Silence is AMAZING-well snoring to be honest

Riley went down for her typical afternoon nap at 1:30. She is so easy to put to sleep. You literally just drop her in her crib and she grabs her mittie and lays down. Devin has been taking naps recently. I think he had three this week (including today.) That is VERY rare for him considering he gave them up at 2.5, but I will take it.

My EBay auctions ended yesterday so I have been super busy getting all 83 listings packaged up and mailed out as the buyers pay. Having him take a nap yesterday was a.w.e.s.o.m.e because that allowed me to get everything that had been paid for organized and shipped before they both woke up. He fell asleep today at the table while painting around 3 pm. We have been working hard on writing and spelling words, so hard that he told me his "3 year old hand" was so tired and it needed to relax and paint. I just about died. I said that it happens and he could take a break, but was not allowed to have the chocolate I promised him when he finished since he had not completed the task. He was bummed, but said he would work on it after dinner and get his treat then. He is so sweet I just love him. So as he lay on the couch snoring like a 400 lb man, I get to finish some EBay comments and go through emails. (and do a little online shopping-Gap was offering 25% off online orders and school clothes for Devin were so cheap. Got polo shirts for $7.50 and free shipping since I spent $52)

Frank leaves soon for his 12 days away in NJ. I started to lay out all of his stuff today so I do not have to worry about it tomorrow. Devin asked why I was putting Daddy's clothes on the bed and I told him he was going to NJ. Dev then turned around and went to his room. I followed behind him a few minutes later and found him packing up some books into his carry on. I told him only Daddy was going this time and he was SO bummed out. He said he really wishes he could go too with Riley and Mommy. I told him Daddy has to work everyday and that Devin had school and two parties to go to while Daddy was gone. He was quickly quieted with the new of the TWO parties we will be attending. I will be fine, but it is definitely going to be a long (almost) two weeks. I know it will not be hard to keep busy so that the time goes by quickly. If we did not have an alarm system and an across the street neighbor with guns we would be on that plane as well. I told my neighbor that if he gets a call after bedtime to load his gun and get his ass over here.

Gymboree had a lacrosse line last year and it was my college colors. I of course had to purchase a whole bunch from the line so he could represent 'Hurst Lax. This year they have a crew line and since Frank rowed in college I bought some of that line today. Devin was a little confused by the oars and asked why a whole bunch of boys would want to sit in a boat and row. I told him they go super fast and race other boats and he then referenced Ni Hao Kai Lan and a dragon boat race episode.  Gymboree offers last years' lines in the outlets this year so I am going to try and see if I can pick up more lax stuff this weekend while they are having a bogo sale.

Riley now takes her diaper off all the time. Does she walk to the potty and pee? Nope, she will pee right on the floor. She just hates having clothes on. She took her pants off, socks off and diaper yesterday in her crib. Thank god it was only pee, but what am I going to do with this child? I guess it is my payback for being a nudest as a child....

Other than that, we really have nothing else going on......Have a great weekend all!

I (almost) wet my pants today for the first time. Devin wants a what?

So we are on the way home from the gym and Devin asked me out of the blue why he has hair on his legs. I told him that everyone has hair on their legs. Then I preceded to tell him that we all have hair on our arms, legs and heads. He said, " I know that mom." (very matter of factly) Then I told him when he gets older like a Daddy he will have hair on his face and chest too. He then said, "And I will have hair by my penis." I had to really hold back my laughter and be serious. I said, "Yes that is right you will." Devin then said, "I will also have a ginormous penis like Daddy does since I will be a big daddy." Again holding all my laughter back so I don't make him embarrassed or think he said something wrong. I said that he was right and that every part of him will get bigger as he grows up (naming his arms, legs, fingers etc). He told me he wants to have a ginormous penis but not any more hair. He said hair by his penis was yucky and hair on his face was scratchy. He said he just wants more hair on his arms and head so he can put gel in it and make it look like a shark. (we spike a mohawk into it sometimes when it is growing out and he thinks that looks like a shark)

I then let all the laughter out and he asked what I was laughing at and I told him that I like when he puts a shark in his hair. He agreed and wants to wear it like that tomorrow. I have not laughed like that in a long time. I love how natural and innocent their thinking is at this age. He is very intelligent and very observant and I really do look forward to teaching him all sorts of things.

We had a friend over today for a play date from his school. They were writing with chalk on the block wall out back. Devin asked him wanted to write each others names. His friend said he could not write and Devin asked why. Dev then said to his friend that he was older than him and he was already 4 and why can't he write? I just told him that maybe his friend knew how to do other things that Devin does not. Why do you say to that? The only reason Devin knows how to do it is because we work on it at home and it is reiterated at school. 

How is it not Friday yet? Retail therapy is the best therapy out there!

This has been the longest week ever. Maybe it is because it is the first whole week back to our routine? Last Wednesday is when we flew in from NJ, then Frank left Thurs for Cali coming home Friday with an hour to spare before our date night. All the owners from Frank's company are in town this week and that makes for long days for him and us here at the house.

Devin and Frank both got sick over the weekend and that has definitely put a damper on our week. Devin is already a mouth breather and it is 10 times worse when he has a cold. Frank has kept me up too so needless to say I was tired and cranky this morning. Here comes the good therapeutic part for me.

Now that spring is rolling in, I have gotten the kids clothes together to sell on EBay. I sold some of Riley's clothes to a neighbor already so now that leaves me with about 2/3rds of the original wardrobe. I of course got a great email this morning letting me know that Janie and Jack was offering a temporary 20% off certain lines for this weekend since it is President's weekend. Now, I have not shopped AT ALL since January 12th. Not even for a pair of socks. I have been on a major saving project and I must say it is hard, but well worth it. (More on that to come at a later date) I have only done grocery store, gas, dry cleaners etc. No Target/walmart etc trips. I was going to save the money I already banked from selling some of Riley's clothes for Easter outfits for them, but we have two months until the Easter  and I will have the EBay money next week and more coupons to use.

I had made a trip to Janie and Jack on Tuesday to check out their new green lines that I think we are going to end up doing for Easter. They are still full price now so I have to wait until they run their Friends and Family in March and I hope by then they will also have been marked down at least once. I will either do a white or a matching green shirt for Devin under his vest. They are not overly Eastery but it is IMPOSSIBLE to find coordinating outfits that are not ugly or cheap looking. Easter is one day they need to look classy and adorable. I love the drop waist on the dress! Gymboree has a blue line coming out that I am interested in, but I know Riley looks great in green as does Dev.



Winter Cheer-long sleeve t, matching sweatpants, plaid button down and
black turtle neck



After checking out these lines, I looked around the store and went through the clearance racks. I did not buy anything Tuesday, but after my email this morning I went back today and shopped a little bit. I only bought bought stuff that was an additional 20% off the clearance price and I got some really good deals. The Moose Lake line was not my favorite with the color combination, but Devin apparently loves the moose playing ice hockey. I liked the price and was able to pick out a few pieces of that line and some of the Winter cheer line. Riley could not be ignored so she got an outfit from the girls side of Winter Cheer so she and Devin can coordinate colors 

Moose Lake line. Rugby, chinos, snow beanie, hockey socks,
long sleeve t and khaki cords




Winter Cheer-3/4 length T, dress shorts,
 matching doggie tights, will look so cute with
black maryjanes

Total retail value is $352. I paid with (8.1%) tax $129.  I think I did very well for Janie and Jack. There was a few more pieces I would like to get maybe at Friends and Family next month if they are still available, but I was out of money today. I love to shop. Not only does it put me in a great mood when in a cranky funk, but it gives me exercise ;). I got 4 full outfits and two tops and a few accessories at about $20 an outfit! That is Target pricing for super cute and great quality. Now if only they offered rewards programs or cash back! I hope I make a lot on their spring/summer wardrobes on EBay b.c they both could use some new clothes, especially Devin. Devin has no play clothes for this spring and only four or so school outfits. They only thing I do have enough of for him is bathing suits which I bought ahead from last summers clearance. EBay is definitely time consuming, but it pays off in the long run.

Spring will be in Las Vegas in three weeks or so and I cannot wait. Frank will be going away for business for almost two weeks so the kids and I will do some gardening and replacing of plants that did not make it last year. This will help keep the kids outside and give them some fresh air while I do the yard work. We are having Riley's birthday party here at the house the weekend he gets back so I have to it taken care of before he returns.

Can cake be good made with an Egg Replacer? Made one this weekend.

Since Devin is highly allergic to eggs, baked goods are almost all a no-no for him. He is able to eat Oreos (who knew the "cream" center was not really cream) as well as Back To Nature chocolate chip cookies since they are made with no eggs. Chips A hoy and all cookies like that are off limits since they all are made with egg products of some sort. At Devin's first birthday is when we realized the egg allergy so at his second birthday party we special ordered Philly Italian water ice. Last year for his third he really wanted a Diego cake so we ordered one and he knew he was not able to eat it. This year he wants me to make him a cake that he can eat. I started to do some research with cakes that were egg free. There are some out there, but they are not "birthday" style cakes. Whole Foods has a fantastic vegan section that I buy a lot of his snacks and treats from since they obviously are egg/dairy free.

The Egg Replacer I bought says that it is best used in scratch recipes, but that is a lot of work especially if he does not like what I make. I bought a $1.00 Pillsbury white cake mix and a whipped vanilla icing tub so we could make a valentine's cake and tint it pink or red to add to the festivities. The Egg Replacer is a very fine powder similar to that of confectioners sugar. The conversion is 1.5 tsp of egg replacer with 2 tbsp of water to equal one egg. The mix is liquidy and not thick when mixed. When I mixed this with the cake mix, water and oil the cake batter was thicker than usual. When I poured it in the cake pans it had texture to it similar to when you pour brownie batter in a brownie pan and spread it around. The cake batter had to be spread out with a spatula to reach the sides instead of just falling into place. It baked roughly the same amount of time. I took it out at the earliest part of the time frame the box said to cook it for. The cakes did not stick at all to the pans and seemed to bounce back when touched.

After all was cooled, Devin iced the middle white and then mixed some red food dye to make the rest of the icing pink. He thought that was so cool that little drops of dye makes everything pink. He decorated the top with Valentine's sprinkles while Riley at the sprinkles she was to put on top.

Verdict: Cake is moist and spongy and not overly dense. There is not much flavor in the cake, but I am not a good judge for this since I do not like cake (especially plain white cake.) Kids liked it, but preferred to eat the icing over the cake which I think is normal for kids? They have never really had cake before-maybe once or twice for Riley.  I would have to play with the recipe a little bit to see if I could make it more flavorful and maybe more airy.

There are a lot of recipes on the box of the Egg Replacer which will be great if Devin starts to eat more than a bit of baked goods. I do not like eggs, and I could really only eat scrambled eggs if they were egg white with cheese in them (which I still only do a few times a year since they are so gross.) Quiche is one thing that I will never eat. Gag-a pie made of eggs? Anyhow, there is a recipe on the box for egg free quiche. Kinda sacrilegious right? Haha.

Valentines day-writing out 22 valentines for the class!

Devin has to bring Valentines to school next week for all the kids in his class. Including him there are 22 kids. Devin picked out Toy Story 3 valentines since they have tattoos with them. The kids are not allowed to bring in candy or treats for the other kids so tattoos were the next best thing.

Devin is only to write his name on the valentine and I am assuming that he will just place the valentines in each child's special box. So far he is done 17 with only 5 mess ups with marker smudges. Not bad! I am interested to see all the other decorated valentines he is going to bring home next Tuesday. He really is getting so big so fast.

I bought some Egg Replacement at Whole Foods a little while back. It is an egg substitute based with potato starch.  It says on the back of the box that it works better in scratch recipes. I am not going through the hassle of making a recipe that he may not like. I bought a cake mix and we are going to try it with that first to see how it goes. I also picked up Valentines sprinkles for decorating the cake. Devin is VERY excited to do this over the weekend. If all goes well, maybe I can make Riley's cake next month for her party. I always feel bad that Dev can never eat the same treats other kids get to eat at parties.

Frank traveled to San Diego yesterday for work and is arriving back to Vegas tonight. We also have tickets to Jersey boys tonight so I may be meeting him at the restaurant for preshow dinner depending when is plane touches down. He got these tickets for Christmas and I planned it for this weekend so we would definitely have plans for Valentines Day. I am VERY excited to finally get a chance a see this show.  I was able to get a locals special and get center stage 9th row back in the orchestra! The theatres out here are so little compared to NYC so there really is not a bad seat in the house. Let's just hope his flight is not delayed :)

February visit to NJ-Almost forgot how cold it is on windy days in the winter.

I am not sure I would like to go back to NJ in the winter. It was not really that cold, but when it was windy out-man ALIVE was it miserable. I went to college in the snow belt up in the Great Lake region so I know what cold feels like and I chose to never live like that again. NJ is not half as bad as it was up on the lake, but when I am used to chilly air with sunshine, a day with a high of 30 with clouds is pretty cold and yucky. We never saw snow because the day we were forcasted to get it the high was 45 and it was rainy instead. Devin was pretty bummed out we could not ice skate on the lake. He really was looking forward to it and it was the first thing he asked my mom when we walked in her door at midnight the night we arrived. "Grammy where are my new ice skates?" Sigh, maybe next time.

 

baby Ethan



Maria and I

Thursday the kids and I hung out at the house all day since everyone had to work and I did not have a car. My cousin Lyneal and her 10 mo old baby Ethan stopped by for a visit. Friday I went over to Kelly's to pick up Dana (who arrived Thurs night) and have a bite with my dad. Kelly, Cookie and Frank worked Friday as well. My best friend from college Maria lives in Cleveland and she just happened to be in NYC visiting with her boyfriend over the weekend. Her boyfriend had to work Friday day so she drove down for a few hours to hang out! What a great last minute treat that was. I love her and was so happy to have gotten to see if (only if for a few hours). We were both Biology majors and she is now a ER doctor in her 3rd year of residency. Friday night we went over to Lyneal's for some pizza and beers and a bunch of my cousins and their kids now came over to play. 

Sat am Frank, myself and the kids went to take a family portrait with the whole Skinner family. There were 16 people total in the picture including 7 kids ranging from 10 years to 4 months. We were placed on a fake beach scene with real sand and that was a disaster with my two. Devin was actually pretty good with smiling, but he kept getting distracted by wanting to talk to his cousins. Riley on the other hand wanted nothing with being held or sitting alone. She wanted to play with the sand. Not even 2 minutes into attempting to take this big picture did Riley dump a handful of sand in her hair. UGH. The whole group was singing nursery rhymes with the two photogs to try and get all the kids to look forward and smile. I hope some pictures turned out ok. We then went to Jenn and Dan's house for a brunch. The kids played for three hours hard core with their cousins. They have Dance Party on Wii and the kids were having a ball having a dance party in the basement. It was super nice to get to hang out with all the sisters and brothers again.

Saturday night Frank and I went to his cocktail party at the Borgota in Atlantic City. Food was delicious and there was a 10 piece band on the stage. Music was an odd mix, but good nonetheless. I had a great time hanging out with our friends that he works with. Always nice to see them again and get to kick back and have a good time while Frank talks business stuff with his bosses/coworkers.

Sunday morning I met old friends and their two kids at this place called Kid Zone. It is an indoor adventure place with a huge tube climber and 5 themed playrooms (pizza parlor, vets office, grocery store, USPS and gym in addition to a theatre stage with dress up stuff. They LOVED it so much we went back Tuesday.  

Monday night I visited with a few friends Sunday at a Superbowl party and Monday night I went down to my Aunt Dawn and Uncle Lou's for dinner. My Grandmom and Grand dad came over too to see the kids. It was awesome for my two to get to play with my 4 little cousins who are not so little anymore. Louis is going to be 14 this April, Alexis is already 12 and the twins will be 10 next week! Amazing they are so big when I used to nanny for them from when Louis was 2 to when the twins were 6 months. CRAZY! We came back Wednesday am and landed in LAS around 3 pm PST.

The total travel time for the day was 10 hours and 15 minutes. I will definitely NOT be doing that again anytime soon. The kids were great and I am thankful that they are seasoned travelers. Riley slept for 3 hours on the floor on the airplane and Devin never took a nap, but he quietly watched movies and colored with markers for the majority of the plane ride. Riley had to sit on my lap again since the flight was full and the lady in the aisle seat was trying to sleep the whole way. I felt so bad when I had to ask her to get up so Devin could go potty (he went 5 times during the 6 hr flight). Even though Riley slept for the first 3 hours, she then had 4 water poops, yes, 4 times within an hour so the poor lady had to keep getting up. I finally asked her if she would like to move to the window for the last hour and a half of the flight. She said yes and I was relieved. 

We are home, kids are trying to get back to PST and I am exhausted. I finished all the laundry yesterday, but I still have to clean up the house and be a wife again. I just want one day to sleep it off. :) This is the shortened version and I know I missed a bit....but I am way tired and I know it would all bore you to tears to know everything.

The flight out from LAS to PHL-Devin is so generous

Wed Feb 2nd Frank and I flew to NJ. We flew Southwest and Riley rode free for the last time. The flight was sadly over booked so she was stuck sitting on our (my) laps the whole flight. Our flight took off at 3pm PST and we were ready to leave the house by 1pm but little Miss Riley had fallen asleep on the couch. She typically takes a nap somewhere between 1 and 1:30 for a few hours every afternoon. She passed out cold at 12:15 by herself on the couch. I let her sleep because she had been under the weather all week and maybe she just needed the sleep. I knew that was jeopardizing her chances in taking a nap on the plane, but it actually helped me get last minute things together.

Frank, Devin and I took up three seats and I showed Frank how I make a bed on the floor with a super soft big blankie and pillow. This has saved me every flight I have gone alone with the kids. Riley was a bit warm and wanted nothing but to be held by me. I tried to lay her on the floor and she hung out down there for a lil bit but never fell asleep. She and Devin ate snacks and Devin asked to lay on the floor to watch a movie. He had taken off his head phones and fallen asleep! Bonus. He slept like that for about about an hour and a half. Riley on the other hand had fallen asleep in my arms with my legs cradling her. She is definitely not an infant anymore so I was struggling to keep her comfy and hold her securely since my arms, legs and butt kept falling asleep at different times. I had figured out how I could hold her and hold my book with one hand without needing my second hand to turn the pages. My (broken) ereader would have been super handy in this situation. Where was Frank you ask? Oh, he was sitting in his seat drinking a vodka and cranberry while playing on his Nook Color.....In his defense, he did offer to hold Riley but she only wanted me. He would hold my Heineken to my lips every now and then so I could take a sip. The flight attendant must have felt bad for me since I had to hold her since she gave me a free beer. Riley tossed and turned and slept for about 2 hours. Total in air flight time was just under 5 hours. While decending into Philly Riley decided to vomit all over me and her. It was awesome. I could only think of Greg Focker in Meet the Parents since I smelled like vomit until we got home and I could change.

We landed at 10:45 PM in PHL, Frank went and got the rental while I got the bags at baggage claim. Frank waited out front in passager pick up and I had one of the men with the silver flat cart things to help me out. Devin was so sweet. He said, "Wait mom." I asked him if we forgot something (looking back at the carousel). He said, "I have to pay the man for helping us." He then reached in his pocket and grabbed out a penny and a dime and handed it to the man and said "thanks for helping my mom." The man said, "No problem buddy, thanks." Devin said, "Sure." and smiled. I asked him where he got money from and he said he took it from Daddy's car. Once we got out to the car I gave the man a real tip and he gave Dev a high five. Glad to know I have a courteous boy!

.....more about the trip to come.