Happy Birthday PopPop!

Today you are 91! We are so blessed to have you in our lives and we treasure all the time we get to spend together. We hope your day is filled with family, fun and some really good food!

We Love You PopPop!

What was happening on February 24th in 1918?

• As of 2/24/2009 10:05:47 AM EST
  
• You are 91 years old.
  
• You are 1,092 months old.
  
• You are 4,748 weeks old.
  
• You are 33,238 days old.
  
• You are 797,722 hours old.
  
• You are 47,863,325 minutes old.
  
• You are 2,871,799,547 seconds old.
  
• Your date of conception was on or about 3 June 1917 which was a Sunday.
  
• You were born on a Sunday under the astrological sign Pisces.
  
• Celebrities who share your birthday:
  Billy Zane (1966)
  Kristin Davis (1965)
  Eddie Murray (1956)
  Steven Jobs (1955)
  Alain Prost (1955)
  Edward James Olmos (1947)
  Joe Lieberman (1942)
  James Farentino (1938)
  Michel Legrand (1932)
  Abe Vigoda (1921)
  Chester W. Nimitz (1885)
  Enrico Caruso (1873)
  
• The moon's phase on the day you were born was waxing gibbous.
  
• In 1918 the US population was approximately 91,972,266 people, 31.0 persons per square mile.
  
• In 1918, a gallon of milk sold for $.55, a loaf of bread sold for $.10, a new car sold for $500.00, a gallon of gas sold for $.08, and a new house sold for $4,821.00. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was about 82.20. (In 2009, a gallon of milk sold for $3.87, a loaf of bread sold for $1.40, a new car sold for $24,125.00, a gallon of gas sold for $1.86, and a new house sold for $183.300. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was about 8,635.42.)
  
• The average wage earner in 1918 made $1,144.00 per year, compared to $34,327.44 today.
  
• Back in 1918, the popular songs were: Bagdad performed by Harold Atteridge; Hinky Dinky Parlay Voo performed by Edward Rowland; How Can You Tell sung by Ned Wayburn; as well as I'll Say She Does by Al Jolson. Also topping the musical charts: JA-DA by Bob Carleton; K-K-K-Kayt by Geoffery O'Hara; Oh! Frenchy by Sam Ehrlich; and the ever popular Sometime by Rida Johnson Young.
  
• A separation of church and state is established by the new Bolshevik government in Russia. In other news, a method of producing motion pictures in color is developed by Leon Forest Douglas. The "New York Times" starts home delivery for subscribers. A.F.L. President Samuel Gompers promises labor's support for the war effort. The first American made warplanes begin carrying out missions on the Western Front.
  
• In the world of baseball, the Boston Red Sox defeat Chicago four games to two win the World Series. United States Secretary of State Robert Lansing declares baseball a "nonessential" occupation to the country. A horse named Exterminator, ridden by W. Knapp, pulls ahead of the pack to win the Kentucky Derby. The Mare Island Marines soundly defeat Camp Lewis Army 19-7 in the Rose Bowl.

***For the video below please mute the music on the right hand side of the page. You also might want to turn your volume on your computer up, it might be hard to hear.***

It's PopPop's Birthday!

Happy 91st Birthday PopPop! We hope you have a wonderful day!

Tabitha's Ribbon Week

Here is a video of Tabitha's gymnastics class and the ribbon week ceremony they do once every few months. This was her second ribbon. She was so proud of herself.

We are working really hard on getting her to let go of her teacher when she is on the balance beam. As you can see in the video, sometimes she is holding on for dear life! There is also a little jumping track action! It is kind of a long video so hold on if it takes a while to load.

Can I shoot myself now?

Recent events have led me to believe that I might just want vanish off the face of the earth in the near future, like when my kids become teenagers! Don't get me wrong, I love my children. I am sure most of you understand how precious little ones are.

This past week, today, SHE is NOT precious. SHE is EVIL! The SHE I am referring to is my lovely daughter, Tabitha. She seems to have found a new hobby here at the "baby house". It involves markers (usually the permanent kind), pens, or anything else that can make permanent marks, like say, LIPSTICK!

It all started a week or so ago with a dry erase marker. Your thinking right now, "How bad could that be, it's erasable". This is what she did with it:

Then, I got her up from a nap one day only to discover that she was covered from head to toe in pen! Somehow she had stowed a nice blue pen in her bed before nap time and preceded to draw all over her legs, arms, neck, stomach, hand and face. Oh, the wall and bed rails got it too. The next day I realized that Dora had gotten the same treatment! I was so furious I didn't even take a picture of her covered in ink. But here is Dora:

In case anyone needs to know, NO, pen does not come off Dora. Oh . . . I was sooooo mad!

So now here is the kicker. I was on the phone with my Mom and Tabitha was doing something she shouldn't so she was sent to timeout. I was sitting on the couch watching her, talking . . . She was literally out of my sight for 6 seconds, maybe. I turned and looked at her and I realized she had somehow manged to find my makeup bag. In that short span of time she had drawn ALL OVER the floor in red lipstick and concealer and given the kitty a nice coating of mascara. AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! What did I do to deserve this?

I don't even know how I will begin to survive her teenage years. Boarding school maybe?

At Home for Christmas

So, it has been a very long time since I have posted anything. Sorry about that. I guess life is just now getting back to "normal". Brian is back in classes and working and Ethan is back at school and is getting ready to start his after school enrichment classes. This year he will be taking a critter craft class, french and chemistry.


We had a great time at home for Christmas. The kids were overwhelmed with excitement and could not wait for Santa to come to our house. Christmas Eve was especially overwhelming. We had dinner at Nana's house and then made our way home quickly to say goodbye to the shelf elf and put cookies and milk out for Santa. We also had to sprinkle reindeer food in the front yard (to attract the reindeer) and put carrots out with the milk and cookies. We really enjoyed spending Christmas with our family and it was really nice to spend more than 2 or 3 days at home.

So, with every trip home comes the packing! Our problem with being home for Christmas was that the kids of course wanted ALL of their presents to make it back to the "Baby House". As most of you know, we drive a Honda Civic. This car is not the roomiest of cars, especially with two kids and two cats in tow.

For all of you curious people out there. What can you fit into a Honda Civic. Here you go:

-2 adults, 2 children in carseats, 2 cats in cat carriers, four winter coats, 2 laptops, an amazon kindle, a livescribe pen with 4 notebooks, 1 extra large underarmor duffel bag filled to the brim with clothes, 2 large kids duffel bags stuffed to the brim with clothes and one small duffel bag filled with shoes, a matchbox space shuttle, the entire playmobil castle and every accessory that goes with it, 5 sets of playmobil fairy world things, a lego helicopter set, a breyer horse barn and 6 horses that go with it, a playmobil cargo truck, a pink tag reading system with five books, a green tag reading system with five books, 2 artist drawing tablets and two very special pens that came with them, 6 gi joes, a huge gi joe plane and a gi joe tank, batman, a nintendo wii, 3 controllers, 2 wii wheels, 8 wii games, a wii fit board, a go anywhere girls dance studio, go anywhere girls house, go anywhere girls pool house, go anywhere girls bus and ice cream truck, a tub of pop together beads, a battleship game, a my little pony and her remote controlled scooter, 2 binders of dvd's, 2 nintendo ds's, 6 new ds games, a "You, the Owners Manual" book, a cinderella play set, 4 pairs of dress up shoes, a bag full of play jewelry, a highlights calendar, a playmobil cement truck, a playmobil work truck, a playmobil dump truck, a playmobil construction set, a playmobil fire car, a gymboree bag full of pictures, mail and other things, a bag of diapers, a diaper bag, Brian's underarmor backpack filled to capacity, a kids laptop in a pink stephen joseph backpack, an Ariel head with hair accessories, 10 my little pony play sets, and one Operation game.

I think that might be it. I am sure I left something out but I think you get the point! See, we don't need a bigger car. By the way, I never said that any of us could actually BREATH during the drive home.

One last little tidbit of Christmas . . . Ethan and Tabitha both made candy houses. Ethan made his during school and Tabitha made hers during the visit we had with Santa at Ethan's school before Christmas. Here is one of the houses . . .

I am going to try to get cracking on more posts. I promise not to slack any more! Have a great Valentine's Day!