where’s hadro?

mensa christmas

The toy catalog circling has begun in earnest at Chez Jerseybaby, and one particular item has caused Haven to yelp and squeal and nearly fall off her chair with excitement. It’s a puzzle game called Rush Hour Jr. which apparently they have in her math class and it’s SO MUCH FUN and there’s an ICE CREAM TRUCK and it’s stuck in TRAFFIC and oh my lord you just MUST get it out of that crazy traffic jam before the ICE CREAM just MELTS MELTS MELTS. Okay, it might not be exactly like that, but you get the gist.

Oh, and did I mention the game earned a Mensa Select Award? I’m must saying…

great eats in hotlanta

As my sweet friend Michelle already blogged, five of my closest friends and I spent last weekend in hotLanta. I had no idea how delicious it would be:

• roasted golden beet salad with oranges, goat cheese and walnuts
• delicious omelets with parmesan dusted Greek fries
• Latin and Native American inspired smoked tomato grits and polenta fries

Yum.

The Virginian's Arrive in Georgia

We Stayed Here

Five of the Six of Us

We all had such a fantastic weekend, and while we were catching up (even though we all e every day) the kids were having an equally fantastic weekend with Josh, complete with leaf piling, a kids concert, puppet show and sculpture making.

Hadden's Caterpillar

Daddy's Space Goggles

itis’s new hat

The ‘itis has struck and it’s some combination of mild flu + medium coughing + major strep which makes for sleepless nights and hardfast rules about sharing drinks. Haven got a smidge, Hadden got a lot, and we parents got some headaches. All  in all, not terrible, but not nearly as productive as it was supposed to be. That is, according to my grand plan. Instead we’re trying to keep up at work while putting way too much trust in Max & Ruby and Dora to entertain Hadden who will be out of school a total of two weeks.

After suffering through tests for mono and strep, and a nebulization today, Hadden could think of only one thing. Donuts. They made for a mighty fine lunch for this JerseyMom as well.

cookieGoogle

How great is Google’s homepage today?

orange is really yellow, and purple is brown

Via Chasing Cheerios’ Link List I ended up at Unplug Your Kids which took me to Candy Experiments. What a great way to use up some Halloween Candy. The kids were miraculously focused more on the experiment than eating the candy. Wish I could say the same for their mother!

I think we’ll try Floating M’s next.

 

the birds

Crazy, surreal, apocalyptic swarm of black birds descended upon our backyard this afternoon. One minute there wasn’t a sign of them, and the next minute our leaf-covered yard was bird-covered. There must have been 200 of them. And by the time I got the camera 2 awe-filled minutes later, they were headed in droves to the trees, from which they then headed in sets of 20 to the skies. Total Hitchcock stuff. Come to think of it…last night there was a full moon.

the technician and the hippie

The kids have been mildly sick the last few days – a persistent cough here, a quick fever there – which really illuminates Josh and my personality differences. He considers medications, knows the actual non-brand-name names of all medications, and, unlike his bride here, doesn’t refer to anything in pill form as “Tylenol”. He fastidiously sets up cool mist humidifiers and doses stuff in the middle of the night.

Then you have me. I tend to offer tea with honey. Sleeping on 2 pillows. And cuddling. And everyone once in a while I actually pull out the medicine bin and squirt some saline up some tiny noses.

While commenting on our different approaches to Josh, he said “I’m a technician” and it makes perfect sense. He’s a genius trouble shooter with a vast amount of knowledge of technology gibberish and medical gibberish. I, on the other hand, am smart enough to defer all technology and medicine-related tasks to Josh. Plus I promise to always have cute tissue boxes at the ready.

introducing…

… the SpookyJerseyBabies.

grad school graduation gown

+ black maternity work / funeral dress I haven’t yet consigned or donated

+ a 6 year old daughter with a passion for applying make up

+ a bodacious hat from the costume aisle

= Witchy Momma

 

the japanese girl

A quick picture of Haven’s costume this year which I obviously forgot to iron. This was her first year in actual face makeup and she loved it (no shocker).