Advantages to living in New York

One of the benefits of living in New York is we get to celebrate Jewish holidays. Today is Rosh Hashanah so Anthony was off school and we did a little celebrating. We started out the day with a nice morning jog. Followed by a trip to the dental school with dad.

Kenzie got to sit with dad and see where all the magic happens.

Parker and I got to sit in the chair that Anthony sees more than his family during the school year.

A trip to the dental school is never complete until Parker and dad play one-on-one at Foosball.

We all got a nap then watched a little T.V.

To end the night me and the kids went on a rain walk so Parker could finally try out his new rain boots.

It was a very good day, and we are all looking forward to celebrating Yom Kippur next week.

What is that you are looking at?

You are looking at a 100% potty using 2 1/2 year old.


Unlike the first potty training attempt this one was much more successful. This time I pulled out all the stops, I had about a million rewards and stayed positive, positive, positive and this kid does not even remember what diapers are. Chuck E Cheese's has reward calendars for kids so I printed a Potty Perfect Calendar which Parker was able to redeem today for a fun filled day with mom, dad, and his friend Weston.

He tore up the dance, dance, revolution floor. Anthony and Weston couldn't even compete, they just sat back and took notes.

Parker loved the Jet Ski

Weston's game of choice was soccer. This didn't surprise me a bit his dad has had him kicking a soccer ball since he was a couple weeks old.

I couldn't get one decent picture of the kids they spent the whole time running around playing all the games and having a blast together. The only time they ever came to me was to get more tokens. I am so glad Parker had so much fun, he worked very hard to deserve this day.

Etching Queen

I taught an etching class at my church this weekend. To prepare myself I tried etching lots of different things so I would be able to help people etch any glass object they brought. I practiced on big things, little things, circular things everything I could think of (except rub on's sorry Betzy). I couldn't get enough of it, it was so easy and fun and everything turned out cute. It took all the will power I had not to etch every glass object in my house. Anthony is lucky I couldn't decide to etch right and left from his view or the worlds view of him on his glasses, or they would have been etched. Needless to say I now love etching. My sister is the one who introduced me to etching and I made this for her in-laws. Did I make you proud Angie?

Some times I wonder

Some days I wonder if these 2 kids are going to live to see another sunrise.

While cleaning Parker's room I noticed he had screwed a metal door stopper into the electrical outlet in his room. I am not sure how he survived the encounter with the electrical outlet, I am just glad he did survive it.

Yesterday I had my first experience calling Poison Control. Parker left his Flarp out, and Kenzie decided to take advantage of the situation and eat it. What is Flarp you may be wondering, it is like Gak or Slime. After realizing Kenzie had been snacking on it, I panicked a little then looked at the Flarp container to see what to do. It was clearly marked all over the container to keep out of reach of children, do not digest, etc. so I gave Poison Control a call. Lucky for me, Kenzie, and the whole Moeller clan Flarp is not toxic, and Kenzie survived the encounter well.

IKE

Last night as I was going to bed I could hear a storm blowing outside, Mr. Weatherman said it was the remains of hurricane Ike. I am sure my friends from Texas are rolling their eyes at me (or will soon be rolling their eyes once they have electricity again and can check my blog) because, I can't stop thinking about the effects of the hurricane that didn't do anything to me. While they are the ones stuck living with the effects of the hurricane.

Before moving to Buffalo we lived in Houston and I spent 2 years of my life working in Galveston as a nurse at a Urology clinic. Galveston is a pretty island populated with the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor. I have some scary memories of me on the island but mostly lots of good memories. I can't stop thinking of what my life would be like if I was still working there and had to be one of the nurses to stay at the hospital while everyone else evacuated, and millions of other what if's. My prayers go out to everyone affected by the storm.

My favorite memory of Galveston is every year they have a biker rally, and you better believe it was a Moeller family tradition.

Parker's number one fan

For the past 9 months Kenzie has been a victim of hundreds of hate crimes. She has been jumped on, hit, bitten, dragged from room to room by an extremity, and experienced many other painful things. These hate crimes have been done to Kenzie by her big brother Parker, despite all the violence Kenzie continues to absolutely adore him. She follows him from room to room always wanting to be near him.

Yesterday she woke-up from her nap before Parker and didn't want to hang out with me. She crawled straight to Parker's door and tried everything she could do to get in. It was funny to watch her knock, push and put her tiny fingers under the door trying to get it open.

Today I had almost the perfect day

This morning I got to exercise with one of my good friends. The mall by my house has an activity for kids every month that Parker quite likes and today was the day. We went to the mall and did Parkers thing, shopped, ate lunch, played at the play place(the play place is the saddest excuse for a play place I have ever seen, but Parker absolutely loves it so we had to stop by).

I found some cute stuff for the kids on clearance then had to stop at the grocery store. Parker and Kenzie were absolute angels during the shopping. When we got home the kids were so warn-out they took a nap, and I was able to make dinner and put away grocery's with no interruptions. In fact I was able to do it so quick I had an extra 20 minutes to watch Ellen(my favorite Talk Show).

My husband came home and the 2 of us got to eat dinner alone, it was almost like we were on a date. The kitchen cleaned it self-up (with the help of Anthony), Anthony did ALL the dishes. He didn't stop there, he recruited Parker and did some more chores: The kids went to bed and Anthony and I again got to hang out for an hour and watch our favorite show (Big Brother 10) before he had to go off and study. Pretty good day, the only reason why I consider it "almost perfect" instead of "perfect" is because their was no beach, no boat, and the weather wasn't the best.

One more thing that made the day perfect was this marked day #3 of no accidents for Parker. I am still nervous he might regress again, but I am thinking maybe, hopefully, if I am lucky, this truly is the end of diapers for Parker.

This is for Grandma. Here is your cute granddaughter showing off her new trick. She pulls herself up on everything and anything low enough to the ground to give her a boost.