Samantha's Cooking Show

Samantha's April book report was to read a "How To" book. She choose a cookbook and videotaped a cooking show for class.

**remember in order to hear the video you need to pause my music by scrolling 1/2 down on the right and pressing pause**

Here's a little dose of Anthony for the day

*** remember to pause my music - scroll down on the right

Happy Message for the day....

be sure to turn off my music to hear this music

This is Anthony - ALL THE TIME!

OK so all of our kids were happy babies little effort was required to get a smile out of them. Even now they are all happy, smiley kids. None of them come close to this one though - Anthony smiles ALL DAY LONG. He is the happiest baby - oh and spoiled spoiled spoiled by everyone. Seriously the kid is never gonna crawl because we don't put him down. Steve is all talk about ME spoiling him because he is just as bad as me.

So we interrupt the rest of our vacation pictures for a little belly laughing...
(remember pause the music 1/2 down the page so you can hear the kid)

Part IV

For this update it's a bunch of randomness:

Steve with 2 of 5 sitting in the BRIGHT sun:



Sophia was in the room when the guys can to clean it and she was asked what kind of towel animal did she want that day - she asked for an elephant


this was when we were ported in Nassau - Atlantis was just to the right



Here's 1,2, and 3 waiting their turn to play on the BIG Wii wall



See it's pretty BIG! 2 story's big - they are trying to convince Steve into putting one in their toy room:


Me and my hat. I've gotten lots of comments on this fabulous purchase. Yes it's BIG no it was not packable. I carried this in one hand and held onto Anthony with the other. It provided just the right amount of shade. Oh and Steve totally wanted one himself :)



Here comes Steven:



and now Bella:





Let me introduce you to the Pepe Quartet. With little persuasion these 4 got up and sang karaoke in front of about 75 or so people. They sang "Hit me with you Best Shot". Sam and Steven sang the whole song and Bella chimed in for the Chorus and Sophia was the backup dancer. I can't tell you how freakin hysterical it was. Steve and I were crying from laughing but laughing with them not at them. People were cheering and clapping. They were so good. After they were finished people came over to them to congratulate them. The rest of the cruise people came up to Steve and I and were like " hey your the parents with the singing kids at karaoke" Partridge Family eat your heart out!


Here is our bucket of beer. Everywhere you turned someone was trying to sell you a drink. I finally caved and just bought the bucket:


Here is why we aren't cruise people. We just aren't "beer bucket carriers" type of people. Don't get me wrong we like a bucket of beer just as much as the next guy difference is our spoiled asses want someone to carry the bucket for us.

By the way - the bucket is empty of beer in this picture but I made Steve take it back to the room so we could use it again to keep other drinks cold. So it went from a bucket of beer to a bucket of ice and now said bucket is in our backyard waiting for a BBQ and I will again give it purpose with more beer to hold :)




to be continued.....

Part III

Today brings us to Kennedy Space Center. A month ago I was told we weren't going to be allowed to visit due to the shuttle taking off the day we would be there. Unless you had a ticket from months prior you wouldn't be allowed in. After getting on the boat I saw that the boat was still selling excursions for the Center. Thanks to someone in Steve's office who called to verify that we were in fact allowed to go. They were closed to the public in the morning and reopened after the launch. Turned out to be a great day and we were excited to visit.

Here are the launch pads - we saw these from the ship.


Were inside a shuttle and Steve is explaining the tin foil to Steven:


see tin foil....




this was one of the old walkways that the astronauts walked to board the shuttle:


Steve's in there "say Hi Steve"


OK see that little yellow hook - that is the holding arm. It was created to help hold the shuttle in place prior to lift off but while it was building up speed to take off. Sure doesn't seem like a big enough hook....don't ya think?!?!



That ends our tour of the space center. It was very enjoyable and educational! Steve and Steven went through a simulation of a shuttle launch - neither threw up!

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Here is the cabana's Steve rented for the baby (and the rest of us) when we were at the beach for the day:



he loved it!


first time at a beach in the water:


great success!


back on the boat with a bit of wind:



"Stevie" Sophia scream's "get in the picture" everyone jumps and does as they are told when Sophia speaks:


Anthony wasn't done playing checkers or he would have been in the picture too:



off to bed then and now - more to come later:



to be continued - in our next post "Steve and his bucket of beer"

Epic Voyage - Part II

Steve and I realized shortly after boarding that we aren't "cruise people". We have been spoiled with our vacations and really our expectations on how they should go. With 5 kids - we don't like lines or large crowds. Quite frankly we really don't like people...lol We want to just be able to relax and do our own thing with little interruption. I don't think that's to much to ask. We boarded the ship early thinking we would enjoy a nice lunch. It turns out 1000 other people had the same idea and needless to say it wasn't a good start to the trip. Shortly after lunch we were allowed to our rooms. They turned out to be a pleasant surprise. Having the balconies made a world of difference and helped to not make the room feel so closed in.

So the kids (and Steve) were anxious to get to the pools:



Anthony watching from above.....NO he isn't hanging out in the sun. He is shaded but I moved it for the picture. I have to tell you this kid was the hit of the trip. Everyone knew who he was. He smiled at everyone and flirted with every girl that looked his way.


the kids took a break to play some b-ball - shoes on their feet would have helped because later on Sam complained about her skin burning off....she lived:

Steve here, I assume, is doing some kinda dance - sorta like a rain dance where you pray for rain here he is praying to make the shot......he didn't :) Oh and he was beat BAD by a chic!


These crazy bastards out in their itty bitty boat fishing - we pass them leaving a huge wake - I didn't see them again...lol



Sunset we saw from our room each night




to be continued....

The Pepe 7- takes an Epic Voyage

OK we go finally.... So here is the beginning of our vacation. We leave with a bang...or rather a very large crack in an 80ft tree that needed to come down and luckily we were able to have it removed the day before we left.....

This crack was huge and went more than 1/2 way thru the trunk.


We found a company that agreed to climb it instead of having to bring in trucks and rip our yard apart - this bastard was NUTS!


Here we go - we start off on a foggy day but it was still kinda cool to get pretty close to Lady Liberty:



We raced up to the top floor in time to see....



a bridge.....


the freakin Verazzano bridge.... Now that was cool!

Here are the kids all excited from the loot that the Easter Bunny left. Bella said it was a good thing he knew how to swim:


Sophia's 1st trip to the pool...

For weeks leading up to our trip Sam kept talking about the towel animals. Her friends had taken cruises and were excited about the towel animals. After we were in our rooms I made a point of finding the stewards. I had read the the cruise line was making alot of cuts and the towel animals were one of them. So I wanted to make sure my kids got these animals made. I found the guy that was in charge of our room and I told him there were 5 kids and he needed to getting busy making the animals. I tipped him generously and we were given animals. The kids would race back to the room after breakfast to see what was made...

So here they had gotten a snake and a bunny. Anthony is holding a mouse and there was a lobster in the other room.



then the kids saw the monkey and went nuts....


he stayed up for 3 days then his head fell off and it got kinda creepy..




to be continued.....

I'll think of you....

You have a happy Day!

So it looks like we'll be adding to the Pepe 7 - OH MY!!!

Let's just say a mistake was made and well they'll be a new addition in a few months......

Once I peel myself off the floor I'll get back to you with details

PLEASE NOTE THIS WAS AN APRIL FOOL'S JOKE!

I REPEAT THIS WAS FOR APRIL FOOL'S - I AM NOT PREGNANT!

Thank You