Me at Lauren's age

In case anyone was curious. We definitely know Lauren gets her curls from D-Daddio but I think she's got some of my features.

Impressive

This post will be boring to some of you (ahem, Steve) but those who are into crafts, should check out Impress's website. It is so inspiring, it makes me want to spend tons of money on their products and spend all day making handmade greeting cards or invitations. Seriously. The link I provided right back in the first sentence takes you straight to their page with examples of things you can do with shaped paper punches. I would love to have every single product they sell, and lately the pumpkin punches for Halloween look especially fun. I might even have to have some kind of party I can invite people to, just to have an excuse to make fun invitations.

The Princess has found her Halloween Costume

Italian Festival

The Feast of San Gennaro is this weekend at Hollywood & Highland. We're going, we had a blast last year, and I even ran into an old friend from summer camp from almost 20 years ago there! Not sure yet which day we're going but let me know if you'd like to join us. I am, for those who don't know, 1/4 Italian from my mom's mom and proudly so. What does this mean? I am picky about my pasta, I love black olives and black licorice, and I was raised with the saying "food is love!" :)

The thing of it is, if you add up the rest of my ancestors' countries of origin, I might have more blood from some other country (England? Germany? Wales?) but they came here so long ago that the culture is lost. But my Italian great-grandparents came to Ellis Island in the 1910's and we still have cousins in Parma we can visit, and beautiful names and family recipes to draw from, and I think it's just great. So I plan to go and get a cannoli and some pizza (both of which are from Southern Italy so would've been foreign to my ancestors but I can enjoy them now anyway) and have a delicious time. Who's in?

Well, that explains it

I tried to donate blood today at the blood drive next to Lauren's school. Got all the way through the extensive paperwork (Tricky questions like"Have you ever paid someone for sex who has had homosexual sex with a man?") and waiting around and then the prick of the finger and the wait while they tested my hemoglobin. And guess what? It was too low to donate. :( They gave me a pamphlet on anemia and I drove immediately to Trader Joe's to pick up some high-iron foods. There is iron in my prenatal vitamins, but I have been slacking on taking them, since I'm not actually pregnant and not breastfeeding as much.

The sheet has the symptoms-fatigue, headaches, feeling light-headed, shortness of breath, dizziness, pale skin, ringing in the ears, rapid heart rate. check, check, check, check, check, check, check, [if I had the time & interest to check my heart rate maybe] check. But of course I thought that state of health was normal for someone with a small enthusiastic child constantly sapping my energy. And when I wake up in funky curled up positions after sleeping next to said child, of course I have some headaches, fatigue, etc. But maybe this is not so normal and with a little iron, I'll be back to my peppy self.

New Paddy Wagon

I saw this Zigo thing (if you're too lazy to click, it's a bike trailer that goes in front instead of trailing behind) just now and it seems cool. However, why can't they engineer some kind of seat where the toddler pedals the parent around? We are happy with our Ibert seat right now, but it will only last another year or less until Lauren reaches 38 pounds.

If anyone was wondering what to buy me for Columbus Day, this would be a good gift. :)

Greek fested

We ended up going on Friday night. Ryan went with us. We had a great time. Reeeeeally long lines for the food, I'm talking 40 minutes or more, I waited. But worth it! Delicious spanikopita, olives, feta, mmmmmmmmmmmm... While I was waiting, Ryan took Lauren on a helicopter ride (a carnival one, not LAPD or anything!) and they saw the dancers. Lauren shook her heiney, too and wanted to get on Ryan's shoulders so she could be the tallest girl in the Latin-Byzantine Quarter.

While I was waiting, a guy near me gave up waiting and left, but before he departed he gave me his almost filled up passport. We needed to spend $21 more and then if we turned in the passport at the entrance table, we got a gift bag. Coincidentally, $21 was the exact amount we spent on food. The gift bag was surprisingly, things I'd want. There was some chai hot chocolate, CDs, some makeup (presumably a Greek cosmetics company), shower gel, shampoo & conditioner, a checkbook cover & calculator & pen set, a Greek Fest T-shirt, and some coupons and gift cards to Daphne's. Score!

Anyway, if you're sitting around tonight bored and want to get out and do something different, one last chance to go. And please, can you take Lauren with you? :) She'd like to go again and I'd like a night of free babysitting!

Greek fest

LA's Greek Fest is this weekend. Lauren & I are going, we had a lot of fun last year. Live music, dancing, carnival rides and delicious Greek food, what's not to love? I am not sure yet if we'll be there tonight, tomorrow night or Sunday. If anyone wants to join us, let me know.

Oh, and my mom was doing geneology on our Italian side and it turns out I'm part Greek, that is, in B.C. or something, our ancestors lived in Greece and migrated to Italy.

Either way, man, Mediterranean food is the way to go. If I could only eat Greek and Italian food the rest of my life, I could die happy. Right now I'm munching on some Artisan olive bread from Ralph's which is so so so so good I wish I could upload a chunk of it onto blogger for you all to share!

"Kids"- a 29 month Lauren update

"What are the kids' names at my sool?" "I want 2 mommies like Jake has." "I love you like three mommies". "Papa, you can fix anything." . "Daddy, thank you, you're my hero!" "One more thing, one more thing to tell you..." "I can't do that!" "I don't have time!" "I pulled Sadie's hair today at sool. I don't push Dennis because Dennis is my best friend. Dennis tells me not to push him but Sadie didn't say not to." "I want a nap. I don't want a nap. I want a nap. I don't want a nap!" "I wanna go to the playground right now." "Can we go to 'lexa's sool and play with 'lexa?" "I want to give this book to Baby Lolo. I share. " "What are the kids' names? At the party? Right, Sienna and Amber. I like Sienna. She a nice girl. I played with her. We girls, girls in the tent." "I got a boo boo on my toe. This other toe is okay. I'm okay. I'm fiiiiiiiiine" (through tears.) "I wanna go to Dr. Woo. I wanna go right now. I don't wait. I can't wait." "Thank you, Daddy, for the Band-Aid. You a nice man. You help me."

"Lauren, Aunt Jan can look at your toe. Did you know that she is a nurse? And Ammy went to nursing school, too." Lauren: "*I* go to nursery school!"