Music

I grew up listening to oldies. I LOVE oldies. In fact I exclusively listened to oldies from 6-8th grade. I remember being in Mr Barrett's (AKA Mr Stinky Breath) (Jody, remember when that Lindsay girl wrote him a mean note and left a bar of soap in his mailbox?) class and someone asked me what radio station I listened to. I proudly said "Oldies 100" and when people looked at me like I was cray cray I realized that I was purr-itty lame. So then I switched to soft hits for a while. Nope not quite the ticket to cool town either.

Then my BFF, Camilla, introduced me to Deana Carter the summer after my freshman year and I was hooked. I was officially a country fan. Deana led to the Dixie Chicks which led to everything else twangy and now I am a bluegrass lover. I defitnitely love rock and emo and a lot in between but I will always have a special spot in my heart for a banjo and a fiddle. The thing that kills me about NYC radio is that there are NO good stations! I can get maramba music 24/7 on at least 3 stations, or pop hits on 5, but there are no good oldies or country stations. What a shame. If we had an awesome new 2013 Suburban we would have Sirius radio and I could listen to 50's on 5 or 60's on 6 to my hearts content.

Shoes

My good friend Elissa is super duper talented. She is also incredibly amazing. Her little boy Matthew was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, that had a 15% survival rate and had total bone involvment, about 18 months ago. They have been here in NYC going to Sloan Kettering for treatments for a year. Now Matthews bone marrow is 100% clear of disease. So many miracles have been shown through this amazing family. Anyway, she is SO talented in many ways and she made my kids these awesome shoes for Christmas! She painted them by hand with just an idea in her head of what she wated. No stenciling at all. I just told her what my kids liked and she went from there.

 

 

CT

We were supposed to take a roadie to North and South Carolina during Cannon's spring break but at the last second a whole bunch of work came up that he had to stay and attend to. I was pretty heartbroken as I was DYING to get out of the city so I called up my friend Anne and asked if the kids and I could stay in her gorgeous home in CT. The weather was freeeeezing but it was in a cute town and there was a hot tub!


Nothing bettern than the smell of a fire! And PS fires are dang hard to keep going!

Thankfully we had some visitors though they couldn't stay long because Mr X is a famous in demand model and he had to make some dough.

Mav is just 5 weeks older than Evan but talks and rides a scooter. Evan says "ba" and rides in a stroller. The stools were pretty high so K dawg rigged up this super safe baby catching device.

The kids loved the hot tub and the babies loved watching. I have more pictures of them slapping each other repeatedly right after this but they're not appropriate for the general public.

Elyse and the boys went on an "adventure" roaming around the yard and topped off with a picnic lunch. Levi got cold so just she and Xan ate. It was really quite precious.

 

Evan is obsessed with belly buttons as it is one of the few words that he says "ba ba". He loves to blow rasperries and the kids love to get them. I had a video of it but it disappeared : (

Elyse sings!

I was so proud of Elyse for learning this song ALL on her own! She performed at a homeschoolers talent show. Turn up the volume loud :)

Pardon the bad angle and lack of focus. I'm no pro :)

The "Other mother"

I love this blog post I saw on the Power of Moms site today.

http://powerofmoms.com/2013/04/the-other-mothers/

She talks about not comparing yourself to others and being proud of what you're acomplishing instead of worrying about what you're not doing. Although she does talk about being grateful she's not the mom that lets her kid pee at the park, never has a clean house, yells at their kids, doesn't go to dental checkups and doesn't accesorize. EEK! I really felt incredibly judged by those words of hers ;)

But seriously, I was speaking with Karley about how we are SO glad that we just don't care what anyone thinks about us anymore. Which I think is the main reason we can get together and act like complete idiots and just love ourselves anyway. This is something that comes with age, so on the one hand it's sad because I'm aging (boo hoo) but it's also very freeing and I love the stage of life I'm in.

I will proudly tell you that my house is messy 90% of the time, my kids absolutely pee behind the trees, trashcans etc, I yell more than I care to admit (although thanks to orange rhino I am doing much better) I HATE the dentist *more on that later, I only accesorize on occasion and most of the time the bottoms of my feet are so dirty I leave footprints in the shower! Phew true confessions.....thank you for letting me get that off my chest ;)

I have learned what is worth my time and what isn't.

Por ejemplo: I hate crafts, but I love reading to my kids. I don't love playing pretend but I love all kinds of games and puzzles. I hate the PTA (which I really learned this year from being on a committee for the first time in my life) but I will gladly accompany my kids on a class outing. I love to cook but I HATE to clean. Have I told you that before? So, I feel like I have really been able to embrace what I love and do the things I hate on a less frequent basis (except for the cleaning...boo!)

I have absolutely been jealous of the other mothers and I absolutely still have moments especially when I see an exceptionally patient and or hot mom, but I have learned to get over it and if it's such a big deal to me then who says I can't improve upon it. The only thing I have yet to embrace is my love handles. Hate them and always will.

Bottom line/moral of the story....LOVE YOURSELF!!! Peaceout.

PS Let others know your weaknesses once in a while. You never know who you could be helping by letting them know that seemingly put together people gots issues too! Tru.

Maple Syrup Farm

On my birthday I decided I wanted to go to a maple syrup farm. They had a (gross) pancake breakfast but thankfully we are snobs and I made gluten free pancakes in advance :)

It was a darling farm, sorry I totally forgot the name of it and am too lazy to look it up. But it used to be a big milk farm until the 60's when darn government regulations on milk drove it out of business. The following is going to be an amazing example of my love of capturing every moment with my children. (aka I took 5 pictures the whole time)

 

 

Ev was happily steering away on the tractor when a reporter from a huge famous newspaper that shall remain nameless (OK it was called the podunk times for the town of Dunkville) wanted to take a picture of the cute little boy on the tractor. Please note his expression below when she started calling to him and snapping away.

He is dumbstruck. Or maybe it was because she was such a famous reporter/photographer. I really think he could have a career in modeling, don't you?

Snow Day!

We only had 1 snowstorm of any significance this year and that was just fine with me. I really dislike the cold and that is putting it nicely. When I was a kid Alicia could spend hours playing in the snow with those cheap dollar store gloves and never ever complain and I would have ski gloves and wool socks and be crying after half an hour. Playing in the snow has never been my thing but I do LOVE to sled!



We decided to go up to Inwood Park since we knew central park would be crazy and based on pictures from friends it was insane! We were the only ones in the whole area which was awesome and so beautiful since there was not a single footprint when we got there.

 

 

Evan wasn't quite sure what to make of the white stuff.

 

 

Cannon LOVES the snow and is such a kid in it....love that :)

There was a lot of awkward standing around for Evan that day.

 

 

I swear I was there! Though I really didn't want to be....I totally faked a smile for posterity. Morning sickness is (was) the WORST!!

We made short work of that pristine snow :)

Just hanging, putting out the vibe.