Ferocious Fours

August 22nd four years ago we gained a new member of the family. At 2:45 pm she was born. She weighed 7lbs 11oz and was 20 inches long. The epidural did not work and she decided to come out sideways so after some painful yells from me and a patient OB she came into the world. It was a surreal experience! The twins birth was so dramatically different that this experience was like having a baby for the first time. I got to soak her in and enjoy the joy of her being here and most of all I got to hold her right away for as long as I wanted to. I was all alone for the twins birth but his time I had Adrian, my mother-in-law Sharon and Father-in-law Bob (though I will say the father-in-law was quick to leave the room once he heard the doctor say lets start pushing, can't blame him for that ). She had every bit of my love from the minute they put her in my arms.

This was the day I brought her home. She was a GREAT baby! She was a good eater and she slept well and rarely cried. See her bottom lip in this picture, how it is puckered out, she still does that when she sleeps.

The day she was blessed ...Makenzie Hope Brand...notice that puckered bottom lip again.

She was born with a plugged tear duct. This is not uncommon, you just have to keep it washed and clean and eventually it opens up. Whenever she woke up from a nap or in the morning her eye would be caked shut. She of course got the nickname Popeye for at least six months.

This was a wig we found at the in-laws and of course because the baby was defenseless we had to put it on her. Really isn't a parents job to humiliate their children...next picture is proof ...

HUMILIATION!

One thing my girls do have is BEAUTIFUL eye's, they got their daddy's eye's.

One years old in this picture. She was just starting to walk and the evidence in that is the bruised up nose. She fell into a stone fireplace just a few days previous to taking this picture.

She knows where that unconditional love is. She loves all the grandparents and attracts to them like bears to honey. She knows where she will get all that attention and love that she demands..and oh boy does she love this grandpa, she has him wrapped around her finger.


These last four years have flown by and Makenzie is a force to be reckoned with. As I was writing this blog she managed to get in to trouble several times and as of this minute she is sitting in her room in time out. She has ended her three's by perfecting the "Temper Tantrum". She is screaming at the top of her lungs and kicking the floor in her room. She is yelling at the top of her lungs, "I don't love her, and she needs to get out of her room and she needs her blanket." I think she is going to be an actress, a pain in the ass diva actress! She is the humor and pure entertainment that drives this house. Hang on world because Makenzie is going to be out there someday and she is not coming quietly......

X-rated Peanut Butter

So admittedly I have an addiction to blogs that are all about recipes.I love to cook and I love new recipes.Here is the problem, I am even more addicted to them while I am on a diet. I call it food porn. Stick with me and I will explain this theory in a PG-13 manner. I surf the web for hours cataloging and copying and adding websites to my favorites list. The more I look at these blogs the deeper I get. I stared at a blog today that had a recipe that sounded like nirvana to me. I salivated and thought to myself, why had I not thought of this myself? Pure genius I tell you! It started with a Reese's peanut butter cups...okay, why I call this food porn is I compare my love to peanut butter cups to lets say some men's affinity to large breasts. So automatically you put Reese's peanut butter cup in the first sentence for me and it is like dangling a woman with DD breasts with no bra and a tank top in front of a man..it has gravitational pull, you cannot not look! Okay, so I find myself sitting up in my chair and my eye's become hypnotized to the what she is doing to these peanut butter cups. She puts them in a cupcake liner and then puts them in a muffin tin and then makes a batch of peanut butter cookie dough, the Betty Crocker kind that you just add butter and eggs to and puts about two tablespoons of the dough on the top of the peanut butter cup and bakes it for about 20 minutes. The cup and cookie have become an intertwined harmonious concoction. You would think that she would be done there but no this woman is a professional and knows what she is doing. Really I would be content and happy with just the cookie and peanut butter cup but seriously she is a professional and knows how to give a good show if you know what I mean. She then frosts it!!!! White chocolate buttercream frosting!!!!! So my second favorite thing in the world is white chocolate. So lets compare this to the DD, no bra, tank top women by adding in the man's affinity to his preference in colored hair, it could be blonde, brunette, redheads. So not only has this large breasted women caught his attention she has long blonde wavy hair and that is like icing on the cake and you are hooked! Well, white chocolate buttercream frosting is my icing to my already perfect package, I really do think I lost consciousness for a minute. There it is folks, my addiction.....I think I need to go smoke a cigarette now...............

"Eating a Whole Bag of Cookies Does Make Me Feel Better."

What I have learned by the age of 35.....

1. Life moves more quickly the older I become.
2. I have become more sentimental.
3. Things happen for a reason.
4. Let other peoples problems be their problems and not my own.
5. Know when to let go and when to hang on to those around me.
6. Being a parent is hard and I have made so many mistakes I have lost count.
7. I forgive my parents for any mistakes they made, they were learning to just like me.
8. Who will be by my side even when I am at my worst.
9. Whose side I can be by at their worst.
10. That eating a whole bag of cookies can make me feel better.
11. It is okay to cry even when you know things are going to be okay.
12. That life just sucks sometimes.
13. I know why some animals eat their young.
14. Say, "I love you" any chance I get because you never know if that will be the last words they hear.
15. "Cancer" is more than just a word.
16. Praying has become easier because there is more to be thankful for and my prayers have become longer because more worries seems to burden my mind.
17. I should have gone to college when my mind and body were younger.
18. Knows I must have done something good in my previous life to be introduced to my one true love at such a young age.
19. Always mean what you say even if you know that person may not like what you have to say.
20. Always take the time to laugh even when it is hard to find something to laugh about.

Griswolds final day of vacation...day 6

We headed to the great state of Maryland on our last day to visit my Aunt Sandra and all my cousins, whom I have not seen in years. We stopped by Inner Harbor Baltimore first and strolled around for awhile. This coast guard boat was at Pearl Harbor during the Japanese invasion, I think I have mentioned before how much I love inner harbor. It has lots of shopping and boats you can tour, restaurants, aquarium and lots of other things to do.

We visited with family and then decided to go down to Havre de Grace which is only a few minutes from my aunts house to check out the water and the docks. It was good to see everyone and there kids. It is hard to imagine all of us grown up with our own families now when all I can remember is all of us at the ages that are children are now. I remember a vacation that we took when I was about the twins age to visit my aunt. We did so many fun things on that vacation and I hope the girls remember all the fun things we did on this vacation. I remember eating ice cream down by these docks and watching the lightning bugs.

The lighthouse down by the docks.....

This is a picture of two very tired worn out parents...

I love being by the water.....

This is a picture of the very first place me and Adrian lived when we moved to the east coast The condo on the bottom, that was our bedroom on the bottom left hand corner. It has changed so much in that area that we almost did not find it. It was fairly new construction when we moved in so there was not a lot of trees at the time but now you can not see any of these condos because they trees were so thick. Fun memories! We had a good day in Baltimore and lots of good memories. We were ready to head home the next day but it was fun while it lasted....

Griswolds Family Vacation...Day 5

We decided to go downtown DC. In the past we have done "The Mall" which is where all the museums and monuments are at. This time we decided not to do all the mall but just the American History Museum. It is my favorite museum and it has been closed for two years for renovations. We drove downtown DC with Bob and meet his wife Suzanne at her place of work which is only a few blocks from the mall. We grabbed some lunch at my favorite burger place, Five Guys ( picture above ) and decided to go see a movie which was only a couple blocks away.

It is funny watching the girls walk around a big city. We live in a small town with one traffic light that was just recently put in. The twins loved the entrance to DC's China Town. They said Grantsville should build one of those as you come in to town. I guess instead of intricate Chinese symbols we would have cowboy paraphernalia with accents of camouflage

If you have seen the movie, Julia and Julia, this is Julia Childs kitchen that they showed at the end of the movie. The counters are really tall; she was a tall woman. This is one of the new exhibits that they have put in since the remodeling.

The original star spangled banner used to hang from the ceiling and was the first thing you saw as you came in the building but years ago they figured out it was disintegrating so they took steps to preserve and restore it as best they could. They finished restoring it and now it is in a dimly lit room with a new exhibit surrounding it. This is the entrance to the room it is kept in. If you have never seen it you think of just a regular size flag but this flag is huge, little less then a football field in size. It is amazing to see!

We are off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of oz.......

It is not easy being green. How can seeing Kermit not make you smile......

Piece of the Berlin wall......

Another new exhibit. Music and clothes that came out of the Apollo theater. They have scaled back a lot of the exhibits in the renovation but overall the renovations seemed to not make it seem so crowded. My favorite exhibit is the first ladies inauguration dresses. Abraham Lincolns wife had the tiniest waist you have scene, Michelle Obama's dress was the most popular, Calvin Coolidge's wife and Tafts wife had beautiful intricate dresses. It was a fun day and it was mostly inside which meant air conditioning!....Day 6...Baltimore.

Griswolds Family Vacation...Day 4

We headed to the National Zoo on Wednesday. We were going to head to Gettysburg on this day but after driving close to 6 hours total on Tuesday the thought of having to drive another 5 hours total in a car was not appealing to me. Me and Adrian have been to the DC zoo a lot because it is a great zoo and it is free admission. In hindsight with the heat we should have headed somewhere inside and air-conditioned but this is where the kids wanted to go

The best part of this zoo is the panda exhibit. They do look like stuffed teddy bears in real life. You want to go over and hug one but then reality sets in and you realize that this cuddly bear would rip your face off if needed. I must admit at this point that I handed my camera to the twins for the zoo trip. I was hot and tired and they wanted to take pictures. We ended up with a few good ones, a lot of animal pictures, and A WHOLE bunch of blurry pictures. They did not take pictures of the panda either.....I do have blurry pictures of the bamboo that they eat.

I love otters. If there is a show on Animal Planet that has otters I will watch it. Their personalities make me smile. On a documentary on Animal Planet they had a story about a female otter that only gave birth to still born babies and out of desperation of wanting a baby of her own she would try to steal the babies of the other otters; I cried, yup I cried while watching this silly documentary. I wanted to personally find an abandoned otter baby and bring it to this otter so she could have a baby. No more Animal Planet for me, I get to personally involved.

These are the pictures I ended up with. I am not sure what exhibit this is and I am also not sure who the kid in the picture is. Lets face it probably at this point I was trying to find some shade and something cold to drink....I will admit it I can be just as whiny as the children but I just store my whining internally and it manifests itself in to uninterested, detached,haughty seclusion....

Last time we came to the zoo, which was two years ago they were just starting the new elephant exhibit. This is part of it. It looks like a golf course. It is beautiful and huge and perfect for these gigantic animals. We did not spend a long time at the zoo. It is a great zoo but when the temperatures are 100 plus 90 percent humidity it is hard to stop and take everything in. Me and Adrian used to go in the fall and spring when we lived there. It sits right downtown and is surrounded by some great restaurants. It is well worth a visit if you ever find yourself in DC.....
Day 5, Downtown....to be continued......

Griswolds family vacation....Day three..Part 2

We made it to the beach. This was a last minute decision because of Williamsburg not taking as long as we expected and being a bit deflated from the tourist trap, we felt like we needed to salvage something special out of the day so when we saw that virginia beach was less then an hour away we knew we had to go. This is the main touristy beach but that meant shops that the kids could get a shirt and lots of restaurants available.

This is me in heaven. My feet in the sand and the sound of waves all around me. There had been a storm that blew through and it brought the temp down to the low 80's it felt so good.

Look at that smile on that beautiful girl.

There is all my treasures right there in that picture.

Look at that pose. She loved the beach!!! She was wet and was sand covered in the first 5 minutes of us getting on the beach

The last picture of the day. My makeup was gone, my hair had lost the battle to the 90 + plus percent humidity earlier in the day and at this moment I was in pure joy and Adrian kept saying it was time to go and I kept saying 5 more minutes please. Adrian finally had to be stern with me and say it was time to go home because we had a long drive ahead. I reluctantly gathered my family and headed home....day 4 National Zoo...to be continued...