The Best Birthday Present!!!

My nephew Aiden Dean Hacker was born at 6:45 this morning weighing 8lbs 9oz and 20 inches long. I am so excited to share my birthday with my little nephew.
I now have 4 nephews and 3 nieces. I can't wait to have a niece or nephew on my side of the family (hint hint -Andrea:)

Birthday Cake

Here is my Birthday Cake for my 31st b-day!! We are celebrating tonight, (Sat) with some friends.

Holy Cow Batman

The girls were playing hide and go seek and they decided to get one of their stuffed animals (baby dog) so that he would "sniff" out the person that was hiding. They made him a leash out of some of their play necklaces and gave him a purse to hold any evidence that he found along the way. The girls said he was the "KEY" to finding people who were hiding. By the way Audrey and Hannah were only playing hide and go seek with each other and they laugh the whole time they hide, which you can imagine makes the finding easier. So I thought it was very cute that they added another element to the game. I told them they were very smart.

Hannah went into my closest and got two of my socks and made sock puppets all by herself. One is a snake (not my first choice and the other is a hippopotamus) she came down stairs wearing them on her hands. Adorable!!

A Public Service Announcement!!! Do Not Let Your Laundry Detergent Freeze!!!

Picture this....Me trying to squeeze a large bottle of soap (for those who are wondering we use ALL free for sensitive skin, we like it) into four washing machines and the detergent is the consistency of really stubborn honey and this is already after you have ran it under hot water and let it sit for a bit. We have parent teacher conferences in 45 minutes and there is no way that ALL is going to beat me!!! I start squeezing the bottle with all my might, I was making the most unnatural sounds and probably some really weird faces but guess what I finally got globs of soap to come out. So what is the moral of this story? Do not leave your laundry soap in the trunk during a New York winter and use ALL for sensitive skin because it makes you smell pretty.

We had Hannah's parent teacher conference yesterday with Mrs. Moniz, this is the first conference we have had for Hannah. The teacher had wonderful things to say about Hannie and we were very happy to hear that she has not yet become the class clown. I know one day we are going to get that call. The teacher did recommend that Hannah go into a Pre-first class next year instead of first grade. Pre-first is only offered in a small handfull of the school districts in New York State) Hannah is the youngest in her class, turned 5 the day before school started. Mrs. Moniz does not agree with Kindergarten starting at the age of 5 with the cutoff being November 30, instead of the age of 6. Too many children are left behind.
Hannah wants to learn at her own pace and since this school offers this class I think we may take it. It is a full day and will just give her the extra time to hit her grove, instead of her feeling an enormous amount of pressure in first grade. They have two full classes of pre-first, I really did not understand until yesterday how advanced Audrey is, she is on the other end of the spectrum where 2nd grade is not challenging enough. We will make sure we take care of both of the girls educationally so they will both be successful in their own ways.
On the way out of the school we had a couple of teachers or workers stop and tell us how wonderful, kind and polite Audrey is. That made us feel so good and we are raising good little people and others notice.

Joe, Mocha Joe!!

Alright I have figured it out my gerbil Mocha is a mastermind, you think I am kidding but I am not. To confuse me she has been pushing the wheel from the top level of her cage to spin it so I think she is exercising. I caught her this afternoon pushing the wheel around with her front paws from the top, and when she saw that I was looking at her she laid down and looked at me. I bet she even tried to do the Jedi mind trick, that probably explains all the chocolate I ate this afternoon.

I have good news...Mocha has lost a ton of weight and she is very built. We don't have to worry that she is going to have a heart attack at any minute. Wes cleaned her cage and she has gotten so strong that she scalled the cage like "Spiderman" or should I say "Spidergerbil"!! It was quite impressive but I did not realize that a little bit of exercise for a gerbil would make her superpowers come out.

See Mocha exercise does pay off!!! You should thank Mommy for buying you the wheel and not plotting against me.

I will keep you all informed.

Tag Your It

I know we did this on Myspace ( I have put 10 different things on this tag..Marcie I will email you the myspace tag for obvious reasons.) but I thought it would be fun to do with the family...something light and fluffy!! So I am tagging Megan, Marcie, Anna, Cecily, Emily and Grandma if we ever get her blog up and running. (o and Andrea if you want to do it again on Myspace but its ok if you don't)

The rules are: Once you have been tagged, you write a blog with ten, weird, random things, facts, or habits about yourself.

1 - I have eaten Dog. It does not taste like chicken, very salty.

2 - I was presented with a special certificate from Cinderella, Prince Charming, Suzie Mouse (my fav) and the Fairy Godmother, when I went into remission the first time. That was cool.

3 - The longest I was in labor was 37 hrs (in the hospital) and the shortest was 11 hrs.

4 - I love Harry Potter but I have never actually read any of the books myself, Wesley has read them all to me. He also has read the Lord of the Rings and any other epic book.

5 - I am afraid of birds. When we are at the zoo I always want to skip that part. I do not even want to see them in the pet store.

6 - I have been in a black hawk, chinook and university of Utah helicopters.

7 - Mom and I won tickets to see Billy Joel by singing for a radio contest at South Towne Mall. No I can't sing and it probably did not sound good, but that was a very good concert and worth the humiliation and better yet I was on the news that night for all of Salt Lake to see!!! Yeah me!!!

8 - A part of Basic Training is throwing two LIVE hand grenades. You have a bunker that you throw it over and you are suppose to throw it far enough away from you that you don't blow up yourself or the Drill Sgt. Well let me tell you....I was so nervous and grenades are a lot heavier than you think that when I threw my second hand grenade I just made it barley over the bunker... I mean Audrey could of have probably thrown the thing farther than I did. The Drill Sgt threw himself on top of me and rolled us away. He was so scared it took him a bit to get his composure back. I am glad I think it is funny now, because they were sure not happy with me. My Drill Sgt's told me that I was lucky I was the fastest girl in the unit (running) because I would have to run away from my own grenades.

9 - It is easier for me to make cream puffs than cookies.

10 - I have talked more to my cousins this past year than any other time in my life and I LOVE it!!!! I think it is awesome. I love you all:)

I will enjoy reading what y'all have to say.

Am I A Serf?

Marcie has inspired me to write my feelings on society today...I agree 100% with what she said in her blog. This has been a running conversation in our house for many, many months; I have not had the motivation to write a blog that was deep because we all know I like to write light and fluffy. I want to make you laugh. I am afraid this blog will not make you laugh, so make sure you read my grasshopper joke in the about me section on this blog.

The expression "Money Makes The World Go Around" is so true and those of us who do not have enough to spare feel that the world stops and hopes that it will start spinning again. Wesley has a superb job, works on average 50 to 55 hours a week. We do not have a car bill or any credit card debt, yet we are still struggling to raise and provide for the girls without giving them anything that would be considered extravagant. This is upsetting because I would like to know that all the hard work my husband puts in away from his family (he only sees Audrey on average 25 hours a week and that is a high estimate) to provide for his family we would be able to give the girls cultural experiences or take them to the movies without having to worry about how much I am going to have to cut off the food budget. It seems all the money leaves the house as quickly as it hits our bank account. I feel like my husband is working to make the gas companies richer and the people who already have their pockets lined with money overflow.

I agree with Marcie, there is a DEEP pressure to fit in and have everything that money can buy in order to have any type of "GOOD" status in society, but I feel that it runs deeper than things that we want and feel that we are pressured to have by society. I feel that society is making us pay through the nose to have things that we HAVE to have in order to live, to raise our children in a healthy and happy home. UTILITIES....we pay so much money for electric and gas. My husband is a light Nazi (love you Wes), we don't have a lot of gadgets that run on electricity...we are not a electronic family, yet our bill is absurd. It is bitterly cold here right now and I can not believe how much we have to pay to stay warm. We live in a house that does not have that great of insulation, we have done everything we can to make it more energy efficient but the outside still seems to suck out all of our heat. FOOD prices are high, milk, eggs and cheese have all gone up in price and that makes everything else rise in price in the grocery store. I am very happy that I am able to cook for my family I know that saves us a ton of money but I would actually like to walk into the store and not have to watch every penny that is going into the cart. GAS...I do not know what everyone else is paying for gas...we are paying $3.39 a gallon, we have a fuel efficient Dodge Neon that is costing a OBCENE amount of money to fill up!!! Even the phone, cable (we live in an area where rabbit ears do not work, so if you do not have cable or a dish you do not get any t.v.) and my beloved internet companies are charging as much as they can for these services because they can. It is no longer about taking care of the consumer or giving you a service that is worth the money that you pay for; it is all about making the greenbacks while breaking our backs.

Marcie also talked about the extreme credit card debt that people are in and I could not agree more she hit the nail right on the head. We pay for everything we buy outright, I mean everything. There are many people that we know that think we are obsurd for saving and then buying. I will admit I get ansy sometimes and don't want to wait but Wes puts me back on the straight and narrow and we are better for it. We are teaching the same concept to the girls, I think it is a good reality for them and then when we do buy something or they save up to buy a toy (book...Audrey) they appreciate it a whole lot more.
I love shopping (I mostly window shop) Yankee Candle Company and Ann Taylor Loft, Target you get the idea; What is the first thing out of the sales clerk's mouth? "Do you want to open up a credit account?" This is very annoying, why do you need to ruin my shopping experience. Is it not good enough that I am shopping at your store and giving you our hard earned money. No you want me to go into debt with you so I have to pay you a huge amount of interest. I now say "NO!!!" before they can even get a word in edge wise. I hope my daughters learn that from Mommy.

I guess we are Serfs, we don't work the Lords land but we sure do pay for it!!!!

Tansy Green

This is the Living Room....I wanted to paint it a color that would match the...

Kitchen

I was thinking about painting the room Rose but Wes was not too keen on that idea. I asked Andrea (thank you Andrea!!) what color she thought would look good and she found Tansy Green. Here is the Living Room in Tansy Green.....

We like it; I think it goes well with the yellow in the Kitchen.

Better yet it only took us a few hours to paint, unlike last time where I was painting for so long that Audrey started college.

I never thought that I would paint a room green but it has definitely grown on me, it reminds me of olive oil and that is a good thing.

Niagara Falls

We went to Niagara Falls (that would probably explain me standing in front of a massive waterfall) it is only 2.5 hours away from our house. It was awesome!!!!

It was cold and windy but it certainly was worth going. I am standing in front of the Canadian side of the falls. The Canadian Falls are wider but not as high as the American side of the falls. The whole time I was standing there I was wondering if Superman stood in this very spot.

The Lady of the Mist does not run in the winter but we are definitely going to go back and go into the falls. They also have expansive hiking trails many having caves. That sounds like fun.

On the Canadian side they have a Vegas Esc village...it completely reminded me of being in Vegas except for the bitter cold, the snow, O - and the MASSIVE WATERFALL. Other than that it feels just like Vegas. Right in the middle of all the shops was a big Hershey's Chocolate Store....go Canada!!!

The bridge behind us crosses over into the states and they have a boarder crossing right in the middle of the city. That is the American Falls. Can you tell Audrey is cold?

The falls in between

Canadian Falls
(One American with two CanAms)

Its a tad bit windy.

Apron Part Deux!!

For Everyone that wanted to see me wearing the "Apron" here you go...

and here is Hannah in hers...

She will grow into it!!