Happy Mother's DAY! I hope you all had a great day yesterday!

We went to brunch with Juan's side of the family around 11am, and we managed to cram 26 of us into a tiny family restaurant in South Buffalo that I've never been to but had the best food EVER. The place was so simple it didn't even have a sign and we had to park way down the street, but it was just perfect.

In the afternoon we had Juan's sister and her kids over to play on our new gigantic swingset (pics to follow after work today) and in the evening we had a huge BBQ with my Mom and my side of the family at my Nana's house. We got home at 7:30 and both the kids were pooped so they went to bed and Juan and I watched a copy of "The Boleyn Girl" we found on the internet. It was a great movie!


How was everyone's weekend? Anything new?

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Sounds like you had a great day Amy.

Well...I cleaned on Mother's Day. Not exactly a thrilling day for sure, but when there is a box spring in your living room and bed frames and mattresses shoved up against random walls, you do what you gotta do.

The good news is that 4 days before my baby turns 3, Rebecca is finally in a big girl bed. We only converted Rebecca's crib into a toddler bed a few months ago and really had no plans at all to move her out of the toddler bed, but we got a new bed this week and she had to be moved. The girl loves her crib though. She won't let us move her crib out of her room. She starts sobbing hysterically when we talk about taking it out.

When we first moved in the bed, she climbed in it to read books and repeatedly said she didn't want to sleep in it. I told her not a problem, that she could move into her crib if she wanted to. So we tucked her in the bed and before the door even closed, she hopped out into her crib. She stayed there for about 10 minutes and then hopped into her new bed and slept there all night. Dh took pictures of her in her bed. They are so funny. She's flanked by two giant stuffed animals on either side of her. They are our version of crib railings in her queen sized bed. You can hardly see her through all of the stuff.

I bought new bedding yesterday and she'll get it for her birthday. At that time I think we'll deal with the tears and move out her crib, You literally can't walk through her room. She's got an apartment sleeper couch in there as well! Talk about crowded! BTW, very hard to find queen sized duvet covers that look like they belong in a kid's room. Ugh!

I've babbled & procrastinated long enough...Off to get some work done.

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Andy

Amy those are the best restaurants! Sounds like you had a fun day.
Andy - I'd love to see those pictures. A girl in conflict. Hope she's able to hold it together to say good bye to her crib. You're a big girl now Rebecca.

Nursery was great this Sunday. Thanks to my husband I didn't fall apart. At 9:30 PM I was rethinking my Mother's Day craft but DH talked me off the ledge and convinced me I had made the right choice. A handprint poem. The craft was a success. Surprisingly and not so we didn't have many children in the second service. I was able to get away and we were able to join Todd's mom and grandparents for lunch. Then we had FIL and his wife over for MD's dinner. Lot's of fun.

OH! Todd surprised me with a digital frame! Can't wait to plug and play. It plays video and music

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Candes, I love those digital frames (I don't have one myself but my MIL does) Hers plays photo cd's too so we just order a CD of all our digital pics at rite aid and give it to her every few months!


Andy, what a big girl Rebeca is! Jack's transition was much easier because he went into his twin bed with railings at 15 months, before he was too attached to the crib. Lily will be in her crib forever because she loves it. She's never tried to climb out and she falls right to sleep when I put her in there, so she's going to be my tough transition!


I definitely think that Lily is going to be the child that turns my hair white and makes Juan's fall out. She's is rambunctious, fearless, quick, intelligent and GORGEOUS...............so we are in trouble! She's a climber and we just got a new swingset with a fort and a rung ladder to climb up into it. At 17 months old she can climb the 8 vertical rungs all by herself and slide down the twisty slide head-first on her belly. I know she can do that because I turned my back to her for a minute as I helped Jack in the driveway where he had fallen off his 2 wheeler with training wheels. He fell in the grass and wasn't hurt but I turned around as I heard "WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!" as she came barreling down belly first into the grass. I almost threw up!

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Good morning ladies! We had a great weekend. Friday night I had a Spring Supper at church with a ton of women. It was a great time away (without kids). Sat. morning dh went to the men's breakfast at church and then came home. He took Keegan across the street to his parent's house to play with his cousins. While they were there mil and I went to a plant sale at one of our town's high schools. We took the kids for pictures Sat. evening. I was feeling a little guilty that we hadn't taken Truitt for professional pictures yet. By this age we had taken Keegan 3-4 times. The pictures are beautiful! We spent WAY too much money. We even bought two huge framed pictures. If I can figure out how to post pics of them I will. On Sun. we went to church and then met my family for lunch at Olive Garden. We gave both of our mom's these frames with pictures from our session on Sat.

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Angela

Mommy to Keegan Jude & Truitt James

Amy - congrats on the giant new swingset. Sounds awesome! Sounds like your mother's day was fab too. Raphael is our little daredevil too, and it is scary. What's even scarier to me is that he gets hurt, which inhibited the other two, but he just gets up, and keeps on doing the dangerous thing he was doing. Yikes! I have night terrors as I'm falling asleep sometimes w/ the worry.

Andy - WTG on starting to move to the big girl bed. Our middle is nearing 3 and still sleeps in his cribby. He slept w/ his big sis in a big boy bed while we were on sabbatical, but immediately returned to his bed when we got back. I had thought the trip would bring on the change, but nope! I think it's going to be a while longer for us.

Candes - great gift. I love those digi frames too. We got one for FIL for his 80th, and it was great.

Angela - Love the new sig pic. I had seen it earlier but didn't have time to post. Your little guy is looking so different. It's amazing how quickly babies change, isn't it?

Well, our big news is that we put a bid in on a house tonight. We started doing the initial work of undergoing a major renovation and addition to our current house when a house that fits nearly all our needs and of a reasonable price came on the market. So, we made a the bid. Tomorrow should tell if it will work out. I have my doubts that they will accept our offer, but you never know. I think our offer was great - nearly asking - which is really unheard of around here, but I've heard that they want the asking price. I'm a little shaky tonight w/ anticipation and fear and the buyer's remorse that seems to come with any big purchase, even though it hasn't even gone through yet.

Kidwise, Theo has developed horrible eczema. It's on his arms, neck and legs. It's itchy and looks awful. We've started him on steroid cream and give him benadryl at night to try to keep him from scratching in his sleep. His skin has always been very sensitive - the salt in his tears if they drip down his cheeks give him trouble. He did say a very funny thing the other day. DH was in Asia, and T asked if he had taken the red-eye or the blue-eye to get there. LOL

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Kate
hcg @ 12 dpo 95.4, Progesterone 18
@ 17 dpo 960.6
@ 26 dpo 28,970.8
Heartrate @ 33 dpo (6w5d) 130

Beansie's EDD: May 12 (arrived May 10)
Lucky Clover's EDD: July 2 (arrived July 3)
Little Boo's EDD: January 25 (arrived January 31)
Heartrate @ 8w3d 174

I just have to add that we really should do something since we live in a 2 bedroom/1bath, 1700sf house w/ no storage and no real yard. It's a little tight, and most people don't know how we do it. It would be a lot better if we had storage and a powder room. Anyway, the new place or the addition would be closer to 3000sf 4-5bedroom/3bath. I think 3000sf seems huge, but most of our friends think it's too small for us and too small for them.

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Kate
hcg @ 12 dpo 95.4, Progesterone 18
@ 17 dpo 960.6
@ 26 dpo 28,970.8
Heartrate @ 33 dpo (6w5d) 130

Beansie's EDD: May 12 (arrived May 10)
Lucky Clover's EDD: July 2 (arrived July 3)
Little Boo's EDD: January 25 (arrived January 31)
Heartrate @ 8w3d 174

Kate, how exciting about the house!!! You will have to let us know if they counter or what. Does this mean you are home from your sabbatical? I don't think I've ever seen you mention your kids by name. Was it Raphael the daredevil who just had a bday?

Candes, the MD craft sounds really cute. Glad yesterday was less stressful than last Sunday. Are you still on the fence about leaving your other job? Sounds like you might need a little more time to decide. Oh, I love your garden slide show! Your yard looks wonderful. I am just starting to get back to mine now that the weather FINALLY seems to be warming up.

Amy, can't wait to see your photos! All these lucky kids with new swing sets. We have a tiny one, the old fashioned metal kind, from TRU. But we only have a tiny space for it, so it works. Hayden is happy with it and that is all that matters. Both kids were swinging today while I ran back and forth, pushing them and cleaning the fence behind the swing set. If you ever think, wow, a vinyl fence would be so nice and low maintenance, ha! I would rather paint a fence every few years than have to scrub every darn bar by hand. Ughhhhhh. It is going to take me weeks at this rate. We have learned so much from this house--about what we DON'T like!

I am very, very tired. I don't remember Hayden having such a hard time with teething. Maybe I blocked it out. On that note, going to get ready for bed and sleep while I can.

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Thanks to those of you who offered prayers & get well wishes for my mom last week. Keep them coming. The new xrays show that MAYBE the bones lined up enough that she won't require surgery. Of course, that is the educated guess of a internal med guy and not a foot specialist, but it's nice to have a spark of hope.

She comes home from rehab (foot rehab that is ) today. She'll be staying here until she can meet with a foot specialist then go in for surgery. If surgery isn't needed, then the new doc will determine when she can get up and move around enough to spend some time alone at home (then I'd gradually start going over there less & less).

I'm hoping she functions well while I take the occasionally 2 hr break. I just can't do all my grocery shopping when DH is home and I can't bare the thought of never being able to get my kids out of the house. Thank goodness for their big playset out back. The nice thing about that is it is right outside her bedroom window, so she can watch them play from bed.

Kate - I think a 3000 sq ft will be surprisingly perfect for you. Ours is a 5 bedroom, 3 bath, 3400 sq ft house. And I can say from experience that it can both be too big and too small, depending on the day. Most days I feel like I'd like it to be a little smaller - less to clean, less to cool/heat, less unused space. But others it does feel small - like since I have to keep the boys in the same room since we converted one of the bedrooms to to a media room and the guest room is downstairs. I'm just not ready to have Zach downstairs by himself at night, and well that wouldn't be an option now with my mom staying here anyway. Plus, since the guest room was the 'junk room', I'd like to now have a junk room. So that means currently my house feels REALLY small, but it's giving me a great excuse to purge lots of stuff.

Gotta run...........the home health people are here.

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Cyndi
Mommy to

Zach 5/20/03


Gabe 4/26/05


Mikki 1/22/07

Cyndi, I hope your mom doesn't need surgery. I bet your kids will enjoy having Grandma around, even if she can't play too much.

We had plans to take the ferry into the big city and walk to the aquarium today, but it is pouring rain so 2/3 of us are still in our PJs! I am getting together a few things to donate to a local foster family group (all the unused baby bottles and liners, blankets, clothes, few toys and books). It is nice to free up some drawer and cabinet space!

The odyssey of sleepless misery continues here but instead of that, let's focus on how cute Bryce is! lol Here are a few bday pics, finally. My favorite is the one in my sig. And holy cow was that frosting a pain to clean!





Bryce did finally taste the frosting but he was not interested!


We think it looks like he poorly applied some lipstick here


Party favors (I thought this was brilliant for a last minute idea, lol)

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Maks me nervous just watching him eat all that red lol Those are fantastic party favors! Below are links to Jack's 1st birthday and Ben's 5th transformer party

Ben’s birthday party

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/w...d=8MbMnLRu5YjU



Jack’s birthday party

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/w...d=8MbMnLRu5YlM


I dream of a 3400sqft house...Ours is 2000sgft, but here in Cali, even that is close to $1 mill

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Nicola & Craig, Ben 5/2/2003, Olly 7/17/2005, Jack 4/15/2007

My 3 beautiful boys

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Wow Amy! That is a great playset! I bet the kids love it.

Cyndi, I hear you on a large house. Many days I wish we lived in a smaller house. There is just too much to keep clean. Our house is 4100 sq ft. We have 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms with a full finished basement. Our garage has been turned into a furnished office. Dh and his brother run their business out of there.

We were planning on meeting Melissa at the aquarium today, but the weather is awful. Hopefully it will be nicer next week so we can meet up. I am really looking forward to meeting, finally!

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Angela

Mommy to Keegan Jude & Truitt James

Amy~ That looks like a fun playset!

Cyndi~ I'm praying that your mom doesn't need surgery. And for a healthy, speedy recovery.

Melissa~ You are much braver than I am with the red frosting! Phoebs will be getting white! I'm a little AR about that much color to clean off the kids!

Kate~ We live in a 4000 sq ft 6 bedroom, 3 1/2 bath house with a finished basement. It's too much house. Thank goodness we rent. I don't think I would want to buy this house. Too many stairs, too many bedrooms, too much wasted space.

My mom and I went looking around town at some other stores that carry local artists. One of which claims to carry so many local artists, but most of the stuff I found was made elsewhere. I think they are kinda misrepresenting themselves. I did find some people that I'm going to contact to see if they want to be in the store. I can't tell you how happy I am that we made this change! I feel so good knowing that the stuff in our store didn't come from some foreign country.

Phoebe has started doing this walk/crawl thing. She's on her hands but instead of being on her knees, she's on her feet. She's also started cruising the furniture (and us!) so I'm expecting her to take off soon! Our nights had been blissfully wake-up free until a couple days ago. She's either got her sisters cold or she's trying to break in a tooth on the top. It may be a little of both.

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Amy that playset is awesome. Where did you end up getting it from.

I am tried. We had play group today. It is cool to see all the babies grow up.

I am feeling guilty about not throwing Enrique a party so I might put one together at that the last minute. We will see.

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Kate, good to know that I'm not the only one with a cutie who loves their crib. We actually wouldn't have moved her out of the toddler bed had we not received a new bed and needed a place to put our old one.

Speaking of which, I hate to sound like a commercial, BUT, I our new tempurpedic bed!!! OMG! We bought a new mattress last year and it's great, but this tempurpedic bed rocks! My sides have hurt since getting pg, but no more. Had I known how comfy this bed was, I would have bought it last year.

Rebecca is now OK with moving her crib out, so out it will go this weekend at the latest! Here's to space!

Kate, have you heard on the house? To me, how comfortable you are in a house has less to do with square footage and more to do with layout. This house is only 300 square feet less than our last one, but is tiny in comparison. The layout just isn't as friendly and conducive to living and entertaining as our last house. And yet, we stay...

Melissa, super cute pics! Ty was all about the frosting. And I'm with you Nicola, that red makes me nervous. I was freaked out enough with Ty's bright green frosting, you were very brave to do red! BTW, I your party favors. We went to a party this weekend and they had those rubber balls you buy at Target for maybe $1.50 as party favors. best party favor we've received.

Amy, great swingset! Love, love, love it!

Carrie, glad the business is going well. I love local art things!

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Andy

Nicola, great pictures! Love the ones of the kids passed out after Jack's party. We are getting a jumpy for Becca's party this weekend. I thought Dh was going to order a big one like the one you had for Ben, but apparently we're just getting a castle. Boooring. Ben looks so grown up in his pics! How old is he now? Oh, and we have t hose same dining room chairs.

Cyndi, I hope your mom is able to escape surgery and heal on her own. That's the only time I shop! The grocery store has become my down time. Ahhh, the life of a mother.

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Andy

The playset is from ToysRUs

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Hi Girls

Hope everyone had a wonderul mothers day. We had a wonderful day at home and went to my Mum's for dinner.Sorry that i have been so scarce trying to finish off this essay it's due Monday. Also Deana has had some shocking teething,
Also We got Marcus school enrolment stuff.We have his interview on the 23rd May at 2.30 and i am freaking out . I just can't beleive all this is happening. I just worry what they will ask Marcus etc... I am sure it will go fine, but it doesn't stop me from worrying.
Have also been busy organising Deana's christening in 3 weeks.We bought her dress the other week. I will share a pic later.Marcus had his school pics taken yesterday so looking forward to those. Oh and also need to organise Marcus' birthday parties.
I hope life calms down soon.

Amy- Love the new sig they have grown so much.Love the swingset.
Andy- YAY on the big girl bed. Looking forward to seeing pics.
Kate- Hioe all goess well with the bid.
Cyndi- I haven't had a chance to pop in but it wanted some my orayers and good thoughts your way.Big hugs.
Melissa- Those pics are great. He is such a cutie pie.
Carrie- WTG on the crawling and cruising.
Nicola- Love the pics.

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Oh and i just realised i am on my last pill script before we ttc.I know it's silly but since my script lasts a year and i will be going off the pill in April, it feel so surreal.

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