Today I had a playdate with a co-worker of mine and her 4 year old daughter. For those of you who are not at the parenting stage in your life just quite yet a “playdate” is basically getting a couple of kids together to play with eachother. We decided to meet at the mall in a little play area the mall put together with a soft floor, smaller slides, tunnels, and apparetuses for the children to play on. At first I wasn’t sure how it was going to go because we were meeting at 12:30 which is right in the middle of Ayden’s nap time, (so that worried me ALOT) but I was able to get him to take an earlier nap than usual today. As soon as we arrived Angel dove right in and began playing with not only my friends daughter but with all the little kids that were there, while Ayden (who is usually slow to warm up) took a few minutes to survey the area and what was happening before hopping out of his stroller and joining in the fun as well. After spending almost an hour or more in there we ventured into a new store they just put in our mall named Air Circus. The kids looooved this store, they had all kinds of neat toys on display to play with- they thought it was amazing. Next, we ventured over to the pet store to visit and play with some of the puppies and last we ended up grabbing a bite to eat in the food court. The kids had such a good time, and I’m really glad I was able to get out of the house and spend time with a fellow mom! I’m looking forward to many more playdates in the future!!

Ayden woke up in the middle of the night last night with a fever of 102.7, and again early this morning it was 103. So there we were AGAIN at the pediatrician’s office (we were just there Tuesday for the boys H1N1 shots). Turns out the little guy has his first ear infection and a virus on top of that 😦 So for the next week I’ll be playing the dual role of nurse and mommy!

We just finished celebrating Thanksgiving this past week in our house as I’m sure most of you have. Dinner was held at our house where We had about 20 people in all. I love the feeling of a full house, and really his family is one of the best out there! All the women spent the day in the kitchen cooking, talking, and enjoying some wine while the men and children were in the livingroom watching the Macy’s parade and football. Later in the day eventually they were so inspired they took all the kids outside to play a real game of football. Angel’s aunt brought a fun game for everyone to play called Guesstures, and we ended up having a blast with it. At about 6 o’ clock we began putting the food on the table- ham, turkey, mashed potatoes, rice, stuffing, baked ziti, corn, rolls, and sat down at our two tables (because there were so many of us)! We said Grace, and got to work haha! We finished thanksgiving dinner with 2 apple pies, and 1 pumpkin both topped with vanilla ice cream and cool whip! Even though this was my first Thanksgiving with out my Grandfather, Angel’s family was able to come along and manage to fill that deep,dark whole in my Heart with their love, humor, craziness, warmth, and guidance and for that I am forever thankful.

I ventured out to the grocery store today to pick out my **FREE** ham/turkey from Shoprite as well as all of the other goodies we’ll be needing for thanksgiving dinner this year. For the past 3 years we have done Thanksgiving dinner at our house because it’s a little bit more roomy and it can be such a hassle to pack up, now 2, children and travel an hour up to central jersey. My husband, Ayden, and I ventured into Shoprite with the notion that we would be fending off SAHM’s, elderly ladies, and rude holiday people and it turned out to be quite the contrary! I have a feeling because we prepared ourselves ahead of time with a list of EXACTLY what we needed, it made the trip go a little bit more smoothly. We even happened to bump into a co-worker of mine and my husband’s and were able to chat with her and her almost 1 year old daughter for a few minutes!! All in all it was a very successful trip to the grocery store (which have become few and far between these days with the two boys)! Tonight begins the “cleaning” portion of getting ready for Thanksgiving because family starts arriving tomorrow evening!!

Today is our 3 month wedding anniversary! Yes I know most people say “oh just wait till It’s been 10 years or so, you won’t be that excited then”! The truth is I want to celebrate the time we are in now, and hope that through hard work, family, and our faith that we will continue to be as happy as we are now 10, 20, even 50 years from now! So here’s to us hun 3 months down with many, many more to come! I love you.

So the yard sale shopping didn’t work out as well as i thought it was going to this morning, but as it does turn out my 3 year old is fascinated with them so next time i go a hunting i know who to take with me!! On the flipside I was able to take advantage of some really great sales that were going on today, again! I had coupons that were good for today and tomorrow at Oshkosh, Carters, and Kohl’s. All coupons were spend $10, save $10 – you can’t beat that! So i did, and i did it childless. Yup, you heard right folks, Daddy stayed home with Angel and Ayden while Momma was able to go shopping. Now, don’t get me wrong i love my kids with my whole heart and would do anything for them but sometimes when your trying to shop in an overcrowded, tiny, messy, child’s clothing store two children pulling at you in different directions, dropping their Bobo, and throwing their juice doesn’t exactly give you the state of mind to pick out what you want…and toy stores are even worse because they have a tendency to just RUN after whatever catches their eye! All in all I was able to pick up 2 toys each for the boys and some books as well to add to our growing christmas presents!

I’m so excited to say that I am going garage sale hunting tomorrow lol!!! I know i know, I’m such an old lady but its sad to say this is what excited me these days!

I am so proud of myself right now. I actually took advantage of an awesome sale that saved me well over $50. I stopped by our local CVS to pick up infant Tylenol and Motrin because Ayden is sick and as I was checking out I passed their leftover Halloween odds and ends. Much to my advantage I noticed they had a few leftover halloween costumes, and after reading an old childhood friend, Haley’s, blog i thought what a fantastic idea to buy some and put them away for christmas presents for baby angel! I was able to pick up 3 costumes that were 90% off. 1 bumblebee transformer, 1 optimus prime transformer, and 1 red power ranger all for $4.50!! This now means that I have officially started Christmas shopping for the boys, haha!!

For the first time in almost a year I finally am able to believe that craigslist is a REAL place for people to buy and sell items. What seperates this site from others such as Ebay is that usually most transactions happen locally, within a few miles of where each of the people live, therefore cutting down on shipping cost. I first heard about the website almost a year ago from my father in law, then from a few close friends. Today was the first day that I actually sold something on there and was able to make a few extra dollars- which doesn’t hurt when we are this close to the holiday season!! I was sad to see some of our baby stuff go, but happy that I was able to help someone who was able to put the items to use rather than them sitting in the kids closet collecting dust!

I keep reading everyone posting lately about not being able to sleep and I’m afraid it is now my turn. For the past 3 or 4 nights I have not been able to sleep whatsoever. I feel restless, overstimulated, and my mind will not stop racing. As a mom we have about a million things on our mind at any given minute during the day and it feels like at night my brain will just not stop going to take a rest. For now I’m going to cut down my 3-4 cups of coffee throughout the day to 2-3 cups (I know I still need some sort of kicker to help me make it through with these 2 kids!), and also try not to drink ANY coffee after 6 or 7 p.m. at night. We’ll see how it works 🙂