Misses and Makeups!

So, I am going to jump backwards a little bit and talk about our failed DC adventure. To put it mildly, it wasn't at all what I had hoped for! The entire trip was a suprise to Doodle. And that is the only part that actually did work out! Here is a video of her when she realized that Bubbie was at the hotel! (I can't figure out how to put the video directly in here, so I had to use a youtube link)

I can't even remember what night we arrived at the hotel, because we only stayed one night! Stupid Super Storm Sandy ruined our plans! We did manage to have dinner with my cousin Jodi and it was worth the trip just to see her and have her meet my girls! Here are a few pictures from our one night stand in DC!

We arrived home from DC safe, sound, and sorely disappointed. I perked up and celebrated Halloween, but all the while sad for our missed adventure to DC and the trip to VA that was supposed to follow. To make matters even more somber, My Favoritest was studying for his pediatric cardiology boards. Otherwise known as his "we paid a bazillion dollars for you to take this test and it is only offered one day every TWO years and you really need to pass so we have a job and it is causing unbelievable stress in our house boards". So after much discussion (about a 5 minute conversation) Sisterwife and I decided the only prudent thing to do was evacuate the premisis so My Favoritest could study.

When traveling with an infant, time revolves around feeding and sleeping. Anything else falls by the wayside. Because of SJ's schedule I knew we would be arriving in VA a little to early to head to Sisterwife's house (she had some previous plans). Since we were going to have a little time to kill, I sent a text message to my friend Julie and we sort of invited ourselves to her house for a quick visit. Julie was Doodle's teacher when she was two, and we both fell in love with her! If you want to know why read this. Julie and I developed a friendship that has grown as challenges have crept up for us both. When I sat in the hospital on mag and movers at my house, Julie came and kept me company. When she has been dealing with issues with her kids, I hope I have been a supportive ear. Julie has a beautiful home with a million billion dollar view. She lives down a road at the top of Afton Mountain. I often drove past the road and thought you'd have to be carzy to live down that road! Or have an awesome piece of property with a view of the Blue Ridge Mountains that will make you look out your window each day and know that God exists! It is that beautiful! Anyway, I digress. We stopped for a visit with Julie and her family. She has twins (Cole and Maddie), who Doodle thinks are the coolest kids in the world. Lucky for Doodle, they think she is pretty cool too. Lucky for me that they are super sweet, generous, and responsible kids who took Doodle out to chase chickens and play on the swing set so Julie and I could visit. It was a great start to our trip and my only regret is that we forgot to take a picture of the kids!

We spent a lovely few days in VA. Upon our arrival, Trouble started running a fever. For some folks this might put a damper on the visit, but not us. All it did was force us to slow down and stay home! Jayburb and Doodle had the best time playing. They did nothing but play for 2 whole days! Doodle went with Sisterwife and Jayburb to vote. She may or may not have voted against her Zayde's ticket, but she had a very nice civics lesson and will make sure you know not to ask who people voted for! Anyway, long story short, we had a great visit and took home lots of memories and Trouble's bug that we still haven't gotten rid of!

Posted with Blogsy

I'm Still Waiting!!!

"I'm still waiting!" is the sentiment I have heard from my new friend New Sarah no less than 4 times regarding this post! You see, a few days before Stupid Sandy, and Halloween, and Make-up Halloween, we met up with New Sarah and her girls Boo and Bear at the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh for their Halloween party. Boo goes to Izzy's school and is a year older than Doodle. Bear is about 6ish months older than SJ (who is still awaiting a proper nickname). Doodle was super excited to meet her friend at the museum and even more excited that she got to wear her costume! Long story short, the girls had a great time, SJ was at the end of her hot mess phase and was a hot mess. My Favoritest got there late (as usual). Everyone left happy but exhausted. Not bad for a Friday night out!



Clearly Doodle wasn't the only one who was excited to be there!!!!

Hopefully by the time she is really ready to drive Doodle will learn to keep her eyes on the road! Or at least face the road and pretend that she is paying attention!

A little see-saw fun with Daddy!

Now because both Doodle and Boo were so excited about their night time Halloween playdate, I rarely managed to get a pictures of their faces. Good thing they have such cute tushies! Here is a picture of each of them playing on one of the Tough Art exhibits. It is a giant basket of giant yarn that is meant to resemble a place for cats to play! The girls had lots of fun flinging themselves onto the yarn balls!

And because they were just too cute when we were leaving.....

Posted with Blogsy

The Week My Favoritest Left- Part One

About a month ago (I have been a little sporatic in my postings) My Favoritest had to go out of town for an entire week. Normally, I am okay with staying alone. don't get me wrong, I don't like it. I will admit that I am scared of the dark, things that go bump in the night, and I am pretty sure that anything I have ever seen on Criminal Minds will happen when I am alone in my house. All that being said, I usually can handle it. But, this go round I started to panic. I was terrified of being alone. It had very little to do with single parenting for a week, I mean I do that most days anyway. It had more to do with the irrational fear that something bad would happen and I would have no one to help me or take care of the girls.

In an effort to not have to be alone, I sent a sad and pathetic text to my friend Beverly. She loves to travel and is always up for an adventure. We texted back and forth swapping scheduling details and she said she would talk with her husband and get back to me. A couple of days later she called me and said she was coming for a few days! My heart soared from the relief and then I started planning all the fun we could have!

And fun is exactly what we had. SJ wasn't a total hot mess and we explored the city like we were both tourists!

We started the week off by enjoying a dinner without the girls. My Favoritest hadn't left yet so after I picked Beverly up from the airport we headed out to window shop and eat a nice dinner. It was heavenly! The next morning we dropped Doodle off at school, where we left her until 4:00. Have I mentioned that I love the existance of extended day! After leaving school we headed into the city to take river boat cruise. The weather was gorgeous and the boat ride was great. I took a ton of pictures and I am now going to bore you with a handful of my favorites!

Beverly, SJ, and I getting ready to sail away on the Monongahela River, or maybe the Allegany River, or the Ohio River. At some point we sailed on all three of them, but I don't know what it was when we started our trip!

Given the 3 rivers I just mentioned, there are a ton of bridged in Pitty. The river cruise was a great way to see them up close. They are all different colors and shapes. They are really pretty and when you go under them in a boat have a nice echo acoustic!

This sunburst is on one of my favorite pictures from the day. I love the sun, clouds, and metal all in the same shot!

The other intersting thing Beverly and I noticed was a church steeple on the top of Mt. Washington. It was visible from so many angles and I had fun taking shots of the same thing from different perspectives.

The next day we packed both girls up and headed to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Not anywhere near as cool as the Field Museum but lots to see and look at and even a few things for Doodle to "do".

Doodle "listening" to the information about digging for dinosaur bones.

My furture archeologist digging for dinosaur bones, before the museum docents told her that she had to wear the protective goggles if she wanted to dig.

And my Doodle after she put her goggles back on. I am in LOVE with this picture. It is truly my favorite in a long time!

We took this picture just for Zayde. When he was in college Zayde had a bob cat (creatively named Cat) as a pet.

After we left the museum we had a lovely lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe and then headed to the Duquene Incline. The inclines were used back in the day to get people from the city to Mt. Washington.

I took the picture of the Incline the day before from the river.

View of the city from the top of Mt. Washington

And while this isn't anything super interesting, I love this picture. It's a shot of a fence along the sidewalk at the top of Mt. Washington. I like it so much I am toying with the idea of having it printed on a canvas and hanging it in my living room. Whatcha think?

Posted with Blogsy

FOURteenth of July

Apparently Sisterwife and Landlord are faithful readers of this blog.  It appears they noticed my sadness at our lack of 4th of July celebrations.  In my mind, the 4th festivities were always going to be our last hurrah with our friends.  It was a way to get together without focusing on our impending move.  So, while they were visiting plotting to steal Sadie at the hospital, Sisterwife and Landlord informed me we were cooking out over the weekend.  It was a perfect evening.  The kids were wild, the food was good, there was rain so we didn't stay outside and the boys drank beer.  Before the evening was over, I remembered to get a picture taken of the 3 of us.  I have to give a shout out to Sisterwife's husband (does that make him my brother husband?).  He was smart enough to realize that 5 days post-partum I would not appreciate a full body photo.  

July 14 (360/365)

I will not get mushy, but you girls know my true feelings for you!  You have made Virginia my home and you have been my family away from family.  Love you both!

Water Fight

Back in the winter, I posted  a link to the funnies snow ball fight ever.  It was in this post about Doodle in the snow and her snowball fight with Jayburb.  The season's may have changed, but these two are still up to some silly antics!  We spent a lovely afternoon at Sisterwife's house celebrating Butterbean's first birthday.  He is one and his favorite thing right now is to be in the water!  So baby pool party it was!  The bigger kids had fun with water gallons, and splashing around.  Jayburb had fun having a water fight with Doodle.  I didn't have my phone, so these are all still shots, but I will try to caption them with the conversation that took place between these two!




J: Come here Doodle, I want to get you with this water
D:  Whatever!

June 9 (324/365) 

J: I am getting you (but this bucket is a little cumbersome and I am going to be very slow about it)

D: Jay-burb!

Add caption

 J:  There you go, a little water never hurt anyone
D: Giggling fit

 J: Just a little more and I will have 1/4 of your body soaking wet!
D: That's enough Jayburb

 J: Wait, be still, I am almost finished
D: That is enough!

 J: All done, but don't move, I am getting more water and will be right back
D: Okay!

And I think that went on for about 3 more bucketfuls.  They cracked me up!  Never once did Doodle think about getting the bucket and dumping it on Jayburb:)

Kate, Little Hayden, and That Girl

When I left for college my parents encouraged me to go through the sorority rush process.  I was not a sorority girl, and although I joined one, I never fit the mold.  I made wonderful friends from those days. One of the best side benefits of the whole rush thing was meeting my friend Kate.  We ended up in the same rush group and lived in the same dorm our freshman year.  That week of bonding before the rush of freshman year lead to a friendship that has lasted over 15 years.  She has lived far and wide over the country following her former soldier from post to post, but we have managed to stay in touch.  Moving to VA brought me closer to her in NJ, but not close enough.  Fortunately for both of us, her in-laws live in Richmond and this has afforded us a couple of quick visits.   Kate and her two kids made a visit earlier this month.  Before they came, I was telling Doodle about who was coming to see us.  She had no trouble remembering Kate's name because it is her middle name.  Hayden was a little confusing because she has a Haden in her class.  She decided to call him Little Hayden.  And then she pretty much ignored Kate's daughter.  They stayed with us for 2 nights and for 2/3s of the visit Doodle referred to her as "That Girl".  She was having fun with "That Girl" and didn't want her to go, but refused to call her by her name.  It became almost comical.  At one point "That Girl" told Doodle that her name was puppy.  You can imagine how well that went over!  Finally, the last day that they were here, Doodle started calling "That Girl" by her name, Elizabeth.  Here are a few pictures of our visit together:)

Somehow Hayden managed to make a pink sippy cup look manly!

June 6 (321/365)
Late night (past 7:30) popcorn party for Doodle and That Girl:) 

Even with 3 years age difference the girls had a great time!

June 7 (322/365)
The best shot I got of all three of them.  You can't tell, but Doodle had to have her hair done just like "That Girl's" hair.

Sadly for us, it was way to quick of a visit.  Even sadder is that The Pitty isn't much closer to NJ than here.  But, we will be making a trip that way!  While we were sad to see the gang go, Kate did leave us with plenty of reminders of "That Girl"... an entire bin of clothes for Doodle (and later Sadie) to grow into!  Also, please note Doodle's pigtails done just like Elizabeth's:)  

June 8 (323/365)

With A Burp and A Giglle

When we moved to VA, Landlords' Youngest was only a few weeks old.  It is hard to believe that we helped to celebrate her 3rd birthday a couple of weeks ago!  The event turned into an all girls affair and they sure did have a good time.  When I took this picture, it was right before that table full of sweet femininity mysteriously turned into a bunch of burping banshees!  You read that right.  All of the sudden we hear a fake burp and 4 small giggles.  Followed by another fake burp and even louder giggles.  By the time they finished their dinner it was all burps and giggles.  I just sat there amazed at how entertained they were by their fake gassiness:)  

June 2 (317/365)

 After dinner the girls all decided to claim a grown up chair because all the adults were talking and standing behind the chairs.  We quietly moved the adults out of the way to try and get a picture of the four of them smiling, looking at the camera, and sitting shall we say "lady like".  As Landlord is fond of saying, it was like herding cats!  But here is the best shot we got!

Funboy

I've been posting a lot about my friends lately.  Not sure why, but I am going with it.  I am a lucky girl to have the circle of friends that I do!  Among those friends, is Funboy (he picked his own blog name:).  He is my best friend from high school. My earliest memories of him are centered around the fact that I thought he was a total and complete jerk.  I can't count the number of lunches I spent with Funboy pestering the ever living crap out of me.  One day, I had enough and snapped at him.  From then on out, he stopped pestering me.  Much later he told me that he was just seeing how far he could push me.


In the 17 years since we became friends, he has almost totally erased that memory of a complete jerk.  We have seen each other through many ups and downs.  He was my rent-a-date all through college.  He kept me safe and held my hair on nights I had too much.  He called me when giant imaginary cheeseburgers were chasing him.  I called him after my first date with My Favoritest to tell him what a bad date I was!  I bought him a drink before he walked down the aisle (sorry KAD).  He did a reading at my wedding and is still bitter I didn't let him be a bridesmaid.  I have had the joy of watching his daughter and now his son grow up and make him an even better person.  He's tried to set my backyard on fire.  He was one of the first friends to come visit Doodle when we got home from the hospital.  In short, we have been a constant in each other's lives for 17 years.


There's that famous movie line about men and women being friends.  We have definitely proved that saying wrong.  I am convinced that the reason our friendship has endured this long is that Funboy's wife (KAD) and I have become good friends, and My Favoritest and Funboy get along well when they get the chance to spend time together.  We can spend time together as families.


Recently Funboy upgraded to and iPhone and I get lots of texts and pics of the kids from him.  He refuses to join FB (and I don't really understand google+), so this has been his way of staying in touch.  Anyway, a couple of weeks ago my phone rang and it was him.  Only he didn't realize he had called.  I sent him a text telling him he butt-dialed me.  And this is what I got back in return....

May 28 (312/365)

So, I didn't take the picture, but I am using it.  Mostly because his friendship is a story I wanted to share:)  Love ya Funboy!

Memory Weekend

At about 4:00 on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, my Favoritest called from work asking if I wanted to bring Doodle and meet him downtown for Friday's After Five.  The city has a free concert every Friday from late spring to early fall.  We always talk about going, but it just never works out.  My Favoritest also complains that I am never excited about going to hear live bands (something he really enjoys).  It's not that I don't enjoy it, I just sometimes get wrapped up in the "getting there" part that becomes my responsibility.  That is my reaction on any given day.  Now add to that at the time of the phone call I was 33 weeks pregnant and it was almost 90 degrees outside, you can imagine my initial reaction.  
After I told him no and hung up the phone, I started to have Wife Guilt.  Equal to Mommy Guilt because you know you are hurting someone you love with your decision (even if it isn't important in the grand scheme of things). Even worse than Mommy Guilt because the other person can really rub the guilt in:)  So I picked up the phone, called him back and told him we would pick him up in 45 minutes. I woke Doodle up and we headed to town.  I have to admit, even though it was hot I am so glad we went.  We had a relaxing evening as a family.  Doodle enjoyed the music and the chance to dance.  She had a blast riding on her daddy's back.  All in all, a great start to a great weekend.

May 25 (309/365)

Memorial Day weekend is also opening weekend at our local pool.  This is monumental on several fronts.  First of all, you can almost see the pool from our house and we definitely see it every time we take a walk or drive out of the neighborhood.  Second, the shower coming on ( mushroom shaped spray thing) has been a major milestone in our timeline for Sadie's arrival.  Doodle was thrilled to get to go the pool.  Trying to give My Favoritest some time to get some work done, I took her on my own for a picnic dinner.  It was a bit chilly, but she had a great time at our first pool picnic of the summer:)

May 26 (310/365)

We spent Sunday afternoon at Landlord's house with the neighborhood gang.  We laughed a lot! Beer was had by some.  And there was lots of good food!  When I got home I think I posted on FB that hanging out with my friends makes me equally happy and sad these days.  I try not to be Debbie Downer, but can't help but be a little sad that I know it is all coming to and end.  We have great friends in our neighborhood and I can't help but be a little sad about leaving them.  Speaking of great friends, here is a pic of our neighbor who always knows how to bring the good times!  I will admit, I was a little disappointed upon his arrival because his wife told me he was bringing beer in a wheelbarrow.  I guess the wagon was just a good:)

May 27 (311/365)

And here is a picture of Doodle doing her favorite thing to do in Landlord's yard.... climb the tree.