Spring!

Yay!! It's spring! Look what I found in my yard today!

and then like 5 minutes later Christina came in with them in a basket...why?!

New York and Katie!

This weekend I went into New York City to see my parents and Katie, Katie's choir is here for the week so it was fun to be able to see her, haven't seen her since Thanksgiving time. Here's a picture of me and my mom waiting for the subway.

My parents, Katie and I went and saw the Broadway South Pacific, it was really good!

All 4 of us waiting for the subway

This is the view I had when I woke up, nice huh?

Here's my cool dad wearing my sunglasses I bought on canal street, I of course would buy bright orange sunglasses!

Katie's choir sang at Carnegie Hall on Friday night, we had really cool seats in the balcony, here's my view :)

We even had a door to our balcony seats! I was afraid that I was going to end up like Abraham Lincoln though, but don't worry, the doors lock on the outside, I was safe!

Look I zoomed in really far and there's Katie getting ready to sing!

Here's what it really looked like! Katie's the 6th person from the left on the top.

Here's what a standing ovation looks like! They really were great!

Katie's concert

Look at the third line, that's Mesa High's choirs!

There's Carnegie Hall

Cleaning out the fridge...

One of the joys of your power going out for two and a half days... cleaning out the fridge. Almost everything was thrown away, this is just part of what we recycled...

The only thing that survived in the freezer, girl scout cookies :)

Today the kiddos didn't have school because of the storm on Saturday and the schools still don't have power or something like that. But I usually babysit Luke on Tuesdays so we kind of combined it for a bit :) I had three babysitters helping me out! We went for an hour so that Luke's mom could run a few errands. Here's Connor, Christina, and our friend Jacqueline playing with Luke. This is the look Luke gave me when I set him on the floor next to these guys, it means, "You've got to be kidding me..."



But then he got used to it and had fun!



Luke's favorite toy is this car one, the wheel turns, the horn beeps, lights flash, it talks... he loves it... well Connor LOVES cars and wherever there is a wheel you will find him... haha he ended up stealing the toy from a baby!

Well Luke got tired of playing on the ground so we thought we'd see how good he was at following the big kids around, here the kids would go to different parts of the room and try to get Luke to follow, it was so cute!

I need light!!!

When you don't have power you really, really miss it! Today my dad helped Roz get a generator and so we had cords going everywhere.

We started a fire in here, plugged in a space heater and a lamp and it actually made part of the house liveable! We had dinner in here and played games, so nice to be semi normal! So messy when it's the only room you can live in.

The day after...

Well I woke up this morning and this is what I found around my neighborhood!

Driving around this is what you see on the side of the roads as they try to clean up the mess!

Rain, rain go away!

Tonight there was a huge storm in the Northeast. It was crazy! Well my parents where flying into a small airport about a half an hour away and me and the kids were so excited to go get them. Until the day of the storm when it's raining and the wind is blowing like crazy! Then at about 5pm the power goes out... then we're not so excited! Well we get in the car and we start driving to the airport, problem is we can't get out of our neighborhood! The streets were dark from having lost power and several blocks down we see why, there's a power pole that is just hanging right above the road. Oh great! So we turn and start going down another street, but two seconds later we see trees and poles down in that street too... FREAKY! Remember that it's still raining and the wind is still blowing! Ok so this happens a couple more times before we finally get out on a main road, the only way I actually got to a main road is because of my gps and because it kept changing when I didn't follow it and kept making u-turns! I love my gps! So we get on the Merritt Parkway and drive for a couple minutes and then traffic stops, oh no how long is this going to take? Oh good we only sat there for like 10 mins. Plus I'm almost on empty so I better fill up on gas at the gas station that's on the Merritt. But driving past the gas station it's pitch dark...woops shouldn't have waited til the last moment on that one, maybe I'll get some gas after I pick up my parents. Then about two miles later traffic stops again and this time it doesn't move for more than an hour! That's right! I've got 3 kids who haven't had dinner yet stuck in traffic. They're hungry, thirsty, tired, and pretty soon they're going to realize they have to go to the bathroom! Plus, my gas light just turned on, I'm out of gas...how long am I going to sit here?! While we're sitting in traffic I get a text from my dad that the plane couldn't land in White Plains and that the pilot is going to try to land at Laguardia and if it can't it will go back to where their layover was in Philidelphia, oh no, I AM NOT DRIVING TO LAGUARDIA! I can't even get 5 minutes away from my house! (here's the only smile Connor could muster up after sitting in traffic for at least an hour, Caroline's back there drawing on the windows she's so bored)

finally traffic starts moving and we just booked it off the first exit we could! I needed to find gasoline and a bathroom pronto or there would be prices to pay! On one side of the parkway it was dark, the other side's businesses had light... we went that way! Finally we got gas and stopped at Burger King so that my poor STARVING children wouldn't die! See don't they just look so happy to be fed?

Well my parent's flight ended up landing in Laguardia. My parents then caught a bus from the airport to Grand Central and then at Grand Central they caught a train up to Connecticut. So after Burger King we headed to the train station, their train wouldn't be there for an hour, but I didn't want to try to get home and then have to put the kids back in the car so that I could go pick them up at 11:30pm, so we just went straight there and the kids slept in the car while I read. Finally my parents came in and after dropping them off at their hotel which had power I went home to my home that was dark and cold. But instead of taking 5 mins to get home it took me 25 mins looking for a way to get home. I almost even called Roz to see how she got home because every way I was going was blocked by trees and power poles! It was sooo insane! Tonight was an adventure, one that I don't need to re-live ever ever again! Pictures to come!

Happy Birthday Christina!!!

Today Christina turned 6 years old! She's getting so big! Here are some pictures from the festivities!

Opening Presents!

the cake, made and decorated by her amazing nanny, aka me!

Make a wish!

Yummy!

A day in my life...

Look what I made today :) want some? Too bad! Christina's birthday is tomorrow so I made cupcakes for her class and cake for the fam, yum!

So this is something normal you would see around here, I seem to always have my computer plugged in in the kitchen, I'm either talking on skype to Becca as I clean or listening to music on pandora...

A normal question around here is "What's after water?" which means after I drink this cup of water what do I get? Lately the answer has been "more water" :)

Look at these cute faces! Love them!

Musical Revue

Tonight the kids and I went and saw a musical revue that Roz was in. It was a Gershwin Revue and Roz did great!

during the intermission Caroline started pulling stuff out of her purse and all of the sudden she pulled out this huge mirror... what the heck Mary Poppins!

She was starting to get quite the pile of stuff...

why do you have those in your purse?

This is how much Christina loved her mom's play... she was so tired and grumpy the whole time! I had three kids using me for a pillow, let's just say I didn't get much out of the play.

Roz with the girls after her play

...and here's where Connor was at the end of the show :) I had all the kids trying to sleep on me during the show because it was kind of long so finally I just laid my coat on the floor and had Connor lay on it, he was asleep in seconds!