Cracking Me Up

When he's not defying death by climbing in and out of his crib or trying to "swim by my own" the 2 year old is VERY funny. Now that he's talking so much he cracks me up on a nearly hourly basis. Here's some funnies from this morning:

Me getting Jacob up in the morning:

Me: Good morning Jake

Him: My name not Jake, it's Jacob..Jakey Potter

A few seconds later:

Him: Get some some cereal you old lady

In the car:

Me: We're going to go to TJ Maxx to look for a cover up and we can see if they have torpedos for the pool

Him: They at Target. Torpedoes not at TJ Maxx..have to go to Target. Go there now!

A few seconds later:

Him: After errands we go to my Juju's preschool..I go on tire swing. I be careful and hang on tight. It be fun.

I could not love this kid more!!

Surprise!

Last Thursday evening I was cleaning up after dinner when my sister in law showed up. My husband had said she was coming over after her Pilate's class to visit. Seemed random, but it's Michelle so you just go with it. She'd been there for a few minutes and she asked me to look over some travel documents for her boss. I thought that was odd but whatever so I took a peak at what she had. What she had contained a Boarding Pass with MY name on it bound for LaGuardia the very next morning! As in 12 hours from that point! I look up in disbelief and Paul says "surprise we're going to NYC!" I'm all like "What? Why? Huh??" Just total shock. "What about the kids?" He says he's got it covered - Michelle is keeping the kids and he's made all these arrangements to get the kids to/from their various activities. It was quite impressive actually and how he kept it all a secret - super impressive! He even left a list of the doughnuts the kids like for "Donut Saturday." I spent the next few hours walking around shocked and busy and mentally preparing to leave my brood for 3 days! It took some time for this control freak momma to get excited - I was just totally overwhelmed and then Lily with her black eye had a meltdown about not wanting to go to school and my heart broke. And Paul reminded me that it would all be OK. And we love NYC. It's where we got engaged. It's where he took me on another surprise trip before we had kids. It's one of our special places.

We got up at dark o'clock to get the airport and our flights were easy and on time. When we got to the city our room wasn't ready yet - we got to stay at the Waldorf Astoria (yay for a traveling husband who racks up hotel/air points like crazy! This is definitely a perk of his job)! We dropped off our bag and headed out to walk around. I love being able to walk places in the city. We've been several times so I'm pretty comfortable being able to navigate around. We were starving so we went to Carnegie Deli (so touristy I know but the sandwiches are good and big) and shared a sandwich and chatted with a nice couple from Baton Rouge. We went to Times Square and window shopped and went into some of the fun stores around there. My mom also happened to be in NYC to visit my brother so we were trying to figure out meeting up with them. We went to the TKTS booth to theater tickets - we ended up with Sat matinee tickets for Avenue Q. Friday night we met up with my mom, brother and sister in law at at Brazilian restaurant. It was very good and not somewhere we'd normally pick. After dinner we had expensive cocktails (compliments of the Waldorf) at the hotel (seriously the drinks were between $18 - $20!).

Saturday morning we got going pretty early. We went to American Girl Place for the girls and got them a treat. That store is a little overwhelming! The girls! The dolls! The money rolling into that place! We walked around and found Sprinkles bakery - apparently the bakery that started all the cupcake interest. The original is in LA but they had just opened one in NYC. We had the best cupcakes ever. Our favorite was the Salty Caramel. Oh. My. Goodness. We went to our show which was really funny. And the walked a lot more. Paul had done a bit of research before our trip including looking up food trucks. He had 3 he really wanted to find so we walked a lot on Saturday to see if we could find one. No luck but we had a lovely walk and stumbled upon some cool places! We met up with my family again for dinner. We had drinks at some bar and then had dinner at Rosa Mexicana. Seriously the best Mexican I have ever eaten. The Sangria came in this little pitcher - it was so good. They made guacamole table side and it was the best stuff ever. Such a fun night! It was really fun to spend time with my brother without the kids around - I can't remember the last time that happened!

Sunday we woke up to rain but we didn't let that stop our fun. We went to Sprinkles again and decided to walk to a different part of the city - Union Square to see a movie. We saw Bridesmaids and absolutely loved it. So freaking funny. Go see it! I had remembered that Survivor was filming at the David Letterman theater Sunday night so we walked by there trying to stalk some Survivors but sadly I did not run into Boston Rob or Amber or Russell or Crazy Phillip. The day went by fast and we had to go to the airport.

Our flight was due to depart around 7pm. It took no time to get to the airport so we had plenty of time once we got through security (interesting note - in RDU every passenger was going through the body scanner. At LGA? No body scanners in the US Airways terminal.). We checked the boards and everything was on time. We went to grab some dinner and in the 30 minutes we were eating apparently all hell broke loose and when we checked the board on the way to the gate flights were getting delayed and cancelled like crazy. We checked on my phone when we actually got the gate and it didn't take long to realize we weren't going to make our connection. We ended up getting rebooked on a direct flight to RDU that wasn't going to leave until 9:40. To make long story shorter we didn't take off until 1am, landing at RDU at 2:15am! Crazy! But I was glad to get home to my babies.

It was a wonderful weekend! The weather, while cool and sort of gray was perfect - no sweating! I can't thank my husband enough for going through the effort to make some time for ourselves and planning the trip. I can't thank my sister in law and mother in law enough for their help with the kids. And I can't thank my friends enough who helped out in pulling off the surprise! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! xoxo

How Long Before Child Services Calls?

It's pretty sad when the children's ER doctor starts to recognize you. Just ask my husband who has been 2 times in as many months. I'm sure we all remember Jacob and The Clipboard Incident of 2011. Today it was Lily's turn. We'll call it the See Saw Incident of 2011. Here's how it all went down and how I totally lost my Mother of Year badge for the 1000th time this year.

It was about 2:20 and I was on the phone booking a Disney vacation for a fabulous client. We'd already been disconnected once (darn you Sprint) so we were chatting on the house phone. My cell phone starts ringing but I ignore it (and here's where I lose the badge). I notice the number looks like it could be school but I get calls from school all the time that PTA related. So I figure I'll finish with Wendi and call back since they left a message. Then my house phone beeps but I'm on the phone. It's a business call so I ignore that too. And then The Text comes from Paul. "On my way to school. Lily had an accident" I get all flustered and become completely unprofessional and tell the client - oh my goodness can I call you back? Thankfully she has kids and I think understood my panic. All I could think about was how much Lily loves the monkey bars and that for sure it was broken arm. I call Paul and he doesn't know anything - just that she got hit in or near the eye. At first the teacher said it was a bad bruise then said go ahead and come get her. So off he went. Thank God he was in town. Thank God he was just having an office day. Thank God he answered his phone in his office, which he doesn't always do. I tell him to call me as soon as he knows something. So I call Wendi back and Bless Her Heart she's so understanding and we get her trip booked. Paul calls me and says he's talked to our next door neighbor The Doctor (Thank God for him!) and was advised to take her to the ER. He tells me she looks bad and that the eye is nearly swollen shut. I panic. Start blubbering about will she go blind, will she ever see again. And Paul calmly says she'll be fine..she can see...just making sure but she'll be fine. Thank God he's the calm one. I get to school to get Emma and Paul sends a text that she's fine. Just a surface wound. Phew....Thank God. The sweet teacher running carpool asked how she was and when Emma got in the car she knew Lily had an accident but didn't really know the extent of what had happened. She was mildly concerned for her sister. But then at dinner kept saying she needed an eye patch. Nice.

Paul gave Lily some TLC this afternoon while I was at gymnastics and dance with the other girls. When I got home I finally got to see The Eye. Great heavens is it Swollen! Purple! Black! Blue! I haven't seen that many shades of purple and blue since I watched Saturday Night Fever. It's quite swollen but otherwise she's in good spirits. She got a goody bag at the hospital so I pretty much think that made the whole thing worth it for her. I finally got to ask her what happened. Apparently she and 2 friends were playing with (not on) the see saw and someone hit it a little too hard and Lily was in the wrong place at the wrong time and got nailed right above the eye. Who knew see saws were such enemies.

Mothers Day

I hope all my wonderful mom friends had an great Mothers Day - full of things you love and people you love! My family had the day very special starting off with Paul making Red Velvet Pancakes for breakfast! Yummy! He makes pancakes most Sunday mornings but he surprised me with Red Velvet ones yesterday. We headed off to church early (the volunteering doesn't end) and afterwards we went to a great lunch at Georgina's. I love that place because a. it has great garlic knots and most importantly b. it's never that busy and I don't have to worry so much about the kids making too much noise. We sat outside, beside another family of 6 so no worries on the loud factor. After we got home Jacob napped and the girls told me to go upstairs where I holed myself in my room reading and watch Mad Men season 3 on DVD. Oh it was lovely! The girls were putting together a special dessert and wanted to surprise me. I was happy to oblige! After nap we went strawberry picking where Jacob keep sneaking off to eat berries. I'm sure there are still some in his pockets. After berry picking we had a pre-dinner treat at The Skinny Dip frozen yogurt - free for moms! Then we went home played outside and Paul grilled steaks for dinner. A great day!!

What a week!

Whew...it's been a week. You know those weeks where you have 10 million things to do and remember and places to be. And you are just so thankful when Friday rolls around because even though Saturday is packed with running around at least you don't have to pack lunches. One of those weeks. It's been a fun week. Just busy.

It was Teacher Appreciation Week at our elementary school so we had things to remember to do every day for the teachers. We also "adopted" a non-classroom teacher so we had to remember her each day too. The PTA planned some really fun things for our teachers like breakfast, hand massages, mini-manicures, decorating staff bathrooms, a cinco de mayo party, an Appreciation Squad event and luncheon. It was all tons of fun and I think the teachers really appreciated all we did for them. The Cinco de Mayo party was lots of fun - we served non-alcoholic margaritas in the lounge along with all kinds of chips and salsa. The only complaint I heard was that there was no tequila in the margarita's! Ha! We also had a Volunteer Luncheon where the teachers made food for all the volunteers. They are some good cooks! It was delicious. We also had Kindergarten Orientation last evening so I had to be there to talk for a minute about PTA. It was so cute to see the little ones coming to school next year. I can't believe that next year I will be bringing Julia to the orientation - seems like only yesterday that we took Emma!

A highlight for the week was the Mother's Day Tea at preschool. I look forward to it every year! It's always so, so sweet and Julia was so excited about it. The class sang "You are my Sunshine" to the moms - oh the cuteness!!

And today I had the opportunity to talk to a MOPS group about Disney. It was so much fun! One of my clients invited me and I loved it! They were the nicest group of moms and my kids had a great time in "moppets"!

Tomorrow is a full day of girl scouts and birthday parties but hopefully Sunday will be some rest. I have 3 books I am dying to read and counting on Sunday to at least get to one of them!!

Keep Going

Conversation with Emma (8) last night:

Em: Mom, I'm just like the Soul Surfer..

Me: Really? Do tell..

Em: I got hit in the face with the soccer ball at recess today but I'm going to keep going. I'm still going to play soccer tomorrow at school...just like the Soul Surfer kept going.

Me: Good for you!

A good character lesson for us all.....

The Royal Wedding!!

Well yall know I was completely obsessed with The Royal Wedding. I happen to love the Royals - it just completely fascinates me - add that to the fact that it was my anniversary TOO and well, let's just say I was super excited to watch it! And it did not disappoint. I loved it, LOVED it, loved it!! Thankfully I found some friends who also were excited to watch and they came over for my Royal Wedding Viewing Party. We had wedding dresses, veils, cocktail dresses, crazy hats and some good eats (and about 20 kids running around). I had dvr'd E's coverage which was pretty good. The kids running around distracted from the wedding some but it was still great to watch. Some of the little girls were really into it and some not so much. Mostly they really wanted to see Kate walk down the aisle and The Kiss. Emma was also fascinated with Pippa who she thought was just as pretty as Kate. She acted like she wasn't all that interested but then told me "you have to save it for Lily to watch." Ha. Saturday I watched the TLC special: The Royal Wedding Encore which I have to say was great. Cut 5 hours of coverage into less than 2...think I'll save that for Lily.

Of course I have lots of thoughts about the wedding:

1. Kate was just stunning, beautiful., flawless, confident, poised, elegant...perfection.

2. William looked completely confident too - not nervous at all.

3. Her parents on the other hand? Looked pretty nervous - with good reason!

4. Pippa - wow - she is gorgeous too. And that dress..wow - whoever her tailor is deserves a raise. And how cute was she with those little flower girls/bridesmaids???

5. How 'bout the pouty flower girl in the carriage - cuteness abounds!

6. Don't you just want to go get a drink with Prince Harry - seriously how fun does he look? And speaking of getting drinks -poor Chelsy- she looked liked she had a big night Thursday.

7. The Hats. The HATS. Interesting is an understatement. The Hats could be it's own show. It's a wonder there were no injuries as a result of a Hat.

8. The Crowd out in front of the palace - wow - it looked liked Times Square at New Years!

9. Those little boys in the same uniform as William - how cute! I totally think my bff should make her fiance and Jacob were that for her wedding!

10. Kate's dress was gorgeous - loved the long sleeves - I expected her to be in something more fitted but I thought her dress looked very "princessy" I bed knock-offs are already in the stores.

Now onto Royal Baby Watch!