Sunday, February 28, 2010

Babysitting and a Birthday

Today is my brother-in-law’s 4oth birthday. Since he and his wife just had their baby in January, I offered to watch their daughter while they went out to dinner.

The kids and I have been looking forward to seeing Lea so we were all happy to see her this afternoon! She sure has grown, but she’s still just a tiny little thing. They said at her last appt. she was about 10 pounds, and I’m guessing she probably doesn’t weigh much over 11 pounds or so now. She’ll be 2 months on the 6 of March.

Here’s a couple pic’s I got of her today:

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This was when she first got to the house. She was just waking up from her nap.

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I think this picture is so cute! She had just woken up and had a big yawn…this was the very end of that yawn! LOL!

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And, Landon just HAD to have a turn holding her. He was much more confident about it this time than last. He was pretty fascinated by her the whole time she was here.

He is very curious about her and can’t wait until we have our new baby here. He said a few funny things tonight though…he just doesn’t know the baby care lingo yet!

For instance, when Tony was giving her a bottle right before we brought her home, Landon asked if he could milk her! We all about died laughing!

He was also asking me about when Mom’s nurse their babies. He said “When the mom nurses the baby does it come out in a powder or is it already made?” Hee hee! I thought that was so cute! I explained that it wasn’t powdery but “already made”, but I could tell by the look on his face that he just couldn’t believe real milk came out of the mom…and from there. :)

When they got home from dinner they gave us a call and we brought Lea home. We also made a strawberry cheesecake and this Peach Crunch Cake for dessert. It turned out to be a pretty nice night and I’m hoping that I’ll get to babysit again real soon! 

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Today

Today we got up early and picked up last nights mess because we had a showing between 10am and noon.

Today we finally stopped by the school to get Landon signed up for Spring baseball. It’s hard to believe baseball is right around the corner…especially with all this snow still on the ground.

Today we went to the mall to waste time while people were looking at the house. We ended up buying a few things and having lunch, so all was not lost.

Today we started watching the movie Howard the Duck. We turned it off after the first ten minutes because it was awful.

Today we had a second showing. From 3-4 pm. I hope they are “the ones”.

Today we went to Mema and Umpa’s house for dinner. She made ham slices and her famous macaroni and cheese.

Today, Zoe went to the mall to hang out with her boyfriend. She had hamburger helper for dinner at his family’s house. She also went to his hockey game.

Today, Landon found a robot shrinky dink kit that he got for Christmas. He is coloring them as I write this.

Today, Tony made a strawberry cheesecake for his brother’s birthday tomorrow. I have to make the other dessert tomorrow.

Today was a pretty good day. I’m looking forward to babysitting Lea tomorrow and celebrating Chris’s 40th birthday.

Friday, February 26, 2010

Show Time!

I was just looking to see if any good shows were coming to our area any time soon, and man that was a big mistake. I found several I’d like to go see…I just wish they weren’t so darn expensive!

Starting March 12th, Ford's Theatre is putting on Little Shop of Horrors, one of my very favorite musicals! I loved the 1986 musical with Rick Moranis, Ellen Greene and Steve Martin!

Then, starting March 20th, Stomp will be at the Hippodrome in Baltimore. I’ve seen parts of this on T.V. and I think it looks awesome! My parents have been and they thought it was really cool.

The Signature Theatre in Virginia is showing Sweeney Todd until April 4th. I rented Sweeney Todd (the one with Johnny Depp) about a year ago from Netflix and I thought it was terrific! I can’t imagine what this show would be like live, but I’d happily go find out!

At Toby's Dinner Theatre starting March 11th the musical Oliver. I’ve never seen this, but I know the story, and I figure you just can’t go wrong with a classic by Charles Dickens.

Tony has always wanted to go see The Phantom of the Opera and it will be back in town at the Hippodrome starting in April. I wouldn’t mind going to see this one either…but it’s always good when Tony wants to see it too!

That’s all I saw during my quick 10 minutes of browsing and now all I have to do is convince Tony that he too wants to go see all these.

Wish me luck.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Flower Topiary

When I got the April 2010 issue of Scrapbooks Etc. I found quite a few projects that I wanted to try. I usually see projects I wouldn’t mind trying, but I always seem to forget. So this month I wrote down a few of the projects I thought were cute, and guess what? I actually got something accomplished!

Behold the flower topiary:

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This was actually really simple to make and only took a couple of hours to complete; each little flower had to be made first then it was easy to just pin them all on. As I was making it I didn’t think I was going to be happy with it, but once it was finished I decided I liked it! I’ve decided to make a smaller one to go with it, and Zoe likes it so I am going to make her one too…now I’ve just go to get started!

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Mr. Magic

The third graders at Landon’s school all had to choose someone famous to write a book report on. In true Landon fashion, he chose Houdini. We sure learned a lot about Houdini and he was actually a very interesting person who led an incredible life. Landon was quite fascinated by the crazy tricks he did and that made doing this report very simple.

I went in to the school this morning to watch him give his report, mostly because he asked me to be there, but also because this is his first of what I am sure will be many book reports. He told me he was very nervous because he had to stand in the front of the class and read, but he did a great job. (I’ve had him practice reading to anyone who would listen all week!)

I’m not going to post the entire video I took of him reading because it’s pretty hard to hear what he’s saying, but I do have this little part from the end:

His dad suggested he tell that little joke at the end, and it seemed the perfect ending to his report. The joke originally came from this guy who we see every year at the Renaissance Festival. Hope he doesn’t mind!

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Wishing For Snow

I know you can’t tell by looking at the picture, but Landon has his night pants turned inside out…when he came down in the morning and saw all the snow we had he was sure that it was because he wore his pants inside out! Looks like we may be getting another big storm this Thursday…I’m making him keep his pants right side out!! We’ve still got huge snow mountains outside, albeit dirty snow mountains now. It just looks awful now.

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We had some people come by to look at the house tonight, and I am a little excited because this is the 2nd time they’ve been by, and this time they had their parents with them! I am keeping everything crossed that we will be getting an offer sometime soon…I’m so ready to start looking into homes to move into! I’m ready to be someone else’s pain in the butt for awhile! :)

Monday, February 22, 2010

No News is Good News

I had my monthly doctor’s visit today, and it looks as though everything is going smoothly and as planned. Today I am 16 weeks and 3 days, and somehow I’m still in my own jeans. I thought I’d be in maternity clothes already, but I think I may have another couple weeks before I have to break down and by some new pants. We’ll see. Only a few more weeks and we’ll get to go in for the anatomy sonogram and see whether this is going to be a little boy or a little girl…we’re all kind of excited about that part!

I have to say though that I really look forward to my doctors appointments right now because I get to hear the heartbeat every time I go…I still can’t feel the baby moving around, so it’s very reassuring to hear that little heartbeat once a month. I have been able to feel something poking out here and there, but as soon as I touch that spot, the baby moves. I’m so much more paranoid this time than I was with either of the other kids.

Sometime’s ignorance really is bliss!

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Date Night

Tony and I waited until this weekend to celebrate our Valentines Day because of the crappy weather we were having last weekend. It was just as well though since dinner prices were back to regular and I’m sure it wasn’t as busy as it would have been last Sunday.

We decided to go to Red Lobster for dinner, a place that we haven’t been to in about a year. Last time we went I wasn’t too impressed with our dinner, but this time was excellent. We did end up having a wait, but it was worth it. Right now they are having their “lobsterfest” and that was great news since both of us wanted lobster for dinner.

After dinner we went to see Shutter Island and it too was excellent. I’m one of those people that can read a book (or watch a movie) and forget most of it within a couple of weeks, so even though I read the book, I didn’t remember a lot of it going in. However, once the movie got started it all came back to me, and I was pleasantly surprised with how closely the movie followed the book. I won’t go into the specifics, but if you like a good mystery, you just might like this movie. It was a bit dark and there was quite a bit of language, so you might not want to bring the kids along for this one.

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We had a really nice time and I think we should try to have “date” nights more often…it’s just nice to have some alone time every once in awhile. And, with the new baby coming soon, we’re going to need all the quiet we can get! :)

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Snow Scenes

It’s later than I usually post, but Tony and I just got home from our date night. I’ll post more about that tomorrow…tonight though, I have this page to share:

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Nothing crazy here, just plain and simple…I’m thinking that my style is “plain and simple”…which I guess isn’t a totally bad thing, but I sure think it’s time for something a little different!

Friday, February 19, 2010

Belated Valentine’s Day Party

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Since the kids were snowed out of school last Friday for Valentine’s day, they let them have their parties today. In the past we have made cute little gifts to give out instead of just the cards, but this year Landon didn’t seem interested so he just picked out a box of   3-D dinosaur cards. And then yesterday morning he asked if we could make something to give with the cards!!! I told him we were out of time to come up with something this year, but we’ll do something cool next year…I sure hope he’ll still want to participate in the Valentine’s Day stuff next year because I know several 4th and 5th graders thought it wasn’t “cool” anymore and didn’t bring anything in! Guess we’ll see…

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Lego Party

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Landon was invited to another birthday party, this one at the Lego store at the mall. I used the opportunity to get my photo of the day, and I’m glad I brought my camera because the Lego store is pretty cool looking; especially this wall of individual pieces:

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All of the kids got to make Lego racers and once they were finished they even let them race each other in the store.

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After all the races the kids went down to Mama Sbarro’s for pizza and cake. The pizza was pretty good, but I couldn’t bring myself to even try the cake! It was a cotton candy flavored ice cream cake with vanilla wafers, m&m’s, marshmallows and gummy bears mixed in! I’m thinking the kids probably loved it, but I was pretty sure if I ate it I’d be sick the rest of the night!

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Project 365, Week 6

Despite being stuck in the house for the last several days I have been successful with my daily photo’s, even if they are mostly about the weather! These pages are already so routine I can have them put together in about 10 minutes or so!

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The kids are finally back in school and they are actually pretty happy to be back…well, at least Zoe is; Landon’s never really ready. They both came home with their report cards and I am happy to say that both of them were on the Honor Roll again! They continue to do great in school and I am very proud of them!

One thing that was kind of funny (to me, anyways!) though was that one of Landon’s teachers wrote “Improvement needed in behavior”. His Instrumental Music teacher wrote that and when I asked Landon about it, he got really upset and kept telling me he had no idea why his teacher would write that about him! He stewed about it all afternoon saying that he had only gotten in trouble once in his class.

I thought the whole thing was kind of sweet, really. Because it  bothered Landon that his teacher would say that shows how hard he tries to be good in school and is still at that age where he cares what his teachers think of him…I know how that can change once they hit middle school!Landon won’t even be friends with the “trouble makers” in his class! If I ask him why he doesn’t like someone he always says it’s because they get in trouble too much! :)

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

One Cute Pup

Poor Ginger doesn’t get to be in the limelight often so today’s picture is of her. She is such a great dog and she has certainly earned her spot in our family and our hearts.

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This girl really loves her treats, especially when we fill up her Kong. I like giving this to her because it keeps her occupied for about half an hour and she’s usually satisfied with just one treat a day this way…but, she’s always happy when there’s more!

Here are a few more pictures from our “session” today:

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Monday, February 15, 2010

My Sweet Girl

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I guess I’m feeling the love this week with the pages I’ve been making, but I just really like this photo of Zoe and the papers seemed to work perfectly with it.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Happy Valentine’s Day

We are super busy here today. We have a showing between 1 and 2, the guys are off getting haircuts and then Landon is going over to a friends house to play for awhile…and Zoe is anxiously awaiting her boyfriends arrival this afternoon. He’s coming over to meet us all and they are going to exchange Valentine’s gifts, so she’s a bit excited. And possibly a bit nervous we are going to embarrass her to death…but I promise to be on my best behavior. ;)

So, I have a quick page to share, one I’ve had done for awhile but have been waiting to post:

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Saturday, February 13, 2010

It’s in the Bag

We decided to get up early this morning and drive out to visit my family in Virginia. While the guys went to see The Spy Next Door, us girls went out to do a little shopping.

We ended up at Macys where they were having a sale on purses…and we all just happened to need new purses! :)

So, here’s the one my sister picked:

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And, here’s the one my Mom chose:

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And, last but not least, here’s my new bag (and wallet too!):

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Since Zoe was with us, but doesn’t carry a purse, she got herself a hat:

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Friday, February 12, 2010

Puzzled?

I finally sat down and worked on some scrapbooking today. Here’s one of the pages I finished:

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I really liked the simplicity of the layout “embrace” out of the Feb. 2010 issue of Creating Keepsakes (pg.36) so I used that as my guide for this page. I always feel like I am just copying someone else’s work when I do that, but man it makes putting a page together super quick!

For the puzzle piece, I traced an old piece from one of the kids’ puzzles onto chipboard, covered it with matching paper and then I used some of my Martha Stewart glitter around the edges (you can’t really tell in the photo though!)…I like how that little accent turned out!

Thanks for stopping by!

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Icicles of Death!

I couldn’t believe what I saw this morning when I opened the blinds!

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The kids and I joked that they were the “icicles of death” because they are just so huge and menacing looking! We were all afraid to open the sliding glass door to the backyard because we were sure they were going to fall on our heads and kill us!

Of course I had to rush outside for photos before they melted…that’s just how I am! Here are a few more photo’s from right outside today:

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These icicles were tiny compared to the one’s off the top of the house, but pretty nonetheless!

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You may not be able to tell at first glance, but if you look closely you can see my fence post out in all that white snow. Not the actual fence, just the post!

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Those are the same icicles as in the first photo, but obviously these were taken from the inside. I love how the suns shining through in the last photo!

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It doesn’t look like the kids will be playing at the park anytime soon, does it? It’s kind of funny that the swings are completely under snow!

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Project 365, February Week 1

Here is my layout for the first week in February. I was happy to change from blue to pink; it’s hard to use the same color all month!

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I’m really having a hard time thinking of things to take pictures of this week since we aren’t able to leave the house because of all the snow! Hopefully we’ll be able to get out of the house sometime this weekend!

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

The Family that Games Together

We have a lot of time on our hands right now. We are getting more snow as I write this, and we have no idea how much to expect. The news is saying anywhere from 10-20 more inches, so we aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Tony did manage to make it in to work today but he said the streets in the city were awful. He also got Landon out to the doctor’s office for his weekly allergy shot, but that has pretty much been the extent of “getting out”.

So, we’ve been playing LOTS of video games. Here are the one’s keeping us busy:

Tony:

Bioshock 2 came out today and he just had to stop at the store to pick up his copy. He’s already spent an hour playing it…

Me:

The Sims 3. I’ve had it for awhile and Zoe and I played it for quite some time, but then it got put away for a bit…it’s back out and I’ve got the World Adventures expansion pack to go with it. I’ve spent countless hours playing this silly game!

Zoe:

Gears of War 2. She’s just recently realized that she can hook up with friends on the X-Box and talk to them while playing this game. She’s spending lots of time talking to friends and learning how to play the game at the same time…if she keeps it up, she and Tony are going to have some serious issues sharing the X-box!

Landon:

Castle Crashers. He started playing this game quite awhile back, but in true Landon fashion he quit mid way through. Yesterday he found it again and has been fighting for time on the X-Box as well…I have to say that this game seems to be really geared to boys his age. I can’t think of any other video game out that has animals pooping and peeing all over the place. Little boys just love them some bathroom humor…

 

Monday, February 8, 2010

Sledding/Snowboarding

The kids got lucky and Tony took them to the big hill to go sledding the other day. Since I didn’t go I don’t have any photo’s, but I did hand Tony the video camera on his way out…so, I have clipped some of the highlights of the video’s to share.

The first one is of the two of them crashing into Tony:

The next one is of Landon’s best snowboard run:

The third one is of Zoe attempting to snowboard:

And, the final video is of the kids sledding down the hill together…and crashing into Tony again! You would think he’d learn his lesson after the first time!?!

It looks like we are going to be getting more snow beginning tomorrow afternoon through Wednesday. They are saying we should expect anywhere between 10 and 20 inches! Yikes!

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Snow Photo’s

I suppose the snow theme is getting old for everyone, but since we are snowbound I really don’t have much to talk about. My days are pretty much consumed with snow; cleaning it up, wiping up tracks, washing and drying clothes, listening to the news about the storm…you get the idea.

This was the first night of the storm and I waited until about 10pm to get this picture. I just love how you can see all of the snow coming down! This is how it looked outside for about 2 days straight. It was so windy that first night I swore our tree was going to break the window on the side of the house, but we got lucky and nothing happened. Luckier still, we never lost power and that is something I am extremely thankful for!

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This next photo is what we woke up to on Saturday morning. I couldn’t believe how piled up it was on the back porch and railing! Poor Ginger wasn’t happy when she saw all that snow either and we had to dig her a small path just to go out to do her business!

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The next two photos aren’t the best but I wanted to get some pictures of all the birds we had attracted to our yard with the bird feeder. The pictures are taken through the window and sliding glass door because every time I opened the door they would all fly off. We probably had 40 birds in our yard at a time…some eating from the feeder, some eating what fell to the ground and several taking shelter on the bare branches of the trees.

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These last two are of the igloo the kids were able to build in the front yard. I couldn’t believe it when I came out and Landon and Zoe were both sitting in it!

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Saturday, February 6, 2010

Storm of the Century?

Well, that’s what they’re calling it on the news anyways. I cannot believe how much snow we already have outside and it just keeps coming down like it’ll never end. We are well above the 2 feet mark, and it isn’t supposed to stop snowing until late tonight!

Tony has been shoveling off and on all day. He did some of the front, then dug a path in the back, then back to the front again…it is an endless job right now and the worst part is that it just keeps coming down.

I got a couple video’s today, but I couldn’t do much because it was too snowy and windy and I didn’t want to get the camera wet…

The first one is of Tony. I suppose if you are the one doing all the shoveling you might as well have a little fun while your at it. I wish the darn screen door wasn’t in the way! If you look in the distance a bit you can see our fence, which is 4 feet tall…now you have an idea how deep the snow really is!

The second video is of Landon pretending to be stuck in the snow…until he realizes he really is stuck! He does love to put on a good show though!

This last one is of Landon attempting to do what Tony did in the first video, but he wasn’t quite as successful!

I’ll post some pictures tomorrow.

Friday, February 5, 2010

Snow Pants

If you aren’t happy about all the snow we’ve been getting, I’m pretty sure I know who you can blame.

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Landon’s been wearing his pajama bottoms inside out for the past 3 or 4 days…and just recently his shirt too. It sure seems to be working considering the record breaking amounts of snow we’re getting.

I’m just glad we have so much stuff to do while stuck inside because we are supposed to be getting upwards of 2 feet during this storm. I made sure to not only hit the grocery store but the scrapbook store as well…so, I should be good to go for a couple days!

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Puzzled?

We have been getting crazy snow around here. We had our first big storm back in December and we may be getting another 24 inches tomorrow! I am pretty sure that I am one in about 5 people in Maryland who are fine with all this snow!

We’ve had a couple other snow days here and there this past month and we’ve been busy finding things to do in the house. There has been lots of video game playing, movie watching and I’ve even managed to do some scrapbooking.

Yesterday, since we were all home, we pulled out a puzzle to work on…it’s been ages since we’ve done that! Zoe started it with me, but she just barely helped me finish the border before she’d had enough. Landon isn’t quite ready for this size puzzle but every once in awhile he’ll jump up and say he’s found a piece (usually it’s one he pulls out that’s already been fitted, and he claims it as his own!). So, that leaves Tony and I, and between the two of us we’ve got about half done.

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Luckily we have that storm blowing in tomorrow and we’ll have plenty of time to finish!

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

adventurous

Here is another page I finished recently, another page about snow:

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These are all photo’s of Zoe sledding. She has as much fun sledding as anyone I’ve ever known! I swear both of my kids can and will spend hours and hours out sledding and playing in all that white stuff. Good thing too since we had another good snow last night and the kids were our of school again today. At this rate we are going to be in school until August!

April Fools Pranks

The two little kids made me laugh yesterday morning.  I was upstairs getting things ready for school when I heard them talking about how ...