Willing to be hated?

To clear up any confusion, this has nothing to do with me, as one person asked.

But while we're on the subject, here's someone who wouldn't be living today if Barack had his way (He opposed the Born Alive Act).

The Great Race- Frogger style

Mike and I ran in 5K of the Pittsburgh Great Race this morning. Our sitter was thankful for the opportunity to get out of being a spectator for her boyfriend, who was running the 10K.
We'll have to check online tonight when the times are posted to see if we beat the high score of Frogger. Seriously, I felt like we were dodging in and out of the 4,300+ mob like in the classic arcade game. Because we started a couple of blocks back from the start line and didn't start to even take any steps until more than a minute after the gun went off, we gave up all chances of being competitive (not that we were planning on it anyway, folks). About a quarter mile from the finish, we did run into and chat with an old friend from college, Jesse Gidley.
Next time, we'll have to take the kids along. I saw a handful of runners pushing jogging strollers.

For those who interested (we are not)-- we finished around 26:30.

Jack's new roomie

This little yellow comet fish is greeted with a lip-smacking fish face every morning and before bed every night. Lucky fish.
We decided to name him (or her, we're not sure which) Rowdy because Jack isn't good with his R's, and we're fans of Scrubs (If he dies we can just have him stuffed).

milestones

We can't believe Jack is already 18 months. I had wanted to take one last picture of him with Sheepie for old times sake, but he won't stay still long enough. I can't even take him out in public anymore because I'm afraid CPS will take him away from us. With all of the bruises he accumulates daily, from just falling and running into clear-as-day walls, he looks like a beaten child. He climbs up on the high equipment at the park and tries to jump off. To his constant dissapointment, we are always there to catch him. He is building quite a vocabulary, and he loves to read. Good thing we inherited a whole public library's worth of childrens books from my parents and other generous friends.
(He's been playing in the above box for days now. I cut a window in it, through which he enjoys peering out at us. He fills the box with all of his stuffed animals and blankets to make a quite cozy little nest for himself.)

She's showed no prior signs of starting to roll, but Abigail rolled over right when I laid her down on her stomach today. It caught her by surprise too because, even though we started to cheer, she looked startled and started to cry after she did it. She'll learn to love it.

Three on Thursday

My kids are great (they have their many moments). Lately, they've been taking 3 (or more) hour naps... AT THE SAME TIME. It's wondrous. Though today, Abigail was awake for an hour mid-nap. And I used this opportunity to love on her, sans attention-demanding toddler, and try out the new camera (hence the slew of Abbie photos in our new web album). Again, I'm no pro at photography, and it came without its original manual, so I was proud of myself for just poking at the settings until they didn't look too dark or washed out. I hope to get a guide so I really know what I'm doing.

Our dear Flabigail now refuses to take a bottle- at all. She's really a very sweet little girl, but if you try to feed her from a bottle the alien head pops out of her mouth waving its Medusa tentacles, and she goes ballistic. This makes leaving her with a sitter difficult.


Meals don't function around here without an audience (the stuffed kind). It's never the same bunch. Sometimes it includes a car or two. We can't get by with giving only Jack a drink of water now either. The whole crew gets fed the same as he.

The fuzz is gone!

Our new camera is here, and it's oh, so nice! I have yet to really take a look at it or change any of the settings, but just clicking a few of the kids upstairs today, I realized what we've been missing. I can't wait to try out my 75-300mm lens with it. My dad gave it to me when I was 16 or 18 or so, and I didn't get much use out of it then. Now I have better subjects (two).

Songs you can tolerate on repeat

After listening to the same kiddie music day in and day out (namely, The Wheels on the Bus Go 'Round and 'Round, Row Row Row Your Boat, etc.), we broke down and purchased these a few weeks ago. Jack loves the songs on these albums, and they actually don't drive me batty. They're rather catchy.

Speaking of songs we've been listening to on repeat, Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog, recommended to Mike and I by both of our brothers, is great fun- and has been on repeat a lot around here (not kid's music, however).

Five on Friday

1. Yesterday, Jack found a music box upstairs that plays "Edelweiss." He opened it up, the music started to play in that soft, music box way, and Jack began rocking out. It cracked me up.

2, We met the newest baby of Teams on Saturday, Maria Grace Gilbert...and realized how huge Abigail has gotten in the past three months. Her skin is just taught and covered with rolls. I love a fat baby!

3. I bought this off of Craig's List today for $25 from a man named Abacus, who used the hutch to store his tools and painting supplies. It looked like it had been bathing in a pool of grease for 50 years, but it's a nice, old piece of furniture, underneath the grime- and I enjoy projects.


4. Speaking of projects, I have been giving our kitchen a low-budget make-over (mostly paint). For starters, the color is no longer "Ember" (a medium shade of country red), as you can see above, and it is free of its seasonal birdhouse border circling its walls. It still has a long way to go (especially at the pace I am going).

5. Since my camera broke a week and a half ago (notice the lack of pictures?), we've been researching cameras online. And we finally invested in a decent one- an 8.0 MP Canon Rebel XT digital SLR. I already have two nice zoom lenses for it from my old Canon Rebel X 35mm SLR. I'm no photographer, but I know these can take nice pictures, and hopefully, I can learn a thing or two.

Happy Birthday, Brinnly!

Can't believe this big girl is ALREADY one year old! Hope your day is super great, Brinnly!

Just another day at Chikfila

I told Jack I would take him to Chikfila for lunch and to play at their play area after I ran a few errands at the Waterfront this morning. Our trip there left something to be desired.
Once we finally got past the play area with Jack pulling at my arm, walking horizontally to the floor the whole time and I had ordered a sandwich, a light lemonade and a kids meal, Abigail started to fuss (still in her carrier). We got a table so I could take her out of her seat and hold her. It happened to be right beside the kid's play area window, so Jack had only one thing on his mind. I managed to shovel some fruit into his mouth between keeping him from pulling all of the food off of the tray and trying to calm Abigail. She usually quiets right down once she's out of her seat, but she only wailed louder. I finally whipped out my cover-up to try and feed her, which is difficult in public- at a fast-food restaurant, no less. Nope. Her screams persisted. So I looked apologetically at the people around me and began to gather our food into the kid's meal bag. Jack began crying at this point. We've made this trip a few times before with no problems, people.
Once I had the bag in hand, I had to get Jack out of the high chair and grab Abigail in her carrier, our diaper bag, bag of food and my untouched lemonade. Jack grabbed my straw and began jamming it in and out of the lid, which punctured the side of the Styrofoam cup, causing lemonade to glug glug glug all over everything around us. I set all our stuff down and ran up to the front of the restaurant to inform someone of our mess. I wasn't exactly capable of cleaning it up right then.
In the meantime, several people sat and watched as we made this huge scene, including a woman and her son, who sat in front of us at Mass on Saturday. Apparently, I appeared to have everything under control as food from my now soggy-with-lemonade bag fell every foot or so as I clutched it, toddler-under one arm, infant carrier and busting-out diaper bag on the other with two crying babies. I felt bad about the mess I was leaving, but moreso about my upset kids and the spectacle we were making.
I managed to get Jack buckled into his seat, feeling horrible that I had told him we would go to the play area and we hadn't. I then sat in the front seat with Abigail, trying everything I could to sooth her- feed her, change her, pat her. After about fifteen minutes of inconsolable crying, she finally thought it might not be the worse thing to have something to eat. I was parked in a way that people wouldn't be able to see me, but then, this guy comes up to my partly down window and knocks on it, whilst Abigail is nursing. "Yesss?"
"I just wanted to let you know you had food on the top of your car."
I did set what was salvageable of our lunch on top of the car while I buckled in Jack. Guess it slipped my mind.
"Thanks."
With as long as it took me to get her to eat, I wasn't about to interrupt her to remove the food from the roof of the van. Two more people proceeded to come up to my window. "Did you know you have food on the top of your van?"
"Yes. Thanks." That's where I always put my food.
My wonderful husband was generous enough to take a break from work to come and finish lunch with us and take Jack in to the play area while I finished feeding Abigail (though I know it was hard for him to be seen, knowing the heck his wife had just managed to raise in there with that same cute little boy). Needless to say, I don't think we'll be eating mor chikin any time soon.

3 (too quick) months!

My camera is broken. So 3 months is brought to you by stills of very poor quality from our video camera.
Our little Gail is plump as can be. She weighed 16 pounds this morning. I laid her down on the couch last night wearing nothing but a diaper, and Jack went over to gently squeeze the fat rolls on her tummy. Very sweet. She currently hates being in her car seat, but she loves her exersaucer and the dolphin swing in the basement, and also the baby swing, discovered at Mimi and Pop's house.
Jack requested that Sheepie don this bonnet for his picture.

open studio 3

I'm heisting this photo from the Wards since I forgot to document the drawings before sending them to their new home in Grand Rapids.

Happy Birthday, Granddaddy!

Thanks for everything you have done for us over the years. There are so many fun memories we wouldn't have without you. We've been blessed to be able to go on trips with the family to the beach, on cruises, etc. Your generosity has meant so much. I'm glad to have you as a grandfather, and Jack and Abigail enjoy being able to see their great-grandfather when we come to Maryland (and the Dodo bird coasters). We look forward to seeing you again soon!
Love you, and hope you have a great day!

Cutting a move