Picket Fences

This past Valentine's Day, I gave Matt a little book I bought at Hallmark. It was one of those little books that you fill out with favorite memories and thoughts of the recipient. I know, cheesy, but if you knew my husband, you would know that he is not that easy to shop for, especially on occasions like this.

Anyway, one of the questions was:

If you there was a reality show about your relationship, what would the title be?

I had to think long and hard about this one. I mean, most shows have clever titles, and I wanted to think of something that was an accurate description of our life with a little bit of humor. So, I finally came up with something along the lines of:

Matt and Allison: Our picket fence is crooked!

Get it?

It kinda goes along with my whole "Pie and Ice Cream Moments" theme. I always dreamed of the marriage with the white picket fence. But, as we all know, life is not perfect. So, even though I found the perfect man for me and we have the three most amazing kids....life is not always so idyllic, therefore making our white picket fence a little crooked.

After reading this, Matt said this would make a perfect new blog title, but I could never get rid of Slice of Heaven with a Scoop of Reality on the side...however, I feel I could coin this little phrase and if I ever wrote a book, I would use this as the title!

Answered prayers

In August 2009, we got some very sad news....our dear friends were moving away to Atlanta. Our boys had met in 3K at our parish school and had become instant friends which in turn brought our families together and eventually our daughters followed in their footsteps. We have traveled together and formed a very tight bond of friendship. So, as you can imagine, it simply broke our hearts in two when we got the news of their departure.

We have stayed close and the kids still consider each other best friends. We have been to Atlanta to visit them and they have been back to TX several times to visit.

They had a baby boy last spring and when we found out that our newest addition would be a boy, too, Max proclaimed that "we match the Cranes"....boy, girl, boy!

Matt and I even traveled to Napa/Sonoma and San Francisco with them just a couple of weeks ago. It is there that we got to celebrate this....

They will be here in just 2 days and we are over the moon to welcome them back. This is certainly a prayer that we never imagined would be answered!

Here we go again!

Well, in exactly one month, I'll be going back to WDW for the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration. I attended last year and had the time of my life. It was also extra special since the trip also commemorated a special milestone. We surprised the kids with the trip AND told them they would be getting a new little sibling!

I met many wonderful ladies, many of whom I had met "virtually" beforehand through the DIS boards, Moms Panel application process, and Twitter.

I am really looking forward to staying at the Grand Floridian this time around. As many of the hotels that I have stayed at on my many trips there (one of which I worked at while doing the WDW College Program in the Spring of 1996), I have never stayed there. We are bringing our 3 kids, ages 7, 4, and 7 months (his first Disney trip...well, out of utero, anyway).

I hope to meet lots of new friends and reconnect with those from last year. I can't wait.

Click here, here, and here for my blog posts from last year's DisneySMMoms!

Peek-A-Boo

I see you!

Will you "beep,beep" my valentine?

Most of you know by now that I am one of "those" moms!

I like coordinating clothes for my kids on special holidays and for pictures.

I like going a little overboard with birthday parties.

I like scrapbooking for my kids to have special books memorializing their childhoods.

And...I like making cute little hand-made Valentines with them.

You may or may not remember Max's Valentine box from 2009. He came up with that idea all on his own and I was a little stumped on how to execute it, but after a visit to the Container Store and a local craft store...we made it happen. I let Max take the lead on it, therefore, doing most of the work. I handled the big stuff like using the exacto knife! He was so proud of his little yellow submarine. We still have it! In fact, this year, he asked if he could use it again this year, but I said that he should make something new.

So, last Friday, when I read his parent journal after school, he wrote in it that he wanted to make an AT-TE walker from Star Wars. I wasn't sure how I was going to come up with a structurally sound box balanced on for cardboard legs....so I asked if he wanted to make another character from Star Wars for his box (or pail in this case). He was super excited to go along with my idea. But, this is his box, so again I wanted him to take the lead on the decorating.

Once again, we went to the Container Store and craft store to gather al of the materials. He designed all of the parts using his Star Wars encyclopedia book as a visual guide. The only thing I did was the parts that required the glue gun and a saw.

Can you guess which character it is?

Now?

Voila! R2D2

Happy Valentines Day

from our little family to yours!

Can you guess???

This year for Valentines Day at school, they get to make their boxes to collect the treats from their friends....can you guess what Max and I made?



Check back Tuesday for the answer!

Mad Scientist

In first grade, each student gets an opportunity to be the Scientist of the Week. Max's turn was during the week of snow/ice days, so it was rescheduled for this past Tuesday. The student is to come up with the science project and must "teach" the lesson to the class with very little help from the teacher.

Some time ago, Max was watching the History channel and saw a program on ships. They talked about the Greek scientist, Archimedes, who figured out the law of buoyancy and water displacement. Max immediately decided he wanted to show this to his class.

So, here is his experiment:

Both of these containers are the same weight, but different shapes.

First, he showed how heavy objects, that would otherwise sink in water, would float in a long container.

As he loaded those heavy objects in the long container, they floated displacing the water.

Now, for the smaller container.

The container was unable to hold the same amount of weight and thus sunk. This is why large long boats are used to transport weight.

At least I think that is the gist of it! That is why Max did the experiment and I just watched. I am already being passed over in the science department by my little mad scientist! Just as I think Cate will go into the arts in some way, I swear this kid is going to be an engineer with that analytical mind of his.

Half way there...

...to a year, that is!

Yes, time has flown. I can't believe that Monkey is already 6 months old. We had some professional pictures done of him this past weekend. He did so good. It took him awhile to warm up to the camera. He is usually all smiles until you get that big black box in front of your face and he gets that perplexed look on his face. So, with the help of some rattles, his stuffed monkey, and his sister making silly faces, we finally got some priceless looks. And once, we changed outfits and posed him with some baseball props, the poses got even cuter!

Here are some of our favorites!

All photos taken at Portrait Innovations.

WordFUL Wednesday - Little Artist

During our snow WEEK, we did many activities to keep us busy. Art projects was one of them. Until recently, Cate's "artwork" has just been scribbles with no distinction. But, on this day, Cate made this clown fish picture for her art teacher. For the past several weeks, she has been in an art camp after school. Apparently, it is making quite the impression. Future artist? I think so!

For more Wordful Wednesdays, visit Seven Clown Circus and Parenting by Dummies.

The Iceman Cometh

So, we returned from Napa late Monday night. My mom brought the kids to the airport to surprise us. It was so good to see them. However, by the time we got home, it was time for bed, so we were a little bummed that we couldn't play with them very long. It was a school night and they needed their sleep. Little did we know, we would more than make up for the lost playtime in the coming week....

Day 1 - Tuesday

I am awoken at 5:45am by the phone. I answer a call from the school that school has been cancelled due to ice and sleet. Sure enough, as I hang up the phone, I can hear the tiny pellets hitting our windows and the wind howling outside. Apparently, overnight it began icing over the metroplex and making the roads virtually undriveable (at least by TX standards).

The Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex is not equipped with snow plow and they use sand trucks, not to melt the ice, but to give it more traction. However, with the Super Bowl this coming weekend here in Arlington, they were using those sand trucks to clear the roads to and from the stadium and hotels where the Packers and Steelers are staying so that they could safely get to practice....hmmmm, a great use for our limited resources....I think not (but that is my opinion)!

So, Tuesday, I hung out at home with the kids and my parents. The roads were too bad for them to travel back home after watching our kids for the weekend while we were away. We played games, watched movies, and looked at our pictures from vacation. I also did a bit of laundry.

Then, at 4:00 pm, we got the phone call....the school was cancelled again for Wednesday. Oh, goodie, I thought to myself...what were we going to do with the kids to keep them occupied yet another day. We were not prepared for what was about to happen!

Day 2 - Wednesday

My parents told me to sleep in the night before since they were there to help with the kids. However, I was once again awoken by a ring bright and early. This time it wasn't the ringing of a phone, it was the beeping of the alarm system alerting us of the power failure.

Yep, that's right, the power went out at 7:30 am. I got up and my parents told me that it had just gone off. I got onto my iPhone and went to Facebook to see if any of my friends were experiencing the same thing. As I quickly found out, we were experiencing state mandated rolling blackouts that would only last about 10-15 minutes each. So, we waited and hung out. Luckily, my mom had made some coffee, so I poured a cup.

15 minutes passed and no power. 45 minutes passed and no power. An hour and a half passed and no power. Now, on FB, many friends were posting that they were now on their 2nd and 3rd outage and how annoying it was. I am sure it was annoying for them, but why had ours never come back on?

After yet another hour went by with no power, the temps in the house were slowly plummeting. We were getting colder and colder. We have gas burning fireplaces, but they are operated by a switch, so they were a no go. Matt called the power company and of course, all we got was a recording with a message about the outages and how they apologized. They also said that if you were experiencing any outage longer than 15 minutes, enter your phone number at the prompt and they would note it and put out a work order. I did this THREE. MORE. TIMES. in the span of the next hour and a half.

We had eventually moved up to the second story into Will's nursery. You see, he had taken a nap shortly after the power outage and his door was shut, trapping most of the warm air. So, it was the warmest room in the house.

After about 5 hours, 3 very cold kids, and a 49 degree house, we decided to head out to the car, turn on the heat, and watch a movie while parked in the driveway. About this time, my brother called and insisted that we head to his house as they had not lost power yet and at this point didn't think they would. So, that is exactly what we did. It took us an hour and a half (normally takes about 20 minutes).

In the meantime, Matt had looked up our address on the power company's website and discovered that we were in a "low priority grid" due to its small number of units. It also said on the website that some areas may be out until the next morning. So, maybe we had made the right move heading to their house.

Walking into their house, the warmth was soooo inviting. The kids got to play with their cousin, watch TV, and we also got a hot meal. But, soon after we got there, our neighbor called and said that power was restored to our area. So, after we fed Will and got the kids bundled up, we headed back. We got home after dark and the house was still pretty cold, but bearable.

We also came home to a message from the school that it was once again cancelled for the next day!

Day 3 - Thursday

The house really warmed up overnight, so we woke up from a restful and cozy sleep. Once again, the kids occupied themselves in the playroom. We also watched Toy Story 3 and played several games. Cate did dot dot art and Max played his DS. Overall, it wasn't too bad, but since it was just ice outside, there was nothing for them to play in.....but that was all about to change!

Due to the impending snowstorm about to hit overnight, school was cancelled for the 4th day in a row. Reports were for about an inch overnight and a few flurries the next day and temps still not getting out of the 20s.

Day 4 - Friday

Reports were for 1 inch, but we woke up to about 5. It was a beautiful blanket of snow covering up the treacherous ice blocks below.

So, at least today, they got to go out and play in it and let out some of their pent up energy from the 3 previous days. Unfortunately, we had left their snow gear (snow bibs and snow boots) in New Jersey after the Christmas Snowmaggedon thinking that they would be there for the next time we go up there in that weather as opposed to no use here....WRONG!!! We just doubled up the layers of clothing, they did have their coats and hats and some too small rain boots. Oh, well, they didn't care. They only lasted about 30 minutes out there in the 26 degree weather!

Saturday is supposed to finally get us above freezing and hopefully melt some of this snow....just in time for more at the beginning of next week...UGGGH. I just pray it isn't so much school gets cancelled any more!