Got things to share

I took on a major challenge this week and swapped out my hard drive on my laptop. When Steve bought this for me it came with 120g of memory. It has lasted me a few years believe or not but I have now filled it. So I upgraded to 320g which should last me quite some time! Not that that means I won't want a new computer STEVE - this one can be my backup eventually. I'm not ready yet but will keep you posted. Anyway, after starting the process 13 hrs prior it was finished. Software and back-ups were all re-installed with the exception of 1 important 1. My photo program. So for a few more days I need to hang out until my installation disk arrives it's coming from the West coast :)

So until the program arrives I can't post any photos. It's OK don't worry - I am sure it'll be worth the wait :)

A week of randomness

I know I am slacking a bit - sorry blame it on the pregnancy. It's come to my attention that I don't complain enough about being pregnant. I like being pregnant so I have few complaints and the few I have I save for bedtime and only Steve hears them. So blame my lack of blogging on me being pregnant - see I'm making an effort. That could count as a complaint....

So first we start with Sophia and her new found love of the pool. At the beginning of the season she fell in by accident (thanks a lot Ben) and it scared the crap out of her. She wanted nothing to do with it. Then thanks (or no thanks) to Aunt Gin Gin she encouraged Sophia to jump into the pool and now all bets are off. Now she wants in the pool all the time. Being the "flaky" Mom I am I was given orders to get the child a proper life vest. So we ran out and she got this. She was so excited.....



and then wouldn't take it off....


Samantha finally getting to hold Baby Kinley too bad it was just hours before she left to go home to Seattle. Sam was excited she opened her eyes for her.


We stopped by for one last goodbye with the Jensens - and Steve was star struck! This lovely girl (her name is escaping me at the moment) was an extra in the movie Napoleon Dynamite. As you can see Steve was so excited! Vote for Pedro!!


Wednesday night we went to DC overnight for a party. We stayed at the Hay Adams - across from the White House. Steve loves it that they know him and always welcome him back - he's such a nerd! They upgraded us to a Jr. suite for the night. I felt bad I didn't being the kids then we had so much room.


OK but this is the only reason why I love this hotel. This bed is equivalent to sleeping on a cloud. Seriously it is that wonderful! The comforter is the softest ever. I could go on and on about this bed. See the indent to the right -- that's my head imprint...lol I always lay across it when we get in the room to make sure they didn't change the sheet company. Still the same - xoxoxo

I stole a pillow this time.....shhhhhh don't tell



Ok you have to excuse me for the next few pictures. This is from the party we went to in DC. It was dark and I only had my camera phone. This would be grown men trying to hang onto their youth. They are playing flip cup.....You chug the beer and then put the cup down and then need to flip it over with one hand banging the table. Seriously what ever happened to quarters?!?!?



Steve hanging in there....


Now this is Steve not being able to back down from a challenge thrown at him from Kevin (he collects Garden Gnomes so that should tell you something right there). It was who could chug the can of beer the fastest: boys! They are little boys!



This is as far as they got. I was sitting away and its unclear what happened. All I know is it was started and then Steve choked and ended up spittin beer all over everyone standing with in range.....

I told Steve that the baby needed a new car - so this is what I picked! Nice huh!!! I didn't say I needed one for all the kids - just 1 car to fit 1 kid :)

Goodbye Friend

My friend Jen is moving away today. She is going back home to Seattle. If I were a selfish person I would be sad she is leaving and start throwing a fit. I'll still be sad but won't throw a fit and will be happy she is getting to get back home to her family who I know she missed terribly. It was a fun 2 years. I wanna say that we grew closer over the last 24 months but honestly we were pretty close to begin with and so I am not sure if we could get any closer. We could leave our husbands and take our children and run off to a farm somewhere and live there forever....lol Yeah right one of us would have to get a job and Jen would have to pump her own gas for her car and I would have to.....well I am sure there is something I rely on Steve for but am at a loss at the moment....just kidding. But I still got nothing :)

So she leaves today with her new baby girl. She is leaving her husband behind for a few more weeks to finish school so he will get to stay with us. I am thinking he isn't going to sit next to me on the couch for hours with his laptop not talking and just getting into trouble surfing the net for things to make, kids clothes to buy....ya know fun stuff. That's alright I'll make the kids annoy him so he doesn't get homesick :) and I'll sit on my laptop and pretend you are here.

So goodbye my friend - you will be missed! Have a safe flight. I promise to visit soon. My phone is charged and awaits for the calls at all hours of the day to begin! REMEMBER THE TIME CHANGE FOR YOU!

Let me leave you with one memory that I will never forget.....minding my own business and shopping in Target and all of a sudden BAM - I run right into you -IN MY TARGET -IN NEW YORK! Still freaks me out to this day. I never turn the aisle the same again. Keep praying for me and all my sins - less the 10%...of course :)

Oh my god - I know your gonna hate this picture as much as me - I promise to post something else quick so this isn't the first post for too long!

Steven's Creation....

Steven, Jr. had 2 weeks of a Claymation camp. They made something out of clay and then made a movie. I really have no explanation and if you ask the boy he just cracks up and has no explanation either. Yes I know it says Josh that is the name he choose to go with instead of his own for some reason...lol

He had a really fun time and is proud of what he made...


***for some reason I can't get the video here so you need to click on the link:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUQKZfD0JTE"

Meet Baby Kinley Elise

Remember that story I told you a few weeks back about my very good friend that moved across the country to play for 2 years while her husband went to Pace. Remember we met on the Internet and everyone thinks were nuts when we tell the story?? Well the 2 years are coming to an end and she is leaving in a week and wanted a one of a kind souvenir to take home.....she got one :

Here she is Kinley Elise - tell me that is not a cool name?!?!? Really it is a cool name!





I told Steve after I got home from the hospital that it sure was a good thing that I am pregnant and getting one of these in a few weeks or he'd be in big trouble!! I think she has my eyes :)

Carnival Fun!

We went to the firemans carnival this past weekend. It's a really cute carnival with a good amount of rides. I took the kids with Gin and Lou while Steve was on his way home from the Yankee game. Here's the token picture of the kid that is too small for anything yet...

She was so upset - she's calling to Ryan and Stevie in this picture to come help her get over the fence...lol



The 2 peas in a pod - trying to explain to Sophia she is too small - that was pissing her off even more.


Sam and Frankie taking a spin



Bella having fun despite the look of terror on her face...



My sick and twisted mind thought this was funny cause this was the next shot after you see Bella and for a second I thought "did she fall out?"


Uncle "Wouie" to the rescue to give Sophia a better view!



Finally something Sophia's speed:



Not sure what these 3 were thinking but sure lets go on a really fast and spinny ride and see if we don't puke:


Can't you just see the whiplash?!?



YAH Daddy finally made it! I just realized that's Sam leaning over in the slide - oh she's gonna get it!


then all 8 of the kids piled into this for a spin



I'm thinking this wasn't legal...lol



You never to big for the carousel:


luckily Sophia was allowed on this as well - with an adult of course:


A race to the finish for Steven and Ryan:


Now this was funny. This is a worm ride and in the middle is a big apple. When we pulled up to the carnival it was 4:30 and it was too early it didn't open till 5:30. So we all went to eat first. Well Sophia saw the apple and started freaking out and wanted out of the car so bad. Then we start to pull away and she doesn't understand we need to come back so I tell her Uncle Louis (who was in the car ahead of us) said she couldn't go in...lol Now the screaming got louder and she was so mad at her Uncle Wouie for not letting her play with the apple.



3 cheesballs smiling nice:



Group shot: Ryan, Jamie, Bella, Sophia, Frank, Sarah, Vincent, Samantha and Steven - hamming it up. This was right before the fireworks started on the 4th. It really was dark but a little help from photoshop lightened it up for me.

Well said!!!

Coming of age in the years of living dangerously

Bike helmets? SPF? Veggie meals? No way, if you grew up in '50s, '60s, '70s

By Bill Briggs

msnbc.com contributor

When Phyllis Murphy's mother was pregnant, back in the 1950s, her doctor advised her to take up smoking for relaxation. A few years later, that same mom smeared her toddler's skin with a concoction of baby oil and iodine for a deep, rich tan. Now, safely in adulthood in Vancouver, B.C., Murphy fondly recalls childhood as a time of leaping from rooftops and accumulating “more scars than Joan Rivers.”

And Tim Palla, a 46-year-old pastor, spent his childhood just north of Pittsburgh where he got just one vaccination, gobbled wild berries and mushrooms, drank from the ditch, and chewed road tar like gum.

Like Palla and Murphy, many of us who were raised in the 1950s, '60s and '70s are survivors. We were tiny daredevils: sun-blasted, pocket-knife-carrying, bottom-spanked, cow eaters. We ran the streets armed with BB guns, boxing gloves and bottle rockets, wholly unprotected by bike helmets, sunscreen or Amber Alerts. Our houses were filled with the blue cigarette smoke of our cocktail-drinking parents and we believed it wasn’t supper without a mountain of red meat.

We just didn’t know then how brave we were. And, surely, future generations will marvel at our physical moxie. Because, truth be told, it was not easy to get here.

Whether you were raised on heaping bowls of Boo Berry (1970s), Quisp (‘60s) or Sugar Jets (‘50s), you probably, unknowingly, violated every nutrition and safety maxim of modern day childrearing.

And yet, somehow, despite all that, most of us made it out of our childhoods just fine. So what gives? Is there really any point to denying ourselves delicious, sugary, buttery food, stamping out our cigarettes and straining our muscles at the gym?

Despite years of confusing, mixed messages about whether red wine, chocolate, fish, coffee or eggs are a tonic or maybe somehow toxic, there have been enough randomized clinical trials to offer some undeniable truths: high cholesterol, low exercise, excessive sun, inhaling cigarette smoke, failing to wear a seatbelt, and excessive drinking while pregnant can hurt you (or your baby). They may not, but they can, or quite likely will, depending on the behavior. U.S. death rates from heart disease have dropped by 50 percent in the last 20 years — about half the decline is thought to be due to prevention. Today’s parenting styles are guided by that knowledge.

“It would be a disservice to say that (modern, healthier habits) don’t make any difference,” said Dr. Daniel Berman, chief of cardiac imaging at Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in Los Angeles, himself a vegetarian. More people soon will be pushing age 100 and feeling good, he projects. “I’m 100 percent convinced that the things we’re doing are extending our younger years.

“The bottom line is that things like bike accidents where a kid died because they didn’t wear a helmet, those rarely occurred. But if your kid happened to fall and was one out of 10,000 who died, you must live with knowing it was preventable,” Berman said.

Ann Middleman recalls a friend’s 18-year-old daughter died in the ‘60s while sledding in New York without a helmet.

"I think of all the people who didn't survive," said Middleman, 47, whose father, a lifetime smoker, died of cancer at age 52. "I’m glad I live now, have access to good medical care — as well as the information to make informed choices — and safer products. Seat belts and air bags alone save numerous lives every year. Before we had them, people did die. Needlessly. We may not have known about them, but for their families, the losses were, indeed, tragic."

Genetic destiny?
Many of us weathered our childhood deeds and diets because we heard about the health studies, or the tragic accidents, and changed our ways as adults. But another big factor in our longevity is rooted in our DNA — 50 percent of our health outcome, Berman estimates, is determined by our chromosomes. Which explains how cigar-sucking, overweight Winston Churchill lived to be 90, while running guru Jim Fixx died of a heart attack at 52.

But some unknown quantity, some slice of the equation, is not due our genetics or our subscription to Cooking Light magazine. Some of this, say many folks 40 and up, is a matter of attitude, an edge we still carry from our younger days.

Vikki Smith spent many of her youthful summer nights in Houston on her banana-seat bike chasing mosquito-fogging trucks and “shouting with glee at being able to cruise along, submerged in a chemical cloud.” Today, she’s convinced that what didn’t kill her made her stronger.

“Frankly, I believe that I am alive today because I am a child of the ‘50s,” said Smith, a 57-year-old glassware artist who resides in Austin, Texas. “All those ingested toxins and lack of concern for personal safety measures gave me a clear advantage. Just like a child from a poverty-stricken, Third World country, I believe we develop a cast-iron stomach. A little adversity is the key to longevity.”

'We were allowed to live'
Chris Sully grew up in Burbank, Calif., in the 1960s — a time when both his parents smoked and it never occured to anyone to wear a helmet while riding a bike.

“We survived those years because we were allowed to live,” said the 47-year-old mortgage industry worker. “Too much effort is spent protecting us from ourselves these days that we don't just go out and live. This is particularly true of children. Who would have thought 30 years ago that it would be necessary to run public service announcements encouraging parents to get their kids outside playing?”

By today’s standards, our playtime perhaps bordered on the lethal yet we didn’t over-indulge in those guilty pleasures because we were loaded with homework and house chores, theorized author Carolyn Bartz, who grew up in Vancouver, Wash., during the ‘50s. “There was more moderation in everything way back then,” she said.

Daily routine of 'duck and cover'
The over-40 generation’s live-for-today psychology is — and was — largely a product of a dark tension: the constant threat of nuclear war. At school, teachers led us through “duck and cover” drills to prepare for “The Big One.”

“Cold War hysteria led to a kind of fatalism and an acceptance of everyday danger,” said Mike Barlow, a freelance writer born in 1952, who describes his younger self as “a typical Jersey punk growing up in a tiny, poorly ventilated apartment with two adult smokaholics” where a high-fiber, low-fat diet “would have seemed sissified and un-American.”

“Back then, I don't think anyone seriously expected to live past the age of 30, so the very notion of ‘healthy living’ would have struck us as completely alien,” Barlow said.

Happy 4th of July!!!

It's 3:30am and I AM WIDE AWAKE!

Oh the perks of pregnancy! Here I sit at 3:30 am WIDE AWAKE chewing on ice. My ice cravings started a few weeks ago and I can't get enough. Steve bought an ice machine for outside for his "man area" and it turns out it makes good "soft" ice so he brought into the house for me. Don't get me started started on the difference between soft and hard ice just take my word that there is such a thing an the soft ice is much better for my teeth. Now it's not as soft as the hospital ice which I can't WAIT FOR!! I just love those little cylinders. I would say little balls but they aren't really they are more like little cylinders of ice. See this is why I am probably wide freaking awake at 3am.

Steve mentioned I hadn't updated here in a a few days but I just have been busy and haven't had much to say really. Summer has started and so have all the activities for the kids. We have tennis going right now for the next 2 weeks. Steven is a pro and looks like a little Agassi on the court. All I hear is Sam's laughter so she is just screwing around and having fun where as Steven is all business. Bella is more interested in what everyone is wearing and was pissed at me on the first day that I didn't put her in a skirt like the rest of the little girls. Sophia is enjoying the playground while the kids are on the court and she screams at them from time to time to look at her going on the slide. It's really cute.

Sam starts Drama camp next week which she is excited about and Steven is taking a claymation class. He is going to make some figures out of clay and then shoot a movie with them on the computer - should be interesting. Bella is taking the summer program at her school which lasts all summer so she is excited to see her friends - plus it gives her a head start start on the school year.

Other than that not much else is going on. I am coming to the end of this pregnancy with less than 2 months left. I can't believe it went by so fast but will enjoy the last of it even when I start to wobble like a duck. I am excited to meet the little guy. I am dying to know if he will have black hair like Sam or will he look like the other 3 with the brown hair. Earlier Sophia was sitting on my lap while the kids were in the pool and she leaned back into my stomach. Well the baby didn't like that to much and he kicked her - the look on her face was priceless. She whips her head around to see what happened and I tried to exlain that the baby kicked her. Her mouth dropped opened like you would not believe. She lifts up my shirt to stare at my belly still confused as to why she can't see anything. She left her hand on my stomach for the next 20 minutes in awe of every move the baby made. It was really sweet. Oh then she jumps up to explain to the others that "Her" baby was moving. Yes she said "hers" see she thinks the baby is hers. When we ask her who's baby is it she very matter of factly says it's "her baby" and looks like we just asked a stupid question cause who else's baby would it be....lol

I am sure I will have some 4th of July stuff to share. We haven't figure out what were doing yet. This is the first year we don't really have a plan and are just going to wing it. We don't really need to go anywhere to see fireworks cause the neighbor around the corner puts on an incredibly loud show. 2 years ago it was more loud than colorful but last year there was a good amount of color. So here's hoping the 3rd times a charm. Steve has off for the next 4 days so that should be nice. Lets see how much of the 4 days he DOESN'T WORK. Oh he's going to the Yankee game on Friday and got amazing seats so maybe I can get him to take some pictures for me.

Well my cup o' ice is all chewed and I think I can fall back asleep. It is after 4am now and I have a busy morning ahead of me. The kids will be stirring in just a few hours. I will see if I can make something interesting happen to report back!