The bad and the very good!

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.

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?!

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.

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.

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

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.

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*