It's a football day!!

That's what the boys said yesterday when we all donned our Penn State tee-shirts (yes, Allie, too) to cheer on our favorite team in our favorite sport for the first time this season. Unfortunately, The Big Ten Network and Comcast can't get their acts together, so we probably won't be able to watch very many games again this year. Since NJ isn't a Big Ten state, Comcast doesn't carry the BTN. I never thought I'd miss Time Warner Cable, but I do during football season.

But this is a favorite season for our family nonetheless. College football and NFL, we just love to watch the game. Robbie and Scottie especially got a kick out of the Michigan game last night. They were amazed when we told them that their team was called the Wolverines. Big fans of the X-Men superheroes, Wolverine is their favorite one to pretend to be. They really loved the "Wolverine claw scratches" on football players' blue and yellow helmets!

After they got in their jammies, the boys ran to the playroom to get their own "helmets" to play football themselves. Robbie came out in his fireman hat and Scottie came out in a sun visor. Robbie said, "This is my football helmet and that's Scottie's coach's hat." So Robbie, the football player, and Scottie the coach, mimed playing football in the living room (since throwing a football in the living room is a no-no). Robbie would say, "I'm throwing it to you, Scottie!" with a big swing of his arm. And then Scottie would reach out in the air to grab the invisible ball and say, "I caught it!" Then they'd both run to the stairs and take off their hats and say, "Oh no, football is over now!" Then start it right back up again. Ron and I were laughing the whole time. So cute!! I hope they stay good friends like this as they get older. When they're not trying to kill each other, they're really very cute!

Recall Run-Around

It's amazing any of our kids are still alive.

In the last two months, we've had both boys' old cribs recalled for unsafe slats. Apparently, they break easily and a child can get caught between them. Since the white crib is the one in Allie's room, we need this for her. So we took the bolts and mattress supports and label off the natural wood one already disassembled in the boys' closet and sent it all back to the Jardine company for a Babies R Us voucher. Luckily, Allie wasn't sleeping in the crib in her room yet, so no biggie. She's in her bedside bassinet in our room. Our plan was to get a new crib with one voucher before we do the same voucher business for the white one. We'll probably just sell the other voucher since we don't need a second crib.

Then yesterday, we saw on the news that some bedside bassinets have been recalled. Go online and, wouldn't you know it. Allie's bassinet that she sleeps in every night is being recalled for strangulation hazards. We read up and find out that, unlike the Jardine recall, this company has been bought out and the new parent company will NOT honor the recall. So the site lists about 6 companies that are honoring the recall at their stores. Since I'm pretty sure this was on our registry from when Robbie was born, we take it to Babies R Us. Nope. They don't carry this particular model number. So I figure it must be Target since that's where our other baby registry was. After the nice 800-number Target lady tells me they should take it back, we lug that big thing (with all 3 kids in tow) to Target only to have them tell us that they don't have this model either, so they won't take it back. While that whole Target fiasco was taking about 35 mins at dinnertime with cranky kids, I got on my cell phone and called the Wal-Mart 800 number. The lady there tells me that all Wal-Marts are accepting the bassinets back regardless of model number and to take it in. So off we go. At first the customer service rep says she can't help us without a receipt or a box, but we finally cajole her into getting a manager. Turns out, that at 7:45pm last night, Wal-Mart finally took it back and gave us a gift card for store credit. Relieved, we go into the baby section only to discover that this Wal-Mart doesn't sell a single bassinet in the whole store.

So we get home, set up the pack-n-play in our room as if we're on vacation and Allie happily sleeps in it. For EIGHT-AND-A-HALF HOURS straight!!! We may use that Wally World gift card for something else now!

Then, today, we decide to go to Babies R Us and pick up Allie's new crib so that it's ready when she's ready to move to her room. The guy tells us we'll probably need to special order it, so we wait while he looks it up on the computer. We wait, and wait, only to be told that they are out of stock in their store and their warehouse, as well as 4 surrounding stores and 4 surrounding warehouses with no idea of when they'll be back in. So we look around and find another white convertible wooden crib. Go through the same process and get the same results. We find one more that's low enough to fit in the knee wall of her room (angled ceilings in the cape cod upstairs) and sure enough, not in stock nor in the warehouse. Getting frustrated, we offer to buy the floor model of our first choice, but nope. Can't do that either. So apparently, Babies R Us can't get us ANY of the white, wooden, convertible cribs on their showroom floor at ANY time in the near future. Discouraged, we leave and plan to go back on Tuesday when the regular manager is in the store to see what the problem is.

So now we have a pack-n-play as the only safe place for our baby to sleep in the entire house, despite the fact that we used to have 2 full size cribs, a bedside bassinet and the pack-n-play. Like I said, it's amazing any of our children are still alive! Geeesh!!!

2 months going on 20!

We always thought the teeny-tiny baby stage was rather boring. Babies this small are usually just little lumps. Adorable to look at, yes. But not all that exciting or fun. But Allie is definitely changing that opinion!

At two months old, Allie already has such an endearing personality. She's is truly the happiest baby on the face of the earth! She smiles and coos ALL the time and just makes you feel so special when she makes eye contact and responds to you. She is already pushing herself up onto her elbows from her tummy (a feat the pediatrician witnessed and said doesn't usually happen until 4 months!), and kicking toys on her bouncy seat toy bar with her feet.

And......drumroll please.......she actually rolled over today!! It has happened before, but we've always attributed it to something else. Oh, we must have put her on her side. Or, she must have had an arm under her to push off of. But today, she clearly was on her belly and managed to roll over to her back!! I was so excited to see it happen for real!! The only problem is, she's my last baby! If this trend continues, she'll be off and running in the blink of an eye and I am not ready for that yet!

Allie had her 2 month well visit yesterday. She's already a whopping 11lb 4oz and 23 1/4 inches long! She continues to eat and sleep well and is just a dream!

Robbie and Scottie are also doing great. We're counting down the days until school starts. Robbie starts back for his 4-day 4 year old class next Thursday and Scottie goes to his 2-day 2.5 year class the following Monday. That means this week is the last full week of summer vacation! How did that go by so quickly?! We took the kids to Sunrise Lake yesterday for a change of pace to make the most of the remaining summer days and the boys had an absolute blast. I even took them in a pedal-boat around the lake. Now THAT is a workout! Thirty minutes of Mommy pedaling by herself while moving an extra 70lbs of kids along with her! If I did that everyday, I'd have less trouble losing all this baby weight! Allie had had 4 shots that morning at her appt, so she was a bit fussy, but still had smiles for Nana as you can see.

And Daddy and Mommy had their Fantasy Football draft night last night, so that's something else to look forward to. The start of football season is upon us!! Let's go Penn State!! And keep it going, Giants!! And a shout-out to Ron's favorite Carolina Panthers, too. Here's hoping for a fun season of our favorite TV sport!

Aaaaa-llieeeeee

Allie is definitely getting more active, alert and responsive these days!! Our favorite game to play with her lately is Copycat. We'll hold her facing us so she can see our faces. Then we smile and say her name, "Aaaaaaaa-llieeeeeee," and she almost immediately smiles with her wide-open gummy grin and tries her hardest to do the same thing. The best is when she manages to get her voice to work. Since her mouth is wide open, it actually sounds like she's repeating her name. We've gotten some great "Aaaaaaaaa" sounds from her, and even some baby babble "l" sounds, too. She just loves hearing her name so much and wants to play along and repeat it!

She is also becoming quite the Daddy's girl already. Her first smiles of the day are almost always reserved for her Daddy and Ron's the one who can get her to smile, burp, or calm down the best. But, not to be outdone, Robbie is getting Allie to respond to him quite a bit, too. She follows Robbie around the room with her head and lights up with smiles when he gets down to talk to her and smile at her.


Scottie shows less interest (he is two, after all), but both boys still ask for "shoulder hugs" from Allie everyday. We hear this from both of them each day:

Robbie and/or Scottie: Do you know who I love best?
us: Who?
Robbie and/or Scottie: Allie!

Another favorite is:
Robbie: Allie is a good little girl (he must hear this from us all the time!)
to which Scottie will answer: Yeah, she's not bad!
It cracks us up everytime -- he's so literal!

Best Pic of the Week

This one is just too good to not post.

Boy, are we going to miss Daddy when he goes back to work next week!

House in Flux

We're still here and still doing well. But our house is not our own. Our kitchen is undergoing a homemade facelife (painting the cabinets -- inside and out -- and walls, and giving the cabinet doors some character with moulding, adding crown moulding, etc.) So NOTHING is where it should be. We have dishes in the living room, tupperware in the den, all of our pantry items on the dining room table (thank God we have a patio table outside at which to eat our meals), all glassware is on top of the piano, and our silverware and serving utensils are in baskets strewn about the house. Not a fun way to live!

On top of all of that, we've hired an electrician to come install new recessed lights in the kitchen, living room and both of the kids' bedrooms, plus rewire some switches, install new outlets and install ceiling fans in the kids' bedrooms, too.

As if that wasn't enough, we also hired a tree service to come and clean up the old, overgrown trees in our backyard. So our family of five has been hiding out in the kids' playroom all week to stay out of everyone's way! (At least the boys had a ball watching the tree guys climb our huge trees and cut down the branches.) Now that the electrician and tree guys are gone, we can continue with the kitchen.

So far, the cabinet frames are all sanded, cleaned, primed, painted, and sealed. About half of the doors have the new moulding on them and are primed. Some of the cabinet doors are painted and back on the frames. We still need to paint the other doors and drawers, and prime and paint the walls after Ron patches all of the holes (we waited on the walls for the electrician to be done). Last step there will be for Ron to install the crown moulding on top of the cabinets and buy a few new accessories.

No pics this week of the "during" process (sorry!) but I promise some before and after pics when it's all done. Can't wait for our kitchen's new look!