Well, that's just going to bug the crap out of me!

I have no idea what happened to the layout of my last bog. It's like it's melting or something "What a world, what a world! I'm melting! I'm melting!" If you have any tips for me on why that happened, please let me know, because that is really going to bug me. And, I'm the (wo)man behind the screen, and even if I click my heels together three times it's not fixing it, and if I get angry then I'll scare the Cowardly Lion, and the Tinman will cry and rust, and Scarecrow will be mad at me most of all. And Flying Monkeys will fly out my...well, you get the idea. And, I've used up pretty much all my knowledge of The Wizard Of Oz anyway. And Toto fell asleep.

Since I'm blogging to complain and apologize for the previous blog, I should put up ("Put 'em up! Put 'em up!"- did you use a Cowardly Lion voice for that? Good job!) Anyway, here are some pictures from our Zoo trip. Where, ironically there are no lions, cowardly or otherwise.

Here are the kids in front of the second animal we saw. A beautiful sleeping tiger (see him behind Bastian?). One of my favorite animals. Notice how happy Moira looks? She hadn't actually seen the tiger yet. Once she did she told me she was scared, and asked if the tiger was going to wake up. Poor girl. Not that I blame her. She's about the size of one of the tigers legs.

Ahh, here they are observing the rare and exotic...geese? Really, geese? We all got a good laugh because the geese were going crazy, running up to the fence and honking like crazy. The kids thought it was hilarious.

You can't really see it, but there are monkey's in the exhibit behind the kids. Get it? My monkeys are in front of the Zoo's monkeys. I admit it would have been a better sight gag if you could actually see a monkey behind them. But now that you know what was there, I give you permission to laugh.....

Isn't this a sweet picture? Dennis was pointing out the huge lizard that was under the rock.

Which is what Lincoln is eyeing in this next picture. I believe he is thinking "Wow! That almost looks like a giant peanut butter cup! Mmmmm, peanut butter cup!" (have I told you that Lincoln really takes after me?)

da dum...da dum...da dum..daDUM...daDUMdaDUMdaDUMdaDUM..."

"Lincoln...don't look, but I think there is something behind you...no, no, don't look! Stay still. It will go away...."

Oh, the energy of youth! Look at Bastian, he's practically skipping. In fact, yes, I do believe he was skipping!

And that ends our day at the zoo. It was a nice way to spend Easter Monday afternoon. But, in the end "There's no place like home...there's no place like home....there's no place like home..."

Insults, Eggs, Easter and losing my 'G' rating

I'll start with the 'Insult' part.

We were leaving the zoo yesterday after spending the better part of the afternoon there. I was feeling happy and mellow, the way you feel after a nice family activity. One that tired the kids out, but didn't cause any meltdowns. Or tantrums from the kids, either. So, I'm in my "yes, my kids are wonderful" haze as we drive away. And then, Gideon says to me:

"Mama, did they have cars when you were a kid?"

Ouch. That is harsh. Really. Cars have been around for, what? 100 years? Yes, I think those newfangled cars were just being introduced when I was a kid.


Now for the Easter Bunny part:

Here we are coloring eggs...

http://s212.photobucket.com/albums/cc98/luvmy5monkeys/March/?action=view&current=Easter001.flv

Here is the aftermath of all that fun......




(oh, and by the way, if any one would like some hard boiled eggs, we have a ton of them to get rid of! 4 and a half dozen to be exact.)

























We had a wonderful Easter. We woke up at about 7:30 (yes, Linds there is a 7:30 in the morning). The kids found their baskets and toys, and the plastic eggs the Easter Bunny hid. The Easter Bunny is super smart and puts the kids initials on their eggs. This way they each have the same amount, and they each know to leave the other ones alone. Lincoln's eggs were put right out in plain view, one of them right in the middle of the living room floor, because we figured he would have no idea what was going on. And, he didn't. For about 25 seconds. That is when he discovered that there was (cue choir of Angels) candy inside the eggs! After that he was like a bloodhound, sniffing out all the eggs he could. And, here is my Public Service Announcement...parents, if you don't talk to your kids about the Easter Bunny, who will?
http://s212.photobucket.com/albums/cc98/luvmy5monkeys/March/?action=view&current=f4d8588d.pbw













The Easter Bunny was so nice to bring Spencer 7 billion more Pokemon cards.























Gideon shows off his Easter basket and cool Lego Batman pen. (oh, his gift was an RC dragonfly toy)

Bastian playing with his new toy, bubble BBQ grill. It's pretty neat. (oh, and I swear the floor was clean when they woke up! How does it get so messy so very quickly?)






























Moira. She is such a good egg.

And, now, here is where I turn PG-13. I'll try to be mature about this one. But it's too funny not to put in my blog, even if I will be blushing the whole time I write this. Last night we went to Friendly's for dinner. A few minutes after being seated Moira says (very, very loudly!)
"Mama! Look at that big clock!"
Although she forgot a letter in the last word. And, while I'm not going to say exactly which letter, lets just say it's a pretty important letter. Here is a clue:

(And, no it's not chicken or chicken hawk)

Meanwhile as Moira was exclaiming over the giant um, clock on the wall, she is also holding her hands about 2 feet apart to show me how big the er, clock is. And I was adult enough to be mortified by what she was so loudly saying. Yet, I was juvenile enough to be practically crying and falling out of my seat because I was laughing so hard.

So, take that Gideon! No one who laughs over that story was born before cars were invented.

Don't you wish your life was as exciting as mine?

Oh yeah, you are jealous...I know you are. You read my blog and you think "how could one little (little, sexy, crazy...add your own adjective. Like a blogging Mad Lib) lady survive such excitement everyday of her life?" Well, I'll tell you how. I conserve my energy for 23.5 hours a day so I'm all set for when the excitement hits. And I can pounce...like a..well, I'd like to say a panther, but I'll be honest, it's more like a well-loved spoiled house cat. *meow* *catnap* *oh look...a light! get the light! get the light!...hey, come back here light!* *nap*

My huge excitement for today. As relayed to you through interpretive dance...wait, that requires moving. Ok, I'll just copy and paste the email I sent to Dennis today (oh yeah, I'm so conservative- of my energy- that I can't even take the time to retype the email for you. It's like cold email leftovers.)

me:

Moira pooped in her potty chair!!!!!
that is my exciting news :)

And Dennis's reply was:

YEAH FOR POOP!!!

Moira has been doing pretty well potty training for the last week. Once she realized that the bathroom was a pink color, now she loves the bathroom. She has had 2 accidents during the day this week, but that is pretty good. She still wears a pull up for nap time and overnight and usually wets. But, considering how resistant she was to potty training 2 weeks ago I'm happy with her progress. But, today I decided to put her potty chair in her room for nap time (she doesn't use the potty chair). And about an hour later she came to tell me she went potty in it. Yay Moira!! And, now after all that excitement I need a nap...*oh, another light! come back here light!*

And now...some random pictures!!

Lincoln shows a bit more of his feminine side. What a sweet boy! Of course after about 2 minutes he picked the baby up by her hair and threw her off the chair.

Spencer with his second place ribbon at the

Learning Fair:

(I just noticed Moira peeking behind Spencer on the right there. The little nut. She sure knows what to do when a camera is pointed at her, doesn't she?)

She looks all sweet and innocent here, doesn't she? In reality she was yelling at me because I dared to take a picture of her brother and not one of her.

Here are a couple pictures from when Dennis took the kids sledding earlier this month:

And, Gideon...he's not big on getting his picture taken, so he doesn't make may appearances in my blog.

Now I can't stop thinking about a blog version of Mad Libs....

"I opened Jess's (adjective) blog, and read about her (adjective) kids again. (Four letter word) does she do anything else? Who told her she could (verb)? Yeah, interesting (noun). I'm going to bookmark it...when (animal, plural) flies out my (body part)! (Exclamation) who does she think she is? But, I admit her kids are (verb)."

And, last but not least: Don't forget to:

Er, I mean...Vote for Spencer!!!!!! (see previous blog for details) (thanks!)

Vote for Spencer!!

Haha, that title sounds like a campaign slogan, doesn't it? "Spencer for President!...hey, I can't screw things up any worse, right?" Ok, now my goofy bone is tingling...lets see some past campaign slogans and Spencer-ize them:
~~2004 (John Kerry) Let America be America again!
**Spencer's version: Let America be America again...because that's what George Washington wanted!
~~2000 (George W. Bush) Leave no Child behind!
** Spencer's version: Leave no child behind, because that will scare them and they will get lonely. And possibly hungry.
~~1996 (Bill Clinton) Building a bridge to the 21st century!
**Spencer's version: If you build a bridge, make it strong, because if it breaks then you are going to have a lot of people mad at you! And they all know where you live.
~~1988 (George Bush) Kinder Gentler Nation
** Spencer's version: Kinder and Gentler, unless you touch our stuff. Then It's On.
~~1964 (Barry Goldwater) In your heart you know he's right!
**Spencer's version: In your heart you know he's right, but your head isn't too sure. So tell your head to be quiet and listen to your heart.
~~1888 (Benjamin Harrison) Rejuvenated Republicanism
**Spencer's version: Rejuvenated Republicanism? What does that mean? It sounds like a sports car or something.
~~1864 (Abraham Lincoln) Don't swap horses in the middle of the stream
**Spencer's version: Don't swap horses in the middle of the stream...because your feet will get wet, and your mama will yell at you. Those were new shoes, for crying out loud.
~~1848 (Zachary Taylor) For President of the people!
** Spencer's version: For President of the people, because Pokemon aren't real and they can't vote. But how cool would it be if Pokemon were real? I could totally be a great President of Pokemon! And to pick my Vice President I would say "Pikachu! I choose you!" hahahahaha

Well, that went on a bit long, didn't it? I'm sorry. I wont do that again. My original purpose in writing this blog today is to tell everyone that the voting for the 5th Grader Challenge opens tonight at 5pm. So, visit this site (http://rochesterhomepage.net/content/wroc/contests_5thGradeChallenge) watch Spencer's clip, and vote for him please!!! Because thats what George Washington would have wanted. (and the Pokemon will get you if you don't)

Happy St Patricks Day!!!!

What is everyone up to for St. Patrick's Day today? We started our day with a hearty traditional Irish breakfast....also known as 'Lucky Charms' cereal. Dennis made sure the boys all wore some green. I totally flaked and forgot to put Lincoln and Moira in green. And, since we aren't drinkers and we don't like that traditional St. Patrick's day food of corned beef and cabbage, we make our own festive foods to celebrate.

We had bbq chicken (yes, I realize that is not Irish, but I was making dinner and it sounded good. Plus, seriously, could you eat green chicken??) green beans and green mashed potatoes. And for dessert ('cause ya know I've always got a dessert around someplace!)

Chocolate cake, with whipped cream frosting, crushed oreos between the layers and green sugar crystal sprinkles on top. (as always, feel free to drool all over your keyboard now)

Bastian's class picked Irish names today in school. I told him to just use his second middle name, Padraic- it doesn't get much more Irish then that, but here's his new Irish name (on his hat):

Lastly, here are a few things I came across today:

Murphy's Law
Nothing is as easy as it looks.
Everything takes longer than you expect.
And if anything can go wrong,
It will, at the worst possible moment.

A family of Irish birth will argue and fight,
but let a shout come from without,
and see them all unite.

May those that love us, love us.
And those that don’t love us,
May God turn their hearts.
And if he doesn’t turn their hearts,
May he turn their ankles,
So we’ll know them by their limping.

My boy is so....pretty?

Lincoln and Moira are going through a bit of a copycat stage. If one does something the other wants to do it too. So, this morning Moira was freaking out because the static electricity in the house was causing her hair to stand up mad scientist style. So, I grabbed a hair band and put her hair into a ponytail...with her screaming "OWWW! STOP HURTING ME!" the whole time. She hates having her hair brushed. Once she was done and I gave her some hugs and she calmed down she went off to go admire her beauty in the mirror of her vanity. Lincoln had been watching the whole process. Once Moira walked away, Lincoln ran off too. But he came right back, handed me a "pretty" (hair band) and the brush, grunted at me a couple times, turned around and plopped himself down on my lap. Being the genius I am I knew right away that he wanted me to do his hair too. So, I put his hair up in a pretty too. With him fake crying the whole time. Isn't he pretty?

BLOG, version 2.0.....

titled: Accident or Diabolical revenge......

haha, you decide!

I've said before that Dennis snores. Not super loud most the time, but some nights its enough to drive me crazy. He has the most trouble when the weather changes, and since we went from 65* on monday to 25* on tuesday, he had some issues last night.
We turn our heat down to about 60 overnight. And we have a fan (pointed away from us) on at night to drown out Dennis's snoring. So, our room is pretty cool. I like to snuggle under covers at night so I like it cooler. Anyway, Dennis went to sleep a while before me, I was snuggled under the covers reading for about 30 more minutes. So, picture me, completely snuggled under our big fluffy comforter, except for my right hand that was outside the covers holding my book. So, I finally shut the light off and turn over to go to sleep. I'm starting to drift off and Dennis starts snoring louder...I'm in that half awake/ half asleep stage. And somehow my right hand (the one that had been outside the covers so it was cold) makes contact with Dennis's bare back. He jumps up and yells out "COLD HAND!!!!!" And I jump and apologize, because it truly was an accident.
But then I start thinking "huh, maybe on the nights that nudging him to turn over so he stops snoring doesn't work, I should just put my hand outside the covers for a few minutes till it gets nice and cold...then touch him!"

Am I evil? Yes, I believe I am

And now...onto the Final Blog-tier.... (careful, Jess, your geek is showing!)

titled:We need to get the Tooth Fairy!

This one is another from the mind of Moira...She comes over to me on one of the oh so rare occasions I was on my computer. What are you laughing about? I'm barely ever online :)

Anyway, Moira comes over, and puts one hand on the arm of my computer chair, the other hand on the arm of the green chair and lefts up her feet and swings. After a couple swings she says "It's not working!" I said "It's not?" (you can't beat the well thought out psychologically uplifting parenting gems that come out of my mouth can you?...oh yeah, that's years of experience at work here people!) Here is the transcript of the conversation that followed: (for a copy of this transcript please send $19.99 directly to me in a self addressed stamped envelope...and I will send you back a link to the above blog, with a note saying "Why are you bothering me? The transcript is right there on the internet for you to see for free!! But thanks for the money...sucker!")

Moira: We need to get the Tooth Fairy!

Me: The Tooth Fairy? Why?

Moira: Because I need more magic.

Me: why do you need magic?

Moira: so I can fly!

Me: The Tooth Fairy gives you magic?

Moira: Yes, but she is really really tiny, so she didn't give me enough magic. See? (swinging her feet again) I can't fly!

Me: How do we get more magic from the Tooth Fairy?

Moira: We grab her and we squeeze her and she will give us more magic so I can fly.

I'm thinking it's more likely the Tooth Fairy will poop on you if you grab her and squeeze her. And believe you me, Fairy poop is a pain to wash off. And it stinks to high heaven, too. Plus, I've heard that the Tooth Fairy is in cahoots with the Easter Bunny...and that dude is not anyone I want to mess with!

Who would have thought that such a sweet innocent looking little girl would be planning to squeeze the magic out of a poor little fairy?

(Dennis took this picture last weekend when he took the kids sledding. It was Moira's first time going sledding on real hills. She loved it too!)

Odd things I've said today...and other ramblings

I've got to give some props to my iVillage board that I'm a co-leader for (the November 2006 Ginger Snaps in the hizzouse, whoop whoop!) (the Ginger Snaps is a message board for mama's of babies born in November 2006) We had our very first "Post Off" on Saturday. A post off is when two, or more, boards go head to head and see who can post the most messages on their board in a 24 hour period, from midnight to midnight. We were challenged by the November 2007 Apple Dumplings. So, what did I do on Saturday? Well, starting at 12am I was posting on my board. Silly posts with 1 or 2 word answers. We had a bunch of members that were right there at midnight posting away. Slowly through the early morning hours they drifted away. I stayed until 5am, then went to sleep. I figured I'd sleep till at least 11 or so, but I had a dream about posting, woke up at just before 9 and couldn't stop thinking about the post off. So I thought I would just peek in and see what our posting number was compared to our competition. But I got sucked in and couldn't go back to sleep, so I just started posting again...and posting...and posting...and posting. And, kept going till midnight. Dennis took care of the house and kids and I was able to devote my whole day to my board. In that 24 hour period, I posted for 20 hours and 16 minutes, and made 1,120 posts :) I came in third place of most posts from my board. Dennis kept saying to me "Stop reading the replies! Just post!!" Who knew we were so competitive? Anyway, my board won (Go Ginger Snaps!!!) with 18,717 posts in 24 hours. Not bad, huh?

Yesterday, I recovered. Hahaha.

Last night before bed Dennis turns to me and says "Who is getting up with the kids tomorrow?". Since Dennis was so great on Saturday doing all the kid/house stuff while I posted, I figured it would be pretty rude of me to say "You are!" So, I got up at 6 to get Spencer ready for his 7am bus, then Bastian and Gideon get up at a bit after 7 to get ready for their 8:20 bus. Lincoln and Moira wake up between 7 and 8.
On the days I get up early I'm lucky if I get 4 hours sleep. I just can never sleep well. Yesterday I got about 3 hours. So, needless to say I was a bit grumpy. Before Dennis left he told me to try to catch a nap after the babies go down. So, about 2 I lay down to try to catch a 30 minute nap before Spencer gets home. 15 minutes into it, the phone rings...it's Dennis. GRRR. He asks if I was able to nap, I said "I was...till you called" LOL. He was calling to see if I needed him to stop at the store.
Well, I guess he felt kind of guilty, so he stopped at the store and bought all the fixings for him to grill out tonight for dinner to take advantage of the 64* weather.
Nothing like a little guilt, huh?

I just realized I haven't talked about our Niagara Falls trip yet! Silly me. Dennis and I went for 2 nights, February 21st-23rd. I bought a 2 night package for us for Dennis's Christmas present. nice of me to buy him a present that's for me, too, huh? Yeah, that's how I roll. Mom and Dad watched the kids, and the kids had a blast. Ok, well, for some reason Lincoln screamed when Mom got near him. I have no idea what that was about! But, the boys said they had a great time. Moira keeps asking when Nana and Papa are coming back to see her.
Here's a slide show from the trip: http://s212.photobucket.com/albums/cc98/luvmy5monkeys/Niagara%20Falls%20Feb%2008/?action=view&current=3744d18c.pbw
The whole time we were there, everything we did we said "The kids would love this!" So, after we got home and showed the kids the 243 pictures we took (what do you mean the slide show was enough for you? There are 224 pictures left to see!) they asked us when we could go back. So, I looked online at the hotel we stayed at to see what their family package was like. They have a great package, so I think we are going to book it for the beginning of November (as a family combination birthday present-for Spencer, Dennis and Lincoln- and anniversary present for us) I looked to see what it would cost to do the package in July (busy season) and it's $500. To go in November (off season) the exact same package is $224. Whoo Hoo. Is it sad that I'm excited for a trip that's still 8 months away?
But, on a serious note...the time away just Dennis and I was so fantastic. We hadn't done that for 5 years...or 2 kids ago if you want to look at it that way. I'm hoping if I wait until closer to the end of the year, Mom and Dad will be recovered from the monkeys and will have entered into that denial phase of memories. You know the one, where somehow you only remember all the good things that happened and forget all the bad. So, hopefully by later this year Mom and Dad will be in that phase and I can con them into possibly doing it again sometime next year.

And now, on to a new feature of my blog. One, that I'm afraid to say will probably be a running feature:
Odd Things I've Said Today.....
~stop farting on me!
~Lincoln! Stop drawing on your sister!
~next naked butt I see I'm gonna spank!
~no. I don't like balloons. really. I don't. Seriously. Please get it out of my face.
~wha? huh? ummm, yeah. Ok. sure.Wait! What?
~if you dont eat your breakfast then you wont have eaten breakfast. (it was 6:30am, so understandable I was unintelligible)
~Moira, you'll have to tell Daddy if you want a new baby sister.
~Lincoln, don't sit on your sister.
~for crying out loud...STOP FARTING!!!

And now I conclude this installment of my blog...because Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives is on.....