Reality Bites

I’m home. We are back from VACATION (mini).

By all accounts, my babies did not miss me AT ALL. 

Last Saturday it was a balmy 72ish degrees WINDY but sunny. Not really swimming weather.

Emily informed us all that life would not be complete unless she was allowed to frolic under the sprinkler. 

Dan spent an hour setting up the ultimate of all Slip and Slides.   They are wearing last years bathing suits and probably scaring the wildlife with all that white skin exposure.

BUT THEY HAD FUN DAMMIT!

 

One if by Land, two if by sea.

Here we are all ready to embark on our journey to “the City”.

Don’t we look happy and DRY!

An hour later a downpour started and didn’t end..

It was a balmy 35 degrees and WINDY and RAINY.

We ate chowda and clam strips for lunch at Fanuiel Hall.

 

Took Dan on a tour of Charlestown where my mom grew up. Bunker Hill! Go Townies!

We drove past Fenway Park, the Museum of Science and Boston Common.

We couldn’t really walk around because of STUPID RAIN.

Then we headed over to the Museum of Fine Arts. It was nice, quiet and WARM. Really a cool place to hang out for a few hours. On Wed. from 4-9 admission is waived! Cost us 15.00 to park and that was it.

We had dinner and drinks at the NAKED FISH. It was delicious..

 

Now I’m off to enjoy our last few hours of “people without children” 2 day EXTRAVAGANZA.

O’ sappy DAY! o’ SAPPY day!

I am away with my man.

We made it to Boston with out incident.

All children and dogs are in the care of responsible adults.

I am only responsible for my own two cheeks.

Tomorrow we will have many pictures of our adventures.

Tonight there is just us.

 

Mini-vacation

I am going away for 2 nights.

With out my children.

or the dog.

Just me and my man.

We are headed to Boston to see the sights.. But mainly just to see each other. 

This could go one of two ways.

All of this uninterrupted time can rejuvenate us as a couple and we will remember WHY we decided this other person was THE ONE, the one we wanted to spend the REST OF OUR LIVES WITH.

OR.

All this uninterrupted time will allow us to focus on the IRRITATING habits we each have that drive the other one CRAZY.

On June 1st we will have been married for 8 years and we were on the 5 year plan before that. I predict our time alone will be both a mixture of irritating each other mixed in with a LOT of laughing.

I can’t wait! 

Kurtis is HOME!

Kurtis is Nephew number 3 out of 4.

Last year he graduated from high school and was accepted into the Naval Nuke Program. He just completed the first six months of schooling and came home to see us.

 

Aiden has not stopped talking to him since he got home.

Listening to Aiden talk to him is painful: “Kurt, Kurt, KurTISS! Wanna see my Sword, my bed, the hole where my tooth was, my shoes, my toothbrush. Kurtis! Kurt, Wanna run, jump and play ball, this is my dog, she is a girl, remember when Sadie was a baby? I’m not a baby.. .” IT DOESN’T STOP.

Emily had cycled thru every dress she owns in order to assure Kurtis that she still is indeed the FANCY DRESSER he remembers.

They love him. We love him.

He leaves in a week and it will be awhile before he comes home again.

It’s kind of scary with him having his own life and being all far away. He may look like this big strong man, but he’s still a little boy who climbs the tallest trees just to scare the crap out of me. 

the common man

Happy Saturday.

It was a girls night out.

My sisters, me and the lovely women Christine who lives down the street and was brave enough to go out with us went to The Common Man for dinner. We tend to be slightly obnoxious with the finishing each other's sentences and constantly interrupting each other.  But Christine kept up, she’s a middle school teacher, she’s used to filtering out the nonsense.

WE ARE SO MUCH FUN. 

My dinner was DELICOUS. Feta cheese, tomatoes and a vinaigrette covered CHICKEN. French Toast Bread pudding.. Then at the end of the meal, complimentary chunks of white chocolate are served.

I came home to a house full of kids, but since my darling husband was “on duty” I had a glass of wine as a night cap.

I fired up my laptop to post and my baby snuggled up to me .35 seconds prior to launching himself to the bathroom to vomit out his stomach contents.

Poor Kid. I’m off to snuggle with the “live virus” .

Happy Saturday!

Friday Flashback : 2006

April 2006

Nicole was 10.

This picture was taken at Aiden’s first birthday party. She was 8 years old before she received her GREATEST WISH IN ALL THE WORLD, a sibling. While she did not specifically request SIBLING PART II, she was happy to see him when he showed up.

April 2010

Her playing with the webcam. At 11:30 at night. On a school night.

She was SUCH A PEACH the next morning!

Cheerleading has ended and Lacrosse has begun. Add gymnastics and a boyfriend and it is rare that she is here and awake.

They miss her when she’s not here, but manage to carve out time when she IS.

Emily will sit on the floor of the bathroom and listen to TSwift while Coley takes a shower. Aiden begs to play Crash on the X-Box with her. She is the BIG KID that sneaks them spoonfuls of frosting and scoots over in the middle of the night if someone has a bad dream.

I have a hard time wrapping my brain around the passage of time.

I see the 10 year old and I KNOW her.. But then I see this 15 year old and O YEAH! I know her! But they are so different.

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TGIF. I’m having problems with my left knee. I DON”T KNOW WHY.  I rested it for a few days and it felt better, then on Thursday it was back to the hurting. My calorie count has been higher than normal yesterday and today, but not by much. Making time to have breakfast is my biggest problem and I’ll stick with the Slim Fast for now.

We leave for Boston on Tuesday for a 2 night getaway and I’m so excited.

Tooth Thursday.

He had a loose tooth.

He ate a bowl of graham crackers.

He had a missing tooth.

After he assured himself that he was NOT GOING TO DIE. He began to imagine ways to retrieve his tooth. One plan called for an old bucket, lots of water and some soap. I SAID NO.

I explained that the tooth fairy was MAGIC and would be able to magic the tooth from his belly and he didn’t need to worry about waiting for it to exit his digestive track.

Emily helped him construct a beautiful letter to leave put under his pillow as an explanation.

At 4:00 AM he woke me up to let me know that the Tooth Fairy had been there during the night and left him CASH. He calls all money CASH.

He lost his first tooth in March mostly because his big kid tooth had already grown in and was pushing out the baby tooth. When he lost it there was no space, no badge of honor. This tooth was not as ready to come out and the big tooth can’t be seen. He has a patch of eczema on his cheek, that cream in the picture is his daily dose of steroid to hopefully help it go away.

Now he has a hole in his smile.

Retro Thursday

I was 14ish? 

We had just moved to CT. I didn’t have any friends yet, but we had an NINTENDO.

It’s the only video game I ever REALLY liked.

For Aiden’s birthday he got the Wii version.

Him and I play the two player. He is SO into it. I am SO into it.

I may or may not have called my 5 year old son a DORKHEAD when he took MY mushroom.

We needed Emily to step in to tell us to be nice.

It was FAMILY GAME NIGHT.

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MIGOD. I was so IMMATURE with cereal today. Lock me in a closet with a box of Special K and a gallon of milk and I’ll show you 7 minutes of heaven.

I ate a bowl an a half with out BREATHING. I’m 300 calories into LOW CALORIE cereal. WHY?  Most likely because I haven’t had cereal in over a month, due to my inability to measure a serving size HONESTLY. My one cup is more like 1.9 cups.

Lunch was some almonds and yogurt (I was seriously still full from gorging on SPECIAL K.) Dinner was left over Wheat/Tomato Pizza.

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* for some reason yesterday’s post didn’t post till this morning. I’m not sure if this kicks me out of out of 30 posts in 30 days, but until I hear different I’ll keep plugging away.

Horse of a different color.

When we became the proud owners of Yellow House it was with the understanding that improvements NEEDED to be made. By us. Alone. Like adults. 

In the last 3 years we have:

• Carpet installed in all bedrooms. 
• Heating system moved from finished basement side to non finished side.
• New Septic installed.
• Water softener purchased and installed
• Stove, dishwasher and microwave replaced.
• Sliding glass door & frame removed and replaced.
• Broken wood stove removed
• Chimney cleaned and certified.
• Paved the driveway.
• Removed YEARS of leaves, weeds and small trees that had been allowed to grow into the house. (?)

 

The first MAJOR problem was the cabinets.

They were DARK and for some reason they ALL had marks under the handles: as if they had been locked or restrained. SCRATCH marks? Someone trying to break IN to the cabinet? I can’t really allow my mind to go there, because it’s really weird.

Somehow my freaking ROCKSTAR husband who majored in FOOTBALL at college and not WOODWORKING, managed to take apart all the cabinets. He sanded and painted the cabinets and frames.  Then reassembled it all by himself. Freaking Bob Vila in THIS OLD HOUSE.

We painted the ceilings, a job that had not been done since construction of the house in the 70’. Then the walls. I fell in love with a pastel green color that matches the new yellow cabinets. 

( just spent the better part of an hour looking for a freaking picture of the stupid kitchen, then realized I HAVE A WEBCAM. Pay no attention to my REFLECTION in the window.

Anyway.. The border in between the ceiling and the cabinets still needs to be addressed, but for the most part the kitchen is DONE.

I need help with the dining room wall color.

This is the view from the table looking at the kitchen.

This is the view from the table looking at the wall.

The ugly paneling is going to stay for now. We had flirted with the idea of removing it, but the bathroom needs attention first and GOD KNOWS what is behind those panels.

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Great Day!

Kept active for the first 4 hours of my day by washing every floor in the house, then watched Aiden walk thru with his MUDDY boots had to then spend a half hour sweeping.

I like to think of it as him HELPING me burn calories.

For the past few mornings I’ve had a Slim Fast for breakfast. It’s easy and I know the calorie count. Not the best for nutrition I know. Almonds and Yogurt for lunch. Casey brought me a coffee WITH CREAM, so I kinda used up calories right there. Then whole wheat pizza & tomatoes with low fat cheese for dinner..