We Made It! (and a random post)

So we had an awesome time in D.C. We were only there for one day but we did quite a bit. In the morning, we met up with Reinventing Motherhood. We did a museum and then lunch.

We had the same due date though the babies are 2 weeks apart (Lexi was a week early, O.G. was a week late). Lexi is adorable! And their son Tyler is another cutie pie. After Cam got over his shyness, he was thrilled to hang out with big boys (Ty and his friend). Even Mary who was very hesitant about meeting "e friends" had a good time.





Later, we attempted to go to the Botanical Gardens which lasted all of 10 minutes, the place was unbelievably crowded. So we walked around a bit until we met up with one of Mary's friends at another museum (museums are free in D.C. which is an added bonus). Cam was way more into it as it was all animals and dinosaurs. Mary wanted us all to go to dinner but I convinced her that she and her friend should go alone. That worked out as I took the kids back to the hotel and we ordered room service. Mary took advantage and stayed out until almost midnight. Hey, you're still a mama with a bedtime. Hahahaha.

D.C. was great. We definitely think we'll have to take a longer trip at some point since it's a great place to take the kids and not super far from Boston.



Yesterday we left D.C. and yet again hit traffic everywhere we could and everywhere we couldn't. Needless to say, we made it to Savannah where we planned to stay the night.

This morning, my plan was to wait in line at the Lady & Sons (Paula Deen from the Food Network's restaurant) to get a lunch reservation. They start taking names at 9:30 a.m. It was a few blocks away and I planned to leave the hotel at 9. I looked out the window of the hotel at 8:45 and saw a line wrapping around a building and knew it must be the restaurant.



Before leaving, I learned that the power was out in the hotel. Little did I know, it was out in most of Savannah. Needless to say, I did get a reservation but the restaurant wasn't able to open due to the power outage. We finally found a place that had power so we could eat breakfast (at close to 11:00) and then headed out to Orlando.

We arrived here around 6:00. The ride felt like a breeze since it was only about 5 hours and with little (though of course some) traffic. We are staying at a resort in Orlando that is AWESOME. It's basically like an apartment, it's fairly new and we have a great master suite with a hot tub and Cam has his own room and most importantly t.v. LOL. The kid has done nothing but watch t.v. this trip but whatever, it's vacation. I just saw the Disney fireworks from our balcony. Tomorrow we'll head down to see Mary's family and meet our new niece (or rather 2 since we have never met Lily who turns 1 tomorrow) Gracie Rose who was born a few days ago.

Found it!

My sis doesn't take very good pics' and what is Cam doing?


Jane, tell us the way...and why didn't we invest in the traffic receiver?


angry that I made him use the headphones




our driver

This cracked me up. I had to bribe Cam with 4 orange tic tacs to lend O.G. his DVD but it was worth it :-) O.G. + Baby Einstein = Heart


O.G.'s first hotel stay

Hanging in D.C.

We arrived in D.C. at about 8:30 last night - it was a LONG day. The kids did amazingly well especially O.G. who I was very worried about. He generally hates the car so taking such a long drive was risky. But he did great. Aside from whining quite a bit, Cam did great too.

Of course, all was not great. What was to be an 8 hour trip (we figured 9 with stops) turned into 12. The traffic was insane getting through NY and on the Jersey turnpike. Then when we thought we were finally in D.C., we hit more traffic. Needless to say, we made it. We stayed the night and will stay tonight with some sightseeing today. We are going to be meeting up with Reinventing Motherhood (see sidebar) so we can arrange Lexi and O.G.'s marriage ;-)

Well, I was just going to upload some pics' but I don't have my USB cord. I'll definitely have to invest in another memory card.

Happy Christmas!

Cam probably enjoyed it the most. For me, I'm just happy it's over :-) I do enjoy Christmas with the trees and lights and songs but this year just seemed extra stressful. With trying not to raise 2 spoiled brats, I also hate the materialism of the holiday. But it was fun and now it's over :-)







Last night we had a lot of fun going to church and to a party at my aunt's. O.G. also had his acting debut in the part of baby Jesus at our church. He did GREAT. He's a good baby in general but I was worried with the late start time (7:00) and sometimes lately he does get freaked out by strangers. But he laid in the manger and let the Rev carry him around. It was SO cute. Mary also got to act as Mary. They wanted us both involved but somebody needed to watch Cam and I'm so not into being in front of so many people. It will definitely be a lasting memory and something cool to tell him about when he's older.






Tomorrow we're off on the road trip from hell, I mean a fun family vacation ;-) We'll be away for about 2 weeks and we're driving (I know, we're crazy) to Florida with stops in D.C. and Savannah. Once in Florida we're staying at a resort townhouse but will meet up with Mary's fam throughout the trip. We're staying close to them but not too close which is key to my sanity.

I hope everyone had a happy Christmas!

Bits and Pieces

I've been a bad blogger. There's just not enough hours in the day, I feel like I'm constantly rushing. Here's my week in review and some more random bits...

Monday: The chimney sweep man cleaned our chimneys so "Santa wouldn't get dirty"

Tuesday: Cam was home after not behaving at school on Monday in our attempts to get him to behave at school and in general

Wednesday: Cam's school had an odd potluck. I brought a fruit bowl and cookies.

Thursday: Mary went to D.C. on a train for business stuff

Friday: School was cancelled even though the snow didn't start until 1:30. I brought both kids to the mall, everyone home from school was there.
We lost a member of our pet family: Superman, Cam's fish. BoBo (the cat) ate him. Yes, he ate him, all I found was part of his tail. Poor guy. He was such a cool fish.

Saturday: Cam turned 4

In other news, O.G.'s 2 bottom teeth came in (last weekend), now we wait for them to grow. At least the screaming in pain part seems to be over. He turned 5 months (today). He sits in a high chair (an early Christmas gift from my dad). He's SO cute. On Wednesday night (Christmas Eve) he has the starring role at our church, he will play baby Jesus.

And some random pics :-)




This was from his cousin (my nephew) Seamus Jr. When he opened it, he screamed, "I always wanted one of these!". Kids are so funny.

Friday Fun

Cam loves this video and we have to watch it at least once/day so I figured I'd post. He's usually very cute when he tries to get the baby to smile which was why I decided to record it though this time he took a different approach...



Cam is home since he went in on Wednesday (his normal day off) for a field trip. The weather was also brutal this morning which ice and rain so I didn't want the kids in the car. The rain seems to finally be clearing up now after days of nasty rain and ice. I hope it is a good weekend!

Holiday Card Dilemma

So we have been trying to put together holiday cards and I just can't decide. Here's some possibilities...






Our original idea was to do a "Super Holiday" one but the Superman pics' just didn't come out very good. It is SO hard to get them both smiling and looking at the camera. Oh well...any votes? We'll probably end up trying to do some more pics' tonight but I need to order ASAP.

Pre-kids I had invisioned these PERFECT holiday cards. I didn't factor in trying to get kids to smile and look at the camera and not drool all over themselves :-)

BUSY Weekend

The weekend was a whirlwind. Friday night we went to Mary's work party. With the economy the way it is, they decided to not do a nice shin dig and instead had a potluck at the office. One word: LAME! I was actually looking forward to a nice holiday party that I could get dressed up for and have a night without the kids.
Anywho, it was odd and really only Mary should have gone but she begged me to go with the kids. Cam was ridiclously shy until he started acting like a maniac towards the end. The baby was fussy since he didn't nap all day. So it was odd to say the least. One of Mary's students was drunk and seemed to be hitting on her and kept scaring both Cam and O.G. That made things even more awkward.

I survived and then had more FUN things on Saturday. *sad sarcastically* Cam's pre-school was involved with a craft fair so I helped at the table. It was a waste of 3 hours but luckily went by pretty quickly. There was an entire $11 in sales when I was there. Afterwards, I headed home and we headed out to pick up our tree. It is now up and I would say by far the worst tree we've ever picked out. I'm not sure what we were thinking but it has so many gaps. We picked it out in about 5 minutes so that was probably our problem. The room it's in is also very hot and dry.

Saturday also involved me watching the kids while Mary watched the SEC Championship game (college football). That was a little bit crazy as all Cam wanted to do was decorate and wouldn't stop touching all the ornaments and glass things. He was VERY excited since I gave him one of those little fake trees to decorate on his own. It looks totally insane but it's all his work and he loves it.

Sunday was another busy day that started with church. We some how agreed to let O.G. act as baby Jesus in their nativity scene on Christmas Eve. This will make us very late for my aunt's annual party but how I could pass up the chance for our donor baby with 2 mommies to be baby Jesus. ha! The only cooler thing would be if he was a girl baby :-)

We then headed to an open house. We're not exactly looking to buy but occasionally check out houses. There's also rumor that the feds are going to drop rates to 4-5% which would make buying a house a great deal with the already lower prices. The house was very similar to our house in Maine and brand new which was nice. However, it was kind of small and with not much of a yard. After that, we rushed home as Cam had a birthday party to attend.

That was at his gymnastics place so he had to change out of church clothes. He was SO funny and thrilled that all his friends were at gymnastics. I kept explaining to him what it was, he kept thinking it was his regular class. When we pulled up, some of his friends were arriving and he kept yelling "Look, There's E!...Look, there's D!". Apparently, me telling him that all his pre-school friends were going to be there didn't set in until he actually saw them. Needless to say, he had a blast.

Afterwards, I got home in time to watch the Pats' game. Mary took Cam to Target to pick up a gift for a gift drive. This year, we're donating to the Home for Little Wanderers (see side bar). The Home is great because they're involved with 2 causes very dear to us - foster children and GLBT youth. They actually have a home for GLBT foster kids which I think is great. So we got 2 gift certificates for general donation and then are filling one of the GLBT wish lists. We purchased a digital camera (with all the accesorries: memory card, case, etc) for one of the GLBT kids. It was nice to be able to do since we are doing well financially.

So that was the weekend - now the week is flying by too. I still have much to do to prepare for Christmas and Cam's birthday (on the 20th).

O.G. in da crib

We also put O.G. in his crib. Initially I planned on having him in our room (in his bassinet) for a few weeks. Then I had a baby and that all changed. I like having him near and since I have to get up so often in the night, it's just easier having him right there. Well, I wouldn't say I was exactly ready to put him in his own room in his crib but kind of. Mostly, I was sick of Mary b*tching about him being in our room.

Well, the first night went fine except for the fact that I decided to sleep on a blow up mattress in his room. His room also seems to be freezing. I'm not sure if it's his humidifier or what. He has wearable blanket things but he never seems warm enough. I also wish the bumpers weren't a potential SIDS risk. His new favorite thing is to put his pacifier through the slots of the crib. First, he finds this quite funny and laughs about it. Then the reality sets in that his pacifier is on the floor and he can't get it so he cries about it. He also likes to put his hands and feet through the openings which seems dangerous to me. Needless to say, I was up at 11:30 p.m., 1:30 p.m., and then at 5 a.m. I just put him in the bed with us. Interrupted sleep just doesn't work for me and seems to be a form of torture.

Mary is also VERY busy at work which just sucks for me. She's exhausted when she gets home and I need a second pair of hands. She wants to be done with work when she gets home but guess what? It's time to be a mom. I feel like at times we're finding some sort of balance and then it goes out the window. This week it seems to have gone out the window.

In other non-ranting news, O.G. continues to try food. Of course I initially thought I'd make my own baby food but where would I find the time for that. Instead, I try to buy organic stuff and make sure the ingredients are pure and not preservative crap. Last night he tried peas. He made funny faces at first so I didn't think he liked it. Then he screamed when the spoon wasn't in his mouth - meaning: he likes them. He also likes rice cereal (or rather loves it) and sweet potatoes. He's not a fan of the bananas which surprised me. Mr. Food (CAM) eats anything that's left over. LOL. I even picked him up his own baby food bananas at the store today, I had promised since he liked them so much.