Maddie's 3rd Birthday Party

Maddie had the best time at her birthday party! She was surrounded by her friends, got to bounce and slide to her heart's desire, and had a *fabulous* Spongebob birthday cake. What more could a little girl ask for, right?

Anyway, the party went off without a hitch. Someone actually commented that it was the calmest Pump It Up party they had ever been to. And if you've ever been to PIU, you know that they are anything but calm. I was actually expecting to have a splitting headache afterwards (combination of loud music, a bunch of kids running around, and the stress of hosting a party), but surprisingly, not this time.

Maddie's Spongebob cake was a *huge* hit. In fact, the receptionist at PIU commented that she sees thousands of cakes come through, but this was, by far, the best cake she'd ever seen. One of the parents even took a 360-degree video of the cake using their cameraphone cuz a regular picture wasn't going to do it justice.

Thanks Traci!

Nate's 1st Haircut

On Saturday, Rich took Nathan to the hospital with him on rounds cuz I took Maddie to a pink / princess / tea party / birthday party for one of her classmates (the nurses *love* holding him, so it's not like he's going into the patients' rooms). I guess everyone was asking, "how old is SHE?" "what's HER name?" etc. So, that evening, Rich decided it was finally time for Nathan's first haircut.

BEFORE:And AFTER:
A part of me was sad to see his long, feathery baby hair go...but he looks much more clean-cut now (and so grown up!). It's crazy to me that he's going to need a haircut every 3 weeks from now on, especially since we've only slightly trimmed Maddie's hair once in the nearly 3 years of her life. Also, Nathan looks so much more like Rich now...I'll have to upload one of Rich's baby pics for comparison.

DWTS Relationships

Okay, I was trying to figure out if there was some kind of compensation pyramid for the celebrities / professionals on Wikipedia and saw the section on "Relationships."

- Season three star Willa Ford dated her partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy. They went on the DWTS tour together but eventually ended their time on the tour together. [Knew this, thought they were a cute couple, but it didn't last long...seeing that Willa married her on again-off again boyfriend shortly after her time on DWTS -- saw them together on MTV Cribs]
- Mario Lopez, also a season three star, is dating his professional partner Karina Smirnoff and they now reside together in California. [Everyone knows this one.]
- Season four star, Apollo Anton Ohno has been rumored to be dating his professional partner Julianne Hough. [Eek! Totally news to me...and can I say EW!?]
- Cheryl Burke dates former competitor, Joey Lawarence`s younger brother, Matthew Lawrence. [Once again, everyone knows this one.]
- Season 5 star Sabrina Bryan and Mark Ballas Jr. are rumored to be dating. [Thought I saw something there, especially on the last show when she was voted off...but another surprise!]

Not sure why I even care about this...and NO, I have not figured out how they are compensated and whether they are "rewarded" for lasting longer (or winning) the show.

Pix from the Hogan-Woo Halloween Party

So, Rich's co-resident and his wife throw an annual Halloween party. Personally, I hate getting dressed up. I just feel so silly (and old)...BUT some people really get into the whole dressing up thing. This year's party theme was superheroes and villains. Too bad we couldn't take Maddie cuz she would've loved it!

As usual, I was being a bad sport, but since I knew I had to go, I ordered myself a Wonder Woman costume from buycostumes.com. When it arrived, it was horrific. I mean, it was literally *unwearable* (it was all kinds of frumpy looking, just all around bad). I had to return that one (and was pissed about having lost $ on the back-and-forth shipping). So then, I ordered Batgirl, and surprisingly, it wasn't as slutty as it looked online (probably cuz I'm not nearly as skinny as the model in the picture, nor am I 6 feet tall). Maddie, of course, was thrilled that Mommy was dressing up as Batgirl.

Rich, on the other hand, found some head-to-toe spandex, crazy-looking Spiderman costume on eBay and ordered it. The seller was from China, and the package literally shipped from Shanghai. After we won the auction, the seller emailed us asking for measurements and his English was barely understandable. We were somewhat worried...after all, it wasn't like we could really return it. The item cost less than $10, but shipping with insurance was almost $70.

Anyway, here are a couple pictures... The first one is from '05 (there was no theme that year) and the other two are obviously from this year. Rich's costume is actually pretty realistic and scary-looking. Maddie was totally scared of him when he put it on.