Hoppy Easter!

We're Baaaaaack!!!!

Yes, after a very, very, very long hiatus, here is a blog post for you. How long will this motivation last? There's no telling. We'll just cross our fingers and hope for the best.

So instead of catching up on the last year and some change, we're just gonna start with Easter. We had 2 handsome men to participate in the festivities this year! We did the annual Easter basket finding, and then it was off to church. The good part was the afternoon...

Since we weren't celebrating with any family, we thought it would be fun to have our friends and their twins over for dinner and do a little egg hunt with all the boys. It was great watching them fill their baskets with goodies in the backyard! Took a little bit to get Michael to refocus (you can open them later honey, just find them for now and put them in your basket), but they all ended up with baskets packed to the brim!

After the egg hunt, we had a delicious homemade dinner, which was a treat since I've been more than slacking on cooking dinner lately! Marion was in charge of the main dish, and he chose to smoke a turkey. Not too shabby!!!

Hope everyone enjoyed their holiday...maybe we'll be lucky and I'll post again soon! :)

New York New York

In my haste to post what we had been up to this holiday season, I almost forgot to share our most recent family trip with you! In mid-December, Marion surprised me with a day trip to New York City as an early Christmas present to go see the Rockettes. I was super excited since that has always been my favorite show. And for as many times as I have been to the Big Apple, I had yet to see it in all of its holiday wonder. So we dressed up the little man, threw the stroller in the car, and headed to the train station. Michael did exceptionally well on the way up and was busy looking out the window the majority of the time.

We got to Penn Station about an hour before the show, and still had about 15+ blocks to walk to get to Radio City. Oh, and did I mention that it was brutally cold?? So we got to power walking, Marion pushing the stroller down the crowded streets and me hauling my huge 8 month pregnant belly along. But hey, I had motivation. It was the Rockettes after all!

Michael actually did great sitting through the show. He referred to them as the 'ladies dancing'. He even spent some of the show standing in front of his chair dancing along. :) He's such a cutie.

After the show, we hit up Mars 2112 for lunch as a special treat for the little man. He was enthralled with all of the aliens walking around, and even got a special hug and balloon from one of the cute girl aliens. What a flirt.

And of course, you just CAN'T go all the way up to NYC at Christmas season and NOT see the infamous sights. So I bundled Michael up, made the boys brave the cold, and we went to see the tree in Rockefeller center and some of the Christmas displays along the streets.

The last stop we made was 'the' Macy's...I have never ever ever seen a store that big! 8 stories, so needless to say we didn't get too far. One thing we did make sure we visited was Santa's mailbox. We helped Michael write a letter to Santa, and he insisted on asking for a blue present and a pink racecar. Of course Marion was loving the pink racecar request. But Michael got to mail his letter, and talked about it for a week afterward!

We finally made it back to Penn Station and onto the train in one piece. Aside from the frigid weather, it was a great outing. Thanks Marion!!!

Holiday Whirlwind

Since I am SOOOO far behind and so many exciting things have been happening, I will try and condense the holiday post as best as possible.



First of all, we hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving holiday and stuffed yourselves to the brim with delicious food...I know we did! Grandma, Grandpa, Danielle, and Adam were able to come up for the holiday, so we had a houseful which is fine with us! I put Marion in charge of the prized bird and he pulled it off wonderfully. Dad even bought a roaster for the turkey so it wouldn't hog the oven the entire afternoon...smart move!


A few short weeks later, Grandma and Grandpa braved the 12 hour drive once more and trekked it back up to NJ for Christmas. This was the first Christmas that we had spent in our own house since Michael was born, and we decided to catch the Christmas Eve church service and do all the presents Christmas morning...which is highly unusual in our family. We ended up Skyping with Marion's parents Christmas Eve and doing presents, so it actually broke it out pretty well.

Needless to say, Michael was spoiled rotten and the presents just kept coming! For New Year's, Danielle, Adam, Laura, and Juan were all able to join us as well, so we had yet another gift opening session when they arrived. It was nice to see everyone, and Michael loved all the attention.

Picture overload:

Smile...It's the Holidays!!!

Is anyone else having an extremely hard time accepting the fact that we are to Christmastime again??? Where has this year gone? I only wish I knew.

Ever since adding to our family and living away from family, I've appreciated the importance and significance of holiday cards. The first few years of marriage, I may have sent some out, but they were confined to the box of cards you find on the store shelves and you just sign your name inside and call it a day. That all changed with Michael. Now, it is of course nothing but photo cards!!! The only problem is there's too many pictures in a year to choose from! :)

Since we have such a large family on both sides and we don't live around any of them, we end up sending out a LOT of photo cards each year. That being said, of COURSE I appreciate a deal! In the past few years, I've found that Shutterfly has had a very cute selection of photo cards for reasonable prices, and I'm all about that! I'm not sure if in the past I've had a favorite photo card per se....they always seem to have such a wide selection I spend all my time trying to choose between them! I tend to like the ones that can hold multiple pictures on one side, such as this one.

Another thing I like giving to parents as gifts? Wall and desk calendars! Check out Shutterfly's vast selection here. Also, make sure to check out their holiday selection of Christmas photo cards...I expect to get one from you and your family!!! That's one of the many things I love about this time of year...we actually look forward to getting snail mail, being as it consists of more than bills and junk! :)

Happy Holidays everyone!



*Disclaimer: For creating a blogpost about Shutterfly's holiday products, I am being given 50 free photo cards. However, all opinions above are my own.

I'm A Big Boy Now: The Potty Training Chronicles

Finally, after weekend upon weekend of exciting fun, we actually had a weekend on the calendar where nothing was scheduled. No guests, no activities, nothing. Which NEVER happens. So we decided to take advantage of the downtime to do something extremely fun: POTTY TRAINING.

Yes, of course I'm being sarcastic. I ordered an eBook on 3-day potty training awhile back, and have been dreading the day when I would actually have to put it to use. It looked like SO much work, and Michael can be about as stubborn as they get. But I decided to rip off the bandaid and go for it this weekend. The way I looked at it, there was only 2 options: a) Endure 3 days of possible pure torture, but then be DONE, or; b) drag out the process for six months fighting the battle of the wills waiting 'until he's ready'. Yeah...so that was a pretty easy choice considering when Michael is left to his own devices, he will take his sweet time to do anything...always has. So I kept telling myself "It's only 3 days!" and kept plowing through!

I do have to admit, this program is pretty intense. The first morning, I woke him up, introduced him to his big boy undies, and had him throw out all of his pull-ups. Every. Last. One. Gulp.

The first day was horrible. I was tired of hearing myself say, "Let me know when you need to go potty, ok?" seemingly to no avail. Every 5 minutes he would be peeing on the floor. I'd run him to the bathroom to sit him on the potty, and he would throw a fit. NO POTTY!!! So I'd just change him and let him go again with a gentle reminder for next time. By the time Marion got home that night (20 underwear changes and 2 loads of laundry later) I was done. It was at this point I seriously thought about hanging up the whole thing and going with Plan B. But it was only 3 days....come on! So we pushed through.


I was fully planning on putting him back in pull-ups overnight, even though it was 'against the program.' Not EVER does he wake up dry in the morning. But hey, if you're gonna do it, you may as well go all out right? So I bit the bullet and let him sleep in his undies that night. As expected, morning greeted me with pee-stained sheets, but it's all part of the learning process, right?


Day 2 was MUCH more manageable, for 2 reasons. My wonderful hubby was off and was extremely helpful in the whole process. He even let me have a breather and run to Target for a few minutes...a much needed break! The second reason was the kicker: we could see a light bulb start to go on with Michael. Sure, he still had accidents, but they were mini ones. Then he'd say, "Uh oh, pee pee. " We'd take him to the potty, and he'd actually sit there and finish!!! It was so exciting to see! And what blew my mind most??? That night, he stayed completely dry! Way to go! By the beginning of the third day, he was basically potty trained, telling us when he had to go and maybe leaking just a teeny bit. I can't believe it worked! It WORKED!!!!! I had heard the majority of people say, "He'll let you know when he's ready." or "It just takes a lot of time and patience." This may have not been the most fun I've ever had in a weekend, but heck yeah I'd do it again!!! I can't tell you how proud we are of our big boy! He's so proud when he goes too...it's too cute!

Here's Michael reading with Daddy in bed the second dry morning...he got new books as a present for keeping his bed dry!

So to whom do I credit this success? How did we do it? A GENIUS woman named Lora Jensen. She has an eBook available for purchase online. We followed this book to a T...and the results speak for themselves!!! I would HIGHLY recommend trying this to anyone who's at the potty training stage...boys don't have to be more difficult to train! Here is her website:

http://www.3daypottytraining.com/

Best of luck to anyone else out there potty training!!! You can do it!!!

Happy Halloween!

We hope everyone enjoyed Halloween and collected lots of candy! We had an action-packed weekend with not much downtime, so I will recap for you (to include lots of pics of course!)

A few weeks prior, my sister, Adam, Laura, and Juan came down to visit and to accompany us on our annual pumpkin picking. Marion found this place where you took a train out to the pumpkin patch and back, which sounded pretty neat. There was also a 10-acre corn maze to explore, which Marion was pretty excited about. Although the train ride ended up being shorter than expected and the pumpkin patch small, Michael talked about riding the train for the entire following week. That's what counts!

Here Adam's being the navigator in the corn maze. He takes his job very seriously. (Laura and I may or may not have cheated...just a little.)

And of course, let's not forget my dear sister's birthday is this month, so we celebrated over the weekend of course! A very happy birthday Danielle...happy 26th!!!

For Halloween weekend itself, we of course decided to make it as action-packed as possible. The first stop Friday was to Michael's classroom for their Halloween parade. Michael is the Spiderman in the front row...I knew that mask was going to be problematic as soon as we purchased it.

Then that night, it was back into costume for our Halloween party. Laura and Juan were able to make it down for another weekend, and we loved having them!

The kiddos at the party

Saturday night, there was a big Halloween parade that we had gone to the year before we planned to hit up again. We ran into a few snags getting there, including not being able to get dinner and walking forever in the wrong direction, but the parade itself was worthwhile. I can't believe how LONG it was though! An hr. and a half later with red cheeks and noses, we headed back to the car.

And of course, Sunday. Halloween. Michael was able to participate a lot more in trick or treating this year, and it was really cute to watch. We ended up going around with one of Marion's friends from work...they had a much nicer neighborhood to trick or treat in than we do! Michael quickly got the hang of knocking on the door and shouting, "TRICK OR TREEEEEEAT!" as loud as humanly possible. Once he had gotten his candy, he'd say, "Happy Halloween!" and skip off to the next house. TOO cute. He was such a trooper too...he held up for quite awhile...long enough to fill his bag pretty well!

This following weekend has been a quiet weekend in, and it has been a welcome break. The next whirlwind of activity is about ready to start, so keep checking back!

A Week With Nama and Dapa

Mom and Dad had a week off at the beginning of October, and they decided to spend the week up in New Jersey with us. I'm pretty sure it was because my mom was going into Michael withdrawal, but it's to be expected. :) It was nice to have them there, and Dad hadn't gotten to see Michael since the summer...about time for more quality time with Gramps!

My parents are such good sports. They drive 12 hours each way to visit with us, and what do I do? Put them to work of course. I had a whole slew of projects for my dad to help with...from fixing a broken toilet seat to installing shelves. And Mom was busy working on creating a new footstool for the mini-man. The help was MUCH appreciated...that to-do list was getting waaaay too long!


But don't worry, I didn't make them work the whole time they were here. There was still plenty of time left to hang out with Michael. We squeezed in a few cool outings while they were here:

We took a hayride at a local farm and went apple and pumpkin picking.

Mom and Dad took Michael to an indoor playplace while I had to work one day.

Michael played the part of Grandpa's Little Helper.

Grandpa taught Michael how to build an airplane.

Grandma and Michael even left you with a photo tutorial for how to make homemade sugar cookies. Just follow the simple steps below:

1. Measure dry ingredients.



2. Mix

3. Add wet ingredients.

4. Mix again.

5. Roll out chilled dough.

6. Cut out cool shapes using cookie cutters.

7. Have Mommy bake them in the oven. While cookies bake, do a happy dance on the chair. (No pants required)

8. Don't forget to give yourself a Hitler mustache with the flour. Why not liven up the party a little bit?

9. Time to decorate!

10. Most important step of all: Don't forget to sample your work!!