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Thanksgiving weekend was great except for about 10 minutes on Friday....

Headed to visit Karen's sister, hubby and twin 4 year olds in Virginia Beach for Thanksgiving. Had a great time! The only part that, well, freaked the hell out of me was on Friday. All of us had been at the mall doing some Black Friday shopping, which also happened to be Karen's Bday, when the girls decided they were going to take the kids, all 3 of them, for lunch and John and I were gonna head to the VA beach boardwalk for a run. We seperate, and about 30 min later i get a text from Karen "In car accident". Thats all. So call her back right away. No answer. I text her back. No answer. I dont hear from them for about 10-15 min in which I basically have all these scenarios running through my head! Are you ok? Is Hailey ok? What happened? HELLO!!!!! Please answer your phone! Don't text me that!!! Call me!!! I kinda had a feeling that since it was a text that it couldnt be too serious, but still...in a car accident???? CALL ME! Dont text! She eventually calls back. They were rear ended while leaving the mall by a guy with an invalid Mexican license, no insurance, and could barely speak english. The cops arrested him and towed the car. Everyone was ok, however he really rammed the car good! Significant damage to my sister-in-law's car! The kids were shaken up a bit, but otherwise ok, Hailey keeps saying "Aunt Terri's car has a boo boo" better the car have the boo boo instead of one of the kids!!! Soooo other than that little fiasco our Thanksgiving weekend was lots of fun!! The moral of the story??? Some things require and actual phone call and not a text! Like for example, car accidents!!!! lol

What a great relaxing time with daughter...and myself!

Just back from my week off and WOW! It was sooo relaxing! My wife did not have off so I was on my own. Got alot of stuff done i needed to do dentist, eye doc, oil change etc...spent alot of time just lounging around the house too. however the best parts of my vaca were Monday and Friday. Those were the two days I got to spend with Hailey, just her and I. They were quite simple days of playing at the park and heading to the diner for lunch, but man it was just so fun to be with her. Friday we went to pick out Mommy's birthday present. What did Hailey pick out for Mommy? A jack in the box. I asked her "Are you sure Mommy wants a jack in the box for her birthday?" She responded...."Yes she loves them!" lol, um, ok I guess so...a jack in the box it is! Now we just have make sure we keep it a secret until next Friday! HA! Good luck with that! I know she loved spending all that time with Daddy! How do I know? Yesterday when i went to drop her off at school it was a disaster! Freak out! Why? "Cause I love you so much Daddy and I just want to be with you" she said to me. Yes, it's always hard to leave the classroom while she is screaming for me not to go, but knowing that was the reason made it just a little better. :) So all in all I had a great vacation with my daughter, myself, and a few beers at the end of the day :) Hey! It's vacation!

My simple Halloween memory.

While i have many childhood memories I could share I have one that still to this day makes me laugh and smile. Between the ages of 5-9 my parents would take me to my grandparents house in the next town over to go trick or treating. They lived in a better neighborhood and it gave my grandparents to endulge a young boy in thinking he was cleverly fooling them. For at least 5 straight years my Halloween costume was quite simply a "old man". I would get a top hat, cane, a sport jacket and fake gray mustache. The more I think about it, it was really just a way for my parents to not have spend much money on a costume for me! I also would talk in a "old man" voice in an attempt to fool everyone, especially my grandparents, into thinking it wasn't me. My parents would park in the street in front my my grandparents house and I would walk up, ring the door bell and...so it began! My grandmother would answer and say "Patrick (my grandpa), look and nice little old man is at the door. He looks hungry and thirsty! Why don't you come in little old man for some candy and chocolate milk!" I would walk in, thinking that I was totally fooling my grandparents. I would sit at the kitchen table and stay in character while my grandmother asked me questions about myself...who I was...where I came from etc. I would keep up the character as long as I could before I lost it and took off the hat and mustache "Look grandma it's me!!" Of course they would act like I had fooled them! Just like I did the year before, and before! I must have done this for 5 years in a row really thinking I was fooling my grandparents! They would always play along! As if my grandparents were too old and stupid to realize this person they just invited in was their grandson, while my parents were parked in full view in front of the house! lol I have many other memories of Halloween, especially some as a teenager I won't get into in this blog :), but those years going to my grandparents house is what I will always think of when I think about Halloween.

What should I be???

We picked up Hailey's halloween costume from Party Fair on Route 130 in East Windsor! She's gonna be Strawberry Shortcake! So adorable! Of course it doesn't hurt that all costumes at Party Fair are up to 75% off! Well, now I need to get my costume! I'm hosting the Halloween Costume Contest at Katmandu in Trenton on Saturday night! Check it out at katmandutrenton.com. So I need a really good costume!!! Any suggestions? We picked up Hailey's costume last week because I think I want a costume that is a little, well, off color to say the least! :) Something she probably shouldn't see with her 3 year old eyes! :)

Sending Hailey to live with Grandma...or so she thought...

Saturday was our 7th wedding anniversary! What did we do? Out to dinner and then some alone time afterwards while Hailey spent the night at grandma's. That is where the story gets interesting. Hailey has never spent the night at grandma's before. For the past year her 4 year old twin cousins had been living with grandma while their Daddy was out to sea with the Navy. They just moved back to Virginia a month ago. So there never really was any time or room at grandma's house for Hailey. Ok, got that? When Hailey stayed at grandma's on Saturday she got to sleep in the same room that her cousins had slept in for a year, in fact grandma was so nice to even stencil her name on the wall along with her cousins name. Got that? Hailey also got to use her princess suitcase which she never has had a chance to use. Got that? Ok, we checked in with grnadma throughout the night by phone and Hailey was having a good time. She went to bed fine and didn't even want Mommy and Daddy to call and say goodnight. The next day when we went to pick her up we thought she would come running to the door to greet us and be sooo happy to see us....NOPE! Hailey was, well, for lack of a better term pissed at us! No hugs, no kisses, she woudn't even leave grandma's side! We had plans for all of us to go pumpkin picking that day, so off we went. It took at least an hour for her to warm up to us a little, when I asked her if she wanted to know what Mommy and Daddy did for our anniversary she put her hands on her hips and gave me a quick "No I do not." My wife and I were so puzzled as to why she was so upset with us. Then all of a sudden it dawned on me! She thought she was coming to live with grandma like her cousins and was mad at us for leaving her! We started adding it all up...her cousins had just left a month ago, she was sleeping in their now empty room, grandma stenciled her name on the wall, she packed a suitcase...she thought we were leaving her there! She thought since the boys were now gone it was her turn to live with grandma!!!! Now we both feel awful! She slowly warmed up to us more and more throughout the day. However she definately clung to grandma as we went pumpking picking. It wasn't until we were in our car on the way back to our house that she said how much fun she had with grandma and that she wanted to do it again. Once we got home she was completely back to normal, she ran into her room and jumped on her bed and was super happy to be home! I would be too after a night away, especially if I thought I had a year to go before I could come home again! We did ask her if she thought she was going to live with grandma and she said yes! :( We have been giving her lots of hugs and kissess since she's been home so she knows we want her at home, and we don't want her to live with grandma...at least not yet...at 17 it may be a different story :)

Uh oh we messed up!

Over the past month Hailey has been having a hard time sleeping due to monsters and ghosts...yup good old monsters and ghosts...she says they climb up the house and open her window and say "peek-a-boo Hailey!!!" I kind of want to tell her be glad thats all they do! ;) They dont sound all that bad to me ;) anyway...my wife leaves much earlier for work than I do, so by 5:30 or so she is out of bed and gone...well Hailey has now made a habit of coming into our room after she leaves and climbing into bed with me and telling me about her scary night of monsters scaring her! We usually fall back asleep together and wake up around 930. I am not gonna lie I really like cuddling in bed with my daughter and waking up with her next to me. seriously. its awesome. however we have now run into a small problem where she wants to get into bed earlier and earlier..sometimes like 1 or 2am which bascially is the entire night. of course if we try to talk her out of it she freaks, it's 1am we're all tired soooooooo....it's much easier just to let her in bed and go back to sleep. the problem is she is getting more and more used to sleeping in bed with us....which we know is not good. the thing is, i dont think it's such a bad thing for her to climb into bed with me early in the morning after mommy leaves for work, but in order for her to get back to sleeping in her bed by herself all night i think i am gonna have to stop it altogether. I just dont want to, because as I said it's awesome. waking up with my daughters smiling face and and her rubbing my back to wake me up is about the best thing i have ever experienced. it just makes me day. so now we're kinda stuck...how to get the monsters to go away?? how to get her back to sleeping in her own bed? and how to get her to understand the difference of laying in bed with daddy in the morning and sleeping in her bed all night? yeesh!!! we screwed up!!!!