Alright, Alright Already!

Get off my back!
I'm kidding of, course. This is for all my friends who keep asking me to post the pix from Utah. Allow me to clarify. For all my family and friends who won't blog, don't comment and use my blog to try to keep up with my life because every time they call me am in the throws of a crisis with 3 very loud children competing for my attention by screaming and crying and whining and tugging at my clothes and my extremities (to include nipples, which seem to be Emma's favorite thing to grab and hang onto these days).


Anyway, I love that you all want to share in my life and are so interested the time we spent with our "other family".

So here they are - a gazillion pix from our trip.

The babies had their own kind of fun...
going through security at the airport


playing with fake celery

The Discovery Museum and The Sesame Street Body Exhibit were so much fun

The indoor amusement park was awesome!



Sleep was running theme for the kids - they were exhausted every night when we got back to the hotel


We went sledding on a great hill and the girls were VERY brave

Happy Birthday Mom!

Today Marge would have been 78.
It's the tragic tale of a life lost way too soon. She has been gone for 9 years and the time has flown. While she's been gone, so many things have happened in my life; so many things I wish we could have shared, so many things she should have been here for, so many things she would have been so proud of.
I know she's looking down on all of us and that her spirit is all around us - keeping us safe and making us feel loved every single day.

I love you, Mom. And I miss you. Happy Birthday.

The Air Out There

We're home - and what a week it was! I left my camera in Utah, so I have no pix to post, but you can get an idea from Roleplayingwithkids of how much fun we had. And thanks to K and J and the kids for their hospitality and all the good times.

There MUST have been something in the Utah air. We got home late Tuesday afternoon, and because of the 2 hour time difference and the fact that all the kids slept on the plane, I thought it might be a later night than usual. But, the Gods were watching over us. The babes were in bed at 6:30 and OG asleep by 7:30. We retired shortly after at 9PM.

Lord, if I have ever done anything good in my life, let them sleep until at least 6 am - PLEEEEEEEEZ!

They slept until about 8 - not bad. Me - very grateful.

Bedtime was back to normal - babes at 7, OG at 8.

Valentine's Morning - and they all knew it. Happy Valentine's Day Mama!

6AM - Cindy decides to work from home - gives babies bottles, calls in, comes back to bed.

8:34 AM - eyes open. silence. hmmmmmm. lie there a few moments, enjoying peace and quiet.
Brush teeth, wash face, go downstairs, make coffee, look for kids. house empty.

9AM - Go into Cindy's office, no kids there. hmmmmmm.
Could it be? Are they still alseep?

9:05 - Emma wakes - bring her down, eats breakfast.
9:15 - Olivia wakes - comes down, eats breakfast.
9:30 - Jake wakes - bring him down, eats breakfast.
We all sit at the table together for another 15 minutes and I am overwhelmed with how lucky I am - what a great life this is.
until...
life gets crazy out of hand in late afternoon.
House was clean, now a mess.
Babies were happy - now screaming.
Olivia was occupied - now bored.
I need to get in the shower and get ready for my romantic dinner out with my girl - she'll be here at 6:15 and I better be ready.
She made reservations at "our place". We used to go there every V day, but haven't been there in 4 years and I am so excited.
Babies won't take afternoon nap because they woke late, took late nap. Can you say C-R-A-N-K-Y! But I need a shower. So I put them in their cribs - screaming (BAD MAMA!), so I could shower and not worry that they are in the danger they always seem to find. I felt so guilty, but I needed to unstink myself, so...
I get out of shower, bring them in my room, at which point they are crawling all over the place, hanging on my legs, pulling on me while I try to prettify.

Cin gets home 45 minutes late, beeps (my father would have shot any date that blew the horn for me in the driveway), I run out and get in car and we're off.
Romantic dinner.
Try to imagine it...
appies
curried butternut squash soup
salmon tartare with shaved pickled onions and jalapeno cream sauce

entrees
rack of lamb, whipped potatoes, green beans and charred fresh sundried tomatoes
filet mignon with scalloped potatoes (caused involuntary orgasm upon entering mouth)

desserts
creme brulee (and I only stole 1 bite, J)
molten chocolate cake w/drizzled raspberry sauce and creme fresh

Could anything top this night?
YES!
Babes wake at 4:30 - get bottle. Back to sleep - UNTIL 10:30!
I'm thinking this will never happen again, but happy for today.

No Time for Words

I'm too busy packing, but I had to clear my memory card so I can take LOADS of pictures in UTAH!
I leave you with these, the last shots I will have taken of my darlings in NJ.
Maybe not - I'll probably whip it out at the airport.

OY! All this packing is giving me a headache.

"Let's get physical, physical. I wanna get physica-a-al.
Let's get ino physical. Lemme hear your body rock".

Everyone pitched in to help clean up after dinner.

All that work made Jake very hungry, so he stole Emma's bottle before retiring for the evening.

Countdown

2 days, 7 hours til we leave for Utah. Yes, we are leaving the house at 5:30 AM Wed. so we have time to get to the airport, park, drag the children through security, have breakfast, tire them out and board for a 7AM flight to Utah, where all my children will immediately fall asleep and stay that way for 5 hours til we land. Are you there, God, it's me, Elyse. Did you get all that?

Today we laundered every piece of clothing in the house, down to the last little dirty sock. In fact, we are sitting here naked watching the Superbowl as our beloved Giants have just given up a touchdown and are down 14-10 with under 3 minutes left in the game . AAAAAGGGHHHHH!

OK, pause for a moment. We just saw the most disgusting commercial. The one where a big, dirty ole tow truck driver attaches jumper cables to his nipples to charge the car battery for a woman whose car is dead. GROSS!


All the kids' clothes are packed. The electronics are charged. Olivia has 2 new movies to watch on the plane, luggage tags are filled out, our clothes are laid out and ready for placement in suitcase.

So we are almost ready for our trip - logistically speaking. I am not ready, however, for all the anxiety I will undoubtedly feel about how many dirty looks we will get and about whether I will have the ability to ignore them and not cause a scene on the plane and have us all kicked off. I WILL be refilling my Xan.ax prescription before we leave.

WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! Giants made an amazing play!

OMG - touchdown! SCORE! 17-14. PLEEEEZ hold on, Big Blue, pleeeeeeeeeez!

Gotta go, having a heart attack. Update tomorrow - maybe.

Too excited. Can't wait to go to Utah. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!