The Magic Word

You know you might need to change up your kid's TV rotation to include something besides Sesame Street & Mickey Mouse Clubhouse when this conversation takes place:

Jake: I want milk.
Me: How do we ask? I didn't hear the magic word.
Jake: Meeska-Mooska-Mickey MOUSE!
Me: I meant the magic word to get milk, not the words to make the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse appear.
Jake: Oh. Milk, PLEASE.

Book Review: Heart of the Matter (Emily Giffin)

Heart of the Matter (Emily Giffin)

I've read all of Emily Giffin's books and I'm a big fan, though I was a bit disappointed by her last book, Love the One You're With. Her more recent book, Heart of the Matter, was more enjoyable for me. My only complaint is that I felt she really developed the two female characters (Valerie and Tessa), but gives the reader no insight into the male character (Nick) and he plays a huge role in the book (as you'll see if you read it) I was frustrated that we don't know his side of the story or his feelings, as the story is told through the eyes of the two women.

If you've never read any of Emily Giffin's books, I highly recommend Something Borrowed and Something Blue.

Up next: Friday Night Lights, by H.G. Bissinger

Fellow blogger giveaway!

My friend, DrDrama is giving away a beautiful scarf from her friend's online store, CoCoMae. Head on over to DrDrama's blog for a chance to win!!

Here's the link to the giveaway post...be sure to check out the rest of her blog, too! She has some great fashion posts and tips.

http://www.drbabymamadrama.com/2010/05/cocomae-giveaway.html

Social butterfly

Jake has a really busy social calendar...you know, school, playground, zoo, etc... It's a good thing he's learning to be punctual. The other night at dinner, he paused mid-bite and this is the conversation we had:

Jake: Mama, time is it?
Me: You need to know the time?
Jake: Yeah.
Me: um...it's 6:45.
Jake: Ok. (returned to shoveling food in his mouth)

I'm not sure what his plans were for later, but it made me laugh since he asked it such a way that my answer would have mattered to him!!

New Puppy Welcome Basket

I'm an aunt! To a pug :) Nate bought a pug puppy, so as part of his graduation gift, I assembled a new puppy welcome basket, with some doggy essentials. Here's a picture of the contents of the basket:



Basket included: toys (of course!), 2 bandanas made by me (which is about as crafty as I get), 2 bags of treats, 1 box of training treats, pet stain remover, a Pug Christmas ornament AND the piece de resistance, a Doggy Snuggie!!! :) (Side note-how do I get those accent marks to appear in words in other languages??)

And the basket fully assembled...ta-da!

Congratulations, Nate!!

My baby brother graduated law school over the weekend and we are so proud of him!



Here are some shots of Nate & his girlfriend, Katie. Not only is Katie a sweetheart, but she holds her own in a family that shows love by teasing each other and sometimes being obnoxiously sarcastic. Bonus points for Katie!



After the ceremony, we went to a reception held by the school where Jake promptly started shoving cookies into his mouth. After we left there, we went to Katie's townhouse to celebrate for a bit and Jake crawled back into the car, put the seatbelt on and told me he was going to drive. I asked him where he was going to go and he replied "To the cookie party". Yep, that's my kid.



My mom threw a fabulous graduation party for Nate the next day at a local park...the weather cooperated and everyone had a great time!



Look, surprise surprise! Jake found the cookies at this party, too! Here he is wearing the evidence all over his face.




Congratulations, Nate!!

Some words for your Wednesday...

I saw this on another blog and I'm stealing it to put here because I liked it so much :)

“A hundred years from now it will not matter
what my bank account was,
the sort of house I lived in,
or the kind of clothes I wore . . .

. . . but the world may be much different
because I was important in the life of a child.”

Happy (belated) Mother's Day!

Jake & I spent Mother's Day weekend in Washpa with GG & Pappy since I'm the nicest wife in the whole wide world and told Brian that he could head out to his end of PA to attend a bachelor party (plus, I could always use some type of bribery to fall back on...."The laundry really needs to be done....remember when I let you off the hook for Mother's Day & you got to go to a bachelor party instead??") So, he spent Sunday with his mom, I spent it with mine and it worked out perfectly.

As always, I LOVE the homemade gifts that school sends home from Jake:



On Saturday, it was super windy, but we did get a chance to play outside for a bit. Pappy & Jake began spring training for baseball season:



That night, I met up with my friend Cortney for a drink and some girl time, which is always nice. I made it out until 10pm....I'm not sure what's more impressive, the fact that I was out that "late" or the fact that I was still in real clothes and not PJ's at that hour.

On Sunday, we went to a local restaurant/farm, The Springhouse, for their Mother's Day lunch...it was delicious! If you're ever in need of something to do in Washington (especially if you have kids) head over there...you can get delicious ice cream and desserts (other stuff too, but really....everyone enjoys the sweet stuff the most!) AND they have some animals that you can pet and a huge slide to go down (I'm pretty sure it's some type of lawsuit waiting to happen, but whatever).

In this picture, the goat was trying to eat his shirt & Jake has not stopped talking about this incident since.



I hope all of the mommies/mommies-to-be/furmamas/and hopeful mamas had a fantastic day!

Pittsburgh sports could use some help right now...

...and Jake might be the man to do it. Just a gentle reminder to certain members of my family (*cough* MOM *cough*): these are videos. You hit "play" to make them work. :-)

He could help revive morale for the Steelers and bring some new plays to the team:




And he could help the Pirates....well, he could help them win a game.

Favorite Foto Friday: Mom

Head over to Annie's blog to participate in Favorite Foto Friday! Today's theme was MOM!

Here's my mom, living it up at our wedding:



And one of my favorite pictures of my mother-in-law, Sally, dancing with Brian....this one was actually on our photographer's website for a long time :) Followed by a pic of her showing off her moves on the dance floor!



Happy Mother's Day!!!

$$$$$$$$$$

Jake was helping me put some coins in his bank and we had this conversation:

Jake: I have money?
Me: Yep, you have money...we're going to save it in your bank.
Jake: I go shopping?
Me: Well, what would you buy?
Jake: I buy food.
Me: *snorting with laughter* Really? Food, huh? What kind of food?
Jake: Mac and cheese.
Me: Whoa, high roller there kiddo. Would you buy anything else?
Jake: Animals. Lions.
Me: Where would they live?
Jake: In monkey house. Monkey in Jake bed. I go to zoo now?

I left my heart in Pittsburgh.....

....but went to San Francisco. How have I not blogged about this yet?? *tsk, tsk* Pardon my slacking.



I went to San Francisco for a work conference & had a wonderful time! It was great exploring a new city and even better that I had some fun co-workers to keep me company :) Ok, first things first....the city surprised me in a few ways.

• There were a lot of homeless people....to be expected in a bigger city, but I'm talking in-your-face and tripping-over-on-sidewalks. Call me a crazy bleeding heart, but I was sad to see the state of a lot of people there, especially the teenagers roaming the streets.

• Apparently, you can take dogs on the buses there. I learned this when a Pit Bull was sitting next to me on the bus ride back from the Golden Gate Park. Later in the week, I saw a little Maltese perched in a woman's lap (side note-can you picture Gracie riding shotgun with me during my morning commute??)
• It was COLD. Cold as in, I had on a tshirt, a sweater and a coat and was still chilly walking around and could have used another layer.
• Those trolley streetcar things are fun, but they go very slooooowly. :) The novelty of them had worn off by our 3rd day there....but of course, it was fun to hang onto the outside of it the first few times!
• 
  
• 

Weeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Overall, we hit most of the "tourist-y" spots that we wanted to see...the Golden Gate Park, the Haight-Ashbury district and Fisherman's Wharf (including the sea lions at Pier 39!).



The highlight of the trip for me was probably heading outside of the city a bit to the Mission District for dinner at Emmy's Spaghetti Shack. Yep, you read that name right....you have no idea how excited I was. As I said, it was a bit out of the city and fortunately, my coworkers were good sports about making the trek with me...and it was worth it! The food was awesome AND I got to meet THE Emmy...it was like a celebrity sighting for me!! Who knew the owner would be there on a Saturday night, bussing our table?? I bought my very own Emmy's Spaghetti Shack wife beater as a souvenir and she was nice enough to get a picture with me:



We had a great time and I'm happy to report that I did very well being away from home for those few days and the boys had a great time during their Man Weekend. By the end of the week, Jake had learned how to say "Mama in Sam Fram-a-e-co". And even now, if I'm not around, he tells Brian that that's where I am, haha :)