And Then She Said. . .

When I started this blog, it was to help me find balance in the madness that is sometimes my life.

Looking back on my last post, I started thinking about all the things the Lady does that make my everyday life a little bit more difficult than necessary.

But I also have to remember that even though we sometimes battle, there are those other moments when she says or does something so funny or unexpected that it takes my breath away. It amazes me sometimes about how someone so small can influence me so much.

Sometimes I have to laugh even though I probably shouldn't. Like the day the little Lady had an unfortunate encounter with the poo foot. The encounter between me and the Lady went something like this:

Me: The Little Lady has poo foot.

The Lady: Poo foot? Oh--that sucks.

After turning away and laughing into my shoulder, I did tell her that she shouldn't say that word.

The Lady: Oh, Daddy shouldn't say it.

Sometimes she just gets so excited it is hard not to get caught up in her enthusiasm. This weekend we left the ladies with my parents and my husband and I did a few things around the house and got to spend a little time together. We put together her toddler bed, as we had been promising her. When she got home and saw it not only was she super excited about her "big-girl bed" but ran out of her room exclaiming "I got a new kitchen!" We had in the process of putting the bed together, rearranged the room. The "new" kitchen, was actually her old kitchen in a new place. If wish I had known how excited she would be, I could have been putting her old toys in new places for months now.

Sometimes the Lady just makes me love her more and more. Like when she is sitting in her carseat after a particularly long and napless day, when the Little Lady is screaming and I am stressing out so much, I can feel the cortisone pumping through my body and creating belly fat on my body as I drive, and then I hear her little voice in the backseat, very softly saying, "It's okay, little lady," over and over. I would take one hundred thousand mornings of "pants wrestling" for just one of those.

Oh. . . The Lady

The Lady is so two.


Everyday I am not sure who is going to meet me in the morning. Will it be the "No, I want Daddy!" or "No change my diaper, I want milky," shrill-voiced little crank pants, or will it be my sweet little girl who gives me a big smile and an even bigger hug.


Will we start the day wrestling over putting on clothes, because she insists on either wearing only her pajamas or wants to "just be nudie?" Or can I distract her enough to slide on a pair of leggings and get out the door with her velcroing her own sneakers and helping me put her sweatshirt on?


I realized that my kid is now the one that is acting out. That she is now the one that we are trying to bribe, threaten, punish, or ignore into completing our simple requests.

Eat your breakfast. No.
Put on your shoes. No.
Stop touching the computer. No--its mine, or my personal favorite--"I'm doing my e-mails!"

Some days I don't know if I should just ignore her completely or lock myself in the bathroom and cry. I know she is just asserting her independence, and it is important to me that the Lady be able to assert herself in life, to stand up for herself and to make her own decisions. I just wish she wasn't doing it at the same time that I am trying to get her dressed and out the door.

I know that eventually, the outbursts will subside a bit, that the tantrums won't seem so bad and that maybe, sometime soon, she will actually allow me to put pants on her body without wriggling around like a greased monkey, but until then I will try to use every single parenting tip I got from watching random episodes of Supernanny, hope for the best and remind myself that I am still in charge.

A Few Changes

As you may have noticed, there are a few changes to The Three Bean Salad. I have added a little ad space on my blog from BlogHer.com.

BlogHer is the end all and be all in women blogging. Check out what they are all about here.

http://www.blogher.com/about-blogher-0

I have decided to join with them in the hopes that I can reach other readers and so that the Money Saving Mom can make a few extra bucks through the advertisements.

As for the layout, I am just tinkering around with different colors/fonts and layouts. I think the look of the Three Bean Salad might change again in the next couple of days until I find something that I really like.

I would welcome any feedback on the look of the site. Let me know what you think.

The Biggest Loser and Other Updates

I only got to see the last hour of the BL. We did some rearranging in our bedroom, and forgot to plug the TiVo back in so I missed out on a few shows this week.

Anyway, I like the second hour better, but I did miss the makeovers.

Oh, I did see that Shay was on the Leno show, so at least we know she didn't totally balloon back up again, and as of that taping--she also wasn't super small. I am looking forward to seeing her on the finale.

As I am writing this, I hardly remember anything else that happened. See my previous post for possible reasons!

I do recall that Allan was taken aside by Bob because he should be winning more challenges. It was interesting to see that he is playing the game a little. I don't think he will win the BL, because he doesn't have as much weight to lose as Danny and Rudy, but I think he will be one contestant who might be able to keep the weight off.

I also remember the interaction between Jillian and Rudy. Jillian does get all psychological on people, and for emotional eaters to connect the reasoning behind their behavior, it is important, but sometimes it just seems weird. I mean she was all pissed off that he never told her his sister died when she was younger. I mean, that isn't something I would be coming out and advertising either, especially on national TV. It just seemed a little forced--however, Rudy is putting up some big numbers so maybe pinpointing this event in his life as the start of his overeating will help him in the long term to keep the weight off.

Now to the weigh-in. The contestants are dwindling and I like most of them so at this point I am always disappointed to see someone go. However, if I had to pick someone to leave, Rebecca would have been my choice too. She is a strong competitor, but she cries entirely too much and is a little high-maintenance. I thought the Rudy reasoning for kicking her off was kind of bogus, but whatever. I think he just wanted to have something concrete to say so that it seemed like he actually thought about it.

I will say that Rebecca looks amazing now. That footage of her running the half-marathon was actually inspiring to me (although she was also crying through that as well).

But now for the big news. This link was given to me by my sister so I have to credit her. Check it out http://tv.msn.com/tv/article.aspx?news=442541&affid=100055

Daniel and Rebecca are dating!!! Remember when he left the show and he said he couldn't wait to introduce America to his girlfriend? Well Rebecca is his girlfriend. That is two love connections for this season. Hmmm. . . we will see how this long distance/weight loss love develops.

I can't believe the season is winding down so quickly!

Other Updates

I am picking up my race stuff next week and am all set to run in the Turkey Trot. I have been trying to run consistently this week and this weekend I am planning to run part of the race course. I am hoping adrenaline and the fact that I am running with someone who can push me will help account for the lack of training I have had this year as compared with last. I might puke, but I am going to finish.

I have fallen off the journaling a little and am re-starting today. I had to wear maternity pants last night to an event, because my black pants don't quite fit yet. I will say that the top I was wearing was a medium and someone said my face looked thinner, but until I can button those pants around my belly, I haven't quite reached my goals.

I did however, find a pair of really cute black flats in my closet that I forgot I had. It was like getting a new pair of shoes without paying for them!!!

A Major Mommy Mind Melt

I feel like the past few weeks I have been living in a fog. Between the lack of uninterrupted sleep, the cold medicine I am taking and the overwhelming feeling that I am never going to catch up on what I need to get done, things are bound to go wrong.


Last Wednesday, the Bean and the Bear Photography had a paying gig. It was the second job we had that week and due to some computer issues at my best friend's house, I have been downloading and editing all the pictures. So, I left the shoot with her memory card in my camera bag and mine in my camera.

After returning from shoot to pick up the girls at my parents I had to take pictures of my dad's car, which got a little banged up from a deer incident in the early morning hours the previous day. There really isn't anything like taking photos of a little girl for Christmas one minute, then a photo of deer hair embedded in a bumper the next. But I digress. . .

I packed up the girls, headed home and was blocked from entering my driveway by a truck and a car parked illegally at the Spanish Market in front of our condo complex. I could go on for hours about this place, but if I start I won't be able to stop and I might put myself into such a frenzy of stress and anger that I might start slashing tires.

Anyway, I took some photos of these cars to send to the police department to see if they could please up their patrol of the area. So I definitely had my memory card driving into my complex.

Here is where things get a little blurry. I was having an issue with my external hard drive (now totally taken care of) and wanted to post a few pics of the kids on facebook. I hadn't updated in a while and the Little Lady is just getting so big and cute, so I removed the memory card from the camera and replaced it with a blank one that I could copy photos on from my old computer to the new one.

If you haven't checked out my facebook page in a while you should, because the pictures are super cute. This took me a while and I was distracted by the Lady and the Little Lady and the amount of tissues I was going through because my head was so stuffy. I planned on downloading the photo shoot pictures later in the day and just never got around to it.

Fast-forward to Thursday afternoon. I got out of work a little early because there was nothing to do and headed home. The Lady was napping and I had a few minutes to myself. I figured I should start editing the photos from the shoot, but I couldn't find the memory card.

I searched the camera bag, I searched the table, the counter, the bookshelf. I remembered that the Lady had given me some photo paper on Wednesday and I started to panic--what if she took it? It could be anywhere in her room. I searched her room. Nothing.

Now, I was in a real panic. This was a paying job--how could I have misplaced this memory card? The worst part about it was that I had absolutely no recollection of what I did with it. I searched the camera bag again. Nothing.

I called my mom. She suggested praying to the St. Anthony, the Patron Saint of Lost Items. I pulled out the couches. Nothing.

I knew that the memory card had to be in the house somewhere. I played the events of Wednesday over and over and I just could not figure out what happened. I knew it wasn't on the table because Wednesday night one of my husbands friends from work came by, so we actually cleaned up a little. We would have found it, if it was in plain view.

When my husband got home Thursday night, he looked too. He looked in pretty much all the places I did and still nothing. Next step--emptying the garbage.

Friday morning rolled around and I had to take the Lady to the doctor for a follow-up visit after her iron levels tested low. Luckily, with the help of a $38 bottle of vitamins, she is fine. While there I stole a rubber glove because I knew I had to tackle the big bag of dirty diapers, taco meat, and cantaloupe rinds sitting in my kitchen when I got home. Luckily, I had someone to take the Lady out of the house.

So, I looked. There was a lot of dirty diapers and tissues, but no memory card.

Panic. Panic. Panic.

I only had half the photos from the shoot edited and downloaded and I had taken the majority of the shots. How was I going to explain this? In the middle of it all, my best friend called, I feel badly but I totally ignored her phone call. St. Anthony--please?

The Lady returned, the garbage was put back in the bag, I searched my camera bag again and still nothing. Now what?

The only thing I could think of that was in the house that had moved out of the house was the bag of recycling I had put out the night before. I took the garbage out to the garage and pulled open the recycling bin. I grabbed our bag, luckily there wasn't too much stuff on top of it and pulled out each piece one by one. Nothing. Until. . .

I shook out the magazines and heard the sweetest sound ever, the sound of a tiny plastic memory card, hitting the bottom of a dirty, dirty recycling bin. My heart soared. Joy. Happiness.

I figured that I put the memory card on top of the magazines on the table and then put the entire pile into the recycling bag. I really should get more organized.

Oh, the mommy mind melt! When will this fragmented brain reconnect? When will I emerge from this fog and be able to think clearly? When will I be able to remember the things I once took for granted? I fear, I will never have a complete recovery, which each kid a little bit more of my focus has been lost. For now, I will try to be more conscious of my actions and everyday say a little prayer to St. Anthony.

The Biggest Loser

They knocked off two last week!! As it turns out team Orange went home, Daniel for falling below the dreaded red line and Shay for being the biggest threat, even though she lost 17lbs and became the fastest woman to lose 100lbs. on the show.

Oh the tears!

I am not sure why they thought it was necessary to throw off two contestants, but it certainly pushed the contestants hard. I was surprised at the amount of weight loss by a lot of players, like Liz for example, and I guess they have to keep everyone motivated and in a constant state of fear!

I will say that I am getting kind of tired of watching these "pop" challenges. How long can you watch someone scoop up money and put it in an container, duck underneath a barrier or grab tennis balls off a velcroed wall? I think the reason I am so over it, is that every time I see Danny on Brown do things like this his shirt comes up and his incredibly large gut flaps around!

My cousin texted me after last weeks episode and wondered why there was no follow-up on Shay. We saw Daniel back home with his family and in a very awkward forced face-to-face with Dave, his partner from last season, who is still ginormous and was drinking a fountain soda. But why no Shay?

I have a few theories:

1. She totally blew up after she got home and the producers don't want us to see her.
2. She totally lost a ton more weight and it will ruin the reveal in a few weeks.
3. She is preggo
4. They ran out of time, because they insist on replaying the same thing after commercial as they did before the commercial and we will be updated this week.

I am looking forward to tonight. Tim Gunn shows up and it is makeover week! I love it when these contestants get cleaned up. The exposed stomach/sports bra look is getting tired.

Other Updates

I am signed up to run the Turkey Trot, but have been lacking on training time. I am finally feeling better after about two weeks of a cold/sinus infection. I have to get out and running a bit more this week or I won't last past the first mile. I keep visualizing the event in my head and I think this will actually help me this year because I know what to expect. I am hoping that the next week will be full of productive workouts so that I can beat my old time.

Now, if the Little Lady would only sleep better at night, perhaps I wouldn't feel so run down!!

A Few Photos

The Lady at the Touch a Truck Event

The Little Lady

Halloween with Grandpa and the Wild Man

Getting ready to Trick-0r-Treat

Pants Off/Dance Off

So, I have been complaining about the Lady's lack of pants time.

Here is a photo of the first incident where I had to bring her to Dunkies in just this outfit. 

Yes everyone, this is my life. 

Update

So, I didn't hear back from the hubby yesterday after I returned from work. I started to worry a little so I thought that warranted a phone call during my afternoon pump session.

Turns out, he was able to push the snake out into the driveway area with a broom, then our neighbor came over and picked the snake up with his mail and flung it over the fence. 

I asked how far it was thrown and was assured it was quite a distance, but I would have been just as happy if they had run it over with the car. 

I am still skeeved out every time I walk into the garage. Yuck.

Grossed Out

I went home at lunch today. The Ladies were out, so I had the house to myself for a few minutes, which is always nice and super rare.

On my way back to work, I dragged the garbage bin back into the garage and I saw a snake! It was just laying there inside the door area. I could only see the back end, but I totally freaked out. I hate snakes. I repeat. I hate snakes.

Now, the Ladies were out in the carriage and I couldn't bear the thought that the Lady might see this snake, or might be running around in the garage and come upon it, so I did the only thing I could think of and called my husband.

He agreed to come home and take a look at it. I was already on my way back to work, so I was praying that he could remedy the situation. When he called me about 10 minutes later, he could not find the snake. I don't know what is worse, seeing a snake in your garage--or knowing that there was a snake in your garage and now you can't find it!

Anyway, with a little direction and some banging on the wall, my husband did see it. He wasn't as concerned about its size as I was, and I haven't heard how he disposed of it yet, but I am praying it was in a humane--yet permanent way.

Yuck! I am still freaking out about it. It totally gives me the chills. I can handle a lot of things, poop in the tub, screaming children in the middle of the grocery store, blood, 5-mile runs, and fantasy football, but snakes--EWWWWWW! Gross.

Oh Boy! Oh Boy! Oh Boy!

We have been welcoming quite a few new little ladies this year to the Three Bean Salad family, so I am excited to announce the arrival of a few new boys to the mix.

First, I would like to welcome a big guy, weighing in at 9.7lbs, this little Irishman joins his big sister up in Newtown, CT. We hope that everyone is feeling well and adjusting!

Second, I would like to welcome another little guy with a ND connection. He is also a CT boy and we would like to welcome his mom and dad to parenthood!

Third, yet another CT boy. This time a NL connection who joins his big brother. We can't wait to see him at the beach this summer.

We hope everyone is feeling good, getting rest and enjoying these first few weeks with their little boys.

A Bit of Gossip

US Weekly sends me e-mail updates. The subject line today was Lawyer: Josh Duhamel Kept Waking Up Stripper for "More Sex"

I hadn't heard about the apparent romp with a stripper until then. Good thing I checked my mail at lunch when I was dropping off more boob juice for the little Lady and my copy of US Weekly had arrived with Fergie and Josh on the cover.

Oh. . . Hollywood couples, why do you have to ruin your marriages with cheap stripper sex?

All I have to say is "Fergie. . . Big Girls Don't Cry."

The Lady and The Wild Man Visit GG

I am very grateful that I have three living grandparents. I think it is amazing that my kids will spend time with their great-grandparents and have photos to see when they are older.

I still remember driving around with my own GG and visiting her in Florida. And it is a very vivid memory of mine of lining up with my cousins to get a haircut by Grandma Re and having her give us all Certs. Ah, Certs your wintergreen tastiness, stays with me to this day.

A few weeks ago, I piled in the car with the ladies and headed out to LI to visit my grandparents. It was a beautiful day and the kids played down on the beach by their house. It was the first time that they had gotten to see the newest additions and everyone was relatively well-behaved.

Yesterday, we packed up the car and headed north towards Albany to visit with GG. The ride is a little over two hours and when we pulled out my main concern was that the little Lady would need to eat halfway there and I would have to pull over at some Thruway rest stop and breastfeed her in the car. She however, was perfect and slept the whole way. The Lady on the other hand had her moments.

I have been allowing the Lady to listen to my iPod so that she can hear "Halo" on repeat. Yesterday, I made the mistake of not putting the earphones in her ears before we left, so she had a few issues with her "earpods" as she calls them. Once she figured out how to get them both in I had to listen to her sing. I am not a good singer. I admit it. I don't know all the words to songs so I just wing it, I can't carry a tune and any high note I hit sounds like a braying dog. I do, however, love music. The Lady is the same way. As my dad said the other night. "She loves to sing, but she isn't a good singer." So for about 45 minutes I had to listen to her hit the high notes in "Halo." Oh, it is a sound only a mother could love.

Anyway, things started to fall apart when she was unable to keep the earpods in, so I told her I would play the iPod through the radio. I then proceeded to listen to Halo for another 45 minutes, until I turned around and saw that her eyes were closed. When I switched songs, I heard a little voice in the backseat say "NO. Halo." So, we listened to Halo again.

It was around this time that the Lady got uncomfortable. She started squirming in her seat and complaining about wanting to get her backpack off. Now, I didn't realize she was wearing her purple Dora backpack and that my husband had strapped her in with it on. The whining started, then the winging, then the wriggling, until not only was the backpack off but the straps to her carseat as well. She then started to try and heave her body out of the seat. This wouldn't have been as scary, had she not hit the window button with her hand and the window rolled down. Note to self: Child Lock the window and the door immediately!

Needless to say we had to readjust and then finally we pulled into GG's.

The Wild Man had pulled in right before us and was already out of the car, around the side of the house and running through the leaves. The Lady made her way out of the car in her Dora nightgown, a pair of brown fleece pants with multi-colored hearts and her rainboots and was soon right behind him. Before we even got into the house, The Wild Man had knocked over the recycling bin in the garage and the Lady was right there with him. This should have been clue #1 that things were going to get crazy.

I realize now why, when we were younger, my cousins and I were confined to either the basement or the upstairs room of the house. I am not sure how our parents coped with not just two kids running around but upwards of 10-15.

Here are a few of the things that we encountered yesterday, and let me just preface this with the fact that my grandma said that there was nothing out that they could really get to that would cause a problem.

1. The Lady found a coin. This led to my aunt giving the kids handfuls of change, which they proceeded to carry around in a wicker wastebasket, that later in the day they both wore on their heads.

2. This obsession with change led them to the antique cash register that belonged to Grandma Re, where they tried, in vain, to open with a key that didn't fit the register and that ended up in the Wild Man's mouth.

3. Next to this antique cash register were two bells. My grandma has a bell collection, thank god they weren't all out or we would have been subject to some sort of jingle bell catastrophe. These kids were ringing the bells with such vigor that I thought that I would either go deaf, or one of them would end up hitting themselves in the head with the bell with such force that we would end up in the emergency room.

4. Silence is never good and it usually means that your kid is playing in the toilet. This happened twice.

5. Closing doors is probably a good idea (see above) or you may find yourself prying away eye drops from your two-year old, who insists she "needs them," while your nephew chews on a cork coaster in your grandma's room.

6. Letting the kids run around outside is a good idea. Letting them dig in your grandma's flower beds with diggy trucks works too. However, letting them play with sap covered pinecones that leave their hands blackened and sticky, isn't that good of an idea. And, once again when you hear silence, run. Because, as you make your way around the side of the house and hope that the two of them aren't in the street you will probably find them in the garage playing with the recycling bins again.

7. When you hear crashing from another room, run as well. My biggest fear was that they had knocked over something valuable, a bell perhaps or even broken a photo frame. I was grateful that it was just pewter coasters that had fallen to the floor. As I went to pick these up, I found the mechanical pencil with a three inch point on the floor with a pile of post-it notes that I noticed later had been randomly drawn on, the Wild Man with a handful of photos in his sap-covered hands, and the Lady wearing somebody's reading glasses.

8. If you have ever been to my grandma's house you would recognize the cat door-stopper. Basically, it is a brick-stuffed cat that will hold a door ajar. The Wild Man used it as a projectile.

These are just a few of the things we encountered. I am sure my grandma will find evidence of our visit in the next few days. The former "clown room" a scary kind of room when you are small, and lets face it when you are an adult as well, has been reconfigured. The kids were allowed in there, but still were able to take advantage of it. Apparantly, the Lady was trying on clothes in the closet, all the pillows were thrown from the bed, the little crib my grandma put out in case the little ladies needed a nap was full of anything and everything those kids could reach.

Luckily exaustion set in on the ride home. Both of my girls slept the entire way back to my parents, where we were meeting my sister for pizza. We left there a couple hours later, the second house that day destroyed, but with no toilet incident, a small victory that I will cherish.

The Biggest Loser and Other Updates

Ding Dong the witch is dead!

Tracey is off the show. I will say I will miss her crazy big eyes and exaggerated facial expressions, but it is always fun to watch someone try to manipulate the game, so when I look at it from that perspective I am a little sad to see her go. She does look good now and I was happy that she could run that mile without passing out and having to be hospitalized. In a weird way it gives me hope!

So the contestants headed to DC, recruited fellow Americans to work out on the Mall, ate out of Obama's garden and switched from teams to individuals. I am interested to see how the alliances will pan out. Will they stick to black vs. blue like they did in the past or will they honor their original pairings with their partners?

This is the part of the season that I actually love, the numbers are dwindling and when they flash back to previous photos of the contestants you can really see how far they have come. It still amazes me that in 8 weeks some of these people have lost between 75 and 100lbs. It makes my quest for 15-20 seem doable.

Other Updates
I hit the gym on Tuesday and got in an okay workout. I didn't run for as long as I wanted, but in my defense I have a bit of a head cold and kind of feel like crap. I have been using the gym at my sister's condo and have been pretty lucky to usually have the place all to myself.

Tuesday, a guy came in for his elliptical workout, had to ask how to turn on the TV, then left the room after about 10 minutes. I didn't think too much of it, since I was entrenched in watching the Jeopardy Teen Tournament with no sound on, while shuffling songs on my iPod. I assumed he had to take a poo, get some water or had a phone call, since I saw him standing outside the door for a couple minutes at a time. What I didn't realize until after I was done with my workout is that for all those times I saw him standing outside the door, that he had forgotten his key and was waiting for me to let him in. Oops.

I am thinking about running a 5k next Sunday. I am hoping that if I can finish it and feel okay that it will serve as a catalyst for me to really make sure that I am ready for the Turkey Trot. We will see. . .

The Yankees Win!

I will admit to falling asleep between the bottom of the 7th and the bottom of the 8th, however, I did rouse myself to watch the Yanks capture their 27th World Championship.

The Little Lady watched as well. She got to ring in a Yanks World Series Win in her first few months of life. She joined her big sis in watching a championship team win it all soon after she was born, the Lady watched the G-men go all the way when she was only four months old!

Next kid--a ND National Championship? We will see. . .

The Biggest Loser and Other Updates

I am two weeks behind on BL updates. Let's just be quick about this. The black team is not doing so well and they have sent home Dina and Abby.

For the record, I think Daniel should have gone home, as much as I like him and hope he gets to his weight loss goal, he isn't dropping any lbs. and he isn't really doing anything. Why send home Abby? She looks great now, but I feel like she could have benefited much more by staying at the ranch.

Was anybody else annoyed that the info on the last episode was titled "Derek Jeter talks to the contestants" and Jeter was only on a big screen for like two minutes. I mean really, if you are going to advertise him, at least give him a bit more face time. I have been staring at these sweaty, double-chinned faces for weeks now, how about a little bit of pretty once in a while?

We got the DVR yesterday, so now I can watch both BL and SYTYCD and not have to choose, hopefully this will enable me to post quicker on the BL this week. Since there is no World Series game tonight (the Yanks blew it last night--good job pitching AJ!), I will be able to watch the BL live. Look for updates tomorrow.

Other Updates: I ran two days last week. I have to be more consistent if I want to try to run the Turkey Trot. I only have 24 days, but I think I can do it. I tried on the bridesmaid dress I have to wear in January, and much to my chagrin--it fit. I was hoping it would be a little bit more loose. Granted, my boobs are ginormous, but a bit more wiggle room would have been ideal. I am hoping that by December it will have to be taken in a lot more. The food journal went by the wayside this weekend. Why are mini snickers so delicious? Why?

I Am The Worst

Talk about being a delinquent blogger. I apologize for my lack of posts in the past couple of weeks. I am still feeling like I am just two steps behind. Excuses. Excuses.

Anyway, I apologize and here is a quick recap of some of the past weeks adventures:

Work: Still ugh, but some days busier than others and although everyone still calls me the "proofreader," I am feeling like I am getting the hang of things here.

Halloween: This past weekend was super hectic. We started out Friday morning with the Lady in her busy bee costume and hit a Moms Club playdate, we then headed over to the photographer for Halloween pictures with the Wild Man and his sister. The photos are free when you bring a toy for Toy for Tot's, so these are quick sessions in a basement studio, where the big kids are sitting on hay bales and the babies are put in wooden buckets stuffed with burlap.

The Wild Man took a tumble off the back of the hale bale and struck the photographers assistant in the head with his fireman's helmet. At one point, three out of four of the kids were screaming. The Lady was the only one with no tears, however she had her finger up her nose for the majority of the day!

After the photos, we packed the kids in the cars and headed to my husband's office for some trick-or-treating. Since we got there early, the Wild Man and the Lady had free reign of the place and picked up a ton of candy. For the record--who likes Whoppers? Anyone? I think they are gross and should be discontinued from the variety pack. After that we headed over to a Halloween party at my best friend's place. The amount of sugar the Lady consumed was incredible. We didn't get home until 8:30 and I think I was the one who was the most tired.

On Saturday, we got dressed up again, headed over to my parents for a Halloween parade, however the rain came with us and we settled for a quick trick-or-treat around the block, umbrellas and all. We did make it home in time for the Yanks to win, which was a very good Halloween Treat.

Sunday, we went to a Touch a Truck outdoor exhibit where upon entry the girl at the table had to use the calculator to tally the amount of three adults paying $8 each. I mean really, I know that they say the US can't keep up in education, but really? 8 x 3? On a calculator?

After the Lady and the Wild Man got a chance to go in a school bus, a city bus, and a diggy truck, we headed up to the in-laws for my MIL's birthday. The Lady was in her element because there was cake!

I will post some pictures when I get home from work!