whole situation and wanted no part of it. I just wish he, and everyone else, could put the past in the past WHERE IT BELONGS and get along again.

That's my wish for the holidays. It would be SUCH a blessing if it happened.

Aly's Christmas Pictures

2008-11-21T16:09:00.003-05:00

Well, picture day at Sears went pretty well, although Alyson decided she DID NOT want to stand on that backdrop WHATSOEVER! She kept running out of the room into the waiting room to see this little baby that was out there! We finally realized that she did best when she was sitting, so most of the pictures we got are of her sitting in this little white wicker chair or on a wooden sled! She'd sit there JUST LONG ENOUGH for them to get a picture, then she'd be off running again. Take chasing after Alyson the whole time, combined with the hot bright lights in the room, and mommy was sweating bullets by the time we were done taking pictures!! It was interesting to say the least. Made me think back to last year, when we plopped her down into this fluffy cream-colored pillow for pictures and she just STAYED THERE. hehe...

So here are the pictures they took... smiling AND crying ones! She cried a few times, but was all smiles again about 2 seconds later.

Gettin' that Christmas feeling!

2008-11-18T10:26:00.002-05:00

Well, we got our first official snow lastnight. Snowflakes came down on and off during the day yesterday, but it really built up lastnight! There's a decent coating of snow on the ground now! My husband is really happy because that's his livelihood during the winter--- snow plowing and salting parking lots! He was all excited to go out and work lastnight. He's always like that the first time it snows... he gets all excited to go out, but once he's awake for more than 24 hours he's not so happy anymore...lol. He slept for a few hours lastnight and was planning to wake up around 2am and get everyone started on their jobs, but his pager kept going off and his phone kept ringing (how it always is this time of year!) so he's been awake since about 12:30am. Knowing him, he'll just stay up all day and go to bed at, like, 8pm or so.

This snowfall is the first time Alyson's really seen snow! Of course she saw alot last year but she wasn't old enough to remember it or really know what was going on! She was all excited looking out the window yesterday at the snowflakes falling down. She kept pointing and looking at me saying, "Da?" Then of course she's say, "Hi dada"...lol.

*************************************************

So today is the day I take Alyson to get her Christmas pictures taken at Sears! I'm excited... I hope she cooperates and isn't fussy! She's always a little reluctant at first, but the girls who work there are awesome and so she warms up fairly quickly!

I bought two different Christmas dresses for her this year... one to wear on Christmas Eve and one for visiting on Christmas Day. I bought them about a month and a half ago, and had never tried them on her. They're both 18 mo. so I didn't think there would be a problem with them fitting, but I decided I'd better try them on her lastnight JUST INCASE. So right before she was going to bed, I tried both dresses on her to see which one I wanted her to wear. Luckily I had a backup, because the one dress I got her is still a little too big. I might have to try to put my sewing abilities to good use and take it in a little. It's too cute to take back, and it seems like it'd be an easy fix.

The dress I wanted her to wear for pictures fits pretty well though. It falls a little below her knees, which it's supposed to... and it looks adorable on her. It's all one piece with a little red attached jacket with candy canes on it, and the skirt part has green and red polkadots. The underside is poofy tulle lined in a candy cane print ribbon. I love it! I've been into making hairbows for her, so I made a cute little red and green bow for her to wear. I just hope she keeps it in... she's in that "I don't want anything in my hair and I'll pull it out 2 seconds after you put it on me" stage!! I have to slyly slip it in her hair and then try to distract her so she won't feel around on her head to see if there's something 'foreign' there. LOL.

I'm not sure if I'll get a picture CD of her proofs or not, but I should get a link to sear's site so I can share her pics with all of you. I'll update as soon as I can and let you know how things go :-)

Have a great Tuesday!

8 things

2008-11-16T00:39:00.004-05:00

I got this from Maria's blog and figured I'd do it too...

*8 THINGS*

8 SHOWS I LOVE TO WATCH:

1. Law and Order: SVU
2. The Biggest Loser
3. What Not to Wear
4. Desperate Housewives
5. The Young and the Restless
6. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
7. Take Home Chef
8. House Hunters

8 FAVORITE RESTAURANTS:

1. Olive Garden
2. Red Lobster
3. Applebees
4. Smokey Bones
5. Gaslite (local)
6. Da Peppino's (local)
7. Naple's Spaghetti House (local)
8. Outback Steakhouse

8 THINGS THAT HAPPENED TODAY:
1. did laundry
2. talked to my mom on the phone
3. went out to dinner with Russ and Alyson
4. took a nap for a change (Aly woke up at the buttcrack of dawn)
5. did some christmas shopping (starting early, or TRYING to anyway)
6. updated my blog for a change!
7. played with Alyson
8. watched a movie

8 THINGS THAT I LOOK FORWARD TO:
1. Vacation in the Outer Banks
2. Losing weight
3. breakfast with our friends and their kids every Sunday after church
4. Sleeping
5. Holidays
6. spending time with friends and family
7. having more kids!
8. eventually buying/building our dream home!

8 THINGS ON MY WISH LIST:
1. Pay off bills
2. Vacation
3. 1 or 2 more children
4. a bigger house
5. Mother's ring
6. I'd like to have a plot in my yard cleared to start my garden (me too, Maria!)
7. a date night with my husband
8. For Aly to start saying "mama" again!

8 OF MY FAVORITE MOVIES:
1. The Mummy
2. Armageddon
3. Billy Madison
4. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (older version)
5. Labyrinth (LOVED it when I was little too!)
6. Wizard of Oz
7. 40 year-old Virgin
8. When Dreams May Come

The slacker's back

2008-11-14T00:34:00.003-05:00

Wow, I guess I am WAY overdue for a post.

I'm gonna try to update the best I can.

For starters, I'll begin with the little princess in my life, Alyson. She's getting soooooooo big, it's so hard to believe. She's turning into such a little lady. Seems like it's something new everyday with her. She's just so curious and inquisitive (which can be good AND bad!) Because of her curiousity, she gets into EVERYTHING. I mean EVERYTHING. To the point where I now have to keep doors closed to rooms I don't want her in, and I feel like I need to padlock all my kitchen cupboards!! See, I'm kinda screwed where the child locks are concerned. The handles to our cupboards are so far apart that I can't find a lock that will fit through them, so that's out... so then I got the plastic ones you actually have to screw into the cupboards, but those wouldn't work either. I was so mad... I put them on my cabinets where I keep my cleaning products and everything, and was all proud of myself for doing so. I then tried to close the cupboard and.... IT WOULDN'T CLOSE!!! So I'm officially SOL where the child locks are concerned.... therefore I now have to resort to tying the handles with ribbons so Aly doesn't ingest Windex or something.

So once that cabinet was locked, she went for the spice cabinet. I came into the kitchen one morning because I heard her banging things around, and she had cornstarch all over the floor.... and all my spices and everything were scattered all over the kitchen. Thank God she didn't bust my bottle of balsamic vinegar I had down there, or then we'd have had problems!!

So the ribbon went on that cupboard too... and I thought I was safe. HA! Yeah right. She now gets in the cupboard with my pots and pans and gets them all out... but her favorite thing now is to get in all my cans/boxes of food. She grabbed the syrup one day, flipped the lid up and started writing on the floor with it. And her OTHER new thing is to push out the dog's water and food bowl holder away from the wall, sit behind it, and put little pieces of dog food into the water and stir it around like she's making soup or something. Unfortunately, she LOVES the dogs' water bowl... she likes to put anything she finds into it. The other day I found my dish towel in there, along with a pen and my sunglasses. (Not to mention I found my cell phone in there awhile back...ARGH.) Yeah. Fun times in the Hunt House. LOL

So most of my days are spent cleaning up the "Aly Bomb" that goes off 24-7. Russ just doesn't understand how I can let her get into everything. He says, "Just tell her no!" (Ha-- if it were THAT easy, parenting would be a piece of cake!) I say, "Honey... you aren't here all day every day with her. If I cleaned up right after her EVERY TIME she got into something, I'd be cleaning ALL.....DAY.....LONG." So as long as she's not getting into anything too crazy, I'd just rather clean it up once instead of 10 times. When I DO tell her no, she smiles, points her finger at me and goes, "No! No no noooooooooooo!" then runs down the hall.

She's saying more things these days, though she understands more than what she says. When I tell her she's getting a bath, she runs down the hall into the bathroom, peeks into the bathtub and starts turning the water on. When I tell her it's time to eat, she'll run up to her highchair... and she knows 'yogurt!' I give her one of those Dora Yoplait yogurts at night, and when I say "Let's get yogurt" she'll run up to the fridge and try to open it. When I open the fridge up, she knows exactly where her yogurt is and will pick one up.

She's babbling alot more.. her little toddler language I guess you'd say. She points to alot of things to show us what she wants, and will babble while pointing to it. She says "No" alot, "yeah", "Hi", "uh oh", "oh no" , "Doh-dee"(which I don't know if it's 'doggy' or 'Cody...Lucy's name comes out more like "Zu Zu") and her big thing she says ALL. THE. TIME. is "Hi Dada!" She was saying mama alot last month, then she just stopped and now EVERYTHING is "Hi Dada!" We'll be in Walmart and some strange guy will walk past and she'll go, "Hi Dada!" and wave at him. LOL. She waves at ME all the time and says "hi dada".... Must just be the phase she's going through now! I tell her, "Ok, you've mastered 'hi dada'... let's move on to 'hi MAMA!'

So that's a not-so-short update on Alyson. For Halloween I took her to my parents' house to help give candy out. She was dressed as a butterfly! We didn't go trick-or-treating, but she absolutely LOVED being dressed up and seeing all the other kids in their costumes! Usually I'd make a slideshow of the pics, but I decided to make a family website, so all the pics I take are posted on there. I had alot of friends/family members asking me to email them pics, so I figured it was just easier to make a website and give people the link and let them know if/when it's updated.

So here it is:

http://thehuntfamily917.shutterfly.com

There are pics of our trip to the Outer Banks on there, plus pics of Alyson from summer til now. A little bit of everything. I'll be updating it again soon... I've been slacking on the picture-taking so I don't have much to post on there as of right now.

Well, I'm getting tired and I should have been to bed a few hours ago. I am SO not a night owl anymore!

More updates soon.

Updates

2008-10-01T10:13:00.009-04:00

It's been awhile...yet again. The Hunt family's been pretty busy lately! I'll try to update the best I can.

Well, we took our vacation to the Outer Banks the week of September 6-13. We rented a beach house with a few friends of ours and their little boy. And it figures that right before we go, "Hurricane Hanna" (which luckily ended up being a tropical storm by the time it hit) was headed toward the Carolinas. We left home the night of the 5th so we wouldn't be driving the WHOLE TIME in the rain. Plus, we didn't know how Alyson was going to take her first long road trip. We figured it would be easier to do half the trip one day and the rest the next morning. WRONG. We ended up getting a late start the night of the 5th, so we only got about 4 1/2 hours away to Frederick, MD before it got too late and we decided we'd better get a hotel room. The hotel gave us a portacrib to use, which unfortunately Alyson wanted NOTHING to do with. We decided to try and let her sleep in bed with us. Another bad idea. We've never had her in bed with us and it's not something we wanted to start... so she had no idea that she was supposed to fall asleep, and she just thought the bed was a big trampoline for the next hour. It was 2:30am and we were all SO TIRED. I put her back in her portacrib and THANK GOD she fell asleep. For a whole THREE hours, waking back up bright and early at 5:30am. We wanted to get an early start Saturday morning, but not THAT early!!

Anyway, we got ready, ate breakfast and started driving again. Basically the whole six hours was spent in pouring rain as a result of the outer bands of Hanna. It was a mess... I think we saw about 10 wrecks on the way to NC.

We got to NC about 2pm, and thankfully the weather had cleared up by that point. THe rest of the day was just overcast, and the following 3 days were BEAUTIFUL-- blue skies and sunny. Wednesday was our only rainy day, so we all took the kids to the NC aquarium over on Roanoke Island. Thursday and Friday were beautiful, so all in all it was a great week.

Alyson absolutely LOVED her first beach experience. At first she was really hesitant to step on the sand since it was a different feeling to her, but once we took her down by the water and let the waves crash over her feet, she was IN LOVE. She would no sooner get back to the beach blanket and then she'd take off again, wanting to go explore. I took lots of pics, and will put them up on here in a slide show.

Before we left, we stopped in at the place we rented the house from, and booked it for the same week next year. Yeah, it's hurricane season, but it was such a great week to be down there... it was so peaceful and relaxing, and not so hectic like during the summer months. If we had the option, I'd LOVE to move down there :-)

I'll post pics as soon as I put them in a slide show.

As for updates with Alyson, she's doing great. SHe's a little over 15 months old now, and had her 15 mo. checkup last week. She's 26 pounds 8 oz. (92nd percentile) and is 32 inches tall, or 90%. Her head is still off the charts (big noggin like her daddy but doc said all is normal!) She's talking alot more now...still mostly babbling but some new words too. She says mama, dadda, dody (which is either 'doggy' or 'cody', i haven't figured which...), yeah, hi, uh-oh, dop (for 'stop')and she points her finger and shakes her head while saying "no no no no no." LOL. She's repeating alot of words now (well, trying to) so I told her daddy he'd better watch his mouth a little more these days!!!

Well, I'd better go...Alyson is getting annoyed that her mommy is spending time on the computer and not with her.

Alright, better go play with Alyson before her naptime. Later on we're gonna have girly time and go shopping... Aly needs some more cold-weather clothes. And so does mommy :-)

Weekend update

2008-08-04T09:43:00.003-04:00

Well, I hope everyone had a great weekend :-) Mine ended up improving, thank goodness. Alyson is doing alot better now, which I'm SO happy about. It was so hard seeing her hurting like that! Her teeth are still bugging her, I can tell...so I've just been keeping up with the Ibuprofen.

We ended up going to our friends' son's 2nd birthday party on Saturday... it was a good time. Alyson plays SO well with other kids! The only thing, she thought she could eat what everyone else was eating... she was trying to pick up a whole hotdog and huge pieces of fruit and stick them in her mouth..lol. All the kids at the party had ice cream cones, and there were baby cones for the little ones. The tiniest little baby cone I've ever seen. Alyson THOROUGHLY enjoyed her first taste of ice cream...even crunching the cone. It was too cute.

One thing I've realized now... there is NO relaxing at events we go to anymore. Whether it's a birthday party or a family gathering, I am CONSTANTLY chasing after Alyson. Russ just 'happens' to head outside with the guys so that he doesn't have to be the one to look after Alyson. So HE gets to relax and kick back while I'm watching to make sure Alyson isn't falling down stairs or shoving something she shouldn't into her mouth. Then Russ doesn't understand why I come out to him and say, "Can you puhleeeeeeeeeease help me watch her?!" LOL. Ugh.

As for yesterday, we went to church, then out to breakfast... then my parents came over later with dinner. My dad made AWESOME beer can chicken and baked potatoes on his grill, so they brought that over for us. All I had left to do was make a veggie and that was it. Oh, and we had some banana cream pie too :-) Nice easy dinner for me! But OH MY... if you have not had beer can chicken, you're missing out. It was even better than the rotisserie chicken they sell in stores. YUM.

So that was the weekend. Glad things ended up working out.

Well, Alyson is getting fussy so I'm gonna end this here. Have a great Monday!

Baby butts and babbles

2008-08-01T11:29:00.002-04:00

Post about baby problems and poop ahead... just a warning for all those without kids.

Yesterday with Alyson was a repeat of the day before. I've finally figured out what ALL the problems are due to.... TEETHING. Ugh. I remember hearing about all the side effects of teething, and for some reason I didn't put two and two together the other day and realize, "So THAT'S what the problem is."

Not to be TMI, but Aly's been, uh, "going #2" ALOT lately, and it's causing MAJOR problems. Her stomach was rumbling and making all kinds of crazy noises yesterday, and she was NOT a happy camper. She was crying and screaming and kicking her feet. Ibuprofen and Mylicon didn't seem to help. And everytime she would dirty her diaper and I'd go to change her, she'd just scream and cry big 'ol crocodile tears. Her poor butt is so red. She's never had any kind of diaper rash up until now, so I've never had to deal with her being in pain like this. It sucks, because my little girl is in pain and I feel helpless that I can't do more for her. Yesterday she didn't even want to sit down on her butt. She just stood by the couch and leaned against it, then layed her little head on the cushion. I wanted to cry! Things finally settled down last evening... the stomach pains went away and she was *almost* her usually peppy self. She went to bed close to 9pm and slept through the night, so that was a relief. I thought we were going to be up half the night.

Today she's doing a little better... she had a little episode this morning when her diaper was dirty... her little butt is still hurting her. She cried for awhile but then settled down and was totally fine, and has been since. So I'm HOPING AND PRAYING that the rest of the day goes smoothly. We have a birthday party to go to tomorrow and other plans this weekend, and I just hope we can make it to them... I'd hate to take Alyson if she's still having 'poop problems.' I don't think people at the party would want her running around with her bare butt hanging out... lol.

But enough talk about my daughter's butt. I just had to get that off my chest... this is the first time I've had to deal with this, and it's just frustrating. As a mom, you want to think you can just wave a magic wand and everything will be all better with your child, and it sucks when you have that helpless feeling, ya know? *sigh*

Anyway... I have a funny story to share about Alyson. Last night I had her in her highchair, trying to get her to eat something before bed. While I was getting her food ready, she sat there playing with her pink Barbie cell phone. I just about lost it when I walked back in the dining room and saw her... she was holding the cell phone up to her ear and babbling into it. At first I thought it was just a fluke and that she just happened to put it there... then she put the phone down. When she picked it up again, she did the same thing. She put the phone right to her ear and goes, "Yeh? Neh. Na Na. Ya." LOL. I was cracking up. I put the phone up to my ear and said, "Barbie? Oh.. you want to talk to Alyson? Ok... here she is." Alyson watched me do that and was smiling, then took the phone and started babbling again.

Here are some pictures... she has the phone backwards, but she has the idea!

Guess she watches her mommy and daddy's actions a little more than I thought!

Glad I don't have many days like this...

2008-07-30T19:21:00.005-04:00

Ok... I just looked in the mirror and yes, I still DO have hair. I've felt like pulling it out all day long!!!

UGH! It's been a crazy day with Alyson today. One of those days when I have NO idea what is going on with her. Usually it's one of 3 things... either she needs a diaper change, she's hungry, or her teeth are hurting her and she needs Ibuprofen. Today she's just been fussy ALL DAY LONG.

Like right now... she's been walking around whining for the past few hours despite my attempts to meet her every need!!! Her diaper's changed, she just ate, I gave her ibuprofen, and I've tried to put her down for a nap with no luck. She just stood up in her crib and cried until I brought her back downstairs.

So we walked around... we played and played and played some more.... and she's still fussing. I just feel helpless because I have NO IDEA what she wants and it makes me want to cry.

*sigh*

Update: Ok, so about 5 minutes after I posted this, I was holding Alyson on my lap and she majorly spit up all down my leg. Now she seems quite content with things and is running around with a pillow, laughing her head off. Guess her stomach wasn't feeling so well.

Now I'm off to do damage control in the kitchen... I hear her trying to stick SOMETHING out the doggy door. *sigh* I just LOVE days like this...

One month... I'm getting WORSE!

2008-07-29T19:01:00.004-04:00

I've successfully gone one whole month and only posted ONE time. Not that I meant to!!! Blogging's just been on the back burner for me lately... things have been really busy! And to think, I thought that being a stay-at-home mommy would give me lots of free time... HA! Yeah right.

Anyway, there aren't a whole lot of things for me to update about, surprisingly. At least not many I can think of right now. Oh... the house thing. We're still considering that house I talked about last post... we did end up putting an offer on it, but the couple had just lowered the price by about $25,000 and it turns out that what they lowered it down to is basically exactly what they owe on their mortgage, so they aren't willing to budge AT ALL. Our offer was the highest one they received so far, but they didn't take it. Not even a counteroffer. The guy just told our realtor, "Nope... this is what I owe, this is what I want for the house." So whatever. If it was meant to be, it would have worked out. I mean, it STILL can work out, who knows. It's just a waiting game now. It's not like we HAVE to move, so we're just taking our time. Russ keeps telling me, "Just be patient." I tell him patience is not one of my strong points!!

So once the house thing didn't work out, we looked into building one. We spoke with a couple builders, got some price quotes... but decent home lots are so hard to come by around here right now. Plus Russ goes, "I don't know if I have the time to deal with all that right now!" He's so busy these days, and I highly doubt he would want to meet with the builder to discuss things like lighting and bathroom fixtures. But that might be good... he'd just tell me, "Do what you want." LOL.

Before I end my boring post, I just want to say CONGRATULATIONS to all your blogging ladies out there expecting again!! I have been so bad at keeping updated with blogs, so I was very surprised when I checked in on blogs and found out all the great news! WOW!! Around Alyson's 1st birthday, I mentioned to Russ that I'd like to start trying for another baby around her 2nd birthday, June or so. I said, "It might not happen right away, but if I DID get pregnant quickly, she'd almost be 3 by the time the baby was born... that'd be a great age!" Russ just kind of gave me that "deer in the headlights" look because the conversation took him by surprise, and his response was... "Um, can you bring this up again NEXT year then?" Men. He told me the other day that Alyson is getting so much more fun the older she gets. He goes, "I didn't know what to do with her when she was so little. Boy, if you could pop babies out at a year old, I'd say let's have 5 of them!"

Whhaaaaaaaaaat???!! The boy cracks me up sometimes.

But yeah, I AM ready to have another baby... I'd like to have at least one more before I'm 30. If it's a boy, I think we're gonna be done, but if it's a girl, we'll probably try ONE more time and see if we have a boy. I just definitely want more than one child since I'm an only child. While being an only child has its perks, it sometimes got lonely and I always wished I had a brother or sister. I just don't want Alyson to feel that way. So while ULTIMATELY we're waiting a year to really start trying, if it happens it happens... that's the way I see it. I definitely wouldn't be upset if it happened sooner than later :-)

Alyson's 1st Year in Pictures

2008-06-27T13:13:00.004-04:00

I recently made a photo montage of Alyson, from birth to her 1st birthday... here it is if you want to check it out! It's lengthy though, about a half hour long. I ended up putting it all on a DVD and got one for me, my mom and dad, and Russ's mom and husband. It'll be nice to have for years to come! Alyson will enjoy watching it in the future, I'm sure :-)

Let me know what you think!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Have a great weekend!

1 year ALREADY?!

2008-06-25T08:10:00.001-04:00

Well, my baby is officially 1 year old as of June 21st. Boy, how time flies!!

We had Alyson's birthday party at our house on Sunday the 22nd... everything went great. It was supposed to rain that day, but thankfully the rain held off. It just sprinkled a little bit later in the evening, but most of the guests had left. We had about 40 people there in all. The biggest hit of the party was the new swingset we got Alyson for her birthday (mostly for the baby swing--she'll have to grow into the rest of it!)... alot of people had kids there, so they all played on it while the parents had time to themselves!

Here are some pics from the party. Like I said last post, the theme of her birthday was the "1st cupcake" theme... cupcakes and party hats, with the colors red, purple, lime green and yellow. :-) I was surprised she didn't get messier while eating her cake... she just took her time and ate it like a little lady...lol.

My cousin Brenda bought Alyson a Dora the Explorer Pop-up tent (Aly LOVES Dora!), and I took some pictures of her with it the day after the party. Cody got a little curious and decided HE wanted to go in the tent... I think he likes it more than she does!

Alyson's 1 year doctor's appointment was yesterday... she weighs 24 pounds 6 ounces (92nd percentile) and is 31 3/4 inches tall, which is taller than 100% of kids her age...lol! Her head size is still off the charts, but is progressing normally... doc said everything looks fine. He goes, "She IS tall... she looks 2!" She still had the stranger anxiety and didn't want much to do with the doctor... she cried most of the time in the exam room. Once she settled down, it was time to get 3 shots...poor girl. She was fine afterwards though, thank goodness!

So those are the updates with Alyson. It's just so hard to believe she's 1 year old already... seems like just yesterday all of us blogging ladies were finding out we were pregnant and sharing all those miserable and not-so-miserable moments with eachother!! :-)

Anyway... the only other thing to talk about is the fact that Russ and I MAY be moving... we went to see a house close to where we live, and we actually BOTH LOVED IT. Usually, one of us loves a house and the other doesn't, but we actually agreed on this one. It's a 4 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath house with about 2800 square feet, on an acre lot in a GREAT kid-friendly neighborhood. We're thinking about putting an offer on it within the next few days...hopefully we get it! It's been on the market for about 9-10 months, and the people have already reduced the price twice since the housing market is so slow around here lately. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed things work out! If things are meant to be, they'll find a way of working themselves out!

Well, Alyson is awake, so I better go upstairs and get her! Have a great week :-)

Updates and Birthday pics!

2008-05-29T22:58:00.002-04:00

Hello :-) Just a few updates... I'm slacking with my blog as usual,I know.

I had Alyson's 1st birthday pictures taken at Sears last week.. just got them back today. Here is a slideshow of all the proofs! She fussed a little at first when she started getting her picture taken, but eventually that big toothy grin made an appearance :-)

I've been busy planning her first birthday party... I've decided to have it at our house, though Russ is trying to talk me into having it somewhere. I just want to have it at home so everyone can just hang out and we're not pressured to clean up and be out by a certain time, ya know?

Anyway, I'm doing the "1st cupcake" theme. It's cute... not girly, really, but I like it. I was going to do Strawberry Shortcake, but changed my mind at the last minute and decided to do a 1st birthday theme. Here's what the theme looks like...

I have streamers and a banner for the yard, along with lime green, purple, yellow and red balloons, and 1st birthday foil balloons.... also got a highchair decorating kit (bib, party hat, streamer for on highchair, and a mat for underneath the highchair). I bought pretty much every item offered in this theme...lol. I couldn't resist. I'm just so excited for the party! I'm sending all the invites out in the mail tomorrow... I was just waiting for her pics to come back so I could put them in the invites. Now I just have to figure out where I want to get the cake from, and get the food ordered. We're buying the big dinner stuff from a local restaurant Russ does business with (rigatoni, chicken, etc), I'm making a few things, and my mom and mother-in-law have offered to make some things too. So I have all the details down, just finalizing things :-)

When I'm not party planning (lol) I've just been TRYING to relax (is there such a thing with an almost-1-year-old?!). Russ and I were out on the boat most of Memorial Day weekend...it was a good time. Sunday was BEAUTIFUL... we took Alyson on the boat with us... she didn't know what to do at first and just stayed on my lap, then got a little more adventurous later and started crawling around. Monday my parents offered to watch Alyson for a little bit, so we went out on the boat with a few friends, then to my parents' house for a cookout.

That's about it for the excitement lately... just been enjoying the warm weather. I got all my flowers planted and things cleaned up around the house and on the deck. Today was a beautiful day too... mid 70's and a cloudless blue sky. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and around 80! I bought Aly a baby pool when we were out today, so I'm going to see if she'll go in it tomorrow. With as much as she loves splashing around in the bathtub, she should LOVE a baby pool! I'll be sure and have my camera ready :-)

Well, I can hardly keep my eyes open, so I'm gonna end this here and head to bed. It's so hard to believe that I used to stay up so late every night. Now, I feel like the furthest thing from a night owl. I'm now a "go to bed by 11pm because my daughter wakes me up by 8am" mommy. But I wouldn't have it any other way. For some reason, waking up early doesn't bother me when I'm greeted by Alyson with a big huge smile on her face, stretching her arms out for me and saying "ma ma ma ma!" :-)

Nighty night!

Random 'I'm so bored' post.

2008-05-14T09:43:00.003-04:00

Well, I hope all you mommies out there had a WONDERFUL Mother's Day! Russ and I went to my Grandma's house on Mother's Day for a little family get-together... it was a good time. He was supposed to take me shopping that day ( I have been telling him about this mother's ring I LOVE), but we didn't have enough time before we left for my Grandma's house. He took me to the mall on Monday... I looked in a few jewelry stores, but didn't find the ring I wanted. I ended up getting some new sandals and some summer clothes. :-)

As for my being sick, I'm feeling ALOT better now. Almost totally back to my normal peppy self. Almost... I'd say I'm about 90%. 3 more days of Penicillin and I'm done with that.

On another note... is anyone else out there a Pittsburgh Penguins fan? They are doing AWESOME! I got away from watching hockey for awhile, but got back into it recently. Only 1 more game to win and they are up for the Stanley Cup! WOO HOOOOOOOO! :-)

Ok...just had to get that out.

Not much else to talk about. I'm just wishing I was back on a beach somewhere. This weather here SUCKS lately. It just doesn't want to warm up!! If it IS warm, it's all cloudy and rainy. Blah. Give me a nice sunny day, please! Preferably about 75 degrees! But maybe we WILL be on a beach again soon... we were supposed to go see Russ's brother and his wife in Alaska later in the summer, but it turns out that they are going to be in Costa Rica in June sometime, so we might just meet up with them there. Not sure what all is in Costa Rica, but heck, we'll try it. I'm up for anything!

Well, my little girl is making a mess of the house (which I DID have all nice and cleaned up) so I'd better get her before it looks like a tornado went through here. I already have to go out later and get us a new phone, because she's dropped it so much it doesn't work that well now. Our friends have informed us that it probably won't be the FIRST time we have to get a new phone...lol.

Alright... better get Aly now. Thank goodness it's almost nap time for her!!

Have a great day.

Punta Cana trip and my sick self

2008-05-09T23:16:00.004-04:00

Well, Russ and I are back from our trip to Punta Cana :-) While it was great to get away for awhile, I was never so happy to get home. The first reason being that we didn't take Alyson with us so I COULD NOT wait to see her... the second being that I was SICK AS A DOG the day we came home. My sinuses started acting up during the trip, but I figured it was just the humidity, temperature change, blah blah blah. I was fine for 3/4 of the trip, then Monday morning before coming home, I woke up and just felt weird. My throat was feeling funny, I didn't have an appetite, and my eyes felt like they hurt.

We left the resort at 10am (long ride to airport) and our flight was scheduled to leave Punta Cana at 1:30pm. WELL... by the time we were ready to board the plane, I was feeling MISERABLE. My head was thumping and I felt like I was burning up, yet I was freezing. I had to be running a fever but didn't have a way to check. So THEN we find out that our flight was being delayed because the stupid computers crashed and the people who hadn't checked in yet had to get all their boarding passes and luggage tags done manually. UGH. So we boarded the plane at 1:40, only to wait on the plane another hour before taking off, waiting for all the people who got stuck in line when the computers crashed. I was NOT a happy camper. So there I was, stuck for 4 hours between Russ and some lady I didn't know. I covered up with a blanket the whole time, and Russ thought I was nuts because he was hot as heck. Once we got to our connection at JFK in NY, I was sweating bullets and felt like my head was in a sauna and the rest of me was in an igloo. I ended up finding a store that sold sinus medicine, so I took some, and thankfully it started working before we boarded the plane to come back to Pittsburgh.

So I figured I just had a sinus thing and it'd be better in the morning. WRONG. I woke up and could practically swallow, my nose was stuffed up, my eyes felt swelled shut, etc etc.... I looked in the mirror, opened my mouth...and.... strep throat. I was so TICKED. I haven't had this since I was a kid! Why now?! So I checked my temp and it was 102... and even though I felt crappy at the time, it was nothing like how I felt the day before, so God knows what my temperature was then.

I called the doc to get something called in, and left a message. THe nurse practitioner didn't call back until later in the afternoon, and she said there was nothing she could do until the next day (wednesday). So I suffered Tuesday, swallowing Ibuprofen and gargling salt water til I was about to yack. Wednesday morning I was MISERABLE, with a temp of 103.8...and thank GOD I got my prescription by early afternoon. I was about to suck it up and head to ER, though I was in no shape to sit there and wait all day.

So now I'm on Penicillin, and it seems to be working. My throat is still sore and I sound all nasally when I talk... I still ache.... my ears hurt.....my eyes hurt... my frickin TEETH feel like they hurt...and I still have white tonsils.... but at least I don't have a fever anymore. LOL. It gets a little better everyday. It just sucks because Tuesday morning is when we picked Alyson up from Russ's mom's house, and I couldn't wait to see her, but I felt so crappy because of being sick, and I hated to get HER sick. So Russ's mom came over Wednesday and a little bit of Thursday afternoon to help me out with Alyson... I tried not to get TOO close to her until the Penicillin kicked in. Supposedly things are no longer contagious, so I'm REALLY gonna feel bad if Alyson gets sick.

ANYWAY... that's the bad news of the trip. The trip itself was awesome.... the weather there was on and off rainy, but it was mostly cloudbursts. I guess people were right when they said it rains ALL THE TIME in Punta Cana... showers just come out of nowhere, and the sun will be out the whole time! Speaking of the sun... it is HOT down there. We were only on the beach not even 2 hours the first time, and Russ got burned pretty bad.... Mr. "I don't need sunblock because I'm already tan." LOL. He got fried the first day on the beach. Me, I put sunblock on, but every spot I missed ended up bright red, one being my forehead...lol.

ANother thing... LOTS of boobies and speedos on the beach. JEESH! And wouldn't you know, the first set of tatas that we saw belonged to a dark leathery looking old lady. She didn't give a darn either. I told Russ, "Hey, if she wants them hanging out, more power to her." Russ especially liked when 2 girls who looked to be in their 20's laid out close to us and let it all hang out. He smiled and goes, "See? That's when these sunglasses come in handy." Men. :-P

Dealing with the resort, it was beautiful! We stayed at the Riu Palace Punta Cana,an all-inclusive resort. I'll put a slideshow of pics at the end of this post :-)

Being that I'm feeling pretty crappy, I'd better get some sleep now. Alyson's been waking up earlier now. OH--- by the way-- my baby's WALKING! She's still wobbly and falls down alot, but she's been taking off on her own and will walk all across the living room, down the hall, through the kitchen, wherever she wants. I couldn't believe it! She had been taking a few steps on her own prior to us leaving on the trip, but not until yesterday did she start walking longer distances. :-)

Alright...more soon. Take care!

The big 2-8...

2008-04-15T19:00:00.004-04:00

Finally... a few minutes to post. I've made Alyson busy by sitting her down in front of her Learning House with some cheerios. :-)

Well, as of Sunday the 13th at 10:51am, I'm officially 28. 2 years away from 30....hard to believe. The weekend was pretty nice... I didn't have to cook ONCE! Saturday we took the baby over to our friends Dean and Joelle's for their daughter Jillian's 3rd birthday party. Talk about little kid city! There were so many kids running around the house... I was thinking, "This is a glimpse into my future..." lol. (I'm already planning Alyson's 1st birthday party!)

Anyway, after the party, we rushed home and changed, took the baby to Russ's mom's house and picked our friends Joe and Denise up. Joe's bday is the 12th and mine was the 13th, so the four of us went out to dinner up on Mount Washington in Pittsburgh, to a restaurant called the Georgetowne Inn. It was ok... the view of the city was AWESOME, but I don't think that restaurant would be at the top of my 'places to go back to' list! Overall it was a good time though. The four of us went out lastyear, to the same area but to a restaurant down the street, Monterey Bay. AWESOME seafood. So we're thinking this will probably be a yearly tradition with us, going out to dinner for our birthdays :-)

Sunday was my ACTUAL bday... Me, Russ and Alyson met my mom and dad and Russ's mom and husband Steve at Red Lobster. Halfway through the meal, I asked my dad, "They don't know it's my birthday, do they?" and he said no, that he hadn't told anyone. Once the end of the meal came, the waitress asked if we wanted dessert. We were all stuffed and said no. A few minutes later, she comes back and puts this HUGE piece of chocolate cake with ice cream down in front of me, and here come the waitresses to sing me happy bithday. I looked at my dad and said, "You're a good liar!" and he laughed and goes, "I swear, I didn't say anything!" Turns out Russ's mom told our waitress while I was busy and didn't notice. Sneaky sneaky. So at the end of the meal, we all got to enjoy my "this is so good I could now die happy" chocolate cake...even Alyson got a little bit of ice cream.

After Red Lobster, we went to the mall and walked off some chocolate cake calories...lol. That night, my husband ACTUALLY OFFERED to give me a back rub. Oh, and I got a dozen roses too :-)

So that's about it for the weekend. Not much else has gone on since. Just cleaning house and spending time with my beautiful little girl :-)

Well, the cheerios are gone and she's pulling on the cord to my laptop trying to chew on it, so it's time to end this here. More another time.... :-)

Have a great night! (Mine will be spent on the couch watching the finale to Biggest Loser) :-)

Attempt at some updates

2008-04-08T23:01:00.004-04:00

I know it's been awhile, so I'm going to try my best to update...

Well,for starters.... Alyson had her 9-month visit to the pediatrician a few weeks ago... everything went well, and she's doing great! She now weighs 21 1/2 pounds (90th percentile) and is 29 1/4 inches tall (95th percentile.) The size of her noggin is still off the charts...lol.

She did great during the visit....until the doctor came in. I didn't know how bad her stranger anxiety was! I didn't think she had it that bad, but she wanted NOTHING to do with the doctor. She cried and reached up her arms for me to pick her up the whole time she was on the exam table. I had to hold her so he could listen to her heart and lungs and everything. On top of all this, she still needed two shots. (ugh)She ended up calming down toward the end, but even after the doctor and nurses left the room, she DID NOT want on that exam table anymore! I got her clothes and laid her back down on there so I could get her dressed, and she WAILED and wanted picked up again. Needless to say, it was an interesting visit.

Things with Aly have been good... seems like it's something new every week now! She's constantly getting into EVERYTHING, and has me running around chasing her around the house all day long. I'm trying to teach her to use a sippy cup, and so far it's going ok. She'll take a few sips, then she just waves the cup around, chews on the handle, and throws it on the floor. :-P She's enjoying her zwieback toast, biter biscuits, gerber puffs, and has a newfound love for Club Crackers. I've started doing more table food with her, and so far so good.

We've been enjoying the warm weather lately... she loves loves LOVES being outside. Prior to this nice weather, she hadn't been outside for a long period of time since October, when it was still somewhat warm out... and of course she was too young to know what the heck was going on. But now, she looks all around and just giggles at the dogs running in the yard, and just has a permagrin on her face... it's adorable! I had her outside yesterday while I cleaned things out on our deck...I took her Around-we-go walker (aka the "roundy round" as I call it) outside and she stayed in that and snacked on her Gerber puffs and cheerios and played with the dogs. I just can't wait to get her little baby pool out and let her splish splash around in it!! :-) This summer's gonna be so fun with her.

In other news, Russ and I looked at a few houses last week. I don't even know why we bother, because we always come home afterwards and decide we're not in the position to move, blah blah blah. But the real estate agent we deal with called one day and told us about a house he was listing that 'was perfect for us.' (He knows what we're looking for by now, after taking us to look at a gazillion houses.) So we went to see a few houses on Saturday... the first one, which I thought I would LOVE, was a total disappointment. Nothing like what it looked like in the pictures on realtor.com. The other one which the agent recommended, however, was awesome. It was on 1.5 acres and only 4 years old. The people who live there have to relocate for the wife's job, so that's why they are selling. The house is adorable...one of those houses that actually IS in move-in condition. I wouldn't have to touch a thing dealing with paint or carpet or anything. It's actually the first house Russ and I BOTH loved. We seriously thought about making an offer, but the more we thought about it, the more we decided to hold off. It's at the top of our budget and we think that we could get more for our money if we wait awhile. Plus, the house just came on the market so we didn't know whether the people would hold off on accepting an offer and all that.

So, as usual, we have decided to stay put. Big surprise. I told Russ, "Do you realize that the past 3 springs, we have gone house-hunting? Is it just a spring thing, or what?!" lol.

Unfortunately, I don't have many more updates. I've just been busy redecorating the house. I got bit by the redecorating bug, and have been busy painting and switching things all around in the house. Russ just shakes his head and lets me do my thing. I tell him, "Just leave the decorating to me. I may ask you about a paint color now and then, but that's about it." If decorating were left up to him, every wall would be white with practically nothing on it. My latest project has been repainting the hallway...the color I originally bought for our bedroom, but decided not to use in there. So now I have to figure out a color for the bedroom so I can get THAT done. We need to call and get our bedroom furniture delivered, but I want the room painted first. It's just tough trying to get this stuff all done while Aly's here. She doesn't keep herself entertained for very long, and Gerber puffs and Zwieback toast only do so much! :-) She went to Russ's mom's today for awhile so I could get some painting done, so that was nice!

Well, I'm getting tired, so I'm gonna try to head to bed soon. Hopefully I can keep this updated more often....it's hard to try and play catch-up where blogging is concerned. Oh, and almost forgot... I'm gonna put some Easter pics at the end of this. We went to church and then over my grandma's house for Easter, that's about it.

Nighty night :-)

The bad and the very good!

2008-03-20T01:05:00.003-04:00

I'm starting to be a slacker at posting again, sorry!

Things have been eventful lately, or uneventful, depending how you look at it. For starters, Russ's brother got married in MN this past weekend. Unfortunately, I didn't get to go. I ended up coming down with the flu the afternoon before we were supposed to leave.(Strangely enough, after just having told Russ's mom the week before that I've "been lucky I hadn't gotten the flu for awhile." HA! Spoke too soon, I guess...) I told Russ what was going on, but said I'd wait til Friday morning to figure out what I was gonna do. He woke me up at 7:30am Friday, and I THOUGHT I felt fine, til I got up and walked around a bit. Then the chills came again...ugh. I tried eating some cheerios, but breakfast didn't want to stay down, so I decided I'd better not go. I spent the morning crying on and off because I thought I'd FINALLY get out of town for awhile, and I hated to miss the wedding. I really had been looking forward to it.

I called my parents and told them I wouldn't be bringing Alyson over there after all (they were supposed to watch her all weekend), but they said they'd still keep her for a night or two, until I felt better. They came to get her Friday afternoon, and by Saturday afternoon THANKFULLY I was feeling better, so I went and got her that night. Thank goodness for my parents, I don't know what I'd do without them!

From what I've heard from Russ and his mom, things went well...I asked Russ if his brother cried when K walked down the aisle, and he goes, "Oh yeah...he was sobbing even before the wedding." LOL! Then Russ goes, "It brought back memories of our wedding...I was so nervous when I saw you walk down the aisle." Then he told me how much he missed me and Alyson while he was gone. I told him, "You called me more times in 2 days than you do in 2 weeks when you're home!" It was sweet... he kept me updated with everything that was going on and called, like, 4 times a day.

So there's that.

Now for my EXCITING news.... even more reason for me to exercise my butt off and get healthy....

Russ and I just booked a trip to Punta Cana!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm sooooooo excited!!!! (Can you tell?!)

Neither of us have been there before. We didn't go anywhere last year being that I was pregnant for half the year, then had the baby in June... so we really haven't been anywhere since our anniversary trip in September '06. (That's when Russ swears Alyson was conceived... it wasn't, but I'll just let him believe that. He says it makes for a good story to tell her in the future...lol)

Anyway, we're staying at the Riu Palace Punta Cana. Here's a pic and a link to the site if you wanna check it out:

http://www.riu.com/en/hotel-riu-palace-punta-cana-dominican-republic.html

I can't WAIT! We're leaving early Friday May 2nd and coming home the following Monday night. Not very long, but just long enough to get some much-needed time away and enjoy the sun and sand! And that beautiful turquoise water!!! We're not taking Alyson with us, so we (well, mostly I) didn't want to be gone too long since our parents will be watching her...they're gonna split the time up and watch her a few days each.

Now comes what I dread, but have to do... bathing suit shopping! Gotta go find a cute one. Russ told me I only need to buy bottoms since we've heard alot of the European people go topless on the beach... I told him, "You only WISH I'd do that." LOL

Oh, and we've also decided we're going to visit Russ's brother in Alaska in July or August for a week or so. Before his flight home from Minneapolis, the staff said the flight had been overbooked. Russ volunteered to take a later flight since he really didn't need to rush home for anything... he was originally supposed to come home at 1:30pm but instead got home at 4pm. Since he did that, he got a free ticket for anywhere in the continental US, Alaska and Canada. So we're gonna use that toward his ticket to Alaska, and we got a refund from the ticket I didn't use. So Alaska here we come! We're gonna take Alyson with us... I can't wait. Her first flight... hopefully everything goes smoothly.

Well, it's late and I should have been in bed a long time ago. Alyson always wakes me up bright and early like clockwork for her morning bottle. When I hear her awake at, like, 7:30am, I wanna say, "Puhleeeeeeeeeeeease give me another hour. Just ONE. MORE. HOUR. :-)

Nighty night!

More of the white stuff.... blah.

2008-03-08T23:00:00.004-05:00

THIS is what I see when I look out my front door. Snow, snow and more snow.

We've been getting snow nonstop for 2 days now. What was supposed to be rain according to Mr. Weatherman ended up being snow yesterday, so we got about 3 inches. Today, I don't know how much more we got... at least another 3 or 4 inches, plus some good 'ol sleet and hail balls. We were lucky though...some cities in Ohio got a foot or more of snow!

This just really sucks... I hate being stuck in the house!!! My vehicle is totally snow covered, and I dread going outside tomorrow morning to shovel the walks and make a path up the driveway to the mailbox. (God forbid we don't get our newspaper out of the box everyday... if we go a couple days without getting the paper, our delivery lady just won't give us anymore papers!) We've called the newspaper office tons of times about that, but nothing's ever done. I know for sure today's and yesterday's papers are in there since it was snowing and I didn't feel like going to get it!...so I doubt she'll give us a Sunday paper. Beeotch. She could at least put it in the mailbox part instead, but she never does! Unless there's some kind of law against that that I don't know about....jeesh. Yeah, I can see the headline now... "Newspaper delivery lady gets 30 days in jail for placing customer's newspaper in mail slot instead of newspaper slot."

Sorry, that whole mail thing just sent me on a rant....it just irritates me. Maybe she's upset because she didn't get something for Christmas. And MAYBE SHE WOULD HAVE IF WE GOT ALL OF OUR PAPERS! :-P

So yeah...2 days of snow equals 2 days where I have hardly seen my husband. He's been in and out of the house since early Friday morning. It's pretty much been, "Hi, bye, love you." Today he goes, "So how does it feel being a single mother?!" (That's what the weekend has felt like!) The poor guy is lucky if he's gotten 3 hours of sleep this weekend. Every time he goes to lay down, his phone rings off the hook...either employees calling, or businesses wanting their lots resalted or whatever. Ticks me off. He's actually home right now... he's getting a WHOLE HOUR nap. Woo hoo...sense the sarcasm. I said, "WHy don't you stay home and get SLEEP and just tell everyone not to call you unless it's an emergency??" and he goes, "Honey, I would if I could...but half the guys still don't have the grasp of what they're doing..." etc etc etc.

I really reeeeeeeeeeeeally can't wait for the snow to be over. On top of all THIS current madness, there is snow predicted for this coming weekend, according to the 10-day forcast. This coming weekend being his brother's WEDDING weekend. We're supposed to be leaving Friday afternoon and won't be home til Sunday afternoon. Russ said that as of right now, he doesn't think he'll be going if there's even a CHANCE of snow coming. We already have all the plans made too... the dogs are set up to go to the kennel, my parents are going to watch Alyson for the weekend.... ugh. Now I don't know WHAT is going to happen. I tried to talk to him about it tonight, but he wanted nothing to do with that conversation..he said it's the furthest thing from his mind right now. He's so stressed out right now..it worries me, but he always says, "It's just part of the business." *sigh*

Anyhow...new subject. What would a post from me be without mentioning Aly? Since she's become an expert at using her little pincer grasp to pick dog food out of the dogs' bowl and attempt to put it in her mouth (an ongoing problem), I decided I would buy her some Gerber finger foods! I got her those little star-shaped banana puffs, and she got THE biggest grin on her face when I gave them to her. Here are some pics. (Notice Cody next to her, just waiting for her to drop one!)

And here is her first experience with teething toast...she didn't know what to think.

Well, Russ just woke up from his LONG (yeah right) nap... so I'm gonna go. Hope everyone's having a great weekend and that some of you east-coasters aren't TOO snowed in.

What NEXT?!

2008-03-05T23:33:00.002-05:00

Ok...so here's the latest happenings with Alyson. She's now doing THIS.

ARGH! MORE for me to worry about now...her falling down and hitting her head. She just started doing this (successfully) yesterday. She's been trying to pull herself up on things for a few days now, but just didn't have the strength to pull all the way up. Yesterday we were over my parents' house and I put her in their pack n play for a nap, and next thing I knew, she had grabbed hold of the top of the pack n play and was standing up! And today she did the same thing here at home. Next she started using the coffee table and endtables. I swear, it's one thing after the other! I have my little climber downstairs in the pack n play to sleep tonight, because I now have to move her crib mattress down to the lowest position so she can't climb right over the top. I'm just too tired to get out the screwdriver and go mess with that thing tonight. Sounds more like a job for tomorrow.

That's really all I had to write about tonight...nothing all that exciting. Russ's mom's bday was today, but she and her hubby just got back from Mexico (2nd part of their honeymoon) tonight. I need to go out tomorrow and get her a gift (buying all gifts seemed to become my responsibility after marriage, despite the fact that it's HIS mother...lol) Anyway, she and her husband Steve are supposed to stop by tomorrow because they miss Alyson. Never mind me and Russ. LOL. Isn't it so funny how once you have kids, your parents don't seem to get as excited to see you anymore? I always joke with my parents about that. When I walk in the door at my parents' house, they automatically go right to Alyson. I joke with them and say, "Hi Betsy! It's so great to see you!" :-)

One more pic before I go... here's Aly spending time with her daddy. Well, actually, she was trying to crawl over him so she could attempt to get her hands on the remote control or the phone...whichever happened to be easier to grab.

Well, nighty night... have a great Thursday :-)

Oh, one day of springy weather, I love you.

2008-03-03T15:53:00.003-05:00

Can I just say that I CAN NOT WAIT for voting to be over tomorrow night. My phone has been ringing off the hook all day, and each time it is one of those automated "vote for so-and-so" messages. UGH! Stop calling me!

Anyway... so remember the last post I wrote, about wanting spring to come? Well, we're getting a little taste of that today! It is 65 degrees out, and there's a near-cloudless blue sky. Such a long awaited day. Too bad it's just a teaser. Tonight it is supposed to start raining and we'll have a half inch of rain overnight, then another 2 inches of rain tomorrow. Thank goodness we don't live in an area that floods easily... there are a lot of flood watches for areas south of us.
So THEN after tomorrow, the snow is coming back again, a little on Wednesday and then most of the day Thursday. Boo hiss.

Russ and I are supposed to go do something later... he ACTUALLY SUGGESTED we could take the baby to the mall and walk around. And really...who am I to pass up an afternoon at the mall?! I'm just waiting for the baby to wake up from her nap, then we'll figure out what we're gonna do. For dinner today we're gonna grill some steaks outside and take advantage of our one day of nice weather.

And to end my post, a little tidbit about Alyson... I swear the girl is growing up SO FAST! She just started crawling within the past few weeks, and now she's already pulling herself up to a standing position! If you put your hands out, she grabs hold of them and lifts herself up, and she tries to grab hold of the couch and do the same thing. I feel like I'm gonna wake up one day next week and she's gonna be walking. LOL. She'd better hold off on that for awhile... I'm not done babyproofing yet :-) I need to get started on putting locks on the cupboards... yesterday, she was crawling around in the kitchen while I made dinner, and next thing I knew, she had opened one of the cupboards, grabbed my bottle of balsamic vinegar, and was rolling it around on the floor. NOT GOOD! LOL.

Well, Aly's up...she's staring at me with a big grin on her face. Melts my heart ;-)

Have a great day!

I'm all snowed out.

2008-02-29T22:23:00.005-05:00

Can I just say that I am SO SICK of the snow??!! It has officially snowed 21 out of 29 days this month, according to Mr. Weatherman on the news. 21 out of 29 days!!!

It was supposed to snow for a 'few hours' this morning then turn into rain come early afternoon. HA! It started snowing full blast here at 8am and hasn't really let up all day long. It didn't turn into a rain/snow mix until about 5:30pm.... then everything went from snowy to pure slush.

Today we had a get-together at my grandma's house at 5pm for her birthday (which was a few days ago)... Russ called me at 2pm and goes, "There's no way you're going to that party... it's pure hell out here. If you say you're going, I'm coming home and taking the battery out of the navigator." LOL. (In case anyone doesn't remember, my hubby salts and plows parking lots for his business, so he was out all day in that snowy mess.) I was pretty bummed since I made a huge fruit bowl to take over there, plus I knew pretty much EVERYONE from my family was gonna be there and that they were wanting to see Alyson.

So I kept pacing around, thinking, "Should I go, or shouldn't I go... If I go, Russ will probably be ticked, but if I DON'T go, I'll feel bad.... " In the end, I reluctantly decided not to go, but still got ready anyway. So at 4:50pm Russ calls and says, "I'm on the highway... it's not too bad now. You could make it there if you want to go." (Yeah... the party starts in 10 minutes, honey!) So I hurried up and got Alyson all ready and cleared my car off.... luckily things weren't bad once I got to the highway. In town was another story. There's a major salt shortage around here, so everyone's using as little salt as they can.... things are a liiiiiiittle bit messy. Which sucks, because the end of my road goes downhill, so if you slide, you slide right out into traffic on the main road. Not good.

So I made it to my gram's in one piece... it was a good time. Good to see everyone. I stayed a few hours, then decided to head home around 7:30 before things got REALLY bad. Everyone was going, like, 45 mph on the highways.... I tried to get over and pass someone who kept hitting their brakes, but I started sliding on slush (and I even have frickin 4wd!) So I just sucked it up and went slow with everyone else. (Cause really, I had precious cargo in the back!!)

So like I said, I am SO VERY TIRED of snow. I can't dare tell that to my husband though... that's what brings in the money, and what lets me stay at home with my little one! I just can't wait til the warm weather comes around... I'm sick of being BORED. Now the weatherman is saying more snow tonight, possibly 2 inches. We already had at least 4 earlier... Is that not enough for one day?!

Enough complaining.... :-) now onto my favorite topic... Alyson. She's FINALLY getting teeth! I noticed it about a week ago. In these pictures you can see her little 'toofer' on the bottom right hand side if you look closely at the first few pics. :-)

Well, that's about it for now...I'm getting tired. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Adventures in Alysonland

2008-02-24T01:11:00.000-05:00

Another doggy bday to report here in blogland.... my furbaby Lucy turned 3 Friday! It's hard to believe we've had our babies for 3 years already. We didn't have a doggie party or anything, but she DID get some special treatment in the way of doggie bones :-) I sang Happy Birthday to her, but she just kinda looked at me as if to say, "That's nice and all, but I have no idea what you're saying."

Here's a pic of Lou Lou that I took on her bday.

Now, for the latest adventures in Alysonland. OH. MY. GOSH. This girl gets into EVERYTHING now. Just within the past week or so, all hell has broken loose! LOL! I now have had to babyproof my entire downstairs. She has attempted to pull on and/or suck on anything within her reach. She seems to gravitate toward wires and the fireplace hearth...NOT GOOD! I have caught her MANY times heading toward the speaker next to our tv, wanting the wires coming out of it. I now have to use one of her big toys to block it during the day so she can't get back there.

We just got new couches, endtables and coffee table for the living room, and she is LOVING the tables. It sucks. The tables all have a shelf underneath them, and she thinks it is fun to attempt to climb up on the shelves. All I see on the shelf are little handprints... I'm half afraid to pledge the thing, for fear she'll just slide right off! Here are some pics of my little climber. Don't worry, she hasn't taken any spills off the shelf... after getting my photo-ops, I'm always right there to catch her before she goes headfirst onto the floor. Ugh....

This is what she started doing a few days ago. I heard her crawling down the hallway and figured she was just sitting there looking around like she always does. Ha. No... she was in the bathroom playing around with my basket of lotions, etc. I had to put all the sprays up...she just mostly waves a bottle around, then throws it down and grabs for another one. Hey, whatever floats her boat.

This is her having spotted the remote control up on the couch and trying to grab for it. She is OBSESSED with the remote control. And the phone...and my camera...and aything else somewhat shiny with buttons.

By the end of the day, I am WORN OUT from chasing her around. The dogs too! They follow her around constantly, especially Cody. He must think he's her personal bodyguard. Either that, or he's just really interested in her because she walks on all fours like he does. I dunno.

Here are my sleeping beauties.

Naptime...

Tired Cody and Lucy....

(No, my dogs aren't spoiled AT ALL...LOL!)

Well, I think that's it for the pictures...for now, anyway!

One more story about Aly before I go. Today, I was bathing her in her aquarium bathtub. She discovered today that if she kicks her feet, she can not only make bubbles, but splash water EVERYWHERE. She got a real kick out of this (pun intended...), and totally soaked me. Water was dripping on the counter, down the cabinets... ( I was washing her up in the kitchen) THEN... I started hearing this soft whooshing sound, and noticed that more water was coming onto the counter. SHe had kicked the plug out of the bathtub and ALL THE WATER was coming out. I quickly grabbed for her towel and tried to get her out of the tub so I could move it over the sink, but she had a death grip on that little toy ring that's attached to the tub and WOULD NOT let go. In the end, water was everywhere in my kitchen.... completely across the floor all the way over by the stove. Soaked part of my little rug and everything. All I can say is THANK GOD we have tile floor in the kitchen!! (Yeah, I think I'll try actually bathing her in the BATHROOM now!) She's still afraid of the bathtub, so we'll see.

Well, that's it for now... gotta head to bed so I get SOME sleep before I have to wake up and get ready for church. Nighty night! Hope everyone's having a good weekend!

Frustrations I had to get off my chest.

2008-02-21T00:02:00.003-05:00

I don't know whether I've mentioned this before in here, but Russ's brother J is getting married next month... his brother who nobody thought was ever going to settle down and get married! He's such a free spirit and LOVES LOVES LOVES traveling and going on weekend or weeklong hunting trips, and for awhile there, he was scared of not being able to do that anymore if he was married. Well, long story short... he took a break from his now-fiancee (an AWESOME girl he's been dating for over 3 years) for awhile so they (well, HE) could figure things out, and he realized that he couldn't live without her in his life. (awww...) His fiancee K is a teacher and one day, he surprised her by walking into her classroom and asking if he could read her class (2nd graders, I believe) a story. He had made a whole book himself, and it talked about marriage and family and what a good wife/husband is.... K had no idea what was going on....and at the end of it, he proposed to her. (My description just really didn't do his proposal justice, but that's a quick summary.)

So this wedding is in March in Minnesota. Russ is all flipping out because he is the best man, and if it is snowing alot here or there, he won't be able to go. (For his business, they do snow removal too, for alot of businesses in the tri-state area.) He said that if it's snowing here, there's no way he can go because he has to oversee the employees, and there are certain things only he can take care of if problems arise. AND...if it's snowing alot in MN, he's not going to take the chance of getting stuck at the airport there due to the weather.

So for awhile, he refused to make a decision as to plane tickets, hotel reservation, etc.... he kept telling me, "Go with my mom or someone, I'll go up last-minute if I have to." I didn't want to do that, so I FINALLY talked him into getting tickets with friends of ours. At least if it's not snowing, we can all go together. If for some reason Russ can't go with me, at least I won't be by myself. I'd just much rather us all go up together.

So after all this was planned, we started talking about seeing Russ and J's brother T at the wedding, who lives near us and who we haven't seen in almost 2 years due to many many family issues, mostly between T and their mom. T has basically cut Russ's mom out of his life due to stuff that happened in the past that he can't seem to put behind him. She can't even see her other 5 grandchildren now! During all this, Russ's mom would always call us and tell us all the hurtful things T said or did... Russ finally got so upset about how hurt his mom was, he doesn't want anything to do with T. Needless to say, none of us have spoken since, oh, May 2006 or so. It's just a sad situation. I just miss the kids, mostly. Alyson has 5 cousins she's never met, and may not get the CHANCE to meet.

So anyway, we were talking about seeing all of them at the wedding, and how awkward it would probably be. (T would be a groomsman, and his kids would be ringbearer/flowergirls, so Russ and T and the kids would be seeing a lot of eachother.) I thought, "Well, he'll either be civil for J's sake, or just ignore everyone altogether."

WELL. Come to find out from Russ's mom today..... T has decided that since their mom is going to be there, he is no longer going to go to the wedding. He isn't going to be in it, and his children won't be in it due to him "not being emotionally ready to see his mother." COME ON, NOW! He couldn't have made this decision at the beginning, before his kids got all excited and got their dresses?! I just don't get it. He's no doubt hurting his kids, not to mention he's hurting his brother J...on his WEDDING DAY! J acts like it doesn't bother him, but I'm sure he's hurt that his own brother won't be attending his wedding.

I'm just not used to all this family conflict. My family has always gotten along, and so I guess I just don't understand how people can act like this to their own flesh and blood. All this stuff stems from things in the past that are NOTHING to take lightly....but still. T and his family say and act like they are devout Catholics, but it's very hypocritical in my opinion to be so full of hate and refuse to forgive. That's not practicing what you preach, you know? What is that teaching his children? That if someone hurts you, refuse to reconcile and just cut them out of your lives forever?! Those kids are THE sweetest kids, and God knows what they are being told by their parents. From what I hear, they're being told, "Your Nana doesn't love you or care about you anymore, that's why you don't see her." I know they're hurt by all of this too... one of the girls emailed RUss's mom and asked, "Why don't you come over anymore?" and evidentally T or their mom found out and ended that little form of communication real quick. (Newsflash! Eventually those kids will get to the age where they can make their OWN decisions about who they see and talk to, and will learn the TRUTH about why they haven't seen their family!) They are probably being told that Russ and I don't care about seeing them either. That couldn't be further from the truth about how we feel. I really miss those kids, and I have a feeling that unless we just happen to randomly run into them while we're out in town, we're never going to see them. This whole thing just makes me so upset. I just wish everyone could just be civil to eachother and let things go. People make mistakes...it happens.

I don't know why I decided to post about this tonight... I'm just so frustrated by this whole thing. I DESPISE conflict. I'm a "can't we all just get along" type person. So, "Can't the Hunt family just FRICKIN GET ALONG?!"

*sigh*

Movin' on up....upstairs, that is.

2008-02-19T22:22:00.003-05:00

I just got done watching The Biggest Loser on tv... I am SO addicted to that show--I LOVE IT! I always get so motivated to work out while I watch that show... I'll be sitting here on the couch thinking, "Man... after this is over, I am going to go downstairs and get on the treadmill, or put an exercise DVD in." The show ends....and I sit here on the couch and check my email, too tired to do much else.

It's crazy though... the people on that show are losing 10 and 20-some pounds a week at times! I didn't think that was humanly possible. But of course they're doing some mad working out too. I get happy if I lose a pound in a week.... 2 pounds and I wanna throw a party. But 10 or 20 pounds?! It'd only take me a few weeks to get to my goal. HA! Yeah...wouldn't THAT be nice if all we had to do was diet for a few weeks and then be done with it.

Anyhow... I'm just sitting here bored (see above---I should be working out though.) and figured I'd hop online and post real quick. I just took Alyson upstairs to bed a little while ago, so I have ME TIME! Yes, my baby is now sleeping upstairs. 3 nights in a row now, she's been in her own bedroom in her crib. It's a miracle. I've tried to get her up there for awhile now. I've tried to take her upstairs every now and then during the past few months....I'd wait til she was either all the way asleep or reeeeeeeeally tired, then I'd put her in her crib. It was like a lightswitch went on as soon as she touched the crib...her eyes opened and she started crying like crazy. She'd fall asleep for about a half hour, then cry. Fall asleep, cry. The cycle continued for a few hours until I got so fed up and brought her downstairs to sleep....where she fell asleep right away and slept soundly the rest of the night. Grr.

It just started getting REALLY annoying, being asked, "Is she sleeping in her crib yet?", and when I'd say, "No, not yet", they looked at me like I had two heads or something. Since when is there a timeline on this stuff?? Could I help it that my child would not sleep in her crib whatsoever?!

See, when Alyson was first born, we had her in a bassinet next to our bed. It was a bassinet we borrowed from our friends. THANK GOODNESS, because if we hadn't had to return it due to that friend having another baby, Alyson would probably still be in it, stuffed like a sausage with no room to move because her mother wanted her within sight 24-7. LOL. Russ kept telling me, "You need to put her in her room." And I told him, "I will when we have to give the bassinet back." Then came the questions from people, "Is she still in the bassinet?"

So then came the time to give the bassinet back...so Aly moved out to the living room to the oh-so-comfy pack n play, just so her mommy could get over the initial freaking-out stage due to having her baby out of her sight. This was supposed to be a temporary thing, "Just to know she'll be alright, and so I can still hear her," I'd tell people.(Duh Betsy, that's what BABY MONITORS ARE FOR!) But anyway.

To make a long story short, the questions have graduated from, "Is she still in your bedroom?" to "Is she still out in the living room?" to "She's not still in the pack and play is she?" to "Is she in her crib YET?" I feel like saying, "No, we just lay a blanket out on the kitchen floor and put her out there now."

Grr. It just annoys me sometimes. I'm a first time parent and I'm SO SORRY if it's a little scary having my little baby all the way upstairs while my bedroom is downstairs. If her room was on the same floor of the house as ours, she would have been in it a looooooooong time ago. People just don't understand that, ya know? I had to make it a gradual process. I'm just now, on night #3, getting used to the idea that my child will be perfectly fine even without me occasionally perched over her while she sleeps, making sure she's breathing!

I do, however, have my video monitor about 1 foot from me on the endtable!

Somebody PLEASE tell me I'm not alone in feeling a little anxious about this whole 'sleeping arrangement' issue! I just feel like I'm being a nervous nelly. Must just be a first time parent thing.

Well, I'm off to make up Aly's bottles for tomorrow.. then I'm gonna sit and stare at the video monitor. Kidding ;-)

Nighty night!

Another $25 espresso, please!

2008-02-17T23:47:00.006-05:00

Recap on the past few weeks, since it's taken me forever to post again :-)

It's pretty much been the same old same old lately... the weather here has been crazy so I haven't gotten out a whole lot. If we're not getting crazy amounts of snow, it's either raining buckets or we have 40-50 mph winds going on. Ugh. Not the best weather to take a baby out in. We had about 5 inches of snow this past week, then it turned to rain which froze to ice overnight, then it snowed again. Just a little bit of everything. Right now it's in the 50's outside and rainy, then tomorrow it's supposed to be snowing again. I am SO ready for warm weather!!! I can't wait to be able to spend time outside with Alyson! :-) Speaking of my sweet little girl, she's officially crawling and her curiosity is driving me insane!! LOL She goes from one corner of the living room to the other in what seems like 0.2 seconds, and I find her either attempting to chew on one of the dogs' rawhide bones,heading for the fireplace hearth and all the decorations I have ON IT... or she's crawling up on the shelf underneath the coffee table. Her curious nature has already earned her 1 tiny bruise on her forehead from bumping it on the coffee table. She's a tough one though... she cried for a few seconds, then was back to laughing and playing. Kids...if only we adults could bounce back that quickly...lol! So yeah, she's definitely keeping me busy these days. She serenades me with endless "na na na na na na's" and "ma ma ma ma's" and "meh meh meh's", with an occasional raspberry thrown in there. It's adorable. Last week, we were at my parents' house and she had been doing the "ma meh" thing....well, she looked up and goes, "Ma...ma" and my mom goes, "She said MAMA!" I said, "No...she said mama...but she didn't REALLY say mama." LOL. If only she knew what she was saying. :-)

So that's the update with my little one. We are officially in size 3 diapers, and I'm sure she's a 20-pounder by now. Taking her places in her carrier seat is getting REAL OLD, REAL QUICK. It feels like I'm carrying 50 pounds now. I just hate to take her out and carry her sometimes since the weather's been so crazy. Ugh.

Anyway... so how was everyones' Valentine's Day? Being that it was snowing and Russ worked long hours this past week, we didn't do anything on Valentine's Day. We saved our going out for the weekend. Some friends of ours have been raving about this restaurant in Pittsburgh, so we made reservations and all went there lastnight. There were 4 couples in all, and it was SUCH a good time!! All of us have kids, and so we were all happy to have an ADULT night out... it had been awhile for everyone!

The restaurant we went to in Pittsburgh was an Italian restaurant called Davio. It seats 40-some people, I believe, so reservations are highly recommended. They don't have a liquor license, so you can bring your own wine...there's just a corking fee. We had about 6 bottles of wine for the 8 of us, and it was all gone by the end of the night! I only had about a glass and a half of wine, and I was feeling it....but by the end of the evening, all that food completely made that feeling disappear!! The food was really good.... expensive, but good! I got filet mignon, and Russ got a sirloin. Russ decided he wanted a double espresso, so he ordered one, then another....then another.... and then we found out that double espressos were about $25 a piece! He drank, like, $100 in espresso. LMAO! He didn't care though.... we were out to have a good time. We figured, we don't do this everyday....it's more like a "once a year" type restaurant to go to and just splurge, so what the heck! We all got a good laugh out of it though! The bill for the 8 of us came to almost $700! CUH-RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZY! It was all worth it though... just to be out (childless!) with close friends, wine, good food.....and not to mention the FABULOUS flourless Russian chocolate sable cake for dessert. OH. MY. GOD. That cake may very well have been better than sex....LOL! Their desserts are sooooooooooo good...I highly recommend them....hehe. Everyone got something different, so we were all passing them around so we could sample them! I'm watching what I eat and all, but all I did with that cake was watch it go from my plate to my mouth. YUM.

Here's a picture of all of us that some nice guy offered to take! Click on it for the bigger pic...this is the only size that would fit right into my blog :-)

I definitely think we'll be going back there again... maybe not for awhile, and maybe minus a few espressos.....but we'll be back!

Pictures galore

2008-01-24T10:33:00.000-05:00

Ok, here are the slideshows I promised!!

This one is a bunch of random pics of Alyson from November-January.

This one is my Christmas slideshow :-)

A few minutes to myself to post.

2008-01-22T14:14:00.001-05:00

I'm heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere! And I'll start off by saying that nothing has been wrong and that I've just been so busy!! Thanks for thinking of me and hoping things were alright though!

I know I should have written sooner, it's just that I have little time to myself anymore. When I DO have time, I have to use it to get things done around the house, etc etc.. I have Alyson sitting beside me in her highchair just so I have a few minutes to myself to type this post.

The older Aly gets, the shorter and fewer her naps are during the day. Her normal routine is: Wake up around 8am for a bottle...stay up and play for a few hours, then go down for a nap. While she is playing I manage to gobble down some breakfast, and then depending how much sleep I've had the night before, I take a nap when she does....therefore nothing productive gets done during nap #1. If I have had a decent sleep, I take advantage of that nap time and do some housework or manage to get a shower. (HA! A shower before noon! Imagine that!)

So once she wakes up from nap #1, it's usually 11-ish. She is now up until 2-3ish, and mommy must now give another bottle and attempt to get things done around the house while entertaining a 7-month old. Usually after bottles, I put her in her Tropical Around-We-Go Walker for awhile.... it's the best thing invented.(Well, ONE of them!) The walker part is detachable, so when she gets older, she can just use the activity table. Here's a picture of her in it. She LOVES it! (I got it from Target online if anyone wants to know...Bright Starts makes it.)

Nap #2 comes around 2:30-3pm....she starts getting really fussy so I'll just lay her down and she'll pull her blankie up around her face, stick her finger in her mouth and roll over and go to sleep. That's if I'm lucky. Now I'm faced with a dilemma... do I enjoy the time to myself and actually get on the computer and POST for a change....or do I do housework or get a shower. The housework and shower usually win out, hence no posting..sorry!

(Ahh... I might have time to myself now. I just laid Alyson down for a nap. We'll see...as of right now, she's in her pack n' play babbling and kicking her legs!)

I just can't believe how long it's been since I've posted! I have so much to get caught up on.

The Holidays: Christmas went well.... we had a big get-together at my Grandma's on Christmas Eve, as we do every year. Christmas Day was spent at Russ's mom's house, and my parents' house. New Years eve, Russ and I hung out with some friends of ours. It was exciting this year since it was Aly's first Christmas. She was so cute in her Christmas dresses!! Russ made fun of me because I wrapped her Christmas gifts, and then had to unwrap them for her. I don't know why I did, but oh well! I didn't go overboard with her Christmas gifts this year, because I knew alot of friends and family were buying her stuff... I just got her some little things that light up and play music.... an ABC ball, lights and sounds ball, light up stacker set, Laugh and Learn puppy, a baby laptop, Baby talking Pooh Bear, and a book with different textures. 2 of the gifts we got her were repeated from friends of ours! I just thought it was funny, that out of ALL the kid toys out there, we got doubles of things. Guess I made some good choices:-) Oh, and I have a question for you mommies out there.... do the rest of you have these toys' songs stuck in your head 24-7?! And are you starting to get sick of hearing them all the time?! LOL!

Now an update on 2008... not much to report as of yet. My resolution was to lose weight and eat better (as it is every year, pretty much), and I've stuck with it so far! Woo hoo! I've lost about 4 pounds...I'd like that to be more, but I'll take what I can get. I feel sooo much better though... I haven't been eating sweets and junk. And it figures that everybody and their brother gave me hershey kisses and candy with my christmas gifts, too. Now I'm stuck with a bunch of candy. I tucked it away in a drawer... I figure if I get that "give me chocolate or I'm gonna rip someone's head off" PMS feeling, at least I'll have something in the house!! :-P

I can't finish this post without talking about Alyson some more... she's getting SO DARN BIG! She had her 6-month appointment a few weeks ago, and she was 19 pounds and 27 inches. 90% for weight and 85% for height. Her head was 45cm...right above the curved line...off the charts! lol! My daughter officially has a big noggin. Yet another thing she got from her daddy.

It's just so hard to believe she is 7 months old already, as of the 21st. It just seems like it's something new with her every week! She's busily working on her babbling skills, and has been practicing up on her "B" and "M" sounds.
Oh, and her skills of blowing raspberries! She's TRYING to crawl. She's doing the creeping thing. She'll raise up on her elbows and push against the floor with her knees to move forward...it's too cute. Pretty soon I'm gonna find her across the living room floor instead of on her playmat. She rolls all over the place already. The other day, I was getting ready and Russ was downstairs in his office. I had left Alyson on her playmat to play with all her toys. I kept checking on her, and she was right where I left her. A few minutes later, Russ came upstairs and I heard him laugh and say,"Aly, what are you doing, punkin?" I walked down the hallway and saw that she had rolled across the living room floor and was next to the coffee table chewing on one of the dogs' rawhide bones, holding it like it was a baby bottle. Ugh. That's when I knew the babyproofing needed to start...lol.

Well, Aly's sleeping now, so I should take advantage of it and go get a shower. I at least have a half hour, so I need to hurry...lol. THe rest of the night is pretty much up in the air...she may take a nap, or she may not.

I hope everyone is doing well. I've sucked at keeping up with all your blogs... i need to get caught up on them! Ugh....spare time, how I miss you! :-)
Take care, whoever still checks on my blog, since I haven't posted in nearly 2 months! (Come back! Come back! I'm still here!)

I'll post holiday pics soon. I just have to put them into slideshows.

Ranting and Raving :-)

2007-12-03T23:47:00.000-05:00

I just got done watching the Baltimore/New England game... and I must say that Baltimore should have beat New England. Grr. What a game. I hope Steelers give them a run for their money this weekend!!!!!!!

Not much has been going on since I last posted... I've just been busy getting Christmas stuff done. I STILL have to put my outside decorations up, but we've had wind advisories the past few days, with wind gusts up to 40-some miles per hour....not to mention it's been flurrying the past few days too. I'm not going to get snow-covered AND blown away in an attempt to decorate the front of my house. No thank you!

Anyway, like I do every year, I must now rant about my adventures in Christmas shopping, mainly Walmart. I went there after work Saturday morning (7:45am) and bought my garland for outside, along with wrapping paper and all that other happy crap. I thought that being that it was so early, there wouldn't be many people there.... boy was I wrong! Everyone must have that same idea, to go shopping at the buttcrack of dawn. There were 5x as many people there that early in the morning, so it was STILL a mad house.

So there I was in Walmart, after having been up all night, trying to avoid being run over by some early morning Walmart shoppers speeding around the place like they are running from a fire. (long sentence, sorry..) It was then that I realized just how RUDE people get around the holidays!! Does anyone else notice this?! It's like all manners disappear. God forbid you stop your cart in an aisle and LOOK at something for more than 0.2seconds, or you get a look like, "Are you going to move,or what?" or the person who wants to look at what YOU are looking at stares holes into you until you move.Sure, they may act like they're not waiting for you to move, but you know they are! It's just so darn annoying. At my local Walmart, the aisles in the area where all the Christmas decorations are set up are only wide enough for one cart to fit through, so you're constantly having to park your cart at the end of the aisle just to go look at something...then when you get back to your cart, you discover you've created a traffic jam. Again, quite annoying.

Ok, enough Walmart ranting. I do this every year. It's just that I truly despise having to go to Walmart from "Black Friday" through Christmas. I refuse to go during the day, unless it's a true emergency. The only time I'll go is right after work first thing in the morning!!

Now to my next rant. Also shopping-related :-)

As I've probably said in here before, I've been taking Alyson on lots of shopping trips lately, now that the holidays are approaching. And, some of you new mothers might do this same thing--- but when I take her out, I make sure that I make her look like a GIRL. If I don't dress her in pink, she's got a hairbow or some identifying mark that says "I'm a GIRL." I know I hate trying to figure out whether someone's baby is a boy or a girl.

So my point is... if people don't know if your baby is a boy or girl, why don't they just say, "That's a cute BABY"???? The other day, I had Alyson at the mall, and had her dressed in purple and white. She was in her carrier, and I have one of those "Bundle Me" carrier blankets, which is PINK. Despite all of the girly colors, I still had two people say things indicating they thought she was a boy. You know how everyone just has to peek in the stroller to see your baby... well, one lady goes, "Well hello there, little dude! Aww, he's cute." Then a little while later, one of the ladies at the checkout counter looked in my stroller and said, "Aww, hey little guy." By this time, I was annoyed. I started thinking, "Does she really look like a BOY?!" I wanted to say, "LOOK! DO YOU SEE THE PINK??!! DO YOU THINK I'M TRYING TO MAKE MY 'SON' BE IN TOUCH WITH HIS FEMININE SIDE AT THIS EARLY AGE?!"

How irritating. Anyone else have this happen?!

Well, enough ranting for tonight. I need to get some sleep :-) I'll post again soon :-)

Pictures and Christmas updates :-)

2007-11-26T23:44:00.000-05:00

I had Alyson's Christmas pictures taken last week...here are some of the proofs so you can see how fast my little one is growing!! She's almost 5 months old in the pictures.

So how far along is everyone with their Christmas shopping?? I'm about halfway finished. I started a few weeks before Thanksgiving, and told myself that it would be GREAT to be done by Tgiving, but that didn't end up happening. I've done alot of stuff online too, lately... it's just so hard to get out with a little one! It's a big production now, to try and get ready to go out somewhere. I can't just get ready and head out the door... now it's, "Ok...do I have bottles... diapers...toys...etc packed..." then I have to get Aly all bundled up, put her in her carseat, then load everything up in the car. While it all sounds pretty simple, oh it is NOT sometimes! By the time I get ready, I am hoping and praying that we can get out of the house before she starts crying and fussing. If I time it to where we leave RIGHT after she eats, I know I at least have a few hours before she gets irritated. Thank goodness she's really good (for the most part) when we go out shopping. She just looks around at all the clothes, and when I peek down at her, she always gives me a big grin...it's too cute :-) Mommy's teaching her early in life about the joys of shopping :-)

Decorating-wise, I put most of my inside decorations up today... all except the tree, which I'll probably do sometime next week. Tomorrow I'm hoping to get out and buy some Christmas decorations. I need to buy garland for my porch... and I just wanna change things up a bit and get some different stuff. I still have my fall stuff up outside though... I have big things of straw and pumpkins on my front porch, so I need my husband to get rid of them before I stick the Christmas stuff out there. He was supposed to do that today, but forgot. (Men...lol.)I think it would look kinda funny if I put my big snowman on the porch next to straw and pumpkins :-)

Well, I'm gonna try to get some sleep now...I just wanted to update on here while I actually have the chance and some peace and quiet!! Goodnight!

Maaaan, I want a Hungry Man!

2007-11-20T00:20:00.000-05:00

Sunday night I agreed to work from 7pm-11pm for one of my coworkers...she had to be somewhere with her daughter, so she couldn't come in til 11. I was trying my best to get out of work right at 11, because I really needed to go to Walmart after work. Alyson is not only recovering from a cold, but is also in the beginning stages of teething, so I hadn't made it out earlier that day.

Anyway... so you know how when you REALLY need to get out of work on time, it never happens? That was the case. One of my patients who had come in with high blood pressure had a spike in her pressure AGAIN, like 200's/100's, so we had to send her to CCU around 10:45pm or so in order to be put on an IV med that we don't do out on our floor.

Needless to say, I got behind in my work and didn't get out of work til about 11:45pm. I debated whether or not to go to Walmart, but decided that I DEFINITELY had to, whether I liked it or not, or we'd be eating ketchup sandwiches and drinking water for a few days. (My SUV went into the shop to get the heater fixed (it either blows full blast or nothing at all), so I was going to have no mode of transportation as of Monday morning.)

While it's definitely nice to shop in Walmart when not many people are there, midnight must be when all the weirdos come out. Suddenly that song, "The freaks come out at night, the freaks come out at niiiiiight" was stuck in my head. I only passed about 10 other shoppers the whole time I was there, but they were a shady bunch. The first couple I saw had to be either drunk or high. They looked about 18 or so. I was debating between corn or broccoli, while they were debating which Hungry Man frozen dinner they wanted. "Maaaaaaaaaaaaan.... that f***in looks good," the guy said. To which the girl replied, "Yeah.... I f***in' want a Hungry Man." It took everything in me not to laugh as I walked away. So then I go in the next aisle, and they come in the opposite direction. I grabbed a loaf of italian bread and saw them stop and look at a display of discounted bread, while the guy says, "Yeeeeeah...let's get a loaf of breeead. Heh."

So then I saw about 2 other couples walking around half drunk looking... they must not have wanted their dates to end and figured walmart was the only place open, so why not walk around all night?

The one that took the cake was this girl that I had noticed just walking around, acting like she didn't even know what planet she was on. I had half my cart unloaded up at the checkout, and noticed her get in line behind me, then felt like I was being stared at. I looked up and she was just staring and WOULD NOT STOP! By this time of night, I was ready to say, "What?! Is there a problem? Are you upset that I have more than 2 items and this is the only checkout aisle open? WHAT?!" It didn't help that she was standing thisclose to my cart...I thought she wanted to get in it. (sigh)

So then once I had paid for my stuff, I was debating my exit strategy. I don't ever shop that late at night, so all I could think about were all those stories about people being grabbed in parking lots. I was sure that someone was going to be hiding on the other side of my car waiting to jump out and grab me. Or that the drunk couple was gonna be sitting next to my car eating Hungry Man's and bread. I was all ready to push the car alarm button on my keychain....lol. So I pretty much just threw everything in the trunk and hauled ass out of there. By the time I got home it was about 12:45am and I was dead tired. I thought, "Hmm... will it be ok to just leave all the groceries out til morning? I don't feel like putting them away. Chicken will be ok sitting out until 9, right?!" (Yes, I put them away....reluctantly.)

Needless to say, I don't think I will be shopping at Walmart at midnight anymore. Maybe 11pm at the latest....:-P

It's meeeeeee :-)

2007-11-16T13:49:00.001-05:00

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

While I'd like to say that I've been off somewhere fabulous and exciting, relaxing on a tropical island for the past month and a half...I haven't. Nothing even close to that. I've relaxed a LITTLE BIT of that time, but mostly just on my couch.

(sigh) If only I had a dollar for every time I've said "I need to post on my blog" in the past month and a half. It's amazing how time flies.

Anyway...now, to play catch-up.

For starters, I shall talk about Alyson :-) She's doing GREAT. She is totally the love of my life (aside from my husband and my dogs...lol). She had her 4-month visit on October 31st, and she weighed 16.2 pounds and was 26 inches long! She's 90th percentile for everything! (Including head size...she's got a big noggin like her daddy...lol)

She's trying her best to sit up already... she lunges herself forward when she's sitting in her boppy, and she'll actually sit straight up for a few seconds, but then falls forward with her face in the couch. She's quick when she does it too... the other day, all I did was get up off the couch to pick up the pillows and put them back on the couch, and she had flung herself forward while I was turned around. I heard "ehhh, ehhh" then turned my head and she was sideways on the couch with her head hanging off of it, looking down at the floor..pretty much ready to do a somersault off the couch. BOY was that scary. Seems like I can't turn away for 2 seconds these days! Jeesh!

One thing I can say that has been my major lifesaver lately (well, 2 things)... the Rainforest play mat, and the rainforest jumperoo. I think those 2 things are the only ways I can now take a shower. Aly wants my attention all the time, but when she's on the playmat or in the jumperoo, she plays for a good half hour, long enough for me to shower and get somewhat ready. I placed her jumperoo in the nursery to where I can be taking a shower and see her from the bathroom. :-)

One thing I'm not looking forward to... (yeah, I know I'm jumping all around...):

I'm not looking forward to having to move our baby girl up into her nursery. She's been in the bedroom with us in a bassinet our friends let us borrow, since the pack and play we have took up too much room in the bedroom. Anyway, the friend is pregnant and due in December, so we'll have to give the bassinet back within the next few weeks. Russ has been saying "She needs to go to her room" for months now, and I keep saying, "When we have to give the bassinet back, she'll go up to the nursery." I mean, the poor girl is rapidly outgrowing the bassinet, and obviously I don't want her sleeping with us until she's 5...lol. It just sucks to think about. I just wish her bedroom was downstairs with ours... she'd have been in her crib from the start if that was the case. I just like the reassurance of being able to peek in at her and see her and know everything's ok. :-/

Well, I'm gonna have to cut this short... ALy wants to eat. Here are some recent pics of her :-) They are from October... I'll have to upload the other ones so I can post them soon :-)

UPDATE... here are the latest pics of Alyson that I just uploaded :-)

Week in review

2007-10-01T21:55:00.000-04:00

Long time no post :-)

Alot's been going on since I posted last... it's been a busy week and a half!

Russ's brother from Alaska came in last Monday, then the rest of their Texas relatives flew in on Wednesday-Friday, so the week was pretty busy. (In case you don't remember me saying, Russ's mother got married this past Saturday.)

This past week, every night has basically consisted of a bunch of people coming over to the house and partaking in some alcoholic beverages and/or hanging out in the hot tub. Friday night was the big 'rehearsal dinner' for Russ's mom, since she wasn't going to have anything big after the wedding itself. So this dinner Friday was more like the wedding reception, you could say.

The dinner was awesome... it was nice to see all Russ's relatives (well, MY relatives now, too) and meet the ones that didn't get to make it in for our wedding. The first hour was spent in a separate smaller banquet room for cocktails and appetizers. Russ and I went and got a glass of wine and were chatting it up with another couple when a lady came by and offered us stuffed mushrooms...and I LOVE stuffed mushrooms. They looked a little messy but I couldn't resist. As I bit into it, some of the butter from it ran RIGHT DOWN MY CLEAVAGE and a piece of mushroom fell on my dress. Guess I can't eat and stand up at the same time. LOL. Luckily, no one noticed as I slyly tried to wipe down my boobs with a cocktail napkin... but I was still a little paranoid that I would smell like a stuffed mushroom the rest of the night.

By the time cocktail hour was over, I had just gotten my third fill-up of wine and was beginning to feel pretty darn good. Thank goodness for dinner, because I was in desperate need of food in my stomach. Russ's uncle paid for the whole dinner, and went all out. There were three different stations for food... one was turkey and all the trimmings, another was the 'seafood buffet' and the third was a pasta station where you tell them how to make your pasta/what you want in it, etc... and they'll make it right in front of you. I filled my tummy with some yummy food and kept right on drinking.

Now, let me say that I HARDLY EVER DRINK. I mean, Russ and I still have bottles of alcohol left over from our wedding over 2 years ago. We have a fully stocked bar downstairs that rarely gets used. Why am I telling you that I hardly ever drink?? Because I only had 5 glasses of chardonnay and a small glass of champagne from the toast, and I was TRASHED! And these glasses of wine were over the course of 4 hours and a large dinner! What the heck?!

I guess by the time we were ready to leave, I was telling some of our close friends that my Nuvaring was due to come out Saturday...and God knows what else I told them. But at least most of them were three sheets to the wind too, so not everyone remembered. But OH, my husband remembered. He informed me the next morning of what I said/did the night before. I woke up arond 9am and he goes, "Hey honey... do you remember the ride home lastnight?"

Of course the answer was no. (Well, I remembered PARTS of the ride home. I remember singing and dancing in the car, that's about it.) But then my husband informed me that I tried to undress him in the car and made the car go in neutral a couple times. Then he said that as soon as we got in the house, I stripped off my clothes and went to bed. "But you left your black thigh-high hose on...that was pretty funny," my husband added. Then he said I went in the bathroom for about an hour.

"Was I naked in there?" I asked him.

"Yes. It was funny."

"Hey honey?" he then asked me.

"Yes?!"

"Do you remember telling everyone your 'ring was coming out?'"

"Ugh. Yes. I do."

(laughs) "Well they do too."

Evidentally my husband had gone to the hotel where his relatives were staying and they were all talking about how drunk everyone was the night before, and they mentioned me and what I had said. But my husband made me feel better when he said that lots of people had a little too much to drink.

At that point, I stil pretty much wanted to dig a hole and jump in it for the day. LOL.

I mean.... 5 glasses of wine. FIVE! Two during cocktail hour, then 3 while in the other room. I seriously remember EVERYTHING from the dinner... so why is the ride home always a blur?! I truly don't remember ANYTHING from the time we got home until I woke up the next morning. That SCARES ME! My husband said I staggered up the driveway and insisted getting the mail out of the mailbox, then about fell over our landscaping once I got back down the driveway. Ugh. At least I was with my husband. If I hadn't been within his sight all night, I would have sworn someone spiked my drink.

Now I know why I don't drink. All this past week, Russ's brother and his buddies have been over at our house in the hot tub drinking, and I haven't had ANYTHING to drink. I made my favorite drink, peach schnapps and cranberry, and took two sips and couldn't drink anymore. I just have no desire to, whatsoever. I guess I just have to have one good drunken episode per year. I think the last time I drank before this was my cousin's bachelorette party in August 06, right before I found out I was pregnant. So yeah, maybe that's why 5 glasses of wine did the trick.

Anyway...enough about me turning into an obnoxious embarrassing lush.

The rest of this week has been pretty busy, like I said. We had the wedding dinner Friday, the wedding Saturday. Russ's mom had a little reception afterwards, just drinks and appetizers. Later that night, about 20 of us had a reservation at JC Wine Cellars restaurant. Their food was AWESOME! Some of his out-of-town relatives got lost on the way (even though they were all following eachother, who knows...), so they showed up late. THe restaurant closed at 9pm, but they were nice enough to stay open late for us.

Sunday was football day. I dressed ALyson up in a pink and white Pittsburgh Steeler onesie! Unfortunately they lost.... better luck next week.) Later that evening, a bunch of us had dinner together...

Monday we had Alyson baptized. A few mutual friends of Russ and his brother had their son Adam baptized also. Alyson was SO DARN ADORABLE in her christening gown. Russ's mom had bought it for her awhile back. It had a matching cap, socks and shoes. His mom also bought her THE cutest little baby bracelet with a little cross on it, so she got to wear that during the baptism. After the baptism, we had a party at our house. There were about 25 people here. THank goodness we had the thing catered. (Russ's idea.) One of his buddies owns a restaurant so he and his brother catered the party for us. It made things SO much less stressful. They set everything up and tore everything back down, so we didn't even have much to clean up. THe party lasted until about 9pm, then all the guys took their wives/kids home and came back to our house for the 'afterhours party.' They all stayed out on the deck and in the hot tub until at least 3am. (It's been like this just about every night.)

Tuesday and today were pretty relaxing. I've just been spending time with Aly and cleaning up the house. Russ has been pretty busy lately, so he hasn't been getting home until late evening. He's already in bed, Aly's sleeping, and his brother, who's staying with us through the end of the week, is over their friend's house...so I'm taking the opportunity to use the peace and quiet for some blog much needed blog updating! I started this post a few nights ago, but never got back to it until now.

Anyway... I don't think anything's planned for tomorrow as of yet, but who knows. We'll probably end up barbecuing or something. Friday we are having a cookout at Dean and Joelle's house. Weekend plans are still up in the air.

So that's about it. There are the updates...all I can think of for now, anyway.

Here are some baptism pics...

From L-R: Steve (Russ's mom's new hubby), Russ's brother Jon, Russ's mom Susan, Russ holding Alyson, Father Jack, me

From L-R: Joelle (godmother), Adam, Jon (godfather) holding Alyson

L-R: Grandma Jane, Joelle, my mom (still with the walker and the cast...) and dad, Jon, me, Father Jack, Russ and Alyson, Steve and Susan

Here's a pic of the cake we bought for Aly and Adam...

And last but not least... this is Alyson after we opened her baptism gifts. Mommy was having a little too much fun with the bows.

A little bit of everything.

2007-09-19T01:06:00.000-04:00

9 days since a post... I'm slacking!

I've been pretty busy lately... I thought that since I'm not working full-time, I'd have more free time, but no. Seems like it's one thing after the other!

Russ and I had our 2nd anniversary this past Monday... it's so hard to believe it's been 2 years already. 2 years and a little baby! Russ had a pretty busy Monday work-wise (his secretary is out of town--she just got married) and so he's had to play catch-up with alot of stuff.... so we just went out to dinner Monday. Russ's mom and her fiance watched Alyson and brought her back later that night, so it gave Russ and I some time together. While at dinner, I said, "Yeah, last year at this time we were in Cancun...." And then Russ had to add, "Yeah, that's when we conceived Alyson!" (He swears that's where it happened, but I doubt it... I just let him think that, though.) Maybe next year we'll be somewhere tropical again for our anniversary...only without bringing home another 'little souvenir,' if you know what I mean!! I want to go to Aruba, or Punta Cana or something. Hell, I just want to go SOMEWHERE!

In other news... Russ's mom is getting married at the end of the month. She's SO excited about it. She's been by herself for over 20 years, so we're all very happy for her. When she's with her fiance, it's like she's a teenager again...she's all giggly and giddy, with a permagrin on her face...lol. Russ's brother is coming in from Alaska for the wedding, so since he'll be in town, we're getting Alyson baptised October 1st. A few friends of Russ and his brother's are coming in from DC, and are having their son baptised too... Russ's brother will be their son's godfather. So it's going to be a DOUBLE baptism! We still don't know who Aly's godparents will be. Well *I* know who I want to be the godparents, and it SHOULD technically be a given... but Russ doesn't agree with me. He's upset because they picked other godparents for their children... people who are NOT good role models whatsoever. Russ goes, "I wasn't good enough to be a godparent for them? They picked HIM, and he's a big a**hole!" *sigh* This is what I go through. In the end I'll win out though. *evil laugh*

So now, we have tons of stuff to do at the end of this month/beginning of next month. A rehearsal dinner, a wedding, and then a baptism a few days later. Now we're in the process of planning a party afterwards at our house. (Which, the party planning will mainly fall back on me, I'm sure.) We're figuring it'll be 20-25 people once it's all said and done. I think we're doing the cookout thing on our deck (burgers, hotdogs, MAYBE steaks or something), but Russ is kicking around the idea of having it catered. A friend of ours caters,and has offered numerous times to come cook the two of us dinner, (WHY have I not done that yet?!) so we might go that route. I just don't want to spend hundreds on a baptism party, when I'd be happy with cake, snacks and some alcoholic beverages...lol.

New subject. My beautiful little 'punkin', Alyson.

(I can't very well post without talking about Alyson!)

She's just so darn entertaining lately. It's been something new with her every week, whether it's a new sound or face she makes, or a new milestone she reaches. She just makes me SO happy and I swear my face hurts because I can't help but smile constantly when I'm around her. She's holding her head up pretty steady now, and CONSTANTLY wants to be sitting up looking around (hence it being such a necessity for me to buy that bumbo seat! What a godsend!) She'll bat at toys you hold in front of her, though her little arms still flail out all erratic sometimes... it's so cute. Oh, and she's made a new discovery over the past week or so. Her feet. When she's laying on her back, she's gotten into the habit of lifting her legs back toward her head, so I think that started it. Then, when she's leaning back in her boppy or sitting in her bumbo, I'll catch her lifting her legs up and staring intently at her feet with a puzzled look on her face. I take her socks off and put her foot in front of her face and say "Look at the tootsies!" and she'll smile and open up her mouth real big and coo. It's one of those 'melt mommy's heart' moments. She has a lot of those :-)

On one of the pregnancy (and new mommy)message boards I visit, a June mommy mentioned a sale Target was having on the Rainforest Jumperoo (which I had been wanting to get for Aly eventually.) The jumperoo is normally $80 but was on sale for $60, and if you bought it online and used a certain promotion code, you got free shipping and an extra $5 off. I ended up getting the Jumperoo for $57 brand new! Sadly this sale isn't going on anymore, or I'd pass on the info. I checked the website and it's back up to $79.99.

Anyway, I COULD NOT wait to get Aly in that thing... so I sat Aly in her bumbo seat so she could watch me, and put the jumperoo together right after it came to the house. I was SO excited!! She just kept looking at everything with this puzzled look on her face while I put it together. However... by the time mommy got it together, Aly was a little tired. Mommy had taken a little too long.

I figured, "What the heck" and picked Aly up out of the bumbo and placed her down in the jumperoo. This is what happened.

Yes, she FELL ASLEEP right when I put her in the seat. She looked so tiny in it, and her little legs didn't even come CLOSE to the floor. She was just hanging there, fast asleep, with her face resting on the seat. I had to laugh, though I was a little disappointed that we couldn't have more fun with it that day. (Ha... "we"... yes, I enjoy it too!)

I carried (well, 'pulled') the jumperoo upstairs and put it in the nursery, figuring it'd be awhile (like a month!) before we'd use it again. But a few days ago, Aly was fussing and I was bored, so I took her upstairs and put her little butt in it. And guess what? SHE. LOVED. IT. She was smiling and cooing, and batting at the little toys, even though that darn jumperoo dwarfed the poor girl. I kept turning the seat around so she could see all the toys. She especially loved staring at the lights on it. So at least I can get SOME use out of it for now, even if she can't touch the ground yet :-)

Here are a few more pics....

This is one I took on her playmat. Yes, she's asleep. Again. She had played on it for about a half hour and I think she wore herself out kicking the inflatable ball and batting at all the toys :-)

And last but not least...

This picture cracks me up. She does this everytime I have the flash on my camera. Her eyes get all huge. She looks like she's been caught doing something she shouldn't. LOL.

Well that's it for now. It's getting late, but I'm not that tired yet, unfortunately. This is bad, because these are the times I end up just checking out stores online, and usually end up buying something out of sheer boredom. I'm the same way with infomercials. If it's late and I can't sleep, I'll flip through the channels and watch an infomercial, then be convinced for that half hour that I really could use a juicer... or a swivel sweeper... or a steam iron... or a roomba... or some other crazy thing. And we won't even get started with the exercise infomercials. If I could lose weight just by BUYING exercise dvd's, I'd weigh, like, 10 pounds. LOL.

Well, nighty night! Take care :-)

A little weekend update...

2007-09-10T01:04:00.000-04:00

Work went well the other night, I guess. I didn't want to be there, but what could I do. I didn't cry ALL DAY, until about 9:30pm, when I knew I had to start getting ready for work. I walked out in the living room and figured I'd sit and watch some of the football game with Russ. Aly started fussing, so I picked her up. As SOON as I did that, my eyes started welling up with tears!!! I mean, it was only ONE night to have to work, and 8 hours, but I still hated to leave my baby :-( I tried to hide the fact that I was crying, but I know Russ still noticed. I could tell out of the corner of my eye that he was looking at me.

A little later, I went back and put some makeup on and put my scrubs on. I walked back out in the living room and I couldn't even LOOK at Aly, or I'd start crying. I didn't really have to leave for work until about 10:40, but 10:30 rolled around and I said, "I have to go or I'm just going to start crying." Russ goes, "Aren't you going to give her a kiss goodbye?" I kissed her on the head and there the tears came again. Luckily I got it together before going into the hospital!! I don't feel bad though... everyone I talk to said they cried their first day back to work when they had to leave their babies too. It just sucks!! I asked Russ, "Do I REALLY have to go?!?!" LOL.

It was just so hard getting back into the swing of things again, dealing with staying up all night. That was the first night I've had to stay up in about 3 months (well, the first night that didn't involve me staying up due to a baby!)...it was ROUGH! But being that I only had an 8-hour night, it wasn't too bad. It was go-go-go all night, so that kept me awake.

The only good thing that happened as a result of me going back to work was that I got to go to Walmart buttcrack-of-dawn early, right after work. YAY! I missed that. I DESPISE going to Walmart in the afternoon, and that's what I've had to do while I was off. It takes twice as long in the store during the day, because of there being SO MANY PEOPLE. It never fails, everything I want to look at, there is someone standing in front of it taking their good ol time. Either that, or I get behind someone in one of those motorized chairs and can't get around them. OR...I practically get run into and/or over by about 10 people who think they are in a shopping cart version of a Nascar race. Ugh. I'll stop here. I could go on a rant about Walmart.

This past weekend WAS alot better than last weekend, I must say. Saturday, Russ and I took the baby over to my parents' house and we had steaks on the grill...yummy! I feel bad though... my mom's just kinda bummed. She's trying to keep her chin up about things, but I can tell she feels bad. She told my dad she feels like a burden to him...I felt so bad when he told me that. I'm going to go over there again tomorrow with the baby and help her with housework and whatever else she might need. I told her, "Gee mom, this is like role reversal. A few months ago after I had the baby, you were over MY house doing MY cleaning, watering MY flowers, and everything else." She was so good to me, and I'm glad I can repay her. Hmm.. maybe I'll make them dinner tomorrow. Sounds like a plan :-)

Well, I'm gonna try to get some sleep now...my eyes are burning. Before I go, here is a new slideshow of my little princess. She's getting soooo big, not to mention she's looking more and more like her daddy everyday!(And he LOVES that! In fact, my Grandma Jane (she's in the slideshow) has nicknamed Alyson "Russelina" because she looks so much like Russ! LOL) Aly's already 13 pounds, incase I didn't say that before in here. She'll be 12 weeks on Thursday... boy does time fly!

Have a great Monday :-)

Getting better...

2007-09-06T16:09:00.001-04:00

Much better news this time around :-)

Well, my mom got home yesterday around 1pm and is doing great. She's getting around with a walker instead of crutches, and is doing so well with it. Not to mention, she's hardly having any pain! I took Alyson over there yesterday to cheer her grandma up :-) My dad's friend's wife made a big lasagna and this ABSOLUTELY YUMMY cheesecake dessert (fat free and calorie free! Yeah right...) so we all ate that. My aunt Becky and cousin Brenda came over too, with Bren's daughter Olivia. Olivia and Aly were playing together..it was so cute! (As much as Aly can actually 'play'... it was more like Aly sitting there staring at Olivia, while Olivia was smiling and bonking Aly on the head...lol)

In other news... tonight is my first night back at work. (sniffle sniffle...) I hate to leave Alyson, even though she'll more than likely be sleeping or ready for bed when I leave. She sleeps through the night, and doesn't usually wake up until 7 or 8AM, so the only thing Russ might have to do is feed her once. I really hate to do nightturns anymore, but right now they're the only things that work for me and the whole 'babysitting situation.' It just sucks because this is going to be the first night in awhile where I'm going to HAVE to be up all night. Ugh. Wish me luck, that I don't fall asleep at work. Oh well... at least it's only 1 night and it's only 8 hours. Then I don't go back until next Thursday. (I like this whole PRN work status alot better than being full time! I'm only doing 1 day a week for now.)

Well, I better go start dinner, then try to get a shower. Aly hasn't let me do that yet today...she's been SO AWAKE and just wants to eat and coo and look at things, then eat and coo and look at more things. :-)

Have a great day!

sigh

2007-09-03T23:53:00.001-04:00

If I hadn't looked up in the sky to make sure, I would have SWORN it was a full moon this past weekend. This weekend wasn't the best.

Saturday was pretty uneventful... but SUNDAY was the bad day. For starters, my husband and I were supposed to go out on the boat but Alyson decided to have one of the fussiest days ever. (I think it was a delayed reaction from the 4 shots she had to get at the pediatrician's on Friday. He said she might get fussy.) I didn't even have time to take a SHOWER Sunday, let alone go boating. So I was kinda upset about that, and also because Russ had a work party at the marina for his employees later on that same day... I couldn't even make it to THAT. As a result, I was ticked, Russ was ticked.... blah blah blah. He called me later in the evening basically giving me a 'thanks for not showing up, that was rude and inconsiderate' comment on the phone, and then I proceeded to tell him rather sarcastically, 'thanks for not sticking around the house this morning and watching Aly so I could at least take a shower' along with 'i don't get any help from you'. Our conversation ended with him saying, "I'm staying on the boat tonight" and me saying "whatever." So then we hung up without even saying our usual 'I love you's'....and I cried. I thought of all this good stuff that I SHOULD have said to him (You know, you never think of these things until after...) and then he called back apologizing and saying he'd be home soon...and this time we said the I love you's.

Not even a half hour later, he called and said, "Um, honey... I'm gonna be here awhile." I asked why, and he said, "Some drunk motherf****r backed right into the back of my boat when they tried to leave the dock." Russ did manage to get their info even though the people were so drunk they could hardly walk or talk...they ran their mouths to Russ and ended up leaving. Russ had to call the cops and file a report, and then the cops went to go find the people because luckily some witnesses knew where the people normally dock their boat. (They don't usually dock at the same marina we do.) Russ said they did a decent amount of damage to the back of the boat. I haven't heard any updates as of yet... I haven't thought to ask Russ, due to having even MORE on my mind.

The 'more on my mind' being the fact that at 9:45pm Sunday (2 hours after Russ's bad news phonecall to me), my dad called and said, "I'm at the emergency room... your mom fell down the attic steps and broke her ankle in 3 places." ARGH! (Mind you, I still had no shower at this time, and had acquired a whole day's baby spit up on my clothes and hair.) I took THE fastest shower ever, and Russ and I left for the hospital around 10:30, once his mom got to our house to watch the baby. All I could imagine was that my mom was in the ER in excruciating pain, more than likely moaning and groaning and/or screaming. I mean, those attic steps are killers. They come down practically at a 90 degree angle, and I've always hated going up and down them.

So we got to the ER and she had already been admitted and was upstairs in a room. We got up there, and to my surprise, she was sitting in the bed just smiling and answering the nurse's questions as if nothing was wrong! If I hadn't picked up her sheet and looked at her leg, I'd have sworn she was perfectly fine. They had put a splint under her foot and wrapped her right lower leg in an ace bandage just for overnight, and she was to get surgery Monday morning. What surprised the heck out of me was that immediately after she fell, up to the time we got to her hospital room, she had NEVER HAD ANY PAIN WHATSOEVER! Was God smiling down on her, or WHAT!
She said that she just couldn't bear weight on it, and it 'felt tingly', so that's why she went to the ER. I guess what led up to this was that she and my dad had planned on taking my grandma to a music concert... my mom was coming down from the attic carrying blankets and chair cushions to take into the stadium. She went to grip the grab bar my dad put next to the steps, and just missed it and took a tumble. She said when she landed, her right leg 'seemed like it was bent funny.' (She cracks me up with her, uh, vivid descriptions.)

So this morning around 11am, she had surgery (an open reduction of the fractures), and had pins, screws, etc put in her leg. Everything went really well, and she received Demerol in recovery to help with pain, which she said was pretty bad right after surgery. Once she got up to her room around 2pm, the pain was completely gone, and was still gone when we left around 5pm! She looked so good for just having surgery. I'm just so happy things went great and that she's taking things well. She hasn't had to be in the hospital except for when she gave birth to me, and she's never broken any bones until now, so that's why it's still so crazy to see her laying in a hospital bed.... :-(

Tomorrow (Tuesday) she gets fitted for crutches and learns how to walk on them. When the surgeon came out to the OR waiting room and talked with my dad, he initially said he thinks my mom will be in the hospital until at least Wednesday, because "she'll be in alot of pain, so we'll be monitoring her... and she'll need to walk around on crutches." But seeing how well my mom is doing and that she's not having much pain, maybe she'll get to come home tomorrow if everything looks ok. We'll see :-) For now, I'll keep praying.

So that's all the bad news from the weekend. When it rains it pours, eh?

Such a lifesaver...

2007-08-30T13:25:00.000-04:00

Since Alyson is getting bigger, I figured I'd try out her new bouncer. I had a lot to get done this morning, so I was looking for ANYTHING that would keep her attention for awhile. She's getting too big to just lean back in her boppy... she's a wiggle worm now, and so she slides right down it. Plus, I think she gets a little bored staring at the couch cushion!

So this morning I put her in her bouncer figuring she'd probably just start crying, and to my surprise, she LOVED it! She just sat there in awe staring at the toys hanging down, and I think she enjoyed looking in the mirror at the baby staring back at her :-) Here is a picture of her discovering the little toys!

She wore herself out and decided to take a little nap. Ahhh, at last, I had some 'me time.....'

Bouncers.... every mommy should have one.

Pittsburgh, here we come... or maybe not...

2007-08-27T22:58:00.000-04:00

Sooo.... did everyone have a good weekend?

Was Monday as wonderful as ever? (sense the sarcasm there...)

My weekend wasn't bad. Saturday I just relaxed. I really didn't have any other option since I didn't feel that well, so I just kinda lounged around the house like a bum. I was hoping I'd feel better by Sunday though, because Russ and I had made plans to go to Pittsburgh. Thankfully I felt better by then!

Saturday night, Russ told me, "You know hun, we're gonna have to leave the house early in order to have enough time to spend there before coming back home." (We were going there in the boat to meet up with some friends.) By "early", I figured he meant 8, maybe 9am... but no. He wanted to be out of the house by 6:30am. 6:30! Aaaah! I am SO not a morning person!

This wouldn't have been SO bad, except for the fact that, like I said, I wasn't feeling so hot Saturday. My stomach was just majorly upset and I was, uh, "tossing my cookies" throughout the day. (And NO, I am NOT pregnant again...lol... I know some of you were just thinking that!) I just ate something that wasn't so agreeable to my stomach.

Anyway... as I was saying. I didn't feel well Saturday, which led to me staying up late-- as in 2am on Sunday late. I had set my alarm for 5:30am so I could 'wake up' a bit and then grab a quick shower. Lemme tell ya... when I finally fell asleep, it didn't seem like I slept but an hour, and my alarm was going off. I SO did not want to wake up. I think I remember saying a few choice words to the alarm clock, as I covered up my head with my pillow. The only thing that kept me awake was the fact that my husband (who had gotten, like, 8 hours of sleep...) kept pushing and poking me, saying "Honey... hey honey... hun... HUN! Get up! Wake up! We gotta be out of here at 6:30." To which I replied "Hmmmph... mrrrhfpp... mmmmm.... I don't wanna goooooooooo.....don't want to get up....sooooo tiiiiiiiiiiiired......" (This led to more poking and pushing from my husband...)

FINALLY, I drug my tired butt out of bed and made my way out in the kitchen to get a drink. Still rubbing my eyes, I look up to see one of the pillows from our couch sitting on the floor in front of the kitchen door. (We usually leave the door open since we have a doggy door in it, so the dogs are free to go in and out during the night.)

I picked up the pillow and immediately went in the living room to inspect the couches and do a pillow count. (The dogs have a very extensive history of pillow-chewing.) First of all, let me say that NORMALLY we have 3 pillows on each couch. But when I did the pillow count, there was a total of ONE pillow on both couches combined, plus the one I had just picked up. Already cranky and SO not in the mood for anything like that, I shouted "Those @$$holes! All the pillows were there 3 hours ago when I went to bed!!" I hear my husband say, "What? What happened?" and I told him, shouting some more expletives on my way out the kitchen door. I found one pillow on the deck right before the steps, and one on the steps. (Thankfully both in one piece.) THe other two were goners... out in the yard torn into a gazillion pieces. The pillows are stuffed with that poly-fill type stuffing, so it looked like it had snowed out in the backyard. Russ had a wonderful time picking it all up shortly after, and the dogs got a nice butt-whooping out of it.

So that started out Sunday morning with a bang.

Russ's mom came over around 7am to watch the baby, and we left the house about 7:15am. Once I had gotten a shower and was awake for awhile, I must say that I was actually looking forward to our little day trip.

We went through a nearby Lock and Dam (which was actually pretty neat, I must say!) then had another 20 miles to go before we had to go through the next lock. Russ called ahead to the next one to let them know we were on our way (makes the process a WHOLE lot quicker that way, if they can get the lock ready), and when they answered us, they said the lock was SHUT DOWN for repairs, and that it could either be a few hours or an all-day thing. Barges were tied up all over the place waiting to get through, so we knew it was going to be a long time before it'd be our turn. So there went our trip to Pittsburgh... we couldn't go any further down the river.

It still ended up being a nice day though... we anchored near a marina somewhere in PA (don't know WHERE we were though...)and just relaxed for a few hours, ate some lunch, and drank a few beers in the process. It was nice just to spend time alone with my husband, not having any distractions! Here are some pictures...

My hubby :-)

I was just trying to uh, take a picture of the scenery. Yeah, that's it...

View from the boat. I was trying to pretend the water was turquoise and we were surrounded by palm trees, but it didn't work...lol. Oh well, it was still a beautiful day!

Another shot of Russ...

Pulling up the anchor (which he had some trouble with because it was dug pretty deep! We thought we were gonna have to cut the rope and leave the anchor there!)

Me!

We got back to the marina in the early afternoon, and then some of Russ's buddies came down to hang out for awhile. After that, Russ and I had dinner with my parents. All in all, it was a great day, but I was never so happy to get home and GO TO BED!

So now we're planning another attempt at a trip to Pittsburgh, probably within the next few weeks. A bunch of people want to go, so it'll be nice to make a day out of it and just hang out, have a few drinks and RELAX! Not many more weeks of boating left, so we gotta enjoy it while we can. Next year it'll be nice since Aly will be older and we'll be able to take her with us :-)

Well, that's all for now. Have a great Tuesday!

Laughing my @$$ off.

2007-08-25T00:43:00.000-04:00

So tonight my husband and I were sitting around watching the football game on tv. He turned the opposite way on the couch and was cuddling with our dog Lucy. Shortly after that, I heard him yawning and saying how tired he was, and that he was heading to bed.

WELL. He didn't make it back to bed. He fell asleep on the couch, alongside Lucy... and evidentally she didn't care that he was invading her couch space, because she was more than content hanging halfway off.

I was never so happy to have my camera right within arms reach:

Ahh, so priceless. And to think, both of them were SOUND ASLEEP like this.

Under construction...

2007-08-24T09:46:00.001-04:00

Morning, all. Hey, I just wanted to let you know that if you are checking out my blog only to find some crazy colors and/or layout, don't think I'm nuts. I'm messing around with things... I just felt like changing my layout, so I'm 'experimenting.' I get bored easily, so I needed a change. So for now, this blog is undergoing some, uh, routine maintenance.

The doctor, the appraisor, and some KY! Woo hoo!

2007-08-22T00:45:00.000-04:00

Yes, it's me again! Twice in one week...who would have thought. :-)

Well, I had my post-partum doctor's appointment today and everything went really well. I had to take my mom with me so she could watch Aly while I was being seen by the doctor...they don't allow kids in the exam rooms.

Anyway, I am 6 pounds above my pre-prego weight...ugh. I thought I was closer than that, but what are you gonna do. I'm just upset because I've been watching what I eat for the past month and I've only lost about 5 pounds. I know I need to exercise more though... it's just been hard to get it in during the day. I figured, "Heck, I'm home all day right now, I'll have PLENTY of time to exercise." HA! Lately, I've had Aly in her bouncer or swing, put my exercise DVD in...and JUST when I start the warm up stuff, she starts screaming her head off. It never fails. I might get 5, maybe 10 minutes in and that's it. And I've learned to forget even THINKING about getting on the floor to do any exercises, unless I have the dogs outside. As soon as I get down on the floor to do leg lifts or something, I have two dogs right in my face thinking it's playtime! I tried laying down and doing crunches one day and looked up to find Cody with his big head staring down at me. I can't win! Needless to say, the exercise has taken a backseat lately.

Anyway, back to my appointment.... like i said, things went well. I was just a little upset about the weight thing. And to top it off, they give you this chart with your height and weight on it, with your calculated BMI. That was the icing on the cake...haha.

Oh, and I talked with the doctor about getting on some BC. I'm gonna try the Nuva Ring and see how that goes. After my appointment, my mom was asking if I'm getting on anything, and I told her about the nuvaring... she got this weird look on her face and said (and I totally cracked up at this--) "Well, won't Russ feel that when his, uh, Mr. Happy goes in there?" LOL. Leave it to my mom to ask me that. I'm 27 years old and I still think she's embarrassed to talk about sex stuff with me.
Too funny....gotta love her.

Onto another topic... I was a bit upset with Russ yesterday. Not for anything he DID, but what he DIDN'T do! Evidentally he made an appointment with our realtor guy to get our house reappraised...this was right before the weekend. WELL. He just tells me lastnight that, "Oh yeah, honey... we're getting our house appraised tomorrow." "TOMORROW? What time? You know I'm going to be gone for awhile," I said.
Then he tells me "4pm." (Mind you, when he broke this news to me, it was almost 8pm.) I just laughed it off in front of him, but I was TICKED! I mean, I've been keeping up with the housework as best as I can, but there are things that I've been letting go for awhile, and I knew an appraisor had to see EVERYTHING. Which meant I couldn't use one room to put a bunch of junk in! I know an appraisor just looks at what you have in the house, but I still wanted it to be clean! So I spent last evening scrubbing floors, pledging and windexing things until 12:30am. I was so mad... I hate when he tells me things at the last minute. Sometimes I wish I had a magic wand that I could wave around and make the house spotless. Life would be so much easier....lol.

So when the appraisor got here today, I wasn't home yet... on the way home I was thinking about all the things I didn't get to clean, and things like, "I hope this isn't sitting out... I hope that's put away...I hope the shower is clean..." (I mean, he looked in every shower and all that... thank GOD I've been in a cleaning mood lately!) When I got home, they were in the kitchen, and I suddenly remembered that I didn't make our bed, and that I had clothes strewn on the floor in there. I slipped in the bedroom and closed the door, and tried to tidy up a bit. Next thing I know, Russ and the appraisor walk in and start looking around and talking about what new things we had added in there. I thought I had things looking half decent, then was embarrassed when I looked on the dresser and saw something, uh, 'sexual' left sitting out. (Ok, ok...it was KY...I just had a baby, darnit... I need some help!) LOL. It was at this point that I REALLY wished Russ had let me know this guy was coming a little sooner than the night before. I could have been prepared, dammit! Oh well... we have a baby. I think people know we have sex. :-)

(Have my posts been a little TMI lately? If so, sorry... just saying what's on my mind!)

So that was my afternoon. Exciting, I know.

Well, I'm going to try and lay down again... I was trying to fall asleep and just layed there staring at the ceiling. It doesn't help that Russ has half the bed and I'm sharing my side with two huge boxers who insist on laying horizontally across where my legs SHOULD be. If they DO give me room to lay, they steal my covers instead, so it sucks either way.

Alright...nighty night. I'll post again soon, and I promise it won't be about periods, or birth control, or KY. Maybe.

To work, or not to work...that is the question!

2007-08-19T00:59:00.000-04:00

I know, I know... I am LONG overdue for a new post!

My parents have Aly tonight, so I have some quiet time now. You would think my husband and I would be out doing something fun (or staying IN doing 'something fun'...lol), but no... my husband has fallen fast asleep on the couch. *Sigh* I was looking forward to going in our hot tub tonight, but that didn't happen...so what better thing to do than get on here and post, right?!

OH...get this. Before and during my pregnancy, I went on a website called Fertility Friend. Some of you might be familiar with it? Anyway, I was reading some of the message boards tonight and one of the June mommies is pregnant AGAIN!She just found out! Her child is only a few weeks older than Alyson. She's very excited about it though. She was even on birth control and it still happened, but she said "It must have been God's will." I agree! That's just one great big reminder that these things happen all in God's time, regardless of what we might be doing to cause OR prevent it.

I just don't know WHAT I'd do if I got pregnant again this soon. I can't even think about that yet. I mean, I definitely want another child (or two), but I keep telling people, "I want Aly to be walking, talking, feeding herself, potty trained, and able to help Mommy out!" LOL. Ultimately I'd like to wait a few years, but we'll see. This girl's getting on some BC ASAP! :-P I'm discussing such things with my OB on Tuesday...yay!

I have what SHOULD have been my 6 week post-partum checkup on Tuesday, though technically I'm already 8 weeks PP. Things have just been pretty hectic lately, not to mention (TMI alert...) I wouldn't stop bleeding! I was waiting for things to stop so I wouldn't feel so 'yucky' at my appointment. The bleeding wasn't anything major, but enough to annoy me because I felt like I was on some huge gigundo monster of a period for 7 weeks. And not to mention, I HATE pads! LOL.

Ok... new subject. I'm sure you don't want to hear about bleeding and pads. Blech.

Anywho...

I have about 3 weeks left of leave, then it's back to work for this chick. My clinical manager called me last week and asked if I was coming back full time/part time/etc, and WHEN I was planning on coming back. I used 2 weeks of maternity leave back in December when I was spotting, so I had 10 left, which puts me back to work the week of September 2nd, so that's what I told her.

I successfully talked my husband into letting me go back PRN(as needed)---YAY!--- so I am starting back 1 day a week for the first schedule, then we'll take it from there. Unfortunately due to the babysitting situation, I am still going to do nights, but only 11pm-7am instead of 7pm-7am. I figure that way, I'll have Alyson pretty much settled down for the night before I leave for work, and Russ might only have to wake up once with her for a feeding.

I'm just kinda worried about this whole 'back to work' thing. Don't get me wrong, my husband is a great dad, but I'm just worried about him being all alone with Alyson! Basically I've been doing everything, since he's now become the sole breadwinner in the family for the time being. He's had majorly long days lately, leaving the house at 6am and getting home in the evenings, usually 6pm. When he gets home, we eat dinner, then he heads down to his office to return phone calls and do paperwork. By the time he gets back upstairs, it's 9pm or so, and he's getting tired. He'll hold Aly for awhile, then falls asleep shortly after that. I guess I just get irritated sometimes because I wish he could help me out a little more... like on days when he gets home early, it would be nice if he'd feed her for me, or change her, or what not. If he does something, it's because I ASK him to. He can tell I get irritated because sometimes I'll just need a BREAK, so I'll hand her to him and say "Here, why don't you hold your daughter for awhile?!" I don't mean to get crappy with him, but it bugs me sometimes. We were talking the other night and basically he just told me, "I don't know what to do with a baby!" He was talking to ALy and said, "Daddy's scared of you! You're so little! When you get bigger daddy will take you everywhere, but for now he doesn't know what to do with you." *sigh*

So this is what worries me. My husband, who admits he is scared of taking care of a baby, who won't change a diaper unless he KNOWS it's only pee, who can't stand the crying....is going to be taking care of our child ALL BY HIMSELF, ALL NIGHT. I asked him, "What are you going to do if she poops and you HAVE to clean her up?" and he joked and said, "I'll just bring her to the hospital and you can do it." I then said, "So....uh... what if she starts crying? What are you gonna do?" and he said, "I guess I'll just have to deal with it." Ugh.

Like I said, don't get me wrong... he's a great daddy and a very responsible person... I don't want to make it seem like he's a horrible dad who wants nothing to do with our child. I'm just being a worrywort mommy because I've been the one caring for Aly basically 24-7. I'm just worried that he's going to fall asleep and not hear her crying or something. I've thought of it all. LOL.

This whole "work situation" has been the main topic of our conversation during my maternity leave due to the above said things. Russ wants me working at least 2 12-hour days per week, and I just don't see how that's going to happen right now. So, as a test.... (evil laugh), I picked weekdays for the nights I'm working, just so he can TRULY experience what it's like to have me back at work. For any of you who don't know or remember, my husband owns his own business. One of the perks? He can make his own hours. The downside? If something happens and he's the only one who can take care of it, he has to leave asap. During the weekdays, he leaves the house anywhere between 6-7am (7am if he accidentally sleeps in.) The problem? When I work, I don't get home until AT LEAST 7:45am. So if he has to go down to the garage and get his guys started for the day (let them know what jobs they are doing, etc), he's going to have the baby, so he'll either have to take her wherever he goes or wait until I get home.

I purposely picked weekdays so he'll know what the situation is going to be like, and just so he can't--for lack of better words-- "shove Alyson off on our parents." He hasn't participated much in her care, and he really needs to. I want him to experience what I go through 24-7. I already told him that I'm not working every weekend just because it's 'convenient' and just so he'll be able to have my parents or his mom babysit her every night I work. I mean, I don't mind them watching her once in awhile when I work, but Russ needs to learn to take care of her too. So the coming month will be his test, then we'll see how it goes.

So there's my vent for the night. I think I'll head to bed now, being that it IS almost 2am. It's wonderful to know that I can sleep in and not wake up to a crying baby in the morning. I do miss my baby though, but my parents absolutely LOVE having her over there, so who am I to argue? It's nice to have a night to myself once in awhile. Hopefully Russ and I can have a nice relaxing day together...we'll be picking little Aly up in the evening sometime.

Well, that's about all the typing I have the energy for right now...lol. I'll try not to let almost 2 weeks go by before the next post!! Have a good rest of the weekend!

***Here are some pictures of my little princess...she's getting so big! She was 10 pounds 12 ounces on 7/30, so I'm sure she's pushing 13 pounds or so now!***

Before I Was A Mom...

2007-08-15T02:08:00.000-04:00

***I found this poem online, and just thought it was too cute not to share.** I'll be posting soon, I promise! :-)

Before I was a Mom…
I made and ate hot meals.
I had unstained clothing.
I had quiet conversations on the phone.

Before I was a Mom…
I slept as late as I wanted.
And never worried about how late I got into bed.
I brushed my hair and my teeth every day.

Before I was a Mom…
I cleaned my house regularly.
I never tripped over toys or forgot words to lullabies.

Before I was a Mom…
I didn’t worry whether or not my plants were poisonous.
I never thought about immunizations.

Before I was Mom…
I had never been puked on,
Pooped on,
Spat on,
Chewed on,
Peed on,
Or pinched by tiny fingers.

Before I was a Mom…
I had complete control of my mind,
My thoughts.
My body,
And my time.

I slept all night.

Before I was a Mom…
I never held down a screaming child,
So that doctors could do tests,
Or give shots.
I never looked into teary eyes and cried.
I never got gloriously happy over a simple grin.
I never sat up late hours at night watching a baby sleep.

Before I was a Mom…
I never held a sleeping baby just because I didn't want to put it down.
I never felt my heart break into a million pieces when I couldn’t stop the hurt.
I never knew that I could love someone so much.
I never knew how much I would love being a Mom.

Before I was a Mom…
I didn’t know the feeling of having my heart outside my body.
I didn’t know how special it could feel to feed a hungry baby.
I didn’t know that bond between a mother and her child.
I didn’t know that something so small could make me feel so important.

Before I was a Mom…
I had never risen in the middle of the night every 10 minutes to make sure all was okay.
I had never known the warmth,
The joy,
The love,
The heartache,
The wonderment,
Or the satisfaction of being a Mom.
I didn’t know I was capable of feeling so much before I was a Mom!

- Author unknown -

*The Good, the Bad, and the Just Plain Rediculous!*

Will's 1st Birthday!

Picture time!

The "I couldn't think of anything to write, so here's a survey" post

Vent-- drama drama.

Weekend: Success.... Carnival: Fail.

Updates! :-)

2 months and counting!

JETS --> (J)ust (E)nded (T)heir (S)eason

*&%# ^**%$%!!!!!!!!!!!

So easily sidetracked... :-)

Boo hoo.

1/1/11!!!!!

Christmas recap :-)

Just not the same.

Loving this time of year!!

Sleepytime for everyone but me!

Another year gone by....wow.

4 days? Seriously?

Crying so hard I can hardly breathe...

Halloween update, since I have pics now...

News :-)

Picture time!

2am rambles...

Updates, good and not-so-good

Blah blah blah. That's how I feel today!

my monthly post...

The good and the not-so-good

Updates...

Talk about DOWN TO THE WIRE!!!

Book me on the next flight to Florida, please...

Stop snowing! (Uh, I mean, KEEP snowing!!)

We're getting blasted with snow... a whole 3 inches.

Sinus cold, nausea and stomach cramps, oh my!

Christmas and New Year's Pics

Happy 2009!

Christmas updates :-)

More sad news :-(

The past few days... (Ok, so I couldn't think of a better title)

But I want it, I want it, I want it!!!! haha

Update and Walmarting

Prayers needed!

"Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree...you look much better upright!"

Feeling better now :-)

What a day...

Goats, shopping and cheesecake...what could be a more perfect weekend?!

Thanksgiving updates

Hopefully there's ALOT to be thankful for...

Aly's Christmas Pictures

Gettin' that Christmas feeling!

8 things

The slacker's back

Updates

Weekend update

Baby butts and babbles

Glad I don't have many days like this...

One month... I'm getting WORSE!

Alyson's 1st Year in Pictures

1 year ALREADY?!

Updates and Birthday pics!

Random 'I'm so bored' post.

Punta Cana trip and my sick self

The big 2-8...

Attempt at some updates

The bad and the very good!

More of the white stuff.... blah.

What NEXT?!

Oh, one day of springy weather, I love you.

I'm all snowed out.

Adventures in Alysonland

Frustrations I had to get off my chest.

Movin' on up....upstairs, that is.

Another $25 espresso, please!

Pictures galore

A few minutes to myself to post.

Ranting and Raving :-)

Pictures and Christmas updates :-)

Maaaan, I want a Hungry Man!

It's meeeeeee :-)

Week in review

The Good, the Bad, and the Just Plain Rediculous!

sigh