Babee!!!

I have a brand new nephew Nathan, and he's adorable!!!

Congrats Bill, Brooke, and Nicholas - and good job!

Benihana Fun

First trip for the youngest three to one of their dad's favorite places to eat - Benihana. Max went when he was a wee one, but this one is pretty far away, so we've never been. They behaved like perfect little children - NOT! But it was their Dad and Uncle's birthday, so we all drove out there, and everyone had fun (and some of us had good food).

They loved the volcano, the guy chopping shrimp, the hats, the hot grill and the dancing oil. And they didn't eat a thing. Max tried a bite of chicken and said that it was yummy, Sam considered he rice briefly (until he saw the stuff in it up close), but both declined any actual food. We fed them before we went anticipating that they'd not eat much there, but it was still fun for everyone.

Scarves!

Being a warm weather girl, I never really wore scarves growing up. But here in the *ahem* south...yeah. Here in Northern Virginia we need scarves a good chunk of the winter or else our necks will get cold! But I'm still not 100% sure how to wear these beautiful scarves, and I have several. They are a little like shoes or purses for some women - I collect them. I make them, I buy them, I covet them, but still not clue how to wear them. But, I found this and thought it best to share:

Now, I wear scarves and ROCK the scarves. I not only make it work, but I look cool doing it (whatever it is...).

Zombie Fun

Leave your 11 year old alone with your iPhone for a minute, and this is what you end up with:

See his zombie, realize that you have work to do, and then this is what you create:

Thanks Make a Zombie! We totally rock Zombie World now.

Lucy's first ever visit to the dentist

Lucy has been dying to go to the dentist for a while now. She goes with the boys to all of their appointments, sees that they are happy when they leave, and also get coins to buy prizes, and she's waited (not so patiently) for her turn. She's wanted to walk past the waiting room to see what fun awaits kids on the other side. Her turn finally arrived a few weeks ago and she couldn't have been happier. She marched right in, sat right down in the chair next to Max (we take them in by twos these days), and popped open her mouth when asked.

After the hygienist cleaned her teeth, the dentist took a look, and then they took x-rays as the dentist saw something suspicious on one of her teeth. All this without any fussing, and without even squirming, until the end. When they gave her the coin she practically ran over her brother and another lady waiting to check out in an attempt to tackle the machine with all the prizes. Then the fussing started. She wanted this toy, then that (they are little ones dispensed from a candy machine) and she wanted two, no three toys. Then she started in on Max - why didn't he give her his coin? Why wasn't he getting what she wanted him to get? And we got out of there as fast as we could, Lucy with a burrito - yes, burrito - in hand. Apparently plastic Mexican food toys that are dispensed from a candy machine and cost one dental cleaning are the best thing ever. She brought her burrito home and immediately showed Ian, who pulled out his taco - yes, really a taco - and then played. Dogs, rings, tattoos, sticky lizards, and all the other toys didn't hold a candle to the Mexican food at the dentist. Ahh...the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Spill Proof

Ever wonder how to take your three year old out to dinner and keep them relatively clean? First choice would obviously be feeding them something that doesn't make a mess, but how often is that the first choice of a toddler. Avoiding eating out in public is another choice, but what fun is that. So after four kiddos, I think I finally discovered the secret - raincoats. Who knew that simply sipping up a light raincoat on the messy toddler will keep her from spilling salad dressing all over herself. Napkins, parents and non-drip food won't stop it, but apparently a raincoat will. And it wipes up nicely too. Lucy LOVES salad and lettuce - lechuga, and eats it all the time so it's surprising that it took us this long to figure it out, but we finally did.

Getting ready for Halloween!

After dragging my butt a bit on the whole getting ready for the holidays thing I finally got started. If you get behind on decorating for Halloween, then you fall behind on Thanksgiving, and of course, Christmas/Hanukkah. The past few years I've been able to get my act together soon enough to get the house all pretty on the inside, get a few things thrown up outside, and enjoy the decorations for more than a week. But this year with school starting so late, the crush of soccer, and my general disinterest in the decorating part for some unknown reason, I finally did throw a few things out there. Cute, easy to put up and take down, yet, festive. And you know as soon as Halloween ends I'm tearing this stuff down and getting the Fall/Thanksgiving stuff up. Gotta get decorated!

Welcome to Princess World

I'm drowning in pink and changes of clothes, shoes, and opinions over here. All of this from a three year old - a recently minted three year old to boot. She is all about princess clothes, fancy shoes, changing those shoes and clothes every two minutes, and demanding that she wear jammies to bed for her nap. (Yes, still napping - fingers crossed.) But this is all new territory for us. The boys went through a dress up phase - all Power Rangers - all day. But this is different. Lucy wants to wear these cute little dresses because it's Tuesday, or because she turned left to get into her room, or because she saw a big. She changes in and out of clothes, dumping them on her floor or draping them around the house (often on me) continually throughout the day. I almost want to run out and buy her a ton of fluffy princess dresses so that she has one for each day, or a ton of jeans and shorts, pants, whatever, in cute colors and patterns so she has other things to wear than these fluffy princess dresses. But here I sit, lost in Princess World and not quite sure what's coming down the pipes next. So far she's pretty easy to please as far as clothes go, but at some point I know that she'll turn that corner and the cute fluffy clothes aren't good/fancy/sparkly enough, and that scares the heck out of me.

Remembering

By now probably just about everyone has heard - Steve Jobs passed away. I've been going through the last few days kinda sad for the loss - the man was an incredible innovator and an incredible mind. I've been reading blog posts about him and see how the loss has affected some in profound ways. But I consider myself a recent convert to Apple (I've only had an iPhone for two years now) , so not so much of an impact on me.

Just now I realized that Apple has been in my life for a very, very long time. From the time I was eight years old we have owned Apple machines. The first computer that I ever worked on was an Apple III - a dinosaur, and insanely expensive at the time (I think it was the price of a small car back then - around $6,000 when we bought it), but I learned to program on it, found my way around DOS, and learned all about dot matrix printers and floppy discs. We had that dinosaur for a while, and I was able to make the screen dance (or at least the little snake on the screen). It sat impressively on my dad's desk, and unless I'm mistaken, it was our very first family computer.

We branched off after that into a Apple IIc, that I eventually dragged

with me to college (after it was discontinued even). But by the time we bought the IIc the Mac revolution had begun. However, I had my own portable computer to take with me to school, external floppy drive, little LCD screen, and all, and I thought that was the coolest thing ever. At college I walked away from Macs completely. The lure of the PC that did more, faster, easier, was too strong, and my IIc was too slow and old. And up until this last Spring I'd never even toughed a Mac. But now I'm back in the fold, happy as a clam with my Apple once again.

So, thanks Steve jobs for all the time you've shared with me over the years. It turns out that it was much more than I would have ever imagined.

*Apple III photo courtesy of Alexander Schaelss

CANDY CORN SEASON!!!

YES! (If you can't tell I'm jumping up and down giving high fives to anyone within reach.) It's candy corn season again! One of my favorite times of year. it doesn't matter if it's raining outside, cold and dreary, if I have my candy corn I'm happy.