Addicted

So I have a new addiction and it is great and completely frustrating at the same time. I finally joined Myspace to see what all the hype was about. It is pretty cool and great to be able to hook up with old friends and it helps with my creativity outlet. I feel like I get my creative fix when I'm tweaking my site. BUT, it is completely frustrating too. There aren't any instructions on how to customize your site, yet I see all of my friends sites all pimped out so for the past four nights I've been a woman obsessed to create a "cool" site. I'm about halfway there, but still plugging away. The only problem with Myspace is if you aren't a member you can't even get into it, so if you are looking for a new creative outlet join.

In other news. Seth does not need tubes in his ears at this time (cross your fingers!!!) If we can go 6 weeks with no ear infections we will be set. So here is hoping.

I also helped my friend Erin move into her brand new beautiful house yesterday and parts of my body hurt today that you would never dream could hurt. I was in organizational HEAVEN. I was in my element. If there was a job out there that involved organizing peoples homes, I would be PERFECT for it. We got her all unpacked, rooms cleaned and set up, everything put away and organized. The only thing left is to decorate which is the fun part. I was on such a high that when Seth went down for a nap I starting cleaning out my own house and rearranging and organizing. SO fun! You probably think I'm a crazy person, but I thrive on it.

Today I am back at work and I realized that I'm running low on pics. It has been such a blur of a week that I haven't taken any pics. It will have to be on my to-do list for this weekend, along with finding some new sneakers for Seth. His monster feet keep growing. Tonight we are off to a 40th Birthday party and Ro promises to be the responsible driver since I have been for the past 2 weeks. It should be fun and then we have NO plans for the rest of the weekend, YIPPEEE!

Before I forget, I finally chatted with Ginger last night and they close on their house TODAY and they are so excited, so CONGRATULATIONS AMBROSE FAMILY! We can't wait to see the new place! Love to all!

Health, Wellness & Learning

Monday was Superintendent's Day at work and normally it is one of the most boring days of the year. We all sit in the back and bring magazines and other work to do to get through the boredom. This year was a wonderful surprise. It was titled Health and Wellness Day. It almost reminded me of mini course day back in grade school when you were given a list of activities to choose from and you could guide your own day. So my friend Erin and I chose a Teambuilding workshop and a Weightlifting workshop. What we didn't know was that there was also a health fair set up in the gym with all sorts of things to try. So we ended up skipping our first workshop and we tried acupuncture, got massages, and had our blood pressure taken. It was quite fun. then we ended up skipping our second workshop and attending the teambuilding. That was awesome! We had a team of six people and 2 different activities that had to be completed as a team. TOO FUN! Loved it. The remainder of the day we went out to lunch and worked on report cards and planning in our rooms.

Yesterday I went to SYR with another teacher to attend a workshop titled Enhancy your Effectiveness as a Reading Specialist. It was GREAT. I'm not the type of person to want to sit all day long and listen to someone, I'm not the model student, BUT this woman, Donna Gordon was an amazing speaker and I came away with so many new ideas. I feel refreshed and ready to get back to work. Plus, the added bonus was we went to Olive Garden for lunch, delicious!

Today I'm back to work, but only for one day. I am taking tomorrow off to take Seth to ENT and then sneaking away to help my friend Erin move into her brand new house! She hates to take help from anyone, but I didn't give her a choice.

I also think my friend Ginger is moving into her new house this week, but I can't get ahold of the girl! I'm so excited for her as well. The Ambrose's have their 1st new house! Way to go you will love it and we can't wait to see it!

Testing!

Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing - Share Photos

I finally learned how to upload videos, hooray for me!!!

Things I LOVE about Seth Thursday

Our son has to be at the BEST age right now. He is so fun, funny to watch, and just doing and observing new things daily. He cracks me up! So I thought I'd comprise a list of things that I love about Seth today and everyday:

* his fat kissable/squeezable cheeks
* buddha belly/old man beer belly

* nugget teeth

* his genuine laugh

* when he dances along with the ipod in his highchair

* holding his mini boom box up like the guy from the movie Say Anything

* running towards the stairs when you ask him if he wants to go upstairs

* chasing him around the house while he laughs hysterically

* heading for his highchair as soon as he gets home from Pat's because he KNOWS it is snack time

* reading him Go Maisie Go! while he sits on your lap

* watching him people watch

* his new navy blue crocs on his huge feet

* his crazy open mouth kisses

* hearing him babble in his crib first thing in the morning

* hearing any of his old words and newly added words (momma, daddy, rocky, ut oh, pat, tree, please...)

* singing to the Lori Berkner Band DVD with him

* watching him cram as much food into his mouth as he possible can and trying new foods to see his reaction

There are so many Sethism's that I love and continue to love daily as I watch him grow before my eyes. I am truly blessed to have such a wonderful little guy!!!

Seth's new outfit from Great Gram and Gramp for the summer.

It is so stinkin' cute I can't stand it!

Spring Fever

Seth's new crocs!

I totally have spring fever. I want to ditch the socks, coats, sweaters, etc. I'm ready for capri pants and especially flip flops! I can't wait!!!! It doesn't look like I will be wearing them anytime soon though. We still have snow on the ground and the temps arent' going above 40 today, but we have hope now. Winter is over!

Last night we dropped Seth off with Grammy and Grampy while we got Dad and Sue's house ready for their arrival. I watered the plants one last time and Ro blew out the driveway! Welcome Home Dad, Sue, and Dayna we missed you!

Tonight Ro has an after work meeting and then a dinner so Seth and I are on our own. I'm not sure what we are going to do, maybe we will go out to eat just the two of us. We'll see!

Tomorrow night Uncle J is coming over for dinner and as per his request I am making Taco Pie for dinner. Yesterday Uncle J and his girlfriend Jaime celebrated their 1st Anniversary of dating. It is so funny because I can remember celebrating my 1st with Roland and it seems like a million years ago, but I do remember that it was a big deal. I had never dated anyone else for that long before and it was a big deal, just like it was a big deal for Justin and Jaime yesterday. Congrats guys!

Was that the Weekend?

This past weekend was so busy and fun that I can barely remember it happening, but luckily I have tons of pics to show for it. Friday night my Mom and I went to TI High School and caught their version of the play Pajama Game and I have to say for a small school it was pretty darn good. Plus the bonus for me was seeing old students all grown up. The play was great but driving home in a sudden snow storm was NOT. It took us an hour to get home and by the time I made it to my door my whole body was all tensed up from the stress. We survived and I hope it is the last storm.

Saturday was St. Patty's Day and we visited Ro's dad AKA Papa up at Caprara's and kept everyone entertained their for a while. Steph babysat while we all went to Karen and Jaspers Bistro for dinner. It was delicious!

Jess, Sheryl, & Eric at dinner

Decked out in our green

We even had festive beer!

After dinner we headed to the Irish Fest. It was good to see some old faces and get out and socialize, but by 11pm I was done and the rest of my party was just starting so luckily my little brother was home and came to my rescue so that I could go to bed. He was hoping it was a drunk call, but happy to pick me up sober too! Ro and the rest stayed out until 2am and they were hurting on Sunday!

Sunday we met Ro's parents for breakfast at Longway's, too naps, grocery shopped, and my grandparents came down for dinner and play time!

Now how many 79 year olds can get

down on the floor and play with a 1 year old??

Play time!

Another great weekend and a less busy week ahead of us. Tonight I'm going out to eat with the girls, I finally get to try TGIFriday's so I'm excited about that. My Dad and Sue I think will be home by Wednesday night or Thursday so we need to continue to get their mail and check their house until then. Also eventhough I think the gods forgot, Spring is supposed to start on Wednesday, here's hoping!

Have a wonderful day everyone!

Reflections and Life Changes

I haven't had a ton to write about this week thus the lack of blogs, but I have been thinking a lot this week about life, changes, and friendships. please bare with me as I run at the mouth for a bit. I actually feel like Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City right about now as I sit at my computer and think!! All three of which are tough topics. I just keep thinking about all the wonderful people in my life, all of those who have been by my side in the past year. What a wonderful year it has been for me. With the joy of the birth of Seth came many highs and lows. I can not imagine my life without him now or even what life was like when he wasn't alive. Many of you might or might not know that I had a tough adjustment process to motherhood. One that I am not exactly proud of, but have worked through with many many hours of talking and reflecting and finally having it click in and finally enjoying it! I have the most supportive family a girl could ever ask for and we are so very fortunate to have such a large family to share our joys with. Many people think of divorced families as disfunctional, but ours works and works well. I am soooo lucky to have parents whom get along and we are able to have family functions as a large group. I always say the more the merrier. I love to be surrounded by loved ones. Anyhow, back to my original topic which is friendships. I am truly lucky to have had many different people come into my life over the years and to share friendships with. What I have been thinking about lately is how to hold on to some friendships when they seem to be slipping away. The thought of that makes me so sad. I think of friendships as a two way street both of which effort has to be made in order to keep that friendship strong. It is just so tough to keep that communication strong when there are never enough hours in the day. I would like to be able to communicate better with many of my friends on a daily/weekly/monthly basis, but that isn't always the case and that is one of the things that saddens me. So how do you maintain or regain those friendships when they seem to slip away? I also struggle with one sided friendships. When only one person seems to make an effort then what do you do? Do you continue to make those efforts in the hope that on the other end the person is appreciative, but lacks the time to reciprocate? As you can see I feel like I'm in a dillema. Also I can't spell for crap today sorry! My other thought/question is do cliques ever go away. I think back to high school and that was clique central. You had to be in the "right" clique or else you were in trouble, but as I got older I saw less and less and as I look around my school I see them once again. Why as adults can't everyone just be friends and not have to seperate into small groups? I hope that anyone who reads this isn't thinking to themself, "Is this targeted at me?" This is not target at ANYONE, I love all my girlies out there. I have just had many thoughts about friendships lately and I guess I wanted to get them out and ask for advice from all my bloggy readers too. Life can be tough, it can knock you down, but if you have people that care it makes all the difference in the world. I am lucky to have that, I just want to know how to maintain and not lose it???

Family Fun

First and foremost welcome Colden Grant Marks who was born this morning at 5:15am to my friend Nicole from work!

CONGRATULATIONS TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILY!

What a wonderful weekend with my wonderful family! Friday night we headed to Target to scope it out, it was great as all Target's are. We walked out of there with $85.00 less in our pockets, but oh well you can't take it with you when you go right?! Then, we headed to the one and only Panera for some take out dinner for Ro and I before we headed home to put Seth to bed and eat up.

Saturday we headed to SYR to go to Chuck E. Cheese's. We met Uncle J at the mall and we were off. After waiting in line for 45 minutes we finally got in the door and the fun began. Seth was in awe and he had a great time. He loved people watching, riding all the rides, the slide, and all the chaos. We loved watching it through his eyes.

My tired little guy after a couple of hours of play,

he slept the whole way home from SYR.

Sunday we went to Longway's for breakfast and ironically I ordered the exact same items that I had ordered the day I went into labor for Seth last year. Too strange!! Then we went grocery shopping, checked on my Dad's house one last time before they come home, and took a walk with Seth and Rocky. My dog is such a wimp, he would stop dead at every puddle. God forbid he get a little wet! Mom and Tom came over for dinner and we took another walk after dinner. Spring is approaching and we LOVE it! It also stayed light until about 7:15, YIPPEEE!

Today we are back to our normal routine, but we have some fun things planned for the week. After almost 3 months of craziness/sickness/busyness I am finally getting together with my friend Katie for dinner on Wednesday night. It is FAR long overdue and I'm excited to see her and finally catch up. Where does the time go?? Now where should we go to eat??

Out with the Old In with the New

As most of your know our house is set up in a strange way. We have a little TV room in the front and an even littler TV room in the back of the house. In the middle is a large livingroom that has too many entryways/stairs/doorways/closets to encompass our entertainment center. So we end up swinging one of our chairs around to face the front TV for more seating. We have been looking looking for a chair that fits our style, but has a recline option in it. We didn't want a traditional recliner because it wouldn't look like the rest of our furniture. We finally found exactly what we were looking for and believe it our not we found the most beautiful leather reclining chair at Sam's Club last weekend. We fell in love and bought it the very next day. Impulse shopping at its best!

Seth playing it up in the new chair with Papa!
I tried to upload the rest of the pics of the new chair and they wouldn't, computers can be so frustrating sometimes.

For anyone who reads this blog, some of you do religiously, but never comment. That is alright, but can you please say a little prayer for some loved ones in our lives. First and foremost, my grandparents have been sick all week long with that awful bug we all had about a month ago. They have been nursing each other, but my gramp was up in the night again last night and has had a relapse. Please say a little prayer that my wonderful 80 year old grandparents can get rid of this horrible sickness and continue to enjoy their days! Secondly, a close family friend and bestfriend of my fathers is having some heart problems and has been rushed to University Hospital in SYR for surgery. Say a little prayer for a safe and speedy recovery!

Other then a crazy week health wise for many many people I haven't even mentioned, we are finally on to the weekend. We are supposed to have a warm up here (40's) and if it truly happens I will be very very happy!

Have a great weekend and don't forget to set those clocks AHEAD one hour on Saturday night before you go to bed.

SPRING AHEAD!

New Store

Watertown is very up and coming these days. Newly added to our city in the past year are the following stores and eateries... Super Walmart, Bed Bath and Beyond, Panera Bread, Texas Roadhouse, Starbucks, Ruby Tuesday, Holiday Inn Express, TGI Friday's and now one of my all time FAVORITES... Target!!!

We haven't officially been in the new store yet, this pic was stolen from newzjunky, but we are headed there tomorrow night to check it out. Now we think to ourselves, what do we really need to go to SYR for anymore except for a change of scenery?

BUT, we are headed to SYR on Saturday for that very reason, also to meet up with my brother aka Uncle J. We haven't seen him in a couple of months and we are going to take Seth to...

We took Seth to our little dinky arcade about a month ago and he had a blast so we thought it might be fun! My brother was up for it since the three of us adults will probably have more fun then Seth. We will be living out our youth for an afternoon.

Creativity is My Outlet

I'm sure that most of you know that I thrive on being creative. I love to scrapbook, take pictures, cook, bake, make jewelry, create powerpoint slideshows, letterbox, take pictures, fotolog, and now blog. I love to learn anything new that can aide in my creative juices. Yesterday my friend Amanda posted on her blog a website that has all sorts of ideas for taking your old pictures and turning them into creative beings! I was so excited because this is a blah week. For the past day and again today most of my classes have been cancelled due to the NYS Math test. So what have I been doing with my free time? Planning, NO! Being creative, YES! Below is one of the projects I worked on yesterday and the second can be found on our fotolog: www.fotolog.com/seth12306 I'm sure I will be up to many more whent he time presents itself! I hope that you enjoy it.

You can click on the picture to get a closer look and check out the details in the fine print. This project was called "Movie Poster" and it was great to create, plus it aides in my latest obsession, my sons buddha belly!

You can go to www.selfportraitchallenge.net/category/challenges/online-tools/ to check out the rest of the projects to try.

My New Obsession...

I know that I am totally obsessed with something new on a weekly/monthly basis. Most of them stick forever, (Dr. Pepper fountain soda, Napoleon Dynamite, Panera Bread...) but I have a brand new one to share. I am currently obsessed with my little Seth's belly. It is the flippin' cutest, roundest, chubbiest, softest little thing in the world. I love to rub it and smooch on it whenever he will let me. He even let me take a pic to share!

It looks like a 50 year old mans belly after too many beers!

Happy Monday everyone, I'm feeling a bit discouraged about my spring fever. Overnight we got about 4 inches of snow, AFTER we completely scraped down the driveway yesterday! I'm hoping it is the last big storm! Nothing else new to report, business as usual!

Can I Get a YEE HA?

We went for our night out on the town last night and had so much fun! We called Texas Roadhouse for their call ahead seating and they said it would be a two hour wait. No problem, we headed to Coleman's for a few drinks with our friends. Then we headed to the restaurant at about 7pm. We get there and they said it would be about another 30 minutes, no problem we headed to the bar and 1 hour later we were called to our seats. If you are willing to wait the extremely long wait I would suggest that you try this restaurant, it was AMAZING! The food, atmosphere, and the music was so great!

Our friend Jaime enjoying the blooming onion we ordered!

Roland eating peanuts while we waited oh so patiently!

We had an amazing weekend full of family, food, and friends! What more could you ask for?

17 days until the first day of spring!!!!!!!!!

Freezing Rain Day

No school/work for me today because the weather here is rather crazy. My school closed due to freezing rain, but Watertown schools are open because it is only rainy and windy in town. Seth and I are going to visit Grammy at work today and join here creative movements class with her students this afternoon. Seth should get a kick out of that!

Other then that I'm just catching up on laundry and counting down the minutes until I can dig into my steak tomorrow night. SOOOO excited!

It has been a blah week, and now with the added wetness I'm more then ready for spring. Which is only 19 days away!!

Here are some of the things I CAN'T wait to do...
* walks after dinner
* cook on the grill
* farmers market
* Chrissy Beanz for coffee/treats/sitting outside and people watching
* stopping for a fountain soda on our daily walks
* taking Seth to the zoo for the 1st time
* going to the playground
* building Seth's swingset
* playing outside
* warm sun
* no jackets
* deck parties
* seeing Seth in the swimming pool this year
* visiting friends
* vacationing with friends
* strawberry picking
* blueberry picking
* fresh fruits and veggies
* Uncle J coming home for the summer
* taking Rocky for walks
* wagon rides
* DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME
* sitting on the front porch

So many things to look forward to, we are truly lucky people!

ENT

It is official we are being referred to our ENT (Ear Nose Throat) doc! Seth and I went for his recheck on his ear yesterday afternoon and he still has fluid in his right ear so they categorized it as a "persistent ear infection" and since it has been persistent for 4 months they are making a referral. We also need to continue the antibiotics until after our appointment with ENT. So that is a wrap up for Mr. Seth!

We went and watered/checked on Dad and Sue's house last night so if you read this blog guys, the house is all set and everything it AOK!

It has been a rather uneventful week and that is the reason for my lack of blogs. Tonight we head to Mom and Tom's for dinner. YIPPPEEE a night to not cook and a night of visiting away from our house! We are looking forward to it!

Saturday night we are going out for my make up birthday dinner that had been lost to sickness. We are going to try our new restaurant in town. It has been crazy busy since it opened so we are super psyched to try it.

It is almost the weekend everyone so hang in there and there are only 20 days until the first day of spring!