Family

I got this from a friend of mine and figured it was a good reminder. I know I need one everyonce in a while.

F A M I L Y
I ran into a stranger as he passed by,
"Oh excuse me please" was my reply.

He said, "Please excuse me too;
I wasn't watching for you."

We were very polite, this stranger and I.
We went on our way and we said goodbye.

But at home a different story is told,
How we treat our loved ones, young and old.

Later that day, cooking the evening meal,
My son stood beside me very still.

When I turned, I nearly knocked him down.
"Move out of the way," I said with a frown.

He walked away, his little heart broken.
I didn't realize how harshly I'd spoken.
While I lay awake in bed,
God's still small voice came to me and said,

"While dealing with a stranger,
common courtesy you use,
but the family you love, you seem to abuse.

Go and look on the kitchen floor,
You'll find some flowers there by the door.

Those are the flowers he brought for you.
He picked them himself: pink, yellow and blue.

He stood very quietly not to spoil the surprise,
you never saw the tears that filled his little eyes."

By this time, I felt very small,
And now my tears began to fall.

I quietly went and knelt by his bed;
"Wake up, little one, wake up," I said.

"Are these the flowers you picked for me?"
He smiled, "I found 'em, out by the tree.

I picked 'em because they're pretty like you.
I knew you'd like 'em, especially the blue."

I said, "Son, I'm very sorry for the way I acted today;
I shouldn't have yelled at you that way."
He said, "Oh, Mom, that's okay.
I love you anyway."

I said, "Son, I love you too,
and I do like the flowers, especially the blue."

FAMILY
Are you aware that if we died tomorrow, the company
that we are working for could easily replace us in
a matter of days.
But the family we left behind will feel the loss
for the rest of their lives.
And come to think of it, we pour ourselves more
into work than into our own family,
an unwise investment indeed,
don't you think?
So what is behind the story?

Do you know what the word FAMILY means?
FAMILY = (F)ATHER (A)ND (M)OTHER (I) (L)OVE (Y)OU

So this week started with a bang literally. I get a call Monday morning at 7:00 AM. "Hi Honey, I totaled your car." Ken is fine and I'm really not mad, slightly annoyed and I may be mad once our insurance premium goes up, because he's had three speeding tickets this year as well. The whole reason he had my car is because it's had a huge dent in the driver side door for over a year now. My sister backed her minivan into it when I was up visiting the summer before last. So last spring when Ken found out about all the travel he'd be doing this year we decided it was best he take my car and park it in airport parking becuase another dent or scratch was not going to make a difference in how much we'd get as a trade in from it. Where as the Odyssey is only a year old and we want to keep it running a good long while.

He was heading into the toll booths at the Ft McHenry Tunnel and the guy in front of him stopped short. It was a Ford truck so while the entire front end of my car crumpled the truck only had a tiny scratch. Insurance covers a rental for ten days. And Ken has been car shopping, we're going with another GM car mostly because we have points on our GM car just sitting there and we figure we can get a really good deal on an '07 at this point. He's trying to decide between a Pontiac G6 and the Malibu Maxx. He likes the Maxx because of the hatchback which is good for him getting camera equipment in and out of the car and he like the G6 because it has a V-6 and really smooth ride. We can get the better deal on the Maxx right now, so he's leaning towards that but being a Libra that could change tomorrow. It will go back and forth like this until crunch time, the end of next week.

They say that around one a child's appetite decreases but damn Quin can still put away some food. The other night he had a couple pieces of Alex's chicken. A fifth of my pork chop, some green beans and an entire small sweet potato, it was about an inch and a half in diameter and between 4 and 5 inches long. Alex never ate a lot to begin with so it did worry me a bit when he was basically down to one meal a day between the ages of 12 months and 30 months. He's better now but Quin still out eats him. He's definately going to be the big little brother.

Quin is also at that hard age where he's goiong down to one nap. So I've been trying to push his morning nap back but I can only do that so much. Three days a week I have to pick Alex up at preschool at 1pm. So putting him down later than 11am isn't an option at the moment. And he's just too cranky for words to let him go until after we get back from getting Alex. I'm seriously going to think about letting Alex stay all day at school those three days come spring.

We've had two and a half days of rain. I'm sure we've made a small dent in the drought conditions at this point. Looks like we can expect more tomorrow. So I need to figure out what to do with two kids for the day if I don't want to be trapped in the house with them by myself all day. At least today was Ken's normal friday off, so we could trade through out the day. Hmmm maybe that's why I woke with a migraine this morning. I know if you're trying to get pregnant you're not supposed to use advil but extra strength tylenol does nothing for my migraine but I figure it's early enough in this cycle it won't matter. It's better than being in pain all day.

okay that all that's new for right now.

photos and photos

I'm starting off today with a couple of my favorite recent pictures of the boys
this first one just shows the difference in they're personalities so well

the second one I like because of Quin's smile

Quin has the most soulful puppy dog eyes, I know it's kind of sad I'm comparing my son to a dog but that's what they remind me of sometimes.

So I had my day off from the kids yesterday, Ken told me the night before he was dreading this day alone with the boys. But damn, it I've earned this at least twice a month since March he's been gone for a good portion of the week. That means no break for me, I'm on 24-7. When he's home at least, I can leave the house for a few hours childless. So we figured out something he could do with the kids on a rainy day. They went to the B&O museum.
When I got home last night the boys had just been settled into bed, so I snuck in and gave kisses. Ken said Alex had the time of his life. You could see the happy energy radiating from him. We're planning another trip there because ken didn't realize there were more exhibits in the other buildings not just in the main one. He said Alex had to name all the trains after Thomas and Friends characters. :roflol:
And Quin pulled one of my childhood tricks last night while Ken was making dinner. He got a hold of the box of wipes we keep next to my desk for diaper changes. Not only did he get it open he started pulling out the wipes. Ken said he had emptied a practically new package half way. The wipes were everywhere filled the whole center section of the family room. Quin was sitting in the biggest pile of them, so of course his pants were wet. I could have been worse he could have done what I actually did as a toddler. I got a hold of a box of tissues and started shredding them, the mess was all over the living room.
Yesterday was lovely and a little weird. I left around 7:30 am got to NY about three hours later. Though it took me another half hour to get to the Javitz center and then find parking. The Photo Expo is always overwhelming and I haven't been to one in about 4 years. My priority this year was to get info from the different album companies primarily for print and bind services on the coffee table style albums. I stayed away from the camera/lens vendors because that'll just make me want something we can't afford right now. Though nikon has a new super wide lens 18mm/3.5-55mm5.6 for about $120. it gets decent reviews especially as been light and versitile enough for when you need to be on the move.

I started winding down around 1 and went to get my car. It started pouring rain as I came out of the lincoln tunnel. So i got to Dianne's around 1:30. Ari is adorable, I just love his smile. He was showing off climbing on one of his toys so he could reach the lights. I even got a kiss as he left with his grandmother for the afternoon. Nilsa fell asleep soon after I started holding her. She's a noisy sleeper reminded me a bit of Alex. Always moving in her sleep too. Of course the fact that I was stroking her little foot periodically didn't help I'm sure. I really need to read the manual for my flash, I want to be able to control the light out put more. Even boucing the light was blowing out some of the pictures I took. I didn't do too badly on the hand held available light shots, though the ones that went down to a really slow shutter speed have camera movement in them.

I left around 4:30 and stopped to get something to eat outside of Trenton. I think that's what helped me miss the worst of the traffic. Though there was a back up around the Christiana Mall exit in DE.
I think I'm coming down with something. Around noon I was feeling a bit feverish and now it hurts to swallow, things must be a bit swollen because my ear hurts too. Wonderful, trying to decide which will help more the echinacea or the chamomile tea will help more.

oh Alex has found a way to help me fold clothes. He climbs into the dryer and fetches the clothes at the back them hands them to me to fold.:roflol:

So I found these photos last spring when I was visiting my dad. My grandmother is the girl at the very front of the group photo. I think from that you can figure out who she is in the others. Anyway I see these and I keep wondering what happened to that girl that she became the cold, controlling woman I knew. One who cut herself off from all her family except her most immediate family and did what ever she could to keep her parents, husband, and sons from spending time with them as well.

Growing up I saw italian families on tv and until I was a teen I thought that was exaggeration. Everyone getting together on weekends, aunts and uncles chatting, kids running around lots of food and talking, always talking. becuase my italian family was nothing like that. The only family I ever saw were my great grandparents, the sweetest most loving people I've known, my grandparents and my uncles. Except for occasionally my grandfather would sneak us out while my grandmother was at work and take us over to his brother's house. When ever we were there it was like the families I saw on tv.

Something happened in the early fifties. Not sure what, my dad only remembers them moving from Genesee street. He doesn't have a whole lot of emotional depth, my dad, so it didn't really bother him that he was moving away from his cousins and friends, in some cases both. My uncle Tony might know he's only a year or two younger than my dad but things are kind of strained between the brothers, so I'm not real sure he'd talk to me about it if I asked. Something happend that she basically stopped wanting to be Italian. It's kind of surprising since they were in Utica, NY. If anything being Italian even a woman, would have been a benefit in getting promotions at work.

So the puzzle just sits there in my head. I have no names of people to contact to find more of my family's past, most of those who were living when it happened are dead. There were also pictures of her as a very young child in portraits with my great grandparents you can see the how much she was loved even in those stiff photos. It just makes me wonder even more how she became what she was. Like I never knew how much she loved baseball until she was in an assited living apartment because the alzhiemers was starting to get bad. She still recognized us at that point but she always drifted back. She kept talking about what a wonderful time she had visiting Cooperstown and the baseball hall of fame. We never saw that side of her as kids. Just the woman who was sweeping up the crumbs under the table even as we ate. Or she would clean up the toys we'd been playing with before dinner even though my mom had told us we could leave them and go back and play after dinner was over. The woman who had screaming matches with her parents in their apartment upstairs, I assume because they went and visited relatives and friends on the other side of town. Because right after my great grandfather would leave the house and either work in his garden or go for a walk.

Even after his funeral, she didn't join her mother, aunts and cousins at the wake being held at her uncle's house. No she took her family home then took her sons stawberry picking, only her sons, not their wives, not her grandchildren. My mom always felt that family was important, she'd missed her own sister's wedding to be at the funeral. Even after my parents divorced, she brought us up to visit our grandparents, because my father couldn't be bothered. I know that day was very confusing for her becuase no matter how much she fought and argued with her brothers and sisters, they'd always work things out, eventually. Ah well, maybe I should look more carefully at the boxes of stuff my father has of hers, maybe I can find out more that way.

Onto other things, can I say how nice it is to be in a real bra again. Nursing bras aren't the best for support. I've been really lucky both of my kids self weaned. Alex at 9 1/2 months and Quin just as I was considering weaning him. About a week before his birthday he stopped nursing on the right side, then the last time he nursed from the left was the day of his birthday party. It's kind of nice to have my body to myself again. Who knows how long it'll last since we've been trying since late June. I'm wondering if even though my cycle came back, that BFing was still working as birth control. So we're going to keep trying until my birthday that is. I just don't want to deal with pregnancy after 40. I mean it's different if I get pregnant before than and deliever after 40, ahh I don't know guess it's just a silly rule I have in my head. If it happens it happens, if it doesn't I have two sweet boys.

So our kitchen plans have gone through some revisions. Mostly because Ken wanted a 36" range. Then we talked and threw ideas around and decided on a 36"

Jenn-Air cooktop and a 30" oven.

The cook top will be about where our range is now but the oven will move over to the return we're putting in. We got our Quote for the Kraftmaid cabinets we wanted. It was about 1500 more than I guessed, so not far off.

I can't remember if we pick this style

Or this

The quartz countertops Lowe's offers were going to be about 3 grand. I remember when Ken's sister renoated her kitchen she actually went to a place in PA and picked her slab directly because it got her a better price. I'm going to ask where she got her's but I've been researching. Most of the local warehouses do have a whole lot of choice, then I came across this site and it looks like they do work all along the mid atlantic. Marble.com The choices and colors they have is amazing, we'll know for sure in January if it'll be a better price. Mostly because we're going to wait until the cabinets are being installed before going for an estimate. They usually install within a week. Guess we'll be making a trip to South Plainfield NJ. They have three locations but that is actually the closest one to us.

He's one

Its hard to believe he's one now. He seems so much younger at one than Alex did. I guess it's because I've been through it once, and maybe I baby him more. But we took like a 190 shots on saturday for the family party. I don't think there will be nearly as many for the playgroup party tomorrow. So I'll share some.







As long as he was with Aunt Su, Alex allowed Quin to play with some of his toys.



Enjoying a cracker with YeaYea





then his Aunt got him started on a cheese curl habit





at least he eats Zucchini like it's candy

He's already got girls fawning over him