Info: Margaret Ewing Scholarship at Georgia State Univ.

Margaret was the keeper of our family history. She was an avid genealogist and worked most of her life weaving our far-flung family threads into a strong, rich and colorful tapestry. To honor her work, a memorial endowment has been established in Margaret's name at GSU!

The Margaret Ewing Endowment for the Enrichment of Research in Family Oral Histories is now established at Georgia State University. Many of you expressed a desire to make a contribution. To do so, please send a check in care of the Georgia State University Foundation and indicate on the check that it is for the endowment. Send to the attention of John Clark, Director of Development, College of Arts and Sciences. Georgia State University, PO Box 4038, Atlanta, GA 30302

Blogger Up and Running

I had some problems with Blogger this weekend. Unfortunately I couldn't post on Sunday, so I now say happy belated birthday to Uncle Roger. I hope you had a great one!

Last Friday evening we took Joe to Lakeforest Mall to see Santa. He was not a happy boy to be sitting in some strange, hairy old man's lap. He looked like he couldn't believe I had handed him over to the Grinch. So, no pictures with Santa this year. It was still fun watching Joe's reaction to all of the holiday decor in the mall.

Afterwards, we went to Seneca State Park and viewed the Winter Lights Festival http://www.gaithersburgmd.gov/winterlights/06_main.html
Joe was so funny, when we would pass by something really spectacular he would say ooooooh or aaaaah. He says ooooooh when we turn on the Christmas tree lights.

Joseph currently weighs 19 lbs., 6 oz. and 31 inches long.
He now says Dada, Mama, up, down, book, that, want that, noooo, ba (bottle) wa-wa (water/waffle/wagon wheel snack), boon (balloon), ball, nigh-nigh (sleep), moooo (when he sees big animals) and snorts like a pig when he sees small animals. He loves to look at books and he loves to hear music. He enjoys playing his toy drum and xylophone. He has asked Santa for (and is assured of receiving) a ride-on Zebra, a Happy Feet penguin, Little People Noah's Ark and an Aquadoodle toy. What can I say? He's been a very good boy!

We will soon be in Florida visiting Dad & Suzanne and the Romascos. I'm excited to get our trip underway.

I hope everyone will have a warm and wonderful holiday season.

Remembering Margaret

Today would have been my aunt Margaret's 48th birthday.
Sadly, we lost her quite suddenly to cancer on October 5th. Aunt Margaret was so special to me and a huge part of my life. She was a constant source of support and cheer for me. She was my confirmation sponsor and my maid of honor.
I miss her very much today and every day.
My thoughtful friend Mary Anne has arranged for the following:

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass

will be offered for the repose of

the soul of Margaret Ewing

Wednesday 21 February, 12:00 Noon

St. Francis of Assisi Church

Derwood, MD 20855

Trick or Treat!

Last night we had fun celebrating Joe's 2nd Halloween! We dressed him up and took him to Lakeforest Mall for the Halloween festivities there (a ton of children trick-or-treating to different stores). Joe can't really eat candy yet, so he just delighted in seeing all of the children in their costumes. He did get a little elephant finger puppet, a few stickers and a couple pieces of candy. His frog costume was a big hit! Ribbit, ribbit!

Fun, FREE Gamesite (warm and fuzzy)

http://.en.prizee.com/?refer=Jroma
Click above link to sign up and start playing.

This game site is overseas. Make sure you click the unionjack flag at the top so that you will get the english version.

The games are fast, pretty easy (some are just scratch tickets) and quite cute. All games with a green dot next to them are ready for you to play. Those with a red dot next to them you have already played or are ineligible for.

The more days you play, the more games you'll granted access to. You can easily win "Bubz" which can be traded for little prizes once you build up a quantity. Have fun!

Dale & Thomas FREE POPCORN Month is Here!

You pay $2.95/bag shipping & handling. Go ahead, indulge yourself with this tasty treat. We tried it last year and the stuff is delicious and addicting. We're glad it's back for free, because the regular prices are pretty outrageous.
http://www.daleandthomaspopcorn.com/freepopcorn.aspx
Enjoy!!!

Fun, FREE New Online Game

Click the banner and it will take you to Exodus3000. It's kind of fun and you can earn Mars Dollars which can eventually be traded for cash. I haven't converted mine to cash, I just keep upgrading so that I can stay in the game. Try it for a couple of days!

Happy First Birthday Joseph!!!

Saturday was Joe's first birthday!!!

Matt, Joe and I went to Grammy's (my mom's) for a little party. Terry, Julia, Anthony & Kaiya came to wish Joe a happy day. Grammy got Joe a balloon bouquet and he was beside himself with happiness. I couldn't get very many good pictures of him because he had those balloons in front of his face all day. We got him a Thomas the Train cake and he enjoyed smearing it all over, but didn't seem to like the taste of it. Everyone sang Happy Birthday to Joe and Anthony & Kaiya helped him blow out his candle. It was a fun day and Joe was absolutely exhausted from the kids and the dogs. He slept through the night and then some.

This morning I noticed a new tooth on Joe's top-left. It absolutely amazes me how much he's been through in a single year. He's gone from just being a helpless little bean, to being a little boy. He now walks a great deal, wants big boy food, has a little personality, has outgrown a carseat, has a sense of humor and so much more. He'll be going for his one year checkup on Thursday. Now that he's got his walking down he's becoming a lot more vocal. I told Matt that we've really got to watch what we say these days ;)

Joe's First Haircut

Yesterday our little guy FINALLY had is first haircut! He behaved himself, but didn't look too happy as you can see. At least he will be able to see now! Maybe now people will stop asking us how old our little girl is.... maybe.

Another Day at the Park

Today was another lovely day at the park. Joe is getting to be quite the toddler. He had his first chance to walk outdoors. (It's about time- he'll be a year old two weeks from today!) He had a bit of trouble navigating the bumpy grass and the wood on the playground. He enjoyed the swings and loved playing with Daddy on the dinosaur. He did not want to touch the grass at all. He put his hands up in the air to avoid it when he was sitting on the ground- so funny. It was very beautiful out today. There were sunny skies, it was not too hot and there was a nice breeze. Matt and I both felt a hint of autumn in the air.

Last weekend we celebrated the Romasco's 50th wedding anniversary. It was a very small get together in Hillsville, VA with the Romascos, their children and grandchildren. Check out our Flickr album for pictures!

Walkin' Boy!!!

Newsflash:
**Joe took his first unassisted steps at 12:45 this afternoon!!!**
He took 3 steps to Mama who was overjoyed!

Cousins

Cousins Kaiya & Joe

Joe's latest: another tooth! Top-left front tooth arrived on Tuesday.
He's standing without holding onto things, hands-free squatting down to pick up his toys and crawling like crazy after our cat Ophelia. I don't think it will be long before he's walking on his own.My baby is growing up so fast. I can't believe he'll be a year old next month. 

Joseph and The Purple Balloon

July 4th, 2006

No family plans this Independence Day, just a bit of shopping. During our travels, we decided we should stop and get a bite to eat for lunch. We decided to go to Joe's Pizza & Pasta.

Our meal was delicious and uneventful until our waitress handed Joe this purple balloon. It was a lovely balloon and even had his name on it.

Now, Joe has had a few helium balloons in the past, but none had made quite the impression this balloon made.

We went home and he played with his balloon throughout the day. He loved pulling it down to the ground and bouncing it around on the walls and on his face and head. He would let it sail up to the ceiling and stare after it for a long time before flapping his arms and shreiking for me to give him his balloon.

Dinner time arrived and Matt left Joe's balloon in the livingroom and brought Joe into the bedroom for me to give him his bottle. I layed Joe down and he started yelling "aaaa daaa daa daaa gaaa gaaa aaaa daaa daaa daaa". Matt said "he wants his balloon". More "aaa daaa daaa daaaa aaaa gaaa gaaa maaa daaa daaa daaa"! I think he was cursing at Matt. He was trying to say "what the heck are you doing? That's my balloon! Give me my balloon! Mom, did you see what he did? Why'd he take my balloon?" Oh he just went on and on and then started crying. He was just yelling like he had experienced the biggest injustice ever! He wasn't crying sad, he was crying MAD! Oh my goodness, it was scary! I could feel his teenage years rushing at me! Eventually he drank is bottle and settled down for the night, but we hope that wasn't a preview of what the coming years will bring. Matt wants to clobber that waitress for giving Joe the balloon lol.

When Matt & I awoke in the morning, the balloon had sunk to the floor. We quickly sent it to Balloon Heaven before Joe woke up. He seems to have forgotten about it.

I wonder whether the next balloon will be different.

First Father's Day Weekend

We had a wonderful Father's Day weekend here at the Romasco house. My dad came from Florida for a business trip and we had a great visit (a foodfest weekend).

Friday night Dad took us out to Red Lobster for an early birthday celebration for me. I had my favorite dish there - (the shrimp & lobster Caesar salad). We hadn't been there since I was pregnant, so I really enjoyed it.

Saturday we went to yes, India Palace for lunch. Believe me, you cannot come visit us without being dragged to India Palace. Actually, everyone who's had a meal there has enjoyed it. Even some Indian food phobics have been converted to "we should go back to that Indian place...."

Saturday night we went to Roy's Place for dinner. It's a local sandwich joint with about 300 sandwiches on the menu. We were joined by my Uncle Lee & Aunt Dottie. Great food and great conversation.

Sunday we got up bright & early to bring Dad to the airport :(

Afterwards, we headed to Home Depot to buy some light fixtures for the basement. It wasn't open when we arrived, so we waited in the car until it opened. We selected the fixtures we wanted, but they only had 1 in stock. They said that the Germantown store had 24 in stock, so we went out to breakfast at IHOP and then up to the Germantown Home Depot. We got what we needed and Matt installed them right away. The basement is really shaping up nicely, but our carpet installation was postponed from last Friday to the 22nd. I can't wait for Joe to have room to crawl again! We brought him to church on Sunday night and he was just a whirling dervish. He would not hold still no matter what we tried, and he was making lots of noise too. Of course he'd had an awfully busy few days. Today he's back to his usual sweet self. Thank goodness...we're exhausted!
I hope all fathers had a wonderful day.

Coming to see Joe :-)

I'll be up in the DC area the week of June 12 on biz, and will spend Friday and Sat night at Jennifer and Matts. Joe is SUCH a good-looking li'l guy. I can hardly wait to see him, of course. And Lee and Dottie will join us Saturday night for dinner.

Come Out Come Out Wherever You Are!

Alright everyone, where are you? Am I blogging to myself? I've had a few people request that I keep putting pics of Joe up, but I'd like to see some posts. What's happening with you all? I want to know! Don't be shy. You could at least leave a little note to let us know you've stopped by.

Joseph just had his 9 mos. checkup. He is a tiny boy, here are his stats:
Birth - length: 19 3/4" weight: 6 lbs., 4 oz.
2 Weeks - length: 20 1/4" weight: 6 lbs., 11 oz.
2 mos. - length: 21 3/4" weight: 10 lbs.
4 mos. - length: 24" weight: 12 lbs., 8 oz.
6 mos. - length: 25 7/8" weight: 14 lbs., 7 oz.
9 mos. - length: 27" weight: 16 lbs., 4 oz. (gained exactly 10 lbs. since birth)

Joe Goes Mobile

Well, as you can see Joe is quite mobile these days. He's standing up in all of these pictures. He pulls himself up on every stick of furniture we have and he crawls like the wind! He's a little hurricane ripping through the house! He's no longer happy to sit and be hugged, he just wants to go go go.

The basement is still a wreck, so his crawling space has been cut by two-thirds. Last weekend Matt ripped out the basement carpet and has begun painting the trim in the room. All of the walls will be painted white. We're having some trouble getting carpeting. Hopefully, we'll select something soon
and the installation won't take too long.

Dad will be here Father's Day weekend and I'd like to have a decent place for him to stay. We haven't seen him since Joe was teeny tiny.

The upheaval of the basement is causing a lot of small problems. Joe is currently restricted to the living room and goes absolutely stir crazy by evening. We've been trying to get him out of the house a lot to keep him happy. The living room is just too small for a boy ready to explore the world.
 

Well, we finally bit the bullet

We finally bit the bullet and purchased some furniture to transform our junky basement into a true Family Room. Joe just does not have enough room to crawl around upstairs. He absolutely loves being able to crawl from one end of the basement to the other. Unfortunately, we had to do away with the Guest Room in the process of creating a Family Room. The Guest Room is now the Storage Room. However, we did purchase a very nice elevated queen size Aerobed for people to use when they stay at our house. It should arrive in a week or so. Unfortunately for my dad, he's coming for a visit in the middle of this upheaval.

Right now things are in limbo. Tomorrow I need to contact a charitable organization to see if they will pick up some of the old basement furniture and other items we're clearing out. As soon as those items are gone we'll tear up the basement carpet and paint the paneling white. Next, we'll have new carpeting installed. Hopefully, this can all be accomplished quickly. The furniture has a scheduled delivery date of July 3rd!

Joe's latest: Yippee! Finally a beautiful little pearl is shining in Joe's mouth! His first tooth broke through on May 25th. He's getting very brave when he's cruising around the furniture. He likes to let go and he barely ever holds on with both hands.

Pictures:

1.) The sofa style we selected

2.) Cushions show leather color we selected

3.) The recliner style we selected

4.) The loveseat style we selected

Happy Mother's Day

Okay, so here we go with the obligatory messy kid pics. These were taken by me this morning after Joe's brunch of cereal and beef w/carrots. Boy, he really went to town with that beef w/carrots! He's been wrestling the spoon away from us lately and flinging the food all around. He also enjoys taking the cup of food and spilling it all over his tray so that he can fingerpaint with it. It's such a mess, but he's having fun and after all, he IS a baby.
Yesterday was Mother's Day, a completely fabricated "holiday". I must admit, I was sucked in. Hey, we moms have to take what we can get! I had a wonderful day. I received many thoughtful cards and Matt & Joe gave me some lovely "mums for the mum" (chrysanthimums), a sweet card, and 3 Lindt candybars. Yummm. We went to......
drumroll please...........India Palace for lunch! As always, it was delicious. Joe behaved himself and we had a good time. Afterwards, we went for a short drive and stopped by Butler's Orchard. The orchard was closed, but we browsed in the little shop for a few minutes. It was good to get out of the house. Later I went
to the 5:00 Folk Mass at St. Martin's. It was a good mass with Fr. Javier officiating. He's a great speaker.
We spoke with our mothers and they both had good days too. I hope all mothers who are reading this enjoyed their Mother's Day.
I begin my physical therapy this evening for the bulging disk in my c-spine. I think traction will do the trick and am looking forward to getting my healing underway.
Joe is such a busy boy he's tiring out his old mom & dad. He wants to stand up all the time. He's no longer happy just sitting in a bouncy seat or being held and cuddled. He never got into crawling. He crawls until he gets to a piece of furniture and then pulls himself up to stand. What adventures we have in store, I can't wait to see what's next!  

After Easter Update

Joe's Godmother Mary Anne Hays celebrated her birthday on April 19th - happy birthday Mary Anne!

We had a very nice time at Mom's over the Easter weekend. It was such a busy few days for Joseph. He's used to just hanging out at home with his little quiet family. We had a terrific time seeing Julia, Anthony & Kaiya. They brought their new puppy Bella with them. Mom's dog Honey did not like a new poochie sniffing around. They sure made a racket! I think by Sunday afternoon they were finally getting used to one another.

We really enjoyed it when Matt's sister Dawn stopped by on Saturday. She brought along Kyle and his girlfriend (well, really Kyle brought her - he's driving now). They all seemed to be doing great and I'm so happy that Joe finally got to meet his aunt Dawn. That's her, below holding him in the striped shirt.

Sunday the Easter Bunny had come and brought goodies for all of the kids. They were so excited! Anthony & Kaiya were all hopped up on sugar by 9am. They did behave themselves though. We had our big meal around noon. My deviled eggs were a hit with everyone (except Anthony who was afraid to try them). We left Mom's in the afternoon and went to 5:00 Mass at St. Martin's. Joe was very fussy. Matt had to take him to the back of the church a few times during the service. Needless to say, we slept like logs Sunday night.

Joe's latest milestone: Last Thursday (April 13th) I went to get him out of his room following his nap and he was STANDING in his crib, holding on for dear life waiting for me to come get him! He's still working on the crawling thing. Who knows, maybe he'll skip that all together. I hope not, I'm not ready for a walking boy! 

Welcome everyone! Glad to see you've stopped by. Now it's time for you to post! Don't be shy! C'mon everyone - what are your Easter plans?
Matt, Joe and I will be heading down to my mom's house Fredericksburg, VA to celebrate Easter, Mom & Dan's birthdays and Matt's sister Dawn's birthday (today! Happy Birthday Dawn and Mark!) Hopefully, Joseph will meet his Aunt Dawn and Cousin Kyle for the first time on Saturday. We will also have the chance to see Aunt Julia and Cousins Anthony & Kaiya. I'm in charge of making the deviled eggs - I'm pretty sure I can handle that. Last time we went down to Fredericksburg I forgot all of my breastpump stuff (don't ask me how I managed to do that) and we had to turn around and leave -grrrr. I'm making a list and checking it twice this time! I hope everyone has a wonderful Easter and that you all are touched by many of God's blessings.

Easter Time!

Joe I know you're going to hate this when you're older, but for now I just couldn't resist! Happy Easter everyone!
Love, Jennifer

Today at the Park

<--Today Joe and I went to the park behind our house. This picture is of Joe hating the swings.









Later, Daddy came home for lunch and stopped by the park to rescue him.-->











Eventually, Joe began to get the hang of it and enjoyed swinging with Daddy.

Links I love

www.freecycle.org
Freecycle is an email list where people give away things that they no longer need for free. Sign-up for a list in your area for free. Keep an eye on the list and you never know what you might receive for free! You can also get rid of things you no longer want. One man's trash is another man's treasure.

www.craigslist.org
Local community classifieds and forums - a place to find jobs, housing, goods & services, social activities, a girlfriend or boyfriend, advice, community information, and just about anything else -- all for free, and in a relatively non-commercial environment.

www.allrecipes.com
Well, the name says it all.

www.blingo.com

<--click here!

Blingo is a Google-powered search engine with a twist. Each search on Blingo is also a chance to win a prize. Click my button above, register and search Blingo as you would Google. Only your first 10 searches in a given day qualify for a prize chance. In short, just use Blingo like you would a normal search engine. If one of us wins, we all win! Here's what they're giving away this month:
Apple iPod, 30GB digital music and video playeror $299 Visa Gift Card, your choice
Sony PlayStation Portable video game systemor $249 Visa Gift Card, your choice
Apple iPod Nano, 1GB digital music playeror $149 Visa Gift Card, your choice
$100 and $25 Visa Gift Cards
$10 iTunes Gift Certificate or Blingo Movie Ticket Certificate, your choice. The movie certificate is good for one adult admission at one of the many participating theaters across the US (find one near you).

<-- CLICK HERE!
INSTANT PROFITZ- This is a great site to make extra $ if you're an organized individual. In order to reap the benefits, you need to keep track of what you've signed up for. Make sure you note how to cancel your offer and when the free trial period ends. As long as you stay on top of it there are all kinds of different little offers to try and you can make a LOT of $ on this site. Email me if you'd like to know which offers I have found to be hassle free.

www.imdb.com
The world's biggest movie database. Who was that actor in that movie? What else was he in? When was that movie made? Have I seen this movie before or should I rent it? Where's this guy from? Is that actress married? It's all there, along with movie trailers, showtimes for current movies and more.

- clickable -
FUSION CASH- much like Instant Profitz, but somewhat less confusing.

I'll be adding more later and hope you'll add some of your favorites too!