Easter Weekend Pictures

What a beautiful weekend it was! Saturday night was spent with Andy's family just hanging out. I think Madeline was having fun.

The next day she got her first Easter basket.

The chicky is chirping at Madeline here. I don't think she knows what to do with it.

Then after a nice brunch with Andy's family, we headed to my family Easter gathering where Madeline had her first Easter Egg Hunt. Unfortunately we didn't get pictures of the hunt, but here she is with her egg. When Mommy helped her find her egg, she had no idea what was going on. I think she was more weirded out by the grass than anything. So Mommy had to get her egg for her.

Check out this present she got from Aunt Jackie! She can ride on it and then it converts to a walker. She loves it!! It's her new favorite toy.

Then it was time to kick back in some comfortable clothes and play with her second cousin Z. They were having a blast together!

Ten Months Old!

I swear, these months are flying by faster and faster. She is cruising like a champ now and bending over to pick things up. She used to like us helping her walk around but since she can get places faster crawling, she plops right down on her bum instead of walking. I think I'm fine with that. I heard walking is a whole 'nother beast so I'm happy to postpone that as long as possible.

She isn't liking her runny pureed baby food much anymore. Especially carrots. She enjoys spitting those back me now. Nice.

Wonderful Saturday!

Yesterday was a gorgeous day! Perfect weather to go to Easton and shop. We first stopped at Buy, Buy, Baby (my new favorite store) and got our new umbrella stroller. We got the Maclaren Volo. I LOVE IT!! It's so lightweight, small and easy to maneuver. It made walking around Easton a breeze. I think Madeline liked it too. Shopping kinda wore her out.

We also stopped at Stride Rite to look at new shoes for M. Her Robeez are getting too small. We didn't buy any though. Damn those things are expensive! And we weren't sure whether to get her Stage 2 shoes or go straight for the walkers. She needs something soon though.

But what really made my day was buying new pants. The pants I've been wearing have started to fall off me, so I needed new ones. I am now one size above what I was before I got pregnant. And I am totally happy with that!! I was pretty skinny then anyway and didn't really expect to get back there. Yes, I know it took me awhile to get here. But it took 9 months to gain it and 10 months to get it off. I'm happy with that and this has totally made my week!

What has my life become?

I'm planning a playdate for lunch on Saturday and then we are going to the mall that night to pick up a new stroller. AH!

At least we might go out on Friday night with some friends without the baby. We just need to find a sitter. And hope Madeline lets us get at least one night of good sleep this week. Otherwise, we'll be walking zombie's by then.

Requisite messy eating picture. Complete with macaroni stuck on forehead.

Girls Shopping Trip

My mom, my sister, Madeline and I all went to the Jeffersonville Outlet Mall yesterday. No other reason than to have a girls day out. We haven't done that since I was pregnant so it's been a long time coming. And we had a great time! Jackie found some winter stuff on clearance for baby Alexis, my Mom found a couple of new golf shirts and then I came home with the most stuff. I got two new shirts for both Andy and I and then a ton of stuff for Madeline. That's how it works anymore. But how could I pass up these outfits?

A new spring jacket and jean skirt overalls with onesies

Yellow sweater on clearance for $3. Can't pass that up for next winter. And look at those Bermuda shorts!

Super cute capri pants with matching shirt and some new PJ's.

New daycare

So we've been unhappy with our daycare for awhile now. It's been one thing after another for months and we've finally had it. I want a new place! To be honest, I was never in love with it to begin with. But it was our only option at the time and fellow co-workers had their kids there, so it must be okay, right? Madeline is fine there, but it could be SO much better. And I'm tired of all the b.s.

Well, my employer has been in development of a brand new daycare facility for the past year and it finally opens in two weeks. Andy and I attended their information sessions months ago but ultimately decided to leave Madeline where she was. In hindsight, I don't know what we were thinking. We toured the facility today and it's amazing! It's state-of-the-art with a lot of "green" construction ideas built in (energy saving lights, lots of natural light with big windows into every classroom). Each classroom has their own outside area for the kids to play. Even Madeline's infant room! Since we work in the science field, they designed a special play area that is oriented to the sciences........a microscope for the kids to look at things, a play x-ray machine, a hanging solar system, a light box, the list goes on. When Madeline moves up to the toddler room (at 18 months), she'll have a computer to play on. Yes, the toddler room has a freakin' computer! She'll be typing out emails before she knows what she's typing.

One interesting thing though, they don't have highchairs. Even for Madeline's room. She will sit in a little baby chair at a little baby table to eat. I think that's hilarious and too darn cute. I will be interested to see how that goes and see if she actually sits still to eat.

I'm so excited for her to start! They are having an open house next week and we plan to go and take Madeline with us. So we'll see how she likes it.

Madeline's pictures are online!

OMG, I can't stand it! She looks A-dorable. You can find two teasers on Erin's blog **here**. If you want the password to Madeline's online gallery, contact me and I'll send it to you. I don't want to post it here for everyone to see.

Spring pictures

Madeline had professional pictures taken today by one of my good friends and one of the best children's photographer in town, Erin Johnson. She was wearing her Easter dress and then another outfit. You all will die! I am so stinkin' excited to see the proofs that I can't stand it.

Rough night, but full of memories

We had a rough night with Madeline last night. Screaming uncontrollably for hours. :( She’s never done that before so after awhile, I was starting to get worried. My Mom got a nice phone call at 1 o’clock in the morning because I just didn’t know what to do. It was either her or the doctor. Nothing would soothe her. She finally ended up falling asleep and was happy as can be this morning. After all was said and done, we are thinking it was a tummy ache.

So through all this, I ended up sleeping in the recliner with her laying on me last night. This brought back a flood of memories from her first two weeks at home. Lying in bed at the time wasn’t comfortable because of my c-section, so Madeline slept in her pack-n-play downstairs with me. After she would wake up for her middle-of-the-night bottle, I would let her sleep on me for the rest of the night. Such good memories…….

However, last night I kept thinking how much bigger she was. hehehe

Spaghetti & Meatballs

Great Grandma Cipollone would be proud. This was her first time having this and she LOVED it! Now she's ready for a trip to GG's house.

A friendship is blooming....

Happy St. Patty's Day!

She's crawling!

Kids love making liars out of their parents, don't they? I just said a week ago that she didn't care much for crawling and then she took off. This week she's been taking small "steps" but not going far. Today was the first day she actually went more than two "steps". I made a little video so you all could see. Enjoy!

9 Months Old!

I cannot believe she is 9 months old already. I swear she just turned 8 months old last week. I feel like this is such a big milestone. I have to start figuring out what we are going to do for her birthday party. Eek!

I'll let Madeline give you her update...

"I went to the doc today and here are my new stats: 20 pounds 15 oz. (80th percentile) and 28.5 inches tall (75th percentile). I guess Mommy has been feeding me my Wheaties. hehe

Speaking of food, I'm eating all kinds of stuff now. Mommy has me onto the "chunky" variety of baby food now. I didn't like it at first and got really mad when she tried to feed it to me, but now I really like it. I also eat little pieces of elbow macaroni, cheerios, banana, yogurt and whatever else Mommy and Daddy are eating.

My favorite thing in the world is to stand and play wherever I can. I like to walk around too if someone helps me. I don't care much for crawling. I also just learned how to clap and wave.

I'm learning baby sign language and know how to do the sign for "milk." I've only shown my daycare teacher though. Mommy and Daddy are still waiting to see it. I'm pretty sure I know what "Mama" and "Dada" mean now too and call them that when I can remember.

I'm also starting to get an attitude. When I don't get what I want, I let Mommy and Daddy know by hitting them, throwing my toy and screaming. Hey, don't they know I'm a little princess? Nonna and Nana do!"

VEGAS!!

Our trip started out Tuesday night. We left work a little early and drove Baby Doll to stay with the grandparents. It was sad leaving her, but I knew she was comfortable and in good hands. We got home around 9:45pm and then started packing. Yes, we procrastinated and didn’t start until then. Not too smart since we got to bed late and then had to get up at 5am Wednesday morning to catch our flight.

WEDNESDAY
We made it to Vegas around 10am their time and checked right into our suite at the Venetian. We got upgraded to the Venezia Tower with a view of the strip!

After getting settled, we headed out for some lunch and to check things out. Had our first (and only) “celebrity” sighting in the Venetain shopping area. It was Fabio from Top Chef. I didn’t notice him until right as he was walking past us, so I didn’t say anything. We kept walking and ended up at the Mirage. We were about to go through their Secret Garden when we decided we were too exhausted to walk anymore. It had been a LONG DAY of travel and we needed a break. We ended up taking a 2 hour nap, then it was off to a casual dinner and Fremont Street. We gambled at the Golden Nugget and then headed to the Bellagio. We didn’t do much here since it was late and we were starting to crash hard, so we called it a night.

THURSDAY
We slept until 6am and then I just couldn’t sleep anymore. We walked all the way to the casino floor to get some coffee, which was quite a trek, let me tell you! Two sets of elevators and a good 7 minute walk. After getting some breakfast, we got ourselves cleaned up and headed out for the Strip. We went to Caesar’s Palace, New York, New York, Luxor, Mandalay Bay and the MGM Grand, stopping to gambling along the way, of course.

We also stopped at the M&M Store and got Madeline the cutest onesie.

By the time we got back to the hotel, we didn’t have much time to chill. We went to dinner at an Italian restaurant in the hotel......

.....and then made it to Blue Man Group just in time for the show to start. It was AWESOME! I definitely agree with the all the reviews. Just fantastic and very entertaining! Afterwards, we hit up the Blackjack tables to try our luck….and I guess it ran out. We lost all the money we had won so far, but at least we were even and not in negative territory yet. We ended the night at V Bar, one of the Venetian’s lounge bars. It was okay. Meh.

FRIDAY
We woke up early, AGAIN. Damn the time change and my body clock! Went down and had a great breakfast at one of the restaurants in the hotel and then attempted to play some Blackjack. There weren’t any $10 tables so we decided to go check out the Wynn.

Oh my gosh, what a nice place! They have a Ferrari dealership/showroom/whatev and Andy wanted to check it out. It was neat, I guess. Andy liked it. Then we took a cab to the Hard Rock. We wanted some $10 tables DAMNIT! The Hard Rock was great. No one was there so we had our pick of the tables. We played for awhile and left about even. The memorabilia was pretty neat too. Sublime is one of Andy’s favorite bands, so he really liked this display.

Then we headed back to the hotel to relax for a bit before going out that night. It was our last night there so we wanted to stay out late. (Late for us anyway. Hehe)

We went to the Strip House at Plant Hollywood for dinner. Wow, what a great place! Probably one of the nicest restaurants we’ve ever been to. It’s a steak house so of course we had to get a steak…..and a bottle of wine, famous goose-fat potatoes, and then brownie ala mode for dessert. The food was divine! And check out the décor too. The walls were adorned with pictures of 1930’s pinup girls. It was just a really neat place.

Afterwards we walked over to Paris and then to the Bellagio for the requisite viewing of the famous fountains.

Then it was time for more gambling. We were doing great and having a good time and then I hit a wall. I told the dealer I wanted to stay on a 9. He didn’t notice until he had already flipped over his cards and he was like, “What did you do? You didn’t want to do that!” Ugh, I felt like an idiot. He called over the pit boss and they let me play it through. I doubled down and ended up winning the hand. Needless to say, we called it a night after that.

All in all, it was a great trip. We left Vegas up about $150, so I’d say we are winners. We didn’t do as much as originally planned, but there is always next time. There is just too much too see and not enough time.

The only real disappointment was that the Venetian didn’t have more $10 Blackjack tables. (I know, we are small fish.) That’s our game though and basically all we play. Every other hotel we visited had them at all hours of the day. The Venetian only had them in the wee hours of the morning, if at all. So for that reason alone we aren’t interested in staying there again, but it’s a nice hotel.

As for Madeline, she did great staying with the grandparents. I called about 2 times a day to check on her and see how she was doing. We did well about not missing her too much. We had fun, but it's good to be home.

We're back

We just got back from a wonderful, 4-day trip to Vegas. I wish we were still there, but it's great to be with our sweet little baby again. We really missed her. I think she missed us too because she wouldn't sleep in her crib last night and she's been slobbering us to death with kisses.

We are taking it easy today and getting caught up on laundry and other stuff. I'll post a re-cap of our trip with pictures soon!

This is dangerous

A coworker just delivered my order of Girl Scout cookies.

Five boxes of yummy goodness.

How likely is it that all 5 will make it home tonight?

Dewey's Pizza

Months ago, we saw a sign down the street from where we live that said "Dewey's Pizza opening in February 2009."

We have salivated since.

We loved this place when we lived in Cincinnati and were sad to find they didn't have a location here in Columbus. We tried the popular California Pizza Kitchen and it did not compare at all. So we've been left without....until now. Not only did one open in Columbus, but it's within walking distance of our house! I have a feeling we are going to be here entirely too much.


So they opened on Monday and we were planning on going at some point this week anyway. With the nice weather today, we decided to walk up and make a nice evening out of it. (Don't pay attention to Madeline's flood pants. She's growing up too fast and her wardrobe hasn't caught up yet.)
We love this place for two main reasons: 1) the pizza is absolutely delicious 2) the beer selection actually satisfies Andy's palate, which as some of you know, is hard to do. We got a large with half Ryan's Inferno (their seasonal Buffalo Chicken pizza) and half Billy Goat (Olive Oil, garlic, goat cheese, green peppers and more). It was pure heaven!


Madeline had a good time too.

They have a window into their kitchen where you can watch them make your pizza. There were all kinds of kids and the guys would throw flour up onto the window. Madeline loved this!

I can't wait to go back.

Online coupons

I’ve never been much of a penny pincher and I’m still not. But that doesn’t mean I can’t save a few bucks here and there. We don’t get the Sunday paper because, in my opinion, the Columbus newspaper sucks and it’s not enjoyable to read. We get the Wall Street Journal instead. So…no Sunday coupons. But I’m discovering online sites that have a lot of the same coupons anyway. I went out and got a coupon organizer and everything. I sorted the ones I already had this weekend. I know, exciting stuff, eh? Now I just need to take the next step and buy items on sale WITH a coupon….now that’s serious couponing (i.e. TheGroceryGame.com).

I’m getting a lot of my tips from free sites like www.moneysavingmom.com and www.stretchingabuckblog.com. I’m getting extra coupons from CouponSuzy.com and SmartSource.com. I think there might be others but I can’t remember at the moment.

Then there is this underground world of CVSing. CVS has this program whereby you buy certain products and you get money back, called Extra Care Bucks (ECB). I think that’s it in a nutshell. There are whole online blog tutorials about how to use the system to your advantage. It’s super confusing for the uninitiated but I hear it’s super easy once you get going. I haven’t delved into this realm yet. I need to get my couponing down first.

We also joined Upromise which gives us cash back to put towards college loans. We don't have to do anything extra that we weren't already doing. We just buy participating products on our registered credit cards and we get a certain % back. Easy peasy.

Big Guns!

I knew I had a good reason to skip my exercise class today. Madeline pulled herself up for the first time. We were so excited. She did it like 10 times in row (after falling down on her toosh each time). Andy caught some of it on tape, but then she wore herself out. She only seems to use her arms to get herself up at this point. She's got baby guns of steel.

So then we immediately went upstairs to move her mattress down to the next notch. If we didn't, I would worry about her climbing out and falling. Even though she isn't quite crawling yet, she can still get around.

Happy Valentine's Day from Madeline

8 months old

We are dangerously close to having a crawler. We haven't even thought about baby proofing yet. Eek!

She's up to 3 meals a day now with cereal and baby food. And daycare just started her on an afternoon snack of puffs.

She absolutely LOVES to stand. Those new ottomans we bought for the living room are perfect height for her too. She'll hold herself up on one of those playing with her toys. We still have to be behind her in case she falls, but she'll stand for a long time

Also, today she growled at me for the first time. Yes, that sweet little face gets mean when she doesn't get what she wants. She looked straight into my eyes, got this evil look on her face, clenched her fists and growled at me. I'm sure my Mom would say I'm getting a taste of my own medicine. hehe

Life is so fragile

Nothing like bitching about my small bathroom and then posting something like this.

My uncle is being taken off life support today. Hospice is coming in but I don't know what to expect yet. I imagine he will pass very quickly. We are all at peace with this decision. He was looking at living in a rehab facility or nursing home with 50% brain function and all the stuff that goes along with that. Jim would not want to live like this.

For those that don't know, he was in a tragic accident only less than two weeks ago. It’s been a roller coaster ride since. He's 61 years old and worked on a golf course as a maintenance guy in Florida. Don’t let his age fool you. He was a young 61 and Golf was his life. Last Monday, he and a bunch of his co-workers were headed out on a golf cart. He jumped on the back and the cart took off. Somehow he fell off and cracked his head on the cart path in 3 places. It hasn’t looked good from the beginning, but everyone held out hope that he would recover. He was unconscious until two days ago when he finally woke up. However, it’s not like he woke up and was okay again.

He is surrounded by family and I hope he passes peacefully.

Sometimes having to share a bathroom with one sink to get ready in the morning for work is enough to drive me to divorce court. Argh!

Top on my list for a new house......a master bathroom with TWO sinks or at least 2 full bathrooms.

Puffs a.k.a Baby Crack

I worship whoever invented puffs. For the uninitiated, they are like little baby fruit-flavored Cheetos. They are wonderful for many reasons:

1. Madeline LOVES them!! Her eyes get huge as soon as she sees the container.

2. They keep her entertained long enough for me to actually get something done around the house. She likes to pick them up and eat them herself and she isn't too good at this yet. So it takes her a long time to actually get one in her mouth. Alot end up on the floor or in her seat though. (The dogs are her shadow now more than ever.)

3. Because of #'s 1 and 2, these things are my savior! She will be mid-scream and I can get her to quiet down in 2 seconds once I pull out a puff.

Some parents don't leave the house without at least 2 binkies in tow for fear of a meltdown. Me....I make sure I have a whole baggy full of puffs.