cows and crosswalks

gotta love living in the country... for many people, including myself, i don't consider Greenfield country living.. but drive 15 -20 minutes out of greenfield, and your out in the sticks... some directions it takes less time than that.

today i headed out west on the Mohawk Trail for work to the restaurant on the hairpin turn... I brought my camera. today I was headed for the Berkshires! clean crisp air, gorgeous views.. and apparantly bad well water contaminated by the highway dept (road salt)

i took some pictures of the views from the restaurant i was at. just gorgeous views of North Adams, and Mt. Greylock. on the way back i stopped at one of the summits and took some pictures there too. I love that this is only about 45 minutes from my house. As much as i miss the beauty of the beach on a daily basis, I love how it's so gorgeous out here, when you just look at it the right way. I guess any area is like this. unless of course you live in crack central than you have a different story. But a good photographer could get worthy shots of crack central if they wanted to... and felt safe enough too i suppose.

yesterday i was driving up the mountain in Leverett towards Shutesbury, when i see an on coming car (down the mountain/large hill) going very slow and behind it to cows running, so i slow way down almost to a complete stop, b/c i didn't want to spook them.. after they passed, i wondered if that was even necessary. i know when you drive past horses you drive super slow as to not spook them, so me thinking quick, just figured it be best to do that when driving around cows.. why not.so when i got to the top of the mountain i pulled in to the fire station and let them know that there were cows running down the mountain. I'm a good little citizen, aren't I?
and a couple weeks ago While out in the southern berkshires i saw 3 moose in somebody's front yard! Didn't have my camera that day though.

I'm typing this enjoying lunch today at home.. as it's on the bay back to work from rt 2. we live like 5 minutes from the highway.. andd on the way home i discovered it's officially crosswalk painting season.. it's like an obstacle course out there, dodging oranges cones and oncoming traffic... in a suburban nonetheless!

so back to work i go in a few minutes now that i'm done enjoying my calorie rich Ellio's and Coke Zero

Enjoy this gorgeous weather.. (it's beautiful and like 85 degrees!)

the new nephew has finally arrived!

Brayden finally made his debut on May 1st! only 9 days late. Poor Christine wanted a diamond on her mother's ring, but it appears as though Brayden really wanted the emerald. click the picture to see the album. scott's sister had uploaded pictures on her myspace and i downloaded them, so I could share them!

Brayden!!

I can't wait to see him! he's not all bruised like Liam was.. my poor baby was all black and blue in the face.

I need a drink!!

*note* this post was started on friday night, the 20th, jay was working at Target:

and anyone who knows me well, knows that I dont' ever say that.. that's the kind of night I've been having. It was going good until just before dinner. It started with the computer. Evan wanted to play a game.. okay. he finds said game and puts it in the cd tray. okay, never a problem. Well apparantly he managed to slide the chair over to the tray and wedge it underneath.. (our tower is on the floor under the desk) and before I could take it off the chair Evan is pressing the close button only the tray is unable to close. Now it appears that the drive tray is broken.

*************
2 days later:

let me begin with i fell asleep at 8:30 in evan's room and didn't get to finish my post. It was a very long night... so not only did he break the cd drive, he decided to pull the bobbin thread all out of my sewing machine,a nd while doing so, knocked some dirty dishes on the floor.. thankfully the dishes were his, and were plastic.. but they had food in them from dinner the previous night. so then i'm cooking dinner, and he wants this and that, and this and that.. and i'm frying chicken on the stove so i didn't want to go too far. then the baby starts up, and that goes off and on for a while. Evan spills juice all over the rug in the living room as he's climbing on top of his little table next to the pack and play. he's reaching for a horn (aka empty toilet paper tube) in said pack and play. he kicks everything off his table and makes a huge mess. oh did i mention? he's stark naked. ugh! eventually i finish dinner... it wasn't that long really .. maybe 1/2 hour, but it felt like eternity. then we ate, and he wants to read a story. ok. so i read a story, and it when i finish i noticed he's ripped off a pretty good size section of wallpaper! that was the last straw. i sortof yelled.. i was pissed off, but i try to not yell.. but i punished him.. no tv for the rest of the night... and no more eating/drinking messy foods in the living room. i'm sick of picking it up and him making messes. at 8:15 he asks to go upstairs for bed, so we did, and i fell asleep at 8:30 or there abouts. at some point before jay got home at 9:30 i wlaked into our room and slept there. thankfully the baby went to sleep at 8 or something.

he wakes me up when he gets home, and i tell him all the hell that broke loose in a total zombie-half-asleep state while he had dinner. i fell asleep on the couch. what time i don't know? but i was exhausted. never did get that drink. heh

*************
so i'm back at work, full throttle. and it's kicking me in the ass.. i'm just tired. work itself is fine, but at 8:30 or so i start yawning and it's all down hill from there. while i was on leave i wasn't eating that well.. and then for the last few weeks i made myself eat better, and now that i'm working again, i'm eating like crap during the day again. it's mostly b/c i'm on the road so i'm limited as to what i can bring for lunch. up until this week i haven't been eating a bunch of foods b/c the baby was very sensitive to my diet and was painfully gassy. it seems as though i can start eating those foods again. yay! but i'm still not eating as good as i should be b/c i'm nursing.. i'm supposed to be eaing an extra 500 calories a day. right. well... i did discover Caribou Coffee granola bars.. they are to die for.. they have coffee in them, and are mighty tasty! i eat 2 at a whack. lol and i'm an ice creamaholic so i eat some of that on an almost daily basis. i get the edy's slow churned (dreyer's on the west coast) it's super yummy, and healthier than regular ice cream so i can feed my addiction nearly guilt free.

today evan was a little shit at church. but the wether has been gorgeous, so i can't complain about that!i can complain about evan just waking up the baby, however. that's to be expected every once in a while.. he is 3.

but needless to say i've been super busy now that i'm at work full-time again... i mean how long has it been since i posted a blog.. i barely get the opputunities to go to the forums and read never mind post! work has been very busy for me this month b/c i had to schedule all my clients into the 2 remaining weeks of the month. may should be more calm.

speaking of work. ya'll know how much i can't stand my job at umass. well my first week back i felt appreciated for the first time in 3 years at the job. see i have a job where my boss never says anything to you about your work unless something has gone wrong, so no one eve feels appreciated. but that first week, pretty much all my co-workers said "it's so good to have you back" the boss even said it to me in the email i sent saying when i would be returning. so as of current: i don't loathe my job. not sure how long it'll last, but it's good anyhow.

Hoppy Easter!

so Easter is this weekend. we're very excited. The boys and i ventured down to Yankee Candle b/c the Easter bunny was going to be there. for Free! and Evan was all excited. on teh way down i talked to him about how the Eater bunny is going to be big, but he'll be very nice, yada yada.. and Evan kept talking about how he was going to bring him "candy and presents just like Santa".. lol. i hope he's not too disappointed. it won't be nearly as much as santa would bring, but it's goodies none the less.

so we got there.. and mind you this is their flagship store, so it's huge. it's not that little nook you see ing the mall. it's practically a department store within itself. its a nice place actually. oh yeah.. so we get there, and evans so excited, and the bunny is on break "eating carrots" she said.. i highly doubt that but i digress so we venture forth onto the fun fact scavenger hunt. whoopee! it wasn't that fun, but evan behaved very well.. stayed with me while i hunted down posters so we could get our prize. we got these fantastic foam bunny ears, and a little packet of jelly belly's! when we get to the area with the bunny, evan sees him froma distance it got scared. poor kid. i was expecting it actually. so we didn't get a picture with the Easter bunny. but that's all well and good anyway. we had a good time

and where was Liam during all of this? sleeping.. the kid slept through the whole thing, and is still sleeping as i type this. i suspect his nap will end soon though.. there's always next year..

Whirlwind of a Fool's Day

5 weeks have come and gone since i've had the baby, and it feels like i've never lived a day without him. b/c of his size it often slips my mind how young he still is. he weighs atleast, and i'm sure more than 14 lbs. yup.. you heard me right. 14 lbs at 5 weeks. he's filling out his 3-6 month size clothes nicely, and i fear that if i try and save money by buying diapers in bulk at BJ's that we'll end up wasting money and donating more than half the diapers to the new nephew. so we buy them at Tarjay or Wally world in the larger size there. we need to buy diapers soon, but i'm waiting b/c i'm not sure what the weight range is for the size 3's... i think we'll need those in the next few weeks. i just don't know when.

This is my last full week at maternity leave. 2 weeks earlier than originally planned, and 1 week earlier than we anticipated after i took that last week off of work b/c i couldn't do anything.. i couldn't sit or stand for more than 2 hours, and i felt just useless. i'm going back early b/c we can't do math.. we counted the weeks wrong and i already told both works i was coming back on the 9th. oops. however it's not all bad. i'm getting stir crazy being at home so much anyway.. i get bored easily.. always have. so i'll go back to work, but i won't work a full week. i won't have to drive anywhere, i just need to get in the swing of going back to work and getting the boys ready by myself in the morning. i'll take advantage and work on my morning routine, and not work a full 8 hours, and get paid. going back a bit early is helping our wallets out too. we saved all our money from tax returns to use as my paychecks while on maternity leave and going back early means i have an extra "paycheck" per se. my first pay check that i'll get when i return to work will only be half of the normal bi-weekly pay so we have a few hundred dollars "extra", that we didn't plan on. we're buying food. great sales this week, and our house is getting a bit dry. it's a good day when we are able to purchase gas and groceries and not put them on the credit card.

the last trimester of pregnancy really kicked our asses financially and we didn't notice until about a month ago. b/c of doctor's appointments and daycare cancellations and whatnot, i wasn't able to work my full 32 hours a week needed for several months at the end of my pregnancy, which meant that we have had to put alot of things like food and gas on the credit card, and boy that added up real fast. so jay has decided to get a second job at Tarjay for a while. it'll suck, yes, but hopefully we'll be able to make ends meet without adding much tot he credit card so hopefully we can pay that down, but it is much higher than we would like. jay will also be getting several stipends this spring from things at work and a seminar he did, so that will help as well. we plan on sending a bunch to the cards with that money too.

all in all life is alright. not much more to complain about. the day care situation has been resolved. our dear friend Tamar (aka Tammy) is helping us out by watching the boys for us through the end of june which jay should be able to take care of them over most of the summer. She'll then be taking the baby in the fall and evan will be going to preschool! yes you heard me.. the big pre-k! i can't believe it. thankfully pre-k is on a sliding scale fee schedule so it'll only cost us about $15/day or so. 1/2 the price of daycare. woo! speaking of which i have to go to the registration day tomorrow... i'm actually quite excited.

+++++++++++++++++++++

for most people april 1st is a day of silliness and laughter. but this is not the case to my group of friends that formed while in college. a childhood friend of jason and tyler, and several others, and then a college friend of mine and becky's and god knows how many more lost a friend on April 1st one year back in college. junior year i believe. we were living in Amherst in our little apartment with our friend Wes when we found out that Bill had committed suicide.. hung himself in the trees by the river near his apartment in sunderland. it was devastating. him and i weren't close, but he was close to many of my other friends and jason. the reason you wonder? it was b/c of a girl. she dumped him. it was stupid. every year at this time jay and i honor him, by having the sanctuary lamp burn in his honor and since on this day a drink is drunk in honor of Bill, who is told by all (from now varying points on the eastern seaboard) what a stupid thing he did. RIP.

happy birthday little guy

Liam turned 1 month old yesterday... and i opened the size 2 diapers! i laughed.. it's insane.. he weighs 12 lbs 12 oz as of weds.. so he's gaining about a pound a week.. just like his big brother did. great.
my mom came out to visit with us on thursday night. it was good to see her.. it had been awhile. we hada hard time getting good pictures with the boys, but i posted a few in my web album.

that is all for now.. time to pay the bills b/c i forgot to yesterday..

boy time has flown by

Liam will be 3 weeks old tomorrow. hard to believe it's been three weeks already. it has been a crazy time i must say. so on top of juggling the 2 boys in daily activities, we've been trying to get our day care situation settled.

our daycare's youngest is finally getting out of the hospital today after over a week in the hospital. poor little guy had double pnemonia, and was in the hospital down the street, but wasn't improving so the bussed the boy to Baystate medical Ctr in springfield so he could go into ICU. he's only in kindergarten. and during this time i recieved an email from our daycare, that pretty accused us of being bad parents, and how careless we've been with germ exposure of our son (who hardly gets a cold, nevermind something serious) by letting him go to daycare when she says there's illness in the house. her kids get sick at the drop of a hat, Evan doesn't. she also accused us of not caring that her little guy was in the hospital and "to show some compassion" as she put it. i must admit that had i known the day her husband called to say that their son was in the hospital how serious his illness was, i would've responsed differently. her husband called me up on tuesday morning, waking me up and simply said that their son was at the hospital. no stress in his voice. (mind you he is in the hospital several times a year for pnemonia.. he gets it alot, and rebounds very quickly) and i simply had said to him, "okay, I'll keep Evan home" and he said ok, and we hung up the phone. i had talked to our daycre on monday night and she said he had the flu and should be better by thurs at the latest.

so as days went by, i would call up to see if she was open, b/c we honestly had no idea that thier son's health was going down hill. no one said anything to us, and they surely didn't mention that they'd be closed until further notice, so it was left to us to call them and see if they were open. if daycare is "open" and we choose to not bring Evan for what ever reason you still have to pay. it's the way daycare works. so if daycare was open, i would've brought evan so i could relax with the baby. so needless to say she took offense to my calling everyday to see if she was open b/c i was endangering the health of my child among other things. well jay flipped his lid and sent her a really nasty email... which he thought wasn't nasty at all... well i read it after the fact and it was. She emailed back and said that she's going to be saving us money every month by not watching evan or taking the baby anymore! WTF is that all about? so now we're trying to arrange with some friends to watch the boys for the remainder of the school year. Everyone has since apologized, and she said she shouldn't have said anything in the first place with her being so upset about Wil. but she hasn't mentioned anything about the boys so i just assume, she still won't have them. and besides if she honestly feels that when we put leftover chinese in evan's lunchbox the next day that we could be better spending that money on paying her the full price for daycare (we were getting a discount b/c we po') among other things, then i don't want to have to justify everything we do to our daycare.. and she can fill the slots with a family that can pay full price then so be it.. we know they need the money too. and jsut for the record we spend about $20 on chinese once in a while, when it's late and we don't want to cook, or if we have company... not only do we get dinner out of it, but there's often plenty left over for a couple lunches too. we get those combo dinners, and unlike her we're not feeding a family of 6. she may spend $50 or more, but we don't. and when we do get chinese, we almost always put it on the credit card b/c we don't have any money. if daycare took credit card... that's a different topic.

so three weeks into maternity leave.. (technically 4 b/c i just couldn't work really the week i went into labor.. i was massively uncomfortable and swollen) i haven't had a chance to rest at all. everyone asks if i'm resting.. ha.. i have a 3 year old, and a newborn who needs to eat every fews hours and needs diaper changes all the time.. who has time for rest.

photo update

taken this morning. Liam is 2.5 weeks old, Evan is 3 & a qtr years old

a baby story in case people want soem details

(i can't belive i forgot to post this.. i had sent this out as email to people but here it is for the blog world to read)

Things here are going well. as some of you know, (some of you don't) Little Liam was born on friday feb 23rd at 4:05 am. he weighed in at 10 lbs 14 oz (!) it was no wonder i got as big as a house. and no it wasn't a c-section.. yes folks.. holy crap is right.. thankfully labor was quick. by quick i mean i woke up at 1:30, woke jay up at 2:30 called mom in law and the OB at 3, got to the hospital at 3:30, was on the monitor for 20 min, and then it was time.. yeah.. 2.5 hours. it was crazy.

Liam had some breathing problems on the first day, b/c he had swallowed some meconium during delivery, but that resolved itself by saturday night or so. he was a bit jaundice on sunday morning, but we got sent home with the light blanket, and were told to get a lab done inthe morning.. no biggie.. evan had the biliblanket.. but the numbers came back high, so we were told to bring him back to OB so he can go under the lights.. that was monday at noon.. today is weds, and we were finally able to bring him home weds the 28th.. his bilirubin numbers are no longer scary. they got so high that the doctor said that if they don't come down he might have to get a transfusion (!) but luckily they had come down enough that we didn't have to worry about that.. thank God. and i get to sleep in my own bed.. what a treat!

his jaundice is pretty much gone now and he's quite the sleeper... i couldn't ask for anythign more.

i've uploaded some pictures to my web album for you all to check out http://picasaweb.google.com/evansmom111003 enjoy!

we're good

we're home and we're all doing well.. i don't have much to report other than it's going to get bitterly cold this week! keep checking my online album for pictures of the family!