March comes in like a Lion...

Maritime Master

We survived Winter break and the kids had a good week back at school. Amazingly, we had four days of no delays or school cancelled in a row. They are still stir crazy from being cooped up in the Penthouse so we have been spending a lot of time at the Maritime Explorium. That membership has surely paid for itself! It is now my birthday present go to place - they sell day passes for $5 (I give two) which is better than a crappy toy for $10 (my limit!) - so kids can get out and about on us for an afternoon of fun!

I tried Rach*el Ray's two ingredient pizza dough last week - cauliflower and eggs - I thought it was very tasty, my family? NOT SO MUCH.

Look at that expression - and this kid will eat anything! Oh, well, more for me!

Gramma Lou came to the island for the weekend to hang out. YAY! She was put on kid-taxi duty Saturday while we were at the office... Thanks, Gramma!

Engrossed in her story.

Last Sunday was a tad bit warmer so we went for a hike along the beach. It was just what my soul needed. Ben kept asking, "Why do we have to go on such a LONG walk?" We found tons of cool shells and oysters and ocean goodies. Once we move, we will be walking distance to this beach (20 minutes) - it's all downhill to the beach and a nice hearty uphill on the way home. I love a good hill walk, the kiddos, not so much - will the red wagon get more use this year? Possibly.

Sunday morning workout.

So I bit the bullet and got a crate for Dodo. Guess what? HE LOVES IT. I am absolutely stabbing myself in the eye over all the stress this dog has caused me the past four years with his separation anxiety. Why didn't I buy this four years ago???? The crate also makes a great time out spot for the kids. Oh, wait, no it doesn't as they think it is fun to play in it. Sheesh.

Ben wants us to add wheels so we can pull Dodo around in it.

After school Thursday I noticed Ben had a little blood on his forehead. I lifted his hair an noticed this gash on the side of his head! Ben, buddy, what happened? Does it hurt? "No, Mom, I needed a tissue and no one heard me so I put there." Wait, what? That's right - not a gash at all, just storage for his bloody booger. ZOINKS!

I have no words... At least he didn't wipe it on the carpet?

We were back at the explorium yesterday afternoon celebrating Dr Suess. We got our hands nice and slimy making "Oobleck".

More ended up on his shirt than in the bowl - and his hands are stained blue from the dye. HA!

Who knew that mini marshmallows and toothpicks can quiet the children for a good 20 minutes.

Must go to the supermarket!

I'm not buying any more toys for Ben. He got a cool marble run for Christmas and this awesome Gears set, etc etc, but what does he play with? The duplos and wood blocks we have had for 6 years...

But, Ma, I make cool creations!

Movin' on up

It's Winter break, my faithful readers. That means 9 days (or 108 daylight hours) of "something to do" to be filled. The weather stinks - too cold to play outside and when it does get warm, the two feet of snow plus massive drifts and plow banks that have turned to SOLID ICE make it not such a fun place to play. We have been forced to stay inside and in hopes of avoiding 108 hours of technology / tv, we busted out all the awesome board games we got this past Christmas from our mom and pop toy store - and lemme tell ya, they don't disappoint. Today's game of the day was "Hoot, Owl, Hoot" where all the players work as a team to get the owls back to the nest before the sun comes up. Our neighbors must have been wondering what all the 'hooting and hollering' was all about because we played it ALL AFTERNOON and were screaming up a storm for those owls to survive... The best part of it all, while Em was taking a bath tonight, Ben got a piece of my printer paper and drew out his own version of the game even cutting out game pieces to make it look right. This kid is one amazing thinker / designer - not that I want to rush the years, but I am fascinated to know what he grows up to be!

Speaking of amazing males, Daddy got his creative cooking on and cooked up this octopus into the most amazing salad the other night. Emma chowed it, Ben wanted nothing to do with it...

That would be the female offspring hand on the bottom helping Daddy.

We got the confirmation today that the Bungalow is all ours from March 15th onwards. Yahoo! We are planning to move boxes in from 3/18 to 25ish, then the big furniture the last few days of the month.  Gramma Lou has awesomely rearranged her schedule to occupy the kiddos for a few days while we make that move happen so I am confident it will be a smooth transition. Emma has already requested a hot pink shaggy area rug for her bedroom - we even found it on Home Depot's website, so if any of you happen to know the Easter Bunny, tell him where he can pick it up so the girl will be happy.

Speaking of the girl (and her dog)... I'm trying to figure out how to make the move UNstressful for the dog. Dodo is old and crotchety. He has separation anxiety and is just a pain in my butt because I am not a dog person. When we leave him alone in the penthouse, we have to barricade the kitchen and close off doors and put the chairs on the sofa and, freakin' seriously, go through so much just to run to the supermarket to grab milk. It's easy enough to do in the penthouse because it's small, but the bungalow is big - too big to Dodo-proof, which means I have been scouring the internet for a giant dog crate because even though the beast is 10 years old, I am determined to crate train him so I don't have to do that anymore. Crazy? You tell me, dog lovers...

She never pays attention to the dog yet insisted I take this picture - go figure.

Speaking of hairy beasts - for some reason our barber (Daddy) is refusing to trim Ben's hair - he is insisting that if I won't let him buzz Ben's head again, he will simply let it grow into your favorite 80s metal band lead singer's style.

I look like Emmet from the Lego movie with my crazy helmet of hair...

I found him sporting this look yesterday - maybe I should have texted the pic to Daddy, maybe then he will get on the barber's back to get the trim going lest his son start looking like a bad B 80s movie star...

No one puts Baby in the corner.

Hello, Spring? Can you hear me?

The kids had their yearly dental visits last week. That's right, I said it, yearly - not every six months like you are "supposed" to. Now that Em is getting adult teeth (her adult molars came through), I'll bump her up to every 6 months but I have never pushed to have them go every six months as they don't eat a lot of sweets, are great brushers, and have never gotten less than two thumbs up from the dentist. They were both super stars - so much so, the facility asked if they could get their pictures taken with the dentist for publicity purposes - Ha! My kids, modals.

Not quite sure what to do with my hands...

More relaxed in the chair.

When Ben wants something and we say 'No', he tries cutesy things like drawing sweet pictures of him and me together to try and get whatever it is he wants.

Whatever you want, kid.

The PTA hosted the annual Sweetheart dance in the gym at the Elementary School. We served a hot catered meal, had a DJ and professional photographer, and transformed the gym into an Enchanted Forest complete with lights and a rig from the ceiling of the gym with hundreds of lit up branches with chinese lanterns hanging down.  It. Was. Outstanding. I can't even tell ya how grateful we are to be a part of such a nurturing little village that came together to make all the girls from grades 1-5 have such a special night. Em was actually overwhelmed with all of the excitement (plus she had stomach issues) and wanted to leave half way through. I convinced her to stay until dessert (we had a full dessert bar, too!) but she was exhausted and her and daddy went home right after.

Blurry photo by me, not the professional.

I wish I could have gotten a pic of the full tub but then nak*d parts would show, but these sillies transformed the tub into one big battle of the angry birds versus the bad piggies. They made up these elaborate battles (and got the floor of the bathroom soaked...) and it was so fun to see them creating together versus battling it out like usual.

Where's my slingshot?

I had to take this pic of Ben from home versus walking out of the building wearing his giant heart like all the other preK kids because for the 2nd day in a row, I had to pick him up from school early as he was rocking serious intestinal cramps. He ended up missing school altogether Friday because as we were getting ready to walk out the door, he puked again! This was one gnarly stomach bug - a good 5 days!

Will you be my Valentine?

They were very excited to receive a small box of chocolates from Daddy - check out those cheesy smiles!

Happy Valentines Day!

Ben continues to wow us with his creativity. Below, he has taken a piece of his go cart race game and reconfigured it to launch into a wall of blocks that he made into a piggy pirate ship. He was so proud of his creation!

Don't mind the messy penthouse - I have absolutely given up and am counting the days until I can pack it up and get out!

No April Fools here!

It looks like we may be close to a confirmation of our April 1st move to the bungalow. I couldn't be more excited. The penthouse has served a wonderful purpose, but nearly four years of wear and tear on the building itself (can you say wall to wall carpet with two young kids and dogs = allergy palooza) combined with my desire to have a space all to myself that I can escape to for 5 minutes comfortably to regain my sanity on crazy days, not to mention the fact that we have been starved to entertain friends and their families (no space to do that in the penthouse), two toilets (let me tell you with the stomach bug this week - two toilets will be heaven), did I mention the SUN ROOM and giant back yard and walking distance to school, and you can feel my enthusiasm. (How was that for a run on sentence??)

fun with intestines

The bunch is rocking some serious stomach bug fun. It started last Friday after school with Em and she had three days straight of explosive diarrhea. She said after school today she feels much better although her appetite has not quite returned to normal.

Ben showed no signs of catching it until last night after lacrosse. We had picked up a pizza for dinner. He barely ate a half slice then started puking out of no where all over the carpet of the penthouse. I got him over the trash can for round two - he was so cute, "Why am I doing this? Why is my body puking?" I got him showered up and we came back into the living room to find the dog licking up the vomit on the carpet, GROSS!! Seriously, do not EVER let my dog kiss you - he has licked some nasty stuff... The kids were screaming bloody murder at Dodo, "Dodo, NOOOOO! Don't lick it, you will DIE!"

Daddy walked in the door at exactly this point to a stinky noisy what the hell is happening penthouse.

Ain't that the way it always happens?

Thank goodness I had the carpet shampooer handy, got the vomit cleaned up. Daddy got the kids off to bed and I crashed by 8:15. Why so early? Those dang kids shared the bug with me and I've possibly lost 10 lbs in the last two days. Ahhhh, what a mama will do to shed a few pounds.

Ben woke up perfectly fine this morning and wanted to go to PT. He did awesome - Miss Lauren loves him and is pushing him to learn stuff that is older kid appropriate. We talked after his session. She mentioned she finally got in touch with the Seit in Ben's class. The Seit said she wasn't sure why Ben qualified for PT, we all agree, but figure as along as he is enjoying it, we may as well continue going. I told her we call her the personal trainer and she loved that.

We came home for lunch and decided to send him to school. At 2:20 the school called, he was in the nurses office complaining of stomach cramps. I went to pick him up early and as soon as he saw me he got all emotional. I got him home and he sat on the toilet and let loose some serious wet farts (aren't you glad you read my blog?) and diarrhea. At one point he said to me, "Mom, I'm a bad kid!" Why, buddy, why are you bad? "Because I keep farting!"

Needless to say I did not go into the office tonight and I begged Daddy to stop at the market on his way home to pick up gingerale. Fingers crossed for a bug free day tomorrow.

Things I dig

As we have been cooped up the past week with subzero temps, then 10 inches of snow on Monday, and freezing rain today, we have spent a ton of family time together. What we have learned? We are very blessed, that's for sure! But being cooped up reminded us that we are outgrowing the penthouse. I've been on a home search for a while. We knew we wanted to move when our lease was up at the end of May but we wanted to do that last year, too! Then we couldn't find anything available when we needed it without changing school districts which we were not willing to do, which meant we were stuck for another year. So when the below house (sorry for the blurry pic, got it off a website) came available as of April 1st at a great price - we jumped at the chance to look at it. It's 4 bedrooms with 2 full baths (TWO TOILETS, people!! Ahhh, that enough is worth the move!). It has a giant backyard, and an unfinished dry basement for storage. The home has been recently remodeled and is heated by gas not oil, which will make a big difference in the cost of heating the place. It feels like a giant bungalow inside - not unlike a home you would find in San Francisco. The floors are the original 1920s wood - not a carpet to be seen - YAHOO! The kitchen is small, but the giant sun room that you can see goes the entire width of the front of the house was screaming my name when I walked in the front door. We signed a lease and put in our security deposit yesterday - now we are just praying the current tenant's mortgage is approved for the home he is buying - as the move in is contingent on that. The realtor helping us is also helping the current tenants buy, she feels confident all will move forward in a timely fashion. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

From here on out I shall be called the Bungalow.

Ben's PT (physical therapy) or as I mentioned I like to call it personal training is going awesome. He loves it, Miss Lauren loves him. He comes out sweaty and happy and is learning new skills with each session. He can now do proper jumping jacks, throw the ball in the step-toss-follow through fashion. This kid is sure to get an athletic scholarship as he will be far ahead of all the other kids because of the early training!!

Finishing out his session with some Yoga.

Our superbowl snowstorm brought us 10 inches and no school on Monday. The kiddos had a blast outside with our neighbors. Ben's snow ball maker birthday present was a big hit as this snow was packing perfect! Check out those perfect spheres!

Duck!

This is just one of the MANY snowmen that are currently on display around the penthouse property.

"Do you want to build a snowman?" SING IT!

Lookie here. Ben has finally realized he can open the fridge and help himself. It's a blessing and a curse. :)  The good news is he is now eating mozzarella sticks, add another protein to the menu! 7 grams...

3rd cheese stick today! Greaaaaaaaaat.

Ems begged us to stay up til the end of the Superbowl. By the 3rd quarter when it was a bit of a blowout, Seattle scored yet another touchdown and Daddy and I pretended it was the end of the game to get her to bed. She was exhausted and fell right to sleep. She cheered so hard for you, Uncle Sean!

Our couch cheerleader.

Daddy is often playing guitar during his down time. Monday morning's blizzard meant no work for Daddy so Ben climbed on his lap and got his first guitar lesson. Doesn't he look like a natural?

Just call me Eddie Van Halen, dude!

Even though the snow has kept us from work and school, it sure has been pretty this time around. There was no wind with this blizzard so the snow settled nicely on the trees making the outdoors quite magical looking.

Out our bedroom window.

We've been board gaming it up - this game is "Sorry!" Sliders - the board game version of Curling. The instrctions that came with the game are stupid - that's right, I said the S word - so we made up our own rules and had good fun playing this skill + math game. :)

Ben is too good at it!!

Our ballerina also busted out her Angelina Ballerina game and practiced her moves all morning...

Can we stay in pajamas all day, Mom?

Morning giggle

Ben walked in on me while I was getting dressed this morning. "Hey, Mom, why you wearing those?" (I had on underwear and a bra.) "I'm getting dressed, buddy." "But why you wearing underpants?" (I LOVE that he calls them underpants and not underwear like most people.) "We all wear underpants, bud. You wear them. Me. Daddy. Emma." "Well, why you wearing that? (He pointed to my bra.) I don't wear that, see?" He lifted his shirt and showed me his chest - he indeed was not wearing a bra. "So why you wearing it?" "Well, it holds my boobies in place." "Oh, and so nobody can scratch 'em?"

Deep thoughts by children

I've got writers block these days - no desire to sit and journal. But I need to post these before they slip out of my brain forever...

The other day Emma was playing with Ben's Marble Run birthday present. She was longingly watching the marbles do their thing in the tracks and loops and said, "I wish I were a marble."

On our way to Ben's PT on Tuesday my phone rang in the car. I did not have my headset handy but I illegally answered it anyways. I got caught up in the conversation and missed the turn I was supposed to take. Ben was very aware I went the wrong way as he is a smart directional cookie. When I hung up the phone he scolded me, "Mom, when the phone rings in the car you should press the red button (decline) not the green button (accept). Then when you get to where you want to go, you can call them back."

Ha! I agreed with him, mommy needs to be safe, blah blah blah.

Then on the way home, Daddy called me and I answered the call because I REALLY REALLY needed to tel him something (I can't remember what...). But after hanging up Ben said sternly, "MOM! I TOLD YOU. WHEN THE PHONE RINGS IN THE CAR YOU SHOULD PRESS THE RED BUTTON!"

Sheesh! Who made Ben the cell phone police?

PT. PT is a riot. He comes out SWEATY after his 30 minutes with the therapist! I am no longer calling it Physical Therapy. I now say, "Come on, Ben. We gotta go see your Personal Trainer!" He loves it and I love that he is getting his move on. :)

Oh happy day

Well, well, well, guess who turned 5?

I did!

For the past month he had NO interest in turning 5 - kept saying he wanted to stay 4 (can you say "challenges with transitions?") - but last week before his birthday he asked me, "Mom, how many days until I turn 5?" which led me to believe he was finally ready. He did not want to have a big party somewhere - only wanted his besties at our house, with pizza and games and cake! You got it kid.

Luckily, he invited his big sister!

He is on a minion kick so we played "Pin the banana on the Minion!"

Jane is possibly the only girl, a-HEM (Emma), who did not cheat.

We played Animal Charades:

That's right - I'm a butterfly!

We ate pizza:

Time to take down the Santa in the background??

And we opened gifts:

The Marble Run was a big favorite!

Ben, you are our super hero. You love to make us laugh. You still love to snuggle and give "smoochiegoochies" - for that I am very grateful.

At your well visit this week you surprised me. You followed directions, and you were so brave when you got your mmr booster - not even a tear, but I could tell from your face it hurt! You weighed in in the 95th% and height was 75th% - which is crazy because you tower over your pals and don't eat...

Maybe the weight has something to do with the birthday present from Henry and Jane!

I LOVE DD gift cards!!

The Grandparents did not disappoint in their gift giving - let's just say Ben is in Angry Bird heaven.

I've collected ALL the sets!

Fly on the wall

I guess one of the positives of being in a very good school district is they really want the kids to thrive, and not just academically, but socially as well. My guess is most school districts want this for their students, but the reason we chose a small (highly rated) school district over our neighboring HUGE (highly rated) school district is the nurturing aspect of a smaller campus - everyone knows everyone!

In Ben's first month of school he didn't really want to be there. He never complained per se about having to go, but he didn't necessarily have the enthusiasm of, well, Emma! By the fourth week of school, his phys ed teacher reached out, then his preK teacher on the very same day - crazy - for this mama who knows her kid is perfect. ;)

We had him evaluated in all the areas and a psychologist observed him in the classroom ONE TIME only. (My special needs teacher friend said they should have observed him at least three times... all kids have good days and bad days.)

We finally met up for his formal meeting with the outside testing agency, his teacher, a special needs teacher, and the lady who runs the special services department at the school last Thursday. Guess what? Our little guy qualified for a "Seit" (pronounced see-it, not sure if I spelled it correctly) three times a week for a hour a day in the classroom. Her purpose will be to keep him focused, get him to reach out to classmates more socially, and to help him be more assertive should the situation arise where he needs to stand up for himself (for example, on the playground when he wants to play on the monkey bars but one of the girls says he cannot).

I'm not entirely sure I agree with the diagnosis but, heck, I'LL TAKE IT! If someone wants to help my kid focus more, make friends, and stand up for himself to bullies, I'm in! He also qualified for PT twice a week for 30 minutes. I am pretty sure he will be kicked out after the first session because the kid does NOT need PT. The therapist who evaluated him caught him on a very bad day.

So, does our school have money to burn? I don't know. Our good friends that we family playdate with on a regular basis think it is crazy he qualified. The dad is a high school psychologist and the mom is a special needs middle school teacher - my guess is they know their stuff. But they also agreed it won't hurt to have the seit in there - any extra set of hands around 16 four year olds is always a good thing!

She starts next week. I cannot wait to hear - from her AND Ben - the goings on in the classroom! Oh, to be a fly on the wall...

Back on track

We have settled into week two of school here in January. Emma's Math homework continues to fluster me on a daily basis. I contacted her teacher about her HATE of homework, about the drama, the crying, the "I can't do it, it's too hard!" The teacher assured me she understands everything she is learning in class and agreed it is probably more of an exhaustion thing than not understanding what to do. Now when she cries out the "too hard" crap, we stop, I grab her hand and ask God to help Emma get good at the hard things. When I did that again yesterday, she stopped crying and said, "Mom, you already asked that!" I told her I would need to keep asking until she GOT GOOD AT THE HARD THINGS.

We have had some pretty solid rain storms in the past week. The bad shot is a pic of the kids and Daddy being mesmerized by a down pour.

Not quite as good as a white noise machine!

We've been enjoying all the games the kids got for Christmas on a daily basis. I am concerned with Emma's observations about Santa Claus though. Now that she can read, labels like "Sold exclusively at ToysR*s" are causing confusion for her as well as the fact that Santa brought a lot of gifts that he clearly purchased at our mom and pop toy store, Lainie's Way... She has commented on both!

Though still has no doubt that Santa is the real deal.

Well, lookie here. Emma started indoor lacrosse this past week. The Sketchers sneakers she had were not holding up to the rigorous play, so we went to an actual sporting goods store and bought her a pair of proper athletic sneakers. Thanks to Abuelita's generous support over the years of shoeing up our kids, this is the first pair of real sneakers we have ever had to buy. She was so excited she wore them out of the store.

I'm the real deal now.

Em and I had a big shopping day together the other day - just the two of us. We hit up 7 stores making holiday exchanges / returns / using gift cards and she was a real trooper. When we got to VicSecret, she saw this pink chair and plopped down. "Hey, Mom, take my picture!"

Cozy cozy cozy

Ben has been cracking us up on a continual basis. The things that come out of his mouth at random times bring great joy. For example, in the car the other day he asked me a question, I answered the question, then at the top of his lungs he yells, "You are correct!" He is questioning his privates a lot lately too and it's cute, "Hey, Mom, why is my penis frozen?" (He was cold, his testicles were shriveled up... ha!) "Hey, Mom, why won't it stay down?" (I'll let you figure that one out...)  Here he is trying to juice a lime for me. Wow, my kitchen looks a cluttered mess in this pic. Doesn't it make you feel good about your own homes??

Look, Mom, I'm doing it!

Ever since the "Let it Go" song from the movie Frozen has come into our lives, these kids love to sing and dance to it. They entertain not only daddy and I, but all our dolls, too. Today after school we were playing outside and Ben was "singing" it full voice. Seriously, I could see all the way down his throat! If ever I need to check his tonsils in the future I will simply ask him to perform this song for us.

a captive audience

We continue to take advantage of the Maritime Explorium in our village on the weekends in the afternoon. This is another pic of Ben playing in the rice boat - these kids cannot get enough!

And neither can the little blond boy apparently, he is ALWAYS there in that spot when we go!

home, schveet home

I landed at JFK at 6:48am. It was cold. I did not have a jacket. Oh, wait, let me clarify cold - 10 degrees with a wind chill factor that felt like - 7 degrees. It was the bitterest of owie immediate frostbite fingers I have encountered in many decades (surely had something to do with the NO JACKET bad decision I made...).

I caught the air train from the united terminal to what I THOUGHT was the connecting train to Jamaica (not the warm Jamaica - the NY Jamaica which equals -7 with windchill factored in...). Turns out, in my red-eye flight sleepiness I went too far and had to catch a return train back two stops which led me to MISS the ultimate LIRR (long island railroad) train I was hoping for that would have gotten me home in a timely fashion. Did I mention when you miss a train and it -7 and you aren't wearing a jacket because you didn't want to have to haul one around CA where it was 80+ degrees, you get bone chilled-ed-ed cold and almost just almost wish you had bit the bullet and drove yourself to JFK like you normally do and parked in long term parking like you normally do but didn't do because you were going to be gone for 10 days which costs like a semester of college somewhere like ND?

Anywhooo, I made it back by train (which once I got on the LIRR was quite pleasant and WARM) to PJS where I was met by my minivan chariot, my handsome prince behind the wheel and my sweet male offspring in his car seat behind me. The entire ride home, Ben was giddy - GIDDY - with love love love and appreciation that I "came back" (I always do, as he reminded me). When we entered the penthouse the kid jumped in my lap snuggled into the comfy couch where we spent the next 20 minutes hugging and snuggling and reading books and chatting before he needed to get ready for school. Pure awesomeness, I tell ya.

Fast forward 3 hours. I meet Em at the bus stop at the end of the school day. She hops of the bus, sees me and immediately asks, "Can my friends come over for a playdate?" No, MOM, YOU ARE HOME!! MOM, I MISSED YOU SO MUCH... our social butterfly! Once we got into the penthouse, the mood shifted and we snuggled on the couch and caught up on our 10 days apart. It was awesome and it 'completed me' ( I mean made me feel so much better about being away for so long...).

But here's the real deal. We are BLESSED. Blessed to have a Gramma Lou who can - with enough advance notice - take time off work to be our kiddos caretaker. We are blessed with an Aunt Lisa and her GOOD hearted teenage kids who have never hesitated to love on and play with E&B. Without them, we would never be able to achieve all the goals we have so far for our family and our business. Sprinkle in a little Abuelita-love and KABAM! we are the perfect family unit.

Blessed, I tell ya. B L E S S E D...

If u are having withdrawal pics.

My handsome hubby putting together Em's bike on Christmas Eve.

Me at age 24, I mean 42!! (with exceptional lighting / my good side / throw in a little black and white) HA!

This pic encapsulates all the GOODNESS that is our BEN. I cannot love him any more than I do.

My amazeballs little big girl. Moxie x12 / sweetness / old soul / world's biggest challenge... I love you, Emma B.

Our kickarse neighbors - photo by me - and it is pure perfection so I had to post the JOY it gives me to hang with these kiddos.

The sisters and their husbands. Wow, are those boys lucky to have won our hearts! Hmmmm, or maybe just maybe, it is the other way around.

On the road......still!

I cannot remember the last time I blogged. It surely was way back in 2013.

I am in LA.  I have not snuggled my babes in 9 days. I am going through withdrawals. I travel a lot and I do love it, but I have not been away from them this long before and it's just weird. I miss my Benny "I love you, mom!"s. And the Emma toothless smile as she crawls up next to me on the comfy sofa and reads me a book.

I am hoping and praying that JFK stays open for the next 15 hours...