New Books

The amazing bobbin (S) tracked down some of the old Nancy Drew books for only 67cents each.  We've seen these in antique stores for up to $5 each.  I loved the Hardy Boys books when I was kid, and hopefully our girls will get into these.

Jardin Progress

In March we started a garden in the southwest side of the backyard.  Well, re-started, as last Nov. I planted some carrot seeds that didn't appear to take.  To the contrary, we have four healthy carrots going now.  S mistook one for a weed and pulled it out today.

Here's what the garden looked like originally.

It's grown quite a bit since.  The only plant that didn't take was a pepper.  The lettuce hasn't quite taken off yet.  The four cucumber plants have taken off too much and are starting to dominate, without producing some nice cucumbers.  There's a few on the stocks but they're fairly small.

The tomato I picked was a little tart but still good.

The basil has really shot up too.  We've put some in salad and on pizzas.  We also swapped some with my friend for their lettuce leaves.

MM's Other Birthday

Today was MM's birthday in Christ -- one year ago she was baptized by Fr. John and became a Christian.  Tonight we celebrated with a piece of cake, a renewal of her vows, and a lighting of her candle.  S made an extra sacrifice by abstaining from the cake.

Sorry sister, no open flames in your hands.

See, it was a real celebration by our family's standards.

Can't Start 'em Too Young

Friday night was the first of hopefully many nights playing basketball with MM.  I think she got the idea of defense at first but just didn't have the speed to keep up with me.

It was unusually cool so we had a nice time.  She was pretty good about not crawling into the street.

Weekend Hoop Las

I am going to compile two weekends into one. Marcelly is down for her nap and I don't want to waste any time missing mine either.

We went out with a couple of friends to McAlpine's on 7th street and had a great dinner. We all ordered shakes(mmm shakes) and naturally the kids ate those before dinner. Then we went out to the Frist Friday's art walk and had fun looking at strange people that we all hoped our children would avoid and not become. (Dad I now understand, sorry for putting you through that). Regardless we had a great time with company.

I forget what they were raising awareness for but it had to do with something and the poor not having clothes. However we were impressed at how creative and chic their dresses (made out of newspaper) were.

The next two pictures were similar to pulling teeth, at least for Doug. These people were trying to draw crowds to the something con, comictron, comicon, can't remember. So the boys were pushed into their fear of admitting they like Gandolf and the startroopers. Maybe next time they will go for a more active pose.

Then last weekend we had a great time at a BBQ with all the parents and children of my moms play group. Which I will go as far to say that we are now past the play group status and moved into friends. Everyone brought something and we all shared everything. We had a badminton game going and at the end the boys had a "friendly" game of basketball. It really was friendly, so much so that even a stranger dad asked to join. Marcelly had a great time eating dirt and just loved the swings. I don't think there is anything she is afraid of yet. So I will give myself points for that, not letting anything hurt her or make her scared. Go mommy! Somebody's gotta toot my horn. :) 

Post Script: I am having difficulty with the pictures going where I want them to go. Somehow they just end up where they are. Kind of annoying

MMR Shot

Tuesday MM had her MMR shot.  She took it like a trooper.  We've tried to space out her immunizations so she doesn't get so many at one time.  We're hoping she doesn't catch a fever from the MMR.

Of course it was sad when the nurse poked her. I could feel Marcelly jump and then she had a real hurt cry, as opposed to her fake, do what I want cry. Which I don't hear very often so of course she got her lovey and the car keys afterwards.

America in Decline

Great article by Charles Krauthammer yesterday --

"This is not just an America in decline.  This is an America in retreat -- accepting, ratifying and declaring its decline, and inviting rising powers to fill the vacuum."

Thanks Obama.

Prayer Request

Please keep my friend, who was badly injured in a car accident last night, in your prayers.  Despite the press report, she's pretty jacked up and was only saved by side airbags.  The running theory is that the driver who ran a red light and directly T-boned her driver's side door was an illegal alien.

A diet from Diabetes

Amongst all the other woes and worries of this pregnancy it is no wonder that I have been diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes. I say diagnosed because sounds the worst and it is the worst because bye bye sugars. 

Here is a short excerpt from ADA.com. Gestational diabetes starts when your body is not able to make and use all the insulin it needs for pregnancy. Without enough insulin, glucose cannot leave the blood and be changed to energy. Glucose builds up in the blood to high levels. This is called hyperglycemia.

So obviously altering the diet changes the glucose levels allowing the sugars in the blood to be changed into energy and leave the blood stream. Oh not so bad. Well when altering the diet comes into play changes the whole ballgame. Sad but true when we were worried about the other issues at least I could drown my sorrows in delicious mint chocolate chip ice cream or Oreos and milk. Now try drowning your sorrows in green beans and peas, practically gives you more sorrows. And for being pregnant and having cravings I tell you, no fun. Although on the bright side my husband says he will eat healthy too with me. Of course after I make him his chocolate chip pancakes. Encouraging. Wait till he eats his Friday lunch....a rice cake HA then we will see who is laughing. (BREW HAHAHAHAHA)

 

Oh yeah and pricking yourself is not fun either.

Surprise Date Friday

Last Friday my husband told me to dress cute and he would pick me up after work for a date. He didn't tell me where we were going only to be date ready. He often finds it funny or intriguing to surprise me. He organized the sitter, the place, and time. Go husband! Our honeymoon I had no idea where we were going until the day of our reception and that is only because someone, not close related, asked me if I was ready for Belize. So in his traditional fashion it was a surprise.

Part of this blog post is only to post the pictures because I finally felt cute after 7 months of being pregnant. We went to the uptown location of The Vig, originally in the Arcadia district. We get there and they have complimentary valet parking. Of course they were full and the attendant told us to back up and said if the parking id full then so is the restaurant. I thought hey buddy just cause we have a car seat in our car does not mean we can't afford your over priced food. However we stuck it out and Doug parked across the street and we waited the 25 minutes to feel young and childless. Raven our server fit the bill with her name. We both enjoyed a great dinner and thought the food was worth it.

After the bill we went to Mary Coyles for a delicious ice cream cookie sundae. 

 

Looked at our watch and decided to eat slower as Margaret was not even in bed yet. We had a wonderful time with nice conversation and little talk about Marcelly.

Same Old Suns

Pretty much old times with them tonight vs. the Lakers.  It ain't over yet but a long way to go.  Not sure how much more I'll watch because the NBA is not at all compelling and is actually pretty annoying with the referee-ing and showboating.

Iron Man 2

Went with Feather today and we both enjoyed it.  I was a little afraid it would suffer the same fate as Spider Man 3 - too many plot points, too many villains.  One of the first reviews made this critique.  The film avoided this pitfall.  The Iron Man entrance scene set to AC/DC was very well done, and Mickey Rourke played a pretty good Russian bad guy.  Scarlett Johansson was a very welcome addition to the cast, and Gwenyth Paltrow didn't look too bad either.  The film hammered home the robotics revolution currently taking place in our military, with all the attendant issues about reliability, trustworthiness, humans vs. machines, ethics of drones, etc.  These are brilliantly discussed in the book Wired for War, by Peter Singer, which I highly recommend.  I also appreciated director Jon Favreau's gratuitous shout-outs to Americans and the US flag.  There's no doubt Iron Man is an American hero.

Iron Man 2 website

Olden

Had to make sure our buddy was at this blog's inception.

Mothers Day

We did 730am Mass and breakfast with the Dwyers afterward.

 S made this dress for Marcelly from the dress she's wearing (which used to be longer).

The L A D I E S

More Laundry Room Pic's

Laundry Room Reno

S needed sewing space and had moved her old dining table into the laundry room for that end.  The room was too crowded, however.  We needed to create more space while keeping that table, which I really liked.  The solution was to cut the countertop and remove one of the base cabinets.  The space from the wall to the cabinets would perfectly accommodate the old dining table.

We took advantage of my dad being here to trim the countertop and get rid of the base cabinet.

This is an older photo of my dad installing the cabinets in the laundry room.  We couldn't find a photo of the room pre-reno.

S decided she wanted to paint the place before we put anything new in.  To the right of her is the space we created by cutting the countertop and removing the base cabinet.

Too bad this had to get covered up...

S wanted decorative pegboard above the table to hang her crafty gadgets.  We took some old chair rail for a frame.

Marcelly made sure I cut the 45s the right way.  And yes, I used one of the old locker doors as a bench, propped by two lawn chairs, way to go me for being inovative. Really I was to lazy to get out the real saw horse :) 

The painted wall before we hung the pegboard.

We ended up doing alright,after a few debates, cutting the hole for the electrical outlet.

S making some adjustments and rocking my workout shorts.

We added a shelf over the window for storage.  It makes the room a little heavy but we needed it.  S also had some paper to the cabinet's facing.  So nice to have room to walk in there now, and for S to be able to leave her sewing machine and surger out.

We especially her are very happy with the turn out.