Easter

Chloe and her Easter basket of goodies (most of which came from BeBe who had sent a massive box of Easter stuff weeks prior).

Chloe and I spent Easter together, without Matt. Unbelievably, Matt had a motorcycle course on Easter Sunday to complete his license. I thought for certain the class would be canceled because it was scheduled on a holiday, but it was a full class!

Chloe woke up early on Easter morning to discover her basket. Well, in truth, she already knew about the basket of goody's as she snuck downstairs Saturday night to discover me filling the basket.

Chloe and I went to church in the a.m. There were no children's services that day, so Chloe stayed in "big" church the entire time. She was really very good, except for the 501 questions I got during the service from her. Here's my top 5 favorite questions from Chloe at church on Sunday---

1. Why does that man have a hole in his head? It was the choir director and he is balding from his crown out (sporting the "friar" look).
2. Are you sleepy? Why are you closing your eyes? We were praying.
3. Do you like this song? I don't. It was the Hallelujah Chorus.
4. Why is Jesus fishing? She was pointing to a stained glass picture of Jesus depicting the "fisher of men".
5. Can I go sit with Gianna? This comprised about 420 of the questions asked as she repeated it over and over. Gianna goes to pre-school with Chloe and our church---she's Chloe's best bud and her family sits in the pew behind us.

After church service, the children decorated bags and had a Easter egg hunt. Chloe and I then drove to see Matt at his motorcycle course.

Chloe, in her Easter dress, hunting eggs.
In the late afternoon, after Matt returned home, Chloe insisted we take her for a bike ride. Chloe and Matt walk to church on Sunday's and she loves to "wall walk" the wall on one of our neighbors yards. Today she decided to take the wall on her bike. Chloe riding her bike on the wall---assisted by Daddy, of course.

A New Look & Title

Some things have changed on the blog, if you didn't notice. The new name of the blog is "A Family United". It was "All About Chloe". More evident, we got a new look, thanks to the fabulous Diana at Custom Blog Designs who did a great job and was so easy to work with.

I had had the idea to Photosh*p some photos of Chloe into the shapes of the states/countries of our origins (from left to right on the header: NJ, TX, China & England) for a while. The idea just sat there but I couldn't muster the creativity to actually design it all. I purused others adoption blogs and came across one that I thought was spectacular. It was designed by Diana and I knew that she was the one to redesign this blog. I contacted her, told her what I was thinking with the state/country photos and that I loved the other blog she designed. I sent her the state/country photos and bam, she turned this design out quickly!

Part of the redesign was to alter the name of the blog. Yes, our lives are still "All About Chloe" but we hope to add to our family, so we took the re-design opportunity to change the name as well. The url still remains the same.

Hope you like it---we do!

Visiting the Easter Bunny

Chloe had her photo with the Easter Bunny yesterday (notice the bunny ears on Chloe--again?)

March Madness

It's March and that means it's NCAA basketball time. I don't play the brackets, but I do tune in to see The Hogs (my alma mater) play. I stayed up last night to watch the Razorbacks take on Indiana and was completely driven mad by C*BS flip-flopping between games. It was insane, I'd be watching the Razorbacks and switch on would come another game and then switch back to the Razorbacks to check in on the score and then switch on to another game! FOR THE LOVE....STOP!


I guess you could call me a fair-weather fan---I only watch college basketball during March Madness. It is one of the only times of the year I can tune in to see The Hogs play without purchasing it and it holds such fond memories-I was a junior in college in 1994, the year that the Razorbacks won the national title. As insane as it may sound to some---it ranks in my Top 10 of the most memorable days of my life. Before you say get a life....I say you didn't attend a university that won a national championship while you attended---the euphoria, the parties, the joy! What a hoot! What a memory.


Just for giggles--I searched and found this scrapbook page from my senior year. I couldn't find my junior year scrapbook (its lost in the catastrophe that is my basement). My senior year March Madness party was much more subdued---Arkansas battled for the national title but lost.

Getting Ready for Easter

Thursday was the Easter Party at Chloe's pre-school. True to form, Chloe had a special outfit to wear. I think it is absolutely darling. The Easter party outfit---the jeans are really cute and have appliqued bunnies in grass at the bottom.
At the party, Chloe was given some bunny ears as a gift. She instantly put them on and has been wearing them since. (She even went to bed with them tonight) The bunny ears---Chloe had them on when she left the pre-school classroom and bunny hopped all the way from the classroom to the car.
Later in the day Chloe and I dyed Easter eggs. Chloe was really very good at this. I feared that I would have dye all over her and the house, but she was very careful. We made tie-dyed eggs with sparkles and used the wax pencil to color on eggs and then dip them in the regular egg dye.
Chloe did a great job with the eggs. I, however, was another story as I broke 3 eggs.

Chloe insisted that we make a "Arkansas" egg. I don't know why--she had NO prompting from me. Perhaps she has some money on Mommy's alma mater in a March Madness bracket?

This is a drawing of Mommy.

Chloe drew a picture of Daddy on this egg.

After we finished with the eggs, I was cleaning up and Chloe got into her Easter treats from school. She found a stamp and went wild with it. She had pink stamps all up her arms and on her face....

HAPPY ST. PATRICKS DAY!

HAPPY ST. PATRICKS DAY!, originally uploaded by pookie2shoes.

Easter Party

Saturday morning we went to an Easter party for our Newcomer's group. It was supposed to be outside, but was moved indoors at the last minute because the ground was soaked. Despite the indoor location, the kids still managed to have a good time wading through the 1000s of Easter eggs on the floor of the banquet hall.

After the hunt, the Easter Bunny made an appearance (and Chloe wasn't scared of him this year) and then the entertainment began. Matt and I had more fun making fun of the entertainer. She is apparently a big hit with some kids. We found her a bit odd.

Chloe looking for Easter eggs. Yes, those are her Easter overalls for this year---just gotta have them!

Chloe giving the Easter Bunny a high five.

Chloe(on the far right side of the photo) clearing out of the way from the entertainment.

Happy Birthday Matt!!

Matt's birthday is today, Saturday, March 15. We plan to go to dinner tonight sans Chloe for a date night.

Chloe picked out the cake and couldn't wait for Daddy to get home.

Welcome to the World

We would just like to post some "shout outs" to the newest member of our family,

Harrison Alastair, who was born Saturday, March 8. Harrison joins big sisters Bryn & Gemma. Chloe was all grins to hear that she had a new cousin.

We also just received the exciting news that my pal, Stacie, gave birth to her daughter, Zoe, this afternoon. Thanks to Zoe's Daddy Steve, for giving us the call to let us know that all was well with mom and baby.

We can't wait to see these new little ones in person when we travel back to Texas next month.

Experiencing Technical Difficulties

Life has some funny twists and turns and can take you in directions you never imagined. I have to share my latest twist.

I am in Jun*ior Leag*ue. When I am not griping about it, I love it. I like to volunteer and give something back. I like to take charge and do good at the same time. It gives me purpose. This past year, I transferred my League membership from my TX League to the local League in NJ. My assignment in my new League was to serve on a committee that plans, organizes and implements an all-day workshop for pre-teen girls and their mothers. The focus of the day is to discuss issues facing pre-teen girls---cliques, cyber-bullying, low self-esteem, etc. Somehow in the course of all this planning I was asked to make a presentation at this workshop. I was asked to present on the media's definition of beauty and how it can effect self-esteem in young girls and women. I would be the only speaker of the day who was not on the "speaker circuit". Everyone else speaking at the workshop was an expert, a professional.

How did I get chosen? Hmmm, I still trying to figure that one out. It seems my past as a teacher of pre-teens was the main qualification. Oh, the group also cited that I was loud and direct, which I hoped was a compliment. Oh, and I had also done some research into the topic after one of our committee meetings...apparently I was the only one on the committee with a grasp of how to Go*ogle information and presto, I was an expert!

I spent countless hours researching information and putting together a presentation. I became a facilitator for the Dov*e Rea*l Beaut*y Campaign, read through countless papers published in psychology journals, talked with a graphic artist at a magazine, read books, published articles, various blogs and websites on the topic. I gathered so much information, it could probably take me two hours just to spout through all the statistical data I found. It took me three days just to whittle down all my information into what I thought was the most important and most-digestible information to give to 10, 11 and 12 year old girls. I then spent another 4 days putting the PowerPoi*nt presentation together. I spent one of those days learning how to properly compose a Pow*erPoi*nt presentation because I despise Po*werPo*int. I think it is a great program, but I hate it because it is COMPLETELY misused by people. How many of you have been READ to as someone clicks through slide after slide with about 400 bullet points on it, reading each and every one of those bullet points to you?AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! It is torture!! I mean, just type it up in an essay and let me read it on my own! Powe*rPo*int is presentation software, made to enhance a presentation....not a program to blast what should be an essay onto a wide screen and lull people to sleep with word after word "flying in" and making whooshing noises. But, I digress.... I wanted to make certain my presentation looked professional.

Fast-forward to this past Saturday--workshop day. I wasn't nervous about my presentation, I was more eager to be done with it and I wasn't just a speaker at the workshop, I was a committee member and I had jobs to do, so I was kept busy. I was speaking at mid-day in the main room in front of all the participants. The main room was used all day, keeping me from having a run-through. When it came time to give my presentation, I had 5 minutes to set up. (Do you see where this is going?)

Earlier in the day I had removed the first of three videos in my presentation in an effort to cut time from my presentation...I was trying to help regain time we lost during registration and had set us back some 20 minutes. I kept the original presentation in its entirety and saved the modified presentation separately. A decision I would soon regret.

Our workshop was held at a college, and we had the tech. supervisor of the college present to help set up the speakers. He was a nice man, but a little too overly-helpful. Because I had embedded video and my presentation was created using Po*werPoi*nt 2007, I had to run my presentation from my laptop. The ever-helpful technology man insisted that he connect my laptop and then insisted that I use his mouse to advance my screens (he insisted using my touch pad on my laptop was TOO difficult). Well, he couldn't get my laptop to recognize the presentation system in the room. He tried over and over again, eating up my 5 minutes of set-up time. I now had a room of 150 people, staring at the podium, where I was standing, frantically trying to get the stupid presentation I had spent 100s of hours preparing for set-up. Then it came to me...the age-old wisdom learned by a teacher shut in a room with 30 screaming kids and a DVD player that won't work....IF IT WON'T WORK, TURN OFF THE POWER THEN TURN IT BACK ON. YES! The magic cure-all. When the tech. guy went to get back up support, I turned off my computer and then turned it back on...voila! We had my desktop photo of Chloe in full-three screen display, just in time for tech. guy to reappear and inform me that it was now working (thanks, Captain Obvious). He then insisted on pulling up the Pow*erP*oint presentation himself. I told him the name of the presentation and two-clicks later I was ready to present. Light down...lets roll. Below is my recount of my presentation....

Hello...blah, blah, blah.(click to next slide)... Seeing isn't believing....blah, blah, blah...(Click to next slide)...what the? What's this video doing in this presentation? It's not supposed to be here!! Oh my goodness, he clicked on the original presentation, not the abbreviated presentation....great, just go with the flow, act like nothings wrong, just do the original, longer presentation...good the video is over, moving on (click to next slide)...WHAT!!! Why did this thing start over??? (click again) WHAT!!! Why is it on this video now!----Enter technology guy to inform me that the mouse he insisted I connect to my computer is not working (thanks again, captain obvious) he removes mouse, I click on correct slide while still presenting I might add!!!....blah, blah, blah (click to next slide which is another video) WHAT!! NOW THERE IS NO SOUND? Great technology dude accidentally unplugged the sound cord connected my laptop! Re-connect cord....blah, blah, blah..who is this dude in this ugly flannel, plaid shirt taking a photo? GO AWAY!!! Blah, Blah, Blah....thanks and remember no BODY is perfect.

That's my recollection anyway. The first few minutes were torture as I tried to keep the presentation going with glitch, after glitch, after glitch and then some man literally underneath my podium taking photos of my nostrils. I wanted to stamp my feet after my presentation because I knew I could do better than that!!!! I felt like I let everyone down, especially myself after all the time I put into that presentation. If I could only have a do over. I told myself that I should just be relieved it is over and that now I can relax. And so I did.

Well, today I come back from the gym and I have a message. It seems even with the technical difficulties, the workshop evaluations from the attendees reveal that my presentation was one of the most popular! Apparently several commented on how they loved my message and my photosh*op before and afters of celebrities. I then get a message from a mom whose daughter attended the workshop to tell me that her daughter had some friends over on Sunday and she overheard her telling them that they should look more closely at advertising and then proceeded to tell them about my presentation. I felt so much better...even with the technical difficulties the message got across.

But, here's the twist. I was just contacted by the workshop chairwoman. She has been contacted by another speaker at the event (one of the professionals who flew in to speak at the event) and she wants to negotiate with the League to use my presentation. They have been also contacted to bring my presentation into some of the area schools.

Needless to say, I am feeling a lot better about my performance on Saturday and can't wait to see what unfolds next.

Weekend Photos of Chloe

DSC_0008, originally uploaded by pookie2shoes.

I thought I would share some random photos taken of Chloe over the weekend. Enjoy! View them all on one page or in a slideshow.

Make mine a Double Tall Cappuccino, Extra Dry

Out with the old...
As a wedding present to ourselves, Matt and I bought a very nice coffee/espresso maker. It lasted nearly nine years, which is really good considering we never de-scaled the thing (ultimately causing it's death). So, after it's death we bought a mid-priced coffee maker, nothing spectacular. It lasted 6 months before it clapped out. We then purchased the coffee maker above. It survived about 6 months too, until it decided it only wanted to make a half pot of coffee instead of a full pot. Somehow it would evaporate 5 cups of water, most of which condensed in the control window. It would also not brew the same tasting coffee everyday. It was a crapshoot as to what we would get. All that combined forced us to retire this coffee maker and seek out another, more reliable model. We didn't want anything fancy, just a dependable model that would make a good cup and would last longer than 6 months. I guess that's easier said than done.


We decided to skip over the mega-stores where you can get your bath items and your kitchen gadgets and go to the experts, the coffee geeks, the ones who drink espressos all day and talk about what their favorite bean is to roast. Unfortunately, the top choice in the area is closed on weekends...having convenient store hours apparently interferes with their coffee roasting parties. So, we sought out another reputable store, one that solely dealt in making and preparing gourmet foods. A store we knew would have knowledgeable staff, test what it sells and stand behind what it sells and have it's fair share of coffee geeks on staff.


We entered the store to find a large crowd in the coffee maker section. All were huddled around the espresso machine they were demonstrating. Many to get a free espresso/cappuccino and others just to check it out and monopolize the sales staff with talk of roasting beans. We stood there, checking out the coffee makers and getting annoyed that we couldn't get a sales person because they were discussing coffee while sipping a latte. Finally, the crowd dissipated after getting their caffeine fix and we were the only ones left standing...the people who were actually there to buy something, not just get a free drink.


It started out innocently, just asking about the basic coffee makers and which one the salesman thought was the most dependable and made the best coffee. But, I guess with the swarms of people no longer blocking the view of the espresso machine on demonstration, it was too sharp not to catch our eye. Next thing you know, Matt's drinking an espresso and I have a latte and we are standing in the check out line waiting to purchase our very own automatic espresso/cappuccino maker.


But, the way I figure...it cost twice as much as the one we bought 9 years ago. That means it should last twice as long...RIGHT??? If this machine dies, we could be devastated and not because of the cost---I am in love with the machine and have been sporting a caffeine buzz since we fired it up.
In with the new! Cappuccino anyone?

DZ Take 2

My sister just sent me the article below. It was on Newswe*k.com this morning and in case you were wondering who the heck DZ is and why did I rave on so about him in the last post...I think this article sums it up pretty well. This journalist was at the earlier concert, but it was pretty much the same. You can link to the article here.



Dan Zizzie in the Hizzie
Monday, February 25, 2008 11:41 PM
By Brian Braiker


Sunday we met up with some friends and took the kids to see Dan Zanes, who is of course the reigning Pied Piper of family music (without, I'm hoping, that whole leading-children-off-to-their-deaths motif). Sometimes, as much as I'd like to deny it, it's hard to be a young parent in Park Slope and not endure the creeping suspicion that I am a craven yuppie scumbag hipster-lite stereotype. Thankfully I am not self-aware enough to be plagued too painfully. So, with due cheer, the fam hopped on the 5th Avenue bus yesterday after breakfast and headed north to the Brooklyn Academy of Music. In no time it turned into the Dan Zanes express: every person who would board the bus was either a parent or a toddler. Or horrified to discover themselves on some bourgeois nightmare re-imagining of Ken Kesey's Further schoolbus packed with midget Merry Pranksters.



The opera hall at BAM is gorgeous—DZ called it the Carnegie Hall of Brooklyn, and so it is. When we got to our seats we were astonished to find that $22 placed us third row center. The Man Himself was a little jarringly onstage doing last minute sound-checky things. He smiled and waved at folks as they walked in. It felt like he was welcoming us into his living room—the performer/audience wall thus shattered, it never fully reconfigured for the duration of the show.But, I mean really, check the proximity:


Ah, I am getting ahead of myself.Now, I am on record as having certain, well, grown-up feelings for one Ms. Laurie Berkner. But I have to say, in recent months one of Zanes's bandmates has been catching my eye on the concert DVD (and late-night Google Image searches). Barbara Brousal is raven haired, slinky, sophisticated and mysteriously sultry—a deeply compelling contrast to Laurie's bouncy, sproingy, cutesy colorful playfulness. Now, don't get me wrong: I still love me some Berkner. But I was verrrrry much libinously looking forward to seeing BB in action yesterday.You can imagine my dismay upon a pre-performance perusing of the program tha t included no mention whatsoever of Barbara Brousal! O, heartbreak! Mrs. Breeder took, I thought, a bit too much delight in my obvious deflation.But! Then the show started. Zanes had previously vacated the stage to change into one of his top-drawer suits. Collin Brooks, his usual dapper drummer, was the first to bound onto the stage. Then came Saskia Lane on upright bass, followed by John Foti on accordion and Elena Moon Park on fiddle. Who, I wondered angrily, would dare to take the place of my dearly departed Brousal? Barbara! Even though you share a Christian name with a woman who drove my first grade carpool, I hardly knew ye. Agh. Fine. Let us get a good look at the person that doth claim to replace you ...Oh.My.Oh my. My oh my. It is, it seems, a lady named Sonia De Los Santos, who hails from Mexico. She may have some pretty mighty shoes to fill, people. But, let me tell you, I learned yesterday that there is no such thing as global warming. The reason the polar ice caps are melting is because of Sonia's smile:


Gggggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhh.


Uh, sorry. But. I mean, COME ON THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE A KIDS' CONCERT. Hmph. Dan Zanes has some serious mojo working for him in the painfully adorable bandmate department, I'll tell you that much. Can I get an amen, fellow dads?Ahem. So anyway the Man of the Hour tells us that he's got a new album coming out in a couple months called Nueva York or something and it's got a lot of Latino and Hispanic roots flavors to it—salsa, meringue, norteño, etc. (probably not too many narcorridos, though, sadly). So we were treated to a few ditties from the new rekkid. And this being Brooklyn, his home town, he played "Wonder Wheel," his lovely homage to the Coney Island Ferris wheel. I keep waiting for the Dan Zanes Backlash, but astonshingly it fails to arrive. Maybe it's not so astonishing. The sound mix was perfect, the lighting warm. His song choice was tasteful, his dance mov es endearingly ridiculous. There were songs about monkeys and songs about Mary Mack, silver buttons and all. There were anti-war stalwarts ("I'm gonna lay down my sword and shield ...") and pro-immigration tunes. At the end of it all, he did his James-Brown-I'm-Exhausted-to-the-Point-of-Collapse bit, hand towel and all. Then he played the traditional Zanes end-of-show waltz, "Sidewalks of New York." He stepped down off the stage and slinked through the unwashed masses out into the lobby. He vanished. Dan Zanes can put on a hell of a show.


There were, per usual, a smattering of guest appearances: tap dancer Derrick K. Grant brought, um, 'da noise and i guess 'da funk. The Filipino Arts & Music Ensemble was adorable with their twelve-thousand mandolins played with huggable awkwardness by 13 year olds ("the most strings I've ever seen on stage at one time ever!" says ZanesHimself). Anna Zanes, Dan's daughter, was there in all of her early-teen glory and she played the flute and Daddy Dan sang along and she had a friend-in-braces with her and it was cuter than baby pandas. Bless.Then, of course, there was Father Goose. He didn't just hop on stage. He swarmed it. He had a posse. He brought his boys. He had a hype man! At a kid's concert! A hype man! A hype man who I am pretty sure had a glass eye for reasons we'd be better off not knowing about. Dan Zane s is rad for many reasons—the all-inclusiveness, the you-can-too vibe, the exquisite choice of songs. But chief among the reasons that he is rad is turning Rankin Don into Father Motherfriggin' Goose. If Brooklyn is the dollhouse that Dan Zanes built, Father Goose is the guy who tore the damn roof off of it. Jaysus.


So, yes. Dan Zanes puts on a hell of a show. But "children's music?" Pishposh. This was as good a performance as a performance can get. You could ask for no better critic than my three-foot-tall daughter who weaseled her way to the front of the baby mosh pit. There she was, palms down on the stage, bouncing up and down for a solid hour. When she woke up from her post-concert nap, we asked her: "Do you remember what you did this morning?" She paused and furrowed her tiny brow with a gravitas that would make Walter Cronkite look like Pee Wee Herman. "Ummmm," she replied. "I can't remember."

ROCK ON!

Chloe's signed concert t-shirt.

Chloe and Daddy in the box prior to the concert.

Chloe and Dan Zan*es after the concert. She acted all shy but afterwards told him, "You Rock!".

The band coming out of the concert hall.

Father Goo*se's autograph on Chloe's concert shirt.

Yesterday was a milestone...Chloe's first live concert. Chloe is very into music and musical instruments. Whenever we get into the car, Chloe insists on listening to "her music" which is children's music (with the exception of Shani*a Twa*in and Alici*a Keye*s). Children's music generally is comprised of two major components...easy to sing along with and a catchy, bouncy tune. So, needless to say, as an adult, listening to said music over and over again can begin to really grate on ones nerves.

Two of the CDs we listen to most often in the car are by The Laur*ie Berk*ner Band. While I adore her music, after listening to it for 2 years, I'm a little tired of it. So, in an effort to regain some sanity I introduced Chloe to a new artist, one that we can all appreciate as a family. In other words, a children's artist that makes music we can all enjoy. Enter Da*n Zan*es! His music is hip and cool and features a wide range of musical influences. We have been listening to his Gramm*y-winning CD, Catch That Train!, for the last two weeks and really enjoying it. So, when by chance I came across an ad that he was in concert I jumped at the chance to buy tickets for all of us

On Sunday, after church, we drove to Brooklyn to see Da*n Zane*s and Friends in concert and let me tell you we ALL enjoyed ourselves. After the band came out and played the opening number, DZ invited everyone to "party" in front of the stage. Parents and kids alike rushed the stage creating what Matt and I referred to as the "mosh pit". During the rest of the concert it parents and kids were dancing in the aisles and in the mosh pit. It was great fun and highly entertaining. The concert featured a number of local artists, many of whom are featured on DZ's latest album. One of the featured artist was Fath*er Goo*se, who was on the front page of the Arts & Leisure section of the NY Time*s last week (in case you're wondering, here's the link to the article).

Chloe enjoyed watching the band play the different instruments. If we tried to talk to her though, she got very upset if we interrupted her "experience". Later in the concert, Matt took Chloe down to the mosh pit for some dancing. It was SO wild that she fell asleep on Matt's shoulders. We joked and called it the mosh pit, it was just a crowd of kids having a good time dancing with mom or dad. But, it was right in front of the stage and it was loud. The concert seriously wore Chloe out for her to fall asleep while all this was going on around her.

After the concert, DZ and band came out into the entry of the concert hall and met the fans. We bought Chloe her 1st concert t-shirt and had DZ and Fathe*r Goo*se sign it. Chloe also had her photo taken with DZ. We had a great time and are already planning on going to another one of his concerts in the summer.

It's the Simplest Things...

Whenever it is laundry day (which, HONESTLY, is about once a month as I despise doing laundry) Chloe always drags out the laundry basket and turns it into a kennel for her. She becomes "Bow Wow" the puppy and plays in the laundry basket barking. Its quite funny and cute. We don't keep our dog Lizzie in a kennel, so I don't know where she came up with this idea.

SNOW DAY!!!

This past week has been a vacation week from pre-school. When we woke up on Friday morning to see several inches of snow had fallen I began to panic a bit as Chloe would be "indoors" all day. However, Chloe has come to love the snow and wants to be outside in the snow...all day if I let her.
Chloe put on her snow suit and helped me clear the sidewalks in the morning and then later in the afternoon we went back out to make a snowman.

The snow man.
Making a snow angel.
Throwing a snowball at Mommy.

WHO CARES?

Honestly, I feel totally compelled to chime in on this one. I generally try to stay out of politics on this blog as it is about my child and her doings, but give me a break! I truly believe Congress is fiddling while Rome is burning! Have they lost their minds or their desire to be re-elected?

We have recession looming, foreclosures at record levels, a war in Iraq, tainted this and tainted that entering our food supply and children's toys, global warming, a weak dollar.... And what is Congress doing about any of that? No, they are attending to more pressing matters by holding a special hearing to get to something that effects virtually NONE of the American population...steroid use in baseball. ARE YOU FREAKIN' KIDDIN' ME? There is nothing else more pressing on the Government Reform Committee's agenda than questioning an over-paid professional athlete/star on his steroid use?

What's the next issue to hold hearings on...whether the 24 chosen competitors on American Id*l really are all truly undiscovered talent?

So, I went here to see who serves on this committee and to whom I could address my letter of displeasure. I also went here to see what sort of business they usually occupy their time with. Oh, and of course, I had to go here to read all about the MRI results on Roger Clem*ns right buttock to see if indeed there was evidence he had given himself a steroid shot in his booty because we all know that's a pressing matter in the U.S. today!

So please, feel free to check out the above listed sites and see your tax dollars at work. Oh, and if you want to send them a message, you can go here.

Our Valentine

Apparently too much candy, too many parties and playdates was too much for Chloe. She fell asleep in the chair while I was making dinner this evening.

Valentine Delivery

Chloe and I had a surprise delivery this afternoon--flowers from Daddy! I got a big bouquet of red and yellow roses (love and friendship...but yellow is my favorite color and it's the rose of Texas) and Chloe got 3 sweet roses too.

Happy Valentine's Day

The photo is a shot of Chloe (far right) and some of her pre-school pals taken this morning.

Some have said that Valentine's Day is cheesy and overrated, but I disagree. I think this is one of the best holidays with kids. I love the handmade gifts Chloe made for us at pre-school and looking through the handwritten valentine's cards from her classmates. It's darling.

Now, Chloe is completely wired for sound, but hey its a holiday and she has a playdate at someone else's house! ;)

Random Acts of Chloe

I thought I would share some random events in the life of Chloe lately....

• Chloe's pre-school teacher told me that Chloe decided to stand up in circle time and tell everyone that she can spell the month, "F-E-B-R-U-A-R-Y". Where she learned this I have no clue. Her teacher was so impressed. She would not spell it for me though.



• Chloe has her 1st "BIG girl" playdate without Mommy. She has been invited to a friend's house to play on Thursday afternoon. She is quite excited about it.



• Bingo, Chloe's Betta died Monday. True, this is Bingo #4 or something like that, but the big difference was that we thought we would be honest this time (instead of just replacing the fish while Chloe is in pre-school like nothing happened) and tell her what happened. I explained that Bingo died, he lived a long life and that he was a good fish and that it is the cycle of life. Chloe's response, "OK, can we go to the pet store and get a new Bingo right now?" She was over that one quick! So, the next day Chloe and I went to the pet store to get a new Betta. She promptly informed the lady who assisted us that she is getting a new Bingo because old Bingo died and the new fish MUST look like old Bingo---red with long fins. We then looked at 20+ Bettas to find the one that looked most like old Bingo. This was a bit of deja vu...wasn't this what I did when I snuck the new fish in the tank?
  
  During our visit to the pet store Chloe also told me that she knew her spotted fish (i.e. male guppies)in her aquarium died--she had noticed they were missing. This was Chloe putting me on notice that I hadn't been pulling any fast ones over on her by just removing the fish and thinking she wouldn't notice they were missing. Apparently she did.



• Matt had to go to Chicago for business and he returned yesterday...during the light snow fall that the weathermen reported. Hearing, "light snow fall" I thought nothing of it and Chloe and I went to pick up Matt from his flight yesterday afternoon. In what would normally be 30 minutes one way took us 2 hours. When Chloe's movie ended she than began to sing songs. She got a little creative and started re-mixing some songs and combining them with others she knew. Here are the lyrics to my favorite Chloe creation:
  
  Go Tell It On The Mountain,
  Over The Hills and Everywhere,
  Go Tell it on the Mountain, that Jesus Christ was Born.
  Go Tell It on The Mountain That Man I Feel Like a Woman!
  Dun, Dun, da dun, da dun dun. Woooo!



• Chloe's favorite new phrase is "What say?" Literally every 3rd statement you make to her gets, "What say?" as the response. At first I thought she had hearing loss, but I have determined she has caught on to my family's annoying trait of "selective hearing" and has developed this statement now out of habit. Of course, it has entered Matt and my vernacular as we now say it to one another.

Yes, This IS NJ

Attempting to sleep in on the weekends isn’t a possibility when you have an alarm clock that is always set at 6:30 a.m. Our alarm clock is named Chloe and she generally wakes us up with, “Mommy, get up! I’m hungry and thirsty!” This morning it came with an additional eye-opener…turning on Mommy and Daddy’s bedroom lights.

Since we were up early, we decided to go into downtown for breakfast at a regular haunt. It’s probably the most famous eatery in our town, winning many “People’s Choice” awards for the low-cost, myriad of choices and obscene amount of food given. Because of this, it attracts a large crowd on the weekends and as we learned this morning out-of-towners.

We had just sat down and were perusing the menu when a married couple sat at the table next to us. They had the “deer in the headlights” look on their face as they admired other diners food choices and asked, “Oohhhh, what did you order?!” while invading their personal space. “Isn’t this place charming?” the woman asked her husband in her booming NY accent. She didn’t wait for a response because the lady sitting at the table behind me had just gotten her strawberry-banana pancakes delivered, and she was all up in her space wanting to know if they were good and if they ate at this restaurant a lot.

The woman sitting behind us responded in a WAY too loud voice, “No, we’re from Long Island. This is our first time here.”

“NO! You don’t say! We’re from the Upper East Side in The City!” yelled back the other woman. “What brings you here?”

“Our daughter is at a sleep-over so we decided to get out of the hustle and bustle and stay at some place rural. We’re staying up the road in a new Marriott. The concierge told us about this place and this charming, little town.”

OK, the last statement nearly made my head spin around! Well, at the very least it made Matt and I nearly choke up our coffee. Go someplace rural? You’re 16 miles from downtown NYC you fool! Now, maybe it’s me. I grew up in Dallas, Texas but 16 miles outside of Dallas is still suburbia, full of shopping malls, chain-restaurants and neighborhoods. Hardly, rural. Now we live 16 miles outside of NYC with the greatest population in the U.S. How could 16 miles outside of The City possibly be rural? You can see The City from our town!

Before I continue with this story, let me make one point clear. I wasn’t snooping into the conversation of these two couples. This restaurant does such a bustling business in the mornings that it creates a buzz that makes it hard to concentrate on what the person across from you at your table is saying much less people at nearby tables. But, somehow these two couples managed to speak at decibels above the crowd. They spoke like they had headphones on blasting music at the highest volume while trying to have a conversation.

After sharing that they were on a rural getaway, the other couple shared that they crossed the George Washington Bridge this morning (shock, from the other couple…they made a day trip to NJ? There are plenty of hotels nearby) to bring their daughter to take her ACT test at the high school in our village.

They then began, and I will try to be accurate, possibly dumbest exchange I ever had to listen to---

Upper East Side Lady: “This town is soooooooo cute. I thought it would be goombas with mullets and trucks.”

Long Island Lady: “I know. It seems nice. Not like Jersey at all.”

UES Lady: “I can’t believe how many NY plates I have seen parked here downtown. I wonder how they found this place. We only found it because we had to come for the ACT.”

Long Island Lady: “We had heard this is a nice place to live and a nice town. A friend of ours came for a weekend.”

UES Lady: “When we were on line to register our daughter for the ACT someone said that this school district is one of the best in the nation. Can you believe that?”

UES Lady’s Husband: “I thought the whole state was like Newark.”

Let me state again…we are 16 miles from Times Square in NYC in one of the most densely populated and wealthiest county in the U.S. We aren’t rural and we aren’t stereotypical NJ. I mean, I have come across hayseed hillbillies when I lived and taught in Texas. It’s a big state and many people I met and taught had never left Texas and had a very limited and narrow “view” of the world. But, we live in NYC suburbia. Surely, that limited a view could not exist here. Well, those two couples proved it does.

I know I live in a state that is stereotyped. Heck, when Matt told me he was being transferred to NYC and that he wanted to look for houses in NJ, I nearly flipped! NJ! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! How can I ever tell my friends and family I lived in NJ? The disgrace! I love our village now and I love NJ. Sure, if you drive up the NJ Turnpike and watch The Sopran*s you might get the wrong idea. Two years after moving to NJ I still find myself fighting the stereotype and saying to myself, “I can’t believe this is NJ!”

So, for those of you who think you know NJ, and would find yourselves in our village eating breakfast and feeling compelled to share with the entire restaurant your shock at the real NJ, read this first (I found this in a discussion thread about the real NJ).

• When the rest of the world thinks your home is all gigantic hair and hypodermics on the beach, you kind of have to find a way to laugh about it. Not every residential dwelling in the state faces onto the NJ Turnpike. Look, people: owning The Sopran*s on DVD and really liking the song "Thunder Road" does not equal "knowing anything about Jersey," and when you think it does, you annoy the natives.



• "Joisey" is a Brooklyn pronunciation. We don't talk like that. Don't say it that way, or write it that way. Ever.



• A North Jersey accent is like a NY accent and is a bit different from a South Jersey accent which favors a Philly flair.



• Contrary to popular belief, it's not called "the Garden State" as a joke. Jersey is something like fifty percent arable land. The Pine Barrens is a forest, and it's big. The Watchung Reservation is horse trails and trees with a road running through it, and it's a fifteen-minute bike ride to a U.S. Open championship golf course. If all you see is the view out the window on the Parkway, yeah, it looks like a concrete hell, but the state is really pretty. Go through the Delaware Water Gap sometime; it's a nice drive.



• Newark isn't Mayberry, but it isn't the gold standard of dangerous crappy urban blight, either. It has a spiffy arts center and great restaurants, and a minor-league team right near the train.



• The Mafia is not something most Jerseyans deal with in their day-to-day lives.



• Bon Jovi is really not as strongly identified with Jersey, in a weird way. It's more of a time-period thing than a Jersey thing -- like, we'll happily claim Bruce and Sinatra, but mention Bon Jovi to us and we're kind of like, "Oh, this is about the hair, isn't it. Okay, fine." We didn't really decide he was A Jersey Emblem; everyone else did, because of the perm. I mean, yeah, we all listened to their music, because everyone did, because they had two huge albums in a row and were all over MTV.



• Big-hair is like Bon Jovi in that it wasn't a function of Jersey; it was a function of the eighties. When the eighties ended, so did that hair.



• The fact that Thomas Edison is from NJ and Princeton U. is in NJ doesn't seem to count for anything. Come on, people. At least try to see the good.



• A Jersey beefsteak tomato is the apotheosis of tomato-ness. If you don't agree, you've never eaten one in season.

Chinese New Year

Today marks Chinese New Year--The Year of the Rat. To celebrate, we provided the snack today at Chloe's pre-school. I went to the local Chinese supermarket and purchased New Year's Rice Cakes and mandarin oranges. Chloe also handed out red envelopes to the kids in her class filled with gold-wrapped chocolate coins. When I picked Chloe up from pre-school she was quick to share that she did not like the rice cake.

I recorded "Ni Hao Kai Lan" for her and Chloe can't wait to get nap over with to watch it.

The Dairy Best

I interrupt my daily blogging on the life and times of Miss Chloe to interject a message near and dear to Chloe and Chloe's PaPaw---organic milk.

Milk is Chloe's preferred beverage of choice. Seriously, at least 5, 8 ounce glasses a day. She will drink juice, only if milk is not available, and is only recently come to drink water. So with a child that can easily go through a gallon of milk (1% BTW) in 2 days, serving her organic milk not laced with growth hormones (BGH) is important.

Chloe's PaPaw was in the dairy sciences industry until his retirement recently and has always informed us of the little known differences among those producers of so-called dairy products. Buyer Beware!! Just because it says organic does not organic make.

This morning, as I met with the other mom's of the children in Chloe's pre-school class, several of us began discussing what we feed our kids and the topic of organics came up as several of the mom's talked about how they only give their kids organic milk. This struck a cord with me as my Dad (Chloe's PaPaw) has always been adamant on serving Chloe the dairy best without BGH. As I stated earlier, just because it says "organic" doesn't mean it's good organic. A lot of producers have jumped on the organic bandwagon and think that if they slap "organic" on their label they can squeeze a few more cents out of us. So, I shared this link with the mom's and I will share it with you in bloggy land...if you buy organic dairy products, check out this link as it ranks organic milk producers. If you're going to pay more, then make sure it is what you think it is.

GO BIG BLUE!!

Fuhgetabout the Cowboys...we don't live in Texas anymore. We live in Joizey now! (BTW the Giants really are a NJ team).

Chloe has rooted for the Big Blue all season so we had to go out this morning and get her a championship shirt.

Ski NY/NJ

A view from the top of the mountain at the farms in the valley below.
We met some friends today at a nearby ski area, just over the NJ border in NY. The temperature today was in the high 40s, so it was a bit slushy and balmy out. Nonetheless it was great weather for skiing with young children because it was beautiful and sunny and we didn't have to listen to the complain that it was too cold outside.


Chloe had a great time skiing and really put a lot of effort in it. I think she has a competitive streak in her and didn't want to get "shown up" by the 3 other little boys in our group. We did have one meltdown on the tow-rope because she didn't want Mommy to teach her to ski, she wanted Daddy (thanks a lot!). But, once Daddy arrived back on the scene all was well.


Chloe went up on the ski lift for the first time and it was her favorite thing. She did several runs on the bunny slope using the tow rope and then she did two runs down the mountain before we called it a day.

Chloe making her first downhill run after taking her first ski lift ride.
The family getting set to ski down the mountain.

Happy Groundhogs Day!

I love this video...I can watch it over and over. Chloe is convinced that the Groundhog will not see his shadow today because she did not see hers. So, there you have it, you can leave Punxsutawney Phil in his warm burrow.

We would also like to wish Aunt Deanna a happy birthday.