Earthquakes, Floods & Hurricanes....Oh MY!

Tuesday we experienced our first earthquake,or the first one that I can remember. We live in Baltimore, we never have extreme weather....at least until this week.

We were at the park when the earthquake happened. Just sitting under a pavilion with a friend talking while the kids played, and the whole pavilion started shaking. I thought it was the wind and when my friend said she thought it was an earthquake, my response was....."We don't have earthquakes in Baltimore." lol Little did I know. Of course the first thing I did was check facebook, and every single persons status said "Eathquake!" I honestly thought it was pretty cool but I'm glad we don't get them often. I'm sure people from the west coast thought all of us east coast folks were crazy, whining over a tremor like that, but in all fairness it was our first one.

Now here we sit a few days later waiting to be smashed by Hurricane Irene. It's suppose to start...well... NOW, but the wind is hardly blowing. It has been raining all day though. I'm ready for her, I went shopping 2 days ago for the essentials and I'm glad I did because as of yesterday afternoon all of the stores were empty! Of course, Leo has been making fun of me because I bought gallons of water and was on the hunt for batteries. If he keeps it up I wont let him hold the flashlight!

Everyone was sold out of batteries and flashlights except for a local drug store and they wanted FIVE DOLLARS for a pack of 2!! FIVE DOLLARS!!! That's just insane. Way to capitalize on a natural disaster! But thankfully Walmart got a shipment of flashlights in so I was able to get a pack of 2 flashlights with 4 D batteries for $3....well 2 packs lol. When I went in there were a huge pallet of about 40 boxes...when I left an hour later there were only 7 boxes left and the managers were handing them out. It was nuts! I'm anxious, but not too worried about it. I figured it's always better to be safe then sorry.

As for a place that hardly ever gets hit by a natural disaster, we are sure taking a beating....all in one week.

Quiet Kids = Huge messes!

Starting the last week of June every Summer, I work at a performing arts summer camp. That means daddy gets to get up with the kids and do all of the fun day to day activities....at least until the first week of August. Then we are back on schedule. He is lucky this year though because Maddie is coming to summer camp. Which by the way she LOVES. She has always been a diva, and she really gets to show that here. It's a great outlet for her and she is doing such a great job. We are doing The Rockin' Tale of Snow White and Madison is Molly , a lady in waiting. She's adorable because she is the smallest on stage and she tries so hard to do everything the big kids are doing. But she loves it.

So anyway, Leo has been home with Caden and Alanna everyday and to say his hands are full is an understatement hahaha. The other day I get a phone call saying "Your son is is so much trouble, he punished forever"  Apparently Alanna spilled something in the kitchen, and while he was cleaning up her mess, Caden sneaked into the bathroom with a giant permanent marker and decided to decorate. While Caden was coloring in the bathroom, Alanna was upstairs playing in dog poo.  So Leo had to give Alanna a bath to get the poo out of her hair ,while trying to figure out how to get marker off of everything. Needless to say he was not a happy camper (no pun intended) when I got home from work hehe. And I ended up using straight bleach and magic eraser to remove the marker off of everything.

It just goes to show, you can't turn your back on the kids for a second. Otherwise you are in for a mess to clean up!

An Addition

 The past few weeks have been pretty eventful. We bought a new home, and we added to our family in more ways then one! We had a new addition to the family this weekend. My sister in law had her baby on Saturday! (Hope you don't mind me talking about you in my blog Sis :) ) So we have a beautiful new niece and god daughter. She let me be in the room with her and it was the most amazing experience. Being that I had three c-sections and so has my sister I have never had the experience of seeing a birth. It was pretty exciting and I even cut the cord. Skyler Lynn made her appearance on July 9th at 3:38 pm weighing 8 lbs 7 oz.  and 21 1/2 inches long. She's quite the chunk too. :) And I just love the new baby smell hehe.

Mommy and Skyler

Me and Skyler...don't mind my roughness, I had been up since 4 am

In addition to Miss Skyler, we added an addition to our little family. Last weekend we went to the Heritage Fair.... and came home with a new puppy. I'm pretty sure I had a brief period of insanity when we decided to get him because looking back now...two weeks later, I have no idea what I was thinking. lol He's super sweet and adorable though.....but boy is he a pain in the butt. haha. And he likes to bite my toes, boy does it hurt too.  Leo decided he wanted to name him Cain. I have no idea why, just look at that face, nothing about him looks like a Cain. He is just too sweet to have such a tough name. They told us that he is a Chow and Border Collie mix, but I think he has lab in him. Either way we are guessing he's going to get big, although that's what we thought about Molly.

Speaking of Molly, she is having a ball with her new play mate. They wrestle non stop! At first I thought it was cute, now....not so much. They drive me crazy. Just imagine, three kids screaming and fighting and getting into things and top it off with two puppies constantly wrestling all over the house. That's just another normal day in my life. Not to mention we just finally got Molly house broken and now we have a puppy leaving spots all over our brand new carpet.

Thank goodness for Folex, it's  a life saver! I am telling you it is a miracle in a bottle, it has removed everything from pee stains to nail polish from my white carpet. I don't know what I would do with out it!  Here is our little pain in the behind...I mean puppy. He's 10 wks old.


So like I said it's been pretty eventful around here the past few weeks. Saturday we are having our house warming party and then hopefully life will calm down just a bit. Oh, I forgot to mention that I am doing camp during the day so not only are things crazy at home, I deal with crazy all day long. yay!

What a Tragic Day For Our Country

My heart is heavy tonight. As I tucked in my babies tonight, I gave them an extra kiss and hug and thanked God for blessing me with 3 beautiful angels.

Earlier today I sat waiting with the rest of the country for the unbelievable verdict to be read for Casey Anthony. I am sure everyone else had the same reaction as I when they read NOT GUILTY, I was so sick to my stomach. I thought for sure the case was cut and dry, never in a million years did I suspect this outcome. What has our justice system become? WHO in their right minds would even think she is not guilty. What is wrong with those 12 jurors? What a complete failure! Justice was not served today! And this is just a message out there to people that you can get away with murder. I'm shocked and appalled and completely broken hearted for that beautiful baby.

The only thing I can think of is that poor little angel and what she must have gone through at the hands of her own mother.You know she was the same age of  Alanna? How could anyone do such a horrific thing? I  know she is resting with Jesus and safe in his arms. And I know it's not very Christian like  but I hope that Casey gets whats coming to her.

So tonight I am leaving my porch lights on for that beautiful baby and thanking God for my 3 blessings. Rest in Peace beautiful girl! The whole world is thinking about you!

We are Homeowners!

June 15th we settled on the house. We were already moving stuff in by the time we went to settlement because the owner opened the door for us early. It took about a week but we are finally completely unpacked, which I am assuming that is good because people were telling me that after months they were still living out of boxes. I can't do that, which is why I waited until the night before to finish completely packing. Although, that wasn't the only reason, the real reason was laziness. hah. Oh well. At least I am unpacked. :) Here are a few pics of my new place. Which by the way I am never ever moving....at least not until my kids are grown and moved out, then Leo and I can downsize so they can't come back hehe. 

Our house

our room...(and Molly)

our basement living room

Alanna's room (I made the letters)

play room

Our Deck

kitchen

Maddie's room 

Maddie's room

Caden's room

 Caden's room

Alanna Robin

I usually write about each one of my children on their birthday. However, this weekend has been crazy! We move in less then 2 days in to our very own home! That's right we are going to be homeowners! I am so excited, so stressed ,and so overwhelmed! Anyway, I will write all about it tomorrow, this post is all about little Miss Alanna! :) I can't believe she is TWO!

When I found out I was pregnant I was so excited. Leo had been joking around for weeks saying that I was, and I warned him that if he didn't stop then he's in for a surprise. haha and Sure enough October 21st I took a test and it came back positive. Leo thought I was joking to get back at him but when I showed him the test he just stared. Then we started laughing. I guess the surprise of it all and we were filled with so many emotions. We were nervous, and so excited. My whole pregnancy was pretty easy, minus the fact that I was HUGE and miserable at the end. We had a very hard time coming up with a name once we found out she was a girl. We had a boy name already but we couldn't decide on a girl. At first we decided on Brooklynn, but then decided against it. We chose her name while driving up to PA one afternoon. I'm not sure why but the name Alanna popped into my head so I asked Leo what he thought of it and he liked it so there it was. We chose Robin to honor his aunt who passed away a few years before. She lived with down syndrome. I never had the pleasure of meeting her but I've heard many stories of her and I think when Alanna grows up she will be proud to have her namesake. For our baby shower his other aunt gave Alanna , Robin's favorite doll, along with a note of memories for her to keep.   We put it up for when she gets older, and Leo can share all of his memories with her. It will be nice for her to know a little about who she is named after.

I was awake the entire night before. I was exhausted but anxious. We made our way to the hospital at nine but didn't get prepped until about twelve. Alanna Robin made her entrance into the world June 12, 2009 and she was 7lbs 4 oz. The smallest of the three. All three was born exactly one week early and all on a Friday! Alanna came out with strawberry blonde hair. All of the nurses commented about it because she was the only baby with blonde hair in the nursery. She was beautiful! I was so in love the moment I saw her. We were released to go home on the Monday but as it turns out, just like with Madison I developed Eclampsia and had to be admitted just two days later. I was in for another three days before I was able to be home with my babies. It was terrible, and I was so glad to be home.I just can't believe that was already two years ago! Where did the time go?

Alanna is now so active! She didn't walk until she was 16 months old but boy is she making up for it now. She is such a diva too! Everything has to be her way or no way and loves to be center of attention. I will say she is the friendliest little girl I have ever seen. She speaks to everyone wherever we go. It doesn't matter who it is she says "Hi" and blows kisses. She cracks me up because she is so silly all of the time but she is so lovable and has daddy wrapped around her little finger :) We are so blessed to have her in our lives!


Happy Birthday sweet baby girl! I can't believe you are already TWO YEARS OLD! We are so blessed to have you in our lives and I thank God every day He chose us to be your parents! We love you more then anything in the world!

Busy Busy

I've been a terrible blogger! Truth is I just haven't had the time. Madison started teeball, dance is finishing up, and we are in the process of buying our first home! I just don't have time to blog. We finally are settling on a house. I LOVE it. It's perfect for our family and we are looking at June 15th for our settlement date. We are meeting with the mortgage guy tomorrow...fingers crossed we can get in there soon!

This weekend is our recital. I haven't danced in over 6 years and I am a little nervous, but I'm super excited too! I'll be sure to post pics of everything.