Santa, baby

Marco is scheaming to figure out if Santa is real or not. This is his imaginative game plan:

Dear Santa,

I have been good and bad. I would like $500 and a pocket knife.Please. I will be better next year.

Here's Haley....

We just adopted a German Shepard & Belgian Malinois mix from a rescue agency. Today is her first day with us and so far she is great. It is so nice to have a dog in the house again. It has been a year and half since Taylor died and we all still miss her alot but it was time for a new doggy.

The kids are adjusting well and the baby has even learned to throw the ball for Haley. She is very gentle and loving. We are lucky to have found such a great dog.

Big Apples

We are off to NYC. We are taking the oldest to see lion King for his 6th B-day this weekend. Then off to PA for camping and Turkey. have a great holiday!!!

kid friendly toys

I am on the hunt for creative, different Christmas gifts this year. I don't want to spend alot of money at ToysRus and end up with generic toys that the kids will forget about in a few months. I am looking for eco-friendly, imagination powered gifts. I stumbled upon this great site www.sprigtoys.com for any young boys on your list. I picked up one for my 1 1/2 yearold. It looks like a great option. Please pass on any ideas or suggestions for big or little kids!!

giving back

So we try very hard to make sure that we are giving back in some way. We always instill in the children that they need to donate 1/3 of their money and this year they are old enough that we are expecting them to also volunteer thier time. We let them choose the cause (last time they wanted to spend their money to buy a tree and plant it). This year we are still talking about ideas. Some of the things the kids have mentioned are, Meals on wheels for the elderly, toys and dog food for the local animal shelter, Marco wants to give people vegetables ( we are still working out the details on that one). We found a homeless shleter (Sarah's House) very close to our home that provides free childcare for homeless families and I have decided to volunteer my childbirth education and doula services for the women who live there. I am looking forward to the opportunity to help in a very direct way. I will keep you posted on how it goes.

Yes We Can......

I am very happy right now. I am excited to know that my children will be growing up in a new era. I am not naive about the challenges that are bound to test our country. But for today, Hope wins. We are going to take the kids to inauguration. It will be a transformative moment for our country and I want them to be a part of it.

Happy (half) Birthday Baby!

Hubby turned 31 yesterday! I am sooo bad at surprises, so I am really proud of myself for pulling this one off. I farmed the kids out to my parents and took my hubby to DC for the weekend. We went out for dinner at a great Tapas restaurant and to see the Capitol Steps perform and stayed at a hotel across the street from the White House. It was very funny and we really enjoyed ourselves. The best part was the uninterrupted sleep!! We stayed in bed until 10am. This is our first time away from all 3 kids and it was awesome. We really got to talk about our move and the decisions that are coming for us. It was a great birthday!

Hubby and I have birthday's exactly 6 months apart so his birthday is my half birthday and vice versa. Now most of you may not celebrate half birthdays, but you don't know what your missing. We have so much fun with it. Even the kids are in on the celebrations. We don't really do presents but it is a great excuse for cupcakes, costumes and pancakes. We put up streamers and blow up balloons, the kids wrap up old toys and exchange them, it's so much fun. The kids all know when their half birthday's are and we love any reason to party. In fact we celebrated the 2nd birthday of an orange stuffed Koala Bear named KO-KO a week ago!! Birthday's ROCK!

Sister, Sister

So let me just start this post by saying, "I love my kids, my husband and my job". That being said. I just got an email from my oldest youngest sister (does that make sense). She is jobless, homeless and penniless ( I can say this because I know for fact that she WILL read this). She is madly in love with a Spanish man that she met at a hippie festival in the desert of Nevada and she has dropped everything and flown to Spain to follow her heart. How cool is that? She is bumming around Spain with the man that she loves selling jewelry that she makes on the beach and I don't think I have ever heard her be happier. AAAhhhhh, to be young and carefree again. No mortgage to pay, no boss to answer to, no snotty noses to wipe. I just hope that she soaks up every last drop of joy and love. Weather or not it works out with this guy, it takes a strong woman to trust her feelings and take a risk. It's been 10 years since I met my hubby, everyday spent looking forward......

Hang Over

So, I have been at 5 births in the last week and half and I am completely drained of compassion and wisdom. I was telling hubby that I think I am hung over from birth. It takes days for me to recover from the lack of sleep. 3 of the births I was at were over 15 hours, one lasting an amazing 39 hours. Of course it is all worth it when you see the look in mom and dad's eyes the first time they hold their baby. But I feel like I am walking around in haze. This makes me feel so old. If I was 20 I would have the energy for this. Being gone from the kids for this long makes me feel like I need to reprioritize a little. I am going to spend the day at Marco's school tomorrow, volunteering in the class. He is very excited about that.
I went to a dinner and movie lat night with my mom and sister. The Secret Life of Bees. It was a good movie but I cried at least 5 times. I probably should have gone to bed early, I am still exhausted.

Long Live Georgia

Hubby has a strong emotional investment in seeing the "our friends" the Georgians win this conflict with Russia (he spent some time training their military forces). He is not shy about it either. I chalk it up to a mama bird wanting to see her little chickies learn to fly (or eaten by the great communist vulture lurking around the corner). So I was not surprised to find my baby bird literally wrapped in the flag of the Fledgling democracy! He was crawling all through the house playing peek-a-boo with the darn thing.

Date Night

So last night Husband and I went out for our weekly date night. We have really made this a priority during the last year and it has done a lot for our relationship. We have a great babysitter and the kids are old enough now that we don't really worry. We try to go out to dinner or a show or a movie but last night we just couldn't get it together. So we spent the night running errands (craft store, ToysRus, Target). BTW, Target without kids is awesome!! About half way through the night I started feeling like a total looser for paying a babysitter to do this crap. But what can I say, we had adult conversations without being interrupted and I didn't have to buy candy for anyone (except me). So I call that a success!

A Mother born...

Iam an Aunt again!! My sister in law gave birth to my first nephew Christopher and my neice Lyla last night. She was awesome. She is such a strong incredible woman. Both babies and mom are doing great. Marco is thrilled to be adding to the boy cousins while Maya is pissed off that the twins are not ours. She keeps insisting that I should have made our baby a twin!

Gratefull

The Bridal shower was a success. Orlando was pretty. The Bachelorette party was fun, but boy am I grateful that I don't have to do the single scene anymore. The clubbing, drinking, flirting phase of my life is so far behind me that I was in a little bit of culture shock on Saturday night. It must have been pretty obvious because at one point one of the other bachelorette guests leaned over to me and said "doesn't this make you grateful that you have a family to go home to?". It sure did. Young Women in Orlando don't find it necessary to wear any clothing on the bottom half of their bodies (yes, I do realize how old I sound now). Seriously they just belted a long shirt and head out the door. Needless to say, I saw a lot of vagina on the dance floor Saturday night, more then I see even at work!! Home Sweet home......

Rock- a Dye- Baby

My little Rockstar had her first experiment with hair dye today. She loves it and is immediatley hooked. Body piercing, tattoos & Boys: coming soon. If she wasn't so much like her mamma, I might find ground to get frusterated with my 4 going on 16 year old. But instead of frusteration I find myself thinking " rock on baby girl, one day you WILL conquer the world"....

ALWAYS a bridesmaid

I am a bridesmaid for a friend who is a lawyer in Florida. Her shower is this weekend and I am flying down to Orlando. I am really looking forward to the adult plane ride. I can't even imagine what people do when they don't have to shuttle 3 kids back and forth to the bathroom for an enitre flight. Maybe I will actually read something educational and inspiring. More likely I will fall asleep. I am staying with another Florida friend, The Baker. All the womany (because we are not girls anymore) talk and bonding will be good for the soul. These are the people in my life that fill up my "half empty" glass. I am a lucky woman.....

Rock the Vote

I got my absentee ballot yesterday!! My vote will count! I get to vote in a swing state. I like to savour the last days before casting my ballot. I enjoy the power trip that comes with being an "undecided" highly coveted college educated white woman. It's not that I am truly undecided, I have known for quite sometime who I will be voting for, I just like to pretend to I can be swayed. It's like window shopping at Gucci. Imight go in and let the sales associates fawn over me and I may even try something on, but we both know I am not buying any of it. I try to talk to my kids about the election in a non-partisan tone (I am not very good at this). They have their favorite candidate and they based thier decsion soley on who would keep Daddy home with us and who would send him away for 100 more years. (I told you I wasn't good at the non-partisan tone). I will let them help me fill out the ballot as well. I took them with me 4 years ago to vote in North Carolina and I got a picture of us in front of the polling station.... i will haveto find that picture.

What was I thinking??

It seems hard enough to be a mom of 3, wife of one and a working Doula and Childbirth educator. What would make me want to start a blog?? Well we just just found out we are moving again and with all change, there is saddness and joy. It causes me a lot of stress to think that our children will be growing up so far from their grandparents. I also realize that I will no longer have the cushy hospital job that is flexiable and family friendly and I will need to work hard to find clients and students on the west coast. Somehow this blog and forthcoming website will ease the personal and professional transition for me and allow me to keep family & friends up to date with the kids and our lives.