All you can accomplish in a week

Brooklyn had quite the busy week last week. I guess you can really accomplish a lot when your only requirements are to eat and sleep. First when I set her down here in the family room, she ended up. . . . . . . .

Here in the kitchen. She has learned to crawl up the stairs. The only bad thing is I found her trying to crawl up the main stairs. I guess now I really need eyes in the back of my head.

She started eating real food. She didn't devour the avacado as I thought she would but she seems so anxious to eat so the love will come soon.

Finally she has learned to pull up to standing. She is changing quicker than I can keep track of. Look at that smile! We are enjoying watching her grow.

I am the queen of. . . .

....Making bad cakes. My poor kids! I am terrible at frosting and usually when I try to write their name on it I just make things worse. Ryan has decided that he could not handle it anymore and he usually takes over when it comes to the kids' birthday cakes. Well this year there is no Ryan, so I had just planned to make a normal cake with whipped cream nothing too special. Mason was helping me make Devon's cake and when we were done baking it he asked how we would decorate it. Oh, well I cannot decorate I told him and so we were just going to put toys on top. Then I decided to be brave and see if there was anything simple on the internet that I could recreate. My kids of course were drawn to these masterpieces, but we finally settled on this puppy. Now if you are creative or talented please do not judge. If you know anything about my creative side I think you may be mildly impressed. I hope you can tell what it is from the pics, I promise it did look like a dog in real life. The frosting job still lacked but overall not too bad.

Here is our little birthday boy. Wow he is really 3. I was pregnant with him when we moved here so some of our family has not even met him. He is the smiliest kid I have seen. People comment so often that he is always smiling. He loves cars, playing catch and being outside. He is very cute with Brooklyn. He likes to lay on the floor next to her and talk to her. The other day he called her a princess and said "you are my friend". It is so sweet. He also likes to steam-roll over her and pick her up both of which we are trying to convince him are dangerous.

Overall it was a great day. I love third birthdays. I think this is when kids really get that it is their special day. Devon walked around singing, "Happy Birthday to you, Devon" all day. He loved all of the special attention. We enjoyed a great day!

Brooklyn-7mos

Brooklyn was 7 months yesterday. I already know she is a defiant little one because I asked her to stay little for a few more months and she refused. She has changed so much the last few months and I am so grateful. She was a little demanding of my attention for a while. It has certainly helped that she is mobile. She loves to just be on the floor scooting around. She is a great sleeper. She has been rocking on her hands and knees for about 6 wks., but still not fully crawling. That is fine with me.

So I do not think we look as much a like as I did a few mos. ago. However, I still think she favors me over Ryan.

3 times in 3 weeks

So before I go into my post I must explain my little town that I grew up in.The population is 1500. It does not have a stop light and there is only one one-way street. It is about 15 mins. from a freeway entrance. I hardly remember ever parallel parking. Now forward to now. I live where people park on both sides of the road and I get nervous just trying to drive down the street. There are one-way streets everywhere and if you make a wrong turn it may take a while to correct your mistake. I cannot believe I have actually driven in NYC (yes if you know me you know I was bad at it). I have also had to parallel park in Philly and not only is that scary enough but it was on the left hand side, that is down-right confusing for this small town girl. OK now you have sone background as to why this is such a task for me.


So I have ventured in to Philly 3 times in the last 3 weeks. First we went to the zoo with our friends. Last fall I bought a zoo pass so I was trying to go one last time before it expired. It is a really great zoo. Did you know it was America's first zoo?

Since about July they have had a great lego display. This has been such a highlight for us. I was glad we were able to go back to see all the ones we missed the first time. The fliers said they used a gazillion legos. So now I guess I can kind of envision what a gazillion is. This polar bear was my favorite one.

A close second is this cool frog.

The next week just the kids and I went in to go to the Franklin Institute and the Natural History Museum. We loved the butterflies in the NHM. They even had a spot where they had cocoons hanging. We saw a butterfly that had just made its way out. Butterflies are so beautiful. I have to say I am very glad they were put on the Earth.

The FI was by far more impressive for me. They had a real huge train inside that the kids could go for a ride on. It moved very slowly, but my kids still thought is was so cool. We also had a chance to make recycled paper. There was so much more to see but I just ran out of time. I was sad.

When the train was brought to the museum it was painted purple. They should have left it like that. It would have really been a sight. They told us that they only paid $1 when they bought it. So now my kids are quite confused about what $1 can really get you in this world. Forget that cheap dollar store toy they think they should be able to get a car.

The last trip we went down by the historical sights. They have 13 booths set up and you can listen to a story at each one. You get a sticker for each story and when your flag is full you can go the the park and get a free carousel ride and ice-cream cone. Each story is less than 5 mins. and situated next to all of the main sights. It is a bit of a walk to get to all 13, but completely worth it because you can see most everything you want to see along the way.

I think this could have been Spencer and Devons first carousel ride. They had such trendy park equipment as well. My kids were unsure how to even play on it. I am not sure how practical it was but it sure looked cool.

So I think I am officially done with Philly. Unless those legos pull me back one more time. I will leave you with this cute picture of the two little ones.

Man Food??

Living away from my family in my small apartment has been interesting to say the least. I currently have a microwave for cooking and mini fridge for storing, so meals can be interesting at times. As scary as it sounds, I've noticed that my present eating habits are much closer to my Dads than my single college days. If you desire any of these recipes, feel free to call and I can divulge the ingredients of these culinary creations.

Bake Beans with tuna and crackers. Hey, don't knock it until you've tried it.

You know how some generic items taste better than the name brand? Well this generic SPAM probably isn't one of those times.

Now tell me a good reason why you wouldn't want to put vienna sausages in pasta roni?