Verbally Challenged

That’s what we just cleaned up off of the floor. Let’s say it together – GROSS!!!!!!!! Apparently Audrey’s belly didn’t agree with those items (um….yeah). Audrey wasn’t the only one outside having fun today though. With the temps in the 80′s again and no rain – we filled up the pool for the first time this year.

And Addy loved watching her big brother:

And taking a walk with daddy:

I planted close to 80 vegetables plants in the garden after Nate tilled and turned the soil – I predict sore blistery hands tomorrow for the both of us.

Today was a good day.

Happy Anniversary to me (and Nate too) – pardon the photo. It’s a scanned in version of a photo taken with a table camera (with flash on).

Today is my Anniversary – seven years. But I feel cheated every time that I say seven years because Nate and I were together LONG before we got married. I mean almost 18 years together (including our 7 married years). But I’ll be all grown up about it and go by the legal date (even if I do still feel cheated).

It’s nice thinking back to what I was doing about this time (8:41) seven years ago. I had already said my vows (during which I swayed almost the entire time). We had survived the drive to the reception in our vintage Rolls Royce by a woman who was clearly drunk and didn’t know how to drive a normal car let alone an antique. I had finally escaped my photographer who insisted on pulling me away during dinner when alI that I wanted to do was eat
– but we did get some nice shots outside. The rain had finally stopped and the evening was beautiful. I was trying my hardest to get to the ladies room while getting cornered by every guest who wanted to personally congratulate me – the bride (the nerve of them). And I was over the moon happy and in love because it was the day I had dreamed about and I was going to be married to my perfect guy – forever.

You know the great thing is that I still dig that guy today – something awful. And I wouldn’t change where I am in my life right now for anything. I am one seriously lucky gal.

Now, would you care to guess who wasn’t so lucky with life?

I regret to inform you of the passing of one (wait number seven or something) Mr. Fish. He led a happy life full of swimming and fancy parlor tricks (like playing dead). Unfortunately, he wasn’t playing yesterday when we found him on the bottom of the tank.

So now, meet our new friend:

Named Mr. Squid by Liam. We didn’t tell him what was going on and replaced Mr. Fish with this lovely beta. All that Liam said was “hey, what happened to Mr. Fish.” We explained that his fins needed some rest so he went on vacation and this new one was visiting. Liam named him, asked if we could keep him and it was all good. Now I spoke with the “aquatic expert” as the store and he assured me that betas were much heartier than goldfish. I assured him that I will test that theory to the fullest.

The number to beat is eight days. We’ll talk again next Monday.

More later.

So, we did it. We took your suggestions, read a little bit more and decided to have a go at it – one last time. Nate went to the store after work yesterday, purchased new rocks; some de-stress stuff (thanks Amy) and a fish that looked good and healthy. After Liam went to bed, Nate did the big clean out for what he says is definitely the last time (and no I don’t think that’s speaking from optimism). We put Mr. Fish into the water and within one hour discovered that this fish was unlike any of the others. It did tricks! It goes to the bottom of the tank, and floats sideways up to the top where it’ll remain until you tap on the tank. Yes folks, this fish plays dead. I. Kid. You. Not.

Not once, but twice I was fooled into believing the little bugger had gone to the light until tap – tap –tap – and spry fish emerged. We were convinced it wouldn’t make it through the night. Oddly enough, it did. We have 24 hours under out belt. Pray for Mr. Fish.

And honestly if this one doesn’t make it, Mr. Fish is going “on vacation.” And his cousin Mr. Beta is coming to visit (thanks Candice)!

Now for photos. I can’t have two posts and no photos. So here is last weeks photo for Addy (because I was behind):

And then one that I took today in her new hat that my mother-in-law knitted her.

And another one just because it cute and sharper than the other one (but I like the intensity of the other one better)!

More later!

Or novices or anyone who has owned a goldfish – EVER (that covers just about everyone right?) – I need your help! You see, right now our house is where little goldfish come to die. It’s so sad.

Two and a half years ago when Liam was two, we decided to get him a goldfish for Christmas (ok, it was Santa’s idea). He got one of those super cute aquariums with the periscope and neat little backdrop and all we needed to do was add water and a fish. Easy peasy right? Um…no. The day before Christmas Eve we purchased a lovely little fish, let the water get to room temp (see we did some research) and released the fish into it’s new home. All was well. Until Christmas morning we went…ahem…Santa went to get the aquarium and finds said goldfish belly up. The Christmas goldfish quickly became the Christmas aquarium. And Liam helped us pick out a goldfish a week later – that would be Mr. Fish. So Mr. Fish lived with us for 2.5 years. He was an awesome fish. But he started going down hill around Easter and passed shortly after. After a bit of discussion, Nate and I decided to go with operation replace goldfish instead of talking about death. Man if that wasn’t ever a good idea since we’ve now replaced Mr. Fish weekly. And Liam is still not onto us but has noticed that sometimes Mr. Fish is smaller or “turning a lovely shade of black” as he once put it.

So, we have cleaned out the little aquarium, changed the gravel, scrubbed the lovely plastic plant, replaced plastic plant with cooler tunnel, changed filter, turned filter off and begged fish man at the store for a healthy fish. Oh, and we’ve only done 50% water replacement for some fish – per fish man at the store.

HOW CAN WE KEEP A FISH ALIVE? The store says it’s just bad luck. I say we’re fish killers. Maybe we have no right buying another one. Liam thinks Mr. Fish is on vacation – how dare this one pass on a Sunday afternoon when all fish stores close early. You know where I’ll be tomorrow.

If you have any tips, suggestions or kind words – I’m all ears. My future goldfish thank you.

I know that I said before having a girl that I wasn’t a fan of headbands on bald babies. It just wasn’t my thing. BUT my little girl is not bald anymore. I mean, check out that hair up there! It was really close to going in her eyes (if her forehead were a bit smaller) and that would have made her cranky. I can’t have a cranky baby now can I!

And trust me, I’m not busting out the adhesive tomorrow to stick a bow on her head. Not. going. there.

Oh, and the lovely headband, compliments of my mother-in-law Marybeth. Handcrafted. She’s that good.

So yesterday I had my sister and her kids over to play. It was 84 degrees outside – so I busted out the sprinkler, the water table, toys (yeah I’m an awesome auntie) and the boys ran around for at least three hours. We sat, chatted and nursed our babes, all while keeping the boys in line. It’s all good right? Wrong. Today, Liam was suffering, which in turn meant I was suffering. He woke up at three am with a rash and eyes almost swollen shut. Miserable. After a mad scramble to find the benedryl and cortisone cream we got him back to sleep – only to find him not much better this morning. Sooooooo off to the doctor we go first thing in the morning and discover that he has allergies. And/or a bug bite, sting or sensitivity to SOMETHING he came into contact with. Glad we got that one nailed down right? But I’m happy to report that after prescription eye drops, ointment and a little Claritin – he’s doing much better! Is it Friday yet?

And I’ve noticed that I’ve been a bit vocal lately. It’s time for some photos because everybody likes pictures (OK I like the pretty pictures).

And then if you didn’t already see this, check IT out! I’m so happy to be one of the IT girls and had the best time playing with the new kit. IT is such a cool concept! I did these two pages so far – love that stamp!

Barb tagged me on her blog today (Happy Birthday Barb) so I need to share seven random facts about me. We did this on another board I frequent (a lot) so I’m going to steal a few from there and add some new ones. Fun don’t you think?

1. I have never cooked a chicken, roast, turkey or anything in the meat category. I don’t know how nor do I intend to learn. I have been vegetarian for about 20 years. And fortunately, I met Nate during my meat free days so he knew what he was marrying into!!!
2. I am a lefty – sort of. I write left-handed but do everything else with my right – except for tennis – I play with my left hand. In fact, my sister and two cousins are all left-handed – all of the parents are right. Figure that one out!
3. I hope to some day own a Great Dane and a Yorkie because they’re both super cool dogs and I’d look cool walking them together. Don’t worry mom – I don’t intend to do this in the too near future. I’ll keep the Golden, cats and bird for now.
4. I love reality television. I watch way too much of it, give just about anything a try and enjoy mostly every minute. I wish that I didn’t enjoy TV because I love the quiet that comes with it being turned off!
5. I have no willpower and can’t turn the TV off enough.
6. I am a total nerd when it comes to science and math. I loved calculus and scored excellent grades. I would rather stick needles in my eye than sit through history classes – baseball games run a close second.
7. I don’t like white walls. And I don’t like naked walls either. A little color and artwork makes me happy!

So that’s me. I’m never good at tagging people so if you want to share – I’d love for you to play along and link me up in the comment section will ya!

In other news, my friend Kelly has a really cool secret – an awesome secret that I know you’ll love! You totally need to check IT out – It Kit Studio – and make sure that you register because you could win a free six-month subscription. She has a teaser photo on the site and check out that stamp! It’s a circle so you know that I’m sold! Midnight is fast approaching and IT will all be revealed. Can you tell that I’m excited!

Happy Mother’s Day to all of the mom’s out there – no matter how many legs your kids have! My good pal has three dogs that are treated better than my kids (not really but you get the point) so it’s a big day for her too!

Our Mother’s Day celebration has gone on all weekend. Liam kicked off the festivities on Friday by bringing home a potted plant and “note.” The note was a Q&A and my Liam did not disappoint in the humor department. For example, when asked to finish this – “My Mom has a pretty smile! I like to make her smile by” – Liam responded – “opening candy.” He’s right, I smile when he tries to open candy because he’s not allowed to have candy 90% of the time and he KNOWS he’s about to get busted! Little bugger. Or this one “My mom is smart! She even knows……….how to pick a pumpkin.” Martha Stewart has nothing on me in the pumpkin symmetry department! How kind of Liam to pick up on that!

And yesterday my boys presented me with a gift – a camera upgrade. They went WAY overboard this year but it was so sweet of them! Liam couldn’t hold it in for another day and I didn’t mind! AND (as if the camera wasn’t enough), my little Addy took a THREE-hour nap in the morning. So I had a lovely and very well rested baby to play with all day!

Now since today is officially Mother’s Day, why not talk about my mom (don’t worry mom, I’ll be gentle). Heck, it’s better than sharing old photos – wouldn’t you say? So in honor of mom, here are five things about my mom – and you’ll learn a little more about me as well.

1. She can be one chatty bugger. But it really depends on the person. Growing up, I remember my mom being on the phone for hours in the morning (was it really hours mom?) with my aunt. I couldn’t imagine what they were talking (and laughing) about for so long – every day. Especially because she lived five minutes away and we’d go hang out at her house to swim with my cousins for the day. It boggled my mind – until I grew up. Because now, I get it. I talk to my mom EVERY DAY – and I honestly can’t tell you what we talk about. We’re both guilty of calling the other for the not so important things (one, two maybe three times a day) – and we laugh about it. Or we plan – oh the planning. I come from a long history of planners. Weeks to months in advance we’ll have something planned out – down to the time of day. I guess I’m a little like my mom here.

2. When mom gets stressed, she rubs her forehead and eyebrows. And everyone in the family knows it. That is the sign to stop talking and back off before she blows! Ha ha. Me? I scratch my head. Nate notices the second that I start and we’ll laugh about it. Not a bad de-stressor eh? Lately, Nate pointed out that I say “foof-a-loofa” or “crikey-mon-schnikey’s” as well. And he’s right! It’s funny how I never noticed it before. Liam is picking up on “foof-a-loofa” too – guess it’s better than other words people use when stressed! A Christmas Story comes to mind here.

3. My mom sure knows how to clean – and that’s a total compliment! I remember her scaling furniture, vacuum in hand chasing dust bunnies that never existed because they didn’t have time to grow! I think that from the moment I left for the bus stop until the time I got home, she’d clean (or did you just have all of us fooled mom)! Once I missed the bus and had to walk back to the house and knock on the door – oh how I hated having to knock on that door. Mom was annoyed and I just knew that it was because I messed up her day of cleaning. I mean, she scrubbed the walls like a lot of other moms did at that time. I can say with some degree of certainty that MY mom friends aren’t scrubbing walls – I’m not! I’m lucky if I clean my teacup!

4. Mom has the softest skin. And from what I remember – it has always been that way. She’s a lotioning queen and invests a lot of time post bath to skin softening. It always makes her smell good too – in a subtle non-perfume way. There are certain fragrances that remind me of her. Now if my skin would cooperate and not break out in itchy blistery sort of way – I’d slather myself up as well!

5. Mom is a messy cook – much like my husband. But they are both really good cooks! Apparently, when making that all-important recipe, there is no time to wipe up drips, place cuttings in the garbage or throw away papers or cans. And I bet they’d tell you the messier the kitchen – the better the dish. Honestly, it’s that bad. But if you look back at number 3 – it all works itself out. Me? When I cook, I like the mess to be cleaned up before I serve the meal. For some reason, I can enjoy it much more knowing that I don’t have to invest too much more time n the kitchen once the meal is over. Perhaps that’s because mom made me do the dishes and clean up the kitchen while growing up…maybe that’ll be another post.

So that’s mom – and see how nice I was? I didn’t share the photos or her with long blonde hair, blue eye shadow or go-go boots. Only because mom is good at getting back when you least expect it. Another mom fact.

Have a great day all!

Dang, that would be a good band name don’t you think? Between you and me, I have a list that I keep of band names that I come up with. Not that I sit there trying to come up with them, they just happen, and I write them down. You think that I’m a dork now, right? Anyway – I always wondered if I collected this list of however many names and put it on ebay, would it sell? I mean, people have sold kidneys on ebay so a super witty band name list would go – you think? There are some curious people out there. I’m embarrassing myself now, let’s move on!

This weekend we rediscovered something very obvious – we have a little boy. And as Nate mentioned, nothing says little boy like a shiny red boy bike called “Major Damage.”

No more tricycle for our little dude. He has a helmet, all terrain training wheels and he’s ready to go. Except, that he doesn’t want to ride the bike because he has to wear the helmet (um..hence the protective headgear rambling earlier). Hopefully he’ll learn to love his protective headgear – it sounds cool right?

You know the photo that I posted yesterday of Liam with holes in his jeans? And remember that I said I made a layout? You can check it out here. Two peas did a “user spotlight feature” for National Scrapbook Day and my gallery was one of many chosen. Super cool!