So it was my best friends birthday on Saturday. I took my less than helpful shopping companion, Lindsey, to the mall with me Saturday morning to buy a gift. I bought her (my friend, not Lindsey) a shirt a couple pairs of cute socks. We both have this thing about wearing cute socks. Anywho, Saturday night we had a babysitter and Hubby and I were heading down to a pub to meet my friend and a whole slew of other people to celebrate her birthday.
Well, I had absolutely nothing to wear. Hmmmm,,, So what did I do? Well naturally I took the newly purchased shirt and cute socks out of the perfectly wrapped gift bag and put them on and wore them to the party. I don't even feel guilty about it. I'll just go out and buy her something even better and mail it to her. She had MANY cocktails that evening and I'm certain any gifts that were given to her that night at the bar were likely left behind so it's really a good thing I didn't give her a gift that night.
The funniest part is, while at the party my friend said to me " I LOVE your socks." Buahahha. She'll enjoy this story when I share it with her sometime.

Zoey figured out how to climb IN to her toybox. But of course, couldn't figure out how to get back out. She happily stayed in there for close to 20 minutes investigating everything before I rescued her.





Lindsey made paper bag teddy bear puppets. She actually made like 15 of them. One for me, one for daddy, one for her, one for Zoey, one for the cat, one for the dog we're going to get someday, etc etc.


Zoey's helping out with the puppet project by eating the markers.

I haven't been a very good blogger this week. I've been having one of those weeks. I have extreme fatigue and nausea. I napped yesterday from 1-3:45 went back to bed at 9 and slept until 9:30 today. Yet, I'm still tired. But something else has kept me preoccupied that I haven't really felt up to writing about. My dear friend that I've know since elementary school tried to take her own life on Sunday. She' s been in the psych ward at an excellent hospital in our area ever since. I had plans with her last friday and she cancelled at the last minute. She sounded pretty miserable so I called her again on Saturday and talked to her for an hour and she seemed to be a bit better. Obviously I was wrong because the next night she felt so hopeless that she literally wanted to die. I have so many mixed emotions about this. I'm scared, sad, hurt, confused and even angry. I could go on and on about this but I just don't really think it would come out very, um, I don't know, clear, organized. Whatever. So anywho, please forgive my lack of updates this past week. I'll return to normal soon I'm sure.

We were sooooo bored today. Hubby is at work until tomorrow morning and it's freezing out so I was stuck in the house with the kiddos for a looooong time. When Zoey went down for her nap I did the lazy mother thing. I put a video on for Lindsey and I curled up on the couch with her and tried to nap while she zoned out watching tv. Didn't work so well. That child bounced around on the couch like a kangaroo. I finally had enough of being stuck at home so off we went to the library. Zoey was like a maniac running and pulling books off the shelves. We left with way too many books. I couldn't even fit them all in my backpack. Then we headed to McDonalds for a healthy dinner followed up by an hour running them ragged in the McDonalds playspace. There was a little girl there from Lindsey's preschool so they had a blast together. At least they got out a lot of energy. That is my goal each day. Wear them out, wear them out, wear them out. We started off slow today but I think I succeeded in the end.

My Excuse is, I'm a moron

I realize that I should follow proper blogger etiquette and list links to all my blog friends but honestly I don't know how to make a list of them on the side of my blog. I don't have a spot for links and I'm too much of a dope to know how to make one.Maybe I should just get a new template. Yes, I'm a moron. I've spent quite some time trying to figure it out but alas I failed miserably. So please forgive me until I've figured it all out. Here are some that I do read quite often, in no particular order. ;)
http://deviatedpath.blogspot.com/ (Alex), http://gelbspot.blogspot.com/ (Leslie), http://missandrea.typepad.com/ (Andrea), http://growingupguacamole.blogspot.com/ (Jessica), http://sraikh.blogspot.com/ (Sunita), http://momma-rama.blogspot.com/ (Sara), http://ruleroftheelves.blogspot.com/ (Erin), http://cubancracker.blogspot.com/ (Jeanne), and http://jenkubes6.blogspot.com/ (Jen)

B. some info for you

You mentioned you'd like to find a place like the one I posted pics of close to you. If you email me I'll tell you where that place is, it might not be so far away. Let me just say it's in a state with many Bruins and Red Sox fans but I don't really want to give close details of where I live on my blog if you know what I mean.
puddy_muffin@yahoo.com

I took the girls to a local play space today to burn off some energy for a few hours. They love it there and had a blast as usual. There are more pics of Zoey than Lindsey because Lindsey's eyes were closed in quite a few of them. I'm not playing favorites, I swear.

Crawling through the train tunnel.



Zoey "cooking" in the kitchen.


Zoey in the chef's hat at the play diner.




Lindsey dressed up in a chef's outfit in the play diner.

I don't want to jinx myself, but.. this is the FIFTH day in a row that Zoey has slept past six. She's averaging around 6:25 to as late as 6:45. Since December she's been waking at 5 ish and that's just too damn early for both of us. This 6 o'clock stuff is like heaven.

And the Parent of the Year Award goes to.....

We've definitely made the short list this year for the parent of the year award and I'll tell you why. My darling, sweet, adorable, brilliant 16 month old baby girl says "oh shit". Yes, that's correct, OH SHIT. Not only does she say it with perfect pronunciation but she always uses it at the right moments. I can't begin to tell you how proud her father and I are. We are doing such a fabulous job as parents I think we should have a third.

I went to be at 8:30 last night and slept until sometime around 6 am. This morning I could tell that DH was actually kind of pissed that I went to bed so early. Like it was some kind of personal affront to him. What a dope. LOL.

What to do during a blizzard

Daddy found a big piece of cardboard and the three of them spent a long time coloring it together.



Lovely weather.



Lindsey licking a beater from the cookie dough.




Lindsey is giving Zoey a lick of the beater.




Lindsey in her Dora pj's creating a masterpiece. Notice her tongue sticking out as she concentrates.



Zoey enjoying one of the cookies.

We had a blizzard on Sunday so we spent the day trying desperately to entertain each other. We spent the majority of the day in our pajamas but finally were forced to get dressed after lunch because the kids had made such messes of themselves. I cooked my favorite crock pot meal, southwestern chicken, YUMMY. Lindsey and I baked chocolate chip and butterscotch chip cookies. We have to add the butterscotch chips because DH is one of those odd balls who doesn't like chocolate, GASP! All in all it was a good day and we all survived being stuck together for over 24 hours.

I'm sitting here eating a box of Valentines Day candy that was given to Zoey. Is that wrong? She's too young to eat a whole box. I'm not a scrooge, I'll let her have one piece but surely she doesn't need the whole box.
I don't even feel guilty, now is that wrong?

Zoey was admiring her reflection in the mirror but when she saw my camera she turned around and said "cheese" over and over and over again. She knows she's cute.
Not quite one of her crazy clown outfits she likes to wear but she is wearing a sparkley fur trimmed hat with her Tinkerbell pj's. She insisted upon wearing the hat to bed.

The girls are asleep and DH just went out to pick up some Thai food for our dinner. Ooh la la. This is about as romantic as it gets around here for a Thursday night.
Did I mention I'm starving? I wonder if it's psychosomatic, the waves of nausea and the deep deep hunger I'm now feeling on a daily basis? Hmmmm....

Lindsey's new thing is she wants to pick out her own clothes in the morning. Oh boy, some of the get ups she puts together. Buahahaha! She's so proud of herself when she puts together an outfit that I don't have the heart to tell her "umm, not on your life are you wearing a pink polka dot sundress over your Wiggles t shirt with purple tights and red shoes." (that was yesterdays pick) So on the days we aren't heading anywhere, like preschool, I let her dress like a clown and ooh and ahhh over her fabulous ensemble. On school days I'm trying to compromise with her by asking her "what color do you want to wear today" and then TOGETHER we pick out an outfit with that color. She's a hoot. The other day she wore a pink turtleneck under her bathing suit for the day. It was 30 degrees out so it's a good thing she put the turtleneck on. ;)

Random pics from our day

I took this pic right after the sun came up. We got snow during the night and I knew it would melt off the trees quickly so I took some pics to enjoy how beautiful the snow covered trees are. That's our back/side yard.

My beauty queen.

My cowgirl riding her horsey into the sunset. Notice the tongue hanging out of her mouth. That usually means she's quite content.

Lindsey testing out her new moo moo carseat on the kitchen floor.

Not a shocker. The box from the carseat was also a BIG hit.

Rather uneventful day around here. Spent some time at the children's room at our local library and that's about it. Came home with about a dozen books for the girls and some books on tape for Lindsey to listen to while Zoey naps and of course the big treat, TWO VIDEOS. Lindsey picked out some dreadful Barbie Nutcracker thing, ugh.... can't wait to watch that one.
Lindsey's new carseat arrived today and the girls were having fun checking out the goods. Lindsey picked out the one with the cow print. Oh well, what can you do.( I suspect Alex would be very unhappy if Emma wanted a cowprint on anything. ;) )

Date Night

We go on date night just about every weekend. We seem to really need it to keep our relationship rolling smoothly. Without it, we seem to forget that we are other people (aka, husband and wife) besides mommy and daddy.
So tonight we are going to the movies. We have not been to a movie in over a YEAR!! It's sad but true. We used to go ALL the time but those damn pesky kids keep getting in the way of our plans. Going out to dinner seems to be no problem because we would go after the kids were asleep but movies just start at difficult times for us. And FORGET about going to a late show, we'd fall asleep before the previews were over. Since Zoey was weaned a few months ago we've been able to let babysitters put her to bed and this is an absolute dream for us. So finally, tonight we are going to visit an old friend of ours, the over priced movie theater. Yipeeeee!

I had a rough night last night (I won't bore you with the details) so when I got up at 5 this morning with Zoey I stared longingly at my coffee maker. Then I said, "f*** it" and made myself a pot. Well wouldn't you know it, once I sat down to drink it I didn't even want it. It didn't taste very appealing to me. Hmmph.

Parting with my morning routine, Boohoooo!

Every morning I make a lovely pot of Starbucks coffee and drink it through out the morning hours. It's probably only about 2-3 cups, not an ENTIRE pot. I love coffee, really strong rich coffee. So today I had my final pot and will now begin the dreaded process of weaning myself off of the caffeine. Crap. They should have rehab for caffeine addicts.
Baby number two was very much a planned baby so I gradually weaned myself off the "juice" a few months prior to getting pregnant. Baby number one was a little bit of a surprise and I went cold turkey and had the most horrendous headaches for a few weeks. Not looking forward to that. I'll try a gradual process this time.

Lindsey cried at preschool drop off today. It sucked. That's the first time she's ever done that. She was really upset. I left her while she was still crying and being hugged by her teacher. I know she'll be fine. But it really sucked. I used to have this pompous attitude that my kid was more well adjusted because of my fabulous parenting whenever I'd see other kids crying and hanging onto their moms at drop off. I guess I know better now. Okay, I'm kind of exaggerating, I never really thought that about my parenting but I did think my kid was better than everyone else's, which I still believe is true. ;)

I haven't been able to blog lately since DH is working from home so much. Hopefully tomorrow night I'll have a chance since he'll be at work. Not that I'll have anything thrilling to share.