The Question?

Well it finally happened, Audrey asked the question that we have both been dreading; Wes was lucky enough to be at work when it happened. How are babies made? I thought I was prepared, we had discussed how we were going to explain "it" but until you are in the situation you just don't know how you are going to handle it. I had the Snoopy & Woodstock Encyclopedia that taught me everything I needed to know about where babies came from. Why do I not have that book anymore!!! Telling her that the stork brings the baby, just does not cut it. I wish I could tell her it was as simple as going to a special isle in the grocery store... "Mark we need more babies on isle 12."

I don't know if she saw the fear in my eyes but I felt like I just wanted to run and hide or throw-up. I stumbled over my words a bit and then pointed at my tummy and said that I have baby making parts and daddy has baby making parts and then a baby is made. This did not satisfy Audrey, she then asked how the daddy and mommy parts made the baby, I then responded it is like making a cake, (of course I went to food) I have some ingredients and daddy has some ingredients. I was hoping that this would be good enough for her but guess what it wasn't she wanted to know how they got mixed together. The terror took me over, I ran to the bathroom and shut the door and told her I did not feel well. Yes, I am a coward!!! Thank goodness for Hannah because the next thing I hear is you take some sugar, salt and water and mix it with a spoon and you get a baby and Audrey was like O' I understand now.

Great News

Great News!!! Season 1 of the Smurfs came out on DVD this week. This makes us all very happy:) (including Wes)!!

Another thing that has made me happy this week was a story that ABC News w/ Charlie Gibson (we watch every night) reported a story called "Do you think Mary Poppins lied?" by Robert Krulwich. It was an expose on Mary & Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, did she really say Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious correctly backwards or just made up another word to match the song?!! There was such an uproar in the public that ABC got bombarded with emails defending Mary and everything Poppins that it is now called "Poppinsgate". I seriously laughed for like an hour after hearing "Poppinsgate", Wes thought I was off my rocker...just thinking about it now makes me crack up:)

The following night they did another piece with some of the email that they had gotten from viewers things like; "Mary is practically perfect in every way" and "Shame on you for calling Mary a lier." Of course when you play it back on tape it does not sound like what she says in the movie, what she actually did was break the word into two syllable parts, and reverse the order in which they were said — except for the word super which she actually did reverse.

You may be thinking are you serious, but I especially enjoyed this piece because it made me laugh, it was sweet, and brought some joy and humor back into the news. Everything is so life and death now a days and the fact that someone thought of doing a story that really had no relevance makes me want to give ABC News two thumbs up!!

Insulation, Tigers, and Skating "O" My!!!!!

Insulation -

We have been paying through the nose for our heating (we have been averaging about $350 a month this winter), so we decided that we needed to insulate the attic to try to cut the bill. Friday night we went and picked up the insulation blower at Lowes and 20 bags of insulation. We got up the next morning at 7:45 which was quite early considering that Wes worked until midnight. Our neighbor Danielle who lives in the other part of the duplex came over to work with Wes and our friend Paul, they got all the prep work done and figured how much insulation we were actually going to need. We ended up needing more so I went back to Lowes to get 5 more bags and donuts...how can you work without donuts. I returned home and the stupid blower had only worked for 40 seconds and then broke. Good thing I got the donuts because no one was happy. So Wes, Paul and Danielle spent the next 45 minutes trying to fix the machine. We ended up having to take back the blower to get another one which tracked insulation through out the whole house, you can only imagine how thrilled I was. That little jaunt took an hour, I was not at all happy but because of our inconvenience we ended up getting the blower rental for free. Once we got it up and going insulating went really fast. They were done in about an hour. It took me 2.5 hours to vacuum the whole house and get rid of the insulation. If I only had a Dyson. I am still finding stray pieces of insulation, the stuff just materializes out of thin air talk about dust bunnies:)

We can really feel the difference. I was actually warm last night and did not have to bundle up like an Eskimo. Well worth the time and aggravation. We are now working on our next project painting the kitchen, stairs and hallway.

The Attic

The insulation; really cool stuff it is recycled paper not fiberglass

Can you see Wesley?

This is what Wes would look like if he was a Raccoon.

Tigers -

We went to the zoo while the girls were on winter break, it was amazing we actually had a day where the sun was out and you did not feel like you were going to get automatic frostbite. Winter is the best time of year to see the animals at the Syracuse Zoo, they were all up and active. I finally got to see the Wolves, we have been to the zoo probably 6 times and have never been able to see them. It was really cool. While we were looking at the Lions a woman in her mid 60's came and started telling us about them, she just happened to have worked at the zoo for 30 years and knew EVERYTHING about all the animals. It was one of the most awesome zoo experiences I have ever had. We saw about 5 different animals with her and we learned so much. I wish we could have taken her through the whole zoo.

Look a Tiger taking a nap!!

Look a picture of the girls with the Tiger that is taking a nap!!

We all got to pet the Elsie the Elephant.

This Wolfe is gorgeous.

Skating -

Welch Allyn the company Wes works for had a skating party and we decided to take the girls. I don't think we really thought this through considering I am the only one who knows how to skate and Wes hates it. Try to picture me skating with Audrey, lets just say coordination is not her thing and she is almost as big as me...we must of looked very funny. To both our credit we did not fall and Audrey did pretty well considering this is only her second time skating. It is so weird not to have the girls already expert skaters, ice skating is one of my earliest memories and fondest activites. Hannah was a bit easier but still by the time I had made it around the rink with her I was beat. Wes did not even put on his skates, we ended up leaving and going for ice cream.

Our nieces 10th birthday party is in two weeks and she is having an ice skating party and I have NO IDEA how we are going to pull that off..."O" My!!!!

Why Yau-Man?

I LOVE Survivor, have been a fan since the beginning. I can not believe that Yau-Man, one of the smartest, most decent, kind hearted players was voted off tonight. Very upsetting. Maybe he will go on the Amazing Race (which would make me even happier) and win.

Family Pictures

The Weekend

We went to Albany this weekend to see my new baby nephew. It was so nice being around a baby. He was so itty bitty.

Wesley's sister Barb and Aiden (We have the same b-day)

It was quite a busy weekend, we exchanged Christmas gifts with family that we did not get to see at Christmas. We (I should say I...but it was a joint gift) got a beautiful picnic basket full of gourmet food. Love it!!!! We also celebrated birthday's at the same time (Wes's , Sarah's and mine) I brought a cake and we opened b-day gifts. It was very nice just to get everything done in one fowl swoop.

After we left Dale and Sarah's house we went to Harlan & Lauren's house (Harlan is Wes's brother for those of you who do not know) they just bought a Nintendo Wii and let me tell you that thing is way interactive. We got a very good workout playing golf, tennis and bowling. We would never spend that much money on a game system but it gets lots of points for creativity and being different than all the other game systems out.

We spent the night at their house and we all went and saw Barb's family. We than went and got family pictures done. They closed all the Picture People studios in Syracuse so we decided to kill two birds with one stone and got the spring pictures done.

The Luv Seat!!!

We got the loveseat that matches our couch today. I am so happy!!! We also finally got the window treatments and an area rug. I like everything, I think it goes well together. I am going to go and buy throw pillows this week.

On a differnt note this is the electric kettle that Wes got me for Valentines. It boils water in under 2 minutes, has a built in filter and is stainless steal. I love it. He also got me a large box of truffles. He is such a wonderful husband:)

The Valentines Day Hair Massacre

On the list of things to do on Valentines was getting Wes a haircut. The barber shoppe that we usually go to is on the other side of the city were we used to live, Wes has had the best haircuts of his life there, there are about 12 men who are masters at haircutting and do it while watching and talking sports. I thought perhaps all New York barber shoppes were going to be the same way. We decided to go to a barber shoppe closer to the house because we had other appointments and limited time. If I only knew then what I know now.

So here is the set up; there are a bunch of shops and restaurants in this mini mall but it looks nice (from the outside) and gives the appearance as though credible establishments are being run. I guess the saying looks aren't everything really comes into play in this situation. It gave us both a false sense of security.

Wes opens the door and the first thing I saw was a man who reminded me of Igor (Dr. Frankensteins assistant) my first instinct was to turn around and go back to the car. I am not usually weirded out by appearances but this guy scared the jeepers out of me from the get-go. He could barely see, his eyes were squinty but big at the same time and he was hunched over all dressed in black standing on great big tuffs of grey and white hair. The shoppe was in total disarray and made the whole situation even scarier.

Wes walks towards him and the guy (we will call him Igor) turns around and starts fumbling around on the counter behind him and finally finds his glasses. I think he wears the glasses for appearance sake because they did not improve his sight. Wes then tells him what kind of haircut he wants and the guy could not hear him, he shouted at Wes and said "you want a shave" and Wes was "no I want a fade." Wes further explained, a fade with a #2 and trimmed on the top. You would of thought by this time we would of started to run for the car but we did not want to be rude. The guy did not know what a fade was, he said it was just a fancy word and preceded to take out an electric razor that could of just done it's last haircuts on a bunch of cats because it looked like it was in really bad shape. By this time Wes starts looking tense and I have terror all over my face. Igor (important note Igor is mumbling to himself the whole time, you can't understand a word he is saying) starts shaving and about 30 seconds later the clippers ceased and desisted...they croaked. We should of taken this as a sign..run, get out of here, but alas we did not heed the warning. Igor got out another razor and they did not look any better than the first set and about 3 minutes later Wes looked like he was wearing a bowl, or joining a monastery. I can only imagine the look on my face but it didn't matter because Igor could not see me anyway, I was wondering how much more Wes was going to take before making a mad dash.

I came to find out later that Wes was trying to come up with a polite excuse for us to leave like...

- we need to go pick up our girls
- I think I left the stove on
- we forgot our money
and my personal favorite..."Did your water just break, I need to leave my wife is going into labor!!"

Wes has thick hair especially on top and because of that he has many childhood haircut traumas (you all know what I am talking about) from people trying to thin his hair..this is one of Wes's top horrors. All of a sudden I hear Igor say "your hair is too thick" and gets the scissors and starts HACKING at Wes's hair, it looked like somebody put a woodchuck in a leaf blower and all of its fur landed on Wesley's face. This was the straw that broke the camels back, all of a sudden Wesley stands up (your probably saying all of a sudden...I would of been out of their 10 minutes ago) and tells Igor that he has to leave and for me to pay him. Wes ran out of the building. I tell Igor we are sorry but we must go and I give him $10. Igor starts swearing and saying he does not understand and that he had not even started the haircut yet, I made an inaudible sound and hurried out of there.
So we are in the parking lot, traumatized and Wes is trying to brush all the hair off of him and puts on his winter hat (this is the only day in weeks that we have the sun out and the bird is chirping, it was so sad) so that people don't point and laugh. I felt so bad for him, my Valentine got his hair massacred!!!

Guess what we did next, we picked the girls up from school and went to the FABULOUS barber shoppe on the other side of town. I wish I could describe in words what Anthony's (the barber) face looked like when he saw Wes's hair...it was priceless. He knows we will never stray again, and he is right. I am so happy that it got fixed and better than that looks great because we have family pictures on Monday.

My Husband Says The Sweetest Things!!!

Wesley's Valentine message to me this morning was;

iguana love you forever...

I am going to iguana love him forever too!!!

(and I am not talking about Eeyore either, plus if I remember right that was a girl in the costume.)

This is our 9th Valentines together, I can not believe how fast the time has flown by. I could not imagine celebrating this day or any other for that fact without my Rabbit. I love him with all my heart!!

Does this hat make me look like a pirate?

After my last post I needed something to make me laugh...I hope my husband will not hold it against me:)
This picture was taken at Disney World. Now lets all take a minute and think of Captain Jack!! O.K minute over...arrr, the good times.

Grandma is doing well and is in recovery. I have her phone # to her room if anyone wants it.

Remembering My Friend

A year ago today one of my best friends was murdered at Trolley Square. I just want her to know that I am thinking of her and love her dearly. I look forward to the day when we can joke around together again. We teased each other so much, I miss that. So here is to Teresa, Love You!!!

Hold The Presses The Animals Have Clothes!!

Can anyone guess what we did today? We went to Build A Bear.

Magical Fluffy & Katie Bella are now clad in designer clothes, they are even wearing undergarments. The girls picked out the clothes all on their own and I think they did a very good job coordinating the outfits.

Are you asking yourself are those purses? Why yes they are. What self respecting animal would not complete these looks without a stylish purse.

Speaking of purses look what I got for my Birthday from Wesley!!!

It is Vera Bradley and it matches my apron that I got for Christmas. Amore!!!

My Sweet Life...

In response to Andrea's Suite Life blog these are things that I would demand if I were to let my inner diva out.

Truffles & pastries from the best chocolatiers/patisseries every night promptly at 5:00 so I could have a couple before dinner and the rest after dessert. The menu would have to be revised everyday so that I would have the freshest foods offered to me and to cater to my tastes for that day.
I would always have a masseuse on call and I would receive my massages in front of my glorious view of the city. Fresh lilies and 800 count sheets.

That would be sweet!!!

Well I am now going to go make this fabulous chocolate tart from the cookbook that Andrea & Andy gave me for my birthday, I will make sure that I eat a slice while looking out at the view of my backyard (it just snowed) and have Wes give me a back rub. See I can have the "Sweet Life"!!!

Mommy You Can Stop Now...

Every night the girls and I sit down at the kitchen table and have dinner and talk about what happened at school. Audrey tells me that there is this boy (Jack) in her class who has started saying mean things to her at school, of course this automatically gets me worried. I asked her what this boy was saying to her, she told me that he has been calling her names and laughing at her. He even tried to trip her. Audrey is so confused because he is really nice to her and then he makes fun of her. I thought about it for a minute and then the light bulb went off...this is how I started to explain it to Audrey. Boys are weird...they do and say weird stuff when they "like" a girl. Boys sometimes will make fun of you to get your attention, they don't understand that this confuses us and we don't like being made fun of.
Audrey stared at me for a minute and started to turn red and the next thing out of her mouth was "Mommy you can stop now, I understand." I am so not ready for boys!!!!
I just read Wes the blog over the phone (he is at work) and he said this boy is way to young to be submitting an application to date his daughter. We are so not ready!!!!!

I had promised the girls that we would go and see Hannah Montana in 3D if their report cards were good (of course they were good) I knew that the tickets were going to sell out, so I went to buy them in advance and low and behold...Disney doubled the price of a movie ticket to $15.00. That is $45 for me (no Wes) just to go with the girls to a movie in the movie theater, RIDICULOUS!!! Wes and I refuse to pay that much when all Disney is doing is capitalizing on her fame and making us pay threw the nose, and I bet in a couple of months it will be released on DVD, Shameful!! I asked the girls if we could go to Build a Bear instead, they jumped at this because I have a no Build a Bear policy because of how expensive they are, they forgot about Hannah Montana. I bought two animals (no clothes) it was cheaper then seeing Hannah Montana and they get to keep Katie Bella and Magical Fluffy for a long long time.

Audrey's is the Kola Bear; Katie Bella and Hannah's is Magical Fluffy, she named her all by herself:) Next week we are going to go back to Build a Bear and buy them outfits with their allowance money. That should be fun.

Megan

I just wanted to tell Megan how wonderful I think she is. My blog is beautiful because she makes my headers and I LOVE them!!! She got me blogging and now it has caught on like wild fire and I think it is awesome!!!

Megan I think you are wonderful and I love you more than chocolate:)