Landing Zone

Funny thing is, I wasn't even surprised to see it there.

(And no snarky comments about the chandelier - it's a rental folks - not our taste at all.)

Happy St. Patty's Day!

To celebrate the day, I thought I'd share a giggle with you. Might not be something you want to look at with kids, but then again they are cupcakes. Regular cupcakes, on sale at a regular grocery store. But they gave me the giggles before and they've done it once again. Cake Wrecks has come through BIG TIME on this one:

You can see the rest here. Looks like there are some Happy, HAPPY Irishmen out there today!

Fashionista

Lucy picked out her own clothes today!

She is our future fashionista! NOT!

Decorating with Balloons

The night before Ian and Sam's birthday party we blew up a bunch of balloons. But these were going to be used for a game - so no helium. I though, because I dig stuff like this, that it would be cool to stick them all to the ceiling.

So the boys got going:

And then Dad joined in:

And eventually we ended up with this:

Sledding?

In case you are wondering, you really can still sled a full month after the snow has fallen (at least if you are Sam, Lucy, and Ian):

So what DO they feed you in prison?

The other day in the car we jumped right from "Why doesn't that bus smell as bad as the rest," to "Can kids go to jail," then right to "What do they feed you in jail?" Yeah. Fantastic. And my answers? "Well, I don't know - it's cleaner fuel but you need to ask your Dad," and "Yes, but they have to do something really bad, and even then they go to a special kids jail called juvenile corrections." Then the food. "I guess it's like school food but worse." I'd never even thought of that, and here my kids were wondering about it. Then again the asked me about God and sex in a Walmart parking lot at a very early age. Sigh...

This Too Shall Pass

Definitely peek at this one - it's incredible:

Snow and Birthdays and Elections, OH MY! (Part 1)

Sorry for being MIA. Between the massive amounts of snow that we got in February, two very special birthdays, and an important election, I was swamped. But, I'm back! First, the snow. Unless you live under a rock you know that DC got dumped on three or four times this winter (I'm losing track). We received 60"+ of snow, depending on who you ask it might be over 70". Anyway, LOTS of snow. This is where I'd post a cute video montage of the boys sledding, Lucy eating the snow, Tom digging us out, everyone in their cute snowsuits, and so on, but no. All you get right now are a few pictures:

This is what we ended up with AFTER the Wednesday blizzard that I mention here. And we didn't get 5" as predicted, we got another foot of snow. So we were once again stuck in. Good thing I had a friend drive me to the store right before that big blizzard. I hiked out to the closest plowed out street, she drive me to the store, then we loaded the groceries onto a sled and I hiked back home, dragging my haul behind me:

And that was about day 5 of being trapped on our street. Then, the plows came:

This is the street in front of our house the first day that we had to go back to school (the Tuesday following the Wed blizzard). This was after the 9 days of being TRAPPED inside the house. We clearly weren't trapped - we did get outside - but we were not plowed out until the Friday after the snow storm's second go round. But when the plows did come through, they barely cleared a path wide enough for one car to get through. A school bus got stuck on our street that fist day even. I think one more day of plows coming through before we sent the kids off to school would have been helpful. It took them a full 5 days to come through again and widen the road and get the 4" layer of ice pack off of it. My poor van is in desperate need of an alignment now.

So that's the snow, and we survived. No ER trips, no big gripe fests, and children that were, in all honesty, completely behaved the entire time. I think the thought of living in close quarters with a mom they have driven insane was too much of a threat.

Part 2 coming soon!

"Is he died?"

Much to my delight, the Muppets have done it again:

World's Worst Valentine

Not only did I get my sweetie a Valentine, but I failed to get my kids set up properly for their Valentine's parties. But, honestly, I'm not losing sweat over it this time. So be it. After a tinge of guilt I've let it go.

You see, after the worlds worst snowfall/school closings/DC in the midst of a panic I assumed that we'd write Valentine's Day off completely. Any other year I'd sit with the boys as they addressed some form of store bought valentines (all this crafty artsy in me and the kids always want the store bought - KILLS me), and we'd have them ready for their party. Well, this year they were snowbound on the day of their party, so nothing doing on that end. But we were also snowbound the week before their party, so that too ruled out the acquisition of said store bought Valentine's. The failure on my part comes in when we look at all the free time we have had over the past 10 days, all the craft stuff that I have here, and my complete and utter lack of motivation to do anything. But more on that later.

So, the kids all head back to school, and yesterday, much to my surprise, the boys came home with a bag full of Valentine's from their classmates. After a bit of questioning as to how the ENTIRE rest of the class knew to bring their stuff in, they both told me, in the smallest voices possible, that they knew on Tuesday and just didn't bother to tell me. So I guess I'm not the only one who isn't losing sweat over it.

Now I just need to figure out how to repackage these Xmas cards and gift cards and get them to their teachers as we missed the last three days of school before winter break too!

Holding my vacuum hostage

Stuck at home for days and days, one would think that house cleaning would be a top priority. I mean, you are living in the place and there's not a whole lot else you can do to hide from any messes that are made. Not me though. Apparently when I'M stuck inside I order cleaning products online, knowing that a bigger storm is arriving, and laugh to myself as they are held hostage by the shipping company:

ALEXANDRIA, VA, US 02/12/2010 7:22 P.M. EMERGENCY CONDITIONS BEYOND UPS' CONTROL
02/12/2010 12:00 P.M. ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS / DELIVERY RESCHEDULED
02/12/2010 12:00 P.M. ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS / DELIVERY RESCHEDULED
02/12/2010 4:14 A.M. OUT FOR DELIVERY
ALEXANDRIA, VA, US 02/11/2010 12:00 P.M. ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS / DELIVERY RESCHEDULED
ALEXANDRIA, VA, US 02/09/2010 6:57 P.M. EMERGENCY CONDITIONS BEYOND UPS' CONTROL
02/09/2010 4:36 A.M. OUT FOR DELIVERY
HARRISBURG, PA, US 02/09/2010 1:11 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
ALEXANDRIA, VA, US 02/09/2010 12:01 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
HARRISBURG, PA, US 02/08/2010 8:15 P.M. ORIGIN SCAN
US 02/08/2010 5:36 P.M. BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED

At some point, though, UPS will realize that our street has finally been plowed and will bring me my new little vacuum. And don't worry - we have two full size vacuums - I'm getting this one so that the boys can clean up after their messy selves. THAT'S the part that is driving me nuts about being stuck inside. As they get bigger their messes do as well, and I figure now is as good of a time as any to teach them to clean up after themselves - ALL the time.

I'm on a horse

This has to be one of the best commercials ever. This is by no means an endorsement of Old Spice, but you HAVE to check this out:



This man has everything a woman wants - including two tickets to the thing I love...

SNuhOW!

What is this - storm #3? I'm beginning to lose track. More of the lovely white stuff - this time coming at us from every direction. It's "Blizzard like conditions" and we are once again getting pounded. Fun times!

At some point we will have to dig out again. The snow crept all the way up to our front door this time - no place to step out and snap photos. Then again I didn't really want to open my front door and let all of that stuff in. (And look at that poor little bush out front. I fear it's not the only one we lost.)

We were finally plowed out last night - right before this round started. Can't imagine when it will happen again. We were stuck for 5 days, and here we are looking at probably at least 3-4 more.

You're kidding, right?

From weather.com:

Farther east, light snow has already reached the Baltimore-Washington area. Snow will be on the increase through the evening and overnight and will spread northeastward as a new storm forms along the North Carolina coast.

That storm lifts northward and will grow rapidly stronger overnight and Wednesday bringing heavy snow and strong winds from northern Virginia through southern New England.

The combination of the heavy snow and wind gusts over 50 mph will produce blizzard conditions at times in the Washington, D.C., to Boston corridor. Some gusts over southeast New England may reach 60 mph.

Snow accumulations of 12 to 18 inches may prevail from northern Virginia through southern New England.

At some point this joke has to be funny. Not so much right now. Northern Virginia really is the south, at least on my block. But looking out my front window you'd believe otherwise:

Sam and Lucy

Today's post is brought to you by the letter "S." S is for snow, and S is for shoveling and S is for school being cancelled. And S is for sigh...

Sam

Lucy

Guess it IS Snowmaggeddon after all

A few weeks back, during what was one of the bigger storms that the Washington DC area has ever seen, I said in a blog post over at DC Metro Moms that I guess it wasn't Snowmageddon after all. Well, today President Obama called this storm Snowmageddon.

Guess it really IS Snowmageddon:

We are at about 18" and counting, and it's still snowing. Our little baseball bat is almost completely buried due to drifts.

The Baseball Bat

At some point in the last few months Virginia was lifted up and placed in Minnesota. Yes, we live in the land of snow now. This past week the boys went to school for a total of TWO days. Monday was a holiday, then we were snowed out both Wednesday and Friday - from two separate storms. You see, this winter we have had in the DC area 24" of snow. Our average for this area is about 15". Already we are over that average, we have snow sitting on the ground, and they are forecasting between 20-30" of snow today and tomorrow. Yes, we might get 2.5 FEET of snow. This is still DC, right? Crazy. Anyway, instead of a yardstick, which we broke measuring the last snow, we are using a handy dandy plastic baseball bat. The kids certainly can't use it indoors over the next few days, and hopefully it's tall enough. So far this is what we have:

First at about 11am this morning:

Then at about 7pm:

And now at midnight:

And apparently it will be snowing between 1-3" per hour over the next few hours. I'm wondering what we'll wake up to in the morning. Will we be able to even tell where the driveway is? Will we be able to get out to play tomorrow? Will it stop snowing at all tomorrow, or continue all day as they are predicting? Well, I can tell you that we will be able to find the driveway, thanks to Facebook and a fantastic hubby. My friends on Facebook (and one via e-mail) mentioned that they were shoveling or had shoveled several times today. You see, we snow deprived folks have to take our cues form our surroundings as far as functioning in conditions like this. So when I see that loads of other DC folks are shoveling, well, I send my hubby out. So he's out there right now trying to remove the 6-9" of snow that's fallen thus far:

And they are predicting another storm that will arrive next week, on top of the bazillion inches of snow that we have now. Wild, loads of fun, and makes for great sled runs. More from the bat tomorrow!

SNOW Again!

Is it a good idea for the sled driver to close his eyes? And does the passenger even care?

After sledding for a bit, Sam mastered the art of SNOWBOARDING down the hill!

Lucy was doing her part to "help" the boys build their snow castles.

And Max finally got up on the snowboard (and hit the ground a few seconds later!).

Lucy's Big Boots

Lucy loves her shoes. If she could she'd wear shoes all the time. She loves her snow boots the most, but this time she grabbed her big brother Max's boots and went running. So, we helped her get them on and this was the result:

Amazing Kids

This time, I'm not talking about my own kids! We are in the midst of the budget cycle for our school district, and tonight is the first of three nights of public hearings. Last Friday morning and again this morning I worked with two girls who are getting up at tonight's meeting, and in front of an auditorium full of parents and other assorted folks, are speaking.

First off the idea that they were not only willing, but that they wanted to get up and speak is impressive. And secondly, the speeches they wrote, well, let's just say that they hit the nail on the head. I couldn't have asked for better speeches from adults. So often adults get lost in the intricacies of the language and in our attempts to be concise or accurate, or whatever, we lose our message and our emotion. These two girls really hit home runs with their speeches. One even walked in with her speech complete, and after a few very minor edits, she is good to go. I am so proud of these two girls I can't even begin to express it. I fully expect at the meeting tonight a raucous crowd full of folks listening for exactly what these little girls are saying, and they'll definitely be happy when they hear these two speeches! So, to M and B, congrats on speeches well done ladies. You two are going a long way in life!

Kids behaving badly...sort of.

I HATE when the boys get up in the middle of the night and cause trouble, sneak stuff, whatever. It's the middle of the night and while some folks work at those terrible hours, for the rest of us the middle of the night is meant for sleeping.

Apparently my boys didn't get that memo from the home office. They were up at 5am night before last...playing Monopoly. Monopoly, really? Sneaking candy, reading dirty magazines, but Monopoly? I wonder if this is a sign of things to come. Needless to say we sent them to bed early that night.

Wordle

Here's the scoop on us in a cure little word cloud:

Apparently I know kids, I'm sleeping often, and I like work. Then again I'm particularly romantic, I have a nekkid cat, and a journey to Disney is wanted. Yep, that's me in a nutshell...at least this week!

Haiti

To all of those

we have lost

over the past few days,

may you

find peace

in the remainder

of your journey.

And to all of those

who have lost

everything,

you are in our thoughts

and prayers.

Pearls of Wisdom

Also know as - answers MOM has to come up with on the spot in the car (of course)!

Ian: Mom, where do you get money for your bank account? Uhhh....

and then a few minutes later:

Max: Why do you sing so soft when you sing in the car? Yeah....

Both took me completely by surprise and we ended up with a request for me to sing louder (agreed to as long as I know some of the words), and a long discussion about work and how we divide assets, etc, when the mom doesn't work outside the home and the dad does. The questions just kept coming. But hey, they told me that they wanted to hear me sing, not to be quiet, so I'll count this particular car trip as a win.

Are we missing out on vacations?

I often wonder if I'm missing the boat here by not taking more vacations. Granted, we generally sneak away once a year to Disney, but we don't go on all of those other fun trips that I so often read about on friends' blogs, in their holiday letters, or even on Facebook. One friend was even trying to decide this afternoon if she was taking her kids skiing tomorrow. And there's not nearly enough snow on the ground here to go skiing, so I assume that she's hauling them off somewhere.

So are we missing out by NOT taking vacations more often? I certainly don't feel like it all. I'm sort of a homebody these days, and would rather hang out here with the family than pack it in and trek across the state/county/world to see some sight. And doesn't everyone (well, except the kids) know that vacations are ten times the work for moms? It's not only getting ready for the vacation, but it's wrangling the little kids the entire time - being hyper vigilant because you never know what they'll get into in new surroundings - and thus it's ten times more stressful than a romantic getaway for two. Can't even remember what those things are like though - it's been years.

So I guess I'm looking over that fence, and while the grass is greener, it's still not enough to get me off the couch. Then again maybe when the kids are older it won't seem like such a daunting task.

Sound asleep

If I could, I'd sneak into my kids rooms every naptime and at night and take pictures of them sleeping - watching them grow and change over the years. I have pics of Max as a baby cuddled up next to the cat (rather, the cat cuddled up next to Max). I have pics of Ian and Sam, buck nekkid, sleeping UNDER their beds as toddlers. And now I have a pic of darling Lucy cuddled up with her favorite cuddles and hanging her feet out of the crib:

Go Muppets!

I absolutely LOVE this (and I think you will too!):

Ten Reasons Why it Sucks to Be the Parent

Definitely agree with these. As if I had written it myself.

Thanks Stimey!

My 2009 According to Facebook

Late in 2009 I jumped on in and joined the Facebook wave. Yeah, even though I swore it off before, I realized that there were a lot of connections that I wanted to make with folks and this was the easiest way to do it. And then this nifty little thing popped up - a brief summary of sorts of my year. But for me, apparently it's all about the back injury...and courtrooms...and a lack of delinquent kids (yeah, it was me in traffic court):

Funny, my 2009 was so much more busy than that. Guess I'm still not 100% plugged into Facebook!

Who cleans YOUR house?

As the kids sat eating lunch today I was finishing up my daily task of cleaning something around the house. It's a big house and requires some maintenance on my part, just like everyone else's house. But apparently the boys thought little cleaning gnomes come and clean up:

Max: "What are you doing?"
Me: "I'm cleaning. I usually do this while you are in school, but since you're here you get to watch me clean!"
Ian: : "Oh. You clean the house?"
Me: "Well, who did you think cleans the house?"
Crickets....

Our very first blizzard!

As you can see from all the prior posts - I'm a wee bit excited about the snow. But, I'm not the only one in the family that was excited: Hope that you are enjoying you holiday too!

OMG!

And this us what I woke up to. Last count we had 7", and that was at
7am.

It's SNOWING!

In the time it took us to pop into Best Buy tonight, our car looked like this! (Ans yes, I'm a little excited!)

Spell with Flickr

Check this out:





Mine is all red and pink, but you can make you own HERE. Pretty cool!

Lucy loves...

this commercial:



She stops dead in her tracks, smiles, and starts to dance every time she sees it. Too bad for the Gap that this 17 month old doesn't have any buying power!

First Snow of the Season

It was beautiful - and it snowed enough to fill my eyes with wonder as it does every time.

Our street, front yard, and out in front of the house * Saturday, December 5, 2009

Finally coming out of the fog

For the past two months, someone has been sick every week. For the first 6 weeks it was one kid, for 12 hours, with a low grade fever. Of course the fever was high enough to be sent home from school, so it meant that they had to stay home the next day when they were perfectly fine, but hey, no biggie. It was only 12 hours and no vomiting or any other gross bodily functions were involved. It was my kind of sick.

As I was counting my blessings that neither Tom nor I were catching anything that the kids were bringing home and sharing, I noticed a tickle in my throat. Now, for me this normally means that I'm getting a "sinus" - you know - upper respiratory thing that lingers. But this time it went straight to a cough, lost my voice, and then I felt like I was run over. Problem was - I looked over at Tom and he looked about the same. It was all we could do to drag our butts out of bed and barely function. And here I am almost three weeks later, finally getting back to where I can say that I'm healthy. There were days that I didn't (couldn't) eat, days that I didn't shower, and a few days that I didn't get out of bed until 1pm. Tom would take the morning then crash, and I'd sleep and take the afternoon. He missed a full week's worth of work. He went in one day for a critical meeting, but came crawling back home as soon as he can. So now he's playing catch up. Which means, at 9:45pm as I type this, he's still at work. And this was like two weeks ago that he was out from work. And a friend of mine noticed the drop off in my online presence - not as many e-mails she said. The computer was not the absolute lowest priority, but it was certainly way down the list, so for some we did completely disappear.

But here I am, three weeks later, healthy. There I said it. Now does this mean that I catch the swine flu, or the plague, Ebola? Yikes. Hope I didn't just jinx myself. But it does beg the question - who will take care of us if we both get sick again? It's something that I pondered over at DC Metro Moms. Hope that as I finish this up that little tickle in my throat isn't the "sinus" coming back to kick my butt again...

One year ago today

It was a Tuesday. Lucy was a mere smiley babe:

Sam has enjoyed his Thanksgiving Feast at school:

And Ian enjoyed the company at his Feast:
Max was on his way to being toothless.

And Tom and I were coming of of a high from FSU beating Maryland (and an in person viewing in the freezing cold!)

I think my cat IS trying to kill me

This is just too funny not to share. If any of you know my cat Bunsen, he's the most loving, snuggly kitty out there. He's always sitting on my lap, sleeping in my bed, and, oh, wait...

How to Tell Your Cat is Plotting to Kill You