Change of address

Wallpaper sample and new dress. Anthropologie has everything!

I'm moving. And I'm only half kidding. On our mother/daughter college road trip the other day Tessa and I stopped at Anthropologie. And I am pretty sure we could live there. I love that store. I want everything. These items are only a small sampling of what I want.

Do you have anything to declare?

Brian and I (along with friends Kevin and Lori) went to the casino in Windsor this weekend to have some fun and hear an Abba tribute band, Abbamania. No joke. So things went well, won a little money, had fun. But if you know us, some things always hold true. 1) Brian has a little patience problem 2) If something is going to happen to someone it is going to be us

We are waiting in the very long lines at the border crossing. All lanes to cross are marked by pylons. Brian is a little impatient with the lines and decides to cross over into another lane. So we are making our way and I asked Brian if he heard something under the car. I told him I was pretty sure he crossed over a pylon and I could hear it thumping. So we move forward and we aren't sure we can hear it. I told Brian to look but he was not about to get out of the car at the border crossing and look under the car. (On the way over they wanted to know why we were bringing so many clothes with us and why we had hangers with us.) Brian figured the guy at the crossing would notice if there was anything wrong and stop us. They ask us all sorts of goofy questions about whether or not we have anything to declare but never mention the bright orange pylon under the car and neither do we. So we cross the border and as we speed up you can hear the thump thump thump under our car. And we are laughing. By this point we are in a rough area in Detroit (as opposed to the good ones) so we decide to keep going until we are in a better area to stop. This car drives by and they are pointing at us and the car trying to get our attention. We go to the exit ramp and a homeless guy collecting change in a cup is hollering to us that there is something under our car. We're laughing pretty good and hard at this point. So we pull up to this car repair place and the guy working there is telling us there is something under our car. At this point I am so thankful for my camera, because of course I am putting this on my blog. So two guys who work there are outside watching as Brian pulls the pylon out from under the front tire and me taking pictures. Then we left the pylon in the parking lot and headed for home.

X marks the spot

Today I took Tessa on her first college visit. We went to Xavier. We picked it for several reasons, one of them being the size of the school. A small school is one of the things on the "wish list" for colleges. Boy was it small. The average class size is 22 students per class. Wow! But the kids were nice, and it is so clean. And we got a free t-shirt! We may visit Pitt next.

Easter fun

I got an Easter Bunny costume this year, and while it is so hot inside of it, it has provided tons of fun! I can not even tell you about of the smiles and laughs this thing has generated! The adults have been some of the best. We went over and surprised our neighbor Bob in it. He is 85 and was laughing so hard and asked if he could hug the Easter Bunny. Here is a great picture of Brian's parents and grandma with the bunny.

P.S. Thank you to everyone who (reluctantly or otherwise) took a turn in this thing. Scott, Tessa, Brian, Todd, Ken and Linda at work.

March Madness

Brian, Tessa, Caroline and myself did our NCAA brackets. Here is who we picked to win the tournament:

Brian and Katie: Pitt

Tessa: Texas

Caroline: BYU

(I am wishing I had picked Kansas now, but I'm going to be fair and leave it as is.)

Happy St. Patrick's Day

My shamrock tights

Happy Birthday Caroline!

Caroline is 4 today! It seems like only yesterday I was carrying around 60 pounds of baby weight, tired, miserable, crabby... Depending on the day you ask Brian he may still think that is the case. I will never forget going to the hospital with a scheduled appointment to be induced. We got there and they told us that there were so many women in labor they had no room for us and to go home and they would call. I let them know that there was no way I was leaving that hospital still pregnant. I had already thrown away my maternity clothes with no plans of wearing them again. Anyway, when we got into our room and they introduced us to our labor and delivery nurse I could not believe it. I had Tessa in 1992 and here I was in 2004 and got the SAME NURSE! She was awesome the first time and was again the 2nd time. (If you deliver at Riverside ask for labor and delivery nurse Susan Saunders.) I was adamant about not having a St. Patrick's Day baby, and there we were on March 16th going on 10 p.m. after being induced in the morning. No baby. During the entire pregnancy (and even before it) we had decided that if we had a girl we would name her Lily. As we got closer to St. Patricks Day though I tried to talk Brian into Fiona or something Irish sounding. But we made it on the 16th. Whew! But then the problem was that she didn't quite look like Lily to me. So poor Brian went home to get some sleep, came back the next morning to find out that I thought she looked like a Caroline. But she did and here we are 4 years later.

*This is the picture I took as soon as Caroline woke up this morning. The reason that the angle is off is because I took it while I was laying down on her floor. Reason? I slept there. Why? Because she wanted a slumber party for her birthday and asked me to sleep in her room in a sleeping bag. She even gave me one of her stuffed animals and a pillow. And after looking at this picture I realized I need to remove the tape from her outlet cover from when I painted in there about 3 years ago. Oops!