How I know I live with a preschooler Tuesday...

I can't believe I haven't posted this yet!! AJ turned 4 on March 11th!! Here is the recap of his birthday goodies... He had a pool party at the YMCA and we invited his class plus a few other friends. The Y was pretty easy peasy. So I chose a whale theme since it was a swimming party. It is hard to find whale themed party items so I just went with a water/blue theme.

The invitation...

The cupcakes with toppers and whale basket for chips. I found the whale basket at Target in the bathroom section. It is a shower caddy corral thing. But it was perfect for the party! And now it is being used as a toy container in the tub.

Close up of the cupcake toppers...

The goody bag... Included in the sand pail was a boat, Goldfish crackers, fish stickers, M&M's, play-doh, a mini frisbee, bubbles, Nemo fruit snacks, fruit strip and a CD that I mixed. I do a CD for each of his birthdays. That should be a post! I'll post the songs in his 2nd, 3rd and 4th birthday mixes. There were 3 or 4 whale songs on it!

And the thank you card- which was re-purposed! Those are the cupcake toppers that were left- I just pulled out the stick!

I love doing the 'whole party'. It really is so much fun for me. I dig themes.

I'm a winner!

I won this book- Cake Pops by Bakerella from Chris' blog Ruby in the Garden during OWOH! I am so excited to receive it!

source

The funny thing is that I was looking at this book for 10 minutes on a solo trip to B&N the day before I commented. I was so close to buying it but actually ended up walking out empty handed (unheard of for me). I am wondering if there are any whale pops in there for my little one's birthday party next Saturday?! I love the creativity of all of them though. I just hope I have the patience!

The Granddaddy of them All!

We went to LA and the Rose Bowl and we had a fabulous time! Of course it would have been better if we had won the game but hey...

We drove up this curvy, basically 1.5 lane road up to the Hollywood sign and the houses hanging off the side of the cliff were pretty cool. I don't know how they live up there- parking for parties would be impossible, driving that road at night would be scary and the mudslides? Can't imagine! My high school friend, Emily Bergl, gave me the directions. Emily plays Beth right now on Desperate Housewives.

This picture is one of my favorites! We rarely get pictures together but there was a woman from Tennessee with her 2 daughters up there who was happy to oblige and took many pictures for us.

The view to smog city.

We were hiking down this road to go behind the Hollywood sign but I think we went down the wrong road. Oh well. We had plenty of other things that we wanted to do on Friday anyway!

Santa Monica Pier. There was lots of red there. But Santa Monica Pier is lame. Had it been warmer and the beach piled with people, maybe not as lame. I wanted to see 'da pretty muscle boys lifting da bikini clad girls' (spoken like Hans and Franz...) at Muscle Beach but no such luck. Bummer. (Body building to the extreme gives me the willies!)

I have to get rid of that stupid balloon string!

New Year's Eve dinner at Ago in West Hollywood. We met up with 2 other couples there. This place I have to complain about. Now my 3 readers won't go there. Robert DeNiro co-owns this place, it's supposed to be trendy, a celebrity magnet and the regular menu looked pretty good. The NYE menu? LAME! I didn't expect to see any celebs (although our friends saw Sheryl Crow at Bubba Gump's the night before on Santa Monica Pier). They are known for their peach martinis. They were really good. They use fresh peaches and I could have put back a few of those easily. Not at the price they were though. I don't know how much they were because someone bought it for me. We get the menu and it is limited like most places do but the prices are also jacked up $6-13 more. I had heard that the Caprese salad here was awesome and it was. But regular menu- $14, NYE menu- $20. All the salads were at least $16. I ordered a pasta with artichokes that was basically noodles, artichokes and a little garlic and olive oil. Pretty boring. $25 though. I could have made that at home but it would have been better. Everyone had dessert and we had 2 bottles of wine. I have definitely had better meals in Wausau which is not known for its haute cuisine. The thing that absolutely drove me crazy about this place was the smarmy waiter that added on our tip to our bill. Jerk added 33.3%!!! I would have said something but I tend to be a little (ok, a lot) bitchy and irrational about things like that so I let it slide until another day when we could call them. But it still bugs me! One of the guys in our group tried emailing them the Monday after we got home and I don't know if he got a response.

Go Bucky!

Keith, Chris and Steve are pumped for the game!

Karen, Keith, Chris, Kristi, me and Steve before the game.


Jumpy, Jumpy!Bucky is pointing at ME at the Alumni Pregame Tailgate Party!

The game. Full of RED!

Steve still has a smile during 5th quarter after the Badgers lost. It was a good game. We were exhausted! I gotta hand it to the TCU Horned Frogs- they played well and hard. It was kinda nice to 'know' someone on the other side as well, my blog sista, Ryan from AmericanBridget Jones! I know she was excited!

On Sunday (after a good night's rest!!), we went to The Getty Museum of Art which was super cool. Wish it would have been warmer so we could have seen the gardens in bloom. We ate at the best little Italian place- Bravo Cucina in Santa Monica (3rd Street Promenade) for lunch. I could not get enough of the pomodoro sauce! The food at this place was WAY better than Ago!!I would recommend this place to anyone. Kinda a hole in the wall but sometimes those are the best places! We stayed in Burbank at Hotel Amarano which was nice because it was in a residential neighborhood and very nice. The staff was very friendly and helpful. LA is really spread out and you have to drive everywhere which I am not a fan of. I like to be able to take a cab or subway while in the city. Overall, it was a great trip to LA but I don't know when (or if) I will go back!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Front: Dad, Adreanna, Geoff, Parker, Lisa & AJ
Back: Me, Steve, Craig & Mom

I was lucky enough to spend Thanksgiving with my whole side of our family. I wish everyone could be as lucky as me. Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Halloween!!

Since I took off the entire month of October I should have tons of stuff to blog about... Some but not much! I was so busy in October it was crazy. I still have a couple weeks of chaos and then it slows a little. This past weekend was PACKED with things. The hubs and I went to a costume party on Saturday night that was a ton of fun.



Steve as a knife thrower. He wasn't so thrilled with the 'puffy' shirt. It is one of my mom's blouses. While getting ready he says, 'This shirt buttons backwards!' 'Hon, most woman's shirts do.' 'How do you get dressed in the morning?' Do you know why? It is because back in the day, someone used to dress the woman so for them the buttons would be correct.



And I am the knife thrower's assistant. I was supposed to have a knife stuck right in the middle of my forehead meeting my early demise but it was too heavy and wouldn't stick. Oh well. I think it would have been really annoying while talking to people and dancing to have a knife handle protruding a 1/2 foot out of my head...



My friend, Kendra, did my hair into a 20s style wave. It looked cool! It even looked neat when I came home and kinda fluffed it out before I took a shower.



On Sunday, AJ & I dressed up as Bob the Builder and his assistant (lover???), Wendy. We had a beautiful day for trick or treating! I asked AJ what we were going to do with all of our candy and he replied, 'Eat it! I like candy!' We have a little too much though... He just finished a candy cane the other day from Christmas! This new load might last until next Halloween!

And yes, I do make our costumes. I love to scavenger through stuff to come up with a creative costume!

The it's Friday, I'm in love series

Well, it's Friday so it's time to tell you what I am in love (and not so much in love with at the end...) with this week...

1. Bloggers uniting for a blogger friend and her family...

Remember Summer? She is this awesome, awesome gal over at b is for.... brown, breathe & believe. Her daddy is down in Louisiana while she is in NYC. He has stage 3 lung cancer and was in remission but did some cautionary brain radiation which has effected him worse than all the chemo and chest radiation combined. What's worse is that the oil spill left him without a job and he lives quite a ways from the hospital where he has his treatments. So Summer started 'A Dollar and a Card for Daddy' to help cheer him up and ease the stress of paying for gas to go to treatments. She is a good soul and I pray for a speedy recovery for her daddy and her heart. I sent my card of to Butch yesterday with a fiver because it's the least I could do. Head over to her site to get his address to send him a card and a dollar! Make his (and her) day!

2. Jeans & sweatshirt weather!! I love the 60s- degrees that is!

3. Best of... in our local free paper, City Pages...

This annual survey cracks me up and makes me wonder. My favorite local restaurant, Basil, took the #1 spot for both 'Best New Restaurant' and 'Most Creative Cuisine'. Yum, yum, I love me some Basil! It doesn't hurt that we are friends with the owners and their daughter is one of our #1 babysitters. There is continuously one restaurant (uhmmm... 2510... uhmmm) on there that places in different categories that I just don't understand Wausau's fascination with. I think they are offering their customers a percentage off if they vote for them. Anyway, they have some funny categories on there like 'Grossest Bathrooms' where Wal-Mart tied for 2nd with porta potties. Hey, I won't go to the bathroom at Wal-Mart...

4. Filling my etsy shop with more to come. Go visit, NOW!! :)

5. An organized office!!

I cleaned and organized all my paper and whatnots this past weekend! Yay!! It was out of control in here.

6. Polito's Pizzeria's Garlic Knots...

Hell yeah. And after Wednesday night's gorge fest I will not eat another one for 3 months. Not because I don't want to but because of P90x. Which starts on Sunday. Which scares the bijimminies out of me. But I keep thinking of my super svelte bod in 3 months time and I will persevere!

7. It's Artrageous in Wausau this weekend.

This is my favorite weekend in this town! Tonight we will be hosting a table at the Woodson Art Museum's dinner after the preview of the 35th Annual Birds In Art Exhibit. We have two very talented artists at our table that I will tell you all about next week! Saturday I am going to the Festival of Arts with my mom after the Farmer's Market (gotta stock up the veggies for next week!). Sunday we are going to the Rib Mountain Fire Station Open House which AJ is pumped for. Nice little weekend, huh? Not sure if we'll get to Bed Bath & Beyond or Home Depot though. Don't know if we'll have any time. Hahaha...

Oh and one thing I don't love so much... Blogger's annoying spacing thing has got me frustrated!

Cinnamon Apple Cake

You may find this surprising but I do not love cake. Well, that's not exactly true. I don't like frosting. Or whipped cream. Or most cakes... I like pound cake, coffee cake and butter cake. This Cinnamon Apple Cake... LOVE. It's from Cooking Light so it's not ALL bad for you. You can eat it for dessert or breakfast and not just cause you want to eat cake for breakfast. Technically, it falls under a coffee cake. It is moist, delicious and feels like fall. I served it as a dessert with the Salted Caramel Ice Cream that I wrote about last week. I didn't use Rome apples, I had some small Paula Reds, the first apples of the season at the Farmer's Market. While they took me forever to peel because they were so small and I had to use a dozen to make three cups, I was glad that I used the first pickings. This is one cake I will make again and again and again...

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!

On Saturday I made this Salted Caramel Ice Cream from Cooking Light to bring to a friend's house for dessert after a dinner party. OMG! It is SO good! I had to adapt it a little since I have a Cusinart Electric Ice Cream Maker versus the old-fashioned kind that the recipe called for. So basically after you put the pan over ice to cool it, I put it in the freezer can of the ice cream maker, let it spin for a half hour and then popped it in the freezer. I didn't scoop it out of the freezer can before I stuck it in the freezer but I would recommend putting it into a plastic container after it finishes spinning. The taste... YUM! I put a little fleur de sel on top before serving it instead of the flake salt because I didn't want to buy flake salt just for this. Make this ice cream pronto!

New York City

Warning: Picture and text overload!

Wednesday
On our trip to New York a couple of weeks ago, we stayed in Midtown Manhattan at the Warwick Hotel.

It was a nice place. Kinda reminded me of The Palmer House in Chicago but not as big- same time period. It was in a perfect location, 5 blocks from Central Park, a short walk to the stores on 5th Ave, minutes to Time Square... I'd recommend it.

Cary Grant lived in the Warwick for 12 years. That's the patio balcony off of his 'apartment' now called the Suite of the Stars. We didn't stay in that room...

This is the lobby...

We took a little stroll over to Rockfeller Center and poked around there for a few minutes looking for some grub.

We took the Downtown Loop Tour on Grayline Double Decker Bus Tour. It was pretty nice out on that Wednesday and we got on the top deck of a bus that was covered. It was like a greenhouse in there. My suggestion would be to not go on one of those. We couldn't take any pictures because the plexiglass was all scratched, it was SO hot in there and the windows kept flying open and then banging shut. Plus our tour guide wasn't that good. We should have gotten off and gotten on another bus a few minutes later since it was hop on, hop off. Oh well.

We got off at Central Park since that was only 5 blocks from our hotel and there wasn't too much more to see on the rest of the tour.

We just went in CP a little way and watched the ice skaters and this girl fall on her ass. In a puddle of water. And that water was probably freezing cold. Just like her wet ass was. It was pretty funny. Can you see her? She's right in the middle of the photo.

The infamous LOVE statue. It was only a block from our hotel. Too bad I got the glare of the flash on it. Steve wouldn't sit between the V and E. Party pooper.

After Central Park we walked back to Rockefeller Center to go to The Top of the Rock. It is the best view. Period.

Empire State Building from the 70th Floor Balcony. Sweet.

It was so windy up there. The other shot when Steve had his glasses off (glare issues) my hair is ALL OVER the place. Best to just delete that photo.

We went to Chinatown Brasserie in NoHo for dinner. It was really great. In a city that has so many restaurants it is hard to choose. We did some research before we left and found this one. Glad we did! We had the Steamed Crunchy Vegetable and Peanut Dumplings and the Pan-fried Vegetable Potstickers for appetizers. Dumplings are my favorite thing about Asian restaurants. Yum. I LOVE them. Steve had the Noodles with Wild Mushroom entree and I had the Wok Fried BBQ Beef with Asparagus (Chef Specialty). For dessert we shared some chocolate gelato and mango sorbet. It was all just yummy.

Thursday

On Thursday, I met up with my cousin, Walter, and Steve went to his conference. Walter had emailed me the week before and asked if I wanted to go to a spa on Thursday morning. Do you even have to ask?? Of course I do!! We had a little time to kill before so we walked around SoHo and NYU a little bit. Walter went to NYU so he knew about this statue.

The Bust of Sylvette by Pablo Picasso. I thought it was pretty cool. It was a gift to the University and not too many people know about it (well, I am sure plenty do but it's not like the LOVE statue or some other ones). Now you know about it too. See you learned something from my visit to NY.

Next up was the Bunya CitiSPA (or the Banyan CitiSPA?? The website says one and all the press says this... weird.)

This place was suprisingly much bigger than I thought it was going to be. Very simplistic and Asian details. Walter booked me a package (he had a gift certificate). I had a 90 minute massage, facial and a manicure. The massage was great! For such a small woman she sure was strong. It just kept going and going... She told me it felt like I had rocks in my shoulders. Good to know. Next up was the facial. The people at the spa (nor did Walter) didn't tell me what treatments I was going to have so I was rather confused. Plus the women didn't speak much English (except for my manicurist who translated for most of them). After the massage I got into my robe and was ready to leave the room when the facialist came in and told me that I was having a facial and to disrobe and lay down again... Okay. After the facial, I went back to the locker room and was about to get dressed (or go into the sauna) when a lady came to get me for my mani. OK... I have had a mani maybe 3 times in my life. Tangent: *I used to bite my nails until about 6 months before my wedding. Then I got tips put on and they totally killed my nails (which my manicurist pointed out that my nails were damaged... thanks.). That was 8 years ago. I still wasn't biting my nails until recently. OPI Nail Envy helped me get off the habit the first time and this time again. AJ was playing with mine about 8 months ago and spilled it and got the lid stuck on it. I was dragging my feet to get another bottle which I thought I'd have to buy at a salon (and not many salons carry it) so I had my friend, Miss K, get some for me (she's a stylist). A week after she gave it to me I found it at Target. Whatever.* Tangent over. I had her just put clear polish on them so they didn't look weird. We had a sandwich at the spa. It really was a nice little place. I just wish I knew what I was in for. And I didn't drink enough water during or after.

Next, we went to the American Folk Art Museum (since the MoMA is closed on Thursdays) over by my hotel. This was a good thing since the AFAM is small. And 2 of the floors were closed for installation of a new exhibit. I love folk art. I think it is kitschy and fun. Sometimes I wonder why pieces get put into museums when they just look like a big hot mess. The BEST folk art museum though is The International Museum of Folk Art in Santa Fe, NM. Amazing and so much fun. Anyway, this was okay. Walter had never been and he has lived in NY for 30 years so now we can both say we have been there.

I really liked the above painting.

Walter and I in front of some funky statue that we both thought was cool.

When I got back to the hotel I was not feeling well. The super long massage and lack of water wore me out. We didn't end up going out for dinner. I just laid in bed for a couple of hours before we went to see Lion King.

The Lion King was AWESOME! We had great seats and the costumes, musical numbers and the actors were outstanding. The only thing that kinda was annoying were the kids talking behind us. And their parents not telling them to zip it! They were old enough to know better. As were their parents! I texted Summer at intermission that I was going to sleep in instead of meet her because I felt sick. :( Should have met her Thursday BEFORE the spa.

Friday

So the hubs had day 2 of his conference and I was on my own again. I was trying to get together with my friend, Nini, for lunch but she was swamped at work and couldn't make it. I slept in and took my time getting ready for the day. I was going to hit the MoMA but when I got there the line was a block+ long. I didn't have that much time so I headed to 5th Avenue to shop. I posted about my trip to Saks here already. I met the hubs for lunch at Heartland Brewery where I had vegetarian chili and a small salad that I barely ate because I still wasn't feeling so good. Not hungry anyway. My high school friend, Mike, texted me during lunch and asked what I'd like to do with him that afternoon. So we headed to the Brooklyn Bridge. I hopped on the subway by myself - yesterday I was with Walter!- (with thorough instructions from Victor at the hotel) and met Mike at City Hall Park. It wasn't too hard figuring out the underground. Mike and I haven't seen each other in 17 years. You'd never know it though. I wrote about Mike here, he's an amazing fashion photographer. Please check out his site! We walked and talked our way across the Bridge, through Brooklyn Heights (where the Huxtables lived!) and wound our way through the Financial District and Wall Street. If I lived in NY, I would want to live in BK Hts. It was a cool way to see the city. Next time I'll know to wear more comfortable shoes. My feet were killing me!

Mike and I before I headed back on the subway to the hotel. I could barely walk the 4 blocks from the station to the hotel... Yes, it was chilly. And windy. We are wearing winter coats.

We went to Trattoria Trecolori on Restaurant Row for dinner (we were supposed to go there Thursday before the show...). It was good but again I wasn't feeling stellar. I had the gnocchi alla baba. The waiter was very concerned when I didn't eat much and when I told him I wasn't feeling the best he asked me if I wanted some tea to help calm my stomach. That was very sweet. Excellent service. Good food but if you are only there for a couple of days find another Italian place.

Saturday

We slept in. Aaaaaahhhh. It felt great. I was feeling good again. Let's EAT! :) We rode the subway with a little help from Victor again. (I am an expert now. Yeah. Right.) We went to Battery Park and got a view of Lady Liberty.

Then we went to Grand Central Station, just because. We ate lunch at some Mexican place in the 'food court'. I didn't care- I was hungry. Then we subwayed to The Met but we didn't go inside. We walked around the 'hood nearby and then went for a stroll through Central Park.

We came upon a castle... It was pretty cool. But windy.

We came upon a plaza-esque area with a fountain that would have been even more neato mosquito if the water was on.

Then we went to Strawberry Fields. I didn't take a picture of the Imagine mosaic because there were too many people around. We headed back to the hotel for a little R&R before dinner. We went to John's Pizzeria in Times Square. Yum. The building was a church back in the day and such a cool place for a restaurant. The Margherita 'za was tasty too. We headed back right after dinner since we had to get up at 3:15 am (that's 2:15 for us...) for our WAY too early flight home. Laguardia was a hot mess at 4:30 am... Note to self: DON'T FLY SO DAMN EARLY!! It was good to see poquito when we got home though! :)