Old School...

Who needs a Wii when you have a Super Nintendo (SNES). Einey was given Super Mario Advance 2 for her Game Boy Advance for Christmas and loves playing it. While cleaning out the closet last week, I came across the SNES. A few days later, I came across the box of games in the basement. So on the day off of school, I pulled out the system and Einey was ecstatic! She has been enjoying playing ever since.


Now to find the box of N64 games.....

On Birthdays...

We celebrated Einey's birthday with her friends this past weekend. To celebrate, we went roller skating at a local skating rink. It's a place that barely changed in the 10 plus years since Husband and I have last been there. And yet, the children had a blast. They didn't care that half the arcade games didn't work or that they could barely stand in the skate. They were trying their hardest and having fun.

Even after numerous times falling down and getting back up, they were all full of smiles. They did the hokey pokey on skates and played the four corners game. It wasn't private, so there were other families there but no one cared.

Of course I have to show of her super cool cake! That's the Pokemon, Manaphy, on roller skates.

Except, it was the first time we had a kids party and Husband didn't enjoy himself. I don't know if it was because he spent most of the time chasing Moe, despite the fact that we had two capable adults invited for the sole purpose of watching her. But he just kind of sulked. He admitted to me later, that it was just a step up from Chuck E. Cheese in his eyes (which to him, is the bottom of the barrel). He also admitted that it brought back memories of being wicked sore after skating. I don't remember this, but apparently he spent alot of time falling while skating in his youth.

Meenie takes after her dad, spending time on her tush. She preferred the carpet to the actual rink.

In the mean time, daughter gushed on and on about how it was her best party evah. And how she wants all her parties there from now on. And how she really wants to go back. So it looks like if we do any playdates, I'll be the one bringing her.

At least Einey had fun, that's all that matters!

Best. Party. Evah!

Out with the New, In with the Newer

I posted before about the new camera that Husband brought me for Christmas. Quite frankly, it sucked. It was a Sony 7.2MP Cybershot. The pictures, no matter what we tried, were horrible. They were blurry and highly pixilated. Here's some examples:




So New Year's Day, we trekked back to the store to return said camera and look for another one. We ended up with a Cannon Cybershot A560. It's 7.1 MP and much, much better. I think it's my new favorite toy! Here's some examples:

Baby sling made by 'Nama

See the difference?

All in all I'm happy. It's a point and shoot until we can finally make up our minds as to which SLR we want and can save enough to buy all the related paraphernalia that goes with it (because we want all the good lenses).

"Maybe they are looking for their babies"

Driving down the road, I heard "maybe they are looking for their babies" sadly remarked from the backseat of the van. A quick glance out the window told me that, yup, we were driving by one of the 16,532 places in the area that normally house cows. Moe's reasoning for missing cows when they aren't where we can see them is that they are out scouring the woods, in search of their lost little one's.

It's safe to say that Moe has an obsession with cows. Even before we took that tour of the cow farm and saw the calf's birth. She knows every field, every barn and every backyard that houses a cow in the area. She was excited when her dad found a new cow farm. It was a little known road that cuts the farm in half, used so little, there is nothing preventing the cows from crossing the road (and Husband almost hitting one the first time he drove down there). As a special treat, when her siblings are in school, we sometimes take her on a drive to see the cows. We took her to the farm Husband found and parked in the road. As we glance out at the cows, we noticed a calf shakily standing beside it's mother. Still sticky from it's birth moments before.

Her new favorite cow area is where they play "follow the leader". On the way to the park, their is a cow farm. Across the street, is another farm. That farm, has a cow trail leading from the barn, down close to the road and up a hill to greener pastures. Once and only once, we saw the cows, all in a row moving from pasture to barn thus earning the name of the place where the cows play follow the leader.

And so, one this cool winter's morning, the cow's were out looking for their babies.

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Apparently it's National Delurking Day, Mrs. Chicky told me. So come on and comment already. Then when your finished, visit Rude Cactus and thank him for declaring it NDD and Greeblemonkey to thanks her for the graphic you see above.

For the Birds

Winter in New England is anything but predictable. Take this week for instance. Last Thursday, we had high temps of 12 degrees with a wind chill of below zero. Today, the high is supposed to be above 50 degrees! Throw snow and ice into the mix and you weather that's for the birds.

[To read more, visit New England Mamas...]

The tooth fairy is coming...

Yup another tooth has been lost. But this time it wasn't Einey losing her pearly whites, it was Meenie! Yup, just four years old and her teeth are falling out. The dentist told us last month that one was loose, but I didn't think it would fall out so soon (it took Einey a year and a half from the time the dentist first noticed a loose tooth in her mouth). She has been eating apples for a week now trying to get it loose enough to fall out. It came out when she was brushing her teeth before bed.

And now I'm off to see if the tooth fairy can find a gold dollar (customary first tooth gift) and another paper dollar. She definitely was not prepared to make a stop tonight.

Words of Wisdom

Don't leave crickets in your van when it's 6 degrees out.

Yup. I went to get the lizard his food and left it in the van. I now have a dozen frozen crickets. Looks like I need to go back to the pet store.

Edit: Apparently crickets are pretty resilient! I put the bag on the heater vent and after about 10 minutes, they started moving again and flipping over from the "dead and on my back" position.

(FYI. I've now posted three times today, so be sure to check out my other new posts as well)

New Years Eve Kids Bash.

I forgot to mention the cool shirts. The back includes the names of all the kids there. Just another notch on the tree for Husband's conviction that I am turning into Martha Stewart.

5 Families. 10 Kids. 10 Adults. Lots of food. Activities. And most of all fun!

Go girls!

That's the best way to describe the New Years Eve kids bash we attended at a friends house. We arrived around 6:30 where the kids sat down to color for a coloring contest. After that, it was time to decorate for the boys vs. girls snowball fight. The snowball fight consisted of lobbing socks at the other team. Sadly, the boys took the cake on that contest.

Einey wanted to join the boys side (go figure!)

Amazingly, Einey and Meenie made it through all of the festivities (cake, karaoke, hat decorating, a story and the time capsule) to ring in the new year. They were very excited. At midnight, after the ball dropped and everyone drank their glass of champagne, the kids headed out onto the deck for some sparklers.

Moe didn't make it to midnight. She was one of four kids who missed it (they were all under three. One of them made it up until 11:55)

We left our friends house around 12:30 with Moe, after bringing Einey and Meenie upstairs where they were sleeping over. This was a HUGE deal, not only was it their first sleep over at a non-family member's house (because MMRK, you guys are family :P and we all slept there) but they were spending the night with their friends. Five of them were all tucked into their sleeping bags when we left.

The next morning, we went back over to have our first breakfast of the new year with those same friends we celebrated with the night before (sans one family). The kids had some worksheets which they filled out.= with wishes for a new year. With a full array of foods and mimosa's it was a great way to start the new year.

I hope this is the start of a wonderful tradition of ringing in the new year!

Cheers! Happy New Year!

This is the part of winter I hate...

I finally remembered why I dislike January. It's cold. Very cold! It is currently 6 degrees but with the wind chill, it's sub zero. I came down stairs this morning to find the heat dropped to a mere 60 degrees (which in the spring and fall is a great temp!). This usually happens when the mercury falls, the heathers need to work harder to heat more. I cranked the heat up, with hopes to kick the system into over drive. What I need is about 30K to install all new windows in the house. Gotta love a house with wicked old windows that let air in everywhere! And Husband doesn't believe in covering them with plastic (I know tacky, but he doesn't have to sit here all day freezing his buns off) or the gunky clay stuff (that you bead around the windows).

I also changed the air filter with hopes that will help. And most importantly, I fixed the air vent. The one on the floor 2 feet from where i am sitting. The one that collapses all the freakin' time and heats the basement more than the living room. It's fixed for the time being, but I'm sure it will collapse soon. We have forced air heating and this one vent just won't stay up. It's flexible ducts with the insulated tube. I would like to redo (and just this section for now) it to the permanent duct work so at least I can be guaranteed heat in the room we use most often. The room with not only a huge glass window/door to the deck, but also a large picture window. Did I mention the windows leak air?

It was so cold, I briefly thought about letting daughter stay home from school. But then I figured they would drive me nuts, after all, they've only been in school one day so far this week. Bringing her to school gave me an excuse to stop and get coffee!

Stay warm guys and lets hope March comes soon!