Am I There, Yet?

I can hardly believe it’s the middle of November.  Can you believe that Josh started his job here in NJ exactly two years ago?  It’s crazy how fast time flies.

 

We’re doing well and settling into our new home.  It’s a lot slower this time since we have a six-month-old demanding most of our attention.  But, I’ve gotta admit…she’s such a cute diversion. 

 

I’m still thrilled with the kids’ new school.  The only difficult thing to adjust to is the bus schedule.  The bus picks them up between 7:15 and 7:30.  That’s an hour earlier than their previous bus schedule.  So…all of my friends out there one the west coast…if you’re ever up at 4:15 AM…just think of my poor kiddos standing out in the cold waiting for their bus.  J

 

Titus now has full day kindergarten and we’re thrilled.  He loves it.  He now has Art, Music, Spanish, Gym and Library.  He didn’t get to do those things during ½ day kindergarten.

 

Lilly also has less homework.  She can now get her homework done in about 10 or 15 minutes.  At her last school she would work on homework for an hour or more each night.  I always thought that was ridiculous for a 2^nd grader.

 

Lydia is doing great.  I took her to her six-month appointment last Monday.  She weighs 18 lbs. 4 oz.  She’s off the percentile charts and is average size for a 9 month old.  She’s a big girl.  That’s strange for us because Lilly was always in the 15 – 20% range and Titus was always average…right along the 50^th percentile mark.  But, Lydia is healthy.  Her Strawberry Hemangioma isn’t growing.  We’re happy about that.

 

Last weekend we took the kids to NYC to see Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall.  This was a birthday gift for Lilly.  We all had so much fun.  I saw Christmas Spectacular last year, but this year was so much different seeing it with the kids.  It seemed more magical watching it through their eyes.  Afterwards we walked over to American Girl Place but changed our minds once we got there.  The store was so crowded and there was a line out the door.  So, we walked over to Build-A-Bear instead. 

 

Now it’s back to real life.  I need to continue to unpack my house.  My goal is to have this place be a home by the time Thanksgiving gets here.

 

All is going well in our household…

The past few weeks have been a little crazy for us…birthdays, moving, Halloween and everything that comes with all of that…cable guys, change of address, mail forwarding, changing schools, cleaning the old place, phone calls, paper work, unpacking in the new place, taking care of an almost six-month-old…I want my mommy!!!

 

Things are really going well, though.  We are pleased with our new place and we LOVE our new school.  The kids have really great teachers and they even knew a few kids in the school from karate and church.  I couldn’t ask for a better transition.

 

Speaking of transition, Lilly had a really great transition out of her old school.  She came home with some cards created by her classmates.  They were so adorable…I just had to share some of my favorites:

 

 

Lilly also came home with a notice from her school that she was chosen as Student of the Month.  This is what her teacher said about her:

 

Mrs. ________ is pleased to choose
Lilly Conn as the honored student for today.  Lilly is new this year to the ____________ School, and is a welcome addition to our second grade class.  Lilly is a quiet, pleasant, polite, responsible child who comes to school everyday to do her very best.  Lilly has been a pleasure to teach from the moment she stepped through our classroom door.  She is an attentive listener, and she takes great pride in doing her schoolwork.  She is an extremely motivated worker and tries her best in all learning situations.

 

Lilly is friendly and well liked by her classmates.  She has made many friends in the short time she has been here.  She is giving of herself, as she is always willing to assist and work with other students.  When Lilly is not in school she enjoys Karate class and spending time with her family.

 

It is wonderful to have Lilly in our class.  Her role model qualities are quite admirable and help make our class a happy place to be.  Lilly certainly lives up to our class motto, “Don’t do enough to get by, do enough to get ahead.”

 

I am pleased and honored that I am able to spend each school day working with Lilly.

 

Congratulations Lilly!!!!

 

Lilly’s birthday was Monday.  The kids had the day off of school that day because the paperwork wasn’t fully in at the new school.  We had a fun day.  Josh took her to breakfast before work.  The kids and I went shopping for some new fish for their new aquarium and had lunch at a 50’s diner.  Then for dinner we went to Joe’s Crab Shack.  That’s not her full birthday celebration.  For her birthday she wanted to go to Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall…so we’re going to NYC next weekend and watching an early show and then going to American Girl Place in the afternoon. 

 

Since this blog entry is turning into an “all about Lilly” segment…I’ll just continue on.  Lilly enjoys writing in her journal and does it every day.  The other day she showed me a story she wrote.  I thought I’d share that, too:

 

My day at the farm

 

One day I went to the farm.  First I got a carmel apple with mnm’s on it it was yummy.  Then I went to a corn maze you were sposet to find 5 woden apples.  The five woden apples let you to the exet.  Then we went to a Jonny apple seyd adventur farm.  It was like you were in the real book!  Then we went to see a horse me and my brother got to pet the horse.  He was borown.  Then we got to milk a fake cow that water squrted out of it into a buket then we went teraktor riding.  The tractor had pettles but they did’it work so one of our frieds had to push us.  After that I went pupkin piking.  I got a brite orage medium sized pupkin.  My brother had the same pupkin as me.  After that it was time to leve so I went home.  The end.

 

What’s my excuse for blog neglect?  Life.

 

We moved…again.  We’ve outgrown our cracker jack box.  Five of us + two bedrooms(one year) = some interesting challenges.  So, we found a three bedroom townhouse in a neighboring community that will fit us nicely.

 

You’d think that we’d be pros by now…with the whole moving thing.  It has gotten easier over the years.  I do look forward to a new move.  I look forward to the opportunity to go through all our stuff and purge our lives of excess.  Nobody can accuse me of being a packrat.  I look forward to new beginnings in new houses. 

 

I do, however, have a desire to settle down…dig in and put some roots down into a community.  Now that two-thirds of my kids are in school, I want them to be able to hang in there for awhile and make good friends and grow up with those friends.  I hate that they’re always saying goodbye to friends that they make.  But, somehow I manage to get them excited about new moves and new friends.  They do O.K. for themselves.

 

Titus had his 6^th birthday last Sunday.  (Ironically…we moved into his 6^th house on the same weekend.)  We had a great day with him.  He’s a fun kid.  Josh took him out for a special birthday breakfast in the morning.  We then let him plan his own special day…well…sort of.  He first told me he wanted to go to NYC and go to ESPN Zone for lunch, Build-A-Bear after lunch and Max Brenner’s for dinner.  I managed to get him to consider some other options.  We ended up compromising with Chuck E. Cheese’s (a place I loathe) for lunch.  We then went home and opened gifts and played with new toys for a bit.  Red Robin was the dinner choice…there’s nothing like a group of strangers singing happy birthday  in a public place to make a little boy feel important.  We also planned on taking him to Build-A-Bear here at a local mall.  I know it’s not as fabulous as the flagship store in
Manhattan…but it’s still fun, right?  Anyways…we got to the mall and discovered they had a power outage.  Build-A-Bear was closed, so we promised him a rain check.

 

Lilly’s birthday is this upcoming Monday.  She’ll be 8.  She’ll be starting in her new school on the same day.

 

Lydia is starting to move around…a lot.  She’s doing the backwards crawl thing.  Our new house is a split level with lots of stairs.  So, the timing couldn’t be better…YIKES!

 

Life always seems to keep me on my toes.  But, I wouldn’t trade mine for anybody else’s.

 

Titus:  Mom, do you know what my two favorite places in the whole world are?

Me:  No…what are your two favorite places?

Titus:  Disneyland and
New York City.

 

On Saturday, we decided to take the kids out and we spent the day in Manhattan. 

 

Typically we’ll drive to the train station, pay $4 for parking and $10 for train tickets…each way, per person.  The kids are free, but we still end up paying $44 for all of us to get to the city.  It’s expensive, but the most convenient way to get to the city.

 

Saturday we tried something new.  We spent $1.80 on the NJ Turnpike, $8 to cross the Goethals Bridge to Staten Island and $5.50 for parking.  We then took the Staten Island Ferry…which was FREE!!!  It only cost us a little over $15 for all of us to get to the city.

 

$44 or $15?  I’d say $15 is the better way to go.  We went on a Saturday where it was easy to find a parking spot.  I would imagine that weekdays would be a challenge. 

 

Anyways…we had a great day.  We spent the entire day in lower Manhattan.  We took the kids to the NYC Police Museum.  We watched the helicopters take off and land at the Manhattan Heliport.  We wandered around South Street Seaport.  From there you can see all four waterfalls. 

 

The highlight was the bungee jump.  Both kids got to jump for 5 minutes each, but the best part was Lilly’s grand finale.  We caught it on video.  If you listen closely you can here her say, “I do NOT want to do that again.” 

 

It was a fun day with the kids.  Here are some pictures and the video:

Confession time:  I’ve been watching the first 15 minutes of The View every morning for the past month, or two.  Mostly because I want to hear what people are thinking and saying about the election and other items in the news.  I think the best way to understand people is to listen to their differing perspectives.  Also…I kind of get a jolt out of yelling at the TV every morning…better than coffee.  LOL!! 

 

There was an interesting exchange this morning and I was very proud of Barbara for telling it like it is.  It was refreshing to hear somebody speaking the truth…even though it was over a little thing.    

 

The girls were discussing the presidential debate on Friday night and here’s an exchange between Joy and Barbara:

 

Joy:  I felt as though McCain was in combat mode…that he’s like a soldier all the time and that every adversary he considers an enemy.  Obama is not his enemy.  Obama is a senator in the
United States Senate…he’s running for the same office.  He’s not your enemy, John.  He’s an adversary.  If you’re going to be looking ahead and acting more grumpy like that with an adversary, imagine how you would be with Ahmadinejad and all these other people who are really your enemy.

 

Barbara:  If you want to look at it objectively, which I’m trying to do, I think McCain had warmth.  He had humor.

 

Joy (looking confused):  McCain did?

 

Barbara:  Yeah.  You (Joy) have your side, you (Elizabeth) have your side…I’m trying to sort of say, “Hey, if you’re looking and you’re an independent this is what you’re getting.”

 

Joy:  I’m an independent thinker.  I thought what I said was an independent remark.

 

Barbara:  You are not an independent thinker…you’re for Obama. 

 

Isn’t it amazing how people so easily lie to themselves?  Anybody who has spent more than three minutes watching Joy on Larry King Live or The View knows that Joy can see no good in McCain and thinks Obama is America’s savior.  It is blatantly obvious where she stands politically.  Apparently it wasn’t obvious to her.

 

Makes me wonder…what am I lying to myself about? 

I can’t believe it’s been a year since we found out Lydia was going to join our family.  I was just re-reading my story of how I found out and realized it’s now one of those days.  You know the one-of-these-days-we’ll-laugh-over-this day?

Here’s the original story:  Long story with an unexpected ending…

Well…it looks like I’ll be knitting a blue and orange scarf.  The Ducks lost by 5 points.  Lydia has something to say about that:

Josh and I went to college in Eugene, OR.  When we were first married we lived in an apartment across the street from Autzen Stadium (where the University of Oregon Ducks play football.)  Because it was almost impossible to do anything else on game days (mostly because of traffic) we would go to every game we could.  We became fans…and have been ever since.

I have a lot of extended family in Boise, ID.  They’ve been going to Boise State University games for as long as I can remember and are big Bronco fans.  During football season I hear of nothing else.  In fact, I’ve been accused of not liking sports because I don’t watch BSU games.  We love to give each other a hard time.

Well…today U of O and BSU meet on the field.  Unfortunately, I won’t be able to watch the game because it’s not being broadcast back here.  I’m very disappointed.  However, I do have a little side wager with my cousin.  If BSU wins, I have to knit her a scarf in BSU school colors (orange and blue) and if Oregon wins, she has to make me a beaded bracelet in green and gold.

I can’t wait to get my bracelet.  Go Ducks!

No matter what the outcome…my kids are still cute:

Yesterday, we went to the mall to cool off.  (Yes…it was that hot.)  We were walking around and passing the time by playing a game with the kids.  We were mixing up the first letters of the names of stores and they would giggle and correct us.  So, we were walking around the mall and saying things like, “Would you like to go to Carbucks Stoffee?” and “Maybe we should head down to Narnes and Boble to read some books?”  The mall also had GabyBap, Stookbrone, Bottery Parn, Hestoration Rardware, Sictoria’s Vecret, Silliams Wonoma, etc…  My favorites were Hite Whouse/Mack Blarket and Panthroaologie.  You get the point.  It was a silly game.

 

The problem is that the game got stuck in my head like a bad 80’s song.  Since yesterday, I’ve been looking at businesses and mixing up the first letters.  It’s really not on purpose.  I went grocery shopping at Rop Shite…I drove past Malwart and Quairy Deen.  It’s driving me crazy…I can’t stop doing it.  Thank God for Bed, Bath & Beyond and Red Robin…I can’t mix those up.

 

Anyways…speaking of mixing up words…how about all the election garbage?  Ick.  I admit that I got into it…I watched the speeches and interviews.  I’ve read the articles.  I’ve done the research on voting records and the positions held by both candidates.  I’ve now made up my mind who I want to vote for.  I don’t want to hear any more of the garbage.  I’m sick of all the twisted words, the big promises, and the media bias.  More to come…the debates are just around the corner.

 

The comedy world is having a great time with all of this.  That’s the only political thing I am enjoying these days.  Did anybody happen to catch Tina Fey’s impersonation of Sarah Palin?  It was amazing.  The resemblance was unbelievable.  That has got to be the #1 best impression of all time.

 

Here’s a word that will forever be linked to Palin/McCain and Obama/what’s his name:

I’m joking people…I know that McCain is the first name on the Republican ticket and that Obama’s running mate is Biden.  I don’t know if the media knows this, or not…but, I am fully aware.

 

Oh…and did you notice that “Obama/Biden” looks eerily similar to “Osama bin Laden”?  I only noticed this because I was glancing at a headline and thought I saw an article about bin Laden…only to look closer and realize it was actually an article about the democratic running mates.  Weird.  Any thoughts…conspiracy theorists?