3 Years 7 Months 2 weeks and 1 day

Ares' favorite things out of his mouth:

Color:  Blue - only blue
Movie:  Teenage Mutant 'Inja' Turtles  (Aladdin is the movie he always requests in the car.)
Ninja Turtle: Mikey
Car: truck
Song: Circus Afro (from Madagascar 3), Rebels of the Sacred Heart (Flogging Molly) and Never Ever (Taylor Swift) (He always sings Baby Balooga though).
Continent:  Norf AmeriCAH Souf AmeriCAH  (as if it's one)
Favorite TV Show: 'Inja' Turtles
Favorite Superhero:  Superman and The (insert deep voice) Incredible Hulk
Favorite Book: Big Bad Wolf book (The True Story of the Three Little Pigs)
Favorite Food: Pizza, Spisghetti

Lobster Petting

Slightly out of order - oh well. If my OCD can handle it, then you should be able to as well.

We took Ares to Red Lobster on Friday.  Adam and I decided to use some gift cards we got for our anniversary, take Ares to a place he loves, and take advantage of the AYCE shrimp!

We started off with the Lobster pizza.  Ares had a piece, but when I showed him the piece of lobster on there, he gave me a horrified look and asked me if it was going to pinch him.  No, dude, it's a cube of meat, where are the pinchers?!  hahaha.  He downed his entire drink in 3 minutes flat - no refills buddy, sorry!

The salads came out, and my kid ate my croutons, and them my entire salad, onions, radishes and all with a vinagarette dressing. He usually only eats ranch. The waitress told him if he eats all of his dinner, she'll let him pet a lobster.  This kid ate ALL of his broccoli and ALL of his shrimp popcorn, and some of my shrimp!    Oh yeah, and since he ate so well, we ordered him an ice cream sundae - which he ate.  After the dinner, the kid went CRAZY at home.  CRAY-ZEE!  I'll try and get a video up. 

I wish I had a picture of him petting the lobster.  It was pretty cool. 

First Coat Done!!

I can see the light!  Well, last night after we stained the first coat I couldn't - I got a massive migraine.  We started around 8pm, and it took about an hour for the first coat.  Unfortunately, I then got a horrific headache and had to lay down (read: pass out).  I was even wearing a mask while staining!  Adam finished sanding (especially hard where the stain leaked from the bolts - oops) and we're ready for another coat tonight!  Wahoo!!!

I'm a Nice Person

So my absolutely wonderful husband took last week off to build me a table.  The table is together, waiting to be stained since Thursday, but Adam was tired of working on my project (no doubt) so he decided to work on his soon-to-be bar in our basement.  I'm a nice person, so I told him I thought it was a great idea.   It's going to be a long and big project, because he has champagne tastes and no Lowes or Home depot gift certificates left, so he decided to just start with tearing a wall down in the basement.  At least this will allow him to later pull up the carpeting (see, I told you, BIG project). 

He was excited.  Everything was going well. Until (hey, you had to have known there was an 'until' or 'but' coming next) until he plunged a nail 1/4" deep into the sole of his foot - through the shoe!  Pretty crazy.  At least he thought to put a glove over his foot to prevent the blood from dripping on my carpeting and tile throughout all three floors of my  house.  He had a Tetnus shot the year we were supposed to go to India, so he's up-to-date (thank goodness) but he's in PAIN!

Enough that he skipped his soccer game on Sunday morning, and after Trick or Treating Sunday night it was all swollen.  At least he can walk on it now, it was a little rough on Friday evening - especially when we were standing and waiting for a table at Red Lobster.

I should have not been a nice person and put my foot down and told him to stain that table!  (OK, I would never do that) but if I did, he'd have one less hole in his body.

Girl's Weekend 2012

Every year my mom, her sisters, my grandma and my female cousin meet my grandma's best friend (Aunt Jeannette), and her daughters for a weekend at a haunted bed and breakfast/hotel.  This year, my cousin Brent's new wife Emily and (cousin) Eric's girlfriend Kathlyn joined us too!   I only make it about every other year, because it seems I'm in Cincinnati often. 

13 women, shopping in thrift and antique stores (crazy) visiting a chocolate store (yes!) and having two different tables at the dinner theater (read: tomato thrown into another table's glass of water) was pretty crazy.  This is why I'm not surprised to see pictures posting of us ladies in our PJ's as we ran around the hotel looking for the haunted room and hallway.  Of course, we passed through the bar/nightclub in the hotel to do a little bit of dancing and take some pictures with whomever wanted to take pictures with us.

At least we got an extra hour of sleep Saturday night - whew!!


Last weekend we went bowling.  Ares loves bowling, but after the second game he says "Mom, my arm is all wore out."   He made it longer than the 6 year old!!  (Whom he ADORES!!!)

The Table

My mom and dad, Mario, Renata and Lukas came over today to help bring this table from the garage to our kitchen.  It took them no less than an hour to do it.  No kidding, they even had a flat dolly to get it from the garage to the back door, those stairs were awful though.   I'm so grateful for the help, although, we should have had one additional person. 

See all the pop in the corner of the desk?  We're always ready for a party, we just stocked up!

A HUGE thanks to my dad and Mario who helped bring this massive table in. 

Growing Up

Ares no longer asks for 'blue' or 'red' yogurt, he asks by flavor now. 

We let him watch the Avengers movie (Why? I'm not quite sure.) and he's now obsessed with the Hulk.  He loves the "Inja" Turtles, especially "Mikie" and runs around the house with nun chucks. 

He would rather watch Boy Meets World (a sitcom I grew up with) than Chuggington (a cartoon he watched all of the time). 

This morning, I closed the door between the bathroom and the bedroom because Adam was still sleeping.  I brushed my hair and teeth, put my contacts in and got dressed in there.  Ares came knocking on the door because he 'was worried' about me and he 'wanted to make sure' that I 'was OK' since I had been in there for so long. 

And don't forget, whenever there's something scary in a store (or at the circus) he tells me that 'it's only metal mommy, it's not real'.  Isn't it my job to make sure he's OK, that he's not scared?  Sheeesh, my baby is growing up.  I hope he stays this sweet. 

(But, in all actuality, he is still a three year old that throws a pouting tantrum if there are no more 'car-carts' at Giant Eagle.)

Circus

Dat Dat dadadada dat dat Circus Dat Dat dadadada dat dat Afro- Circus Afro Circus Afro polka dot polka dot polka dot MOVE IT!   (Ares' favorite song - from Madagascar 3).  OK, so his favorite song is really Taylor Swift's 'Never Ever', but this is the next best thing.

We took Ares to his first ever Circus!!  Who was more excited?  Mommy, Daddy or Ares???  A tie between Mommy and Daddy!  Ares was just excited to see Davis.   But of course, they fought the entire time - as usual!

We started the morning off at Bob Evans, where they fought over the straw colors, bacon and who was first at nearly everything.

The circus was fun too.  We went to Davis' cousins house to pick them up, and the four adults took the four boys to the Circus.    Ares didn't ask for a single piece of food, Adam and I bought him a $22(!!!) toy, which he LOVED!  Possibly more than the Circus itself.

This was Ares' favorite part, the dragon shot green fire out of it's mouth. 

Ares' second favorite part of the Circus.  8 motorcycles in that tiny ball. 

Ares' new toy in light. 

Ares toy lit up.  

Mommy's favorite part of the Circus - The ELEPHANTS!!

And because it's MY blog - more elephants!!  =)

The Start of a Table

Here's in progress pictures of Adam's work on our new dining room table.  This table is SO Massive it takes 4 grown men to move just the top.  Adam's took the week off to work on this.   We still need to get it up on the stand and stained, (men need to help with that) and then once it's stained and poly'd then it needs to get into the house (men needed to help with that too).  

Rain Rain Rain Rain Rain Rai....

One would think, being in Cleveland, that we would be used to all of this rain.  I mean, we have fewer sunny days than Seattle, for crying out loud.  Last post was after I had an entire 80* beautiful day off last Thursday.  Friday started the low pressure system and rain.  Usually our weather goes West to East (duh), but with Hurricane Sandy, the hurricane caused some massive wind storms (many people in my office lost roofs, trees, furniture, etc) that kept this low pressure system (RAIN) over us for many days.  It hasn't stopped raining but for a half hour in the last. 5.5 days.  Halloween was pushed off another week in any city that didn't do it in the rain on Sunday, and our rain boots have gotten a lot of wear.  I'm SICK. OF. THE. RAIN!  I'm not even going to mention poor little Ballpark.  We bundle him up in a rain jacket, but we still have to endure pushing him out the door, closing it behind him, and watching him give us the sad puppy dog eyes as he begs us to open the door up before he does his duty.  Sorry buddy, just pee and we'll let you inside again.

At least it stopped raining for about an hour Friday night, so we participated in the Trunk or Treat in Streetsboro.  His buddy Lukas met up with us.



On the plus side?!  Adam is building me us me a dining room table.  I am beyond psyched!  I'll try and post pictures soon, along with pictures of the circus that I got.  I can't believe with all of the rain we've had, that I haven't even been blogging much!  Sorry everyone!