Vinnie's Party

We had Vinnie's birthday party at a place called Sky High. It is an indoor trampoline place that the kids absolutely love!



Imagine wall-to-wall trampolines. What isn't there to love? As a pediatrician I can tell you that I get a lot of business from this place (think ankle sprains galore). It is a win-win for everyone!


There is also a great foam pit to jump in to.

Vinnie was thrilled to have all of his friends there.
There was even a minimal amount of crying!


I made bug cupcakes. Compared to some of my other cupcake projects, like this one or this one, these were really easy! I really had fun with them.


The structure of the bug is chocolate that I squirt onto some parchment paper, then used different sized M&M's for the body. Fun!

Presents were opened at home, and he received lots of great stuff. Just a word of warning-- have you seen the commercials for Aqua Sand? Well, it is as messy as you think it might be. Avoid it at all costs.

Happy Birthday Vin!

Today is Vinnie's 6th birthday! I find Vinnie to be the child of mine who intrigues me the most. Of course all of my boys have different personalities, but Vincent is in a class by himself! He is interested in anything and everything he hears about. Peter often remarks that you can almost see the wheels turning in his head when he is studying something. In honor of his 6th birthday, here are six comments from Vinnie that capture his sweet, bright essence.



1. Vinnie has 2 stuffed animals he sleeps with--a shark named "Sharkie" and a dolphin named "Larry". As Pete was putting him to bed one night he asked Vinnie why he named the dolphin "Larry". Vinnie replied "Because Dad, Dolphin-y didn't make sense"

2. Out of the blue one night Vincent asked "If a boy and girl make a baby, then where did the first baby come from?" Wow.

3. On love and marriage--He states that he is in love with Allie, a little girl in his class. He loves her and wants to marry her. He says they will live together one day. We and his teacher have had to talk to him about the no kissing in school rule. Seems he and Allie hug and kiss in class and have to be physically separated. Joey saw them holding hands at recess recently. Lord help us when he gets to middle school!

4. The other night on American Idol Katy Perry was one of the guest judges. They played a snippet from her "I kissed a Girl" song and Vinnie was hooked. He committed the chorus to memory, then asked us what she meant by "It felt so wrong, it felt so right..." How could it feel wrong and right? he wanted to know. He loves to sing and does it constantly.



5. Coming out of the bathroom recently he stated "My kidneys were just dripping." "What?!" I exclaimed. "I just went pee and your kidneys make pee, so my kidneys were dripping. They stopped now."
I have no idea how he knew that!

6. Vinnie is our cuddly kid. Every night he crawls on the couch, usually into Peter's lap, and says he needs to cuddle. This usually means he is tired and just about ready for bed. No one likes going to bed like that kid (except maybe me). It is not unusual for him to ask to go to bed. One night as he was crawling into bed he gave a contented sigh and stated "Ah, I just love bedtime!" (Unfortunately this can NOT be said of Christopher).

Happy birthday to my sweet, creative, smart and cuddly little man! Our lives are so much more interesting and exciting having you in it!

The Rockin' Contini's

Joey asked for, and received the Lego Rock Band game for the wii. Little did we know, you need the band equipment to play the game. (Clearly I am not very up on the games these days). No big deal, we had a few Toys R Us gift cards, so we headed over to TRU after Christmas.

I had no idea what we needed, so asked the employee there. He informed me that I needed the Rock Band set, which had been sold out for a while, and by the way, it costs $150. $150??!! To buy the accessory for a $50 game? I was floored, and actually didn't believe him.

I went home and asked around, and indeed that it was we needed. sigh.. So I have spent the last month waiting for Rock Band to be back in stock. No luck. I found out we could also use the Band Hero set, which they did have. It cost $200. AUGH!!! I finally gave in and bought the damn thing.

After setting it up we realized you need a third controller in order to use all three of the band pieces at once. Somebody kill me now. For the time being we borrowed the neighbor's controller, but I promised the kids I would pick up a third controller tonight. What do those cost, $30? This is turning in to one pricey gift.



I have to admit, it is a blast. This is coming from the person that doesn't even know how to turn on the wii (or xbox for that matter). And I don't want to know. But this really is fun, and something we can all do together.

It will be even more fun when Vinnie learns how to read better. He is the only one of us who can carry a tune, so right now we are having to suffer from some pretty bad vocals!

Good Night, Moon

One of the second grade field trips is to go to a college theater for a play. I went with Zachary's class a few years ago. I was excited to be able to go last week with Joey's class. This time around the play was Good Night, Moon. I was a bit intrigued to see how they would turn a book with very few words into a 45 minute production.

The set looked great, just like the great, green room. I sat back, one eye on the 6 kiddos I was in charge of keeping in line, and waited.


I was a bit disappointed with the actual play. The acting was just fine, but the story line was a bit tedious. (although, how could it not be?!) I couldn't even take a little nap because the backs of the seats were too low to lean back on.


The kids all loved it though.

Later that night Pete was asking Joey about the play. He asked him what his favorite part was. "I had two favorite parts, " he said. "My first favorite part was having Mom there."

I can't wait to see it again with Vinnie's class in a couple of years.

What a difference a year makes!

January 5th was the 1 year anniversary of our office. Wow. It has been a crazy year. I found some things to be easier than I expected, others more difficult. The learning curve has been huge. I didn't realize how much I didn't know until hit in the face with it. (A business license? Setting up payroll? Becoming a corporation? An S corp or a C corp? How much vaccine do I order at a time?) And it has all been worth it.

In fact, I felt like a first time Mom, with our office as the new baby. And look how much she has grown!


The above was our chart rack at the end of our first week.



And look at it now! In fact, we almost need to add another one. We are quickly building a respectable reputation in the community, even weathering the H1N1 storm.

Looking forward to another great year!

Poor Zach!

Damn. The picture says it all. I didn't know they still put kids in these torture devices!

The worst part was, he didn't even know it was coming. He had an orthodontist appointment yesterday morning that I thought was just a quick check on his retainer. I dropped him off on my way to work and told him "No worries Zach, just a quick look at your retainer to make sure you haven't broken anything. Call Mona (our nanny) when you are done and she will come get you."

I came home from work to find him in the above get up. I felt so bad for him. He has to wear it 14 hours a day, sleeping in it. He took it in stride though and hasn't complained once. And I promise to pay a little more attention to what is coming up during his treatment!