Let the Madness Begin!!

My favorite day of the year has finally arrived!! The 1st day of the NCAA Tournament is here!!! I've got my bracket and high-lighters ready so let the games begin!!!

I don't have to skip bowling this week since Maryland is playing at 2:55pm! I'm picking Taylor up early from daycare and we're heading to the rents to watch the game! Everyone has been asking me - "so do you have the Terps going all the way?" NO! As much as I would love to see another National Championship trophy in Comcast Center - I have them losing in the 2nd round to Memphis. Now will I be sad if my bracket is totally messed up with Maryland making to the Sweet 16 (or farther) - of course not!! I'm not in any pools for ca$h - just one with Tucker - loser buys lunch and one with Ben - just for Pride. I've lost both of these the last couple of years so maybe this year will be mine! Quite a few upsets need to happen for that to be the case but anything is possible right!?!

Taylor news of the week - her first tooth has popped through! :0)

That's all for now....gotta go work so I can leave early! Enjoy the games!!

March!!

I LOVE MARCH! It is by far my most favorite time of the year. The weather is getting warmer, the sun is out longer and of course.....COLLEGE BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTS!! The regular season is over and the fun starts on Thursday with the ACC Tournament! Maryland plays that night and I have to bowl. Sad day! I wonder if I can call in sick to my bowling league!?! Priorities right!?

So it's been a busy week and a half since my last post. The weekend before last was fun with Kevin in town. Mine and Taylor's lunch with Amanda was fantastic. It's always nice to catch up with her. I'm not a big fan of snow so I didn't enjoy it as much as everyone else did. Plus I caught a cold around that same time.

Last Thursday was Taylor's 9 month check up! Everything went great. She's 18 lbs 9 ozs and 28 inches. During our Q&A session with the doctor - she asked us about Taylor's appetite. I told the doc that she used to eat everything but lately she wasn't too interested in much. She explained to us that TP is pretty social and aware of her surroundings that she probably sees what Ben and I are eating or what the older kids at daycare have and want that as opposed to the baby food she was getting. She gave us a lot of suggestions of "real" food that we can start trying to give her and man am I having fun with that!! So far she's liked pretty much everything we've given her - bananas, cottage cheese, mashed regular and sweet potatoes & little bites of Paula Deen biscuits! Guess the love for Paula runs in the family!

Friday night - after TP finished her last bottle for the day - mom and I packed her up in the car and drove down to Williamsburg for a visit with Nanny!! I really wanted Nanny to see her crawling and I also hadn't seen her since early January. My cousin Denise and her daughter Kendall also went down. We all had a fantastic time! Below are a few pictures from the weekend.

The next house project starts tomorrow. We I are having all of the windows and the 2 sliding glass doors replaced. I'm excited to be able to sit on the end of the couch near the door and not feel and constant cold draft! Woo Hoo!!

Hope everyone is doing well!

Catching Up

So I figured I should catch up with the past week before the fun starts again tomorrow!!

Last Friday night Ben went out for a little while with Antonio. Taylor had been in bed for a while by the time they left so I was able to enjoy a quiet night - all by myself!! Just me, the couch, a glass of wine and American Idol! Does it make me old that I consider that to be a fantastic Friday night! HA!! Dear Crazy...

The next day was busy busy!! Around lunch time I drove out to Falls Church to pick up Heather and Leslie. Leslie was in town for Kim's bridal shower and bachlorette party! We dropped her off at Kim's moms house to get ready for the shower and Heather & I headed back to the house to play with Taylor. A few hours later we were back on the road and heading to the shower ourselves. The shower had a Mexican theme - complete with food from On The Border and a Margarita Pinata!!! So food, Pina Coladas and a couple of smacks on the pinata later - it was time to get ready for the bachlorette party.

Kim's mom was so kind to get us a limo for the evening. We were ridin in style in our stretch Hummer Limo as we headed down to Dupont. We went to a few different places - Lucky Bar, Porter's and Madhatter. It was a great night and I'm happy to say my old a$$ survived - even long enough to enjoy an IHOP breakfast with Heather and Leslie. Hey Leslie - you know that comes with Pancakes right!?! Hahahaha!

It took me a few days to recover from the lack of sleep but I managed!

Off to Wednesday night. 2/25/09 - the big Duke vs. Maryland game that I had been waiting for since our HORRIBLE 41 pt loss back in January. (I'm still trying to get over that one). I went up to Glory Days to meet Tucker - besides that game in January - we've watched all the Duke/MD games together since about 2001! Deb was able to join us so that was a BONUS! It was great to see her - it's been too long!! Antonio came by in his DUKE jersey so it was just me sitting in a sea of blue. It's ok though - I had m new shirt on and I was ready for game time!!! I think most of you know that Tucker and I have a handkerchief that we pass back and forth to the loser of each game. This past game makes it 4 in a row that I've had it. Boooooo!!

Tucker and I at the beginning of the game.

End of the game with my hankie covering my tshirt!

The shirts make this picture perfect!!

Ok - enough about me......Taylor is still a little crawling machine! She had a little cold this week but it hasn't slowed her down. Tonight she tried "cruising" around the ottoman which was exciting as well. She fell on her little butt a lot but she kept reaching to get back up so I was impressed with her determination. More to come on that.

My niece Amiayah is doing GREAT!! All of her tests came back and she got a clean bill of health! No issues and she is gaining weight like a champ. I can't wait to see her again soon!

We've got a big weekend coming up! Taylor and I are going to lunch tomorrow with Amanda. Kevin is in town so Ben and I are meeting up with him and Matty tomorrow night and Taylor is having a slumber party at the rents house! Actually - we are too since it's closer to where we are going than our own house and we won't have to get up too early to go pick up Taylor. Aunt Jack and Uncle Todd are coming over Sunday to see little TP in motion!

Hope everyone is doing well and has a great weekend!!!

1-2-3-4....

....Taylor is CRAWLING around the floor!!! Yahooooo!!!
She got so close yesterday when she was home with me and then Ben's mom called him shortly after I dropped her off before work to let him know that she was doing it! He and I got to witness it for ourselves this morning and it is the cutest thing ever!! You can see the determination in her eyes and the fear in ours! HA! Dear Crazy!

I'm not that technically savvy but I will figure out how to post a video at some point!

Happy Hump Day!

What happens when you leave food on the high chair and walk away for a minute???

THIS.....

Friday night - while feeding Taylor her dinner - one of the cats jumped on the counter and knocked over a cup of water. I got up real quick to try to chase her and then grabbed a towel to lay on top of the water on the floor. All of this took about 10 seconds.....apparently that's long enough for TP to make a big mess on her face with the bowl of food that I thought I had moved to the kitchen table when I got up. She was so happy and looked so proud of herself that I couldn't pass up the photo op. She'll thank me for it one day! HA!! Dear Crazy!

A few hours after the big orange mess - it was off to bar cleaning. For those that don't know what that is - all the bartenders have to come together at the hole to literally strip the bar of EVERYTHING and scrub it all down. This begins as soon as we can get the last "guest" out the door and goes until the sun comes up. It's nasty and gross but part of the job.

I managed to get about few hours of sleep before having to get back up and start a new day. Not just any day though......VA Tech vs Maryland basketball day! I was so excited - you would have thought it was Christmas morning. We dropped Taylor off at the rents house and headed to the Comcast Center. We had some time to spare so we went to the team store to look around. I got myself a prize but I can't share what it is yet. Let me just say I'm even more excited to watch the PUKE - oooops - I mean DUKE game with Tucker next week. ;0)

As we walked around - a few people asked us (Ben in VA Tech and me in Maryland) how we got along. We explained that we're Tech/Maryland and Skins/Eagles and we get along pretty well.....there are only a few days a year that we don't.

Hope everyone had a nice weekend!

Nothing says love like.....

.....a pair of tickets to the VA Tech vs Maryland basketball game on Valentine's Day! Ben is the best husband ever - and with the help of Todd - got us tickets for tomorrows game! WOOOHOOO!!! I'm so excited! I've been to a few games at the Comcast Center but I've never been to a conference game. Fingers crossed the Terps come through for me and actually play for 40 minutes! HA! Dear Crazy.....

Things here have been good - busy - but good. Taylor is 100% all better now. She's back to being the little ham that she is. She is still trying to crawl - and still going backwards. All that little girl wants to do is stand so I'm not sure if she'll ever move around on all fours or if she is just going to bust out walking one of these days.

I got to meet my new little niece Amiayah last weekend. She is so precious and adorable! She is doing pretty well but had to go have some blood work done on Wednesday. Melissa got a call on Tuesday evening that Amiayah's newborn screening had come back with some elevated levels and that they needed to do some more tests. The tests are for Cystic Fibrosis so please keep the little beauty in your thoughts and prayers. It will take a couple of weeks to get the results back but I will keep you all posted.

Hope you all have fun weekends planned! I have bar cleaning to night but I'm 'almost' ok with it since I've got something so fun to do tomorrow to look forward to. The rents might be more excited than I am since they are going to be able to watch Taylor for a whole afternoon/evening! The Daytona 500 is on Sunday - NASCAR season is back again! GO JJ!!!

Our latest pics are HERE

Got Sliders?

No? Well you can with just a simple click on the web.

Glory Days has a new promotion for $5 sliders. Go to gotsliders.com and print out your $5 coupon for Cheeseburger, BBQ Pork, Buffalo Chicken or Sausage & Pepper Sliders. Rules and restrictions are on the coupon and it is good until 03/31/2009! Yumm-o!!

Play Ball!!