Fire Hydrant

Today we a good day, and it is only 1pm. So far we have walked to the park, played there for 2 hours, then walked home to find a wonderful thing; the fire hydrants were open!

Much more fun than the wading pool full of water.

Grandpa and Joe were out too, so we raced sticks and boats down the street,

Got soaking wet and had the time of our life :) Who know what fun we will find after our nap.

This is a post for family, if you stumble across my bit of 'cyber-inter-intra-net-web' and want to give your input too, you are more than welcome, but mostly I am looking to find out if this trait is inherited or my own singular oddity.
I was doing laundry today and as I was folding all of my husbands underwear and then moved onto mine, I realized that, honestly, 'do these need to be folded?' I guess my mother always folded our underwear and encouraged/demanded that we fold the underwear when we folded laundry (rarely). But really, as Claire would ask, 'Why?'
So if you have any thoughts, do you fold your underwear or just throw it in a drawer? Do you fold your significant other's underwear? Does he think it is strange? Do you know why someone would beging this silly waste of time habit? let me know, I think I am going to try to just throw my underwear in the drawer today and see how it feels. I have yet to leave the kitchen after doing dishes without wiping the counters... Habits are hard to break, especially if they aren't yours to begin with.

*ammendment: I tried just throwing them in, and ended up quazi folding the underwear, what is our obsession with underwear drawers?

Come Visit

Ok since I love my mother and miss her SO much lately, I feel the need to fulfill her every request/demand/dream in the hopes that she will fulfill my dream/request/demand that she come out here immediately. So as requested here are some pictures of our 'new' place. (The BEFORE pictures) There are 5 rooms, you see them all right here.

Bedroom for two Bedroom for mom and dad
Living/dining/playroom Kitchen
Bathroom for the queen The queen herself
(not in the tub from the new place) but how cool that we get to keep the pink tile...

That Belly Dancer has nothing on my Claire

We practice 'tea party' today to enhance our hand/eye coordination. Mostly we just played with water. The weather was so pretty.
In other news, yesterday we signed the contract on our new home. YAY! Pictures to come when we have some after pictures, we don't want to scare you with only the before pictures :) Please do pray because timing is gonna be a little tight. (by tight I mean impossible) But since nothing is impossible for my God we are moving ahead, eating out to celebrate being poor, and folks, we are in escrow!

Iovino's Oscar

So we colored eggs...

We colored eggs, I'm still not sure why. Claire won't remember it and didn't seem any more attached to the real eggs than to the plastic ones. Jimmy, well he doesn't have a coloring egg past so he wouldn't have missed it. But me.. well we did it every year, it's like one of those traditions you want your kids to remember as fondly as you remember it from your childhood... So we colored eggs...

Ready... Set... Color...

After coloring eggs, we decided that we NEEDED to see them again,

And give them a second coat of color

Then we were done.

My Dad the Pirate King

So lately I have been finding out tons of things about my parents that I never knew about them. For example, one friend brought to light that they may have sued a man in FL in the '80's. This sounded absurd to me and turned out to be just that according to my mother, however what are the chances that there was another David Havener out there who met a Brenda and got married? Strange.
Then today I find out the my dad is being held hostage on a lifeboat in Africa... who knew, I mean last time I talked to him his phone was cutting out a lot but still there were no 'argh''s in the background or singing. (pirates always sing)
I found some information as I was investigating the pirates holding my father in this absurd manner; who holds hostages against the US navy and FBI and Coast Guard in a lifeboat? a lifeboat. What kind of sissy navy must we have if they can't take over a lifeboat? Anyway, I'm not worried, these pirates can't be very good, first let me remind you of the lifeboat, then there is this lovely quote:

"A pirate named only as Badow told the Associated Press that a "good number of well-equipped colleagues" were heading to the scene to help the pirates escape. "We are not intending to harm the captain, so that we hope our colleagues would not be harmed as long as they hold him," Badow said."

So many things wrong with this;
1. His name is Badow? That's his pirate name? come on...
2. He is talking to the associated press via satellite phone. I guess pirating has changed since Johnny Depp
3. And his language isn't at all what you would expect from a pirate; 'colleagues' 'not intending to harm him' 'we hope our colleagues won't be harmed'? Where are the 'arghs' and the crass nature?
4. They sound like they don't really want a hostage anyway... no walking the plank (can you put one of those on a lifeboat?), no ..? I dont know... I feel they should be more violent or crass....
I feel jipped. My dad is only gonna be stolen (ok he gave himself up) by pirates once in his life, and it's turning out all wrong.
Thanks a lot Hollywood for my unrealistic views of pirating.

Uh-Oh

So my dad called and he wanted some pictures of Claire and our family to put on a digital picture frame for my Grandmother. Unfortunately, I found that ALL of our 'recent' pictures of Claire look like this...

either that or her bottom half is naked. So I guess today we will have to break out the camera and take some decent shots of Claire when she is clothed. Wish us luck...

MESS!

So, we started potty training this last week... we thought we were doing really good, until I started keeping track of things today. So far today (it's only 4:30) we have been thru:
4 pairs of pants
an entire roll of paper towels (I am open and eager for any other suggestions of what is good to clean pee off of floors/ride-on toys that will not kill every acre of rain forest before we graduate to big girl underwear)
2 sippy cups (don't ask why we are on our third, you don't wanna know what happened to the other two)
4 Advil (for mom)
1 lovey bear
1 baby doll (who really just had to go potty but fell in)
and we are growing dangerously low on patience for accidents that happen less than 4 in. from the potty chair because we can't 'aim' (isn't that supposed to be a boy problem?)

So, that's where 'we' are; thinking 'we' may have bitten off more than 'we' can chew but assuring ourselves that 'we' are more stubborn than her bladder.
She really is doing well... But who would have thought that teaching her to pull down her pants would be the hardest part of potty training?!

Thank you for the small things

Thank you #53 for checking to make sure none of my new socks had holes.
Thank you Chinese forefathers for coming to America and bringing egg rolls
Thank you mom for teaching me where pee goes
Thank you dad for letting us play in your garage as kids
Thank you Aunt Jamima for making pancakes easy in the mornings
Thank you Pastor Cope for teaching me that you can put peanut butter on pancakes when you have no syrup
Thank you Ray Plunkett for inventing nonstick pans
Thank you.

A Whole New Look?

First I must apologize to those of you who are male and who read my blog. I'm not sure there are any other than my husband but... if you are male and happen to stuble upon my blog I am sorry that my fitness tip of the day is geared mainly toward women today... Men can also lift weights.. there, apology complete.

Moving on...

How do you like it? The new look? Different title, different colors, for a whole different me. OK maybe I'm not so different, bigger around the middle yes but different? I'm not sure. I thought long and hard about how my life has changed in the past year and a half. I got married, had a baby, got pregnant, took some great trips with my little family, moved to another state (don't tell PA, they don't know officially yet). But for all the external change in my life, has there been any internal change? Still mulling that one over. I'll get back to you.

But externally, how about this new blog?!
Big hand for my designer!

Pap Hat

I have a pap.
He wears a hat.
He wears his hat
a lot like that.

He wears it up
a top his head.
Why like that?
It can't be said.

I guess it's genetic

Depressed or Pregnant?

Symptoms:
1. eating an entire frozen pizza (minus the two pieces your child ate)
2. Problems sleeping
3. irritability
4. Crying spells for no apparent reason
5. Unintentional weight gain
6. eating an entire family sized danish in two days by yourself
7. Feeling worthless
8. Unexplained physical problems, such as back pain or headaches

Maybe pregnancy is just depression with a due date...

Claire Fix

For those of you wondering what Claire has been up to lately... she is trying to find something to ride.. a big dog... a stuffed pig... a bunny?

Can a Birthday get better?

I think not...

Gadget of the Day

Today's gadget is a stress reliever, for all those doing midterms, weather grading them or taking them. And for those who are in the work force, still working or looking for work. And for those staying home, weather just hiding from the world or with little ones and housework. So go ahead shoot a smile... wait, that kinda contradicts my previous post, but at least they are related right?

Awfully Chain-letter-ish

What's in a smile? a lot. Today you should try to smile at as many people as you can, cause otherwise you are perpetuating a problem that I have just recently become aware of again. The problem is this; People are so miserable now, (money issues, housing issues, marital issues..ect.) that they don't smile unless someone else smiles first. But since everyone is miserable, no one is smiling.. so start something with a smile today :)

I have been a victim myself recently of the grouchy people. I went to the post office, I place I avoid usually because of the strange bullet-proof windows the tellers sit behind and the strange 'lift this, close that and step back' system they have that makes me feel REALLY far from my little town of Mars. (is it strange to miss the post office?) Anyway I had to go yesterday and the lady was so short and grouchy, and they weren't even busy! I am pretty good at trying to figure out what made them grumpy, like a busy day, pen ink on thier shirt, impatient people yelling at them... who knows? But this lady was just coming onto her shift, it wasn't busy AND she had a stoll to sit on! no excuse for her non-smiling face to snip at me... Of course I did the wrong thing, not smiling back BUT I did hold the door for an elderly lady on my way out.. does that count? And the bird is in the air (Ami you'll get your package, complete with sunshine when you get home)

Healthy and Happy

Ok maybe my blog isn't cut out for a theme... so back to what we know,
cute pictures of Claire:

While I am enjoying this pregnancy, which has been only slightly more trying than my pregnancy with my first, I am NOT enjoying the 'motherly body'. I am having dreams and fears that I will never get back to the body of a 25 year old. (btw my birthday is coming up :) )Please do not ask for pictures of my 'belly'. be content that it is BIG and that there is a baby inside it. I look roughly like Claire does in the picture above^. Which brings me to the gadget of the day, a weight loss gadget... I'm not sure if I should put it up though because then you will be losing weight while I am still gaining.. and then you will look better than me... So I think you should do the opposite of what it says... yeah.. that will make me feel better..except then you'll all be fat and unhappy.. and who wants fat unhappy friends and family? not me... just stay healthy and happy. :)

Things to Ponder

So during this blog renovation I have been giving a lot of thought to what my blog is.. is it a mommy blog? where I post an insane number of pictures of my offspring and share witty stories about my day as a mom. or how about a knitting blog? that's a pretty easy no.. I don't think I've finished one knitting project in my life. how about a cooking blog? where I share all my chef-ly wisdom and pictures of my lovely concoctions. What do you think?

Polling the Audiance

Does anyone know if salt goes bad? like at some point are you supposed to get rid of it? We don't use that much salt, and Grandma bought it in BIG containers... It is still salty, so that's not a problem..but Bible quizzing taught me that. (thanks mom and dad).
See how much better my activities were than my evil sister who danced around in frilly costumes to hokey music?
So if you know if salt goes bad, please pass along the love. Thanks.