Bellastitch

The kids and I celebrated Christmas in June.  My parents sent them presents and we also got prezzies from my friend E in NYC.  w00t w00t!

From Lolo and Lola, Ayame got lots of new clothes, a new toothbrush and lots of dried mangoes.

Reeve also got clothes and new shoes.  He thinks they’re yummy.

E mailed us a Hello Kitty box of goodies!

Ayame loves her little lunch box and has nicknamed it, “Batsy”.

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Thanks for all the comments!  I get so excited when I get them.  :)  I highly recommend Subversive Cross Stitch.  Dani, you need to make a bunch for Todd!  DH’s cube is already a gallery with all the stuff I’ve stitched for him this year. 

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In sad news, my sister left home.  We have no idea where she is.  I tried to send messages to her friends on FB, but after about 12 messages, I got a warning saying that my activities are bordering on spamming.  Fail FB.

DH loved all his gifts.  He got a cute toy, a book and this:

Charted as seen in Subversive Cross Stitch using black DMC on 28 ct white opalescent Lugana. 

Our landlord’s son used to live in this house.  They really took care of the yard and the flower beds.  We have roses, lots of trees, some lavender, a hydrangea and these:

I think they’re peonies, but I’m not 100% sure.  This is from ONE STEM.  The flowers (yes, there’s more left on the plant) are so big and heavy, that they’re just drooping on the ground.  They are just absolutely beautiful!

Yes, Internet. That is exactly what you think it is.

We decided to get a small pool for the babies. As Ayame resists any form of change, this step was crucial to the Ayame-pool relationship. We let her play with it all flat and fresh from the box. She was allowed to touh it while we were inflating it. When the “tree trunks” inflated completely and raised the “tree tops” she went completely NUTS. There was lots and lots of tears and screaming. I didn’t think she would even try it. So what does Mommy do? She goes in the pool and shows the screaming child that there is nothing to be scared of. She eventually got in with me and warmed up to the pool. She liked the design and kept calling the top of the pool “sun”. It was round after all. But it was GREEN. And it had trunks. I told her it was a tree, while touching the trunks. So now the trunks are trees, but the top is still the sun. Oh well.

If it’s warm on Saturday, I’ll inflate it outside and let her play in it. If she’s okay with it, we might even PUT WATER IN IT. w00t!

DH said he was expecting a delivery today.  So I tried to be downstairs as much as I could to watch out for FedEx or UPS.  A few minutes ago, someone knocked and I thought, “OMG!  Delivery people learned to knock before leaving stuff on the porch.  w00t!”  I opened the door and there was a lady holding a giant vase of flowers and balloons.

Me:  What’s that?

Lady:  Is this xx Your Rd?  Then these are for you! 

Awesome!  I started crying like a crazy person.  The flowers smell amazing.  The whole thing is just so beautiful.  Thanks, hun!

Reeve’s hair has been growing like weeds.

Before:

After:

I just used the #5 guard on the clippers and away I went.  Its still kinda choppy in some parts.  It was very challenging to give a baby who squirms a lot a haircut… especially when he’s trying to grab the clippers and put them in his mouth.

For Memorial Day, we met up with Brooke, Jim, Quintin and Grandpa Rick for lunch.  After that, we hung out a little bit at Brooke’s house.  Quintin was really sweet and kept asking Ayame to play with him.

The plan after that was to go for a drive, drop the kids off at Nana Pam’s house and go on a date.  Our beloved car, Turbo Kill (aka Turbo Bitch) decided otherwise.  We were driving along, enjoying the lovely, sunny day when Turbo Bitch decided that she didn’t want to drive around anymore.  Driving became difficult, so we turned around and headed back to the city.  I called every repair shop that showed up on the iPhone map, but none of them had time to see us that day.  Finally, a Monroe said okay to checking things out for us.  We got there and the guy said it might be the pump and that he can’t fix it.  Oy.  We tried to go to the VW dealer, but they were closed for the holiday.  We left the car at the mall (after calling security and making sure it was ok to leave the car there).  MIL came to the rescue and picked us up.

The next day, FIL picked up DH to take care of the car and to go golfing.  I decided to just stay at the hotel with the kids and get them back on their nap schedule and just relax.  I brought a stitching project along, but while I was in Rochester, I realized that I started at the wrong spot and my fabric was not gonna be big enough.  Ugh.  I didn’t feel like frogging the whole thing.  I thought of just cutting a new piece of fabric, but my cross stitch shopping bag was in the car.  Oh well.  I read instead.

The car was finally ready and we were able to drive back home on Wednesday.  DH decided it was time to drive stick again.  I tried and I sucked.  Then it got better… or so I thought.  DH said I wobbled the car everytime I shifted.  And I was jerking the car when I shifted lanes.  I swear, I forget to drive when I’m on a manual car.  I’d rather drive my automatic any day!  I was driving along when we heard THAT NOISE come out of Ayame, followed by THAT SMELL.  Eeeewwwww.  My awful driving had made her car sick.  Ugh.  Good thing we were near a rest stop.  Baby got cleaned and changed.  Car seat got wiped down, leather seats got wiped down some.  The next 3 or so hours were awful.  We had to drive with the windows down, the wind was loud and it freaked the babies out.

The last 15 miles took FOREVER as we got in Boston right at rush hour.  Ick.  Anyway, as soon as we got home, the car seats were taken out of the car and the covers went into the wash right away.  They were due for a wash anyway. 

It was a very hectic vacation but it was so much fun.  I got to see so much of Rochester for the first time.  I got to try Don’s Original and Nick Tahou’s Garbage Plate.  We saw Seabreeze and The Eastman House.  Next time we go, the kids will be bigger.  I will remember to bring the 2 strollers and we’ll go to Mumford.  :)  We’ll see…

On Saturday we had brunch and then went over to say hi to Uncle Bill and Grandpa.  Ayame had fun sitting at the desk and playing “office girl”.  She drew pictures, not really trying to stay on the paper though.  LOL.  After that, we tried Seabreeze again.  They were definitely open and busy, but not crazy busy.  DH said that it had changed a lot.  They got rid of all the rickety rides and modernized a bit.  We weren’t planning on going on any rides and Seabreeze had a “spectator pass” for only $10.  Good deal!  We let Ayame walk around again and Reeve rode on the stroller.  She just LOVED walking around.  I don’t know what happened.  But she literally went from not wanting to walk on our driveway/walkway to walking all over the place.  She loved watching all the people get on the rides.  We showed them skeeball and she understood it, even trying to throw the balls.  Totally cute.  We stayed at the park for about 2 hours.  After that, we had an early dinner at Don’s Original.  Had burgers and then chocolate almond frozen custard for desert.  DH took her near the water to watch the seagulls and geese.  All of which she refered to as DUCK!

Sunday:  After breakfast, we went to the mall to walk around.  We went into a pet shop and Ayame tried to pet EVERYTHING.  She wasn’t scared.  She loved the chinchila, the bunny, the rats (ick!).  She loved the birds and saw PUPPIES!!!  and KITTIES!!!  She was so excited to see everything and was eager to just walk, walk and walk.    Reeve stayed in the stroller and was content to just people watch.

We had a Picnic/Cookout at Brooke and Jim’s house that afternoon.  There was so much food, so many gifts and a big backyard for all the kids to run around.  Ayame was shy for about 2 minutes.  Then Quintin and Sky started running like crazy and she went off and tried to catch up with them.  Ayame ate by herself and even used a fork!  whoohooo.  Finally!  We had cake and ice cream.  Even Reeve tried a little bit.  He was feeling all left our and was pouting as all of us stuffed our face, so I gave him a bit.  He seemed to like it, but I didn’t really want to find out how he would react to dairy.  :)  Ayame got lots of presents.  Even Reeve got some presents.  Nana Pam also bought gifts for Quintin & Skye so they wouldn’t feel left out.  We told them, “Happy Memorial Day” from the Memorial Day Bunny.  LOL.

I think the picnic went really well.  Ayame was super social, even though she didn’t join Q & S when they went running through the sprinkler.  She stopped being shy that day and had a wonderful birthday celebration.

The goal was to leave within an hour of getting up.  FAIL.  We left 2 hours after we got up.  Why?  Because Turbo Kill decided that she was not gonna let us open the trunk door.  I was making good time up until I had to start loading up the car.  No matter what I tried, the trunk to the wagon WOULD. NOT. OPEN.  I tried and tried and tried.  I even tried locking and unlocking everything.  I looked in the car manual.  Nothing worked.  After so many tries, I finally asked DH to help me open the trunk.  I felt stupid.  Stupid little girl can’t even open the stupid trunk.  But he couldn’t open it either.  It was stuck.  We ended up loading everything through the gap between the roof and the back seats.  Had to take two head rests off, but everything but the cooler fit.

The drive was relatively uneventful.  Traffic wasn’t bad.  Reeve slept most of the way.  We had chicken nuggets for lunch.  Ayame ate a bunch of nuggets and fries.  All was well. 

Somewhere along the way, we stopped at a parking area overlooking the Erie Canal.  DH stretched out and the babies got a diaper change and a drink refill.  DH tried to open the trunk again, pulling as hard as he could and VOILA!  It opened!!!  w00t!  w00t!  I was NOT looking forward to unloading everything through the back seats at the hotel.  That was such a relief.

The last hour and a half, Reeve decided that he would pee and whine every 30 minutes.  We stopped at 3 rest areas in a row.  Oy.  The last stop was only 20 minutes away from Rochester, but he was NOT going to wait that long for a new diaper.  Oh well.  We hit Rochester right in the middle of rush hour traffic.  But Rochester’s traffic doesn’t even come close to Boston’s traffic, so it wasn’t that bad.

We unloaded all our crap at the hotel and headed back out to get dinner and do some shopping.  I had my favorite Avocado Burger at Red Robin with a Freckled lemonade.  Ayame tried some of the burger and had a bunch of strawberries.  She was not a fan of the steak fries though.  Several minutes into dinner, a lady from a nearby table asked if Ayame would like a balloon.  Ayame seemed to like it, so we said yes.  After dinner, we put the balloon in the car and went to Toys R Us.

I forgot to move Ayame’s stroller out of Scootie Puff, so we needed a new one.  She gladly walked from the car to the store.  The doors opened and she saw ALL!  THE!  TOYS!!!  She was fascinated by the pom pom balls, but the label said for ages 5 and up.  Obviously we didn’t get her that.  She then ran to a display area and grabbed about 5 stuff toys.  No to that also.  We ended up limiting her shopping spree to a pink ball and some wooden blocks and the much-needed umbrella stroller.

We spent the rest of the night playing at the hotel room.  The kids were all wound up and were so sick of being in the car for over 7 hours.  Reeve just wanted to crawl and crawl and crawl and Ayame wanted to play with Daddy.

Day 2:  We decided that we were gonna have brunch and spend the afternoon at Seabreeze.  Brunch was good.   Ayame ate well.  Reeve slept through most of it.  On the drive there, Tom and I talked about the movie, Vacation.  They drive forever and when they get to Wally World, it was closed for repairs.  Well guess what?  We got to Seabreeze and it was closed.  Boo!  I called and was told that they were only open on weekends until summer officially starts.  More BOO!!!!  We were disappointed, but it wasn’t bad.  It was only 20 minutes away from the hotel.

So we went to Eastman House instead.  I had never been there and I thought it would be interesting.  It was only $10/person and the kids got in free.  So worth it!  The first area was set up for exhibits.  They had various photographs on display.  The guy who sold us the tickets said we were not allowed to take pictures of pictures.  So there you go.  No shot of me with a beautiful photo of Elizabeth Taylor.  The next area was the coffee/gift shop, the Dryden Theatre and the garden.  The garden was BEAUTIFUL.  Here is a shot of Ayame with an Iris (Ayame is Japanese for Iris!).

We let her run around and smell the flowers.  There was lilac everywhere.  Rochester is the Lilac City after all.  It was the perfect day to go.  It was nice and sunny but it wasn’t hot.  Reeve wanted to grab everything, and Ayame wanted to keep running around.

The next stop was the main house.  The first room we saw was the dining room.  It was very elaborate with a beautiful ceiling.  Next to the dining room is the conservatory.  You immediately see this gigantic elephant head mounted above one of the side doors.   We went into the billiard room next.  It was HUGE.  There was room for the pool table and whole lot of other furniture.  Next was the library, which was a lot smaller than I expected.  It was a cute little reading room with a fireplace.  Next up was the entrance hall.  It was big and grand, with a gigantic staircase and columns.  After that, we saw the living room.  It was set up to look exactly like an old photograph from the 1930s.   There was a really creepy painting of an old lady.  I think it was George Eastman’s mom, but I’m not sure.  We took the elevator to go to the 2nd floor.  The security lady said the elevator was original to the house.  George’s mom broke her hip so he had the elevator put in for her.  There was a room set up to showcase George’s trip to Africa.  One of the rooms belonged to his mom.  She had a big room with 2 beds, a small round table, a sitting area and a fireplace.  There was even a cross stitch piece in her room!  The other rooms were set up as galleries.  A small corridor showcased old cameras and there was even a room for kids to play and touch old cameras and make sun projects.  There was also an exhibit regarding his death.  Did you know that he committed suicide?  His suicide note was there as well as his death certificate.  How sad.

We headed back to the main gallery area and saw even more old cameras.  They had everything from the ancient ones, to the instamatic, to the plastic Fisher Price camera, and even one of the first digital cameras were on display.

After that, we went to East Rochester and I got to shop at Golden Thread.  I got the rest of the Snapperbets charts, a Just Nan chart and some fabric.  Such as shame that she didn’t have and Long Dog designs or any of the new LHNs.  Oh well.  I had fun anyway. 

It was time for dinner!  We went back North and had Don’s Original.  The cheeseburgers were sooo good!  It was the first time that I had a burger served with relish that I LIKED.  I didn’t pick anything out!  That’s how good it was.  :)   For desert we had some chocolate almond frozen custard.  Ayame loved it.  After that, DH took her for a walk near the water where she saw a whole bunch of geese and seagulls.  All of which she refered to as DUCK!

We hung out with MIL for an hour or so before heading back to the hotel.

Stay tuned for Day 3.

Ayame decided to be a big girl while we were on vacation.  She willingly walked from the car to the store.  She ran all around Toys R Us.  She used a spoon to eat her mashed potatoes.  She used a fork to eat her meatballs.  She learned new words and phrases.  She ate her first red hot.  She sat on a booster seat.  She tried skeeball.  She tried frozen custard (and loved it!).

May 2007:

May 2008:

May 2009: