Changing of the guard…

Posted on April 27, 2009

In preparation for Chloe’s 3rd birthday next week, I decided to swap out 2T clothes…

Everything you see here is 2T!

We already have enough 3T clothes to fill her closet and dresser.   But we now have room in her second closet located in the upstairs hallway.  Yes, the child needs TWO CLOSETS!

Party Trick

Posted on April 26, 2009

She did this all on her own.  She was playing with the spoon, then said, “Mommy, Wook at me!”  Daddy was so amused, he grabbed the camera.

More Cutisms…

Posted on April 24, 2009

Mommy’s Little Helper:

Hiding…

Dark Side of the Moon

Posted on April 24, 2009

I finished another book!  Yay me!

Dark Side of the Moon by Sharrilyn Kenyon.

Okay, so, my mom loves to give presents.  I think this is well established.  And, she tends to choose her gifts kind of like Amazon suggestions:  “If you liked this book, than you might like these five books.”  You get the idea…I hope.

Anyway, so I assume my mom chose this particular book because I liked the Twilight series, and this book was about vampires.  Okay, I get that.  But, OMG!  This was what John would call a “Bodice ripper” that was disguised as a book about vampires.  There were sex scene’s in this novel that, quite frankly, made me blush.  The rest of the novel was a convoluted attempt to create a mythology which included Greek Gods, vampires, and vampire hunters.  She also throws in demi-gods and shape shifters for good measure.  I couldn’t keep up!  There was SO much going on that it got to the point where I just stopped trying.  This was the first book in a series, and I can ensure you I won’t bother with the rest of them, so I didn’t feel the need to keep track.

In addition, the dialogue was completely absurd.  I have never read a book where there were SO many cliche’s.  The 3000 year old shape shifting vampire hunter actually said to his tabloid reporter girl friend, “Don’t worry, Babe.”  And told her his previous girl friend got “wiggy.”  It just didn’t fit with the rest of the mythology or the characters Kenyon was trying to create.

Sadly, this was NOT a good book.  I would NOT recommend it to anyone.  I only give it one star, because even though I didn’t like the book, I was able to finish it which is at least something.

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

Posted on April 21, 2009

I am still working on my 50 Book Challenge, but the going is quite slow, and I am not sure I am going to make it.  I just finished novel #17, and I have until July to finish.  I would like to ask the internets permission to count rereading books I have read before.  For example, I have now read Twilight and New Moon three times each.  So, does that count as one book, respectively, or can I count that as 3?

Anyway, I just finished Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates.

Frank and April Wheeler are a married couple raising two kids in 1950′s suburban Connecticut.  They are seemingly a perfect couple, but in reality they are both unfulfilled and desperately lonely.  Frank has a dead end and boring job in the same company his father worked at his entire life.  Frank took the job to support the inconveniently pregnant April, and “got stuck.”  April was an aspiring actress, who gave it up for the husband and the family and the boring life in the suburbs.  The novel opens with April trying to realize her dream as an actress by participating in a local theater production.  The show is a flop, and she begins to tailspin, reevaluating her life and the decisions she and Frank made after she got pregnant.  In their attempt to save their relationship, they come up with a scheme to move to Europe, but are thwarted with disastrous consequences.

I liked this novel, primarily for the eloquence of the prose and Yates ability to offer a snap shot of the social morays of this time period.   I also enjoyed the complexity of the relationships between the characters.  Nothing is black and white, no one is good or evil, and no one is either completely happy or miserable.  I was trying to describe the book to John, and he said, “Its a man hater book.”  And even though Frank can be quite the jerk, April is just as bad.  But they are also fascinating characters, which makes the novel an interesting read.  I give it three stars.

Brooklyn Children’s Museum’s Bio-Diverse-City Block Party Fundraiser.

Posted on April 19, 2009

Try and say that ten times fast!

My BFF Matt’s  girlfriend, Sara, sent us an invite for the Brooklyn Children’s Museum annual fundraiser, and we thought, “Why the hell not!”  Chloe had a blast, we got a year passport for any of the children’s museums listed in their network, a tax write off, and did I mention Chloe had a blast?

Sadly, we also discovered that Brooklyn is a two-hour-drive from our humble abode.  Of course, that won’t stop us from returning…I mean, seriously, we drive an hour and a half to go to the children’s museum in Philly.

For those of you who are keeping score, the Brooklyn Children’s museum was pretty cool.  There are definitely some similarities between it and the Please Touch Museum in Philly, but Brooklyn museum had a lot more animals, and a really cool toddler section.  (Chloe would have been happy to just play there for the entire two hours.)

I liked that they had a lot of animals the kids could look at and even touch.  Part of the “Block Party” was museum volunteers walking around holding snakes and lizards that the kids could touch and pet.  Chloe was pretty brave, and touched everything.  I am proud of her too, she was very gentle and respectful of the animals.

We only got to see about 1/3, maybe 1/2 of the museum because it took us much longer to drive there than we had anticipated.  So, we will definitely go back again when we can spend more time.

Chloe voluntarily playing in a sand box!  This was a HUGE step for us, considering she would even walk in sand last year.