Happy Thanksgiving

Stood in line for a while to get Ares his birthday gift. It's not until the end of March, but it was an $88 powerwheel. He accidently saw it already hiddin in a basement closet. All he kept saying was 'Jeep - Jeep - Jeep' I'm sure he forgot about it as soon as I closed the door.


I feel so blessed. I have the greatest family ever. My husband is very loving and my son is SO MUCH fun! I am really looking forward to Christmas this year too, even though we'll have virtually no decorations up, due to the house being on the market (still). Short post this time, I love my family, I love my friends, and I'm grateful that we all have jobs. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

What - A - Weekend

My husband threw a 30th birthday party for me this weekend at Dave and Busters. I had a great time, and 40+ friends and family showed up. (Adam showed up with a walker for me, he's so thoughtful. hahaha) He did get my a new purse though. My Burberry had an ink stain on it that soaked through from the inside, so he got me a new one. I was SOO shocked, and I love it SOOO much! This one came with a change purse that I double as a clutch, because it's big enough for makeup, a phone, and credit cards. Yay! It cost about 2 car payments, so I owe Adam a really nice Christmas gift. Good thing I already got it =)

Sarah made a cake for me. I LOVE Oreos, so she made an Oreo cake with Oreo filling too. YUM!! She also designed it to look like my favorite Author's book. All with a little baby in the house. Thanks Smee, it was great!

Ares went with us to D&B, he seemed to have had a great time, but around 9:30, you could tell he got tired, so Grandma and Grandpa (who came up from Cinci) took him home. Overall, it was a blast, and thanks for everyone for coming to say hi.

Slightly blurry. Taken w/ 'Aunt Kassi's' cell phone. This just proves that he likes her more than me.

He won't let me build anything higher than 4" before he knocks it all down. *grin*

Happy Halloween!

I know I have said this before, but I absolutely LOVE this age! Ares was SOO much fun this past weekend!

Thursday: We took him to "trunk or treat" at Walmart in Streetsboro. Roughly 600 kids and parents stand in line for a half an hour to get into a blocked off part of the parking lot, and get candy from local stores, politicians, churches and schools, that are handing candy out from the "trunks" of cars. Each group gets one vehicle to decorate and pass out candy from. Ares was amazing. He stood in line (or chased leaves) in the cold, cold weather, and then said 'thank you' to about 50 different groups handing candy/stickers etc. He's an amazing kid.

Saturday we had a party to go to. He stayed awake until 10PM, and was SO GOOD the entire time. He danced, played with the adults, was just a good kid.

Sunday, there was nothing cuter than seeing this 1 1/2 year old running down the sidewalk (like the big kids) to get candy. Of course, his 'running' is the same speed as walking, but he was adorable. He'd say 'eat' (because Trick or Treat was too hard) and then 'thank you' when he was given something (of course, each time I had to say 'Ares, say '....' ) but he was still great.

The last house had suckers - the only candy he's ever eaten before. His eyes got huge, he gently picked a single stick out and instead of the tiny pitched and short syllabic "thank you" he went "thaaaank youuuuu". And very carefully put it into his bag. When he found out that I actually let him eat a sucker here and there (he's had 2) they said he needed another one, so he was given a second, which he VERY CAREFULLY put into the little opening in his bag. He. Was Estatic. I think by the time he started up their sidewalk, got to the house, put the sucker in his bag, and got back to the sidewalk, it was about 5 minutes, lol. Not a fast process.

He was adorable, I love him, and I love this age! Ballpark here is in a 'hot dog bun'. He kept it on all night on Thursday (about 2 hours) and about an hour on Sunday. lol I bet it felt weird to walk in. Ares refused to hold the small orange pumpkin bucket I gave him, but he stole the purple felt bag that was on one of my mom's pumpkin kids' arms. Who cares, he carried around his own treats the whole time!

My Pumpkin

Adam helped me here. But I did a lot of it myself too!

Peanuts - Oh man!!

So for the past 9 months, I've been a bad mother. I have allowed my child to eat peanuts, have PB&J sandwiches, and (most recently) eat peanut M&M's. He has never had a problem - EVER before. So of course, I was absolutely shocked on Saturday morning when Ares had peanut butter on a whole grain waffle and his forehead and around his eyes, and feet got a terrible itchy rash. His eyes swelled up and he looked awful.

Of course, no children's benadryl at my house, because we've never needed it. I'm sure I was a sight when I ran into Target in sweatpants, a long sleeve shirt that didn't match, and a hat to cover my unbrushed hair at 9:30 in the morning. Luckily, the benadryl worked after just 2 minutes of him taking it. We gave him whole grained waffles yesterday, just to see if it was the waffle or the peanut butter, and he was perfectly fine. I guess our kid is allergic to PB. Wonderful. We're going to be that family. Let's hope he grows out of it like I grew out of my chocolate allergy... of course, that took until high school!!

BOO!! - At the Zoo

This is Adam's shadow.

Everyone had told us (after we bought tickets) that Boo at the Zoo was terrible. I'm so glad that I had already gotten tickets, otherwise I wouldn't have bought them, and we had a GREAT time! It's definitely meant for younger kids. We sat through a live animal show, that was about 10 minutes long (perfect for kids' attention span) and walked around the zoo and looked at animals, listened to music and just had a great time.

Ares had his first sucker. He loved it. It was gross, he had saliva/candy dripping off of his elbow

The live animal show was a pirate theme. Perfect for us, a family who dressed up as pirates! Ares loved it! It made a perfect backdrop for a family photo.

Adam carved a pumpkin this morning. He did a great job. I picked out the most disgusting gourde I could find. It had warts all over it. It makes a great nose!

Catch up time

Two weeks ago, Mon-Tues-Wed in Atlanta, Thurs in Cleveland, Friday flew to Ft.Lauderdale and back to Cleveland in one day (and they weren't non-stop flights to Ft Lauderdale or back) I will never do that again. After that, we enjoyed a very fun family weekend at the pumpkin patch.

Ares had a great time playing on the big kid's tree house and slide. It was by far the fastest slide I'd ever seen, and even 5 year olds were having their parents catch them at the bottom. "Mo! Mo! Mo!" He must have gone down the slide 10 times.

Under the tree house and slide was an enclosed area that you could only get in and out from the tube you see above. Ares was with one of our friends' 4 and 10 year old who took care of him really well. He absolutely LOVED playing with them, and they adored him. Of course, later that evening, we found Ares at the top of a swing set that he climbed up the ladder himself. When asked how he got all the way up there, the 4 year old says "I showed him". He was so proud, but it kind of scared me that he even tried to go up a ladder. Luckily, Ares won't try anything unless he already knows he can do it. But he could have still slipped through the bars, oh well, he's all BOY!

The next week, Monday and half of Tuesday I was in Tampa, Tuesday night I was in Philly, and Wednesday I was in New Jersey, and then got to fly home. I was SOOOO happy to be home. We drove to Cinci on Friday and came home on Sunday. Ares is NOT a good traveler anymore. In fact, it was pretty miserable when he wasn't sleeping. Saturday morning we went to the Pumpkin Festival in Harrison.

Ares was a fan of the alpaca's. He's scared to death of horses, but he would go as far as putting his finger on the nose of the alpaca and say "nooooose". Crazy kid, just like he pointed to one of the scary monsters in the Halloween store that was moving at him, and says "teeeeth" while pointing in the monster's mouth.

We met one of my sorority sisters and her family at the festival. Her son Jack is only 3 weeks older than Ares is. It seems like the two of them had a good time. Ares enjoyed himself, but took a nice hour or so nap in his wagon once Jack, Michelle and Randy left.

His 1 hour nap at the Festival gave Ares PLENTY of time to get ready and excited for a giant 6' pile of leaves. He had a great time, so long as his feet were on something solid. (Usually Grandma, Mommy, or Grandpa). We probably spent an hour in the leaves altogether. It was a really good time. I hadn't played in leaves in YEARS. Being a mom really does have some perks!

What did you say?!?

I was emptying the dishwasher at my mom's house, and I heard the word "wellow" come out of my son's mouth. I had never heard him say 'yellow' before, he'll say blue, green, red, but never yellow. So I turn around, and he's pointing to the only thing left in the dishwasher - a yellow measuring cup. My kid knows his colors. Little did I realize, he knows green and blue too. Crazy!

He loves to say 'touchdown'. Each, and EVERY time he sees a football, or a football field on TV or in person A fun trip to BW3's, on a Friday night. 25+ TVs, more than half talking about football. Needless to say, he couldn't eat because each time he turned his head, he saw something football and had to throw up his arms and say "touchdown!" he entertained all that were around us.

Most odd word of the week - 'ketchup'. He also knows rainbow and airplane. I think my favorite thing is when he sees a motorcycle, he says "cycle " and then makes a deep gurgling sound that a harley makes while bending his wrist like he's accelerating on a real bike. I'm not sure where he got that from, none of us have a motorcycle, except a neighbor friend, haha.

First night of many these weeks away from home. i'm in Atlanta, no Sprint cell phone service (probably because AT&T is headquartered here) and it's only 50 degrees. I'm cold, i can get this weather back home, give me something i like. I cursed the city on facebook: may this city never have any sports teams better than .500!