Our PA trip

We had a GREAT time last month in PA. Here is how it went.

The kids did OK in the car. They were not interested in the DVD player AT ALL. They love play McDonald's so I did the trip locator for one. So we kept assuring them that we were stopping at one and they were very excited! So after 3 hours of driving we pulled into the play McDonald's. And surprise it was a regular old McDonald's! Well that didn't go over well at all! But they survived!

After we checked in to the hotel we went to Sesame Place. Cooper really enjoyed the rides! He was having a great time and did really well on them as well. Much better than I expected since he doesn't really sit still yet!






















Madison had fun but she has been to two local amusement parks near our house that has a lot of big kid rides which she loves! She prefers the roller coasters to the kiddie rides. The faster the better! So there were only two rides there that she really enjoyed. They had a roller coaster and another drop down ride that she loved!

We also had breakfast with Elmo. It was very pricey for the type of food that was served. Madison hated the characters!! She wanted nothing to do with them. She stood outside of the restaurant with Ryan while Cooper and I were inside. He did well with the characters. He would get his picture taken with the characters if I held him but wouldn't let me put him down!

All in all the park was really nice and really clean. I'm glad that we went.

We also went to the Philly Zoo. That was great! It is a really nice zoo. We got to see Giraffes and zebras and lots of things that we can't see at our zoo. Kids did really well again. We were there about 4 hours and then Cooper had had his fill and was done. So we headed back to the hotel and played in the pool and on the playground for the rest of the day.

We also went to Adventure Aquarium. We didn't get there till 11am since we went to Breakfast with Elmo first. And it was BUSY!! Busy is an understatement. There were so many people there that it was hard to get close to the exhibits and I wasn't comfortable with Cooper being out of the stroller. But Ryan and Cooper managed to get their hands in to the string ray tank and the shark tank! Madison and I didn't want any part of that =) We didn't stay at the aquarium long because there were so many people there. Had we gotten there earlier I'm sure it would have been fine.

Our last stop was the crayola factory. It cost $30 to get in (Cooper was free). I thought this was a bit pricey since it is basically a big store and then you get to paint, color, paste, etc... But the kids had a good time doing the crafts.

Overall the trip was really great and I am so glad that we went. Kids did great! There was pretty much no nap for Cooper the entire time we were gone (he still naps 3 hours a day). And they sat up giggling and talking at night also. It was really cute to listen to it!

The drive home was LONG! We were all tired and the kids were arguing and there was lots of yelling!

Next weekend we are off to Buffalo for a long weekend. We have a family reunion and then Madison and I have a bridal shower and then we are going to take the kids to another aquarium and to Niagara Falls!!

Fake Bloggers

There have been a few blogs that have been outed as fake the past few weeks such as the Baby April Rose hoax and the Cynthiaa/Aiden bug blog.

I admit that I got completely sucked in to Cynthiaa's blog. In the beginning of February she blogged that at 38 weeks pregnant she had lost her baby to a cord strangulation. I cried my eyes out as I read her posts about losing her baby. That is a loss like no other and a loss that you never get over. I couldn't imagine how you deal with such a loss.

It was only 3 weeks after Cynthiaa lost her baby that we lost our niece. My Sister in law went into labor at 32 weeks and Shana was born and lived for 3 hours before the angels took her. I contacted Cynthiaa for some advice on what to say/do for my brother and sister in law. She emailed me her thoughts and said she would be happy to talk to Dawn if I wanted to give her her contact info.

Not too long after she started changing the name of her blog and it pretty much was one day she was mourning the loss of her son and then all her blogs had to do with fashion finds. But everyone grieves differently so I didn't think much of it. Then a few weeks ago I clicked on her blog and she had made it private which was really strange. And then I was reading another blog and it was mentioned that Cynthiaa's was a hoax.

This bothers me GREATLY because we actually lost our niece and my brother and sister in law will never be the same. And for her to make up this story for readers and attention is deplorable. And thank goodness I did not pass along any contact info! Can you imagine how betrayed you would feel if you had divulged your feelings to someone that you thought was going through the same things to find out they are a fraud? I think that this fake blog bothers me the most because it is something that we are actually living through.

Happy Father's Day Ryan!

I want to wish my wonderful hubby a very Happy Father's Day! He works very hard to provide for us and doesn't get enough recognition for it! I am so blessed to be married to him and I love him dearly. He is a wonderful father to Madison and Cooper and I look forward to many more happy years! I love you!!

It's Highly Contagious....

I took the kids to the park this morning. And while I was pushing Cooper in the swing and Madison was whining about wanting to swing a Mom showed up with her kids for soccer practice. We will call her SM (sick Mom). So SM comes up to the Mom that is pushing her kid who is next to Cooper. We will call her HM (healthy Mom). So SM says to HM I think I need a doctor or a nurse. So my ears perk right up. SM continues to say look at my daughters hands she has a red rash on them and it has some blisters. HM says oh it looks like hand, foot and mouth disease and my kids have had that before. She then goes to say "IT IS HIGHLY CONTAGIOUS"!! And HM says I'm not crazy when it comes to germs so it doesn't bother me if SM stays at the park. What!?!? What about all the other kids?? So SM starts freaking out about how SHE doesn't want to get sick. Have I mentioned that her kids are running around the playground TOUCHING everything!

SM finally says "maybe we shouldn't be here" YA THINK!?! Does she go and get her highly contagious kids and leave? Nope! She continues to go on and on about how she doesn't want to get sick, how could this be happening to her, blah blah. I'm totally freaking out in my head because we are leaving for PA for vacation Tuesday. I say to Madison go get your cup we are leaving! And in her quiet 4 year old voice wants to know why we are leaving when we had just gotten there. Now I'm whispering to her to get her stuff we are leaving because there are sick kids there. And again in her quiet 4 year old voice wants to know why they are at the park if they are sick. I finally get them over to the car and douse their hands in hand sanitizer! And then gave them more sanitizer. Thankfully the kids weren't too close to the sick ones and I know that they didn't touch anything that the sick kids did. After we left we went to another park where Madison and Cooper were the only ones and they had a lot of fun!

Our Crazy Weekend

Last weekend was NUTS for us. Friday and Saturday I participated in a neighborhood garage sale. I also had 2 friends and my mother in law bring things over to sell. Thursday night my friend and I were setting up and she really had me worried! All these stories from people she knows. Like people showing up at 6am for a 9am sale. Or opening the garage door to find 40 people waiting for me and what not. I barely slept Thursday night I was so worried! I got up early on Friday (6am) and got everything set up and no one showed up till 9 and it was a steady stream but not the mad rush I was expecting. We did really well on Friday. It was steady all day. I got up at 6am again on Saturday to set up. I figured it would be busier on Saturday because people don't have to work. It's 7am and I am looking down the driveway and hanging out the window looking for people. Ryan was totally making fun of me! We didn't get our first customer till 10am! It was dead all day. It was not worth doing it on Saturday. Good to know for next time!

Sunday Ryan had a rock crawling event. Since it was so close to our house I went with him. (He usually goes to PA once a month to 4 wheel but I have never been there with him). He wasn't 10 feet on the rocks when he broke a bunch of stuff on his jeep. I'm talking $500 worth of parts (hazards of the sport!). So he was done for the day. We hung out for the day and watched everyone else and had dinner at a yummy Mexican restaurant. We get home about 6ish and I said to him "can you get my stuff out of the jeep". (My purse and camera). I was still getting stuff out of the suburban when I hear a thud and him yelling for me. So I go hauling butt to the other side of the trailer and he is laying on the ground holding his head. And he is telling me his ankle hurts. I'm of course more concerned about the fact that he is holding his head! I finally figured out he didn't hit his head but when he jumped off the trailer he landed in a hole and busted up his ankle. So I help him hop into the house. He couldn't put any weight on it and we were concerned that he could have broken it. We argued about going to the hospital. He didn't want to go. We put the kids to bed and then he had to bleed a guys breaks before he would go to the hospital!! He is so stubborn!

The ER was REALLY fast! From the time we left our house till the time we got back was only 2 hours. I wheel him into the ER and the girl at the desk says "can I help you?" and Ryan says "I'm having a baby". LMAO!!! So we get signed in and Ryan is in the wheel chair trying to pop wheelies and we are kitty corner to this other girl. Well this girls friend shows up and she was interesting! She comes in and starts talking to this other girl saying how she is loosing her voice and her Mom told her she must be smoking too much weed and that is why she is loosing her voice! And the girl goes on to say how dumb her Mom is and that she isn't smoking weed. She then says that her Mom told her if she wasn't loosing her voice from smoking weed than she must be loosing it from having too much sex! (They couldn't have been older than 18 or so). It was so strange because after that little story she gets up and leaves.

Anywho, Ryan gets called back to triage and the nurse is asking questions and says "you live with your wife?" and Ryan says "currently"!!! He is too funny sometimes. After some x-rays it turns out it was a bad sprain. For our $100 copay he got an advil and an ace bandage! Better to get it checked out though. He was off of work for 2 days and he is almost 100%. Oh after we got home from the hospital we were both tired and all Ryan wanted to do was lay in bed and watch t.v. He turns on the t.v. and the fuse blows. TV won't work. I kid you not.

Our Memorial Day weekend (a few days late!)

We had a FANTASTIC Memorial Day weekend! Saturday I spent all day with Ryan, just the two of us! We went 4 wheeling for the day and then stopped and had dinner all by ourselves =)

Sunday was super busy. We left the house at 9am to go to Sugar Creek in Dansville. The kids had a great time! They went into the falls and played in the water for at least an hour. And the water was COLD. But they really had a great time. They had their clothes on in the water so I got them changed into clean dry clothes. And then they hit the playground and got DIRTY!! I mean covered in dirt dirty. And I had no more clean clothes with us and we still had 2 picnics to go to. So we left Dansville and headed to Honeoye to go to a picnic at my brothers. Cooper fell asleep on the way so we stopped at Walmart and I ran in and bought the kids new clothes! Didn't have much choice they were so dirty and we weren't going to head home since it was in the opposite direction.















And can I just say that it was REALLY hard finding shorts for Madison. All the shorts were super short and very inappropriate for her. But I managed to get her something. We spent a while at my brothers and then headed over to Naples for our last party. The party in Naples was at a friends house that I haven't seen since I was pregnant with Cooper. It was perfect because Madison and Casey are the same age and Cooper and Lucas are the same age. Plus there were a zillion other kids there. Madison was her shy self. After we had been there about an hour she ran over to the group of girls and sat down on the outskirt of the circle. She kept edging into the circle a little bit at a time and eventually was running around and playing with the other girls. This was HUGE! Madison is shy and tends to keep to her self and for her to willing join a group on her own was a big step for her. At preschool if one of the kids asks her something she usually won't answer them. At one point Casey turns to Madison and says "what's your name?" and clear as can be, and loudly, she says Madison!! I cried!! I was so floored that she joined a group and talked to them!! My baby is growing up!

All in all it was a great Memorial Day weekend!

Tea Parties, Trains and sand tables

I'm telling you that life is just too busy! I have no time to blog lately. Last weekend we were really busy. On Saturday Madison and I and her Grandmas went to the cutest tea party. The first part of the tea party was a little fashion show for dolls! Madison got to stand up in front of the room with her doll. The presenter told everyone the name of Madison's doll, what the doll was wearing and a special story about the doll. Madison brought her swim baby to class. She named her Emerson after a good friends daughter and Madison's baby can swim in the water by herself. Then Madison walked down the middle aisle. She did great! She actually stood in the front of the room all by herself which is huge! Then we went and had punch and some super yummy cookies! I ate way more than I should have =) They also did a raffle and had a TON of stuff to give away! Since I paid for everyone to go to the tea party the Grandmas paid for some raffle tickets. Madison kept asking me when she was going to get a toy. I explained to her that we needed to have a winning ticket and we may not win anything at all. But she did end up winning a very cute doll! The doll has a china face and hands and feet. As I am telling Madison shed needs to be very gentle with it she is twirling it around by the arm! LMAO! We really had a great time! Thanks Erin!!

Sunday we went to the Day out with Thomas the train. It was a lot of fun but it was COLD! We were in no way dressed appropriately! Winter hats and gloves were needed and we had neither. Both kids had colds and were feeling a bit off but still had fun. We got to ride on Thomas. Madison was as good as she always is and Cooper was very entertained for the ride. When we got back we did pictures with Thomas and then the kids did a bunch of the free activities that they had there and then Grandma and Grandpa said that they could both pick out a toy from the tent. So Madison got a Thomas the Train bubble blower and Cooper got a Thomas the Train boat for the tub. But I'm pretty sure that the favorite part of the day was when we pulled into McDonald's for lunch and it ended up being one of those play place ones. Madison's eyes got huge and she says "wow, I'm not hungry anymore. I want to play!" So they pretty much didn't eat but the rest of us got to relax and eat! Hopefully next year it won't be so cold and we can stay longer.

Madison got this sand table for her birthday. When I opened it it was EXTREMELY small. It took a 1/4 bag sand to fill both sides. But it was working. Until the kids leaned on it and the legs popped off. So after this happening 5 or 6 times I left it on the ground and they just sat on the ground to play with it. But my MIL was not happy that she paid $60 for a toy that doesn't stay together. She called Toys R Us and they wouldn't do anything because we didn't have the receipt anymore. She then called Little Tikes and they told her that people had complained about this happening and their recommendation is to place it on a flat surface and don't let the kids lean on it. Um yeah, so basically don't play with it and it won't fall apart! I ended up picking up this sand table for the kids and LOVE it! It is exactly what we wanted. My MIL is still working on getting a refund for the other table. Fingers crossed!!