The Basement is Finished ...YEAH!!!

Our basement renovation is complete...YEAH! If you remember the walls were knotty pine paneling, well no more. It has been covered and painted. The results are amazing. I took these pics prior to putting all the items for "living" back into the room. The kids are loving the new room. Today I moved in the rest of the toys and workout items. Tomorrow starts the kitchen renovation. We are putting in new counter tops and back splash. Hoping it goes quickly. Enjoying the face lift we are giving to the place.

Matt & His Pals

While we were in Tennessee, Matt loved spending alone time with Papa Joe and Uncle Bob. On this particular day, Matt had already eaten his lunch with Emily but got very upset and wouldn't come out of his "mood" until he sat down and ate with his pals. Being with them made him very happy! His second "lunch" consisted of a chocolate chip cookie (baked by Nana) and was happy to share in eating the chips and mango salsa with the boys. He absolutely loved it when they gave him some of their strawberries. Matt was so pleased with how they shared with him that he gave each of them a piece of his cookie. I'm sure that Papa Joe and Uncle Bob enjoyed being with Matt as much as Matt enjoyed being with them.

April Fools - NOT!!

This is the first year that Emily has grasped the concept of April Fool's day. I think her teacher, Ms. Palummieri, helped "educate" her and the rest of the kids in her class on the idea because she came out of school saying "Mom, there is a spider behind you. April Fools" and the "fools" just kept coming.

Of course, April Fools day, happened to be the same day/night we were driving the first leg of our trip to TN. You can only imagine the first 1/2 hour of the trip...every other sentence ended with "April Fools".

Well when we made our stop for dinner I looked at Emily and noticed that her bottom tooth that was loose happened to be missing. So, I said to her Emily this is not a joke but when did your loose tooth fall out. Of course she asked, "Are you joking me?" I told her no this is a real question. A short time before we stopped Emily decided to eat and apple and now her tooth was gone. We searched the apple but never found the tooth.

Now for the second part of the story which shows that Emily is quite the "thinker". Emily misplaced some of her money that she has been saving to get her American Doll for her 8th birthday (unfortunately, it is not a small bill she "misplaced"). When we explained to her that by misplacing it she may not be able to get the doll or extra items for it she was upset. A few minutes later she came out to us and told us of her "idea". She will give all of the teeth that she has lost to the tooth fairy and see what money she gets for them. Emily has kept all of the teeth that she has lost and the one she had pulled. Quite a "genius" plan for recouping her loses. In the end, she did not make what she lost but did okay enough to make her happy. Let's hope she doesn't misplace any more money, I'd hate for her to start yanking her teeth in order to turn a profit.

Easter in Tennessee

Due to the unpredictable weather during the kid's winter break from school, we decided to make our annual visit to Nana and Papa's house in Tennessee over spring break instead which included the Easter holiday. Surprisingly, Dave's work schedule actually allowed him to be able to come for several days too. The trip started off rough as it took an hour and 45 minutes for me to drive from Lodi to Hoboken, NJ where we picked Dave up from the PATH train. It seems like it took forever for us to make it out of New Jersey. We stopped around 10:30/11pm at a hotel in Hagerstown, MD (our normal stopping area for this trip) and arrived in the afternoon on Friday. It was very nice spending the Easter holiday with my mom, dad and Uncle Bob, who moved in with my parents this past fall. The weather that weekend (and our entire visit) was fantastic as you can see by what we are wearing. This was our family picture for the holiday - all but one us is looking at the camera - Matt, which is pretty good for us. Unfortunately, Dave had to fly back to NJ on Monday. The kids and I stayed until Friday and then made a two day trip (Friday and Saturday) back to New Jersey. Thanks Nana, Papa Joe and Uncle Bob for a wonderful visit!

Oh what a storm....!!!

I thought I would share with you a few pictures of what we experienced from the Nor'easter that hit us several weeks ago. The wind was horrific -sounded like a freight train - and the rain was hard and nonstop. So, the flat roof system that is located on the back bump out section of our cape cod styled home was basically lifted up and folded over. It was flapping up and down during the whole storm and pounding down on the roof. We did get water damage on the two bedroom ceilings upstairs along with a waterfall of water from the ceiling lighting/fan unit in the bathroom. Matt's room on the first floor also had ceiling damage. Thankfully all of our repairs were covered by our homeowners insurance. While the kids and I were away in TN over spring break, the contractor was able to repair all of the ceilings without our being in the house and in the way. The roof was actually repaired the weekend after the storm. The nice part of it all is we were able to eliminate the "tile" styled ceilings that were in one of the upper bedrooms and Matt's room. It all looks amazing.