O-O-O-O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A!

We took a spur of the moment, last minute trip to Oklahoma at the beginning of April. I found tickets on Priceline through the "Name Your Own Price" thing that they have...super cheap. Loved it. Had a great time being with my mom and stepdad. Also got a special treat of seeing our dear friend Mary (Balla) Adkisson and her family, Justin and sweet little Bella. And I got to see my beautiful new niece, Ava Grace Boston. When the plane was landing in the Tulsa airport, I sang the Oklahoma state song to Abby who immediately loved it. Now at random times she will ask me to break into song and sing it to her.

My Abby and My Ben

I'm at work right now so no pictures. But I took a few good ones lately so I'll post those tomorrow. I have been so blessedly content hanging out with my kids lately. I love being with them. I also love going to work because my love jar gets all filled up again and I can't wait to see them when I get home. I usually work 3-midnight on Mon/Wed/Fri so I always sneak into their room and watch them sleep before I head to bed myself. Ben is 9 months old today and growing so fast. And sometimes it's hard for me to remember Abby at that age. I just take as many mental snapshots as possible to remember these oh so precious moments. Here's a few outtakes of each of them:
ABBY:
1. Obsessed with bandaids. She imagines boo-boos many times a day and begs for a bandaid. We've gone through the Diego box and we're halfway through the Hello Kitty box. That is, of course, after she found them in the bathroom closet when Mommy didn't hide them way up high. If you put just one on her finger, she is content for the rest of the day. But most days, if it ain't bleeding, then no bandaid.
2. Has consistently been begging for a guitar. Beats me where she came up with this idea. But at least 3x a week, she asks for a guitar for her birthday.
3. Doing 100 piece puzzles that are for 5 year olds. Since she was little, she was amazing with puzzles. She LOVES them. We buy lots of puzzles. Lately, we're doing the Fancy Nancy 100 piece puzzle and the Hello Kitty 100 piece puzzle. (Her momma loves puzzles too...I love this about her).
4. Not liking jeans lately. They are "too hard on my legs....I want soft pants!"
5. Dresses herself from head to toe every day. I pick out the clothes...she puts it all on including socks and shoes.
6. Loves to be rocked at night. Since Ben's room has the rocking chair, I just sit on the side of her bed and rock her. Sometimes I have that brief thought of the laundry and dishes calling my name. But I know that one day, she won't be asking for me to rock her anymore...so I very gladly do it every time she asks. And her favorite songs? The ABC's (seriously...her all-time favorite) and "Hush Little Baby". I had to look up the lyrics to Hush Little Baby....we're all good now.
7. Loves to do the "Hidden Pictures" in the Highlights magazines. She gets the High Five Highlights subscription for preschoolers (highly recommend). They entertain her over and over.
8. Has been "movin' and groovin'" a lot lately. Out of nowhere, she'll say, "Look at me...I'm movin' and groovin'!" Then she dance a little jig for us. Usually to a good ol' country song. That's my girl!

BEN:
1. Working on the 6th tooth right now. Lots of chewing on anything in sight. Lots of drooling.
2. Loves to chase after Momma's trash pile when sweeping the floor. What a funny moment the other day to be sweeping (3rd time that day) the floor of all the goldfish and Cheerios after snacktime. He's doing his fast army crawl...making a beeline for my pile. I'm like, "Oh! Oh! No-no Ben!" and sweeping as fast as I can while moving the pile away from him as fast as I can. I had to hustle.
3. Blinks his eyes when he's eating something yummy. Hard to explain but if something is good, he looks at you and does a long blink with a big toothy smile. Very cute.
4. Crawls over first thing every morning to the sliding glass door into our playroom and licks the window until we let him in there. Right now, the ABC foam mat has been a tasty chew toy for him.
5. Says, "Dada" and "Mama". I think he knows what he's saying. Sometimes we hear a "Baba" for Abby.
6. Worships the holy ground his big sister walks on. They are starting to play together so well. I love that they can be in the playroom and I can hear Abby talking to him while he's giggling. I'll peek in and see them playing with a ball or the blocks. She doesn't get too happy when the puzzle pieces get drooled on though.
7. Is all boy. This kid doesn't stop moving, squirming, exploring. Changing his diaper or putting clothes on him is seriously like wrestling a rhino. I broke a sweat on Sunday morning trying to get him dressed. The changing pad...too small of space... so we get on the floor. And the adventure begins. Rolling, flipping, twisting, kicking, crawling...and that's just getting the onesie on. Like I said...all boy.
8. Loves to cuddle with his daddy and momma. That moment after a bottle when I'm rocking him before putting him down to sleep...and he puts his head on my shoulder....I melt into a million little happy pieces.
Pictures tomorrow!

Our Day at the Peabody Museum

Abby learned about dinosaurs in February at preschool. So we decided on a cold Saturday to go check out the Peabody Museum in New Haven. Pretty interesting stuff. Although I was a little perturbed that the whole basis of everything was evolution. I felt like it was everywhere....seriously, you're obviously smart enough to put together a dinosaur and you believe in evolution?!? Other than that, it was a fun and educational day.

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures

Cheerio?!? What Cheerio?!?



A very excited Miss Abigail on Valentine's Day. She definitely loved this holiday. This is right after preschool the day they had their v-day party. She was thrilled to go through all of her goodies.


This is a very typical day of play with Abby. She is all about building stuff with her blocks and then having anything with wheels drive all around it. I secretly love it that she's a tomboy. But then I also love the girly moments too. :)


I found these adorable Mommy & Me apron sets in the Target $1 Spot around Valentine's Day. So now when Abby is my helper in the kitchen, it's a must that we put on our matching sets.

Ben's Monthly Birthday Pictures

Ooh...need to catch up. So here's January, February, and March for our sweet Ben. The kid has turned into a determined fish/belly crawling soldier the past couple of weeks. Last Sunday, he decided to give his mama a scare with a 104.3 fever. And I don't get scared! He was teething he two front teeth and having a ton of snot pour of his nose. Then Sunday came the fever and off to the doctor's office we went to find out he had a left ear infection. So for about the next 3 days, we did a good routine of motrin and his antibiotic. He's much better now.....two front teeth are here (yeah!) and the snot and fever are gone. He's a Cheerio-eating fool and loves sitting on the floor and playing with his sissy. I love this age.

Our Seven Year Itch

On Monday, Jason and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary. I do believe I love this man a whole lot more than when I married him. He's not perfect...but he is perfect for me. We've had us some good times and had us a few of the bad times (hello...3 miscarriages). He asked me what I wanted to do to celebrate. My answer was: "I want to go away somewhere so that I can sleep as long as I want to in the morning without my kids waking me up at 5:45 a.m." So we booked a room at this quaint 1700's bed and breakfast in Old Saybrook, CT. We could only go on Wednesday due to some work meetings Jason had already planned. Plus they had a March special...only $100/night (usually $200+) during the week.
The bed and breakfast was great. Each room had it's own fireplace which I loved. We checked in and looked online (tripadvisor.com) for a local restaurant. One place had all 5 star recommendations. This little whole in the wall Italian restaurant called Tiberios. When we got there, we both were like-'there is no way we're eating here'. It doesn't do much for the eye from the outside. So we drove a bit more and finally decided to give Tiberios a whirl. To say this was The.Best.Italian.Food.I.Have.Ever.Eaten. would be an understatement. Seriously...it was "better than sex" food. Once you walked inside, it was a beautiful experience. The waiter was fabulous, the meals were unprounouncable (unless you know Italian)...awesome. Totally recommend it to anyone within driving distance. They had this sun-dried tomato pesto to spread on your bread. I gobbled way too much of that up. I also got the tortellini soup (awesome), Jason got the tomato soup (awesome), and then I had the shrimp ravioli (oh my heavens good) and Jason had the blackened fish special (very very good). Can you tell it made an impression on us?!?
Then we rolled ourselves out of there and went to see a movie. We don't need much to make us happy. We saw "He's Just Not That Into You". I thought it was super cute (who doesn't love a flick with Ben Affleck and Jennifer Aniston in it?) but Jason wasn't overly impressed. Then I'm done giving details for the night.
The next morning....I woke up at 5:45 a.m.! That stupid internal alarm clock. Of course Jason slept and snored his way to 8 a.m. I just got up and surfed the web in a bad mood. We had breakfast downstairs with a very nice couple who were there to go antiquing. Kudos to the man for antiquing with his wife on weekends. The minute they left, Jason gave me the "don't ever expect me to do that with you" speech. Please...like I don't know that already. I wasn't overly impressed with breakfast. I kept expecting the hot food to come out after we had our fruit dish, Irish soda bread, and a muffin. But the only hot food that ever appeared were hard-boiled eggs. So not impressed. I think they only do hot breakfasts on the weekends when they're busy. Then it was time for our massages. I had booked us each a 30 minute massage in our room. Our masseuse was a guy named Al. I was a little nervous about that. But he was nice (and straight). Kinda a talker though. It was quite nice. I felt a little dazed and confused afterwards.
Anywhoo...so it was raining and neither of us felt like window-shopping (I'm moving soon...it's just another item to pack). He didn't want to go test drive a Honda Odyssey with me (whatever), so we just drove for a bit and then stopped for lunch at Lenny & Jack's Fish Tale. We just got a very light lunch cause we were still rolling from dinner. Then we were off to pick up the kids. Overall, very relaxing and fun to hang out with the hubby for 24 hours.

Our Housing Drama (with a Funny Story)

Be prepared. There is a funny story at the end of all this.
Here's the background (long story short): Jason and I sold our house here in CT in Sept. 2007...right before housing prices started dropping. Loved our house but didn't like the schools there and didn't like the busy area...way too many motorcycles and honking horns.
My dear hubby said we were going to rent for a year(ish) to wait until prices dropped further and go from there. So we found our nice quiet house on 11 Ann Avenue in Shelton. We've now been here 18 months as renters. (Sidenote: Being a renter vs. homeowner the last 18 months is a story all in itself). So we are month to month with our landlord (since we surpassed the one year lease time frame).
In late January, we found a house that we thought we were going to buy...had a strong verbal agreement and was waiting on them to sign the contract. We told our landlord we're moving, and then the whole house deal fell apart. Please know-don't try to buy a house where the couple is getting a nasty divorce and the guy decides to wait until last minute to say he's also filing bankruptcy. Talk about drama.
While all the buying/selling drama is happening, Jason also finds out that our current landlord is in default on his mortgage and is getting foreclosed on. Yes, it's true. He decided to stop paying the mortgage on the house we're living in last August. Then (since he still thinks we're moving soon...cause we never told him differently), he puts the house up for sale and also for rent.
So Jason and I are in the midst of figuring out what we're doing, where we're going, etc. When we decide for sure, I'll post about that later. Meanwhile, we are getting a fair amount of people calling and wanting to see the house. Granted, this is not my house and I don't really care what these people think of it...so I do not go out of my way to have it sparkling clean and tidy. Sometimes we even stay here and go back to the playroom or go outside while they look at the house. I'm not upsetting my family life to let people see this house. Plus, the longer it takes to sell/rent, the better for me until we figure out what is what.
Okay-funny story: On Saturday we were supposed to have a showing from 11:30-noon. Great, no big deal. I've seriously had over 20 showings on this house in the last month. So we finish our lunch and hear the doorbell ring. It's 11:45. I go to the door and (in my Midwestern hospitable way) open the door and say, "Hi! Come on in! We're just finishing up lunch!" There is a middle aged woman at the door (dressed in a suit) along with a young woman and her son. They introduce themselves by their first name and come inside. I don't think I really look at them again...I'm just talking and walking back to the kitchen. I'm saying something like, "Oh yeah, cute kids...yeah, yeah, yeah" I then say, "Okay, we're just gonna go out here to the playroom while you do your thing." (We are not looking at them at all). Jason gets Abby, I get Ben and we all head out to our playroom (at the back of the house) to hang out. Five minutes (FIVE MINUTES) go by. We're playing with the kids...not paying a lick of attention to these people. Suddenly the older woman comes to the playroom door and says, "Um, I see that you have your house for sale. I think you have us confused for someone else." We're like "Huh?!" She says, "I'm a Jehovah's Witness." Holy Moly. Our mouths drop open and our eyeballs nearly pop out. We had NO IDEA! She was quite flustered and didn't even try to give us any literature or talk to us about JW stuff. They just made a beeline for the door and that was it. We were like, "Omigosh, we're so sorry! We were supposed to have a showing, blah, blah, blah."
What a strange experience. After they left, we just looked at each other and started to laugh...hard. First of all, we've never had any JW people come to the door before. Secondly, the people for the showing from 11:30-noon never showed up. They must've thought we were the strangest people. Just welcoming them in like we were the best of friends and then disappearing to the back of our house. I can only imagine them standing in our house for FIVE MINUTES and trying to piece it all together. What a hoot!