Quickie

I've been feeling a little bit under the weather... well we all have actually... so that's partly why I haven't posted much of any lately. My nights have been consumed by Nyquils and a screaming baby (Ethan's always been a great sleeper, but he's going through a phase right now where he wakes up in the middle of the night squealing until we move him to our bed). Those nights make up for really long work days... and frankly, I'm exhausted.

So on that note, I'll leave you with these random photos from the past couple of days... this great weather's gonna make for AWESOME outdoor photo ops. I'm uber excited, especially since I've been itching with the idea of spending some serious dough (*cough* a little over $2000) on a brand spanking new camera and high-demand lens. I know, it's a lot of money.... but I so want it! :)

Decisions...... decisions.......

Snitzels, Shopping and Monkeys

The trip to the Poconos was a bust. After a string of not-so-good weather reports and the realization that the Pocono mountains were actually A LOT farther than we anticipated, we decided that 1. a 20-hour roadtrip is WAY too much driving for a weekend and 2. it just might not be in the stars for us to be in a champagne-shaped jacuzzi after all. But we still wanted a weekend of just us... so Ethan got to spend a couple of days with grandma and papi while mommy and daddy pretend they were dating again.

It's kinda weird --- having to "plan" to exclusively spend time with each other. Before, we used to call in sick and drive down to Mexico for a couple of days without even a thought. We both miss that, I think, it just doesn't get mentioned too often. So on Sunday, in leiu of our good ol' spontaneous escapades... we decided to drive to the closest unconquered city we could think of... COLUMBUS. :)

It might be uncategorically unfair to compare with the Poconos, but we had a lot of fun. Got a nice suite (jacuzzi wasn't the shape of a champagne glass -- or any other cocktail glass for that matter, but it was still nice), enjoyed a very expensive dinner (the kind that comes with complimentary valet and everyone is dressed like they're meeting the president), watched a movie uninterupted (especially without having to worry about getting back early enough for the babysitter), drove and walked around the German Village in the outskirts of Columbus with a tourist map (minus the stroller and a diaper bag), and even got to do some shopping - WOO HOO (in a REAL outlet, unlike the Tamarack).

Quaint authentic restuarant called "Juergens" where I had my first snitzel since being in Germany about 4 years ago

Of course, by the time we met back up with Ethan and the inlaws (I have the BEST inlaws any girl could ask for), we couldn't resist ending the date weekend with a guilty "we'll-make-it-up-to-you-for-leaving" spontaneous trip to the zoo. Ethan is FASCINATED with animals... it is so awesome to watch his eyes light up everytime he sees an aquarium or a cage-full of monkeys -- I keep thinking maybe he'll grow up to be a vet one day!

He usually goes ga-ga over the monkeys, but this time, he was tickled by the sleeping kangaroos... LOVE that cute crunching face!

But his absolute fave has always been the aquarium...

I want my money, bitch!

OK, I about died laughing.... Pearl is the kind of landlord you want.... LOL!


[edit: I've taken down the video of the Landlord, but if you want to see it, you can watch it here]



The best part is in the end when she says... "come, mommy......"

Plans for a Wild Friday Night

One word, laundry. Exciting stuff.

I can't understand how three people can go through so many clothes. My conspiracy theory is that someone's been sneaking into our house, dumping their dirty clothes in our hamper, and sneaks back in later to pick them up after it's all been washed, fluffed and folded. Yeah, that's got to be it.

Either that, or I need serious help.... maybe magic.... or perhaps a maid? SOMETHING that will turn our dirty clothes from the floor to clean and folded in the drawer, versus the dark reality of "dirty clothes every where - dirty clothes sort of stacked together, clothes in the washer - clean/wet clothes in the washer - stuff wet clothes in the drier - empty drier / clean stuff not folded on the floor or in a hamper to be later on mistaken as dirty clothes so they go through the whole process again".

Sorting is half of the battle. By the time we finish sorting the blacks from the whites from the jeans from the delicates, we're already too poofed to advance to the next level (It gets so bad sometimes, we do what we call the "college-load" and just pile everything in the washer without sorting). OK, we totally get that it really doesn't take but 2 seconds to load them to the washer -- and these giant washers are now equipped with ultra annoying buzzers that alert you they're done spinning your clothes, so you're left with marginal room for excuses for not transfering them to the dryer standing 1 foot away. It's just so darn........ boring!!!!!!

But I can't stand it anymore. I swear one of these days, I'm going to start putting dirty clothes in the trash just so I don't have to deal with it anymore -- hmm... might give me an excuse to shop for a new Spring wardrobe! -- though that might not fly too well with the hubby. But for now, I'm forced to dedicate a Friday night to take control of at least the pile that is taking over our bedroom floor.



But before you feel too bad for me for assigning a Friday night with a cumbersome chore, be it known that Mike and I have other wild plans for this weekend at the Poconos. ;)

We're All Okay

Being away from family is tough. We have managed thus far to stay afloat since Mike and I have each other to rely on, but I always feared the day that we couldn't even be there for each other. I don't mean to overstate the obvious but that couldn't have been more true yesterday.

Mike, Ethan and I got food poisoning from some stupid pre-cooked rotiseree chicken we bought from Walmart the other night. Well, we're speculating it's that, since it's the only thing all three of us ate. It was horrible. Ethan was so sick that he just wanted to be held and cried the minute we tried to put him down. And Mike and I were so sick, we took turns throwing up and curling up into a ball until we gathered up enough strenght to take care of poor Ethan.

We're all better now, thanks to the meds. We took today off again per doctor's orders. Ethan's immune system must be building up from all the past illnesses he's had, that he seemed to recover faster than mommy and daddy. He was semi-back to his old bouncing-off-the-wall self by this afternoon... although Mike and I still had to take turns resting between the dizzy spells and Ethan shrieking for attention.

So no photos tonight. I just wanted to let everyone know we're doing ok.

For what it's worth, we're probably not having take-out for a while.

Easter Wrap-Up

Unfortunately, because of the weather, we didn't get to take Ethan egg-hunting this weekend. This morning though, we joined the ranks of holiday Catholics and attended the Easter service. Of course, Ethan wasn't too keen of staying quiet and listening to the readings -- instead, he wanted to throw things and run up and down the aisle to play with the other rowdy kids. After surviving the hour-long mass, we went home and gave Ethan the Easter Bunny's basket of goodies before venturing off for a nice bruch at the Cracker Barrel.

In it were letter blocks, a monkey book, some matchbox cars, a couple of shirts, bubbles, a few snacks like cheese sticks and twizzlers, and other little stuff. He was amused by the eggs we colored last night... truthfully, I think he just liked throwing them and seeing our reactions every time we heard a SPLAT. He played with those for a little bit, until he realized it was so much more fun to play with the plastic box his blocks came in with. Kids........

And last night, I was introduced to a very non-filipino tradition of painting eggs. YES folks, you heard it right... I have NEVER colored an egg in my entire life until last night. My parenting was attacked by a certain someone (Mike) who argued it doesn't make sense that I would take the time to carve a pumpkin for Ethan but not dye eggs. SO..... we did! and Ethan enjoyed breaking them...

Oh and I can't forget to mention about the shrinking Easter bunny. I swear, it SHRANK. See, this is how big it was last year (LOVE the look on Ethan's face)... compared to this year, where it's obviously gotten smaller!

Easter 2006

Easter 2007

Well, that's it! That was our Easter in an eggshell. Ha! Get it? Eggshell instead of nutshell? Nevermind. We hope that everyone had a Happy Easter! :)

Happy Keester

A coworker sent this in an email today and I thought it was the cutest thing... seeing the baby bottoms painted like Easter eggs --- I was immediately INSPIRED. I was this <--> close to buying body paint so I could paint my own masterpiece, but then I realized how difficult it would probably be considering Ethan never sits/stands still for more than 2 seconds at a time.

So to save our carpet the risk of having pastel polka dots, I decided to dig through my archives and came up with this instead. It satisfied my craving for butt shots and I didn't have to deal with any paint! These shots were taken back in July, which makes him around 6 months old in the photos.

*sigh* Where has the time gone?

Easter Photos

I debated for days whether we should take Ethan to get his photo taken with the scary Easter bunny again this year. I thought it would be cute to compare last year's photo to this year's, just to see how much he's grown. But I realized that I don't really need to do that to see the difference 12 months has done to my little baby --- So I decided to just skip the cheesy mall pictures altogether, put on his Easter outfit and had fun with Ethan in the front yard (which actually belongs to a huge rehab center).

It turned out to be a great practice run for Ethan since the big egghunt is going to be at this yard on Saturday --- granted we don't get too much snow (***keeping my fingers crossed***). I'm actually looking forward to seeing Ethan run around looking for eggs while Mike and I ridiculously scream "Ethan! Here!!! Come here! There's one here!!" while trying to make sure the other toddlers stay clear off Ethan's eggs. LOL

AND these are definitely some of my personal faves.... I have tons of photos of Ethan smiling... but here, you can almost hear him laughing. Don't we all LOVE happy babies?!?!